So me and Kim went to my roommates' wedding on Saturday. It was supposed to start at 2, but it didn't get underway until 2:30 or so.

So 3:10 PM rolls around, and apparently the wedding was supposed to be finished by 3. Why did we, in the audience, know this? Because there was a large group of hispanics congregating in the lobby type area of the church. They were peering through the double doors into the wedding, and not being particularly quiet about it (there were a lot of kids present in there group). Why weren't they waiting outside? Nobody knew, but they were causing a bit of a distraction.

And then, defying all logic, expectations, and manners, around 40 of them walked through the double doors into the chapel. They sat down in the pews in the back.

Now at this point, a lot of us are in pure disbelief. Who does that? Are you fucking kidding me?

But wait, it gets better. So the wedding gets finished up at about 3:20 PM, and the priest (or father, whatever) tells us all to stand up, as the bride, groom, and the wedding party will be exiting through the aisle. So imagine that you are one of these people who walked into this wedding. The priest guy says for everyone to stand. You would stand right???





Apparently not.

I said to Kim, "Talk about reinforcing negative stereotypes."

What would I do if this happened to me? I have no idea. Part of me would want to go back screaming at them like a madman. But the other part of me of course would want to just ignore the whole debacle, as hard as that would be to do.

But I'm fairly certain what would happen if this were to occur at the Young/Cooper affair.

So I was walking in the mall last night with Kim, and I saw this "larger" woman in an ad for Dove. I was like, "that doesn't seem right." Kim said, "Thats the new real women campaign." Yada yada yada.



I replied, "I don't want to see real women on billboards! I want to see supermodel type girls. I see real women every day! Now I have to see them on billboards too?"

Of course, I realize that the billboards are not specifically meant for me. But I still don't like em.

On the other hand, Giddy Up

So after I uninstalled a lot of crap from my new laptop, I was disappointed. I had expected it to be running significantly faster, but it was still going quite slowly. Probably slower than my 450 mhz desktop. I was actually a little more than disappointed. Enraged may be a better word. I thought that I needed more RAM.

But then I did a little research online and found the real culprit.



This thing was sucking up a ton of RAM and also scanning all sorts of crap in the background. I would start up AIM, and it would take forever because Norton was trying to figure out if it was okay. I would start up Pokerstars, and Norton would try to figure out if it was okay. It was setting up firewalls, checking spyware, and generally doing whatever the hell it wanted.

I got to uninstalling it (which was a trial in itself), and I can't be happier with the decision. My computer is running like 300 percent faster, and I also have one less icon on my system tray. I do now have a red icon that says I do not have antivirus software installed and thus I'm at risk, but thats a small price to pay to not have to wait like a minute for my laptop to actually boot up.

Over the past few years, ESPN has attempted to create its own original entertainment, in order to compliment its usual array of sports. These shows have met with varying degrees of success. For every blockbuster hit such as Pardon the Interruption or Sportscentury, there have been complete bombs, such as Mohr Sports, Beg, Borrow and Deal, and Dream Job. And there seems to be a direct correlation with the amount of advertising ESPN does to promote a program and the program's inevitable suckiness.

If you've been watching ESPN or any network that ESPN advertises on, you have seen an ad for a new original program by ESPN. The ad consists of Steven A. Smith talking about how great the New England Patriots are. And then the ad ends with him saying, "and they still have Tom Brady. Quite Frankly, thats all you need," or something to that effect.

Now the ad is annoying. Combine the annoying ad with the fact that Steven A. Smith has to be one of the most annoying personalities on ESPN or TNT. Mix in the fact that the ad plays during pretty much every commercial break. Finally, top it off with a horrible scene of Smith doing some revolting jig near a logo for the show, and you have the most infuriating commercial of the last few months.

Is this show going to bomb? I'd have to lean towards yes. He writes for the Philadelphia Inquirer, so I used to come across his columns, and they're not very insightful. The bigger problem, though, is that I cannot name one person who actually enjoys listening to Smith yell about basketball or racism. He kind of gets under your skin, and not in a way that makes you wonder, "Gee what will he say next?"

