Know How I Know You're Gay? You Spent Money on Brokeback Mountain

Not sure if I can deliver an actual post that can expound on that title (thanks to "40 Year Old Virgin" for a wonderful new game, btw.) Honestly, if you're a real-life heterosexual male, I would be confounded as to how you would willingly put $6-$10 on a counter and let the words "one for Brokeback Mountain, please," fall out of your mouth. If you're a woman or homosexual male, I can understand and even expect you to lead the charge in attempting to make this movie successful. Why homosexual men want this movie to succeed is evident. It's two top level male actors playing gay in a serious box office effort with Oscar implications. But I can only believe this has Oscar implications because it's two top level male actors playing gay in a serious box office effort. Hollywood loves crap like that. So naturally, the hope that Heath and Jake will further the efforts to make homosexuality an accepted norm are big.

Women I can understand, but to a lesser extent. Obviously Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger are attractive to women. But ladies, they're into each other in this movie. They aren't being suave, manly men. They're fulfilling the "cowboy" quotient of the Village People. What's worse is, from at least what I've seen in previews and synopsis, their affair carries on while they are married to women. So ladies, not only are they into each other, but they are screwing over women in the flick as well.

This movie will definitely receive a lot of Oscar push and honestly, I think it will deserve it. Why? Because I think I would be Oscar-worthy if I could get through a whole filming schedule playing a homosexual without either punching my co-star so hard that I got fired or looking so gaunt from throwing up daily that two weeks in, they would have to replace me. Don't get confused, that's not a bash on homosexuality. I'm sure some gay men think the same way about playing straight men roles in movies. Right Tom?

Happy Merry Joyous Chrismannukwanza!

For My Democratic Friends:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2006, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. And without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee. By accepting these greetings you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for herself or himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher."

For My Republican Friends:

Here's wishing all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Tibetan Market aka The Mall at Christmas Time

So considering my business, I spend a lot of time at the malls in my area. I hadn't been out to Woodfield for a bit and ventured there last night. Can someone tell me when the center kiosks turned into some Indo-Chinese marketplace? I'm not talking about the people, I'm talking about their tactics for acquiring customers. I don't know if any business schools teach it, but I think tackling a passerby to show them your hands-free cell phone attachment is not the best way to obtain sales.

I can understand the cell phone guys - competition is heavy. I mean, the T-Mobile booth is literally 20 feet from the Cingular booth in some places - you've got to stop people before they get to Cingular or else you won't see them for 2 years or the $175 escape clause, whichever comes first. But, if you've seen my picture on the blog, you understand that I don't need some lady diving in front of me to show me the "almost real" ponytail extension she thinks I need. Contrary to popular belief, I'm not the Missing Link (though many people think I have many links missing.) I also will not be needing any pictures where I can see the water actually "move." I know you don't have any hanging in your house, so I can say this: what double-wide owner actually thinks these pee-inducing pictures add class to their trailer?

Well, last night I'm trying to escape Woodfield (still crowded at 11 pm - you think people would've figured out how to shop online already,) and a guy who looked more like the short version of Jim Ignatowski than Doc Brown leapt in front of me asking if he could show me his "invention." Before the mentorship I have now, I probably would've knocked him into H&M for saying something like that, but last night "people skills" me took over and said, "sure." He proceded to go through this whole demonstration of what, in essence, was a sound amplifier that attached to your cell phone and cut out your radio so that you could speak and hear through the sound-system in your car. Everything seemed cool until he wanted to demonstrate the product. First, he didn't have second cell phone with a charged battery, so I let him call my phone from his. Second, when he called the phone and the speaker system thing took over, I only understood every other word. "Thanks, but no thanks," I told him, "and please, don't call me now that you have my cell phone number." After a hesitation, I leaned back and said, "Oh, who cares, I probably wouldn't understand you anyway." Lessons learned, all the way around.

Just stick to the recipe ...

I know that it's Christmas Time, and with Christmas Time (someone out of my readership of four will complain that it's "Holiday Time" - good luck) a lot of people start to get pretty bold with their belief that they are pastry chefs. I have nothing against people that have never tried to feed me before, blessing me with cookies and chocolate's and brownies and cupcakes. It's the Christmas Season and if giving involves delivering me a plate of homemade concoctions that have sugar and chocolate in the recipe, I won't stop you. What I would suggest, however, is that you don't delineate from the recipe as it was written.

