College Football Means Life Is Good!

Now is my favorite time of year: the start of the college football season. The beer is cooling. The grill is heating up. The TV is on.

Nirvana does exist for at least a day.

One Final Lap.

In a depressing, yet also heartwarming, turn of events I read this story. 83 year old actor/racer/political activist (who I disagree with on some things)/philanphropist/living legend Paul Newman is dying of terminal lung cancer and isn't expect to see this October. In an age of tabloid Hollywood where anyone can be famous for 15 minutes Paul Newman excelled in his chosen crafts and was a genuinely nice guy. Most people know him for his fine films. Cinema history wouldn't be the same without Cool Hand Luke, The Hustler, The Color Of Money, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, Slapshot, Road To Perdition among others.

Yet many people forget, or never knew, that Paul Newman was one of the greatest racers of his era. "P. L. Newman" placed second at the 24 hours of Le Mans, raced numerous SCCA and Trans Am events, and at the age of 74 won a Daytona 24 hours. Mr. Newman, with co-owner Carl Haas, has owned one of the best IndyCar/ChampCar teams of modern times and actively participated at numerous races. Oh yeah, I guess he donated over $200 million in profits to numerous charities and non-profit organizations from that salad dressing of his.

To honor a great man and racer the Lime Rock Park race track near his Connecticut home shut down for a few hours on August 13 to let this lion in winter drive a few final laps in his beloved GT1 Corvette. Though depressing to think about the impending death of a good man, I admire his ability to do something he truly loves one last time. May we all be so lucky when the twilight comes.

Just Another Manic Monday.

Leave for work: 6:55 a.m.

Arrive home: 7:55 p.m.

Does anyone see a problem with that?

Please note: except for hitting a Mexican restaurant for lunch I never left the office nor did I do any stops on the way home.

Draft Day.

With college football season approach our annual rite of passage appeared today: the draft! Here's how it works. You draw one team from each Division IA (no bloody bowl championship series nonsense) and you can pick an independent (Army, Navy, Notre Dame) or an extra team from a conference as your wildcard pick. Every win a team gets is one point. The person with the most number of points/wins after the bowl games is the winner.

Please note: 2 years ago I won! Last year I was second place in two leagues.

I managed to do some research, but I was never able to scare up 30 precious minutes at lunch to research half a league. Since I'm not home an average of 11 hours a day I didn't have much time to research at home either. Still I managed to get about 2/3 of my predictions down before the draft. Compared to many people that's more research than they do.

*drum roll please*

ACC: North Carolina. Eh okay.
Big 12: Oklahoma St. I think they're okay.
Big East: South Florida. I honestly think the can be 10-2 this year. Maybe.
Big 10: Ohio State. My first round pick. 10-2 at worst and could be undefeated going into the bowl games.
Conference -USA: UTEP. Oh crap! This was a later round pick obviously.
MAC: Kent State. I think they can hit .500 and maybe a little bit more.
Mountain West: Utah. I think 9 or 10 wins is realistic.
PAC 10: Arizona. Is 8-4 realistic this year?
SEC: LSU. 10 wins easy!
Sun Belt: Troy! I wanted Florida Atlantic, but I'm okay with Troy. Everyone moaned as the only two teams worth anything in the conference were gone now.
WAC: New Mexico State. My last pick and oh does it show. I'm hoping for 4 wins and I'm hoping they're better than Utah State or Idaho since those were my other choices at the time.
WILDCARD: Navy. 7 wins for a wildcard isn't bad. Possibly 8 but that's stretching I believe.

Now on Saturdays, Thursdays, and whatever other night ESPN decides to put games on I will be paying attention to conferences I normally don't care about. Why, because they're my teams baby!

Oh I love this time of you! College football is the best sport ever!

Quote Of The Day.

Clerk: What is wrong with this week? We go from one crazy thing to another every day!

Me: It's like a week filled with all Mondays.


Quote Number 2:
*The note says to call at my earliest convenience.*

Me: I'm sorry I wasn't able to get back with you. Your note said to call at my earliest convenience and there was nothing convenient about today."

Oh That Had To Hurt!

My phone rang. The Court wondered where my boss was. I told them he had another hearing in another court and possibly running late, but I'll go see if he has the file for the hearing they were calling about. If the hearing wasn't on his calendar then I would prep the file myself and be up there in a few minutes. My boss has a problem getting hearings on his calendar, especially with this court. I knew the judge wasn't going to like this.

