Once upon a time there was a magical place where it never rained, the end.

I watched Holes last night and really enjoyed it. This movie has good energy and a wonderfully interesting story. It can be a bit hard to follow since there are a couple different background stories about several different generations. But since they all have a distinct feel it's not too bad. This enables the story to take on a more mythlogical tone, with current events based on the wrongs in previous generations. And it manages a great happy ended that fits into the story quite nicely. I was impressed.

Also, Happy Halloween! In honor of the great work South Park has been doing the past few weeks I'll be dressing up as Eric Cartman tonight. I'm been practicing Cartman lines all day, it should be good times.

I want to get down on my knees and start pleasing Jesus,
I want to feel his salvation all over my face

South Park owns.

The monkey's his uncle?

I bought and watched the new DVD for The Lion King tonight. Unfortunately I didn't really do my research like I should have and I bought the special edition. To be honest I didn't realize there was a non-special edition, and you usually can't go wrong buying a special edition. The problem is the special edition is the one that comes with a new song built right into to the movie. And, well, the song kind of sucks. They replaced Zazo's (the bird helper) morning report with another one in song form. The song doesn't fit with the fabric of the scene and really distracted me. It could be just because it was different, but I haven't seen this movie enough to be really effected by that. Either way, I'm not a fan. Maybe the store will take it back and let me have the non-special edition - but I don't think that's likely.

Aside from that I don't know what I can say about this one that you don't already know. Let's just say that this is a great movie and you shouldn't pass it up because of a dislike for Disney or animation (unless you are extremely strong in both those categories.) I even get over my dislike of big production numbers and buy into the songs in this one. And what I noticed most this time around (besides the new song) James Earl Jones' wonderful work as Mufasa. James Earl Jones is undeniably the man.

You're straight like a freeway!

I love South Park and I'm thrilled they just started a new season. In the first episode Wednesday night they laid into Queer Eye For The Straight Guy and Boy Meets Boy. Metrosexuality became the new fad in South Park and the kids started having fights over who was gay'er. This caused all kinds of trauma for Mr. Garrison (and Mr. Slave) who at one point asked Chef what he did when "white people stole your culture." Except for a few minutes of silliness about crab people this was one more gem of satirical comedy.

I also watched Women Vs Men earlier in the week. This is a pure dialog movie that is written and acted quite well. It focuses around two middle age couples (their kids have left for college) dealing with an incident where the men went to a strip club and got lap dances. It's funny, and good, and not something you should watch with a significant other unless you're prepared for a very tough conversation. They do make an attempt at answering an age-old question near the end though: why do men who are in committed relationships go to these clubs? Similarly (and they don't deal with this question) why do men and women view activities like this in totally different ways? I don't really have a good answer to either, despite some pondering on the issues. I can say what they present in the movie is reasonable - but I think I'd have to be married for 20 or so years to really understand it.

What? It's bad enough that the agents no longer pose any threat at all, but now these are the kind of obstacles we must overcome to save Zion? Make out with Monica Belluci? What will we have to do next, eat our way through a prison wall made of chocolate?

I watched the new Matrix Reloaded DVD Friday night - then went and read the abridged script one more time. That thing is so good I can't watch the movie without being reminded of it. If you haven't read it you really need to.

I'm a bit dissapointed with the special features on the DVD. There are four mini-documentaries and of these I only liked the one about the freeway chase scene. That said, I really liked that one. Other then that the film is beautiful and the sound if great, so I can't complain too much. It's strange to me that Revolutions is just a few weeks away. I'm looking forward to it.

I also watched Hollywood Homicide today. This movie was different then I expected. It was kind of a crime drama, but the movie tells you who the bad guys are early. It's much more about the rediculousness of the two detetives. One's a real estate agent and the other is a yoga teacher. This movie doesn't treat any of it's characters seriously, but I found it to be cute and funny.

Caution: Nerd Alert!

EVite rules. I've always liked the service and thought it was handy, but I've been annoyed for the last few months because I have several email addresses where people send me evites. In order to keep track of my events I had to keep logging out and logging back in, unable to use the "remember me on this computer feature." But now they've solved my problem by allowing you to combine multiple email addresses in one account. This rules. I just combined them all and now I only have to log in once and all my events are right there. Well done guys.

Well, my World Cup fantasy time is over. The German's are on a plane to Frankfurt and I'm back in Seattle for good now - no more jaunting off for one more game.

The party last night was a lot of fun. The whole German team was there and very happy about their win - and in a great display of sportsmanship the Swedish team showed up later in the night too. There were many times with 3-4 of the German players and 3-4 of the Swedish players were in a big group hug hopping up and down to the music. It was a pretty neat night and something I suspect I'll never get to see again. It's not every day you get to go to a World Cup victory party.

But it will be for the German team over the next week. They'll have all kinds of events waiting for them in Germany. I wish them the best of luck for the rest of this year and next year in Athens.

I also want to call out a couple of the German players and staff that were especially kind to me. I know they don't read this site, but who knows - perhaps someday they'll google their names and make it here.

On the staff Chris Sonntag was the guy I worked with most. He was great with setting my expectations and really made me feel like I was part of the team. I couldn't have had the excellent experience I had without Chris' help.

The team's General Manager, Heike Ullrich, was also very welcoming when she wasn't working hard to keep the team organized. Especially important with Heike was the first night in the bar. I was worried at the airport and back at the hotel when the team was getting settled. But once I made it down to the bar to have a drink I saw that I would be welcomed and it was clear I was going to have a good time.

