This is the time for real refreshment- ice cold Coca-Cola.
Coke gives a lift to your spirits…
a boost to your energy…
a big, bold, unmistakable taste.
In Short:
Coca-Cola is more than an ordinary soft drink.
Things go better with Coke.
Fall is stretching a bit late this year. The leaves are still turning and the North Wind that is picking up today, will probably bring them all down. We’ve had our first frost and just last night I heard a couple of die-hard crickets singing farewell to summer. My neighbors red roses are in full bloom, the seasons are a little mixed right now.
Normally the airborne spider webs come down from above in late fall, but they’ve just appeared these last couple of weeks. Fascinating isn’t it?
Actually this is just a shameless post to gather more traffic to my website. I’ve been having problems with Technorati’s “Ping” function, as have many, and in order to correct the problem, I just needed to create this Technorati Profile post so that they will Release the Spiders.
Update: Technorati finally released the friggin’ spiders and allowed me to “claim my blog” on their search engine. At this time, it’s still been 272 days since they listed my website, even though it shows that I was pinged 5 hours ago.
I ventured out to the movie theater yesterday for the first time in two years. The movie that coaxed me into a theater was Beowulf. I wanted to be thrilled, I wanted to be chilled and I was. But not by Beowulf, just from the upcoming movie trailers, especially the one for The Golden Compass which opens next month.
The opening scene of Beowulf was somewhat confusing, because it appeared that they had rounded up the village folk from the Shrek movies. In Shrek it worked, but Shrekifying real actors is just plain creepy. They made Robin Wright Penn look homely and that’s just not not right.
Supposedly they have improved on the Dead Eye Syndrome that this type of special effect is noted for, as in Polar Express, but it still leaves the enhanced actors devoid of any sign of soul or personality, which I consider a crime when Anthony Hopkins and John Malkovich are gracing the cast.
Beowulf, played by Ray Winstone, has a fine looking naked ass. A fine a set of hindquarters you’d ever want to set eyes on. Stunning. But not real. Ray Winstone’s butt looks nothing like the enhanced cheeks that glow upon the big screen, or at least I’d venture to guess, since Ray Winstone is actually a 5′10” pudgy Englishman. It would appear that perhaps the actor they wanted for the part of Beowulf was Sean Bean, but Sean was unavailable, so they settled for Ray and then worked overtime to transform him into Sean Bean Beowulf. A lot of overtime. I mean, come on, even odd duck Crispin Glover, who plays the gooey demon Grendel looks more like Beowulf than Ray Winstone does.
Beowulf is a hero with a weakness for any good looking piece of tail, and the real problems ensue when his lust extends to the females that literally have tails.
If you think Angelina Jolie can not possibly be any sexier, you were wrong. Give that woman a tail and good God! Anyone who has the hots for Ms. Jolie, will probably explode in the movie theater when she emerges from the water, stark naked and dripping glowing gold, with built-in stilettos and that long snake-like tail.
I didn’t see this movie at an IMAX theater, which may have made a difference, as it was geared toward 3D. From the reviews I’ve read so far, it’s only worth seeing in 3D, not so much as a stand alone movie.
In my opinion, for all the fancy technology that special effects editors have at their hands in this day and age, nobody does it like Ray Harryhausen. He still reigns supreme.
Check out this link for a review of the movie, with pictures of Ray Winstone before and after computer generated enhancements turned him into a dead ringer for Sean Bean.
Michael Vick will be eating a nice dinner of Turkey, stuffing, rice, cranberry sauce and sweet potato pie in jail. It’s more than he deserves, but I hope he remains in good health and I really hope he doesn’t choke on a turkey bone or have a fatal allergic reaction to cranberries.
He should be around to watch all the different ways his bank account is going to be drained. There’s the 20 million he was paid by the Atlanta Falcons…. which they now want back, there’s around 6 million in loans and the government is really concerned about him having enough money to care for the 50 dogs that survived the cowardly criminal behavior he indulged in before he found Jesus. They are looking at about a million so far.
