Mattlog

A Few of My Favorite Things

I got nothing. Life's been slow around these parts.

I guess I could mention that Aj's getting married at the end of August. He also has an interesting pic on his site you should swing over and check out.

Er.... I love the movie Stripes. It rules. Haven't seen it in a good ten years probably and was still quoting the hell out of it. And Bill Murray, man. Just a funny funny man. Harold Ramis is probably underrated as a second banana.

And here's a hot pic of Christina. Newly red haired and good footwear. Ah hell here's two. I thought I'd have passed this phase by now, but uh... with hair changed the obsession grows ever deeper.

Course, maybe I just need a real girlfriend. :)

ORRRR, you could click here to see a real obsession.

Odd

I was going through my DVD collection.... which I had reported to you had hit an amazing 100 in only 5 years... guess that's not that impressive... anyway I hit the magic number. And as I sit looking at them the first 50 are only letters A (starting with the Abyss) through H (ending in the Double disk Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.) How is it that more of my DVD's exist between the first 8 letters of the alaphabet. 2/3 of the Alphabet are the 50% of my DVD collection.

I've started thinking that perhaps I start looking early in the shelves and find the DVD's I want and never get past H.

Even wierder I have 7 DVD's starting in A. The Abyss, Adaptation, Almost Famous, All of Me, Animal House, American Beauty, American Movie. I have 8 in the B's. and 7 in the G's. Which include the Godfather set.

Well, *I* think it's an odd phenomenon. I think I'm going to start looking backwards through the stacks. Just to try and even the score.

I'm sorry to have wasted your time. Go here to make up for it.

Matt

Highs and Baseball Lows

I've been completely avoiding the subject of baseball for a while. Any of you regulars know why.

But tonight, I was treated, again, to a AA game at the Dell Diamond. The Round Rock Express were playing the Arkansas Travelers. And tonight, we were in the Miller Lite box. Free beer, free dogs, free game. You can't beat it.

The Express started slow tonight but by the 5 inning they scored four points off two homeruns and they had 5 hits in the inning. I know this cause I kept my score card like any good baseball afficionado. There were only two K's given tonight by the express one swinging and one looking. But the defense took care of the rest. Express won 7-1.

Which brings us to the Cubs. All this great starting pitching, nothing in the bullben to help them out. But did you know the Cubs lead not only the leaguye but the entire MLB in losses by one. We've lost more teams by one point than any other team in the entirety of baseball. Matt Clement with an ERA of only .298 has the most losses of any player on the team.

He's basically letting three people score in a game and he's losing!

*grumble * I hate to do this but I must also give PROPS to the Cardinals. Two pick-ups people thought were silly in Marquis and Suppan turned out to be super. They're pitching better than Morris and Williams. Yes, and Pujols and Renteria and *grumble* Edmonds are all doing fine at the plate.

The Cubs just don't have the offense in them right now to pull of a win in the post-season. They better turn it around. That's all I have to say.

Course around here they're calling Houstan the Dis- Astros.... At least we don't have a clever name like that.

Matt

So here's a look at the Dell Diamond.

There May Be Giants

Well, the other night, completely by accident I managed to see They Might Be Giants for the fourth time in concert tonight.

They had two opening bands. The first of which was really good. They opened their set with a cover of the Giants' own Hey, Mr Dj. The rest of their set was mostly original and did a fine job of getting the crowd revved.

It was in an outdoor venue so the heat and beer were not a good combination on my part so I quickly switched to water at $2.00 a pop. Luckily it was cheaper than the beer. :)

The second opening act, sucked. One guy and his accordian with songs that could have been good, but weren't. That's all the effort I'm putting into that one.

So finally the Giants entered. The two John's in all their glory. They opened with 2 the first two tracks of their new albumn which I hadn't heard, but enjoyed. They then sang a few we love, like Dr. Worm and Birdhouse in Your Soul.

And the show rocked. Flans on guitar, Linell on accordian and Keyboards. The one other guitar, a bass, and drums. And their song dedicated to Stubbs, the bar. They also played one of their songs, I've always liked but no one ever mentions called Twistin'. And it's a great concert song for the crowd to dance to. I don't think I've ever heard them play it live before.

We saw boobs. Some girl standing near was showing off her "fake ones" lifted her shirt and showed her friends. We were standing near.

All in all, a great show as always but I think by the end I was suffering a bit from heat exhaustion. Beer, a bad idea. :)

If the chance ever arises go see the Giants. I don't often spend money on concerts, but I always know the Giants will give me my moneys worth.

Matt

And now... a moment of zen... this one really cracks me up. Tiger hand rules!

Oh and P.S. I foolishly left out of my previous 100th entry that I also purchased my 100th DVD which happened to be Mallrats. Don't know why it took me so long but, by god, I got it. Now all I have to do is wait for Sept. 21 when Amazon sends me Star Wars on DVD. It's 40% off there you know.... plus Jeff sent me an extra 10% off that. Can't beat that deal.

100!

My 100th entry...

Well we've seen alot. My tranisition to all things Austin, some trips...

And now here we are 100 entries and 8 months later. Wow. Where has the time gone.

I've been busy this week. Last Satuday Jaff and I zoomed out to a field to see the World Premiere of Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle. Part of the beauty that is the Alamo Draft house is it's rolling roadshows. And to this show they with New Line brought all the way from Columbus, Ohio a White Castle grill and steamer. And proceeded to make from 5 pm until about 10 5,200 White Castle burgers.

