Another Dream and Picking my Basketball Team

I had yet another weird dream last night.

I dreamt that my parents had decided to move into a house in South Carolina and they also bought a trailer across the street. All my family decided to go hang out with them and we all couldn’t believe that they actually moved. The house turned out to be nothing special. But when we went into the trailer, it was almost like they had designed it just for me. They had a kick ass entertainment center with a big screen TV, DVD, HD, DVR, Xbox 360, etc. I just thought it was weird that they dumped a ton of money into making the inside of the trailer all bad ass like and left the house normal.

Not much of a dream, but it left an impression with me.

Speaking of dreams and what not. By now you should know about my Lou Diamond Phillips dream (I blog about it a while back. It is still in my history so go check it out. It is definitely worth the time to read). Anyway, it turns out that my dream wasn’t too far from reality. According to WENN and TMZ.com, LDP was arrested for assault and battery of his girlfriend the other night. He is currently out on bail. If only the girlfriend had called me over, I could have knocked him out with a coke can for her.

On a completely different note, I am going to start working on a website of my own. I have had a lot of complaints about Myspace’s servers for posting blogs and blog comments. So, the plan right now is to make a website where a few of my friends/family can write articles and anyone can post comments. This works on two levels; first, we get a cool little online hang out place of our own and second, I get some experience creating and maintaining a website. Once I have the experience and the confidence, I will work on making our Fantasy Acting League and Fake Estate websites.

“First we get the jobs. Then we get the khakis. Then we get the girls.”

Name that movie.

On one final note, to all those who read my NBA blogs, my final decision is……….The Golden State Warriors. Go Warriors! I hope we get a good draft pick in the up coming lottery…

Baseball on TV and Heroes

I was flipping channels and I some 3 different baseball games. The first was the Orioles vs. Devil Rays, the second was Marlins at Mets, and the last was the AAA Minor League Championship. I ended up watching the minor leaguers. What does that tell you about how I fell about the local Florida teams? (Extrapolating that out, it looks pretty bad for the Orlando Magic in the running for my NBA fandom).

Also, I caught a preview for NBC’s Heroes. I’m interested in checking the show out. The only problem is that they are telling me that these people getting supernatural powers automatically make them heroes. This is of course bullshit, but I’ll still check the show out. I’m hoping it will play out somewhat similarly to Unbreakable (by far M. Night’s best movie by far.). Another part of the Heroes ad says, “Presented with limited interruptions by Nissan.” That is just dumb to me. It means only Nissan is between an uninterrupted show and me. I hate you Nissan. Not what they were looking for, I think.

Picking a Basketball Team, Pros and Cons – Final Set.

I’ve decided that I’m going to go all out with this blog and finish off the pros and con of all the remaining teams in my who to root for NBA marathon. That means I will cover the Cleveland Cavs, the Phoenix Suns, the Dallas Mavericks, and the Memphis Grizzlies.

Cleveland Cavs

Pros

· The have the best player in the NBA on the team.

·  Cleveland rocks! Or at least that’s what the Drew Carey Show tells me. I’ve never been there personally.

·  Zydrounus Ilgauskus would be killer if proper names were allowed in Scrabble and I could spell his name correct.

· The uniforms are decent

Cons

·  LeBron is probably only going to be in Cleveland for the duration of his most recent contract extension. After that, he’s out like the White Sox in the play off chase.

·  Outside of Bron Bron, there isn’t too much talent on the team.

·  I don’t like Scot Pollard. I never have, I never will. He just rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it’s his Backstreet Boy approach to facial hair. I dunno.

·  After LeBron is gone, the Cavs are going to stink again. Probably will until they luck out and get another number 1 draft pick in a no brainer draft.

Phoenix Suns

Pros

· They have three players that I like (Nash, Marion, and Stoudamire).

· I would like to visit the desert some time. Maybe around March…(The Oakland A’s have spring training in Phoenix).

· They have a recent history of winning.

· They have one of the most fun atmospheres (at least in my perception).

· Their uniforms are pretty

Cons

· They have a large fan base due to people bandwagon jumping.

· They employ Raja Bell. I don’t like him, I think it’s because he used to be a 76er.

· Their history is one where they are either bad or good enough to get into the playoffs but not go to the finals.

