I can't believe I'm resurrecting this hoary old trope. What's it been seven or eight races ago? Yet still it's fun. Better than tweeting it because no one reads my tweets except for the vast twitterverse.
Folgers taste like shit. Just like Dominos pizza. Except that's all I've got.
TAR starts out in Chile. Hope the country can survive the latest earthquake. Good luck to the chileans and to the racers.
That gnome! Scares me.
Hospital! You can't let the runs stop you!
Those folksy cowboys have it in the bag. It's theirs to lose. You heard it here first.
That gnome! Poker face! Dudes. All in!
Cowboys got in the bag.
Come on asian girl. Do it!
Did I miss the cute girl who got eliminated last week?
Also doing laundry. When's my drier load gonna be finished? I dont want to be up all night.
Be a cowboy? Aint we all trying to grow up to be one?
Had to fold some whites. What did I miss? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
Nope. Those girls are done.
Dudes cant hit that polo shit straight. And how come the asians are fourth? Who was second?
Girls can't hit. Do the random search. Too bad.
Dating models. That just brings the hate, right? Was that Blue Steel? Or magnum?
Sorry girls.
Good night. I have no idea what happened. Or who to root for, but I'm liking the cowboys and not the dating models. Blue steel!
Did you know that Akira Kurosawa would've been 100 years old this year if he had lived? I didn't.
The best way to celebrate is to watch one of his films. There are many to see. You could spend a month. So why don't you?
TCM is honoring this illustrious director by showcasing his films all March. Every Tuesday evening a veratible smorgasbord of awesome is being shown. I know you have it on DVD or BluRay, but watching on TCM is great. You'll get a running commentary before each film. You'll do your own running commentary.
Once again. It's that time of year. I know you movie goers love it. OSCAR POOL time!
But before we get to the ballot and the ceremony, we have to always visit the Science and Technology Awards, the Geek Oscars. This year they had the lovely Elizabeth Banks host the awards. If I could, I would include a question about the Geek winners in the pool. I usually can't figure out how to squeeze that in plus it's always too late by the time I remember when they do that.
Here's the direct quote of the rules. You'll remember them from last year.
Make your choices. Select one from each category. A category has points assigned to it. If you correctly predict the winner, you receive the assigned points. At the end of the night who ever has the most points wins.
Tie breakers: 1) Closest to but not over the number of people in the US who watch the telecast 2) Pick names from a hat
There are 24 categories. Points break down is as follows: Best Picture, Animated Feature: 4 points each (8 total) Actor, Actress, Costume Design, Makeup: 3 points each (12 total) Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Best Director, Art Direction, Cinematography, Sound Mixing: 2 points each (12 total) The rest are worth 1 point each (12 total)
This year there will only be one prize. Again its DVD/BluRay of any of the best picture nominees. It would've been cool to have a couple of other prizes like last year, but the recession has cut my spending habits and unfortunately one of the prizes.
The form will be active until Sunday of the telecast. I hope to live blog/tweet it and try to tally your votes. And get the winner out.
During our snow-mageden, I put new strings on my Epiphone ES-335 and started playing some songs. Most likely it was the boredom, but it was also because of the Blue Hearts that I restrung her. I most definitely wanted to play "Owaranai Utai" and "Linda! Linda!" yet I really want to play the sweet, trembling tones of surf music again.
Now I'm looking at getting a new guitar. Pure Fender. A Jaguar. Crap. I'll have to wait for the tax refund.
Anyway, I've spent part of the day researching the Jaguar. Yes. I want one. But don't those G&L look great? My favorite guitarist, Jerry Cantrell, is a devotee. Plus, you can't go wrong with a Leo Fender guitar telecaster. Mmm. My favorite style. I should string her up -- the candy red Tele. She was my original surf guitar not really suited for it but still shimmery tone and all.
But to the point of this post. I went into a music shop. You've got to be an eddie van halen to go into one. There's the music staff. They look at you and wonder if you've got the tone. Do you have what it takes to use the axe your about to buy? I sure don't. I played the jaguar for a bit in the back behind the amps unplugged. I like the feel. The music shop vibe I don't like so much. Too much pressure. Thank kami-sama for the internet.
