wildyams

So today was my birthday, yee-haw I'm not a big fan of birthdays in general, least of all mine, but it's not because I'm older, like most people would assume. I feel like "great, I'm one day older than I was yesterday, just like any other day of my life. Whoop-de-doo." It's just another day, not really anything to celebrate. I even forgot my own birthday once. In fact, it was 10 years ago today that I forgot my birthday, now that I think about it. There I was, 19 years old and in college walking around all day without even sparing a thought that it was my birthday until about 4:30 in the afternoon someone came up to me and said "Hey, Happy Birthday." I believe my response was "Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Thanks." So clearly I don't get too worked up over my birthday. All I did today was work, nothing unusual, except that I got to pick where we had lunch, I didn't have to pay, and they got me a birthday cake with a little Gollum figure on it (thanks everyone). After work, I just relaxed, which is one of my favorite things to do. So for everyone who wished me a happy birthday, and to those who didn't, thanks

Well it's been nothing but payback for the Lakers this year against the San Antonio Spurs. Last year LA was swept by the Spurs in the regular season and eliminated by them in the playoffs 4 games to 2. This year, however, the Lakers have already played the Spurs three times, and have won all three of them. This is important because the Lakers already own the first tiebreaker against the Spurs for playoff seedings (should the two teams finish the year with the same records), because the Lakers only play the Spurs one more time during the regular season (and that's not till April). What was great about this game tonight was that it was in San Antonio (where LA is now 2-0 this year), and that the Spurs were at full strength tonight, which they were not when the Lakers were in San Antonio last time (which naturally prompted a lot of whining from Spurs fans that LA only won cause the Spurs weren't at full strength). Also tonight, the Lakers overcame a 15 point first-half defecit and rallied to win, executing down the stretch and just proving they had more grit and more heart when the game was on the line. Believe me, as a Laker fan, there is not much that would please me more right now than seeing the Lakers beat the Spurs like they did tonight. By losing tonight, the Spurs became the first team in the entire Western Conference to get to 10 losses, and the Spurs are now not only last in their division, but are also below .500 at 9-10. San Antonio also has a 4 game losing streak right now, while LA has a 7 game winning streak and the best record in the league (not to mention being the only elite team in the Western Conference with a winning record on the road). Tomorrow night LA continues against the Mavericks in Dallas, and that should be a good game. Sorry Spurs, you just can't beat the Lakers this year it looks like

There are only three teams in the NBA who are undefeated at home: the Lakers, the Sacramento Queens and the Dallas Mavericks. Well, better make that only two: LA and the Queens. The Lakers went into Dallas tonight and absolutely manhandled the Mavs who were #1 in the Midwest Division (there are only 4 divisions in the NBA), and who were also 10-0 at home so far this year. Now they are 10-1, with the Lakers coming in tonight and really abusing the Mavs for the whole game, winning 114-103. The Lakers led the entire way, scoring the first 8 points of the game and never relinquishing the lead. The last time the Lakers and Mavs met was on opening night, and the Lakers dismantled the Mavs that night too, and also led the entirety of that game, meaning that in 96 minutes of playing time between these two teams, the Lakers have led for every single minute. In fact, the closest the Mavs have ever been to the Lakers this year was at 0-0, which is pretty humiliating for the Mavs. On top of that, the Lakers are now 46-5 against the Mavs in the last 51 meetings between these two teams. Now if that isn't domination, then I don't know what is

The Mav got called for the foul on this one

Sometimes here on "What's More Terrible" I plan to give you two things which are not terrible at all, and today is one such an occasion. However, since everything that has a winner, inevitably has a loser, if you pit two things against each other, one will most certainly be more terrible than the other, even if it is not terrible in its own right. In other words, if you think of a scale with 'fantastic' on one end and 'terrible' on the other and had to place the two things somewhere on the scale, inevitably one would be more terrible than the others. Matt gets credit for inspiring this week's "What's More Terrible" because he recently bought "Young Guns" on DVD, and has been talking about it quite a bit. So being far more familiar with that movie and its sequel than I have any right to be, I came up with this week's contest:

This will be a quick entry, and nobody reads anyone else's blog on the weekends anyway, so who cares how short it is, right? Today my good friend Bob Corrigan got married to his girlfriend of the last few years, Rebecca Jean. The wedding was this morning down in Garden Grove at The Garden Room. I picked up Dave and Jen this morning and we all drove down there together. Jon was already there, as were Steve-o and his girlfriend Juliet. Steve-o was the best man, so he was in his tux, while the rest of us were just "formal". It was a nice wedding, it was great to see everyone and it was really a good day. Bob and Becky are now off to Vegas and then Hawaii for a while, so they should have a great time. Congrats you two, I'll see you two when you get back

I found this kinda interesting. I wonder what it would be like to live in Maine...

"Maine is your state. It's pretty and nice and quiet and not crowded. I love Maine, so do you."


What State Is Perfect For You?

Today was a pretty productive day for me, considering I only left the house to eat. I woke up today with my right eye feeling pretty painful, and it's been painful all day. I checked it out in the mirror and the white of my eye itself is not even red at all, but my eyelid is a little swollen. I probably just got some dirt in my eye or something. Anyway, other than that I've felt pretty good. I watched the Lakers win after almost blowing a 21 point lead (they let the Jazz come back and take the lead by 1 for a single possession twice in the last minute, but eventually won by 2). After that, I got the soundtracks for two movies I have been after for a long, long time: "The Shining" and "Fright Night". Both of these are extremely hard to find, but I got them for free. So yes, today was a good day for me

I saw this on ESPN's Page 2 this morning and just wanted to share it:

A brief pause to marvel at the awesome power of the Internet. I could not, for the life of me, remember the name of that damn Russian comic who enjoyed a brief dollop of fame in the 1980s with his signature, accented line, "I love this country." So what do I do? Go to Google, type in the words "Russian comedian I love this country" and -- presto! -- the second link is to www.yakov.com. Not only did I get the correct name to fit into the column, I also learned that Smirnoff is holding down a regular gig in Branson, Mo., and that my memory had failed me. His signature line was, in fact, "What a country," a fact hammered home by the description of Yakov's show, which features the "What a Country Dancers."

The Internet, man. It took me all of 15 seconds to learn all of this distressing news.

Topping the list of "The 12 Days of Kitschmas" is apparently a bobble-head Jesus. Who knew?

I went to an advance screening of "The Return of the King" tonight with Jon, and just wanted to jot down a few notes. First off, don't worry, I won't have any spoilers at all, and I'm not even going to specifically talk about the movie so much as just my reaction, and some tidbits I found out tonight. Ok, of course I loved the movie, and I daresay it may be my favorite. I'd almost say perfect, except that I know the extended cut will no doubt be much better, just as the extended cuts of "Fellowship" and "Two Towers" were better than the theatrical releases. But of the three movies in their theatrical releases, this one was most likely my favorite. For me it was by far the most emotional of the three, and not just at the end when you knew it was over, but at many different parts throughout it. I weighed going to the screening tonight because I'm going to the marathon of all three movies one week from today, and was thinking it might spoil the third one to see it all by itself, but I'm glad I went. I'm glad because I know it will be even more meaningful to me next week when I see it for the second time. That's pretty much all I'll say about the movie, except that if you liked the other ones, treat yourself and go see this last one in theaters, you won't be disappointed. If you didn't like the other ones you're an asshole

Ok, after the screening tonight, three people who had pretty major roles on all three movies stayed afterwards to talk and answer some questions: Dan Hennah (the Art Director), Jim Rygiel (the Visual Effects Supervisor), and Grant Major (the Production Designer). Basically, the highlights of what they said were that there will, of course, be an extended version of "Return of the King" and that it may very well be 4 and a half hours long (they said there was at least an hour's worth of footage that was not used, and that they had seen a rough cut a while back that was that long). They also said that the extended version of "Return of the King" will definitely be released in theaters, and it sounded like they will have another marathon with all three extended versions, mainly because Peter Jackson (the Director) said he would love to be able to sit and watch all 12 hours in a row They said that Peter Jackson, who said all through the filming of these movies that he would not do a film version of "The Hobbit", seems to possibly have had a change of heart, because from what they said, he was given an offer too good to turn down. They wouldn't say that was for sure, but said "Let's put it this way: he hasn't said 'no'." Also, for "Return of the King" there were apparently a little over 1,450 special effects shots, which was (from what they told us) more than what were in both of the first two movies put together, plus a couple hundred. Also, for the full, untrimmed cut there were over 2,000 special effects shots, so that may give you an idea of what all is coming in a year or so.