Dallas Mavericks

Pros

· Two words, one man: Dirk Nowitski

· They are on the TV all the time.

· I rooted for the Mavs through out last year’s playoffs (those refs were terrible).

· I like Avery Johnson as a head coach (weird because I didn’t like him as a player).

· They are definitely a talented team.

· Cubes is my boy in the front office. I like how he plays up the fact that he is a fan to draw people like myself into rooting for the team.

Cons

· I don’t like Josh Howard. He is the new Michael Finley. By that, I mean he is a player labeled as a star for no apparent reason to me.

· They traded away the only player that played like he cared about winning in the finals, Marquis Daniels.

· The team has a lot of fans, at least in my opinion.

· Chris roots for them. I’d like to choose a different team to have a friendly rivalry type thing going on.

Memphis Grizzlies

Pros

· I like Pau Gasol as a player, but he is injured for now.

· Jerry West is a legend on and off the court.

· They’ve got some pretty sweet looking uniforms

· They don’t have too large of a fan base yet.

· The team seems to be in the middle of an upswing.

· I like Rudy Gay as a rookie (See Chicago Bulls).

Cons

· They play in Memphis. I once visited and saw Graceland and wasn’t impressed.

· They are still called the Grizzlies. Are there any grizzly bears in Memphis? I would have given a shout out to the late, great Bob Dylan and called them the Memphis Blues (“…to be stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues again.”) (What? Dylan’s not dead? He just came out with a new album? Huh, who knew?).

· They don’t have much of a history. Expansion team in Canada. Drafted Bryant “Big Country” Reeves. Moved to Memphis. That’s about it. Three sentences worth of history.

· I don’t think they have that much talent outside of Gasol and Gay.

So there we have it. Once I get the feedback on this blog, I will post whom I will root for from now on. Then all you girls out there will be able to read my blogs and be interested. Instead of the huge snoozefest the past week has been.

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A little side note, since I wrote a blog about how to waste time, I have all the sudden been unable to effectively waste my time. In the past three days I’ve experienced at least two points where I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to do. Have I jinxed myself? I doubt it, but we will see.

Speaking of wasting time, I’ve actually got plans this weekend. My boy Kevin Smith (you know, that guy behind Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jay and Silent Strike Back, Jersey Girl, and Clerks 2) is having a showing of Clerks (the first; which is the only K. Smith movie I didn’t like) and after he will be doing a Q & A session. Anyone who has seen An Evening with Kevin Smith knows that this is actually what Kevin is best at (by the way, if you haven’t seen it go out and BUY IT! It is that good).

The weekend after the K. Smith Q & A, I will be on a Disney Cruise. All my in-laws seem quite excited for it. I’d like to be excited, but I just don’t know what I’ll be doing all day. I’m not a big beach fan (I barely handled a week in South Carolina). I’m the kind of guy who would like to seem some landmarks, maybe do a little shopping, hit a museum, go to an amusement park, and then catch a sporting event or two. From what I read, the cruise will be a lot of eating, maybe a Disney movie, a stop at Nassau (which I’ve been told is pretty shitty, but the booze/cigars are cheap), and a stop at the Disney Island. The Disney Island sounds all right because they have the Flying Dutchman from POTC moored there. So, I’ll be able to see a prop used in a movie and you know how much I love movies. Oh yeah, I don’t want to forget that my wife and I, to my knowledge, do not have an assigned room yet. We do have a reservation, but no room number. That’s some shady shit. I’ll let you know how it was in October.

Speaking of October, Penn and Teller’s B.S. comes out Oct. 3rd. I think I told you all about that a few blogs ago, but I wanted to make sure you know the exact date it comes out. Now you have no excuse to not get your hands on a copy (buy or rent) as soon as it comes out.

Picking a NBA Team (part 4)

Today is part 4 of my NBA blog series. The teams I am covering today are the Chicago Bulls and the Golden State Warriors.

Chicago Bulls

Pros

·  I grew up in Rockford, IL. So, the Bulls were the home team growing up.

·  If I was to move some place, one of the most likely places I would go to is Rockford. In which case, the Bulls would be the home team (unless I decided to root for the Bucks instead).