That’s gotta hurt the kind of man who liked to dress in fine clothes and play God.
From the moment that Sara Sidle appeared on the first season of CSI, I took a dislike to her. It took me a while to warm up to her and it wasn’t until last season that I accepted that maybe Sara Sidle was good enough for Gil Grissom.
Now she’s gone and once again, he’s all alone with his bugs.
Sara Sidle was the most real of the female characters on the show. It certainly wasn’t a glamorous role for Jorja Fox to take, especially when you realize that she’s capable of looking like this.
Last night’s episode of CSI was her farewell episode and it was one of the best. You felt Sara’s meltdown, you felt the kind of tired one would get from a job that begins with death and never ends well. You felt that her job as a CSI on the strip had become futile.
It was a good move not to kill Sara Sidle off. Having her leave Las Vegas made perfect sense.
Balls are really “in” these days. Fitness balls, exercise balls, balance balls, gym balls, Swiss balls, therapy balls, sports balls and yoga balls are just some of the names for this one fun piece of exercise equipment.
If variety is what keeps you moving, you’ve got to have one of these balls.
Some years ago I had a membership to a fitness club that boasted state of the art equipment. When I asked which one of the complicated machines would help me tone my abs, I was steered into the room with the exercise balls. They recommend the ball for a good ab workout, without added stress to the back.
I recently purchased an exercise ball from Walmart. For ten bucks I got the ball, a pump and an exercise chart. It’s a good way to tone the body and it’s a little more fun that most workouts I’ve tried. You can even use the ball as a chair while you work at your computer, as you need to maintain balance and muscles are being used while you work. It’s not recommended that you do that for long stretches of time though.
A word of warning: One of the first exercises on the chart that comes with a fitness ball, is the warm up exercise. It involves bouncing slowly on the ball and if for some reason common sense abandons you when I’m a Believer by Smash Mouth starts to play on your iPod and you find yourself bouncing and gyrating wildly, like a five year old, completely forgetting about your lower back problem, you will hurt. You will hurt every day and every night for a month and then you still may find yourself wondering if the pain will ever subside and cursing the wretched reminder that your body now has limitations. If you feel you may go down that road, then it would be worth procuring a copy of the Fat to Firm Fitness Ball Workout for Dummies
Amazon has a good deal on an exercise ball. For $14.12 you can get the ball, the pump, exercise chart and a DVD. If you need to do other shopping with Amazon, chances are your shipping will be free. You can click here to find out what size ball is right for you and there are anti burst varieties for those of you who don’t enjoy the adrenaline rush from feeling that at any moment you could be harshly deposited upon the floor.
The holidays are upon us! Halloween is my favorite of all Holidays and once again, it slipped right by me. I didn’t carve the pumpkins, I didn’t take a bunch of pictures and didn’t do anything special on the day.
I used to go all out on Halloween. Some of my best memories are of the festivities in Nevada City. They knew how to do Halloween in that town. The picture is of my dear friend Buffy (on the left) and myself, in 1989 at Mad Dogs and Englishman, a great pub that brought us all together and made friendships that still endure. Sadly, although the building is still there, the pub is no more. We had some high times there and drank enormous quantities of fine British beer.
The day before Halloween we did get a little scare out at the farm when the earthquake hit. I love the house, with it’s indoor balconies and hanging chandeliers, but I’ll tell you, suddenly it seemed like just a bunch of stuff that might fall on our heads, once that big place started shaking.
The next day, Halloween, I found myself in nearby downtown Lodi. Down at the station, a bus had just crashed into a fire hydrant and there was quite a geyser going. The street and nearby parking lots were quickly turning into rivers and ponds. The people who had been waiting for that particular bus, found themselves stuck in Lodi. Lodi is not such a bad place to be stuck in these days. It’s changed a lot since the days of John Fogerty’s lament. I’ve added some pics of the bus versus fire hydrant incident here, on Flickr.
If you are in the mood for some seasonal spooky pictures, check out the pics that Will Campbell took at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery during the annual Dia De Los Muertos celebration by clicking here.