Finally, I just wanted to say that these three films have arguably been my favorite movie-going experiences ever. After the screening tonight Jon and I agreed that we couldn't help but think back over seeing all these movies and that it was great to have been to them all together like that. I thought back to seeing the first one at midnight up on the IMAX screen at CityWalk (where we gave Steve-o a PS2 for Christmas ), and reading the book all during that time, and seeing the "Two Towers" screening with Jon last year in Westwood, and then going opening night at the Arclight with damn near everyone, and of course just watching the DVDs here at home. These movies have really been great fun for me, and I am unbelievably excited for the marathon one week from now. Ok, I've geeked out enough here, I'm going to bed

It's Friday already, and you know what that means: it's time for some terrible. I'm not gonna give much of a lead-in here, other than to say this week's terrible focuses around two films from the mid-90s about people embroiled in trying to get the technology for cold fusion and give it to the world. These films, of course, are "Chain Reaction" and "The Saint". In both of these movies they had some rather interesting casting choices for who would be the people to give the world cold fusion, and that is where this week's terrible comes into play, so here you go:

So at work today my phone rang. Naturally I answered it, but there was nobody there. However, the phone kept ringing even though I had the receiver off the cradle. So since the ringing was annoying I turned the ringer volume down. But that didn't work, it kept ringing at the same volume. I couldn't stop it. So since the ringing was irritating I got up and decided to go somewhere else. But see, everywhere I went, I could still hear the phone ringing, but it sounded like it was everyone else's phones that were ringing. I went to each person's desk to see if their phone was ringing cause it sounded like it. I mean, walking away from my phone didn't make the volume of the ringing decrease, but when I listened to everyone else's phones it didn't sound like it was necessarily them that was ringing, just that some phone in the general area was ringing. But as hard as I looked I couldn't find where the damn ringing was coming from and it was driving me nuts.

It was at about this time that I woke up and turned my fucking alarm clock off and got ready for work.

This weekend I went to my first LAN party. That combined with going to the LOTR Marathon tomorrow will probably qualify this week as my geekiest ever, but I digress. Last week I was given an invitation to join a bunch of other people from work for a "Halo-fest" where we were to gather at the house of two of my co-workers (they're married and thus live in the same house, so as not to confuse people by thinking we went to two separate houses or something) and all play the game Halo against each other on a couple of X-Boxes. Now I had never played Halo before, and in fact had never played anything on the X-Box before, so I was most assuredly the newcomer to the group. I'm not even very experienced at first-person shooters with my experience being mostly (or almost entirely) limited to playing Goldeneye with co-workers years ago when I worked the graveyard shift at Good Guys. So I was definitely shaky at the start, but I felt by the end of our gaming (about 5 hours later) I was getting the hang of it and doing ok. We played mainly 'capture the flag' with two teams of 3 (James, Josh and myself on one team, and Jenn, Steven and Matt on the other team). Our setup was each team had its own room and its own TV and X-Box, and we basically yelled back and forth at each other from time to time when we killed someone or were killed. All in all it was a lot of fun and I hope we do it again sometime. Thanks to James and Jenn for providing the house, one of the TVs and one of the X-Boxes, and thanks to Steven for providing the other TV and the other X-Box