·  I like Tyrus Thomas. I read the ESPN article on all the rookies and Tyrus and Rudy Gay came off as the two normal fun loving guys in the bunch.

·  When I actually played basketball, I was a defense-loving kind of dude. Naturally, Ben Wallace is one of my boys.

Cons

·  I hated the Bulls in the 90’s. Everyone in the state of Illinois rooted for them and Michael Jordan. It was pretty damned annoying.

·  After Jordan’s retirement, I did root for the Bulls a little while. They had Marcus Fizer (my boy from IA State) and then went youthful with the Tyson Chandler/Eddy Curry draft. The only problem was that they were shitty and boring.

·  Their uniforms are very bland. Just solid red with Bulls in black lettering.

·  Chicago isn’t high on the old vacation meter for me (I think I wrote a blog about my Chicago experience, if not, I will eventually).

 

Golden State Warriors

Pros

·  I already root for one team that plays in Oakland…

·  I like the Bay area and would like to visit. (It’s the home of Monk and the Mythbusters. It was also the setting of The Rock ["no duh is on the fear side of spectrum"]).

·  New head coach Don Nelson is famous for his run and gun gameplan. While the Warriors might not be the best team, at least their games won’t be mired in a 80-75 defensive snooze-fest.

·  I like a good point guard and the Warriors have Baron Davis, who is a fantasy stud and under Nelson’s tutelage could be a great point.

 

Cons

·  The team is notorious for bad management recently (But I like Chris Mullin as the GM, I think he gets it).

·  They have a couple of players that are pretty boring on their roster (Troy Murphy? Mike Dunleavy? I’m not Chris here).

·  What’s the deal with their draft pick? Does anyone think that Patrick O’Bryant will ever amount to anything? (By the way, I think the Lakers missed the boat on not making a play to get Patrick O’Bryant. They could have had the Bryant-O’Bryant connection.)

No extra segments for you tonight. I got started later than usual. Sorry.

Picking a NBA Team (Part 3)

Hello, in today’s blog we will discuss the merits of the Denver Nuggets and the Orlando Magic; we will also cover the movie Brick; and if we have time, I will go off on a tangent, as I like to do.

Denver Nuggets

Pros

·  After this past postseason with the whole Dwayne Wade thing (you know, where every time he got the ball in the finals one of the Mavs was getting called with a foul. Not to mention that the refs never blew the whistle on that little hop-step move. Back in my day, we called that ups and downs which was the same as traveling.) I think Carmello is ready to blow up this year. He is the second best player coming out of the 2004 class (LBJ is 1).

·  I appreciate Andre Miller and his assist making skills.

·  The baby blue jerseys are decent.

·  They’ve been a pretty good team as of recent.

Cons

·  I don’t care for snow or skiing. So, Denver is not high on my must see cities list.

·  The Nugget’s management must be dumb asses. How else can you explain giving Nene a $12 million a year?

·  The team has Marcus Camby and Kenyon Martin on the roster. I do not like either player.

Orlando Magic

Pros

·  This team is the closest to where I live. It’s only about 45 minutes from my place to the arena. So, the ability to go see the team live is a plus.

·  Another benefit of the proximity of the team to me is that I’ll be able to watch most their games on local TV.

Cons

·  The uniforms are ugly. I think it is time for an update.

·  I don’t trust the team management. I mean…Grant Hill is still on the roster.

·  If I were to take a vacation and go to a city to see my team play, I wouldn’t spend it going to Orlando. It’s too close to home.

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I’ll move on to my review of the movie, Brick.

A little while back, I put this movie on my Netflix queue. Recently, my boy Chris told me that it’s the bee’s knees (or something like that but more modern). So, I went ahead and bumped it up to number one on the queue.

Overall I thought the movie was okay, but I wouldn’t recommend it out to others personally. The movies it most reminded me of were Momento and L.A. Confidential. While most people love these movies, I could never get into them (What’s the deal with everyone in L.A. Confidential looking just like each other? I was more confused than a Linkin Park fan at a quantum physics lecture).

I think the problem I had with Brick was the motivation behind the main character. I get that he was still in love with the ex, but why was he treating everything like he was a detective in a murder case before there was a murder? After the murder things played out a little better and I enjoyed it, but I was just lost in the first act.

