New Year's Eve

Last night I hung out with friends until the wee hours of the morning.

Tonight I traditionally stay home however there is a tempting get together with a large conglomerate of friends attending so if I go I'll be sober.

Just not a good evening to chance it as I am aware of roadblocks being set up.

Well until that happens I have the Twilight Zone marathon on Scifi to pass the time. I am planning on going to the movies today with Beersnob. Got to see Alien vs. Predator: Requiem!!!!

Perfect Part 1

Yes the New England Patriots have not only completed the first 16-0 regular season in NFL history but they were setting records along the way.

Tom Brady set the regular season TD record with 50. Randy Moss set the receiving record with 23. The Pats themselves set the NFL scoring record topping the 1998 Minnesota Vikings in total points. They had a strong defense all year so it wasn't a lopsided achievement.

The next goal is 19-0 and will likely happen as the road to the Super Bowl goes through Foxboro, weather and all. The Indianapolis Colts have the best shot but as I blogged before they play poorly in cold weather. They have also been inconsistent in their play. At times looking less than average.

There has never been a team this perfect in every dimension of the game. Teams have been close but not this close. History will show that this team is the benchmark for what teams will strive for in the future even if they don't win the Super Bowl.

Closing!

I got great news yesterday, I'm closing on my house Monday at 10AM!
This means that the first two steps of the Dave Ramsey plan will be accomplished and half of the third step!

By sticking to a budget for thirty six months I'll no longer have a mortgage payment either! I can speed that up with just a little spending discipline! Not having any bills and being on a cash basis is a good thing.

Kicking in 15% on your retirement is a great thing! I can get there from here!
I'm excited!

The Christmas Spirit

YouTube - Angry Grandpa Ruins Christmas Yes the Christmas Spirit is alive and well. I usually don't post things like this on my blog however it is the contrast to my usual good mood and happy go lucky persona. What you see here is the exact opposite of what Christmas is about. I hope it repulses you. I hope that if you see this that you'll find it stomach churning and encourage you to be forgiving, to practice kindness, to practice compassion.

Friday!

It snowed a little last night but I got out and met Wendy at the pub for supper. It was cold but the roads were clear.
There is just a little snow on the roads now that will likely be gone quickly.

I don't have any plans today but I've enjoyed my time off. It is nice to have a week of no responsibilities and nothing pressing to do and I still have four more days off after today!

Pakistan is in chaos today which means that the control of their weapons is in doubt and should be questioned. Meanwhile we are a few days away from the Iowa caucus and the first step towards finding out who will run the country and the free world from 2009 to 2012! I don't think there is a lot on TV today.

Well I think the coffee is finished!

Turmoil

With the assassination of Benazir Bhutto opposition leader in Pakistan, a nuclear power slips into turmoil. It is too early to tell what the full range of problems this will cause.

India is very nervous at the moment, Iran is happy, Afghanistan is still too devastated by the Taliban to be effected. Al Qaeda hated her. She was a former Prime Minister and lived with these daily threats. Very courageous.

Today Bin Laden is smiling somewhere.

YAWWWN

I was able to sleep in until about 7:30 this morning!
Fixed some coffee and I'm drinking that now.
It is about freezing outside and I have no plans.

Was debating Bob last night whether Rick Deckard was a replicant or not. I happen to fall on the side of Deckard being human, Bob falls into the replicant camp. It is a debate that has gone on for about twelve years now. It really boils down to a definite maybe. There is evidence on both sides but not enough to prove it.

You can find a few sites that talk about the big debate if you have some interest so I won't go into it here.

I could use some breakfast, kinda hungry and I know that I don't have anything breakfasty in the house.

Philips has invented these color changing LED lights called Living Colors, just search for Philips Living Colors to see them in action on their site or You Tube. They look amazing! You can only get them over seas right now but hopefully soon they will be for sale here soon! I'd love to have a couple of these even though they cost over two hundred dollars apiece. They have a remote control though where you manipulate the color and intensity! I'm all about the remote control!