Today I'm off to go see the Lord of the Rings Marathon, and I couldn't be more excited. I'm sure I'll have lots to say later on, but I wanted to impart a little preamble first about who all is going and who is not going. Initially I bought my tickets with Koga for a whole bunch of people, but after seeing what they were going for on Ebay, Koga sold his two for $565, rather than go to the trilogy. Koga, however, seems to have caught a lucky break, because Jon (who was scheduled to go) just got selected for jury duty which will last through January 9th, so he is now unable to attend (luckily he has seen "Return of the King" already when he went with me last Monday). At work, Steven had spoken at length about how he badly wished he had procured tickets for the marathon when I initially asked him if he wanted some, and now this appeared to be his chance to go. However, when I asked him, he became a "puss puss" (as Matt would say) and decided he probably shouldn't go. So this left Koga, since he had his chance and sold it, sitting in the fabled catbird seat. So now while the rest of us simply paid our $40 per ticket to go, Koga is in effect getting paid about $450 to go (lucky bastard). Since he got all that cash, I thought I would impart a humorous little tale about Mr. Nuts (that's Koga, to you laypeople) concerning this whole affair.

It turns out that in an effort to sell his tickets on Ebay (you can view the completed auction here) Koga made one mistake and he fibbed just a little bit. The mistake he made was that he bought 3 tickets (two for himself and one for his friend Loren) and sold two of them, but he sold the wrong two tickets. See, when we got tickets for our group of 10 or so, we just got them all together taking up almost an entire row. Since Koga wasn't going, he got the three seats on the end of the row, but he ended up keeping the one on the very end of the row (not connected to the rest of us) and sold the other two. Since he wasn't going to go and none of us really know his friend Loren very well it wouldn't have mattered too much. However, now Koga is going and will have to explain to Loren why he's sitting all alone on the end. But Koga doesn't want to do that and instead said he plans to ask the two people to move over one seat further from the center of the theater. Now for the small lie Koga told on his auction. See, he decided to provide a reason for selling his tickets and he couldn't very well say "I want to go, but since you people are willing to pay through the nose I couldn't resist selling them" so instead this is what he said:

"For what it's worth, I bought tickets at the Arclight for some friends of mine when they went on-sale on Thursday, October 9th, but two of them have bailed out on me (go figure!). But screw 'em, their loss is your gain!"

So as you can imagine this is no doubt going to be an interesting situation for Koga today. He's going to have to confront the people who paid almost $600 for his tickets, and he's going to have a hard time convincing them his friends bailed on him when he shows up with about 8 other people. On top of that he's going to ask these people who paid all that money if they wouldn't mind moving over an extra seat so his friend can sit with him. That might be more entertaining than the marathon itself

Anyway, it should be a great time today, or at the very least I'll find out for sure if I'm totally insane for wanting to sit in a movie theater for 12 hours. I'll see you on the other side I guess

I'll make it quick, cause how much can you really say about going to the movies all day? It just ended a while ago and I just got home. It started at 1:30 yesterday afternoon(actually maybe 20 minutes after that because they waited for everyone to get in), and it finished at 1:30 this morning. There were breaks of maybe 25-30 minutes in between the movies (longer if you didn't sit through the credits, which I didn't until the end of the last one I sat through about half of them). We all got these badges with lanyards to get in and out, they had some annoying kid from the Jimmy Kimmel Show running around with a camera crew (he also made a wholly forgettable speech before "Two Towers"), and the guy that was in the Sauron suit for the movie spoke briefly before "Return of the King". Afterwards we got a little trinket for being crazy enough to sit through all that: a little metal picture frame with actual film cells from each of the three movies. We also got free parking validation for the whole day.

I will say that I'm not worn out, my ass is not sore from sitting there all day, I didn't find myself getting bored or tired or anything like that, and I never even had the slightest urge to get up and go to the bathroom during the movies (although I went before each one even if I didn't have to ). I will simply say this: in my opinion, that is the best way to watch those movies. Maybe not in the theater if you're not up for that kind of an endurance test, but those movies are really meant to be watched back to back to back. It's probably because, unlike most (or any) other multi-episodic movies, these were all made at the same time and are all part of one story. Sure they can entertain just by watching one all by itself, but really it's best to watch a movie beginning, middle and end, even if it takes three movies to accomplish that. Anyway, that's just how I see it. However, because of that, I don't know how often I'm going to watch these movies because I do think I'll probably want to watch them all in a row from now on. I dunno, I'm probably babbling cause I'm all hyper from sitting still all day. I'm gonna go to bed cause I gotta get up for work in a few hours. Night-night.