I will give the movie 1 star out of 50 (I’ll call this my U.S. Flag rating).

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I was home alone from when I woke up (7:30 am) until 4:40 pm today. I went ahead and did my laundry and played some video games. But by 2:00, I was completely out of things to do. There wasn’t anything good on TV, the only thing for me on the DVR was the movie San Quentin (co-starring Humphrey Bogart) but I couldn’t get through a half hour of that movie before having to turn it off (They had some chick singing songs for like 10 minutes of the first 30. Now that’s bullshit), and I didn’t feel like writing a blog or playing video games at the time. Which brings me to my thought. Is it odd that I was wishing I had gone to work instead of just sat around? I mean at least I would be getting the least bit accomplished.

Speaking of Bullshit, Penn and Teller’s Bullshit season three is coming out soon (October). If you haven’t seen any of the first two seasons, you need to go out and rent/buy them. It is a great combination of comedy, information, and opinion. They can sometimes argue for something that you don’t agree with, but at least they’ll entertain while they do it (maybe even open your eyes to something you didn’t see before).

Thanks for reading.

Picking a NBA Team (Part 2)

In my last blog I talked about selecting a NBA team to root for. If you haven’t read that blog, go ahead and at least skim it over before reading this one.

In this episode I will cover the pros and cons of rooting for the L.A. Clippers and the Utah Jazz. I’ll also go off topic into my disappointments of this week. Here we go.

L.A. Clippers

Pros

·  This team is coming off a break out year where they made the playoffs and actually made a little noise once there.

·  The city of L.A. is not high on my list of places to visit, but it does have all the major movie studios as well as Disneyland and Universal Studios California.

·  I do like the simple elegance of the Clipper uniforms.

·  Bill Simmons is a season ticket holder. You should know that B.S. is my boy.

Cons

·  Due to their good season last year, there might now be a L.A. Clipper bandwagon. I don’t want to get labeled a bandwagon jumper.

·  The team has to share a stadium with the Lakers. How lame is that? I’d like my team to have their own pad. Not to mention that they have to share with the Lakers of all teams (the Lakers are the Yankees of basketball in my opinion).

·  I don’t trust the management. I mean the Clippers have a long history of making poor draft decisions.

Utah Jazz

Pros

·  There are a couple of players on this team that I like (Kirilenko and Boozer)

·  The front office is pretty smart (the Jazz have been a good to great team for most of the past 10-15 years)

·  As a good team in the Western Conference, they get plenty of TV time.

Cons

·  It’s Utah. Why would I ever want to go there? Honestly?

·  The uniforms are hideous. They need to mandate a team policy that all their players wear the John Stockton shorts. Kinky.

·  They have Derek Fisher on the roster. Booo!

Off the NBA topic…

I was pretty excited for a couple of things this week and ended up disappointed on both occasions.

The first was on my Netflix queue. I had been recommended the TV show, “Weeds.” I read the description and figured, “hey this sounds like a cool little quirky comedy.” Also, I like the Kevin Nealon. So, I was pretty hyped to see the show. I popped it in and watched the first two episodes and realized that instead of a comedy, what I got was basically “Desperate Housewives.” Needless to say, I was upset. You can’t recommend me a movie and sell it to me as a comedy and then it turns out to be some melodramatic soap opera bullshit.

The other thing was Nintendo’s announcement about the Wii. I’ve being pretty excited about the Wii for some time now. Since E3, Nintendo came out and hinted at several things. The first was that the Wii would be “a lot lower than the competition” price wise. The other was that the Wii would be coming out “earlier than you’d expect.” So, the rumors began to fly about price and release date. Knowing that I can get an Xbox 360 for $299, I figured that the Wii would probably come in the $200 range. Also, I figured that most consoles release right around Thanksgiving, so an early release would probably mean around October. Then Nintendo came out and said, “the Wii will be under $250″ and that they will give all the information about the release date and price in September. It turns out that Sept. 14^th was the big information announcement. So, I was super excited as the day approached. Finally the day came around and then…

 ”The Wii will be released on Nov. 19^th with a price of $249.99.”

