For a little while

My brother and I came home yesterday from the driving range and put our clubs in the garage. We saw water had come all the way to the door of the garage, but figured that it was just from the rain. See, the back door into the garage leaks when it rains and if we forget to put a towel there to stop it, that side of the garage becomes a swamp. Luckily, I was intrigued by how much water was in the garage and actually looked at the back door. It was completely dry.

We figured out that it was actually the water heater which had sprung a leak. So no hot water until that's fixed (and knowing my family, who knows how long that will take). Luckily, coinciding with this breakage, I've started house sitting for the next few weeks, so I, at least, will have a hot shower. Score!

Oh, and my little team got its first win yesterday (and only our second game). Go us. Unfortunately, we'll be playing basically the equivalent of a JV team tomorrow since Frontier only has two teams (JV and FS). So I don't think it will be a pleasant game for us. It is a chance to see what my team is made of, though, which'll be good.

Post Oscar Season

So, the Oscars happened last night, and we had a nice little shindig to celebrate. Like most shindigs, we had to have a contest, so we printed off Oscar ballets to see who could get the most right. There were, of course, prizes, with the first prize being a copy of The French Connection. For those of you wondering about a strange choice, it's really not all that strange. For one, it won best picture, and for another it's on a number of AFI lists, and rarely comes on TV for Chris and me to watch.

Anyways, the winners were Jessica and Chris (who tied) with 14 each, I think. I got 8 right, but most of that was because I generally picked what I thought should win, instead of what I thought would win. There were a couple disappointments, and a couple exciting upsets, and I'll relate my favorites here.

Where the Academy got it wrong
Best Visual Effects: In my opinion, Superman Returns should have won, instead of Pirates. I can see why Pirates won (the effects were more varied - lots of sea creatures and effects as opposed to mostly flying), but the effects in Superman were truly amazing and perfectly seamless. Pirates was too flashy for my taste to win this, but I can't be too upset, I guess.

Cinematography: Pan's Labyrinth won (which I can't get too upset about), but I think Children of Men should have. Don't get me wrong, the cinematography in Labyrinth is good, I just thought Children was superb. Then again, I'm a sucker for long, cut-less, drawn out shots. But that's not all Children had. While it didn't cut very often, the camera movement and angles really let you feel and see what the characters were feeling and seeing.

Best Foreign Film: Granted, I've only seen one film in this category, but I can't imagine the other films being better. While I'm glad that Pan's Labyrinth won some other awards, I think Jessica was right in that they were given to it to make up for the lack of this Oscar.

Best Picture: I really don't think that The Departed deserved to win in this category. I didn't see all of the films up for the award, but I feel like the movie that wins this should somehow be important, and I didn't feel that The Departed was all that important. Honestly, I expected The Queen to win, and I'll give my opinion as to how right that was once I've seen it. I still think the Academy was wrong, but I'll try to withhold judgment until I've seen more of the films on the list.

Awesome Upsets
Best Supporting Actor: I'm very glad that Alan Arkin won this award. He truly deserved it, but I didn't expect him to get it. A very nice surprise for Little Miss Sunshine.

Best Original Screenplay: Another deserving win for Little Miss that I didn't expect. But I'm happy about it.

Best Supporting Actress: While this wasn't really an upset, I think it's awesome that Jennifer Hudson who on her first time out. And after America didn't vote for her. Which really just shows how much the audience of American Idol knows, really.

And Finally
Best Directing: I thought this might be the year for Scorsese, and I was right. Part of this probably had to do with the fact that his cast was amazing and he directed them perfectly. Part had to do with the fact that he was doing what he does best - a violent mob film. But most of it had to do with the fact that he really is a great director.

Honorary Oscar: How Ennio Morricone didn't win an Oscar for Best Score in 1987 for The Mission I'll never know. But at least he got one for his whole body of work, which is sorely deserved.

Oscar Season

So, it's that time of year again. Time for me to put out my list of movies from this past year. Now, it's true that I really haven't seen all that many movies this year (well, movies that were released this year, at least), so you'll have to keep that in mind as you look at this list.

1. Little Miss Sunshine
Reason for ranking: Everything about this movie works so well. The soundtrack is great and fits perfectly. The cast is amazing and hilarious. And it makes fun of beauty pageants. What more could you look for in a movie.

2. The Departed
Reason for ranking: While mob movies usually aren't my cup of tea (nothing against them, they just all pale compared to The Godfather), this one was good. I was constantly wondering when the moles were going to be discovered, and who wasn't going to die (because there are more that die than don't).

3. Children of Men
Reason for ranking: I'd like to put this one at the number 2 spot, but feel like it could have been better. Granted, the cinematography was amazing and I'm a sucker for movies with long, continuous shots, but some of the plot was lacking, and I felt like it was a little too preachy.

