Christmas Only Comes Once a Year...In September

     I know I say this every year, but once again the religious holiday season has started early for some retailers. I walked through Target a week ago, and already they had some Christmas decorations up. Fake trees filled an entire aisle. It's not even Halloween yet for God's sake! Hell, it's not even October!

     Again, I know it's said by me and everyone else around the water cooler every year, but still... it won't be long til they just leave all the lights and trees and what-not up all year long. Why bother taking it all down if you just have to put it right back up again in two months anyway?

     Of course, I'll be boycotting Target for the last two months of the year again anyway if they don't allow the Salvation Army to ring that annoying bell and ask me for money.

Gas Pump Voyeurs

     Why is it that everytime there is a story on any news program about the rising cost of gasoline, we are forced to watch new footage of people filling their cars with gasoline? Here's how it goes. First the corespondent begins talking about today's high gas prices, then we see several images, usually in this order: we see a woman from a distance standing by her car pumping fuel; then we get a close-up view of a nozzle going into a car and the lever gets squeezed; next it's usually a shot of the numbers on the pump going up and up. After that we see another shot of someone placing a nozzle in their car or SUV, then maybe, time permitting, another close-up shot of the nozzle being inserted or the numbers on the pump rising.

     Has anyone noticed this? It is basically the same shot over and over and over again for each of the various television news companies; only with different people at the pump. I'm starting to find it amusing.

Emmy's

Even though I watch very little fiction/entertainment TV, I do watch a little. And here are the people I'm glad won an award:

Tony Shaloub
James Spader
William Shatner....YES!
"Everybody Loves Raymond"
"The Daily Show" .. .. .. thank God Bill Maher didn't win. Hmm that last statement was funny.

MN Sports: part Deux

My pick for the super-bowl this year:

The Vikings!

...
.


...

Bwaaa ha ha ha ha ha ha. Uha uha ha ha ha ha ha.
awww....

Bweee hee hee hee hee ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Aaaaa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ...

whew.

chuckle...

mmgh.

huh huh huh hu hu ha ha ha Ha Ha Ha HA HA HAHA HA HA HA HA!!
Aha AHA AHA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!

MPhfff f f f f f Aha ha ha haha HA HA HA!
sigghhhhh.....

Why? Oh Please Tell Me Why!

     What is with this new format for the season 6 DVD set of The Simpsons!? They have been so nice looking on my DVD shelf. They are all the same size and basic design style. So what the hell is this?




     It's got a rounded top and doesn't fit well within my DVD shelf. It doesn't match the other 5 seasons even slightly. It's just annoying. Why would they do this? It would be one thing if they were all a different character starting with season one, but they're all the same, then they throw in this abomination. The ultra bright yellow doesn't help the aesthetics either. Great. Now I'm looking at the side of a nearly 2-dimensional Homer Simpson where my DVD should be.

Technology

     Went to Valleyfair (MN version of Six-Flags) recently. In the bathrooms, the normal blowers to dry your hands had been replaced by turbo blowers. Sweet! They dried your hands in like 10 seconds. I liked it. One guy was actually using it to dry off his kid's entire body who had been on one of those wet rides. And it worked!

     Second. Went to the local Cub Foods. It is brand new. Opened about a month ago. You do not need credit cards, cash, checks or even an ID. You can pay with you fingerprint. Scary man....scary.
Yes. You stick your finger over the sensor and it reads the contours, unique to you, in your index finger and debits your account. I am getting very old. Learn more at paybytouch.com

The Terrorists Have Won

     NFL opening day happens to coincide with the 4th anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy. The genius' with the NFL have decided to devote the halftime show to patriotism. How? By singing "America the Beautiful" etc to show their respect. Who have they hired to sing these great anthems of our country? Jessica Simpson and Nick whats-his-name. Is it Jessica Simpson's personal goal in life to destroy everything that was once good into a steaming pile of crap? So, like I said, the terrorists have prevailed.

BLACK CROWES TICKETS

THE BLACK CROWES

at

Historic Orpheum Theater

in beautiful

Downtown Minneapolis, MN

on

Sunday, October 9th

If you need or know someone who needs tickets, tell them to buy from me by clicking here:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6556837405&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMESE%3AIT&rd=1

The Crowes Return!

The Black Crowes Return!
(with Marc Ford!)


WHERE: Historic Orpheum Theater on Sunday, OCTOBER 9th!
Doors at 6:30pm / music at 7:30pm.

Tickets go on sale this Saturday (8/27) at 10:00 am.

