Monday, August 25, 2008

Olympics...

Well, another Olympics has come and gone, and what is so fascinating about it is the stories of the people involved and the amazing grit and guts these people have...

My absolute favorite story though, has to be the South African woman who swam in the open water swimming event...Seems she was a pool swimmer until she lost her leg in a scooter accident, who when she tried to go back to lane swimming had problems staying in a straight line, so she switched to open water swimming, which requires more upper body strength than average swimming and the straight line is not as critical. Well folks, this lady makes the Olympic team, despite having one leg, and even though she finishes the race in 16th place, she is only a minute and 22 seconds behind the winner for a 6 1/2 mile swim.

A freakin' mazing...

...Also, who knew the national sport of Hungary was water polo?

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Following Up...

Summer's almost over...Been real busy with work, managing a job that shouldn't have been mine in the first place, and should have been less traumatic as well, but has a case of "too many chiefs" syndrome. Finished the bowling league last week, (I'm the worst guy on the team, but make up for it with a 70 pin handicap (whoo-hoo!)), We lost over half our games, but we have fun, so who cares. Had a good visit with my brother and his family who came down in July, and saw a ton of movies as well:


Dark Knight was freakin' awesome...I was on the edge of my seat the whole time, I have no idea what they are going to do to top this on the next one.

Wall-E was also incredible...what amazed me so much about it, as all the Pixar films do, is you start the first couple of minutes being amazed by the visuals, but shortly after that you totally get into the story. It was also proof how good these guys are, since there is so little dialogue in it.

Wanted was enjoyable...if you liked it, check out two movies, Nightwatch and Daywatch, from the same director...it is the Russian version of The Matrix meets Underworld. Trippy stuff.

Hellboy 2 was great...Del Toro came off of Pan's Labyrinth and incorporated that sensibility into this film...almost like living Anime...Also, I love Abe Sapien, he is just cool!

Hancock was interesting, I can see why people are so divided on it as the movie takes a hard right turn in the middle, and you will either love it or hate it. I thought it was kinda neat, but they could have done some more with it. Jason Bateman has come a long way, though.

X-files was good, but really just a long episode of the series...It was nice to see where the characters are now, almost like seeing family you haven't seen in a while. I still have no idea why this movie wasn't released in the off season, it got buried at the box office, but should do well on DVD.

Pineapple Express...For the life of me, I don't understand, but I liked this one, sort of Lethal Weapon meets Stoner Comedy. Who knew James Franco could act?

Tropic Thunder...This is funny...Downey Jr. is great, and there is a great part at the end that is such a great funny visual that made the whole movie for me.

...Also, if you get a chance, rent a movie called FIDO...it's a quirky comedy about a boy and his pet zombie...totally worth it...