Favorite Things - Summer Edition

Well, it's time for the initial "Favorite Things" post. Since I've only done these in my head, I need to explain what I am thinking here. These favorite things can be anything about summer. I will describe why each is a favorite in one sentence. Then, I would encourage all of my blogging friends to do the same. Without further ado...

1. Freshly cut grass - such a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment, it looks great, and the smell is distinct and one of a kind
2. Summer movie season - the days leading up to a big summer movie are filled with anticipation; this was recently seen in the two weeks leading up to The Dark Knight
3. Baseball - ties in with freshly cut grass; my favorite sport, and nothing beats sitting in the ballpark on a sunny summer evening, even when you are watching the Pirates
4. Summer mornings - the sun rises early, it's relatively cool out, and it is very tranquil; it's just breathtakingly beautiful
5. Summer nights - tell me more, tell me more; how much dough did he spend? Seriously though, the moon and stars on a clear summer night; it's one time I wish I had a girlfriend
6. Summer songs - the inevitable tune that dominates the airwaves because it's the ultimate "driving on a hot summer day with the windows down and systems up" song; any nominations for this summer's song? I say Rihanna's "Disturbia" but I could be persuaded otherwise
7. HEAT! - I love hot weather; I love to step outside and sweat
8. Farmer's tan - my arms, face, and the back of my legs tan with the best of them; the rest? not so much. It's feast or famine with my chest, back, neck, etc.
9. Sandals - I hate wearing shoes; I wish I could wear sandals all year round (in Tennessee, I almost could!)

Well, that's a good list to start. How about you? What are some of your favorite things of summer? Feel free to talk about this in the comments.

Tonight, my mom and I are going to see "Annie Get Your Gun" at the Benedum, the second of our three show series. Look for the review tomorrow.

(Partial) Summer Movie Recap

It seems like years ago that Ironman kicked off the summer movie season and renewed Robert Downey, Jr.'s career. Since then, there have been a lot of big budget summer "popcorn" movies that have been released. Well, I keep saying that I am going to post reviews of some of these movies that I have seen. Without further ado, my paragraph analysis:

• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - we waited 19 years for that? I mean, they kept delaying the movie because of bad scripts. So, this was the one that you thought was passable, Lucas and Speilberg? It was fine for the first half or so, but the ending of this movie was highly disappointing. Do not see it.
• Wall-E - I didn't expect much from this movie; I thought it would be Pixar's first miss. I was wayyyyyyyyy off. A surprisingly complex movie, it touches on themes of consumerism, the environment, and the pathetic plight of the human race. The main character, Wall-E, also shares a predilection for the movie Hello, Dolly! so of course he and I would get along fine (for those who don't know, I was a waiter/singer/dancer in Pine Richland High School's Spring 1999 production). This movie is a must-see.
• Hancock - Will Smith is arguably the biggest star in the world; inarguably, he is the highest paid right now, as he commands well over $20 million per movie. He's also one of my favorite movie stars; movies like Hitch, I Am Legend, Ali, Independence Day, and The Pursuit of Happyness prove his versatility and depth. That's one reason why I was disappointed in this movie. I guess that fan reactions of Hancock range from horrible to great, but I don't see how anyone can like this movie. The first half was very funny and interesting; after a certain point, it's horrible. I don't want to give anything away about the "twist" - don't worry, the movie will make it plenty clear that something is coming. Honestly, I couldn't tell you what happened in the last 20 minutes; I was so bored, I was following the Pirate game pitch for pitch on my cell phone. Do not see this movie.
• The Dark Knight - I've already covered this movie, but I need to say more about it. I saw it in IMAX the other night; to be honest, I didn't see a difference (and there is no difference in IMAX as far as audio; the audio is dependent on the theater). Anyway, the second time seeing it revealed a few things. First, I was wayyyy off about Heath Ledger's performance; it was much, much better than even I said it was, and I was effusive in my praise. Second, the story needs to be praised. It's totally different than Batman Begins, which was an origin story; Knight was the battle of good vs. evil, where there were no clear lines who WAS good and evil. This was just a stunning movie; it really could win multiple Academy Awards, in many different categories. If you haven't seen this, you should drop everything and see it immediately.
• Step Brothers - Will Ferrell has been on a downward spiral in his career for a couple of years. I think he hasn't done anything hilarious since his cameo in Wedding Crashers. Ricky Bobby was promising and would have been fine if the previews didn't show the only funny parts. Blades of Glory and Semi-Pro were just awful. This movie had a few funny moments, and John C. Reilly is a welcome addition; they have a good comic feel for each other. However, it was unbelievably raunchy. There were crude words used as insults repeatedly, and it really went over the line of funny, I thought. I really wouldn't recommend it unless you are a male from the ages of 18-35; those are really the only people that might find it remotely funny. The descent of Ferrell continues.

