Friday Night Movie - Pan's Labyrinth

I was finally able to view Pan’s Labyrinth yesterday. My neighbor lent me the movie several months ago, and I’ve struggled to find an appropriate time to see it. Let me tell you that the movie is not meant to be seen by kids as it is rated R for violence. Also, the movie is entirely spoken in Spanish with English subtext. So, there I was trying to come up with something to do yesterday and there was the movie staring right back to me and it opened the case and put the DVD into the player to start the fairy tale.

Spoiler Alert!!!

The movie is set in 1944 Spain and it’s the story of 11 year old Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) who moves to the countryside with her newly married and pregnant mother to be with her husband. The husband better known as “The Captain” is truly a ruthless and evil individual as he is trying to squash a rebellion by the Spanish resistance group.

Ofelia is a reader and true believer in fairy tales. She discovers a labyrinth and falls into a fairy tale in which she tries to reach a long lost kingdom. Guiding her return to the kingdom is a faun a half man, half goat beast. He tells her that she is the long lost princess and must complete a few quests to open a portal back to her kingdom.

The twist in the story is that Ofelia’s real world a nightmare as the Captain is torturing and killing rebels. Furthermore, he is mentally abusing her and she hates him and wants her mother to leave him and take her away from him but she refuses. Unfortunately for Ofelia, her fairytale world is not much better as she is faced by situations and creatures that are just as bad as the Captain. Ultimately at the end of the movie Ofelia is faced at a crossroad trying to do determine what the right course of action should be.

I didn’t like the movie the first time I saw it but since I had extra time I watched the commentary version of the movie and truly appreciated the film much more when del Toro explained what and how the different scenes were shot.

As it is a Spanish movie, the subtexts sometime fly through so there may be a few portions of the film that you may need to rewind. This fact usually is a deal breaker for me as the interludes break the movie continuity up for me.

Is it a must see... probably not if you don’t like watching subtext. Also, this is not your typical fairy tale. But if you have a long winter’s night without kids around and you’re trying to find a movie that you have not seen, try this one on for size.

Politics To Me

I watched the DNC convention today flipping between the major cable networks. It is amazing how different the programs were.

I’m not just saying the tone of what was shown but also how they showed it. CNN was polished like usual… Wolf Blitzer and the whole crew were their typical selves. Fox was a professional news team and gave plenty of time to the Democrats and Republicans to make their talking points. But what was MSNBC doing… it seemed like a bunch of kids were running the network and seemed like they just threw the program together at the last minute. It was painful to watch.

As to what the spin was. Fox News was the typical slanted to the right saying that Hilary Clinton did what she had to do. Of course she was going to back Obama. Do you think that she would say anything less on the grand stage? That would be what I call… “political suicide”.

Over on MSNBC they may have wet themselves with Keith Oberman basically needing a bib while just gushing on how perfect Clinton speech was and saying that this is just what was needed and it brought the whole party together. According to Oberman and Chris Mathews, she hit such a home run that the ball (apparently a baseball euphemism) was still flying over the fence, and everything was perfect.

I couldn’t take it anymore and switched to CNN… why wait… they just happen to have a woman saying that Hilary was very presidential in her speech and it should have been her that should have been nominated. The interviewer asked her if she was going to vote for McCain… she said that she could not vote for McCain… the interviewer asked her if she was going to vote for Obama then… she said that she still had an issue with the fact that Obama does not have the experience. She went on to say… if you owned a major corporation would you hire someone that was just out of Harvard to be your CEO and run your company? She went on to say that this may be the first time… that she may not vote.

Can you imagine that powerful statement… this was a democratic delegate that may not vote just to protest what had occurred during the primaries?

Hot or Not Hot

Katie Couric

Music Monday - Coldplay

Coldplay: Viva La Vida

Sure it's a pop song, but the reason why I like this song is that the drummer, Will Champion, does an incredible job of incorporating unusual percussion pieces into the song… and they work. This drum kit includes tympanis, a marching bass drum, and a small bell.


I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave the word
Now in the morning I sleep alone
Sweep the streets I used to own

I used to roll the dice
Feel the fear in my enemy's eyes
Listen as the crowd would sing:
"Now the old king is dead! Long live the king!"
One minute I held the key
Next the walls were closed on me
And I discovered that my castles stand
Upon pillars of salt, and pillars of sand

I hear Jerusalem bells are ringing
Roman calvary choirs are singing
Be my mirror my sword and shield
My missionaries in a foreign field
For some reason I can't explain
Once you know there was never, never an honest word
That was when I ruled the world

It was the wicked and wild wind
Blew down the doors to let me in
Shattered windows and the sound of drums
People couldn't believe what I'd become
Revolutionaries wait
For my head on a silver plate
Just a puppet on a lonely string
Oh who would ever want to be king?