And I wish I knew what the actual format of the show is going to be. Will he have guests? Will he simply invite Tim Legler and other NBA analysts and scream at them as to why they are wrong? Will he just talk about how great the Patriots, Bulls of the 90s, Yankees of the late 90s, etc. are? Maybe he will simply talk about how some black athlete X, dispite all evidence to the contrary, is not guilty and has simply been railroaded by the white media/governing body/earth. Who knows?

And the big thing is, how is he going to fit the apparent catch phrase into the show? Is he going to wait for just the right moment, then totally devastate his guest with the "quite frankly, you're wrong!"

Will I watch the show? I'm doubting it. I'm curious, but watching Steven A. for even a couple minutes at a time is more annoying than anything. I think ESPN has come up with another Mohr Sports.

In the middle of eating dinner last night, I heard the doorbell ring. I jumped out of my seat and ran downstairs. And there was the UPS man. With my shiny new laptop. I contained myself, finished dinner, and then ran into my room to open this bad boy up.

It was a bit bigger than I had imagined. But well, it was pretty cheap, so what can I expect? It'll be a form of exercise. The screen is nice and big, and the keyboard and touchpad are also acceptable. It has four speakers; two on the edge closest to the user, and two next to the keyboard. It also has some multimedia buttons on the closest edge, for easy access DVD playing.

It only came with one CD - a Wordperfect CD. Useless. I got to the task of uninstalling all the crap on it.

Earthlink - gone
AOL - gone
Quickbooks - gone
Learn2 - gone
Wordperfect - gone
Musicmatch - gone
a lot of other stuff I don't remember - gone

You would be amazed at how much junk was on there. Perhaps thats why Dell can sell their computers so cheap. These companies pay Dell a hefty fee to have them preinstalled on the computers, and most people are too lazy to actually get rid of them. However, I'll take the extra 2 hours of work for a 100 dollar or so discount any day.

I then got to installing the essentials.

AIM - hello
Winamp - hello
Firefox - hello
Microsoft Office - hello
Pokerstars - hello

This morning my roommate found the 26 digit key to hook into our wireless network, and I was ready to jump into the wireless 21st century. There was just one problem. My wireless card was recognizing four networks, none of which were ours. I decided to hit the "refresh list of networks" button a few times, but that did not help. I fiddled around with it some more, but eventually gave up and figured that I would have to lead a wired existance until I went to UVA.

But then, I saw a mysterious icon in my taskbar. It was the Intel Wireless setup thing. I had previously been just letting Windows XP handle my internet connections, and when I double clicked on the Intel program it confirmed that Windows was in charge of my wireless connections. Well, I figured that Windows was doing a pretty crappy job of it, so I gave the Intel program the power to take over. And take over it did. It immediately recognized our house's network, and after I put in the 26 digit key, I was up and running. Now I can surf the internet while I'm in bed. Hoooah!

Why did XP not recognize our wireless network? I have one theory that is probably 200 percent wrong. Before I had the 26 digit key, I was just manually plugging my laptop into the wireless router. So my probably very wrong theory is that XP thought it was not a wireless connection, and thus refused to recognize it.

Either that or XP just blows.

Aside from the wireless issues that are now resolved, my only complaint is that the computer could be running a bit faster. Anyone got any extra laptop RAM?

Movie Review: Wedding Crashers



Back when I was in high school, we were able to take electives. My first elective, and the most useful one I took, was Personal Keyboarding. In that course I learned how to touch type, a skill that has served me extremely well through my life. My most useless elective was Mass Media, a joke of a course in which we watched movies and "learned" about the various genres and how they affected our culture. I took away exactly one lesson from that course.

Comedies should generally be shorter than dramas, action movies, horror movies, etc. because the audience is generally "laughed out" at the one and a half hour mark.

Wedding Crashers is 1 hour and 59 minutes long.

And that is the problem with the movie.

Don't get me wrong. Its a great flick. Vince Vaughn is hilarious, Owen Wilson is slightly less hilarious, and the girls (especially Rachel McAdams) are generally attractive and funny. The movie is full of great and memorable scenes, such as Vince having an incident with Ilsa Fisher at the dinner table. Its also full of some solid lines, such as Vince Vaughn's rant including the line "Just the tip."