I found the folder in our file room. That's not a good sign. I prepped it in a few minutes and ran upstairs. While the judge wasn't happy to see me, the judge wasn't angry towards me. I consider that a win. For a complete lack of familiarity with the file and the parties I thought the hearing was going okay. There was one issue that came up and I explained to the judge what my theory was based on the facts presented. Someone, somewhere much further up the chain of command changed a procedure and it was causing lots of problems. While the new procedure seemed like a good idea, the way it was being implemented was causing lots of problems. Again the judge wasn't happy, but the judge's anger wasn't directed at me.

One party brought up a second issue. I was trying to explain that shouldn't be an issue, but I would be more than happy to double check a few things before the next hearing. At that point my boss showed up.

That was his first mistake. He tried to help the situation. That was his second mistake. The phrase involving too many cooks in the kitchen came to mind. We weren't even talking about an issue at that point, but some other side issue that I thought should have been dealt with between the parties after the hearing. The judge was waiting for everyone to resolve their issues before proceeding. At that point I asked if I should stay or go. Smart question on my part. I left to handle another one of my boss's hearings with the file he brought.

Granted, what should have been a simple hearing proved to be problematic. At least I wasn't with my boss and the judge anymore. I figure the judge eviscerated my boss in under 5 seconds after I left.

I'm Feeling That Heart Attack Coming Now.

For all the screaming and moaning I realize that gas prices are the result of huge external forces that various groups have little control over. However, I just got my credit card bill in the mail and once again I'm in shock. For the second month in a row my gas receipts are more than my student loan payment!

I'm so glad prices are coming down, but I so need to get a job in Big City as soon as I can. I hope I can last another 18 months or so. Just need more experience before I can job hop.

Show Me The Money!

Dear Budget Gods:

Please approve our budget. It would be nice to officially work more hours to accurately reflect the hours I actually work. Well, at least more accurately reflect the true hours. According to your current system I donate a full extra day of work per week already. The more accurate pay would be appreciated. To be honest we could use 3 more people, but since we don't have the space that's a moot point.

Overworked and underpaid. Yep that's a typical attorney.

Thank you,
Wolfrham Hart

We Need More Mr. Chapels In The World.

I'm at GeekFest for a few hours. I'm finding all sorts of interesting items. I get into one stall and see some interesting DVDs. One package had a personal fav of mine: Vengeance Unlimited. If you don't recall the series I don't blame you. It was a 1998 fan favorite for one season. Too bad more fans preferred Friends in that time slot. If you're familiar with The Equalizer it's the same basic idea. Michael Madsen is Mr. Chapel: a street smart righter of wrongs. If the legal system has screwed you over, don't worry because Mr. Chapel is on the case and will fix the problem. The characters, the writing, the story ideas, the haunting piano in the credits, the background soundtrack, were awesome.

Of course because I loved the show it disappeared after one season.

I plop the DVD into the player and notice the menu is very plain. When I hit play the sound quality isn't good. You hear that old static that truly plagued video tapes all the time when the quality wasn't good. The I notice the station identifying bug in the lower right corner. Channel 5???? OMG this is some friggin' bootleg copy and not an actual studio release. I paid $35 for this! At least the commercials weren't recorded as well.

I'm disappointed by the mediocre quality and the fact the studio will likely never put out an official edition of Vegeance Unlimited. I'm disappointed by the fact I paid $35 for this. On the plus side I've already gone through the first 4 episodes and am still amazed the show is as good now as it was in my memories.

If a one season wonder like Firefly can be made into a well loved, seldom seen movie, why not Vengeance Unlimited?

"Every day when I wake up I try to imagine the kind of world I want to live in. I can actually picture it in my mind. It wouldn't be a paradise. There would still be traffic jams, and bad coffee, and award shows. But I tell you what there wouldn't be, nobody like you. The rich, arrogant, lying, selfish. Not one single one of you left on the face of the earth.

I don't just sit around dreaming about this. I work at it, I work very hard every day to make it real. In fact, I'm about 3 seconds away from making it happen."

-Mr. Chapel
Vengeance Unlimited

I Hear Mulder And Scully Are On The Case.

Today we had, not one, but two paranormal news stories of infamous creatures.

1. Several people claim to have a Bigfoot body in Georgia (the state, not the place having a civil war with Russia). They're going to have a press conference on Friday to present their evidence. When I click on the link to see the pictures I'm wondering how do you stuff a Bigfoot into a freezer?

2. A sheriff's deputy in Texas has in-car video of the supposed chupacabra. After watching the video I don't see how it kills livestock and drinks their blood. Unless it's vampiric chupacabra and needs to put on the game face. Would that mean the even more mythical chupacabra slayer is out there? In every generation one is born correct?

Okay I've seen too many episodes of Monsterquest now.

Quote Of The Day.

Concerning the fact former presidential candidate John Edwards admits to sleeping with a photographer as his wife is dying of cancer.

