Now That's Old-Time Hockey!!!

This years NHL season is dead but this story just warms my heart. Reggie Dunlop of the Charlestown Chiefs would be proud.

It Feels Just like 1984

This morning, inspired the hilarious cover story in this weeks Stranger, I listened to Thriller and I am still confused by the "Still They Hate You, You're A Vegetable" part of the chorus to "Wanna Be Startin Somethin". Last night I watched the pilot to Miami Vice on DVD (thank you Netflix!) and tonight I'll watch more Miami Vice just like a normal Friday night back when I was 8. Damn that show is good. I'm worried on the way home tonight I may end up buying some parachute pants or something worse.

Best Headline Ever

Actor Tom Sizemore Fails Drug Test with Fake Penis

Jumping on the Bandwagon

Through the miracle of free tickets I went to last night's Sonics-Kings Game. It was a great game, tight throughout, with the Kings holding a slim lead through most of the game and the Sonics pulling it out in the end. The highlight was definitely the big confrontation between Danny Fortson and Chris Webber which really changed the momentum of the game in the Sonics favor.

What's amazing about the Sonics this year is that absolutely no one expected this sort of turn around. I would have been excited if the Sonics managed to win 25 games all season and they have 34 already and are a virtual lock to win their division. Even with two All-Stars in Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis, The Sonics really play great team basketball and a blast to watch. They had nine guys contributing quality minutes. I was especially impressed with rookie Nick Collison's performance down the stretch last night.

Between the Sonics and the Husky Men's team (20-3!), Seattle is becoming something of a basketball Mecca which is more than a little exciting. Thoughts of a dual hoops championships are conceivable.

Commuter Memo

To the guy across the aisle from me on the bus this morning. It is perfectly okay to watch DVDs on your laptop with headphones on the way to work. It is definitely not okay to watch episodes of HBO's Carnivale that have long sex scenes on the bus. It is even more not okay to have a big creepy grin on your face while watching said scenes.

Thank you that is all.

Nerdiest Post Ever?

Today at work, I was comparing a list of language codes with one of our taxonomies (Aren't you totally jealous of my exciting job?) Anyway I discovered that Klingon is included in ISO 639-the Codes for the Representation of the Names of Languages standard. This is just wrong on so many levels.

I mean I can understand including Esperanto but Klingon? Even worse is the fact that the Klingon word for the Klingon language is included as an alternate form. And no, I won’t tell you what that is. I almost wonder if this is just a joke that no one caught in the editing process. Sigh... I think I’ll have to burn my Worf action figure at home tonight in protest.

Movie Shorts

Million Dollar Baby - I was skeptical going in. The movie totally stomach punches you yet it works. Great performances all around. Could have done with less of the Danger character though. If this wins the oscar im ok with that.

The Village - The twist is a good one. But you have to give a shit about what happens before the reveal for a twist to work. M. Night's streak of success is over.

Star Trek II: The Wraith of Khan - Awesomeness. Hadn't seen this in ages. Bonus features informed, me to my surprise, that that really is Ricardo Monteblan's real chest and not a breast plate.

Ray - Jamie Foxx is fantastic but its still just a biopic. It doesnt really end it just sort of stops.

Infernal Affairs - Quite possibly the best movie of the year. If you can imagine a Hong Kong Cop flick minus John Woo's doves and Chow Yun-Fat's wooden acting, you get this great film. Tony Leung and Andy Lau are both phenomenal.

Napoleon Dynamite - I am an ID-iot for not seeing this in the theaters! Its not a movie for everyone but its kinda like a live action version of a really funny Adult Swim cartoon. And I swear the guy that plays Napoleon's brother Kip cuts my hair at Supercuts in Ballard.

She Hate Me - I know I'm supposed to think this movie suckes but I really dug it. Its a seriously flawed film and major step down from The 25th Hour. But there's something about Spike Lee's style that I just love.

Intermission - Danny Boyle has a lot to answer for. Yet another boring Trainspotting inspired rambling mess. Kelly MacDonald is as cute as ever though.

Mean Creek - One of those movies I wish I had never seen the trailer for. I really liked it but I wonder if I would have loved it if I hadn't been spoiled by the trailer.

The Door in the Floor - Excellent film from start to finish. Jeff Bridges was robbed of an Oscar nomination just as much Paul Giamatti was. Kim Bassigner is pretty good as well. Not a happy movie but a good one.

