Well, the Reds are back to playing as the worst team in baseball, which really sucks since they are so close to getting to the postseason. Maybe this west coast trip will make a turn for the better. But I doubt that’ll happen agaist the Dodgers. Palmer should be playing in tonights MNF game. I don’t know why but I have this feeling deep down that he’ll get hurt again sometime this season *knock on wood*. College football finally starts this week. I can’t tell you how overjoyed I am.
Last night Mike, Newbs, Matt, Jill and I went and saw the 10:00 showing of Snakes on a Plane. I had been anticipating this movie ever since I read the first story on it on the net back in February. I even bought the poster since it was so badass. Really, I didn’t expect it to live up to they hype at all. I was expecting some funny moments, but for the most part for it to be a terrible terrible film.
I may have been right, but my experience last night was awesome. This is one hell of a fun movie. There are a few things that you should know about this movie though before you venture off to go see it. You should not go see this movie if any of the following apply:
- You don’t know why the movie is called “Snakes on a Plane”
- You don’t appreciate his royal badass, Sam Jackson
- You plan to see this by yourself on a Tuesday matinee with a 20% full theater
- You can only be entertained by films of quality that have a chance at an Oscar nomination
- You don’t know the one line in the movie to look forward to
Those are just a few things that if apply to you, I’d recommend not going to see this movie. Since within our group the majority of which were looking forward to an entertainingly bad movie AND everyone else at the theater was completely into the back-story and aura surrounding the release of this movie the environment at the theater was twice as good as any other movie that I’ve seen. If there hadn’t had been the constant chants, cheers, gasps, hisses and applause from the rest of the audience, the experience would not have been nearly as enjoyable. I think seeing Snakes on the opening night had more of an impact on the level of enjoyment I felt than say seeing a new Star Wars or Harry Potter movie would.
You have to know what to expect going in. This movie is TRYING to be that late night B level Sci-Fi, campy movie. It does a lot of things that in any other movie would get eye rolls but for Snakes, becomes an intentional laugh out loud funny moment. It succeeds in being a really really bad enjoyable movie without being too stupid. I didn’t pay $7.50 expecting to see a bunch of special effects, action sequences or a cinematic masterpieces. I wanted to get some pure entertainment and that’s what Snakes on a Plane delivered. This movie pulled off all the hype and was much better than I could have expected.
EDIT: Aintitcoolnews has a review up that pretty much mirrors my exact feelings of the movie. His experience was near identical to ours including the drunks who thought every line was hy-lar-eous and the audience shouting along to the famous movie line.
For those of you who don’t log into facebook daily, or just might not have noticed, facebook now has a new developers section and has provided an API. If you are unsure what an API is, it’s basically a tool that lets users create all sorts of nifty mashups and use all the facebook data to present it in new and exciting ways. In the next few weeks you can expect to see some pretty neat stuff being used with the facebook information.
Already there is a mashup of google maps and facebook that will allow you to see where all your friends are originally from. Check it out. Now you can waste even more time stalking and looking at useless data on your friends and your friends friends.
Facebook has been trying to expand with things like event planning and away status, but with this tool it opens the door to all sorts of possibilties that should definetly give facebook a boost in the battle vs MySpace.
So I watched about half of Monday Night Football last night. If you haven’t heard, after 36 years of being on network TV (ABC) MNF has now moved to ESPN and with the move, brought in a new crew of Mike Tirico, Joe Theismann and Tony Kornheiser. A lot of people were speculating how well the new group get along (compared to Al Michaels and John Madden and other past co-hosts), so I thought I’d share my two cents.
The first thing I noticed when I turned it on, was the minimalistic presentation that ESPN decided to go with. There is a small “globe’ in the bottom middle of the screen that shows the score, quarter, down/yardage and time left. That’s it. The rest of the picture is dedicated to glorious HD football. I really like this approach. It’s simple, elegant and gives full attention to the game in HD.
There were a few things I noticed about the announcing during the game that I didn’t like. First, I feel that 3 is a crowd in the booth while trying to announce any sporting event. There should be one guy who announces the play-by-play, and a secondary player to give insight to the plays or just fill dead space. Whether the sport is football, baseball, soccer or whatever I prefer 2 people announcing. Second, I really like what CBS decided to do this year and get rid of the sideline reporters. There is no need to cut away to someone who is “in the action” to get a better report on what’s going on (and get your women in sports ratio up). If you must, (assuming you stick to my 2 man announce plan) you can cut away to one other remote commentator (like ESPN did with the Bengals game). I really don’t want a party of people commenting on my sporting event. Most of the time I’m going to disagree with your opinion anyway, so just go away.
As far as the “3 men in the booth”, they did a pretty good job. Tirico did an as expected excellent job with the play-by-play (which I’m used to from Thursday Night College Fball) and Kornheiser’s wit didn’t seemed too forced or unnatural. Theismann had some good insite, but seemed to take the whole thing too seriously. He went into a debat with Kornheiser (who was joking) about Bob Newhart’s Bed and Breakfast for like 15 minutes. He needs to ease up and just comment on the plays. In fact, I feel Tony has enough football insight and knowledge that he can comment on the post play annalysis and provide enough humor. In summary, get rid of Theismann (which will never happen since he represents the “football-veteran” view).
For myself, watching the rest of the season, I’m not really a weekly MNF viewer. I’ll watch it if I have nothing else to do, if the Bengals are in or if there is a great matchup on. But if New Orleans is playing the Raiders, I could care less (except now I may watch to try and catch some Reggie action). Plus most of the time better TV is on somewhere else. Like Fox’s 24. Season 5 baby!!!!
Exciting couple of weeks coming up. This week/weekend Matt, Mike and I will be moving into a new apartment up in Dublin. I’m always excited about getting set up in a new place but always HATE the actually moving. Next weekend I’ll be helping Kate bring up some furniture from Cinci and move into her new place. Then the following weekend after that is Labor Day weekend, which is when tOSU football starts and I’ll be in California. Following that is the Ohio State v Texas game which I’ll be flying down to, game ticket in hand. So, a busy and exciting next few weeks. Not much else to report. I have some links to keep you occupied on this, the beginning of the work week:
Pic’s from Thursday night’s celebrations of Newbs’ 22nd Birthday. Locations include Brazenhead, McFadden’s (the suck), and Four Kegs.
If you’re ever at work or in an environment that does not allow you to download and install applications, but you have a dying need to get on IM (and hate AIM’s java app), check out meebo. It is completely awesome and works just about as well as trillian, miranda, or any of those other all-in-one-IM clients. But the best thing is it’s glorious Web 2.0 based. No install or anything.
Wiffle-Ball should be on TV - I totally agree. I can’t believe ESPN hasn’t picked up on this. During the summer I should not be expecting to find darts, poker or billiards on any sports channel during a saturday afternoon. This is a perfect timeslot for Wiffle Ball. (Kick-ball should be soon after it) ADDED - Found this article today. Kickball gaining popularity
Speaking of NFL, the Bengals looks pretty good last night, even without Carson. Scout.com gives a quick look at all the rule changes this season. I see one new rule there that definetly came from Palmer’s injury. (Wonder what Chad will do to celebrate without using the football or foregin objects).
Oh, and for those of you who haven’t heard by now, after 7-8 years (I lost count after 2) of dating, Mike finally ask Julie the question. And she said yes.
Aug 28, 2006 
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