What the fuck? What happened to releasing earlier than I’d expect? Why would you come out and say the price will be under $250 and then say it’s $249.99 (which, correct me if I’m wrong) would cost more than $250 after taxes?

Nintendo could have squashed the competition if they had come in at $199 and released a couple of weeks earlier to be in the late Oct. range. But no, they had to screw it all up.

Before their official announcement, I had stated that I would be buying a Wii when it comes out. But now that Nintendo has completely screwed up, I am thinking of just going out and getting an Xbox 360.

I mean, if they are going to screw up such an easy slam dunk of a marketing announcement, how can I trust them to provide an fun and glitch free video gaming experience?

What I’d like to see Microsoft do is lower the prices of their Xbox 360 packages $50 each and throw it in Nintendo’s face.

As always, thanks for reading!

Picking a NBA Team (Part 1)

If you read my last blog, you should know that I’m all about wasting time (and if you haven’t read my last blog, shame on you). Anyway, one of the responses to my last blog talks about wasting time rooting for a basketball team. When thinking about it, I realized that the basketball season is pretty much the opposite of the baseball season (starts in Oct./Nov. ends in April). So, I decided to go Bill Simmons and pick a basketball team to root for (Bill Simmons is my favorite columnist on ESPN.com’s Page 2). I am trying to keep in mind that I will have to root for this team for the rest of my basketball life. Due to this fact (and the fact that the blog would be ridiculously long) I am going to do a series of blogs in determining who will be my NBA team.

In case you do not know, there are 30 NBA teams. So, my obvious first thought was to limit the number of teams I am going to consider. My first thought was to devise a spreadsheet that ranks each team in different aspects which I deem important. To give an example, I ranked each team 1-30 (1=best, 30=worst) for players I like on the team (So, Dallas got high score because of Dirk Nowitski). Then I weighted the categories as to which one I valued the most. To do the weighting, I decided which categories were the most important to me, and which ones didn’t matter as much. The categories that were important got a high multiplier (ex. Having players I like on the team is important so I gave it a high multiplier); while the categories that don’t matter to me I gave a low multiplier (ex. uniforms aren’t that important to me so I gave it a multiplier of 1). Then, I summed up the numbers and got a ranking of teams based on my opinion (the lower the score the better). Using this list, I eliminated the bottom 20 teams. So now I am left with the 10 teams that I ranked the highest. I have decided that to be fair to the 10 teams remaining, I will go through them individually to decide the one I like the most. My plan is to do a blog for each team weigh the pros and cons of rooting for them (maybe I’ll do two teams per blog).

Now that you know the set-up, I’ll let you know the finalists. I am listing them in the way my ranking system ordered them from number 10 to my number 1 team. So, with out any further delay, I give you The Mikey NBA teams to root for list.

10) Los Angeles Clippers
9) Utah Jazz
8.) Denver Nuggets
7) Orlando Magic
6) Chicago Bulls
5) Golden State Warriors
4) Cleveland Caveliers
3) Phoenix Suns
2) Dallas Mavericks
1) Memphis Grizzlies

There you have it (yeah, who would have guessed the Grizzlies coming in at the top of the list?).

I realize that some of you may be wondering what categories I rank the teams on. In order to please you, here is my list of categories and the multipliers used (Now you’ll know what I look for in my basketball teams).

1) City the team is based in – multiplier of 3

I decided that I might want to make a trip to see my team in their home arena someday and as such ranked the teams based on places I like or would like to visit. I also used this category to dole out some love to the home teams (Orlando and Chicago).

2) Talent of players on roster – multiplier of 3

You may be questioning my multiplier on this one, but I’m not too concerned about the greatness of individual players. So, the multiplier isn’t as high as some of the others. Plus the turnover of talent in this league is so high that any team can change this very quickly.

3) Talent in the front office – multiplier of 4

In my opinion, a great front office can take any team and turn them into a championship caliber team in only a few years. This is really the difference maker in a great team and a mediocre team.

4) Rookies – multiplier of 2

In this league, any draft can change the complexion of a team instantaneously. But if you have a bad draft you can always come back next year. So, it gets a lower multiplier.

5) Team History – multiplier of 1

I included this category, but history doesn’t have too much weight with me. I do appreciate a team that has been around for a longer period of time, but I don’t need a dynasty that has tons of banners hanging from their ceilings.