Life is good!

Merry Christmas!!!!

May everyone have the merriest of Christmas gatherings today!

Excellent Coffee!

Yesterday I went to the store to get some groceries and got a small bag of Dunkin' Donuts Cinnamon coffee! This is very very good coffee! Not over powering but still has a lot of flavor! This easily competes if not surpasses the Starbuck's brand and I'm not joking about that.

I am tied for first place this week in the league with forty six points. It would be nice if that held up! The other team I drafted for a friend, Crimson, is in the Super Bowl next week! I feel pretty good about that despite my team failing to do as I expected. Oh well, there is always next year!

The Patriots Masterpiece of a season continues as they are now a regular season record 15-0 and have surpassed the 1984 Dolphins for season scoring. They have one game left this coming Saturday against the Giants. Look for the starters to play the whole game and go 16-0!

They are simply the best football team to ever take the field. I used to believe that the '85 Bears were the best team ever but this team would destroy the Bears. They have come from behind to win so they believe they will win every single game. They have been challenged this year and they have won games by half time this year.

Even if they don't win the Super Bowl they will go down as the greatest team ever as 16-0 will always be remembered. The playoffs go through Foxboro and the Colts are not a cold weather team. They have a very tough time playing at Foxboro. It really isn't a sure thing that the Colts will make it that far. If they get Marvin Harrison back they have a good shot at being competitive if not then they will likely lose a close game.

New England vs. Dallas is the odds on favorite for the Super Bowl and probably who I would pick right now. New England has beaten the toughest teams in the NFL so far, walking through the NFC East and beating every AFC team that could challenge them. The only team that the Pats have not faced is the Packers and that is possible in the Super Bowl but I think Dallas has the edge.

Blizzard

We had thirty mile per hour winds and a driving snow yesterday. I went to get groceries after I saw the radar and saw what was coming and got back inside. We have about five inches of snow. The roads were kind of slick but not bad. They should clear up today.

Bob and Wendy canceled hanging out last night while I went to pick up Weezy to hang out anyway and Sass showed up as we had planned the previous night! So we had a pretty good time sitting and talking at the pub.

No less than two people came up to Weezy and said they saw her in the TV show House getting onto an elevator. She talked about the WGA strike with them and how she is still getting work but not as much.

It was a really good evening overall and it was good to get back out after the storm after being inside all day.

Operation: Rescuefy Sass Is Canceled.

Yes she no longer needs rescuing. Turns out her sister had to make an emergency run to the border and brought her back Thursday.

She and I hung out last night to catch up and going out again tonight with Bob and Wendy. Sass will be the surprise guest.
We have snow moving in so that should be fun today! We might just have a White Christmas!

I'm off work now until the second of January! How cool is that?

The Ultimate DVD Set

I purchased the four DVD set Tuesday. I posted about it and my personal feelings for the movie as well as some history.

Yesterday after work I purchased the five standard definition DVD ultimate set. I was planning on putting this purchase off until I made the jump to HD DVD and Blu-Ray and then deciding which version of that to get.

I have decided that when I do eventually make the jump I'll stick to my original plan and just own two sets. I plan on giving my four DVD set away.

This is by far the ultimate DVD set ever thus far. It comes with five cuts of the movie:
The Final Cut
The Theatrical Cut
The International Cut
The Director's Cut
The Work Print Cut

I am partial to the original theatrical cut. That was the first version I was introduced to and the one I fell in love with even though many purists prefer the director's cut or the final cut.

There is a letter from Ridley Scott. A origami unicorn. A replica spinner vehicle. A lenticular film cell. Storyboards. Practically everything you could ask for in a movie package.

This is simply the ultimate DVD set constructed for any movie EVER! There are sets that are close, the Lord Of The Rings: Extended Edition Sets that had the miniatures with it. The Matrix Set would be close. The Alien Set would be close.