I use my boss as an example, not because I'm interested in losing my job, but because I could joke with her about this without losing my job. Understand, it was very generous and gracious that she supplied my colleague and I with rice krispy treats, but a warning that they were made with multi-colored candy cane shards would have helped a touch. There's nothing like expecting sweet and getting fruity sour by surprise.

This is not the only way this happens. I know you may like chocolate. You may even like nuts. Maybe you like peanut butter and sugar also. But how about a separate batch, instead of sugar-peanut-butter-nut-chocolate-chip cookies? Sure, it sounds adventurous but your taste buds, and in some cases, your teeth are riding the third rail on every bite.

This isn't just limited to cookies, snacks and deserts. I know that pizza is the all-inclusive pie, but do we really need lettuce on a pizza? If you're cooking dough and sauce and all other types of crap, is lettuce going to help anything? I don't mind a little adventure, and even I like to put Ranch dressing on my slice every now and again but give it a rest already.

"Cash for nothin' and Kong for free"

Nothing like titling a post with a Dire Straits reference, huh? At least it's somewhat relevant. I know I mentioned that I've seen some movies for free lately and the story would be forthcoming. I hate waiting in suspense and since I know that my enormous readership currently is - it's time to share.

So the Sunday before Thanksgiving, the Mrs. and I decided to go see the Goblet of Fire playing at the local theater which, according to the movie section in the paper, was at 10:15pm. Now, I usually check online as opposed to the newspaper or I call Moviefone (I actually have the number in my 'contacts' - yep, I'm still that nerd,) but for some reason I was content with the paper info. Thank goodness, because if I had checked another source, the events to follow woudn't have happened. Moral of the story? Turn off your computer. Not yet though - finish this first.

My wife is bringing Angela Elizabeth into the world in January, so at about 10:05 I drop her off at the front door to limit her walking time in the cold (and so she could get the tickets.) I get inside, buy her a kids pack and me a large cola and proceed to theater 9 where we find out that the movie started at 9:15 and not 10:15. Check the tickets; they say 9:15. We go to the ticket counter and they tell us that there isn't a 10:15 show on Sunday. Now, my first response is to find the person that sold my wife tickets for a show that started 45 minutes earlier without even mentioning that fact to her, but I've been working on my people skills so my question for the manager was simply, "What are you going to do to take care of us?" She offered to stamp our stubs with a "complimentary readmission" stamp, to which we agreed, ableit $10 worth of 2 drinks and a thimble of popcorn later.

Thanksgiving night comes around and we have a tradition in my family of going to see a movie on holidays, so she and I again make the trek out to try Potter again (I checked online first.) When we got to the ticket taker, she merely looked at the stamp on the stub, and said, "no problem, go on in." What she didn't do was take the stubs with the "complimentary readmission" stamp from us. While in line for another $10 2-colas-and-a-kernel special I told Donna to hold onto her stub. When she realized why I said so, a big grin came across her face.

Understand, we have not seen a lot of movies in the theater lately and I am obviously a movie geek. I have been so tied up with working on my business and delayed gratification that movies have been on the back burner. However, when Friday night rolled around with heavy snow and my business was pretty much done for the day, a call was placed home: "Hon, wanna go see 'Walk The Line' tonight?" So back out we went to the theater where, you guessed it, they failed to take our stubs again!

At this point, we are fired up! "How long is this going to go on?" "How many big movies are we going to see?" You see, we didn't have to worry if a movie was sold out - our stub says "one complimentary readmission" and although the stub is for Harry Potter, we are not required to use it for that movie. It's just a theater readmit. This past Sunday, late night, we went and saw Chronicles of Narnia and once again, the stubs were not taken!!! If you don't like movies and don't care - just go away. Otherwise you will appreciate how awesome this is. When the time comes that this doesn't work, we won't even care - we've gotten more than our money's worth already. For the record though, King Kong opened yesterday and I know a late Sunday is coming!

The Dead Finger

Okay, so most if not all of my friends and acquaintences have seen my "dead finger." If you are a visiting reader, in short, my left ring finger kind of dangles ... okay, not "kind of" - it just dangles. I can make a fist, but when I straighten my hand it doesn't come with. Also, when I shake my hand with any vigorousness, it wiggles independently of the others. Try it - shake your hand like you're waving "goodbye" very fast. Any fingers shake independently of the others or do they move in unison? Ri-i-i-ght. It came as the result of an altercation last year at a baseball game, but I often haven't explained much beyond that. I'll explain why today the finger is dead at the end of the story, but the short version is because I was stupid.