6) Fun Atmosphere – multiplier of 5

Does the team exude an atmosphere of fun and excitement? I don’t want to watch the basketball equivalent of a Bears football game. Honestly, who does a run up the middle three plays in a row?

7) TV Schedule – multiplier of 3

I don’t want to root for a team that I never get to see (I already have one of those with my baseball team). The good news is that TNT and ESPN do a good job of televising a variety of basketball teams.

8.) Popularity – multiplier of 8

I don’t want to jump on some bandwagon. So, for me, the less popular the team the better the ranking they get from me.

9) Last Season Record – Multiplier of 1

I’m not sure why I even included this category, but I did.

10) Players I like – multiplier of 10

I want a team that has some player(s) that I like. It’s just that simple.

11) Team Future – multiplier of 4

I gave my opinion on how each team will do in the future. I’d like to root for a team that might not be great now, but in 5-10 years they are awesome. That way I can say I’ve been rooting for them before they had a bandwagon.

12) Uniforms – multiplier of 5

Hey, what can I say? I enjoy looking at pretty clothes. There is no excuse for uniforms, like the 76ers, that are ugly as sin.

There you have it. Do you think I left any category off that should have been included or did I leave a team out of my consideration list that I shouldn’t have? Let me know in the feedback,

Thanks for reading.

The Mikey Guide to Wasting Time

I decided that I wanted to take this opportunity to teach you how to do something. The question then became, what do I know enough of to teach? After giving it some careful thought (all of 1 minute), I decided that I’d tell you how to waste your time (like I do).

The first thing you have to do is find your self a sport/sports team. I’ll recommend baseball for a couple of reasons. The first reason would be the season is very long (162 games per team in the regular season and an extra month of postseason). So, this sport will consume each of your summers from now on. The second reason is that each game tends to take a while (averages around 3 hours long). So, the hours wasted per event ratio is pretty high. The third reason is that any true fan will follow their team during the off-season as much as during the regular season. Every trade, signing, waiver, etc. is important. Another reason is deciding on which team you are going to follow. While you could do this on a whim (like who has the prettiest uniforms), the selection process could take you a while. A good example of this is the length it took Bill Simmons to pick an English Soccer Team (see ESPN.com’s Page 2). It is obvious that sports are the greatest time waster in our society. They have entirely consumed some people’s lives (Go A’s!).

As much time as sports take up, you will inevitably still have extra time on your hands. My second suggestion on how to waste your time is to become a cinema buff. Sure, everyone loves a good movie, but do talk to your friends in movie quotes or know the director of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre? You’ve got some work to do to become the true movie buff. It is tough to just start being a movie buff. In order to be knowledgeable, you have to not only seen a lot of movies, you will have to learn the little known facts. The best way to crack into the cinemaphile zone is to pick your favorite movie and start learning all there is to know about the movie/actors/grips/whatever. When you reach true movie buffdom, you will be going to multiple movies in a weekend and you’ll be flying solo on a few of them. But at 1.5 to 3 hours a movie, you’ve got a solid amount of wasted time per viewing. Not to mention all the time you can spend debating whether Luke Skywalker is more whiny than Anakin (the correct answer is Anakin is more whiny. Anakin whines through out all 3 prequels. Luke only whines through A New Hope, then he becomes a super badass Jedi in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi).

So between sports and movies, you are wasting quite a bit of time but there are 24 hours in a day. So, how else can you waste time? How about video games? There are a lot of good games out there and each one can suck away your free time. Many a man has been lost in the cycle of MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games). I, personally, enjoy simulation games much more. I remember when my family first got a pc and the first game we got was Civilization. It is one of the best games ever and if you are just starting in the world of video games, it is a good one.

After all these different things, you shouldn’t have too much time left. But in case you do, you could always try socializing with people. I never got to into this hobby, but some people really like it. If it is up your alley, you should give it a whirl.

The last resort for wasting time would be to find your self a hobby. These can range from model building to painting to stamp collecting. I’ve personally taken up writing blogs (like you haven’t noticed). I have also started working on a screenplay, but I’ve tailed off on that lately. The problem with some hobbies, though, is that if you are good enough at them, they may turn into a career. This would make what you have done productive, and if you are looking to waste time, you are trying to be as unproductive as possible. So, a hobby should be a last resort for the time laden.

