Is it fat in here, or is it just me?

had to go somehere yesterday and couldn't fit into my suit pants anymore. always a great way to start the day.

in unrelated clothing news, something has come aloose in the sole of my shoe and rattles around when i walk. i think this means i have to buy a new pair of shoes.

Let's do some reviews, shall we? I did promise lots if them, after all. Not much middle ground here, some real duds and a few great efforts.

*****

Meet Joe Black

I'm a big fan of otherworldy topics when done correctly (Dogma is by far the best to pull it off in movie form), so i thought Meet Joe Black might be worth the risk, despite the obvious chick-flick perils. i finally got a chance to watch it the other day when it came on tv.

Worst movie ever.

I'm all for temporary suspension of belief (or whatever the technical phrase for "just go with it" is in the world of fiction), but even in Pretendland, 1 + 1 has to equal 2.

Spoiler Alert

Take for example, the end of the movie when the daughter is talking to brad pitt and says "wish you could have known my father," an obvious reference to the fact that she knows her father is dead. Which means that her father's body is on the other side of the hill. So what does she do? she walks off with Brad Pitt back to the party, just leaving her dead father out there.

End Spoiler

That's not even the most exasperating flaw in the movie, just the easiest to explain. Oh wait, there is another one pretty easy to explain. I'll just call it the "i don't know what peanut butter is but i am intimately familiar with the detailed workings of the IRS" theme.

Anthony Hopkins is the only redeeming part of this movie.

Score: 3 out of 10

*****

The Devil's Apocrypha by John De Vito

What Dogma is to otherworldly movies, I, Lucifer by Glen Duncan is to books . I stumbled across the De Vito book when looking for something else by Duncan. I had enjoyed another book Duncan wrote and wanted to see what else was out there.

I decided to get The Devil's Apocrypha because it was fairly cheap. It's the creation story told by the losers, so to speak.

Worst book ever.

I made it through the forward, barely, where the author misspelled "lose" as "loose" twice. And on the offchance he meant to use the word "loose," he used it incorrectly. So i stopped reading it.

I will keep this book for the rest of my life because 1)I'm opposed to throwing away books, and 2) I'm even more opposed to giving someone else an opportunity to read this literary abortion.

Score: 0 out of 10

****

Solomon vs. Lord by Paul Levine

Ah, sweet relief. A funny courtroom novel that, despite being pretty long, never gets dull.

At parts it gets a tad predictable, but i always tell myself "if things didn't work out the way they did, the story wouldn't have been worth telling."

The pace and storytelling makes up for any predictability problems, and even though how the case will be solved becomes apparent, Levine doesn't give away what the resolution actually is too early. I actually wondered if he did it on purpose, sort of "hey, let me make the reader feel smart, and he'll be happy with himself and like the book more."

Score 8.9 out of 10.

****

Torpedo Juice by Tim Dorsey

Picture the funniest person you know simultaneously being on speed yet having the self control to sit down and write a book. That's Tim Dorsey, the endlessly funny creater of Serge Storms, the serial killer with a heart.

I can't remember exactly how many of Dorsey's books i've read, but you need to grab some of his stuff if you haven't before. If you like Carl Hiassen, you'll enjoy Dorsey.

The basic premise is Storms is a mentally unbalanced lover of all things South Florida. he is prone to knee-jerk obsessions and finding creative ways to kill the bad guys. In Torpedo Juice, he catches a guy robbing an elderly couple. Serge takes the robber, makes him swallow a handful of bullets then runs him through an MRI machine.

Lots of amusing characters and Dorsey's outlandish humor is outdone only by his mastery of subtle humor.

Score: 8.7 out of 10

*****

Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut

Got this a couple of days before Vonnegut died after a coworker recommended it.

Very good. It's sort of about two people, but then it's also more about two characters in a book, but then again, it's more about the relationship between an author and his characters.

The sort of thing that's easy to see why people would lift Vonnegut up as an icon. It didn't completely knock my socks off, but it's definitely a case where the way the story is presented adds a ton to the story itself. brilliantly done.

I give it 8.5 *'s out of 10 *'s

*****

A note on the scoring.

You might notice that I've scored two books higher than another novel considered an all-time classic. This does not necessarily mean that the other books are better than Breakfast of Champions.

In an intellectual environment (which i tend to avoid) i would tell you that Breakfast of Champions is easily the best of the books i reviewed. Think of it like this, I know that Tom Brady is a better quarterback than Michael Vick, but i enjoy watching Vick more.

Capische?

This is how you remind me...of that last song you wrote.

make sure you have headphones on or are someplace where you can turn up the sound on your speakers.

Oh man...

took me two hours to get to work this morning, then the elevator skipped my floor.

going to be a long day.

and for the last item in yesterday's post, it also includes grammy awards, oscars, and recreational bowling--particularly Misty's recreational bowling.

It's like his thoughts are too big for his size

Well, i made it through Lent without drinking coffee or soft drinks (although i am having a bit of an internal struggle over whether or not my new fondness for tea violates the spirit of the season).

I also have to admit that i was pretty miserable failure as far as using the break from coffee and soft drinks as part of a larger effort to get in better shape. Despite the will power on the drink front, the shape i'm in is still "round."

Everybody's working for the weekend

I made my first appearance on film since the 10th grade at our staff meeting today. And, now that i think about, i might have been an off-camera narrator during our filming of The Crucible, so maybe today was actually my debut.

One of the people in charge wanted to make a video roasting a coworker who turns 40 today. My two brief appearances got some pretty hearty laughs. Luckily, my coworkers aren't really the Comedy Central types, and; therefore, did not realize that my schtick was pretty much, nay, WAS a direct rip-off of Stephen Colbert roasting Chevy Chase. I'll look for the Colbert video later.