Back in July of '04 I was excited about going to Milwaukee for a Cubs-Brewers game. Not because I love Milwaukee (how anyone can is beyond me,) but because I'd not been to Miller Park yet (yes, a stadium named after a beer - how "Simpsons.") I have a thing about wanting to visit every professional sports venue before I kick so I was fired up. This was also a period when I was at a workout peak and probably came in at a very lean 250+lb. (I'm 6'1"/6'2")

So, I went to the game with my Mom, my little sister and one of my best friends (who just happened to be dating my sister at the time - somehow I was cool with it.) Well, we're in the left field bleachers and the Cubs are getting it handed to them, as usual, but there is a group of two guys and a girl behind us and one of them felt the need to rest their dirty shoes on the top of my sister's seat, while she was in it. Understand, my sister can get attitude, and being an athlete and 5'10" she can back it as well. So it starts with some under-the-breath comments and more shoes on the back of seats. Then stares all-the-way-around as people get up to get food and go to the bathroom.

The Cubs finish receiving their shellacing from the Brew-crew and we're ready to go when the girl in the threesome behind us asks my sister what her problem is, in a less than polite way. My sister told her that she would never let her friends make some of the comments she overheard the two guys make and if they had something to say, they should say it to her face, "because that's how we do it in Chicago." She made sure to compensate for the possibility that this girl was deaf by speaking loudly and by getting about 2 inches from her face. At this point, the heavier of the two guys says, "Why don't you go back to Chicago, ya dirty South Side whore?!" First off, I'll assume that what kept my buddy from reacting was the confusion caused by the fact that although the Cubs are on the North Side, my sister actually lives on the South Side. How does this guy know that?

Short story long, that was all I needed. I saw my sister start to lean back so I assumed she was going to swing. Well, before she could move, I leapt over our row of bleachers directly at the geographical Kreskin and began to choke the life out of him with my right hand. As he sat back in his chair and tried to duck his head so "the choke" didn't become "the punch," the other guy figured I was too occupied to see him coming. Hmm, what are left hands for? That's right - punching late-comers in the head. The only problem is that I punched they guy in the head so rapidly and often that as soon as I stopped, my whole hand felt numb. Still, when he fell down, the other guy looked up. For some reason I asked him how long he thought it'd be before security came, and began pummeling his nose with my right hand.

By the time I got to the top of the bleachers I told my Mom, "That was fun and all, but I broke my hand." My Mother loathes fighting of any kind, but even she said she'd give me a pass on that one. I don't know why my buddy didn't react considering I've seen him get after it and he's pretty quick to swing, but he said it was over too quick. That's not a pat on the back for me. I still ended up with the broken hand. Lacking insurance, I spent 18 hours at Cook County waiting to be told what I already knew and another hour waiting for a hack job of a cast. Cook County Hospital is not the County Hospital they show on "E.R." Same city, same location, totally different hospital.

Considering I was in the midst of some serious weight training, taking four weeks to only do cardio was murder. So at about three I ripped the cast off. This is probably why my finger dangles. The knuckle at the base of the finger is just non-existent. Oh well, I've never had hand surgery before, but I'm sure it'll be fun.

Now that I've done a little research ...

Being new to this whole blogging thing, I figured I should try and study up on what makes a good blog, or "what draws readers to your blog." I even checked out some of the "top 100" blogs. Here's the conclusion I've come to: I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing. No offense "top 100," but a lot of the ones that make the list are generally political, and while you may get some political rantings on here - I think people need some variety, right? So I'm sticking with the format! What's the format you ask? Well, the format is to not necessarily have a format. What would inspire people to show up more than for the sheer wonderment of what the heck is going to be here when they do? Can I get a "woot?" Anyway, stay tuned as I continue to keep this as the same, first-personish (my blog, my made up words,) multi-subjected, shoe-sole-soup fest it's two days in existence has produced.

(insert random picture to create confused readership here - ha!)

Invasion of the body snatchers

Because of actually having my priorities in the right place for once in my life, I haven't really seen too much of the Chicago Bears this season. However, even I can check out statistics on a website. What alien currently inhabits the body of Kyle Orton? I know, the Bears are 9-4 and probably 2 wins away from clinching a first round bye with Orton under center. They're also still 2 losses away from finishing second in the NFC North and watching the playoffs at Halas Hall. If there was ever a time the Bears would be making a return to the Super Bowl, it should be when the Super Bowl is being held in the slum village that is Detroit. What a reward for long suffering fans!

