Well now I’ve finally watched every feature-length Pixar film to date, and I’ve not been disappointed by a single one.
Tonight I watched A Bug’s Life and enjoyed it from start to finish. This movie was definitely farther towards the “kid movie” end of the spectrum, but the story was endearing, the voice acting excellent, the sound editing incredible, and the humor delightful.
Easy 4 stars out of 5, and I can’t wait for Wall-E to release next year.
Chiggity-check check this out:
My wife carved this awesome pumpkin because she rocks. Here’s hoping this thing causes some smiles from our front porch tonight while the kiddies trick-or-treat in my neighborhood. I find this even more appropriate with the impending VCU Men’s Basketball season.
When I want a treat for Halloween, I need only look to my dear McSweeney’s.
You’d be amazed at how cheap razorblades are these days.
Recently, my friend Dave has been spamming me with links to choice articles from The Onion, and today was one of the best yet.
Even though this glorious nugget is nearly 11 years old, you could essentially substitute the years and it would be just as relevant.
I wrote about Jessica Hagy’s indexed back in February this year, and fortunately for her, so have many others more important than me.
I found out today that she’s releasing a book through one of Joel Turnipseed’s first posts to Kottke.org – an interview with Ms. Hagy, in fact.
The book is titled, appropriately, Indexed, and releases February 28th of 2008.
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this animated short film before (and perhaps some of you have, as well), but I’m certain I’ve never posted about it.
Wolfgang and Christoph Lauenstein’s 1989 (and Oscar-winning) Balance paints a pretty bleak picture for those who’s desires overcome the ability to work for the greater good.
Last night the Boston Red Sox swept the Colorado Rockies in the World Series. The only reason I knew it was game four was because I saw it in the Comcast program guide on my TV when I was checking why there might be no 8:15 NFL game.
I’ve never really been in to the Major League Baseball or the sport in general. As a child, I’d not played so much as t-ball, and though my Dad taught my brothers and I to throw, catch, and bat (he loved the sport, and initially went to college for it, I believe), it never stuck with me. I never owned a glove (that I can remember), never traded baseball cards, and didn’t even see The Sandlot until I was in college.
Sure, I’ve been to a Mets game, I’ve rooted for the Yankees during World Series gone by. I’ve been to a few Richmond Braves games as well. But I’ve never been able to get into the game itself because of the tedium.
OH THE TEDIUM, particularly of the professional level. I don’t care what psychological games are played between the pitcher and the batter or what-not – it’s boring to watch the cold-molasses pace of a game with the batters forever stepping in and out of the box, practice swinging, spitting, chewing, scratching themselves. And the pitchers, too! Looking over their shoulders every now and again to try their hand at sending a potential base stealer back to the dugout. A baseball game can easily last three hours! And this isn’t because it needs to. Baseball doesn’t really have a clock like American Football, Soccer, Basketball or Hockey, so there’s no pressure to do much in a timely fashion. And it shows. And all this for 162 games a year? No thanks.
I understand a televised NFL game runs for around 3 hours as well because of TV time outs, but at least the televised portion of the game primarily shows playing time instead of diddling around with your cleats or taking a fifth practice swing. Soccer is even better, I think, with near non-stop game play and minimal commercial breaks (usually during the half).
I titled this post because I feel that baseball’s time has come and gone, and I don’t feel bad about it for a second. The chart below shows the results of Gallup polls over the past 14 years:
Gallup has another poll about general sports popularity in the United States which seems to indicate that baseball is at best holding steady behind basketball as America’s favorite sport to follow (11%) with football soundly in the lead at 43% as of December last year. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not trying to suggest that the quality of the sport is in anyway correlated with its popularity, but it sure does support my feeling that baseball is on its way out.
And as far as I’m concerned, it can go.
I think I’ve finally hit the point where I’ll just update WordPress manually from now on. This means no upgrading at the office, but I suppose I could be doing some WORK instead…
I just updated to 2.3.1, and as I suspected, it replaced the Themes folder and I had to add the JS line for Mint back into the header.php file. It’ll be a much smoother transition if I just download the latest version and add in all the sub-folders one by one. At least I hope so 
If you’re willing to wait for the long load time, you can check out Da Vinci’s The Last Supper in 16 BILLION pixels of glory.
The navigation is straight forward enough, and though you can’t see a large blown-up image of the complete work, you can zoom in to any section with great detail. The whole thing just became available today, so give it some patience and hopefully the web hosting will be adjusted soon.
Well what a fine cap to the end of a long but not-so-bad day! Val and I recently returned from the annual Maize Maze at the Belvedere Plantation. We hung out with our dear friends the Mansfields and wandered in the dark through…well…a giant maze cut out of a huge corn field, essentially.
The weather was perfect, and it was actually relaxing and entertaining to wander about through the narrow lanes, leaves brushing past our faces. Afterwards, we checked out some of the peripheral farm-like attractions and the little shop, and headed back to the casa.
I’m pretty sure tonight will be one of the finest nights of sleep I’ve had in ages.
P.S. As an epilogue on my Saturday of work, here’s my verdict: Not so bad – at least this time. I didn’t really have any daytime plans this weekend, so I don’t as if I’d missed out on anything, particularly when the Mrs. would have put me to work in other ways about the house I wouldn’t look for this on a regular basis by any stretch of the imagination, but at least this first time was pretty easy on me.