Anyway, that was a rundown of a few movies that I have seen this summer. There are a couple others that I will see; I am eagerly anticipating Pineapple Express, and I will see Tropic Thunder. Other than that, I can't think of anything very promising in the last month of the summer movie season. If I have missed anything, let me know.

What are your opinions of the movies I've mentioned?

Finally!

Thanks to the Verizon Online technician who came by at 9:30 this morning, I now have (wireless!) internet in my home!

This means that I will be blogging much more frequently. Although right now, I am going outside to cut the grass.

Meanwhile, on my lunch break...

So, today was the first day this week that I didn't bring my lunch, and I went out around noon to get some food. It started off badly, as 11:58 was the time that it started to rain. So, I had my umbrella, but I was still getting soaked by the rain as I walked to Jimmy John's. I walked into Jimmy John's and it stopped raining a minute later; no joke.

So I eat, and then I was gonna stop at CVS for a co-worker. I was getting a soda and a bag of chips. So I'm standing in line when the alarm at the door goes off. The worker at the cash register starts screaming "shoplifter...shoplifter". Two other workers run out the door; one had to get by me, as she was coming from behind me, and I didn't realize she was there, so I may have aided and abetted the crime. Anyway, as they are running out the door, they ask the clerk for a description. His response? "She was black!" So we know from this her race and gender. And I can attest, as I saw her walking out, that those were the only characteristics you could see; maybe I'd add that she was wearing a pink shirt.

The ladies that ran out after her come back in a minute later. She got away. They asked for another description; he responded in the same way. So that was exciting; I witnessed a petty crime. The clerk, by the way, said that CVS just presses charges and sends shoplifters to jail. It seems like a bad idea to steal a lipstick and end up in jail.

So, by now there was a line about 7 people long. One of the ladies who had run outside opened a second cash register. She said, "Can I help the next person?" I took a step toward her, when this short lady stepped up to the counter. The lady at the register said, "I have to help him (pointing to me), he was next in line." The short rude lady just screams "WELL YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE SAID NEXT THEN!"

This made me lose some of my faith in humanity. We are doomed when people like this roam the Earth.

Takin' the Bus to Revive the City

Well, the last two mornings I have decided to take the bus to work. Yesterday (Monday) I had to be in early because of a conference call that I had to be on, so I decided to take the 43E (Mt. Washington Express) which drops people off at various points downtown. The bus stops at the corner of Oneida and Grandview, which is right across from the Duquesne Incline (two streets west of my street). So it was a 5 minute walk to the bus stop. Then I got on the bus, and was downtown within 10 minutes. It was so fabulous!

Today I took the bus again. It was a little slower because of all the people driving to work today (the rain caused this, I think). However, it still has its benefits. I said this earlier this month about the "T", but I can say it's true of the bus system as well. There are a lot of cute girls that ride the bus. In particular, there is one girl that I can't get out of my mind; she had a great smile and cute curly blonde hair. I remember the sentiment when I was in college that Western PA has no cute, single girls; from my experiences so far, I can't believe I ever agreed with this.