Anyway, where is the guy who threw 31 TD's against 5 picks at Purdue? I know the NFL is all pro's and Orton is a rookie but 'gaw-lee!" 13 games in you are not a rookie anymore. The only QB I know of that can consistently win games averaging 137 yards/game in the air is Michael Vick and he usually runs for another 70. You can time Kyle's speed with a sun-dial. On the upside, not counting his 4 int. performance vs. Cincy, he's only thrown 7 interceptions. Cincy intercepts everyone 4 times. It's like the penance they pay for not being able to find a way to make orange and black tiger stripes look cooler. Of course, Orton has also only thrown 9 TD's in 13 games - not jaw dropping unless you're dropping your jaw to barf on your keyboard.

So, am I proposing the Bears go with Grossman? Look, even if they went with Grossman, he'd probably rupture his spleen or incur some other ungodly injury and be out just long enough to miss anything important yet again, so Orton would just be back out there. Keep Grossman in bubble wrap. What I am proposing is some x-rays and CT scans or whatever they do to see people's innards. I'm telling you, this Kyle Orton may be some Reptilian Annunaki or something. The real Kyle is very possibly locked in a holding tank somewhere with Tyson Chandler and Kerry Wood.

Bye bye, Richie P.

The only thing that stinks about someone being awesome is that unless a lazarus pit or fountain of youth is found before it happens, at some point they're going to die. I remember when I was considering going into comedy at one point and buying a Richard Pryor CD ("That Nigger's Crazy") that I would listen to over and over again on the Metra (Chicago's city-to-suburbs train.) Pryor was so incredible on that CD - every line was funny. His setup was funny because it was so relatable and honest - and this was a recording from 1974 I was listening to in the 90's!

It goes without saying that Pryor is the doorway that nearly all blue comics walk through, regardless of race. It's a no-brainer that Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock and Dave Chapelle have elements of Pryor but you can include Dennis Leary, Robert Schimmel and Sara Silverman as being heavily influenced by Pryor as well. Many people would say that he wasn't in a lot of successful movies, but I would say he was in a lot of good ones. From 'Car Wash,' 'Silver Streak,' 'The Wiz,' and 'Stir Crazy,' to 'Bustin Loose,' 'The Toy,' 'Brewster's Millions,' and 'See No Evil, Hear No Evil' Pryor has a pretty solid filmography. Regardless, he always made me laugh.

Pryor went through a lot of rough patches, from marital issues, to setting himself on fire to his battle with multiple sclerosis. Hopefully his sometimes tormented soul now has peace.

Please don't suck (part 2)

Okay fanboys, if it's okay for a new comic series of your favorite team-up to change origins, stories and costumes, cut the studio some flak. So the X-Men don't wear their Euro-trash nightclub getups like in the comics. So Juggernaut isn't 12 ft tall and the girth of a small villa. My only concern revolves around the rumor that the antagonist situation involves a de-mutant-izing serum. If that is done even partially off, this will be lame. But I hear Colossus serves up a "fastball special" so I'd go anyway. I am a nerd.

Elsewhere on the comic book front, DC drops Superman Returns about a month later. Has this happened before? Two major super-hero franchises in the theater at the same time? Although the new Supes looks like a 'mo in the "sleeker" costume, Kevin Spacey is Lex Luthor and Usual Suspects convinced me that skipping any Spacey flick other than that Bobby Darin 'mo flick is unwise. I have no clue who this Routh dude is that's playing Kal-el, but I hope he's got good insurance, considering the history of previous Supermen.

I guess instead of letting Nic Cage ruin the Superman franchise, they are going to let him ruin the exponentially less popular Ghost Rider franchise. Ghost Rider, the story of a spirit with a flaming skull on a body that rides a "hellcycle." I have heard that to play the part, Nic is simply going to take off the makeup he usually wears 24/7. I'd say I was only kidding to avoid getting hate mail, but considering my readership is only one or two strong, the odds of you being a Nic Cage "fan" are minute. I'll see this flick because I'll still be in the comic book ether after X-Men3 and Supes, and I'll dummy myself into thinking this will actually work. Marvel has less confidence, opening GR less than 2 months after XM3. Good luck Nicky.