I hear Jerusalem bells are ringing
Roman calvary choirs are singing
Be my mirror my sword and shield
My missionaries in a foreign field
For some reason I can't explain
I know Saint Peter won't call my name
Never an honest work
But that was when I ruled the world
(Ohhhh Ohhh Ohhh)

Hear Jerusalem bells are ringing
Roman calvary choirs are singing
Be my mirror my sword and shield
My missionaries in a foreign field
For some reason I can't explain
I know Saint Peter will call my name
Never an honest word
But that was when I ruled the world
(Oooooh Oooooh Oooooh)

Hot Olympians

Misty May-Trainer

Misty (5' 9" and 150 pounds) is part of the American womans beach volleyball team. Misty just so happens to also be the defending Olympic beach volleyball champion with Kerri Walsh.

Hot Olympians

Roman Šebrle

Roman Šebrle (6' 1", 194 pounds) is from the Check Republic. He is the current world champion in the decathlon. Decathlon is that event that Bruce Jenner won back in the 80's. It is a two day event that is made up of 10 individual events both from track and field.

Roman showed his toughness as he was hit with a Javelin in his chest and was nearly killed in a freak accident, but came back from that injury to battle for Olympic gold.

Hot Olympians

Francesca Piccinini

Francesca (5' 11", 165 pounds) is a passing hitter for the indoor volleyball team from Italy. The Italian team won the gold in the 2007 world cup and is one of the teams that are favorites to win a medal at these games.

Hot or Not Hot

Tine Fey

Hot Olympians

Fatima Moreira de Melo

Fatima (5' 7", 121 pounds) is a Dutch field hocky midfielder. The Dutch team were World Champions in 2006 and last year they won the Champions Trophy. I may need to check out field hockey this year.

Music Monday - Mary J. Blige

I'm sure you've heard of U2's One... but I bet you may have not heard Mary J. belt out her rendition...

Hot Not Hot Moving

I've been playing with blogger this weekend and have mastered embedding video into my blog. So it's time to start playing with it.

Sorry for the short notice but Hot Not Hot will be moving to Tuesday... in it's normal time slot will be Music Monday in which I play one of my favorite videos and give a few tidbits about the song, artist or video.

Hope you like it and if you want to let me know some of your fav's, I'll see if I can't add them as the weeks go forward.

Olympic Games Week One Recap

Week one is done and it’s time to mothball “The Cube” and head to the track. Week one has been explosive. The pool has been set a blaze as world record after world record has fallen to the total of twenty for the games. Michael Phelps has been spectacular. He has met and exceeded expectation as he has won eight gold medals to become the most decorated Olympic athlete. It wasn’t just the Phelps show as both the men’s and woman’s team piled up a total of 31 medals during the games.

On the tennis court James Blake defeated the No. 1 player in the world… Roger Federer. Blake had never beaten Federer and the win moved Blake semi finals. On the same day both of the Willams sisters were also upset.

In the gym both the men’s and woman’s gymnastics team won medals and Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson took the top two spot in the individual all around. But that was just the beginning as the US also garnered medals in cycling, equestrian, fencing, and shooting to name a few.

As the week ended, the begining of the track events started. The first track event would crown the world’s fastest man. Usain Bolt and Asafa Powell cruised to the finals as they both repeatedly slowed down at the 80 meter mark during the preliminary heats. The finals were sure to be one of the fastest of all time even without Tyson Gay, the world champion from the United States who failed to qualify for the finals.. The finals did not disappoint as Usain bolted down the track in an unbelievable time of 9.69 shattering the world record in the 100 meter.

My National Anthem

Watching the Olympics has reminded me of what a great song the United States Nation Anthem is. I remembered back to when I was younger and recalled some of the best renditions that I ever heard or saw. Attached below are some of my favorites... maybe you guys have some others that you would like to share.

#5 Dixie Chicks: 2003 Super Bowl


#4 Jordin Sparks: 2008 Super Bowl


#3 Natalie Gilbert with and assist from Maurice Cheeks: Maurice was always the assist man when he played for the 76ers.


#2 Whitney Huston: First Superbowl that the National Anthem was a big deal.


#1 Marvin Gay: Simply Amazing... 1981 NBA All Star Game




Honorable Mention:
Jose Feliciano: 1968 MLB World Series (in Detroit). Ok, I wasn't around then, but at least I can say that it is well song and unique. What made Jose's version so unique is that it was the first time that anyone had sang their own rendition of the national anthem.
http://www.josefeliciano.com/downloads/starspangledbanner.mp3

Second Honorable Mention:
Jimi Hendrix

Hot Olympians

Ben Wildman-Tobriner

Ben (6' 4", 200 pounds) is the American 50 meter freestyle champion. He is not only the world champion in the event, but also a member of several world record relay teams.