So the whole public transportation thing gets me thinking many times about politics and beliefs that people hold. Public transportation is vital to cities and urban life, yet in many places (including Pittsburgh) it keeps facing budget cuts, which leads to a cut in services. Our cities are dying. Look at the declining population in the traditional Rust Belt cities (Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Buffalo, Detroit, etc) and look at the cities that are gaining population, like Aurora, Colorado. I have never been there, but it's basically a suburb of Denver. This isn't a city! Yet it has more population than we have in Pittsburgh. The same thing, "white flight", is happening in Western PA, where people are fleeing to the suburbs.

This gets to a whole bunch of problems, including the racial inequalities and disparities that exist because of this situation. When the Port Authority cuts services, who does it disproportionately affect? Minorities that live in the city. And why do they cut services? Because people don't want to pay a little more in taxes.

I believe in the necessity of urban growth and renewal for the sake of the country in the 21st century. One of the most important ways that this happens is with a vibrant public transportation system. That's why, when I am Allegheny County Executive, I am going to expand the "T" to all corners of the county.

"Literally"

This weekend was a huge letdown, and it started off so promisingly. Day by day:

1. Friday - after work, I was meeting friends Keith, Luke, Steve and Dave at the South Side Works for the 6:30 showing of The Dark Knight. They made it around 6:18 (they were coming from Grove City) so we went into the theater (I had bought tickets on Tuesday of the week) and the only seats seemingly left were in the first three rows. However, Luke came up huge and found seats in the last row. Sitting through the previews was torture (although Bond previews are always sweet, even if the name of the movie is Quantum of Solace).

When the screen came up, I got goose bumps...literally. And this is not literally in the figurative sense. I'm gonna rant a minute here. Go look up "literally" in the dictionary, like on www.dictionary.com . They now have two definitions: (1) the literal definition and (2) the opposite definition, also known as "figuratively". You know, like "I literally ate 8,000 pounds of hamburger this weekend." No you didn't; you figuratively ate that much. This is just unconscionable to me, that in the dictionary it has two diametrically opposed concepts for the same word. Unbelievable.

Anyway, the opening scene is the scene that they had been showing sporadically in theaters for the past year, the bank heist with the Joker leading the way. This confirmed what I and many others had thought since first seeing the Joker on screen: he was going to steal the movie.

Here's my personal rundown of the movie: Heath Ledger, Heath Ledger, Heath Ledger. Obviously I need time for it to digest, I need to see it again multiple times, but it may be my favorite performance from an actor ever. I mean, it stole the movie that much. Every scene without Joker onscreen, I was waiting for the next one with him on. I just fell in love with his portrayal. It was creepy, scary, yet hysterical at the same time. He was a manic psychopath and it was extremely entertaining to watch.

I will say this: I liked it better than Batman Begins. I thought Begins was excellent and really raised the bar for comic book movies. Knight stands alone without the necessity of the "comic book" tag. The other performance, I thought, ranged from below average to fine. Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine did their thing, Maggie Gyllenhaal is obviously a better Rachel Dawes than Katie Holmes (about this there is NO debate), and Aaron Eckhart was very good as Harvey Dent. Disappointing for me was actually Christian Bale. He's usually good in everything (including the first time he filled the role of the Caped Crusader) but this movie, I thought he lacked depth. His Batman was a one note character, almost grunting his lines and generally being ticked off at the world.

This movie really explored the concept of good vs. evil in an interesting way. I felt that, at times, there were political and biblical overtones, but that could be my penchant for interpreting everything that way. Overall, this movie was fantastic. Equally fantastic was the shrimp and bacon club I had at The Cheesecake Factory after the movie. Seriously, if you have never tried it, get it the next time you go there. I could eat them all day; literally.

2. Saturday was a HUGE bust. I was supposed to get Dish Network installed. I had already had my problems with Verizon Online, so I was hoping this would go smoothly. I did not.