I talked to Michael Hertz, the team's media manager, most during the week. We talked about Women's soccer, how things are different in Germany and the US, and whatever else came up. I only regret we were never able to throw a baseball around like he wanted. Things just got too busy.

Lastly on the staff I have to give a shout out to the security officer Doug Wilson. The guy is the definition of a class act and knowing he's a police officer makes me feel just a little bit safer - even if he works all the way across the country in Georgia.

On the player's side I really only talked to two players much at all. Goalkeeper Silke Rottenberg was very nice and gracious. She gave me a big hug and her thanks when I left the party last night. She's just an all around cool woman - and a stellar goal keeper.

I also spent some time talking to one of their defensive substitutes. Sonja Fuss was great fun to talk to - her English was outstanding and she was a nice girl. Plus she's a hottie, which always helps... I wish her the best of luck in her architechture (at Cal Poly we called this archi-torture) studies and in her future soccer career. Even as a substitute she's an amazingly good player - although I only got to see her play during practice.

Well, that's it. I had a truly once in a lifetime experience. But I made some friends and if I'm in Germany I have some people to call. Plus the German team was talking about playing a game next year in Vancouver, and I made them promise about 10 times that they'd call me with the details. In return I'll be in the stands cheering for them.

Go Deutscher Fussball-Bund!

I was confused, I wasn't sure what happened, and then my teammates are jumping on top of me and we are all on the ground.

That's what Nia Kuenzer said about scoring the golden goal to win the World Cup for Germany. It was a great game with lots of action on both end of the field. For about 20 minutes in the second half Germany looked like they were going to open the floodgates, but Sweden held strong (and the German's had some trouble finishing.)

It was strange for me. I found myself caring about the outcome of this game much more then I thought I would. But it makes sense, I know the German team and they were playing in the biggest game in women's soccer. That's a big deal, and I was heavily rooting for them to win.

Now I get to go to a victory party tonight!

Ok, so I'm not a real teacher - but your kids have touched me, and I'm pretty sure I touched them too.

When I watched School of Rock last night I thought throughout the movie how much Jack Black reminded me of John Belushi. They're not exactly the same, John did more physical stuff and Jack does more manic verbal stuff - but they have a lot of similarities. Especially when Jack starts dancing and singing in this movie. It reminds me a lot of Belushi in Blues Brothers.

I think one of the reasons I was reminded of Belushi is this is a great movie. It was funny, and also a bit touching (not like that though.) The movie is able to get good laughs, develop characters, and stay in the appropriate humor zone. This comedy, unlike most recent productions, would be fine for kids. It has a great message for them to be passionate about something and believe in themselves.

Also of note is I saw the movie with some friends at the Irvine Spectrum. This place is insane and had a very strange combination of High School kids and twenty somethings. College students were missing, presumably at their own scenes. To top it all off while we were eating dinner and watching the game an ad for The OC played - showing the High School kids from the show at the spectrum. Orange County is a strange, strange place - come see it some time and marvel.

If the Cubs and the Red Soxs meet in the world series the world will end

That's what a guy said on NPR on Monday. He also said the series would go to game seven and then game seven would just never end. Perhaps they'd have a repeat of last year's all star game silliness.

Anyway, I've been catching up with TV I missed last week (go TiVo!) and I must say I'm really dissapointed this season. The West Wing hasn't taken the loss of Schlamming or the brilliant Sorkin well at all. I'm almost tempted to stop watching it. As it is watching reruns on bravo is more interesting then the new episodes.

Then Gilmore Girls is starting to fall down. Having Rory away at school really messes with the Lorelai-Rory dynamic and so far it's not working as well as it used to. Perhaps that will improve once they settle into this new setup. But I'm a bit cynical on this point.

Everwood was a fun soap opera pleasure for me last year. And it's actually holding up ok, but the cooky characters are starting to get on my nerves. They really aren't that redeeming.

And lastly, smallville is really not holding up for me. They need to move the story along somewhere. Have Lex start being evil, Clark tell's Lana he's from another planet, Clark starts really stepping up as a super-hero. Hell, have him start flying, but they're just going in circles now and I don't see it building towards a pay off. Who knows, maybe the writers have it down.

Anyway, I leave for LA this evening. When I get back my life should settly down and I can start watching movies again. I've missed many over the last month or two, which is always makes for fun when the wave hits the video store and I can go nuts with rentals.

Go Germany on Sunday!

I'm feeling a bit unpatriotic today

\I haven't really watched movies (or done much of anything) the past week since I was away on an incredible volunteer opportunity. I was down in Portland being a local laiason for the German Women's National Soccer Team. I was hanging out with the team and the staff (although mostly the staff) for 12-14 hours a day helping them get anything they needed while in Portland.

Then they advanced and were going to play the US in the semi-finals. I had mixed emotions before the game about who to root for. But when the game started it was clear that I was rooting for Germany. I'm all about supporting the US team, but I had just spent a week with the German team. They were my friends, and you always root for your friends. They played an amazing game and ended up beating the US 3-0, although that score doesn't convey the closeness of the game.

So, besides getting to get to know the team and staff, and being up close to world class athletes (in my favorite sport no less) I got opportunities for things like the coolest picture ever (to the right.) That's right, Silke Rottenberg played an inspired shutout game against the US offense, earned player of the game honors in what US coach April Heinrichs called "the best women's soccer game ever played", then later that night I was hanging out with her having a beer. If you really don't believe that's her then check out the picture above of her taking the ball from Mia Hamm and Abby Wambach.

This was a very cool experience for me. The German team was wonderful and accepting. So much so that I'm going down to LA this weekend to help out with the final match. And hopefully I'll get to party with the World Cup 2003 winners on Sunday.

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