Ben is not just another great body but is truly a McSteamy as he graduated from Stanford with a degree in Biomechanical Engineering and had decided to postpone entering into medical school so that he could focus his time and energy into qualifying for his first-ever U.S. Olympic team this year.

Hot Olympians

Amanda Beard

Amanda is a leggy (5' 7 1/2", 128 pound) American swimmer. She has been to four Olympic games and has several medals to her credit. Her specialty is the 100 meter ... err.... breaststroke.

Hot Olympians

Asafa Powell

Asafa Powell (6' 3", 194 pounds) from Jamaica has been the world fastest man and is currently one of the favorites in the 100 meter dash.

Hot Olympians

The Australian beauty stands 5' 9" 147 pounds, but she is also the reigning world champion and record holder in both the 200 and 400 meter individual medley. Better known as the IM, the event starts with the butterfly, is followed by the back stroke and breast stroke, and is anchored by the freestyle.

Hot Olympians

Ok, maybe not the favorite to win Olympic Gold, but maybe a favorite of yours.

USA Swimming

History was made on Sunday as another swimming record was broken. No, the fact that another swimming record was broken is not the reason to read this as there have been several records per day that have been smashed.

The USA 4 x 100 meter freestyle relay set the world record (3:12.23) in the qualifying heat on Saturday. The team consisting of Nathan Adrian, Cullen Jones, Ben Wildman-Tobriner, and Matt Grevers knew that only one of them was going to swim for the gold the next day. The coaches decided that whoever of them was the fastest would swim on Sunday. Later that day, the French team won their heat and the anchor swimmer when asked stated that they would smash the Americans world record when the two teams met the next day.

The next day, walking on the deck with Cullen were fellow teammates Michael Phelps, Garrett Weber-Gale and Jason Lezak. The laded French team had 4 of the fastest 18 freestylers in the world and consisted of European record holders and not only the former 50 meter world record holder but also the former world record holder in the 100 meter.

The United States were in lane 4 and the French team was in lane 5. Phelps stepped onto the starting block and did his intimidating arm motion to psych out the competition. The gun sounded and Eamon Sullivan of Australia took the early lead. At the wall Eamon still had the lead. This was not surprising as he is the current world record holder in both the 50 and 100 meters. At the first exchange Australia was first United States second and France third.

The second leg the overall speed of the both the US and the French overtook the Australian team. At the wall the US led the French by .43 seconds as Garrett Weber-Gale maintained the lead.

The third leg the French former 50 meter world record holder quickly caught up to Cullen Jones who was the only member of to swim the race the previous day. During the second 50 Frederick Bousquet extended the lead and as he handed off to the anchor the French team had a lead of .59 seconds.

Standing on the block were Alain Bernard of France and Jason Lezak of the United States who was the oldest member of the US team. As Bousquet reached the wall, Bernard took off. As Lezak dove in, he was behind Bernard by a body length. Jason made a valiant effort in the first 25 meters to keep contact with the former world record holder. Bernard kicked up huge wake and it seemed to help Lezak keep up with him. As the two reached the wall, Bernard was still in front and he turned for the finish line as the crowd stood up and cheered the competitors. Lezak had a huge flip turn and was fully in the wake of Bernard. Bernard was still in front of Lezak at the 75 meter mark but Lezek had made up a half a body length. Bernard was swimming next to the lane marker which might have been his undoing as Lezak seeing this moved over to be at his side next to the lane marker. With less than 15 meters to go Lezak made a monumental move to catch Bernard. With 5 meters to go the two where neck and neck as each one took a powerful stroke to win the race. The two looked at each other with just a few strokes left and knew that the one to finish strongest would win.

The two finished with what seemed like a tie. The two teams looked up at the times and the United States team erupted as they knew that Lezak had just out touched Bernard. The winning time was 3:08.24 which smashed the world record that was set the pervious day by almost 4 seconds.

At the end history was made as arguably the greatest comeback in a swimming race that I had ever seen had just been completed.

Hot Olympians

Federica Pellegrini & Laure Manaudou

Federica (5' 9", 150 pounds) is the Italian world record holder in the 400m freestyle long course, and Laure (5' 10", 140 pounds) is the French world record holder in the 400m short course. The two swimmers have not only been fighting each other in the pool but also have been embroiled in a love triangle with Italian swimmer Luca Marin. It should be heated when these two show up at the pool to face off in the finals of the 400 meter freestyle.

Hot or Not Hot

Sheryl Crow

Hot Olympians

Dara Torres















Dara Torres (6', 150 pounds) is not only a former Olympic Gold medalist, but she is also the only swimmer ever to be in 5 Olympics... and to boot she's 41.