There is another work-related development.

The office manager is setting up balloons and whatnot to welcome the new employee here. It really brings the memories rushing back from my first day here...

...when nobody even freaking remembered i was coming.

Can i tell you how much i love getting to work in the morning and reading "Welcome _____ to the _____ ______ Team!!!"? It's like a sweet little kick in the shins.

It's one of those things I'd like to bitch about to the supervisors, but i'm worried that it'll make me look shallow, bitter and pathetic. And I am not shallow.

Jesus shoots one-over at The Masters

This is one of those things i mentioned last week that i wanted to talk about but wasn't sure I'd get around to it. Luckily, something happened yesterday that made it relevant, so i figure i'd go for it.

Yesterday, Master's champion Zack Johnson thanked Jesus for helping him win The Masters.

I would like to address one common response to that sort of statement. "I think Jesus has more important things to worry about than a stupid golf tournament/touchdown catch/ game-winning sacrifice fly."

One quick caveat: This is purely a logic argument, i'm not in any way presenting my own personal views on theology.

Every smidgeon of religious teaching i have received is based in large part on the following arguments.

• God created all people and loves all people, even the assholes.
• God is all-powerful.

So, the naysayers are basically making one of the following two arguments.

• God blessed you with tremendous athletic abilities, but doesn't care what you do with it and isn't interested in taking any credit for it.
  
• God blessed you with tremendous athletic abilities, cares deeply about what you do with it, but frankly has his hands full right now, so don't bother crediting him in your post-game/tournament interviews. You selfish dick.

To say that God had nothing to do with a touchdown catch is to say that, "sorry, we are not all unique and loved equally by our creator." Certain things are trivial in the eyes of the God, and those things are to be decided by religious, non-sports fans.

I think the second argument is more disturbing because it implies that God is not all powerful. By making some things trivial, you are in essence saying that there is only a finite amount of attention God has at his disposal to give at any certain time.

The results of the Cinncinnati-Buffalo game in week 3 is exactly the type of thing God is concerned about, if the basic premises I've listed above are true. God loves the second string receiver and wants him to make the most of his natural abilities, and certainly on top of that, the big man upstairs wouldn't mind a little credit along the way.

Is ESPN smarter than a fifth grader?

I've got a lot to talk about.

Chances are it won't all make it into this entry. and there's also a very good chance i'll never get around to talking about what doesn't make the cut. But there's always hope.

Album Review: Pearl Jam Rearview Mirror

Probably the easiest review ever.

Ever since my two-disk Live from Verona, Italy Pearl Jam CD disappeared, I've been looking for a suitable replacement (since you can't find it anywhere anymore). Luckily, I stumbled upon Rearview Mirror the other day, a greatest hits album that I think has been out for quite some time.

It seems the clever folks who compiled the CD's decided to put the harder stuff on disk one (marked by an up arrow), with the slower stuff on disk two (down). This is endlessly convenient. Disk two is perfect for the morning commute when I'm tired, disk one plays best on the evening drive home, when i'm full of road rage and murderous intentions.

Here is the total song list.

If i had never heard Live from Verona, Rearview Mirror would easily land a perfect score. But I can't do it, since it just isn't as good as its live-venue counterpart.

I give it a 9.67 out of 10.

Speaking of reviews...

It's my birthday, my buh buh buh birthday

Thanks to a gift card i received for my birthday, i went on a massive book-buying spree online last night. I think i ended up with 12 or 13 books. I think only a couple of them were by people i haven't read before, and three or four of them are Dresden Files books, since i've fallen a bit behind on the series.

So once those books start trickling in, I should have plenty to write about. i also have a second birthday-related gift card for when i'm ready to reload.

Please leave any recommendations in the comment section. My typical rule of thumb is that i don't like to read anything if it's meant to make me smarter. I don't mind books making me think, but i'd rather that be a side-effect of a well told story.

ESPN sucks at geography and customer assistance

Baseball opening day, which was Monday, is a minor holiday for me. I'm always at work, wishing i could be in front of the tv experiencing all-day baseball. But since I've never actually had a chance to experience all-day baseball on opening day, I can only assume it's glorious.

The best I can do, usually, is to catch the later games. Well, Monday, ESPN 2 was showing the Texas Rangers versus the California/Anaheim/Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim which was being played in California.

And, for some reason, the game was blacked out at my house. So we called DirecTV (i was just going to call Tuesday morning, but Courtney picked up the phone and called Monday night). They said it was an ESPN decision and it had something to do with local broadcast contracts.

So I e-mailed ESPN yesterday, after reading this flippant FAQ answer about blackouts on their site:

Hey, it's a rare occasion when we want to watch anything else except sports on ESPN or ABC either! But we've got these things called contracts that obligate us to black out areas (determined by teams, leagues or conferences) in order to protect local and regional television commitments, and/or to protect ticket sales. So we've got to play by the rules and, if our contract calls for us to black out, show something else (generally, ESPNEWS) in your area when a local team plays in a nationally televised game, when they are playing either home or away.

But we've got these things called contracts...you know what, ESPN, bite my ass.

So, why am i blaming ESPN for this, when the answer clearly says they don't determine the black out areas? Because, frankly, i wasn't happy with the way they handled my inquiry. As I just mentioned, that answer sucks, so i e-mailed them and asked how living in New Orleans in any way qualifies me to be in the regional television coverage area of freaking Dallas (but i was nice about it, pointing out that it's no less than a seven-hour drive between the two places. i don't exactly face a daily dilemma of deciding whether or not to hop in my car and go catch a Rangers game).




I got an e-mail reply from them that basically said, "thanks for the e-mail, we probably won't answer it."

Since they won't tell me whose fault it is, since they're too busy being dicks, i will assume that it's their fault.

stupid jackasses.