The thing though is that all of those were for a series of movies, this is simply one movie. For single movies it would be tough to approach this kind of detail.

Ben Hur would be a decent comparison. Perhaps The Searchers or The Ten Commandments. Those movies though are considered epics. This set is more comprehensive though than any of those.
Don't tell me Titanic, if I have to argue why that isn't a good movie then you just wouldn't understand anyway and you deserve to wallow in ignorance.

Blade Runner stands as the undisputed king of all DVD sets, without question.

Man Hall Of Fame Part 11

Today's inductee into my Man Hall Of Fame is someone who is familiar to nearly every generation of movie fan. He is the main character of the longest series of movies in modern history. He always gets the girl, saves the world, and does it in style.

James Bond 007 is the man! Whip and debonair, he knows fine wine and fine women. No matter who Bond is played by the character comes through.

Sean Connery - To many the real James Bond.
George Lazenby - A one shot bond but probably one of the best Bond movies plus it had Diana Rigg in it!
Roger Moore - To me this man is Bond. I grew up in this era. He could be a bit campy but he was all out suave.
Timothy Dalton - The weakest of the Bonds but he still had a good run. He had a bit of an edge to him.
Pierce Brosnan - The modern resurgence began with Brosnan's Bond. Bigger budgets, bigger story lines, bigger effects.
Daniel Craig - With only the modern Casino Royale to his credit so far Bond is in good hands. He is very edgy and has a bit of a mean streak. This is the Bond for a future generation.

James Bond will be around for many years to come as well. This franchise is simply one of the best!

Blade Runner And Filmmaking

Roy Batty - I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die.

This is one of my all time favorite films. Here is a little history about me. We used to live in Missouri and we had a small video rental place. This was around the explosion point of the VCR, about 1980. So I was into movies at the ripe old age of ten since I had more of them to watch than anyone else in school and one of the only kids to have a VCR at home.

Ok fast forward to moving to close to where I currently live. The first town we lived in when we moved to this state. I had a class of about fifteen people from a class of around a hundred. Simply put I did not fit in. They had been together their entire lives. Nope, I didn't fit in at all and they let me know about it every day. The next town we lived in I went through high school and loved it. There was a bigger class, friendlier people, I still keep in contact with a few of my classmates and wish I could locate a few more!

Anyway that is beside the point and just a nuance to the story. Suffice it to say it was about 1983 -1984 now. My mom worked in the big town around here at Southwestern Bell and had a lot of friends in town who copied movies for each other. Well that Summer we got Blade Runner. I had never seen anything like it. I was of course happy that Han Solo was in it.

It was a lot different than Star Wars, it was dark, rainy, gritty. There was a sense of doom and a future that was as far away from Roddenberry's future as you could get. You could describe this movie as claustrophobic, not like Alien but close. There was no hope in this future where even the animals are machines and the Sun rarely shines but shadows are everywhere. Neon, night, and violence.

This is a future you want no part of. I was pretty unhappy there and this appealed to me.

You have Han Solo doing his best Bogart imitation as Rick Deckard in a world that is a cross between a Raymond Chandler novel and scifi novel. A Blade Runner who caps rogue replicants. A story about humanity and what it means to be really human. About mortality and finding inner peace.

I watched the US theatrical version of Blade Runner at least thirty times that Summer. To me that was the only version there was until much later when I learned about Ridley Scott not being happy with that version and that was the one that the studio forced him to put out. It had the Harrison Ford narration and the happy ending. There was no unicorn dream sequence. That was the version I fell in love with.

So last night I watched the four disc set that came out. I wanted to purchase the five disc set but I'm waiting until I get a HD DVD player, a Blu Ray player, and a HDTV to get it.

This movie is a major reason I love film, why I enjoy making them and that is the history of me and this film.