Following the myth of The Wolfman, I should wait until the next full moon to write up my review. Except that if I did, I would wake up and find that I don't remember anything about it. A week later and the story is the same. I don't remember anything about The Wolfman.
Of course, if you had seen it, you'll think that the curse would be infinitely terrible. That the fiancée of your dead brother mauled by a supernatural creature would fall for you. That your issues with your dad would turn out to be really big issues.
1st verse: owaranai uta wo utao kuso dare no sekai no tame owaranai uta wo utao subete no kuso tomo no tameni owaranai uta wo utao boku ya kimi ya karera no tame owaranai uta wo utao ashita ni wa waraeru you ni
tranlation: lets sing an endless song for all the shit in the world lets sing an endless song everything is for the shit and all the followers lets sing an endless song for me,you and them lets sing an endless song as if we "make fun" about tommorow "laughing"
No idea who this is doing the cover, but I had to include it just for spits and jiggles. If you have more familiarity with j-rock or j-pop, let me know so I can torrent their albums...
I wish more people would read Mitusru Adachi. He's one of my favorites.
And I wish that they would bring his major works to America, Touch, H2, Cross Game, etc. He's one of the biggest mangaka in Japan and we don't even have any of his manga here.
I haven't seen a blog-a-thon n a while. They were all the rage a few years back. It's when a bunch of bloggers decide to blog upon a subject for a few days. They write a blog post addressing the topic at hand, submit it to the blog-a-thon co-ordinator, and then read and comment upon all the links available. It stirs up a sense of community in the blog-o-sphere.
Today's link is to a blog-a-thon about film preservation. Lot's of interesting links to ponder about the loss of some of Hollywood's past. It is also about treasuring and helping to preserve what little is out there.
Pitchers and catchers report tomorrow for spring training. And also Adam Jones.
I'm excited and hopeful, but that's how it is at the start of a new season. After last year's dismal finish, this year has got to be better. Are the Orioles a .500 team? Doubtful. There offseason acquisitions only bolstered the team little. They have to win 19 or more games than last year to get to the mediocre .500, and I don't think they could do it.
They're pitchers have to do good. At least one of them has to be a 13 game winner, and they need three to be 10 game winners to make them semi-decent.
They need a homerun hitter or at least someone to hit 25+ homeruns. Luke Scott? If he's still on the team by years end. Markakis or Jones? Maybe. Weiters? Hopefully.
They need to generate runs and to keep giving up the homeruns themselves. They also need to play decent games against the monsters of the east, NY and Boston. They play 18 games against each of them. If they can win 12 of 36, that would be amazing.
So, I predict that we'll win 75 games this year. It is reasonable enough and we know we're headed in the right direction. We'll see how we stack up at the all star break.
The ending to "Linda! Linda! Linda!" Exactly like "Lost My Music" from Live Alive. Another cover of The Blue Hearts. This one is "An Endless Song," "Owaranai Uta."
It'll keep going and rocking in your head all week long...
It's really 2/5, but you always forget about Azu-nyan. Except she's the next one on pre-order. Hopefully, Ritsu and Mugi-chan will somehow be acquired.
When I heard about the hullabaloo about Sarah Palin's crib notes on her hands, I am always reminded of that great Simpsons episode that gave us the awesome quote that titles our post.
"Mindy, because of our uncontrollable attraction, I think we should avoid each other from now on."
After 170 chapters, Mitsuru Adachi finishes off Cross Game. I've just finished the penultimate chapter. I almost cried, but you could've seen this ending coming since last week.
I envy you who are about to read the manga for the first time.
It was a weird dream early this morning perhaps caused by setting the furnace higher than normal to keep me warm.
We went to the beach for vacation, Virginia Beach. Through the miracle of technology and High Speed Rail, the beach was connected to the Paris metro. We decided to visit Paris to while away the day.
While in Paris, Banksie was hugely popular. He was doing a stencil of multi-colored brick. No idea why it was cool, but we decided we could do the same. We made our own stencils to hit up the Paris metro.
I put my stencil on the wall. It doesn't look right. Then I figured there were no holes to shoot spray paint through. It wasn't a stencil, but a regular rendition of multi-colored bricks. That ain't gonna work at all.