Heard over the intercom at work a little while ago: "Everyone to the conference room for tequila shots." Cut to about a half hour later and I feel like I'm maybe the only sober one at work Cookie just came up to me and asked for a ride to our company Xmas party because he said he's now so drunk he's beginning to wonder if he'll be able to make it into work tomorrow. On top of that he got Matt wrecked as well. It's quite a scene and I'm off to the party, but I had to blog this

As I mentioned last week, the whole two item format for "What's More Terrible" is a thing of the past, and I am now doing my own brand-new (or "new and improved" if you prefer) version of "What's More Terrible". See, a little background on this, for those who are wondering what the hell this "What's More Terrible" shit is anyway: it all started when in my early days with my current company I frequently would give a flat negative review for a movie by saying it was simply "terrible" and unbeknownst to me this was clearly one of my most often used words because John and Matt (and maybe others, but those two mainly from what I understand) began to use "terrible" as a sort of nickname and/or word to good-naturedly rib me for overusing it. That combined with my penchant to ask many questions, most often about movies, in which I only give bad choices and ask someone to choose what the worst thing is (or sometimes the best thing, but usually the worst), spawned a new way for these guys and Kelly to rib me: they came up with the mock-game "What's More Terrible" in which one of them would hold up two random things and ask Kelly which was more terrible. Kelly got very into it (not as into it as she is into Squares, but still pretty into it) and always would pick one of the two and have a real reason for why she picked one of the two things as the more terrible. Now keep in mind, they could be holding up two balls of lint to her, or crumpled pieces of paper or something, and she would still have an answer and a reason to back it up. Well since my whole "terrible" thing kinda spawned this, I got pulled into this, and soon I was the guy designated to ask between two things which was the most terrible. So that spawned this online version that I've been doing for the last couple weeks or months or whatever it is, but I've found it limiting in that I don't want to ask something that is too obvious (cause where's the fun in that) and that I don't want to ask something that is too obscure (cause then most people won't know what I'm talking about). So I've decided to "get back to my roots" as it were and am now going to have a more open, free-flowing format to my "What's More Terrible" questions every week. The beauty is that for me I can ask pretty much anything I want and not have to worry about maintaining the same structure. Ok, that was fucking long-winded as hell, so enough beating around the bush, here is this week's question:

What's the most terrible thing Peter Berg has done in his film career:

A.) - Act in the movie Shocker
B.) - Act in the movie The Great White Hype
C.) - Act in the movie Aspen Extreme
D.) - Write & direct the movie Very Bad Things
E.) - Other (write-in your own)

For those who aren't familiar with who Peter Berg is, here is a picture:

Click to Enlarge

Man, I am so close to my Xmas vacation I can almost taste it! I've got work tomorrow, then a half-day Wednesday and then I won't be back to work till January 12th During the second week of January (from the 6th through the 10th) I'm gonna be in Texas visiting my Mom, my sister Johnetta, and a bunch of my relatives. I haven't been to Texas to see all them in a little over two years, and since I was there last my Mom opened a coffee shop/restaurant/bistro thing which I am anxious to check out. It occurred to me that I very well may not be able to blog at all while I am out there, so you people who read this (all 2 of you) will maybe have to somehow make do without ye olde blog here for a couple days. How will you ever survive?

Speaking of not blogging, I haven't blogged much the last couple days, so here's a quick recap: After the big Xmas party for work on Thursday, everyone showed up to work on Friday (most people were probably hung over, I'm sure). Friday we had our Secret Santa gift exchange, and we got our company presents. Friday night I didn't do anything, just relaxed and watched "Manhunter". I hadn't seen "Manhunter" in a few years and seeing it again I was really impressed with how good it is and how well it stands up. Some people might think I'm nuts, but I actually like it better than "Silence of the Lambs" (which as many people don't know was the sequel to "Manhunter"). Anyway, after watching the movie I naturally checked to see if the soundtrack is available, which of course it isn't (it was never released on CD). There's bootleg copies I've seen on Ebay, but I'm not gonna get into some bidding war over that. I really loved the song that plays while Francis Dollarhyde and Reba McClane are laying in bed together (when Reba covers Francis' mouth), so I looked around and found the group that made that song was named Shriekback. Since 4 of the songs off the soundtrack are by Shriekback, and 3 of them were on the album "Oil & Gold" (including the one I was looking for), I decided 'what the hell' and ordered it off Amazon for about six dollars. Hopefully it won't blow.