Despite the fact that Colin Farrell is about as "himbo" as they come, pairing with Jamie Foxx for Miami Vice is a winner. For anyone too young to remember, just imagine Bad Boys with two Mike Lowreys - one White and one Cuban (even though Foxx probably can't spell "Cuban.") Add in a fiesty, yelling Captain, a chick to rescue, a modern-day suave criminal with a goon squad, a car chase through recognizable landmarks, a lot of guns, and I'm $9.50 poorer.

Point of order: Tom Cruise runs in every movie he stars in. I haven't seen every TC movie. Endless Love, Losin' It and Legend will never grace my TV, but I would bet he runs in them. Mission Impossible3 is an action movie and I've already seen screenshots of him in mid-stride. I have yet to find out what the reasoning is behind this phenomenon, but out of the 30 movies he's credited in, I would only claim the three I mentioned as being less than good. Even as wacky as Eyes Wide Shut was, it was classic Kubrick. That means no bad movies in 20 years. That means I'm at MI3.

If you didn't like first Sin City you need to see a lobotomist. Yes the dialogue was a little choppy but if you went to the bookstore and found the graphic novel on the shelf you would see how true to form that movie is. Mickey Rourke should keep playing versions of that character in every movie until he's dead. Jessica Alba is ... well, Jessica Alba. Well, the gang is back next year in Sin City 2: A Dame To Kill For. Sorry, but no movie with that title can suck. It would defy logic. Im.poss.ible.

There are other movies I could have named but you probably dislike me now or stopped reading 2 paragraphs ago, so why go on? Either way, I don't remember a time that I could so easily plot out the next $100 I was prepared to throw away on movies in the next year.

Please don't suck - movies galore (part 1)

Has there ever been a time in recent history, where we have been slated for such an impact of awesome movies? Over the year we are expecting to be bombarded with everything that should ever be made into a movie, and some things that may have been movies in the past, but are now better.

First off, I've never read Chronicles of Narnia. I don't know how this escaped my childhood, but considering my fantasy was more based on stretching present and future reality with comic books and Star Wars, I didn't spend much time in midevil/past reality incantations or books longer than 17 pages. Thus, I've never read any Narnia books, nor have I read the LotR (is that how it's shortened?) books, though I must say the "Rings" movies rocked. That is why I will be at Narnia on opening night, albeit the late late show (explanation of why I'm going for free is pending.) Minotaurs, centaurs, talking lions and other crazy human/animal combo's gets my butt in a theater every time. Every...time.

Speaking of LotR, Peter Jackson is directing King Kong, right? So I hope this means we don't get the lunchbox of crap that was Godzilla. Matthew Broderick is a lot of things, but an action hero is not one of them (not even for kids - see: Inspector Gadget. Actually don't see it.) We'll find out how Adrien Brody fares. Btw, is it just me, or is he a shoe in for the Scarecrow if they ever remake The Wizard of Oz? Anyway, I'll probably see King Kong at least twice simply because I've been told there is a trailer for another eagerly awaited flick before it starts. Yep, I'm that geek.

Staying with the primate theme, Curious George comes out early next year. Although it's not live action, I will be there anyway. CG is like, the official book of pediatrician offices everywhere. I think I owned one CG book and read all the rest while waiting to get allergy shots in various doctor's offices. CG > Garfield, and he doesn't bog you down with lame dialogue. 'Nuff said.

Three words: Vampires; werewolves; guns. Underworld: Evolution has them all so count me in. Kate Beckingsale doesn't hurt, either, but I'm a good, married Christian, so I'll leave it at that.

I haven't read the DaVinci Code. I don't care. I will go see it on the strength of Ron Howard plus Tom Hanks. I don't need to read the book. Ron Howard plus Tom Hanks = the book probably owned. It's a simple equation, really.

And I'm here too!

Hey there! For the record - this is a mirror of what I've started on myspace (http://www.myspace.com/youngandretired) already so the first couple posts here will probably be a couple of reposts from there. As mentioned there, I've read them before and commented on others, but these are my first. Okay, here's the deal: I'm going to have fun with this and I hope you do also. I debated long and hard about doing one of these (really, like 37 seconds) but when I saw that it was part of my myspace account, I figured - why not. Then I figured I might as well have an actual blog local outside of myspace also. Expect sarcasm, some sports, current life stories, and some flashbacks that will be just nuts. Have a good time.