Prices range as follows:
$37.50, $47.50 & $53.50

See you there!

Coming up on September

     The Twins just won their fifth straight. I hate to do this, because I'm ALWAYS let down by my hometown teams, but I'm starting to have faith that The Twins may squeak into the wild card spot and make the play-offs. I wouldn't bet the farm, but it's possible. We have the pitching, as long as the bats keeping swinging well, I may get to purchase play-off tickets again this year.

     In other news, Twins catcher/1st baseman/DH Matthew LeCroy will be at the Cub Foods less than a mile from my office tomorrow signing autographs at lunchtime. I may have to head over there and get my hat signed and grab some grub!

Mmmmmm...beeeeer.

     I don't know what I've been waiting for! Probably my favorite seasonal beer has been released; Samuel Adams Summer Ale. I don't know how long it's been on the shelves this season, but I forgot all about it. Now that it's here, I have purchased a yummy yummy 12 pack and will polish it off this weekend. It's been a long time since I've had more than 1 or 2 beers in a sitting. Should be relaxing and fun.

Bill O'Reilly Ain't so Bad

     Because I'm a loyal Bill O'Reilly fan and I renewed my yearly premium membership at Billoreilly.com, Bill sent me a personal thank you note signed by him! An actual signature too! Not a fake photocopy....sweet! On top of that, he sent me a free lapel pin of the American Flag with the "no Spin" logo beneath. Nice!

Thanks Bill! Keep on rockin' in the free world!

R.I.P.

Peter Jennings (1938-2005)


Always my favorite of the "big three," - see you on the other side Pete. It is truly the end of an era now.

Audio Blog

Check my website Movie Patron for a very first ever AUDIO edition! Yay! Check it out.

Interactive DVD Menus...AAAAaarrgh!

     I've decided to rant about something that has bugged me for a while now. As you may or may not know, I'm a fairly impatient person. Whether that's a product of our "fast-moving" society or just who I am, I don't know. Part of what I love about DVD technology, is it's speed and simplicity; but of course studios have to make their products flashy and annoying...like Budweiser billboards. This is what I hate: overly elaborate and complex user menus. Long, drawn-out and completely useless animated menus. They're supposed to look flashy and fun, but all they are is annoying and slow. It's bad enought that I have to be force read through the FBI warnings in several languages; of which I used to be able to fast forward through on my VCR. Granted I can still do that on some of my older DVDs. But many of the new ones do not allow you to skip those. So anyway, after I get through reading the French version about how I will go to jail and how much money I will be fined if I hook my DVD player up to my VCR then sell the tape for $5, I have to watch a public service announcement about how bad it is for society and the poor Hollywood community if I download a movie on the internet. Not to mention how guilty I'll feel for committing such an atrocious crime. By the way, this is on a DVD that I bought and/or rented. Thanks for giving me an idea though. You mean I could've just gotten this mediocre crap-fest of a movie for free!? On the internet!? Why didn't they tell me so before!? So after all this general nonsense, I get to watch previews for movies that came out over 3 years ago. At least these I can fast forward through.

     So finally I have arrived at my destination...the main menu. But wait, what is this? My TV screen is flashing various parts(usually dramatic or funny lines) of the film in front of my eyes before I've even seen the picture yet. Also, is it me, or is this taking a really long time to get to the usual choices? Anyway, after finally seeing the building explode, the villain make some nasty comment regarding the plot of the film and our hero flying an airplane that he made from old parts from a Huey 370 and a '79 Ford Mustang; I finally see my choices on the side of the plane. How clever! So since I'm watching this movie with my latina girlfriend, I click my remote control on the language options icon. WHOOOOSH! The plane starts moving again and this time we follow along in a harrowing chase through the caverns of Necros and into the belly of the beast (which we're not even supposed to be seeing as it is supposed to be a major surprise antagonist towards the end of the film). So finally, after narrowly missing a giant stalactite, the plane containing our hero sweeps out of the opening of the cave with a witty remark straight from the film by the rear-seat passenger. Now we're back to themain menu again and all I have to do is click the "start movie" button. I do this as an amazing orchestral extravaganza begins playing and a witty line from the film is spoken, i.e. "If you're going to go that way, you should've brought the telescopic lens!" Well, that line in the film has just been ruined for me. Plus, all of these shenanigan's have taken approximately 2 minutes of my time on top of the 10 minutes of FBI warnings, PSA's and movie trailers. I am tired of this nonsense. Maybe it is a trivial thing for most, but for me, it is bonkers up the wall and through the roof! Just show me the menu with my choices and get on with it. I don't need all of these half-ass theatrics and sound from the movie that I'm about to see. I don't need to see the dramatic photo-montage of all the characters merging together in a blurry fashion that inspires awe and wonder at the greatness of Cate Blanchett and Jason Statham. In conclusion, stay away from any DVD that, on the back, says something along the lines of fantastic 3-D interactive menus. Just steal that movie from the internet; because chances are, the studio is trying to make up for something by incorporating these neat-o menus that make you think, "Wow! This is taking forever and I wish I could just start watching the film."