I set alarms for 7:15 and 7:30 so that I would get up and get a cup of coffee if I felt like it. I didn't, so I moved out to the living room, waiting with my phone for the Dish guy to call. My service window was from 8-12. I sat there reading all morning; I literally read thousands of pages of this book this weekend. At 11:20 a.m., he called saying that his first two jobs were in Beaver County and that he was on his way. At 2:30 p.m. the Western PA office called and asked if he was there yet. He was not. At 4:00, they called and said he was backed up, and we needed to change it til tomorrow. Whatevs. I did nothing the entire day.

3. Sunday, I woke up early to go to the 9:00 a.m. service at the South Hills Bible Chapel (www.biblechapel.org). It's a non-denominational church that teaches a lot of the same things that I've grown up believing (with less emphasis on the process of sanctification, which is big in the CMA church). I went, and they are doing this summer series on the "B-sides of the Bible". The concept is tied to Beatles songs, which coincidentally were the A-sides of their respective singles. B-sides are the lesser known sides of singles, and that was what they were trying to capture in this series, short books of the Bible that get overlooked. Yesterday was about the book of Jonah, and other books that will be examined this summer include Obadiah, Nahum, 2 and 3 John, and Philemon. They are trying to preach a book a week. It was a good message, and I was even able to get over the cheesy packaging of the message (side note: this is a pet peeve of mine, when churches try to spice up the Bible. As if people won't be as interested because the Bible is boring, they need to attach some type of relevant cultural significance to sell what God has to say. Luckily, like I said, I was able to get past that here--hoping I didn't offend my pastor and friend Dan here, but I don't think he does this, which I appreciate and makes Bakerstown Alliance the best church to which I have ever been--literally).

After church, I went to the information center to get info on men's Bible studies, appropriate Sunday School classes, and small groups. The guy who was greeting me was none other than former Steeler lineman and current Steelers color guy Tunch Ilkin. I talked with him a bit, it turns out he's the director of men's ministries there, and he gave me his cell number, telling me to call with any questions or to meet him this week and talk. So I might do that.

Anyway, this church was visited; it was two I had found that I wanted to try (the other being USC Alliance). They are each about 10 miles from my house, so not that far.

Then, I waited around for the Dish guy again. He came at 2:30, asked for my landlord permission form that I didn't have, and said he couldn't install it. I told him that my landlord lives in NYC, its hard to get stuff to/from him, I could have forged it, I could have gotten a friend to be my "landlord", etc. Nothing worked for him; he didn't "need" more accusations of house damage. Whatever. Dish and Verizon Online lost my business to Comcast now. Even though it costs freaking $108 to install! Something needs to be done about the cable business.

Here's to literally another week without cable or internet. I am hoping that the next discs of The West Wing get here shortly for me to continue watching.

*I hope you appreciated my brazen use of the word "literally" in this post. I'm going to continue to use it in both the correct and incorrect manners. If you use the word incorrectly, I won't call you out, but consider this a lesson. IT CAN'T MEAN FIGURATIVELY!

Well, I certainly hope Patty went to bed...

Thanks to Verizon, my DSL connection is not working. It was a very frustrating experience where the tech person kept me on the phone for 40 minutes, all to tell me to turn off the computer and modem, wait 15 seconds, and start them up again. For those of you who have never done this, that was the fourth time I had been told that would solve my problem: first, the written directions said this, second it was on the installation CD, third was on the voice recorded phone message while waiting for the tech person, then fourth was the tech person. When you aren't an idiot, this is extremely irritating, to be told something four times. And that's all the tech person had for me! Forty minutes for that. So now they are sending a technician to my apartment, of course not til next Saturday, and they think they are billing me for service starting yesterday.

Yes, this angered me very much. To the point that I couldn't do my favorite things of summer post. I will do that at some point this week. Of course, I'll have to venture out to a Panera or other wireless friendly place to do this. Thanks a lot, Verizon Online.