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Posts Tagged ‘Ups’
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008
The other night I had the unfortunate opportunity to watch Jack Frost, the 1998 Christmas-themed movie about a kid and a snowman. The kicker here is that the snowman is his father reincarnated a year after his death. Intriguing, right? I didn’t think so either, but I sort of watched it anyway.
The movie starts off like any other Christmas movie – a family with its unique ups and downs, a wide-eyed child looking for something more, a parental figure who is too busy to notice some things, etc. You know the drill. Seriously, some of these haphazardly thrown together Christmas movies stick WAY too close to the generic script, but I digress. So there is the standard family that you’ll find in any Christmas movie. Michael Keaton plays the father and does a pretty good job with the role that he’s given: he’s not quite an arrogant jerk, but not quite ready to be the father figure that he needs to be…and eventually he’s the voice of a snowman. Joseph Cross plays the son and I thought he did an exceptional job, as did Kelly Preston in playing the mother.
Again, the movie starts like any other and then Keaton’s band gets a big break and he needs to be somewhere important on Christmas day. Cross gets pissed off, gives him back a magical harmonica (yep), and then Keaton dies trying to rush back to his family before Christmas.
A year goes by, life is miserable for the young kid, he builds a snowman to remind him of the one he and his Dad built a year before, he blows on the magical harmonica, the snowman is infused with his Dad’s spirit. Simple story, right? Cross finds out the snowman is his Dad and he spends the rest of the movie trying to hide this fact from the world – including his mother who now thinks that her son is nuts. If your kid was walking around talking to snowmen, you may think the same thing!
The folks who put this one together attempted to include a bunch of touching scenes throughout the movie, but most of them come off as just awkward. Even through the final scene of the movie (which I won’t be wretched enough to share here) this viewer received more of an awkward feeling than anything else. There is even one moment towards the end of the movie where the bully antagonist (because these awkwardly thrown together Christmas movies always have a bully antagonist) and the young, bright-minded protagonist become friends. Awww… I almost threw up.
If you’re a freak for Christmas and Christmas movies, then you can go ahead and watch this one, but everyone else should run away from this movie.
Posted in Book, DVD, Movie, & Media Reviews, Winter & Christmas Time | 2 Comments »
Monday, October 13th, 2008
Tucker Max is an online blogger whose outlandish retelling of his personal experiences hurled him into the bright lights of fame. People found his stories to be so crazy that he was even filmed by MTV about his exploits. In a brilliant move, he put together a bunch of his craziest stories (including stories already posted on his free blog) and compiled them into I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell. After hearing about how great Tucker Max was from my GGL and some other guys in the fraternity, my roommate purchased a copy of the book and after he was done reading it, I got the sloppy seconds.
I read a LOT of books. I’m such a nerd for books that I have two bookshelves in my room that are stacked with a wide variety of books. None of the books that I read and none of the books in my small collection had me openly laughing out loud like Max’s book. Bear in mind that this is a book that is composed entirely of stories from his drunken nights around the country, weird sex stories, and horrendous treatment of those around him. It was brilliant!
There is one story in particular where Max talks about one night in Austin where he got back to his hotel room extremely late in the night and his roommate managed to get into the bathroom before him. Having to go to the bathroom REALLY bad, Max runs out of his room and winds up making a mess in the hotel’s lobby as he tries to run to the nearest bathroom. Since my retelling will not do the story any justice, you may want to read it directly from the horse’s mouth.
This is an entertaining book. Like any good storyteller it seems that Max integrates a bit of the “fish tale” effect into his stories, but that doesn’t detract from their entertainment factor. Honestly, how many young adult guys out there haven’t exaggerated some of the stats on their hook-ups? That’s what I thought. I don’t know if I can highly recommend that anyone go out there and buy this book since the stories are available for free online. That said, though, if you’re bored, have some free time, and want to read some funny stories about a guy who is out there having fun for the glory of himself, then I recommend heading over to Max’s website.
Max is working on a movie that is loosely based on the Austin road trip story linked above. The movie has a $10 million budget and is currently in production in Louisiana. The tentative release date is some time next spring.
Posted in Book, DVD, Movie, & Media Reviews, Entertainment, Jokes & Humor | No Comments »
Monday, August 25th, 2008
Earlier today I read an article on FOXNews.com entitled, “Green With Envy: Prius Owners Smile as Neighbors Fume.” The purpose of the article was to detail how some of the early adopters to the “green movement” are acting snobbish around their neighbors and friends. However, if you actually read the article, there really aren’t any concrete examples of this going on.
Plus, as someone who works in a twelve person organization where there are two Prius owners, I can tell you that there is no eco-snobbery going on in my office. My company, however, is moving aggressively into the sustainable energy, eco-friendly market. One of the start-ups that we met with last week is an “upcycling” company called TerraCycle. You may have seen their products at Home Depot, Office Depot, Walgreens, or at Wal-Mart or you may have seen their logo stamped on the back of Oreo or Capri Sun packages (among other places). This is a company based out of Trenton, New Jersey and they are doing some of the best adaptive reuse of garbage that I’ve ever seen.
Their legacy product – worm poop – is bottled in pre-used soda bottles. Their spray caps are models that companies like Windex no longer use that would have otherwise wound up in landfills. Their offices are stocked with used goods from tables to chairs to couches (I can vouch for this as I’ve walked through the place). I encourage you to click on the link above (or the one that is now a permanent part of this blog’s sidebar) to learn more about this amazing company! Click here if you want a review of their bathroom cleaner product.
