Random Thoughts #2

So I saw Brokeback Mountain ...

Required joke: Where was the pudding?

But seriously ... my one word review: meh. My expounded review (because, Lauren, I can't leave it at one word, ever, can I?) If this was a story about a man and woman on a mountain herding sheep, it would have gone straight to Wal-Mart's two-for-$11 big-ass-cage-of-crappy-movies. Seriously, without the manlove, this is a (very boring) PBS documentary about life in Wyoming. I gotta give Ang Lee credit for trying, but as this IMDB post says ...

"I saw the movie last night, and I completely hated it. Not because of the subject matter, but because it was boring. I'm not a car crash and gun fight guy, but the prolonged silences and Heath Ledgers mumbling nearly made me fall asleep! On paper it's a good movie, good acting, good plot and everything, but i just didn't find it the least bit entertaining. I didn't feel any emotions for the main characters and their families. I guess I'm a robot that just doesn't have feelings..."

No, man, we were right with ya. Kara said she felt the same way ... yet there were others in the theater who were way into it, in fact, several were crying at the end. Like I said, bad PBS documentary with some manlove spliced in. But it's "edgy" for the manlove ... because we still live in a country that is still in shock from the one-half-of-one-second-long glance of Janet Jackson's breast at the Super Bowl.

Move movie talk: When you see the previews for Big Mamma's House 2 ... or you decide this is a must-see motion picture and you actually drop the cash to see this movie ... remember, someone got paid to write that; someone got paid to make it; and you know Martin Lawrence got paid. And I'm all for getting paid ... but what amazes me (and makes me shake my head in absolute astonishment) ... there are literally dozens of people in the approval process who thought this was funny and gave the go-ahead to make this movie. Now the job of the trailer (preview, commercial, whatever) is to get butts in the seats. There isn't one thing - even the tease of nudity - that makes me even wanna consider watching this on cable ... and I don't care what the Jo Bob Briggs breast count is on this movie ... I couldn't watch it. I'm guessing the only potential humor is they found some stereotypes left to exploit.

Football Notes: So someone should tell the Giants that their game started at 1 ... and I know all you Bengals fans are bummed ... but please remember that Kimo is a former Bengal ... and despite how easy it is to point fingers and cry foul, that hit was nowhere near dirty. Unfortunate, but not dirty. When I lived in Pittsburgh, Kimo was the one guy that was always on the radio, always doing community work, always the guy that makes you remember that not every pro athlete is a ass. This ain't ballet, sometimes people get hurt.

Other quick sports notes:

What planet is Tracy McGrady from? He's just weird looking.

Totally forgot to mention the total (lack of) class that Browns fans showed on Christmas Eve when the booed the five members of the Cleveland Opera who sang Christmas songs at halftime of the Browns/Steelers game. Yeah, I know, I just said it ain't ballet ... but seriously ... if you don't like it can you just sit there and shut up?

Rick Nash is brutal ... he just demolished Phoneix tonight.

Drugs are bad, kids, m'kay? Well, not all drugs. NyQuil & DayQuil are beautiful things to fight a head/chest cold.

I'm still impressed with the Columbus library system.

Finally watched Pride Shockwave 2005 ... well, the first part of it. Gonna watch the rest tonight after I post this. The color commentator was not Bas Ruttan ... but Frank "Twinkle Toes" Trigg (or Frank "I have no defense for a rear naked choke" Trigg). He was amazing. Very intelligent, very well spoken, very respectful of Pride history, tradition and knew his stuff. I was hella impressed.

But on to the fights ... Takanori Gomi is a bad mofo for weighing 154 pounds ... his two bouts at Bushido 9 and his beating of Mach Sakurai were all the justification anyone needed to see why he was voted best MMA fighter in Japan in 2005. Kazushi Sakuraba put Ikuhisa "The Punk" Minowa into an kimora that would have broken the arm of anyone else; and Hidehiko Yoshida did break the ankle of Naoya Ogawa. Wow.

What told me this was going to be a great event was the curtain jerker (that means the first contest) was Fedor Emelianenko vs Zulu (just like you'd think, Zulu is some big-ass black dude who made Mark Henry look fit.) Fedor hit this dude so hard with his first punch he went down hard. After he got back up, he got his so hard by Fedor's second punch that he went down again. A couple of hammer-fists later he was tapping like Gregory Hines. Total time of the bout - 26 seconds.

DVD Burners rule. I've had one for three years now, but I still love my DVD Burner. I learned the COOLEST thing the other night about PAL and NTSC DVD's ... I have a couple of DVD's that are PAL (that's European) that won't play on either of my DVD players. Then I found a tool that allows you to fool your DVD player into thinking the DVD is actually NTSC. Granted, you have to rip it to your computer, make a couple of changes, and then burn a new DVD ... but hell, the old was was about a 20 hour process that cost you the menus and sometimes the additional audio commentary. This new way takes about 10 minutes to rip, 2 minutes to fix and 15 minutes to burn. SWEET.

Music suggestion of the week ... The Decemberists. Yeah, Picturesque is one of my top 5 of 2005, but Castaways and Cutouts has been in a big rotation since I got it ... I just keep walking around telling people my name in Leslie Ann Levine.

DING ... fries are done (okay, popcorn) but I'm out. Have a good week, bitches.