Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

Lucky for me this is the first one, because if were later on in the night, I'm not gonna lie, I think I would pass out. Not because of Jake Lloyd of course.....

12:01 - Okay the movie hasn't started yet, this sucks. I am watching a trailer for King Kong, which is to be on in the near future I guess. Its not Kinky Kong of course (see other blogsite)

12:02 - Ahhh finally its starting. Do I clap when I see the scroll? umm no, that would be lame

12:06 - The first time someone (obi-wan) says they have a bad feeling about this....this maybe an ongoing theme

12:10 - The first appearance by Natalie. The makeup hides her....I am not a big fan of her in this movie cause of the weird-arse outfits.

12:14 - The first appearance by Jar Jar Binks....and my anger level rises. Seriously, why does he have to talk?


12:28 - Yes! Ric Olie is flying the Queen's starship. Ric Olie is one of my favorite characters because when the Episode 1 toys were released, some guy loaded up on all Ric Olie figures, claiming that they were rare and people would be searching all over for them. Needless to say he was a little off on his prediction, as in a week or so they were pretty much everywhere and stayed that way for about a year. Everytime me and Mac talk about toys, we always laugh at the Rick Olie guy. I wonder what he did with them all.

12:34 - Yes its Anakin! Oh Jake Lloyd you charm us so in this movie! Also we get to see Wattostein.....err Watto....the stein is just a little stereotyping. I mean not that Lucas does this throughout the movie....the asian trade federation, the african american gungans...you get the point

12:46 - "Mom you always say the biggest problem in the universe is that no one helps each other" - Thank you Anakin! That's the worst line in any movie...ever! True story!


1:01 - The pod race begins. I have always felt that this scene was unnecessarily long...with it being 1 in the morning I now KNOW this is unnecessarily long. Do we really need to see all 3 laps? Yes I get it George Lucas, you can do everything better graphically than any other director, but seriously 1 lap and then the finish would be fine. Why are you wasting my time!!!?!!

1:12 - One word....poodoo

1:19 - Finally get to the first real lightsaber duel. I could never figure out why Darth Maul fights with a cloak on in the desert? Seriously now, isn't he hot? He could have won that battle easily.

1:27 - Yoda makes an appearance. In the new movies this is my favorite Yoda because its the same puppet used in Episodes V and VI. CGI Yoda is cool, but doesn't feel the same.

1:41 - Here is something that has always bothered me about this movie...Boss Nass. Now I get that he is the leader of the Gungans, but my problem is that he doesn't look like all the other Gungans. How are him and Jar Jar of the same Gungan race? I would compare it to the apartheid in South Africa. You had people running the country who were the minority in regards to population. I think the same holds true in Naboo...or am I being to extreme? (Hey I made an awesome rhyme there!)

1:51 - Jar Jar just did his William Wallace impersonation "Steady....Steady"

1:53 - The doors open to reveal Darth Maul, this time he has learned and takes off his robe before the duel even begins. Yes Duel of the Fates has also began to play. Its cool with the symphony and all, but nothing compares to the Brad/Mac harmonic rendition. If you have never heard it, you are missing out and you should always request it, when in the company of both of us.

1:57 - Queen Amidala and her crew just pulled a Batman and shot a hook arrow to get them to the higher floor. I only mention it as a Batman move, cause that's how Peter described it and laughed at when I took him to see it in the theater.

2:00 - I am feeling tired, I think for Episode II I will work on folding clothes and cleaning my room to help stay awake. Perhaps I will use my 1 red bull as well.

2:01 - The trade federation isn't that smart if they left doors to fly in and attack from the inside wide open. Anakin isn't some genius by any stretch of the means, he saw an open door and glided in there....it's not rocket science here. Stupid fighter pilots.

2:02 - Qui Gon Jim just tasted hot lightsaber. Still don't know how a Jedi Master lost to a lowly apprentice. This isn't like any give Sunday, more powerful should mean better lightsaber skills. Have I mentioned how cool the "Force Push" move is? You don't even have to touch someone to push them away, totally awesome.

2:09 - After the battle, all the Jedi council comes to Naboo to congratulate the victors. If you look carefully though you will see that the Mace Windu member is not Samuel L. Jackson, but some other random guy. I guess he was busy that day or something. I know you are probably saying, but Brad it could be another random guy on the council. Wrong! I have seen the whole council, and Mace is the only black male, so I guess Lucas just through in some guy, thinking "hey the public is dumb, they won't notice." Guess what, I have no life and noticed

2:11 - I don't like how after Mace and Yoda discuss the apprentice/master they pan into Palpatine. That just makes it to obvious, give some sort of element of surprise here. We may all know, but don't just come out and say it.