Strange

Here is a weird and unexplainable picture I just happened to come across:






Brough to you by
- Movie Patron

New Toys for Me

     Hell yes! I no longer have to shave in the shower with one of those annoying, really irritating, time consuming "real" razors. I bought myself an electric razor from Remington that retails for $80, but I got it for $17 on ebay...BRAND NEW! Nice.

     But even better than that, I just got a BRAND NEW 40GB COLOR iPod photo for $50 less than the 30GB iPod retails for. Plus, the 40GB version comes with a docking station for desktops, and the new 30 and 60 GB models do not. Plus, plus, the guy threw in a free iTrip so I can play the music in my car; and since my CD player has been broken for a couple of months, you can imagine my excitement.

     On the minus side, I'm broke as hell....but at least I got tunes!




- moviepatron.com

Getting Fatter

     There's these new chips on the market by Tostitos. They are just regular corn tortilla chips, but they have a "hint of Jalapenos" in them. They make a similar chip named "with a hint of lime," but these Jalapeno ones are really good! They're not spicy at all. They just have that great jalapeno flavor. Dip em in some bean dip or nacho cheese dip and be blown away. They are my current favorite snack food of choice. Check em out. If Doritos made a jalapeno flavored chip, this might be what they would taste like, but without all the crap that accumulates on your fingers.

Excellent!



- moviepatron.com

Math Fun

Multiply 37,037 by any single number (1-9), then multiply that number by 3. Every digit in the answer will be the same as that first single number

If you multiply 111,111,111 by 111,111,111, you get 12,345,678,987,654,321.

Fnatastic #9. Mulitply it by ANY number, the digits of the product add up to 9.
EXAMPLES:
9 X 5=45 (4+5=9)
9 X 9=81 (8+1=9)
9 X 37=333 (3+3+3=9)
9 X 145,689=1311201 (1+3+1+1+2+0+1=9)
9 X 65,382,554=588442986 (5+8+8+4+4+2+9+8+6=54 ... 5+4=9)
It always works!


- Movie Patron

Children Left Behind

     So I'm watching a tivo'd episode of "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart last night, and they're talking about schools changing the way they "do business" as to not upset the children and give them a high self-esteem.

     Now I can't remember the lady's name or the book she wrote, but some for instances she mentioned were the removal of red ink in some schools. Red is "angry" and threatening. They now use lavendar. Jon was stunned (as he shuld be), and suggested that while they were at it, teachers could just dribble papers with a little pot pourri as well. Another was getting rid of tag; because in tag, someone is always "it." And being "it" is bad. If you are "it," then you are slower and weaker than the other kids and blah blah blah. Many schools now play "circle of friends" in lieu of tag. What the hell is this? Circle of friends? What a load of bullshit!

     My child (if I ever have one) will go to a school where they are allowed tro play tag at recess. The world outside of school is not a "circle of friends." It is a cut throat world of dog-eat-dog, and playing games like circle of friends and removing red ink from test papers does not prepare a child for the world and life.

     Even Jon Stewart couldn't believe what he was hearing. At the end of the interview he made some crack about maybe some children should be left behind and everyone laughed. Not funny! I've been saying that ever since I heard about Bush's "no child left behind" policy. It sucks and it is rotting our schools even further. Nature insists that some are left behind. That's how the world works. The strong survive and the weak and stupid are left behind. It's called evolution.

     George Bush has put more money into education than any other American President within the same time frame. The "no child left behind act" just puts that money (our tax dollars) into the worng places. Instead of the money going to new computers, higher salaries for teachers, updated libraries, counseling, more science equipment, etc. etc., much of it goes to these "special" children who aren't going to be doing anything but working in a car wash the rest of their lives anyway. Why not spend the money on kids who can use it? The kid with a little potential to maybe study meteorology and learn how to predict where tornadoes are going or something like that?

     The point is we need funding to be appropriated to the right places, and that means leaving some children behind!



-www.moviepatron.com