The Saddest Music in the World - Weirdo director Guy Maddin's tribute to Canadian stubbie beer, the Great Depression, and American Idol. Both bizarre and kinda boring. Great silent era still cinematography and good perfromances by Rossellini and McKinney

Conventioneering

As anyone that has been to my house knows I read comic books,When I was about 10, I started reading comic books pretty obsessively. I stopped about halfway through high school and started back up in college. This past weekend I did something I have never done before, I went to a comic book convention. The Emerald City ComiCon at the the Qwest Field Exhibition center to be exact.

Why had I never gone to one before? I think mainly because all the previous conventions seemed overly small time and likely supper lame. I know from past record shows that any event you can get in free to by donating a can of food is bound to be super lame.

My biggest mistake of the day was that I forgot my camera at home. There were some truly egregious displays of geekery on display. There was the swarm of thirtysomething fat guys in full on Star Wars Storm Trooper uniforms. There was the massive line to see artist Jhonen Vasquez filled fully decked out goths of all sorts that wrapped around the whole front of the Exhibition Center. There were also lots of sweaty teen geeks wearing this ninja headbands and it wasn't until later that I realized some both was giving them away and this wasn't some Karate school field trip. Then there were the geeks with big wheel around bags filled comics to signed by the talent. Worst was this chubby girl with a rat tail, and bad skin wearing a fetching combo of stained sweats and Ugg boots. The vendors were far more freaky looking than the average convention goers. One female vendor was full done up as a leopard complete with face paint and rest of dealers were some variation on the Comic Book Guy on the Simpsons complete with the bad B.O.

I was really impressed with the convention. This was a real convention and they had the big names and everything. Well big names for the comics world that is. At the Fanatagraphics booth I picked up a copy of Peter Bagge's new Hate collection Buddy Does Seattle and got him to sign it. I'm rather ambivalent about autographs and I was a more that a bit of pathetic dork when talking to Mr. Bagge, which of course reminded me of why never get autographs. My Brother bought some really nice prints from artists Tony Harris and Alex Maleev. And was much less of a dork about.

The highlight was definitely the panel discussions we walked in on the end of a panel about self publishing comics and got to hear some 50 year old dude on the panel tell the audience they should be watching The O.C. every week because of all the Seth Cohen comics discussion. The next panel was all Marvel Comics writers including big names Brian Bendis and Ed Brubaker. Brian and Ed had a lot of interesting things to say about the writing process and were cracking jokes left and right. Lesser known writer Robert Kirkman stole the show when cracked that he never worried about repeating cliches and just ripped off shitty old comics that no one read like US 1 or Starbrand and mixed them up to plot his comics. I think I'll have to check out Kirkman's zombie comic The Waking Dead sometime soon.

Final Verdict? Good fun if you take it in small doses. I enjoyed it for what it was while remaining horrified by the more hardcore fans. Will I go next year? Oh yeah!

Pernice/Partridge

Last summer, in a freak Google accident, I had my mind blown. Ok it really wasn't an accident but more like serendipity. I was looking up information on one of my favorite songwriters Joe Pernice and discovered that his last name was Italian for partridge. Which in addition to being the surname of a close friend is the the last name of Andy Partridge the genius behind the band XTC and a god to me. The coincidence made me giddy.

Both Joe and Andy's song are filled with melancholy beauty and sad joy. Joe is usually more restrained with the wordsmithry. Both are artist that made me ecstatic when I first discovered them. With Andy it was when I bought the XTC album Nonsuch on a lark and before the I was half through the my first listen I was already wondering which of the band's albums I should by next. With Joe I bought the Pernice Brothers' album "The World Wont End" based solely on a rave review in the magazine The Big Takeover and was not disappointed. I remember being excited that someone was till making this kind of shimmering pop music.

Joe's last name is pronounced PER-niece but in Italian it would be pear-KNEE-chay. This discovery also explains the presence of Partridge's on most Pernice Brothers' albums.

SuperPatriots

Remember when the Super Bowl was boring? When every game was a blowout and the commercials really were the only interesting thing. That's really not true this decade. Starting with that Rams-Titans game back in 2000 4 out of the 6 Super Bowls this decade have not just been close games they've been classics.

Yesterday's game was yet another classic. It was sloppy but still a great game. The Eagles really could have had this game but they blew it. If I were an Eagles fan I would want Coach Andy Reid's head right now. Reid deserves much of the blame not on just for their poor clock management down the stretch but also for never changing his pass first gameplan. The Pats deserve all the credit in the world for this victory. Three championships in four years is an impressive achievement. Although these Boston championships are getting a bit much!

The commercials were pretty much a bore with the exception of the Americaquest cat murder on and the NFL Network musical spot. Paul McCartney was solid as the halftime act and fortunately did not whip it out as my brother predicted.

Maybe next year the Seahawks will be be celebrating at the end of the game? Yeah dream on...