Fabulously Gay Roommate: I'm tired of these holier than thou politicians who preach family values. All the Democrats cheat on their wives, and all the Republicans end up being homosexuals.

I'm not sure which is better: the quote or who said it!

I Am Three People Currently.

Dear Boss,

Everyone is entitled to a vacation. However I've come to the conclusion I do the work of three people when you're gone. This is truly a reflection of how understaffed we are in Small Town. I've also noticed that you keep picking weeks that are very heavy with your hearings. Yet another reason why I'm doing the work of three people, because I suddenly have three times the hearings!

I realize this week was an accident and things occurred that were beyond your control. However, concerning today and tomorrow: I hate you. I couldn't prepare for the monster that is tomorrow because I was cleaning up several of your messes today. Some people, not me, like the fact you're gone because certain things run smoother when they go through me. Personally I would rather have you do your stuff because I'm too busy doing my own stuff.

Get back to Small Town soon. I need a vacation from your vacation.

Sincerely,
Wolfrham Hart

School Starts Tomorrow?!?!

Not for me thankfully, but for the local school systems. We're not even halfway though August and students are already reporting to classes starting tomorrow, Tuesday, or Wednesday.

The only reason they do this is to get ready for standardized testing. Indoctrinate the students for weeks just to improve the exams. I hate teaching for the test. Teach the students how to think through a problem will serve them better in the long run.

Oh well, when I was in school I was always in summer band so I never really had 3 months off anyway.

Revelations

I'm staring at my roommate as he plays with his Wii. He LOVES that thing and plays with it every day. I've played with it twice. I'm watching be engrossed in the artificial world where he bowls, plays tennis, and putts for bogie. Suddenly it occurs to me what a Wii actually is.

It's a precursor to the holodeck!

To which my roomie replies, "Well duh!"

Riddle Me This...

Why is it when my boss is out my workload triples? To make it worse it simply takes longer to get the simple things done. I seem to catch more weird stuff when the boss it out. We've certainly had a big load of weird stuff lately. I'm always more exhausted than normal when this happens.

Ugh.

Luckily This Wasn't One Of Mine.

*Sitting in the jury room waiting for the prior hearing to finish.*

Texan: I was appointed to this one freak and man was he weird.

Me: There are a lot of weird things around here. What made this guy so special?

Texan: He had a lot of quirks. One Thanksgiving he went into the restroom and the family heard glass breaking and he was screaming.

Me: *raises eyebrow at this point*

Texan: They rushed him to the hospital and the doctors removed a broken peanut butter jar out of his ass.

Me: What was this moran thinking? I'm trying to think at what point shoving a peanut butter jar up your butt seems like a good idea.

It's things like this that reinforce why I hate people.

The Dark Knight

Short Review: This movie is officially kickass. In fact is may be the first movie that is beyond kickass! At a bare minimum the kickass scale needs to be recalibrated.

Long Review: It's a shame some people will simply view this as a comic book movie. The Dark Knight is truly an exploration of the meaning of good and evil. It is an exploration of the questions: do the costs justify the results and are the ends worth the means? Can something good come out of something evil, or what some may say is evil? This movie takes you into the darkness and dares you to swim in it. Writer/Director Christopher Nolan has learned much from Shakespeare's tales.

Even at 2 hours, 30 minutes this movie doesn't feel long. It's very long on plot (overplotted even), but there aren't any slow spots. Don't drink anything for at least an hour before the movie so your bladder is empty. You're not going to get any potty breaks for this one. You see how what is good for Batman is bad for Bruce Wayne. You see the burdens his assistance must bear on Batman's quest for justice.

You get most of the same top notch cast as in Batman Begins. If anything Maggie Gyallenhall as the love interest Rachel Dawes is a vast improvement of the dooey eyed and way too young for the part Katie Holmes. I've never seen Maggie Gyallenhall in anything before, but she worked this meatier role well. Heath Ledger as the Joker deserves all the buzz. This Joker is the most amoral, roving agent of chaos ever seen. Oscar-worthy? We'll never know since the Academy ignores comic-book movies except for technical categories like Sound Editing or such. This Joker doesn't have plans. He simply loves to destroy other's plans because he can. This Joker loves to show others that evil is within all of us, or at least everyone will ignore their rules if the right circumstance appears. Does that count as evil?

The Dark Knight will make you think a bit if you're willing to absorb its ideas. If you walk out of the theater vaguly disturbed the movie did its job. This movie is so kickass I may go see it again. I may even pay for an IMAX experience.

After the movie can you answer this question: would you have pushed the button knowing another button was out there?

"Because he's the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now...and so we'll hunt him, because he can take it. Because he's not a hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector...a dark knight."