As The Trip Looms

Ahead in the not too distant future I am going over everything I need to take to rescue Sass. We can't drive into Mexico since the vehicle we are taking isn't mine therefore I am not on the title. Sass says that you have to have the title with you to get across. Not only that but you have to be on the title.

So she is going to meet us in Brownsville with her stuff and we will load her up from there, relax a bit and return. I was considering taking a cooler to cut down on driving time but thought better of it, for one it is space that will probably be used by Sass and her stuff and the second is that I know I'd just like to get out of the vehicle some and eat, stretch, and walk around a bit.

So I'm taking a GPS unit, never played with one and it looks like it will be fun, my Sirius radio, GOT to have that! Money, birth certificate, license, and more money just in case.

This is going to be a lot of fun and I can't wait to get going!

Football With Friends

Yesterday was a pretty good day! I went to Beersnob's house and watched football with Chianti, and Nick the boy intern.

We watched the Dallas game which wasn't very exciting at all but the company was good. I finalized plans to rescue Sass so that looks like it will be an adventure! I think it will be a lot of fun!

Looks like I'll finish about fourth place in my fantasy league this week. Not bad.

Week 15

I was put out of the playoffs in the first round, my team really tanked as I mentioned last week. I have nothing to play for now and due to that devastating loss I am no longer a contender to win any money at the end of the season.

In a season plagued by injuries and under achieving picks I did pretty decent. I got my season paid for by the wins I did have so it didn't cost me anything this year. That makes it a good year! At ten dollars per week over seventeen weeks plus franchise fees it is a good amount.

It is cold out and the streets should melt off today. I got some groceries yesterday when I got out. I decided to fuel up as well so I'm at the station getting fuel so while that is going on I decide to clean the windshield wipers. They had frozen up and weren't really cleaning the windshield anymore. So I thump it against the windshield to get the ice off and what happens? The blade breaks off in my hand.

Now the driver's side blade is no longer attached and I can't turn them on because it would really scratch up the windshield. Not to mention there was no longer a blade so it really wouldn't do anything.

I finish up the fueling, pay, and decide to go get it serviced and have the wipers replaced. I get that all done, finally get to the grocery store since I really didn't have anything in the house to fix to eat. I ALMOST get home when I get stuck on a decline around some railroad tracks.

Thankfully a guy who was out just towing people out of being stuck was behind me and offered me a tug up the hill! So within a few minutes I was back home and cooking!

SNOW!

Well sort of. There is less than an inch on the ground out of the nine inches they were predicting.
The radar doesn't really look like it is going snow for much longer. Maybe the day and that is probably it. It won't last long:(

I had supper at IHOP last night with Wendy to make our plans to rescue Sass. My brother is going to loan us his Suburban and GPS, I'm putting in my Sirius radio in for the ride.

We are driving straight through, swapping drivers and sleeping. Three of us will handle the driving on the way back.

We are set! This is going to be exciting!

Operation: Rescuefy Sass Part 2

So last night I secured a vehicle in which to rescue Sass. I'm going to use my brother's Suburban, the one I borrow occasionally when my Suburban decides not to run in the Winter time.

This will allow for two drivers one passenger on the way back and all of her belongings which she says are numerous.

Wendy is looking forward to the trip and I have to say I am as well. Not only is it for a good reason but again, I've never been to Mexico and this sounds like a lot of fun! I will be able to get free drinks out of her for months! LOL!

Operation: Rescuefy Sass

Sass, from previous blog posts, has been in Mexico for nearly a year now helping her missionary family members put together a coffee shop/cafe to help fund other missionary projects. Well she is ready to return and is stuck with no way back.

So Wendy and I have devised a plan to help deMexico her over the coming Christmas break!

It appears that on the 27th we will embarkify South towards Brownsville, cross the border, drive three more hours to her location, rest a few minutes, load up her and her belongings, and return to the States with Sass intact.

This should be fun! I've never seen Mexico and it has been a while since I've had a road trip this long! With company it should be a blast! Of course I'll keep you posted my friends!