As I pondered all this, the boots of gendarme show up. Uh-oh, busted!
He makes his way over and starts accusing me of graffiti. I calmly explain to him that I haven't done anything. That you caught me with picture of colored bricks tacked to the metro wall. That you caught me with a bag of spray paint. That I hadn't done any painting just yet, so how could I have done any graffiti.
I look over to see if the Seed has taken any notice of this and skeedaddled as he had successfully made a multi-colored brick wall stencil. Nope. No such luck.
That's when the gendarme starts taking me away to run down the Seed. As he tries, the gendarme gets hit by a car, rolls onto the street, and lies there.
We get out of there fast. CapSwell is in line buying return trip tickets. We get in line. The lady takes our fare, but takes a break. We're waiting in line now for days for her to come back all the while hoping that the gendarmes do take us away. Tired of waiting we get out of line and try to purchase tickets at the lunch counter in the metro station. We succeed, but by then the line to the trains is several days long and it will take us more time just to get to the queue to get to a train.
Watching the weather and seeing the snow come down in bunches, it's best to stay in doors. I've got nothing better to do, so I pop my latest Netflix into the DVD player. It's early for this DVD almost a week and I've just put this in -- a new record.
Today's movie is The Ramen Girl. It has been in my queue for a year now always the bridesmaid but never the bride. I keep pushing in down, but since the movie stars the late, Brittany Murphy, I figured I would have to honor her memory by finally watching her flick. No disrespect to her and her memory.
The Ramen Girl is about Murphy's character going to Japan to follow a boy who then dumps her. Stuck in a foreign land what is she to do. One night in the rain she follows her tears to a ramenya. There she tastes heaven and decides that she should be a ramen cook. The rest of the film is about her learning to cook ramen.
The best part of this film is that it explains the mystery of ramen. You think it's all about the noodles, but really its the broth. I've got plenty of ramen in my cupboard, but I don't really want the packet broth. If I can make a decent broth, those square dry ramen noodles may almost taste good.
So, Murphy attempts to become a ramen chef. It is hard life made even harder by the her lack of understanding Japanese. But she does learn. Little by little. Not Japanese, but ramen and the broth. Eventually, she gets to become the successor to her sensei, and learns about ramen.
After the movie, I had a bowl of arroz caldo. Not ramen. But I don't think I do a good broth just yet.
Went out in the snow to check out what and how it's coming down. It's a mess. More like sleet than snow. I don't think we'll be getting that two feet, because it's too wet and it'll compact itself down. I think it would be more like a foot.
Unless it keeps coming down until tomorrow evening like they say it will.
I wish Planter's still made their cheese snack line especially their cheese curls. I loved that they advertised on the can that it was made with real cheese flavor. Hmm, made with cheese flavor? That doesn't sound like it was made with real cheese though.
As far as getting snowed in. I've already got some ramen and some eggs. I just need the salty snack to help while away the lonesome day.
In the current issue of ESPN, the magazine, (Feb ?) they asked fans of this year's losers who they'll root for in the Big Game. Here's who the Ravens fans are gonna be rooting for. This one is hard to believe. No true Ravens fan would cheer for the Colts. They asked the wrong people. Must've been fair weather fans.
When I read this I did a spit take and snapped my head back! I may not be a die hard Ravens fan, but I won't root for them over the Saints.
Of the three I didn't see, The Hurt Locker is the only one I'm really interested in. The Blind Side maybe. Precious, based on the Novel Saphire by whatshername, not interested.
I wonder if this changes things for the Oscar Pool?
What a winter! It hasn't been like this for fifteen years. We've had a big snow storm before Christmas. It wasn't a blizzard, but it snowed for two days. Then we've got the cold. There were a few days earlier this year where it was below 30F. Now it's snowing again. Winter time.
The bicycle is one of man's greatest innovations. Throwing an electric motor on it is retarded. It's like taking La Giaconda and giving her smile teeth. It's the same but stupid different. It'll leave your head scratching.
They are so 80s. So high school. So that time of my life. It reminds me of fall going into winter and having to do winter soccer. Being punk rock. Or being an outsider. What is it that Holden Caulfield said about all the phonies at his school?