But to get back on topic – I don’t see any eco-snobbery going on in my part of New Jersey. I think this is because in this state we’re all too busy to have our heads up our asses!
Posted in Computers, Internet, & Technology, Sustainable Living, The State of New Jersey | No Comments »
Monday, July 7th, 2008
Today begins the second straight week of vacation for Howard Stern and his Sirius XM crew. I’m just about done with this guy and his completely ridiculous schedule. I’ve said on this blog before that Howard used to be the voice of the working man and now he works a 4-day per week, 4-hour per day work schedule where he pretty much gets an additional week off each month. The voice of the working man? I think not.
One of my friends made the comment the other day that you can tell in Howard’s voice how he doesn’t even want to be there any more and I couldn’t agree more. The shows have been lacking lately, though I will give him credit because every once in a long while he hits a home run (usually something that has to do with Artie and his disastrous health). There are a few issues that confuse me about Howard and his current deal, though…
For example, Sirius XM ran a promotion to get new subscribers this spring leading into the summer months where their announcer clearly said, “And you won’t want to miss Howard Stern this summer!” Really? We won’t want to miss Howard this summer? Because I’m pretty sure that he’s only worked like two or three, 4-day work weeks this summer (that’s 8 to 12 days).
Also, how can the higher-ups at Sirius XM justify the $100 million per year expense on this guy when he works such a reduced schedule? I understand that the $100 million is to be used for his channels in addition to his salary, but when the company is on the verge of losing a talent like Bubba the Love Sponge, you have to wonder why so much money is funneled into The Howard Stern Show when it clearly is not using the money correctly (why don’t their microphones ever work right the first time).
Speaking of money, don’t tell me that Stern isn’t bringing in a ton of excess income on his channels. Subscribers to this commercial-free service are treated to frequent 10 – 15 minute non-live content breaks during the show. In other words, we get propaganda from the Howard 100 News team, commercials, and full-length songs (which is incredibly insulting considering the dozens upon dozens of music channels that are truly commercial free). Some of that money can be spread around, you know.
Anyway, it’s ridiculous that Stern is floating by on a contract that is designed for someone to NOT float by. I hope Mel Karmazin reigns this guy in because with his current attitude, the ridiculous amount of commercials, and his current schedule, Stern may actually be hurting the satellite radio movement more than helping it.
Posted in Computers, Internet, & Technology, Entertainment | 5 Comments »
Saturday, September 11th, 2004
First and foremost, let’s not forget the history of today… Be sure to say a prayer in whatever religion or manner that you subscribe to. If you’re not religious, then at least have a deep thought about the events of three years ago – it’s the least that we can do.
Some of you might notice that my latest post about the great gyms at Rutgers University, the classes that I’m taking, and just what I’ve been up to this past week is gone! The server people moved us to a different machine in their database…just so happens that yours truly updated during the move! They’re looking for that lost update, but I told them not to go nuts over it – I mean it’s just a blog entry!
Tomorrow’s update will talk a bit about what I did all day today (basically it’ll be about the regional conference that I attended/hosted for my fraternity this morning).
However, I figure that today I would just talk briefly about my comings and goings in the past few days.
- I got a job at the Ocean Place Spa and Resort on the beautiful Atlantic Ocean in Long Branch, NJ. I start next Friday doing some Front Desk work – it should be a nice change of feeling from my latest job (working in the real estate office for two years). The real estate office had its ups and downs (mostly downs), but one of the things that made it difficult to really enjoy was the fact that the Owner worked there in the office as well as the Financial Administrator and both were aged 45 and 65, respectively. It makes it tough for them to relate to my 23-year old issues and concerns, but they did a fine job. However, the new job has a Front Desk Manager who is 27, two Assistant Managers who are 24 and 25, and a front desk staff who range in age between 21 and 24. Not bad! Bottom Line: It should be a lot of fun (and it’s only part-time for two or three days per week!).
- I took a dip in the gym’s pool today for the first time in at least three weeks (probably longer). I have to say that it was extremely refreshing. You all know that I was swimming everyday for the longest time, but in the past few weeks between planning today’s conference, getting ready for going to Grad School, getting a job at the hotel, preparing for my guys to all move back into the area, and dealing with life in general it’s been hard to find an extra hour or two in my day to jump in the pool! When I did get in the water today, though, that feeling of, “Ahhh, nice” came back. I like swimming – I’m going to start swimming more again.
- Homework! Damn it! I’m 23 friggin years old and I’ve got friggin homework to do! The bulk of the rest of my weekend is going to be spent doing the work for only TWO of my classes for this coming week. Sucks, doesn’t it? But hey, like I said to my friends the other day – I’ll put in the extra hardwork for the next year and a half to make a butt-ton more money for the next 50 years of my life!
- Make a comment! What are you waiting for? Give me a great caption or idea on the picture that I posted the other day! For those of you who are wondering, the guy in the picture is a good friend of mine and an active reader of the blog so you can be sure that your comments are being read! Click here to see the post or scroll down to view it.
- New ads on the blog. You might have noticed that if you click a link on this page it takes you to an advertisement and THEN to the page that you originally intended to go to. It’s a new form of advertising that Mamma.com is offering (our advertisers) and I figured why not give it a shot, huh? Feel free to let me know your thoughts on it. Running a site is expensive business these days – especially one that isn’t out to make money like TBL. Just to make money to pay the bills is hard enough alone!
That’s what I got. I’ll be back tomorrow with a few thoughts on my regional conference!
Posted in College & Fraternity Life, Computers, Internet, & Technology, Gym Stories, Money, Jobs, & Finances | No Comments »
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