In conclusion, if you find yourself with a lot of time on your hands try one of my methods to waste it. Heck, they can’t be as bad as reading some dude’s blog…

A weekend in Tampa

So, I decided to do something other than watch movies at the theaters this weekend. Knowing that the old faithful theater was out of the question, I had to figure out a way to spend my time. With that in mind, my wife and I decided to make it a Tampa weekend. We had already purchased tickets for the Devil Rays game on Sunday. In addition, we decided to stop by Busch Gardens on Saturday. The weekend came off with mixed results.

The weekend kicked off with Busch Gardens on Saturday. Everyone knows that I’m pretty big into theme parks (or they should). So, I was pretty psyched to go. So, we hop into the Civic and head to Tampa. After about a half hour, we pull into the park. I should have known something was up from the beginning because there were barely any signs for the park. But regardless, we find it and pay the $9 and pull into the parking lot. It looks like the entrance is less than a block from where we park, so we decided to walk it. We start walking and realize that we just saw the edge of the park, the actual entrance is another several blocks away (who decided to put the entrance all the way to the left of the park?). So, after the long walk we get to the entrance. Oh by the way, the wifey gets free vouchers from work to all the Orlando/Tampa theme parks, so we get in for free. We get in the park and I’m digging the ambiance. It’s set up like a Moroccan village (it even has a Casablanca shop, but they only sold surf stuff there…what the hell sense does that make?). So, what should we do first? We had read online that there is a 4-D show about Pirates. It stars Leslie Neilson and Eric Idle. So I have high hopes. Then we find out it shows on the hour every hour until closing. We have arrived at 10:15. So, we have to wait for 45 minutes. On the way in I had noticed that there is a guy hand rolling cigars and we decide to check it out. It turns out that it is a crappy little souvenir shop with a desk in the back with an old man rolling cigars. So, it was the old man, the wife, and me with no one else around. It was very awkward to say the least. We decide to head back towards the theater. We get into the theater and it turns out that movie is terrible. It was like watching C3P-O from Attack of the Clones for 20 minutes straight. Now we are hot as hell and disappointed. We decide it is now near lunch time so we start heading back to get food. On the way we pass a safari ride and decide to get on it. Once again, horrible. This time the ride barely last 5 minutes the whole time we have some chick screaming over a microphone in our ears. No fun at all. Then we go get food which was a decent barbecue. After lunch we stop by the hospitility center to get a free beer (yeah, you can get a free beer if you go to Busch Gardens. I’ll have seven schlitz’ or whatever’s free). After, we go to the Clydesdales. Is it odd that I thought that the donkey was the best part of the stables? From there we go to Tut’s tomb. It is supposed to be set up just like how they found Tut. Well it turns out that Tut’s tomb is only 2 rooms with a shop that is larger than the tomb itself. So, we decide to leave the park. Oh by the way, the whole park is setting up for “Howl O’ Scream.” This means that half of all the rides were completely closed for them to add streamers and skulls, or whatever they do. So, to wrap up, we spent 4 hours wandering around with the high point being a free beer and some food. I can’t recommend this theme park to anyone.

After this Saturday, I’m ready for a good game of baseball, Oakland at Tampa. From everything I’ve read, Tropicana Field is supposed to be crappy. We get there and booya, Free Parking bitches! Hells yeah, we are like 7 rows away from the gate. We get inside and I kind of feel like I’ve entered an airport. It’s kind odd to be inside for a game. Well, we start walking around the concourse and I love the shops and eateries they have. Patti gets a deli sandwich and I get the traditional ballpark fare of Hot Dog, Soda, and Cracker Jack. As we walk to our seats, we pass a customize a bat store, a Topps make your own baseball card store, and an area with a couple of xboxes with MLB 2k6 on them. We sit and the game begins. The Rays stike first. I don’t lose faith, we’ve got Big Frank and Chavy coming up. Sure enough Frank gets on base and Chavy knocks out a homer. The game continues and the Rays comback to tie it. The A’s fight back as Big Frank hits a solo shot (I had just commented to Patti that Frank has hit one out in each of the past 5 games. How come his name isn’t up there for MVP? He’s batting .280+ with 35 homers and 95 RBIs for a team with a weak offense). The game continues and Nick Swisher (my boy!) hits a two-run jimmy jack. The A’s go on to win it by 2 runs and I got a helmet with ice cream in it. So, to summarize, my three favorite A’s batters all hit homers, I had a hot dog, cracker jack, and a helmet of ice cream. The only downside was the drive home. The Bucs had also played and got out at about the same time as well as there had been a bad accident. So, that was pretty bad.