2:12 - Yes the people and reptiles of Naboo share the big glowing ball thingy! All is right for now!



That wasn't nearly as bad as I figured it would be. I guess not having seen TPM for a couple of years helps as well. I guess its break time...Be back with Episode II: Attack of the Clones in a bit.

And so it begins....

The time is now 11:54. The star wars marathon will begin in 6 minutes. I will be doing live updated journals after each episode. So in theory I should have 6 blogs by 2 pm tomorrow. Who's excited!!! Yea, not so much anyone but me. Anyway wish me luck!

Thanks for the memories

Thanks for deciding to opt out of your contract. To say that I won't miss your lame strike out swing, the constant fear of you getting hurt, and of course your awesome personality is and understatement. Nothing is going to give me a bigger smile than not seeing you in the lineup or the dl. I hope your agent gets you the deal you really want, and I look forward to you coming back to Dodger Stadium next year. So long and good night.

I am tired

*Sigh*

What to do, what to do?

I hate hard decisions, especially when I have to make them.

Oh well, what can you do right?

I am currently watching the two "elite" big east football teams, Louisville and Rutgers. Needless to say I am being extremely sarcastic and if either of these two teams make it to the championship game something is really really wrong with the BCS....oh wait something is wrong with the BCS.

Lets look at every college athletic program for men and women's sports. How many do not have a playoff system....

1!!! - college football!! What is wrong here?

Just when you think you're out........

they pull you back in again!



I guess I sorta feel like Michael Corleone right now. I was all ready to say goodbye to lost. The show had pretty much annoyed me for the first six episodes this year, to the point where I no longer felt it was a necessity to watch. I told myself that if today's episode wasn't good enough I would be okay with walking away from it and not returning when it came back in February.

So I turned on the episode and I have to say it was easily my favorite episode this season. It left off at a point where I just want to know what's gonna happen next. Stupid networks and their stupid cliffhangers that keep you coming back. Dang you ABC, dang you!!!

So if you watched, what's gonna happen next?

Animated MTV show not named Beavis and Butthead

I'm not sure how many of you still watch MTV, or have watched it in the past 2 years or so. A while ago they put this show on called 3-south. It revolved around Barder College, which is apparently the worst college in America, who accepts anyone who is breathing. Trust me when I say anyone too. The show basically centers around roommates Joe, Sanford and Del. Sanford and Del may have an IQ around 20 each. They manage to just barely squeak by in their classes, annoy Joe and hang out with their equally brain dead friend Ed, drink, and disrupt the school. Its not extremely funny or anything like that, but for some reason I laugh at random parts. Its worth checking out, although I'm gonna tell you right now that its not for everyone.



In other news, I am on some sort of incredible bowling streak. Here are my last 6 games: 219, 201, 243, 213, 231, 224. Not sure what I'm doing differently but its awesome! (Its not steroids, so don't even suggest it)

Fantasy Champion

Standings Member List
Rank Team Points
1. tiger uppercut (Brad) 5,856
2. ILoveGolf ItJustDoesn'tLoveMe (Wally) 5,854
3. thainigger (Joe) 4,234
4. Zot Zot Zot (Jason) 2,355
5. LeeCarvallo'sPuttingChallenge (Paul) 2,303
6. ooooohhh wie!!!!!!! (John) 1,370

What you are looking at right now are the final standings for my fantasy golf league. Sure many of you probably play fantasy football, or fantasy baseball, etc, but it takes a true sports genius like myself to completely dominate all sports, no matter how lame they maybe. First of all I would like to thank Wally for continuing to motivate me to win (by being the only one to change his lineup every week), as I hate losing at anything. Secondly I would like to thank Mac for not playing this year as he easily won last year's title and thus had less of a life than I did. Lastly I would like to thank the PGA tour. Who else has a fantasy league that last 10 months of the year? Well maybe fantasy cricket....hmm now there's an idea!!

**stay tuned as in 2 weeks you should be reading about my dominance of fantasy nascar. You think I'm kidding, don't you?

Bowling Leagues and Football Games

Having plenty of free time, Christe, John and I have joined a bowling league in Montebello. I have to say that I was really feeling these lanes. My scores for the series: 201, 243, 213. I had a nice streak in-between games 2 and 3 where I had 13 strikes out of 14 frames. I think we won all 3 games that we played. Great start fellow Panda Strike team members!