Saturday I went to see my friend Chris' band play (they're known as the Nick Luca Trio) at Zen Sushi with Dave and Jen. Chris and the rest of the band live in Tucson, Az. so it was nice to see Chris, as it always is. We didn't get to hang out with him for too long though, but it was a fun time anyway. You can check out Dave's in-depth review of the show if you want to.

Sunday I slept in and then went to my Dad's house for a fish dinner. My Dad cooked up some salmon and halibut he caught in Alaska last summer (and which had been flash-frozen, so don't think it had gone bad or anything like that). As always it was a delicious meal over there. It was nice to see my Dad and Rebecca (my youngest sister), and it was just a good, peaceful evening. I'll be seeing them again on Wednesday night and Thursday, of course.

Anyway, today was a pretty mellow day at work as we don't have a whole lot going on right now as we're all getting ready for our big Xmas break. Not much to report there, so on that note I'm gonna end this entry.

Since it was a pretty uneventful day, I'm gonna rail on my team, the Lakers, for the duration of this entry. Since December 4th, when the Lakers destroyed the Dallas Mavericks in Dallas, threatening to make a mockery out of the competitiveness of the NBA this year by being clearly a head and shoulders above anyone else, the Lakers have spiralled downwards and are now in a complete slump. Since that Dallas game here is what happened to them in chronological order:

-They gave up a 21 point lead at home to the Utah Jazz, but still managed to win by 2 points.

-They stayed pretty even with the Knicks (arguably the league's worst team) at home when the Knicks were missing their only decent player (Allan Houston) and ended up winning by 8.

-They lost at home to Dallas by 17 points after not losing a game to the Mavericks in LA in exactly 13 years, and after not losing a game at home since February.

-They lost the next night in Portland to the Trail Blazers, who have only won one other game since December 7th till now (the other win they had was over Phoenix, who has the worst record in the entire Western Conference).

-They lost all of a 19 point lead against the Denver Nuggets at home before winning on a last second shot by Kobe Bryant to win by 2 points.

-They lost Karl Malone for a period of somewhere between a week and 2 months to a sprained knee ligament in the first 7 minutes against the Phoenix Suns.

-They blew all but 3 points of an 18 point lead at home against the aforementioned Phoenix Suns (once again, with the worst record in the Western Conference), before winning in the last minute by 6.

-They lost tonight to the Golden State Warriors 107-98 in San Francisco after trailing by as many as 21 points.

Oh yeah, in that time the Spurs and Queens have amassed as many wins as the Lakers and LA no longer has sole possession of the best record in the league.

I would have also pointed out the good things that have happened in the last 3 weeks, but unfortunately there weren't any. LA needs to get back on track and quick. They have completely squandered their strong start and are now looking lazy and bored. Not exactly two characteristics of a championship team (if that's what they supposedly are going to be this year). What a disappointing month for us Laker fans

It's nothing but holiday cheer here at Wild Yams. I got off work today at about 1, and I won't be back there till January 12th. When I first started with my current company, I took a 3 day vacation before Thanksgiving, which ended up giving me 9 days off in a row, and that was about 2 months after I started, but that is the longest I've ever been away from work. That was over two years ago, and since then the longest I have had between two days of work was when I had my wisdom teeth out last year, a total of 6 days off. This is going to be a real treat for me as I will have 18 days away from work. I didn't even have that much time off when I switched from my last job to my current one! I expect to be keeping vampire hours soon enough (probably starting tonight, since I don't have to do anything tomorrow till about 3 pm). I will be going to Texas to visit some of my family on January 6th for a few days, but until then my list of responsibilities and obligations is mighty thin. Really I couldn't have hardly asked for anything better for myself. So in honor of Kuros leaving this week (after 2 and a half years with the company) to work at a new (and probably better) job, here is a good "Die Hard" quote for you:

It's Christmas, Theo, it's the time of miracles. So be of good cheer and call me when you hit the last lock.