No I know most of you reading this have no idea what the hell a White Castle burger is. Well, the most famous of the burgers are the sliders. These come about 3 inches squared. Your usually order at least 6. And the burgers are grey with a tint of brown in them and these little flakes that used to oinions on top of them.

I've only once had White Castle in my life and can't remember liking them much. So this was a fine way to reintroduce myself to White Castle. Six free sliders in my bag. Two regular four with cheese. And the cheese were the best. Actually tasted good. Now, I don't have quite the love for these little burgers as people in the north seem to... and Jeff, but they were good enough that drunk on a Saturday night I could find myself punding 8-10 of. <- Sorry about ending in that preposition there.

Anyway, so onto the film which was really quite funny. In the same style of Old School, Harold and Kumar are high, and craving White Castle burgers. but the nearest one is way out of town... and the high jinx begin.

I laughed alot, especially with the great appearance of Neil Patrick Harris playing himself. "Lap dance."

After the screening the director, writers and actors were there for some Q & A and were quite amusing. Especially in their announcement of the sequel entitled "Harold and Kumar go to Amseterdam." You can only imagine.

Matt

And now.... you moment of Zen.

Neil Patrick Harris, before Rent, before Caberet, before Harold and Kumar.

A Week

Long week. I clocked out today form work with 39.10 hours since Monday. I worked my AZZZ off. THree doubles.... All Kitchen shifts. Our broiler went on Vacation. So you know what that means. Call int he guy who sucks at broiler. When I went down (which was inevitable) I just shouted "I'm a server what do you want from me!?"

PLus most the other cooks are Mexican and i don't speak Espanol very well. Except for papas which is potatoes, ban for break and Aye Carumba for "Holy shit I'm going down."

I also picked up some wierd allergy. So I've been sick all week on top of it all.

One bright spot this week I saw Simon and Garfunkel- The Old Friends tour. It was pretty great. Always seemed to like them, my dad had the soundtrack to The Graduate ON VINYL. Art, as you may know, doesn't actually play any instruments. So a slight fear filled me that we may be in a giant arena listening to two guys and on guy play a guitar. I mean, you're in a small bar folk music is perfect. In an arena, I was worried about swuinting feeling closed off to the music. But they brought qa back up band with them. And on all the songs you're looking forward to jamming on... were jammed. Mrs. Robinson ruled, Cecilia rocked, And the final song of the evening (in their second encore, was Feeling Groovy. They just let loose and you could tell they were having a great time and so was the crowd.

A very diverse crowd. Young and old. Old people. Young people. Old hippies. Young hippies. They were very responsive.

I suppose I should also mention that when I didn't have to squint to hear the accoustic stuff. They giant screens above the stage that really allowed the intimate moments for Sound of Silence and Bridge Over Troubled Water

Art started off a little off, but two songs later was in perfect voice and you never worried about him again. Simon on the other hand just ruled. Perfect voice, great guitar, just great work.

And in a funny moment, Art steps to the mike and talks about their first meeting in 6th grade during the rehearsing of Alice in Wonderland. and how this year is celebrating 50 years of friendship. Simon made his way to the mike and mentioned that he did the show only because he had just come off a tough 5th grade production of Death of a Salesman and this show sounded light, so why not. In 8th grade the two had their first fight and Simon mentioned they were celebrating 48 years of fighting. They're too exhausted, he said, to keep it up.

Great show... if they come near you I highly recommend it... even if I did destroy all the chatter for you. :)

And too make up for all the no posting... A movie, with pics from my Vega$ trip the trip to Springtown. Click here ( or Save Target as....) to see it.

Matt

Spiderman 2

I just arrived back from my screening of Spidey 2. I went and saw this with Jeff and couple of other guys... all movie buffs. And we walked out... all of us avid, AVID movie buffs that this movie ranks in the top 10 of all time.

It's just great. I can't wait to see it again.

What this movie does for action films is something to take note of. You remember when Die Hard came out. And we're invested in the story of NY cop who gets stuck in a terrorist situation and has to save his wife despite being estranged and from there on every movie tried to be Die Hard in a (whatever.) Well I hope everyone's taking notes. Because the emotional depth this movie reaches is amazing. I want to give nothing away but there's probably three scenes in the movie that make you tear jerk.

But let's not overlook the FX in this film. Cause they're there. In spades. Doc Oc was one of my favorite Spidey villians since the Saturday morning cartoons. A real villian. And what Alfred Molina has done in this pic to this great character is spectacular. Almost (dare I say it) outshines Willem Dafoe in the original. But what FX allow him to do with his massive arms is amazing. Clearly one of the best villians of all time.

And all this due to Sam Raimi. This guy has been a Spidey lover for years and truly understands the character. What Spidey goes through in this film is almost hard to watch because ... well, I've been there. Everyone has been through the tough shit that Peter Parker has to deal with like rent and girls and figuring out one's place int he world. And this is what Spidey has always been about it. It's as if every film he's done before has lead to this trilogy. Darkman, Evil Dead, Army of Darkness, The Gift, and A Simple Plan. EVerything in these films almost feeds this film as some kind of undercurrent. Raimi's a director who actually learns as he goes. It almost makes you wonder if Lucas shouldn't learn something about honing one's craft. (Can't believe I said that.) I mean, Raimi actually uses the FX to tell a story including some central themes of the film, where, as I keep pointing out, the droid factory scene in Ep II almost seems a showcase piece.

Fear not, true believers, this film will knock your socks off.

Matt