Big props to Broncos for finally getting over one of the hurdles from the past couple of seasons today by defeating the Pittsburgh Steelers. It’s a step in the right direction, as was going toe-to-toe with the Colts last week. Sure they didn't beat them, but they took them to the end of the game, so that's somewhat of a moral victory....I guess. Anyway they are now 6-2 and tied for 2nd in the AFC. They hold the tiebreak advantages over both the Patriots and the Ravens, which could come in handy later on. In the meantime, just keep winning, which in turn keeps me from throwing things. Go Broncos!

Addicted

Taking a cue from the "rhymes with gin" website, I will now discuss a current food/drink related obsession.



For some reason lately I have been drinking a lot of grape juice. Preferably, Welch's brand, cause it’s darker and better than others, such as Juicy Juice. I've found that its strangely compatible with pretty much whatever it is that I'm eating. I had a chicken dinner, drank grape juice. Had a turkey sandwich and found that grape juice worked with that as well. Now I just had some chocolate ice cream and yet again, grape juice is a strange match, go figure. So far my only theory on this has something to do with it being the Lord's blood shed for me, but I think that may get me in some trouble. So instead I’ll just call it a mini-miracle.

Interviews

As my current position is slowly coming to an end, I had the opportunity to interview for a position over at the Health Care Agency this morning. Having not gone on a job interview in almost three years I can honestly say that I don't miss doing them at all. Not sure how the interviewers thought I did. I was under the impression that this was going to be an informal getting to know what the job entails meeting, but instead it was a full blown interview. I wasn't completely prepared for it, but nevertheless I'm quick enough to know how to speak well enough not to look like a complete idiot....well I hope I am. I'm still not sure if this is the job that was meant for me, I don't know. Maybe its partly because I don't want to leave what I'm doing now, perhaps its because I'm not sure what I do like to do. Maybe it’s even that I'm always waiting for something else. Maybe it's just that I like to complain, who knows? Anyway, they are expecting a writing sample, so I guess I'll be working on that this weekend.

Day 2

Hmm, back to back posts, this is odd.

I went to the kings game last night, had awesome suite tickets from the lovely people at Ticketmaster. I will never speak ill of them again, or at least not until they charge some ridiculous price for "service fees". I will say that the Penguins looked very good and that Evgeni Malkin guy is not too bad....well that’s what I consider someone who scores 7 goals in his first 6 games, but hey that might just be me. I can say that when I played NHL 98 and 99 there was this one player who scored at least 3 points per game and led the league in penalty minutes...that guy was Bradley Hutchins a vicious Right Winger (zing!) from the Red Wings. He once paired up with Peter Leung of the Might Ducks of Anaheim in an all-star game. Needless to say the East all-stars had no shot.

Why is it only Thursday? It feels like a Friday, perhaps because the office all went out to lunch today. It was a going away party for Kelly who works in the office, as she is off to bigger and better things. I like to think of it as office survivor....her torch has been extinguished.

And so it begins

So I joined the 30 days 30 blogs posting in the month of November. Needless to say this is going to be kind of hard for me, as you've probably noticed my blogs are quite infrequent to say the least. Any who, bear with me as I try to do this. I'm sure there will be some lists to discuss, some rants to laugh about, and maybe some things to make your eyes roll. I'm gonna say the latter for the most part.

Things that are going through my head right now:

Why is my launch music radio station playing Belly's "Feed the Tree"? (secondly, why do you know this song?)
Why can't the Broncos beat the Colts?
Why is my stomach gurgling so much lately?
Why do I have writer's block for a work thing right now?
Any input on these questions would be greatly appreciated.

And now just because I need a good laugh:



Hope to see you all tomorrow!

2k-you?

Who will be lucky viewer number 2000 to the blog?

I was gonna put a picture for something related to 2000, but when i typed it in yahoo images i didn't get anything that i could relate to it. But interesting pictures nevertheless!!! (if you know what i'm saying? why am I talking like this?)

Put a pot of coffee on.....

It's finally happening!!!



Do I plan on staying up and watching them all? If you are actually wondering this then you really don't know me all to well. And yes I do have that Friday off! Thank you Cinemax!

Perfect

So if a hitter like Jimmy Rollins can keep his hitting streak over two different seasons, why can't I do the same for my own sport? Last Thursday I finished up the last game in my series by bowling 6 strikes. Last night I went bowling again and started the first game with another 6 straight strikes. Last time I checked 6+6=12, and therefore I have now bowled 12 strikes in a row, and thus a perfect game. Sure its not going to show up on the electronic board, but I know it and now you know it...I'm perfect!

Me > you

Yes I know I haven't blogged in a while, and this is a pretty crappy one to come back to, but I can assure you that better blogs are on the way.