I consider the weekend an overall success. Sure, Busch Gardens was terrible, but the A’s game couldn’t get much better. So, if you are in Tampa in the summer, skip the Busch Gardens, go to the Rays game.

The Movie Wrap-up

I think I might have set a new personal record for most movies seen at the theater over 2 weekend span these past two weekends. From two weeks ago until today, I have seen 5 movies. I figured you all would like to know what I thought of them all, so I’m running them down in this blog. (Please note that my memory might not be the best so I might not go into specifics of each movie).

Before I start, let me remind you about my rating system. Everything gets 1 star; I just change what it is out of. So, the best any movie could get is a 1 out 1 and the worst they can get is 1 out infinity.

On Friday 8/25, the wife and I went to see Little Miss Sunshine. If you don’t know, it’s this year’s “Big Fat Greek Wedding.” By that I mean it is an independent flick that is getting some mad hype because of a few good showings (mainly Sundance). Anyway, overall I enjoyed the movie. It has a nice cast and it’s likeable. On the downside a thought a lot of the jokes were predictable and thus not as funny as everyone else thought (other people at the theater were laughing out loud through most the movie. I only laughed out loud only once or twice). This movie actually reminds of Napoleon Dynamite. Napoleon was another movie that everyone thought was hilarious, but on my first viewing I wasn’t that into it. Upon further viewings I came to love and embrace Napoleon and I could see a similar fate for Sunshine. But as it stands right now, it’s an enjoyable comedy that isn’t all that funny. I’ll give it a 1 out 25 as of right now.

On Saturday 8/26, the wifey and I went to see Wordplay. If you do not know, this is a documentary about the New York Times crossword puzzle. The movie is very dichotomous. One half is establishing who plays/creates the puzzles and why. The other half is the annual crossword competition. I absolutely loved the half about who plays the puzzles and creates them. It has a nice mixture of information and entertainment. I especially enjoy the interviews with celebrities (Jon Stewart, Bill Clinton, and Mike Mussina were the highlights). When it came to the actual competition, the movie started to drag. I still enjoyed it, but it could have been shortened 10-20 minutes. The actual playtime of the movie is 1 hour and 30 minutes but it ends up feeling more like 2 hours. All in all, I’d recommend checking it out if you like documentaries, crossword puzzles, or the celebrities I named earlier. I’ll give it a 1 out of 24.

On Sunday 8/27, I treated myself to a matinee of Beerfest. If you know me at all, or have even perused my profile, you’ll know I loves me some Broken Lizard comedies. So I had some high hopes coming into this movie. To a degree the movie does deliver. It has all the Broken Lizard trademarks, comedy, nudity, alcohol, etc. But similar to Club Dread, I felt that some of the jokes fell a little flat. Overall I’d give this movie a 1 out of 20.

On Saturday 9/2, the wife, my sis, and I went to see The Illusionist. This is another independent movie. This one stars Ed Norton and Paul Giamati. Two fine actors in my book. Through out the movie I enjoyed Edward Norton performing the illusions (yes, I know that they were all special effects and he wasn’t actually performing magic) more than the actual story. The movie has a very distinct visual style that I really dug. The only downside would be that the big revelation at the end wasn’t anything special. Overall, I would give it a 1 out of 20.

On Sunday 9/3, I went to the 2 PM showing of Who Killed the Electric Car? This movie is a documentary about the electric car program started by GM in the late nineties and later took them off the market. I was really entertained by the movie, but I have to admit that it is a bit one sided. Overall, I would rate this movie at 1 star out of 22.

So, there you have my past two weeks in a nutshell.

Every movie I saw was at least worth renting, and I personally think they are worthy of seeing in the theater.