Good Luck Dara!

Hot Olympians

Did you hear.... the Olympics have just started in China?

Well, to add to your viewing pleasure, I've decided to add an element of hotness to the games. Since there are 14 days to the Olympics I'm going to post a daily pic of a hot Olympian each day of the games, and as today is Saturday... I'm going to have to start with two today. This one is for the ladies.

Tomasz Wylenzek (6', 187 pounds) & Christian Gille (6', 192 pounds) are from Germany. They are the defending 2004 Olympic champions in the 1000 meter C2... that's two men canoeing for those of you that don’t know what C2 stands for.

Aiken is a father

Wow… Clay Aiken is a father!

You remember Clay… he was the effeminate counterpart to the Ruben (not the sandwich) Studdard on American Idol a few years back. Apparently, he and his longtime friend have a new healthy baby boy.

So which young starlet did he sweep off her feet? Well, it was his producer Jaymes Foster. I’m not saying that she was taking note of her biological clock, but Big Ben was striking midnight as Jaymes is around 50 years old. Besides… 50 is the new 40, I’ve been told.

Now, just so you don’t start hitting yourself in the head and say “Gee… I thought he was gay?” Clay and Jaymes conceived via artificial insemination. That explained it. The world is right again.

Itchy goes to Camp

Itchy is at bandcamp this week. Band is a really BIG deal at the school. When Norm and I were in high school we also had band camp... ok, Norm went to band camp, I never had the fun as I was at football camp during the same time period.


I can't wait to hear of the stories that happened today. I'm sure that it wasn't all fun and games...

Itchy came home excited and tired. Apparently, they were on the field for six hours of the day and practiced their routine. The were in the camp for 13 hours today and it's going to be the same thing for the rest of the week.

The band is not only going to march at the home football games but just about every week they are off to a competition. Last year they were one of the top three bands in Michigan.

Good luck to them this year.

Statue of David

After a two year visit to the United States, Michelangelo's David is returning to Italy . . .

His Proud Sponsors were:

Politics to Me

USA Today reported that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday ruled out a vote on new offshore oil drilling even as Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said he might be open to a compromise that included it.

Hot or Not Hot

Julia Roberts

Saturday Night Movie

Norm and I sat down yesterday to watch a Saturday night movie. The kids went to the show which left us to watch a rated R movie. We had been sitting on Untraceable for several weeks and decided to watch the thriller. The movie stars Diane Lane as FBI agent Jennifer Marsh who is a member of a taskforce on cyberspace crime.

If you want to see a good movie in this genre go rent Silence of the Lambs, but this was ok for a rental. We gave it 2.5 out of 4 stars.

*** Spoiler Alert ***

The plot is refreshing as Agent Marsh gets embroiled in a hunt for a crazed serial killer who is using a website to kill victims that he has abducted. The more hits the website gets the quicker the victim are killed. This is done while the victim is being killed via live streaming video on the net.

Diane Lane does another great job as the agent trying to catch the psycho killer. She has just the right amount of geek ness about her and pulls off the mother caught between a career and her family. The antagonist in the film is relative newcomer Joseph Cross. He portrays Owen Reily the psycho serial killer. He has just the right amount of crazy beady eyed look about him and pulls of a credible character sketch. The other characters are non descript and just add to the ensemble.

The location was an interesting choice in Portland. Some of the movie is shot during rainstorms and add to the drama similar to Seven.

The writing and directing were adequate. There could have been better use of the supporting cast and some of the scenes that were left in could have been removed.

If you could disbelieve some of the inaccuracies of the technology then you will like this movie. If you can’t get past it, then you’re going to struggle to get through it as there are no chase scenes or things blowing up.

Week Back

It’s been a week since I helped Eduardo get his small boat out of the lake. I remember it like it was yesterday … see I’m not getting old yet, I can still remember this. Eduardo and Bruce were formulating a plan to get Dawn out of the water. I still can’t figure our why we just didn’t use the Jeep to get the thing out, but Dawn belongs to Eduardo and he wanted to see if the boys and he could do it by themselves since it was going to be only them later in the week to do it.

We tried several times with the standard everyone pushes or everyone pulls or a mix and match. In the end it took four adults and Robo to yank, lift, push, and pull Dawn out of the lake. I couldn’t believe how heavy shy got in just a few days at the lake. It’s a good thing that we don’t spend to much time at the lake so that I don’t gain even more weight that have this summer.

Once on shore, she started to take a leak right on the beach. If it wasn’t a semi private beach I would have been worried but there was no one around and she just had to go. She seemed that she hadn’t gone in days as it must have been about 100 gallons that came out of her.

In the end, Dawn is out of the lake, we still don’t own a hitch, Eduardo misses her, and my back still hurts.