4. Pan's Labyrinth
Reason for ranking: This was a very visual movie, and I absolutely loved it. If this was a list of my favorite movies, it would probably be ranked second, but it's a list of which were the best, in my opinion. There were gaps in the story that I think could have been plugged, and it jumped a little bit, but I still loved it.

5. Brick
Reason for ranking: I love film noir, and this new thing - teen noir - isn't much different. This film put new life into a genre that has sadly seemed to lose it's place in our current society. The cast of young actors was great, too.

6. A Prarie Home Companion
Reason for ranking: There's just something about ensemble movies when they're done correctly. This movie was short on plot, but made up for it with randomness and great acting.

7. A Scanner Darkly
Reason for ranking: A very difficult movie to follow, and one that deserves a re-watching. There was some amazing voice acting, and the process of animation that they use is pretty cool. I don't want to say too much about it because most people haven't seen it, still.

Worst movie: Eragon
While the first book wasn't the best thing out there, it was far superior to the movie that came out. It was so bad, I'm not sure if I'll see the second one (if they make it). The only good thing about the movie was that Saphira looked wicked cool. Before the movie came out, I said that the entire movie would rest on how much effort they put into making the dragon look awesome, but it seems that's the only effort they put into the movie. Perhaps next time more script and character development, and the same amount of special effects. It wasn't the actors' fault, it was the writers and developers.

Loss of Innocence

There was an intervention on Friday night. A group of friends sat me down and decided that it was time I drank beer from a can. See, all of the beer that I've ever had in my life has either been on tap or in a bottle, and Chris finally decided that it was time. Actually, he decided this while he was at Von's and looking for something to drink. He decided that he hadn't had Bodington's in a while (which is an English beer somewhat like Guiness), which only comes on tap and in cans (it has a cool little CO2 capsule to make it way cooler than regular canned beer).

In completely unrelated news, I really like the new Window's Vista commercial, but hate what it's advertising. You know, the one where they show all sorts of cool stuff with people saying, "Wow," and then ruin it by saying that Vista is going to be like that. I'm sorry that I have no faith in Microsoft anymore, they've just failed so often that there's no room for hope in my heart anymore when it comes to Microsoft.

And in more unrelated news, there was once a pool that existed, for which there is no longer a reason. Congratulations Natalie.

Celebrate good times (come on!)

So, after months of being lazy, I finally took in Manny (my computer) to get fixed. And after thinking I would get him back in a day (like they said), I've finally gotten him back after a week. But the awesome thing is that he's back, and I now have my computer back in my room, so I can waste who knows how many hours updating things that really don't need to be updated and the other useless things I do on the computer.

So, be on the look-our for more posts more often.

Too much of a good thing?

So my leg seems to have finally recovered from whatever it is I did to it. Occasionally I will still feel a twinge, but it doesn't hurt while I'm running, which is what's important. And it healed just in time for me to hurt something else, too, although hopefully not. I played again as an alumnus today at BHS, and had a good time. It was nice to not hurt every single step I took. And this weekend we have an adult tournament here in Bakersfield, which should be fun. We can usually get people out for the Bakersfield tournament that can't usually play, so it's a nice change of pace for the team, and a good warm-up for the Vegas tournament in April. I just have to hope that I don't hurt something else.

Continuing my recent rash of watching movies (if you can believe it, I didn't watch many for November, December, and the first part of January), last night Rachel and I watched Little Miss Sunshine, which was as good the second time as the first. I also watched Philadelphia since it's on some AFI lists and I've never watched it before. It was exactly what I expected, and I had to keep reminding myself of when it was made, and what a huge movie it must have been back then. Of course, it got me to philosophizing about ethics and the law, so really, I spent most of the movie only sort of watching it and philosophizing. It was also very interesting to see how much the world has changed in only about 13 years.

Super Lame

As I hope everybody out there knows, this past weekend was the Superbowl. Now, I'm really not that into professional football (at least the American kind), but I will sit down and watch most of the Superbowl, because they're generally alright games, as far as they can be. It's also a great excuse to go over to somebody's house and eat a lot of junk.

So a small gathering of us went to the Burzlaff's house to enjoy the game, and continued the tradition we started last year of having a pool. This is the pool where everybody buys squares in a grid, and you look at the last digit of each teams score at the end of each quarter, and whoever has the square gets some money.

I generally never expect to win something when it comes to pure luck. In fact, I hate games that rely heavily on luck, because I tend to trust my own abilities more than luck. And this was proven to me once again on Sunday. With two seconds left in the half, the Colts (I think) had to make a less than 30 yard field goal for me to get some money. Now, they're kicker is one of the best and most consistent in the league, so I figured this might be my chance to trust somebody else and rely on luck. But of course, I should know better, and he missed the freaking field goal. Wide left. I was so angry, especially because it meant that Paul won on the same square for two quarters. I think that made me angrier than actually losing.