Twas the day after Xmas and... oh fuck it, whatever. Xmas eve and yesterday I went to my Dad's house for various meals and holiday cheer-type activities. The best part was seeing my family, of course. Today I slept in, then had lunch with Jen and dropped my car off to get some tuneup-type stuff done to it (Steve-o would be so proud). I was supposed to do a terrible thing today, but it's vacation and I forgot. How about this: what's the most terrible holiday movie out there? There, that's all you get. If you don't like it, go console yourself by pouring over all your new Xmas presents

One of my friends at work, Josh G. (or as he likes to call himself, J-Krue ), sent me some hilarious photos he took while in Vegas this past week, and I found them rather appropriate so I felt I had to post them. Enjoy :-)

My Dad doesn't read this, but I wanted to wish him a Happy 60th Birthday today. Naturally I wished him that in person as well when I went over to his place for dinner this afternoon/night, but I wanted to do it here as well. My Dad is frequently told (or so he says) that he looks like he's turning 50, and to his credit he does seem to be in remarkably good health for someone his age. Hell, most of his hair is still its natural color (not to mention he does have it all), and he really seems to be in tip-top shape, even to where it wouldn't surprise me if he could go out and run 10 miles or so without too much trouble. He's always been a big health nut/exercise guy, which of course makes him pretty much the opposite of me there , but I have to respect the condition he's kept himself in.

Anyway, tonight was a nice quiet celebration, just the way he wanted it (he says he'll have a bigger celebration nearer to his wife's 60th birthday which is in about 6 months or so, so tonight was real toned-down). He and my stepmom went out with my sister and I to dinner in Old Town Pasadena at one of my Dad's favorite Italian restaurants. My problem with real "upscale" Italian restaurants like the one we went to is that in reading the menu, even though for the most part it's in English, I still don't have a full idea what to expect with whatever I order. I mean, I'll see lasagna or something and know what that is, and look at what's in it and know what most of that is, but it will list a few things that have me (and usually everyone else) wondering what they are. I'll look at something and say "It sounds great, but what is Porcini Oil or Pecorino or Pancetta or Polenta (or something else that starts with "P" )?" So I ended up going for Gnocchi, cause, surprisingly, I've had it before and hence knew what it was, and because the ingredients listed were simply "served in lamb sauce." I've had better Gnocchi before, but it was pretty good. Afterwards my Dad opened presents and then we went back to his place and called it a night cause he has work in the morning (poor guy, I still have two weeks off ). So anyway, Happy Birthday Dad!

PS - Paola will probably have an aneurism reading my uncouth description of Italian food, but I'm a boorish American, what did you expect?

"Return of the King" is evidently going to be the biggest grossing film released in 2003, surpassing "Finding Nemo", which has been at the top of the mountain since this summer. "Return of the King" has grossed about as much in 2 weeks as "Nemo" did in it's first 4 weeks. "Return of the King" is also about to pass $500 million for worldwide gross in its first two weeks, which means it may have a legitimate shot to break "Titanic's" record. It may have a good shot at "Titanic's" domestic record of over $600 million considering there are not a whole lot of movies that are coming out, or that are already out, that appear able to provide much competition. Speaking of those movies, it looks like John Woo has his second straight bomb on his hands with "Paycheck" debuting at #5 this weekend, following Woo's last awful movie "Windtalkers" (which lost around $100 million). Also of note, Ben Affleck must really be worried about whether his 15 minutes of fame are up, considering "Paycheck" had such a poor opening following the legendary failure that was "Gigli" this summer. Bad news for Affleck, he has "Jersey Girl" coming up next, another movie that pairs him with Jennifer Lopez (although the studio is downplaying that as much as possible, go figure ).