Monday, June 20, 2005

Let the Summer Movie Season Begin...

Saw Batman Begins this last weekend. Saw it twice, once on the IMAX with my geek friends, and once in a regular movie theater with my autistic brother and a friend from church.

And lemmee tell you folks, It kicked @$$! I really enjoyed it, and it stood up to a second viewing which is rare for a change. To be fair though, I did see EP3 for a second time with my Russian friend, and it didn't seem as bad as it did the first time, perhaps I just wasn't in the right mood, but I gave it a C+ earlier, and it probably really is a high B-minus.

I hope the sequels to Batman are as good as this one, and I hope Fantastic Four doesn't suck, because I am obligated as a comic book fan to go see any movie that comes out that is based on a comic. While this is good and you occasionally see an X-Men or Batman Begins, or Spider-Man, you also have to see a Punisher, Swamp Thing, or god forbid a Catwoman.

Also, Cinderella Man was good (I haven't heard cheering at a movie in a long time), Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was good, but you have to be a fan of the books, Layer Cake was excellent, Kung-Fu Hustle is hilarious. Kingdom of Heaven was ok, but I am not a history buff, so inaccuracies do not make me so angry.

Thus concludes my movie review section of my blog...

You take the good and take the bad...The facts of life!

(interesting side note-"blog" is not in the spell checker that comes with this thing! Funny!)

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

God doesn't care what you look like, but your church sure does...

I go to the same Catholic church that I have been going to since I was about 3 years old, when we moved to Houston. I still go there even though I live 40 miles away from it, because I like the people and the music and the relaxed atmosphere. I also have been a participant in the mass for a number of years, starting out as an altar boy, and then joining the music ministry at 14 as a cantor for the teen group for the required confirmation project, stayed in until I was 18, went to college, sang as a cantor at the 7:00 p.m. Sunday mass (AKA the "hangover mass") for 4 years, then came back home and joined up with the group my older brother played guitar, which morphed into another group, which morphed into another group, which merged into another group, in these groups I was a cantor for all of these. In between all this we went through 4 priests, 3 choir directors, & 1 liturgical administrator.

Through all of this singing as an unpaid volunteer, I always wore my standard attire of jeans, a nice shirt, and tennis shoes, and nobody really cared, Until now. Now I am being told that what I wear to church is a problem, and I should be wearing slacks and a tie, and no tennis shoes. I don't really understand it, why a pair of tennis shoes would freak someone out, I mean they are not even white, they are black and pretty inoffensive. And the jeans are black as well, so from a distance you can't really tell they are jeans. I am constantly amazed about the closed mindedness of people, that care about these sort of things, didn't Jesus say to welcome all the people who are different?

Sometimes I wonder if God is trying to tell me something...