Worthless

I've probably posted about this every year since I've had a blog when this time of year comes around, but it must be said again: Thanksgiving is a worthless holiday. It's my least favorite (meaning stupidest in my opinion) holiday (ranking even behind Valentine's Day if you can imagine that), which ought to tell you something about how I feel towards Thanksgiving.

And it's really much too late to be discussing this now, so I shall continue my rant on why Thanksgiving is stupid tomorrow.

A little excessive

So apparently it wasn't enough that I spent all yesterday playing and watching soccer. Last night I had two dreams about soccer last night. Both were about playing the Valley Championship, but in the first one we won, and the second we lost. It was very strange. I woke up this morning knowing there was something I had to do today, and it took me a couple moments to remember that it was to help out at church with these shoe box gift things instead of playing soccer.

The Solution!

So, according to a recent commercial, all that was needed to combat Red China was a little hair styling solution. Am I the only one who cracks up every time I see that commercial? I mean, are Chinese Communists still the bad guy? Because, remember, they aren't communists anymore, they're "special capitalists." Which might crack me up more than the commercial.


But it sure does make me want to rebel and bust out some VO5 styling gel. Or whatever it is.

Once More With Feeling

While I haven't seen Hush yet, I think that Once More With Feeling is possibly the best Buffy episode ever. And it really makes me want to see the Evil Dead musical.

You see, in this particular episode, a demon makes everybody randomly break into song because of pent up emotions, and eventually these emotions cause the singers (and dancers! It is a musical, after all) to burst into flame. It's brilliant. And all of the actors did their own singing and dancing, which is even more brilliant. If anybody wants to borrow it, I have it.

An evening well spent

My Friday night was spent winning a soccer ball for a very cute young man. Before you get excited, he's 1, and we had a blast at Papa O's on Gosford. Unfortunately they don't have any good games there, so the only thing to do is play the halfway carnival games that give you tickets. Now, normally I don't do the whole ticket thing because I could easily buy whatever I win with my tickets for half the cost of winning them, but it was a for a good cause, and most of it wasn't my money.

After that I hung out with Callie and re-watched some VM season 2 that I had been missing (because I missed this week's episodes). Even knowing what's going to happen, I still love that show. Then I watched A Day at the Races to try and make myself like Marx Brothers movies (it wasn't as bad as A Night at the Opera - I didn't fall asleep during it twice). All in all, it was a productive evening.

Where have all the pants gone?

So it used to be that baseball had the tightest pants around. Back in the day, they only went down to mid calf, and that was only barely. Now days, they're all loose and baggy, and hand all the way to the floor. There's not even a point to wear socks anymore in baseball since you can't see them.

I remember the day when I couldn't for the life of me find baseball pants that were baggy enough for me, and now there would be no problem. That's just not fair.

Of course, once I started playing softball I couldn't convince my teammates to wear pants, no matter how much better protection they give you when sliding, and how much more comfortable they are than those stupid sliding pads. Doesn't matter that most college teams wear them, we certainly wouldn't.

And I don't really know why I'm making this post, except that's what stuck me when I saw the cover of SI after the World Series. (And how presumptuous is it of us to call something that only involves the US (Canada doesn't count) anything with the word "world" in it?).

Animate dead

If it was possible to animate inanimate objects (like you can in games and stuff) I would so bring to life a soccer ball as my familiar. That way I could kick it, and it would come back to me. It'd be like having a dog that could fetch a soccer ball.

The end is nigh

So last night was the end of volleyball. Or rather, of the regular season. Playoffs are next week, but there's only one game per night, so it's much better. This is the second year that I've reffed high school volleyball for those of you who weren't aware (Robert), and it's really not all that fun. Luckily it's relatively easy, and not a lot of work (you just stand still the whole game), so I can manage a couple months of it.

However, not having to do a lot during a game, my mind is usually free to wander and explore the inequities of volleyball (especially as compared to soccer). I once told Chris that the differences between soccer and volleyball are much like the differences between Plato and Aristotle, to which he laughed. I'll explain my reasons at a later post.

Lately I've been dreaming a lot about soccer, particularly about high school soccer. Last night's dream wasn't very fun since I kept slipping on the field, and it was also really small. In all the dreams I've been missing something I needed to play (last night my shoes weren't on), and had to go find them. All in all, it's been strange, especially since I was never as apprehensive about playing in high school as I am about playing in my dream.

Noir

So I have been remiss in posting lately, and I don't really know why. I've thought of great things to post (which all allude me now, of course), but just haven't gotten around to doing it. So what shall I talk about now? Well, let's see...

Last night was Halloween, which is one of the great holidays ever. Not only do I get to wear my Jedi cloak, but everywhere there are peanut butter cups for me to eat. Seriously, it's possibly my favorite holiday, although there are some others that I love, also.

Last year my mom made me an absolutely awesome Jedi outfit to go along with the cloak that I've had for many a year, and to show my adoration of it, I used it as my costume again this year (I didn't think that the time and effort she put into it was sufficiently rewarded after only one use). Okay, so those of you who know me know that really, the reason I was a Jedi again is because I'll use any excuse I can find to show my Star Wars nerdiness, and I love wearing my cloak. But I can pretend it was out of gratitude to my mom.

After passing out candy to the little kiddies (who were all very surprised to find a grown up dressed up (as a Jedi, none-the-less) handing out candy), Rachel and I headed over to Chris' where we drank some Vampric wine (which was quite tasty), and enjoyed quizzing ourselves with TCM Scene It trivia. Okay, so it was mostly Chris and myself that were quizzing ourselves, but I think Rachel had fun, too.

Then I returned home to watch the episode of VM that I had taped, and was not overwhelmed by the episode. This season has just been too fluffy for me, and they had some definite opportunities to make this episode dark (I mean, it's Halloween for heaven's sake), and let it slip by their fingers. I'm sure I'm one of the few people who likes all things dark, but come on, lets get back to the film noir roots here! The show has turned mostly into seeing how many times they can try to throw in a little twist at the end (which are almost always predictable) and still keep an audience guessing. As one who has almost always seen through their little charades, I want some grittiness! But then again, I suppose I could just watch Brick if I want to true modern film noir.

Speaking of noir, Rachel and I watched A Prairie Home Companion the other night, and it's just as great the second time as the first. The cast is amazing, and the second time around, I was much more able to appreciate the subtle little things that Altman did to make it a true ensemble movie. It's the small things like seeing characters off to the side of the stage during numbers even when it's not necessary that make me love good directors. And this is long, so I'm done rambling.