Incidentally, I was pretty much the only person in the entire theatre not laughing uncontrollably at this line. Kim explained it to me later. I suppose I am just too innocent to know of such things.

There are also some nice shots of girls and their breasts.

But while the movie is generally a laugh riot, the last 45 minutes sort of drag. You expect the movie to be about wrapping up, but instead Owen Wilson is forced to elongate his depression, eventually meeting up with Will Ferrell. For some reason they crash a funeral, and that kind of snaps Owen out of his funk.

While Will Ferrell usually brings a lot to the table, I can't help but think the movie would be better off without him. There seems to be nothing necessary about his part in the movie - the director probably just wanted a little cameo star power, but the movie is not in need of it, as Vaughn and Wilson do a bang up job on their own. For those of you who have seen the movie, think about it. If you just delete the scene where Wilson meets up with Ferrell and tweak Owen Wilson's end lines a little bit about the funeral, wouldn't the movie be much better?

Is the movie hilarious? Yes. Is it worth seeing? Yes. However, if you're able to just zonk yourself out from the 1 hour and 20 minute mark to the 1 hour and 40 minute mark, you'd be doing yourself a favor.

Grade: B+

Well I've finally been drug kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

From 1998 - 2004, I used a Dell Dimension 400 Mhz computer. In 1998 it was brand new. By 2004, its A: drive didn't work, the DVD player wouldn't let me play anything rated above "G", and I could not install any new programs.

In the middle of 2004, I acquired my Mom's old computer. It was a Dell Dimension 450 Mhz, complete with a CD Burner. I had never had access to a CD Burner. I wiped the vivus and spyware filled hard drive clean, installed an ethernet card, and it was good to go. I probably set a world record for happiness level in relation to crappiness of computer.

As great as that computer has been, UVA Law is demanding that I have a laptop. And it needs to be reliable. I've been looking on the Dell website for the last couple months, determined to find a good buy. I did not want the cheapest one; when I saw Ben's Dell laptop down in Atlanta, the black plastic it was made of just screamed "crappy."

Kim's laptop is pretty nice. Its an Inspiron 600m, but its a bit out of my price range. And Kim nixed my "I'll trade you my crappy desktop for your nifty laptop" plan.

So I started doing some research on the Inspiron 6000.



Every review I read seemed pretty positive. It is pretty light, has a widescreen display, decent battery life, and the most important feature: it was cheap. It was only $649. However, much to my dismay, it ended up at $736 dollars. An incredible $50 for shipping, and a whole lot more for stupid tax. Tax??? Come on.

In any event, UPS already tried to deliver it, but I sadly was not around. They're going to try to give it to me tomorrow after 5 PM. Needless to say, I'm pretty psyched. But also sad in a way. Goodbye Dell Dimension. I'll miss you.

Finished! Only two pieces missing. We can blame either ourselves or Cassidy. Damn dog, eating puzzle pieces.

Last night after I ran teacher auditions at Kaplan, me, Kim, and Michelle met up for some drinks at Nova Terra. After that, we ate some dinner at Old Man Rafferty's. And then Michelle and Kim discussed engagements, rings, and weddings for approximately the next ten hours.

Okay, so it wasn't ten hours. But we did not get back to Highland Park until 10 PM. Which left precious little time for the puzzle. That would be okay in a normal situation, but we have the puzzle on the kitchen table. That essentially makes it impossible for my two roommates to use the table, and is "slightly" inconsiderate. Adding in the fact that I will be gone all day Friday and Saturday, we determined that we needed to do some significant work on the puzzle.

Luckily, we had some incredible progress:



As you can see, we determined where the dead body shots go, and managed to complete the stupid all white suicide note. And you can't see from the glare, but there was a insanely annoying fern plant thing that is in the top middle of the puzzle. But those are pretty much done. It still appears that there are pieces missing to the puzzle; one white piece from the note and one red piece from the keyboard are absent from our piles. But those are probably not entirely necessary (of course, when we eventually shine the blacklight onto the puzzle I bet those pieces become very key).

In any event, we went to bed at 12:30, content with our progress, when I made yet another discovery!

An edge piece was lying on the floor in my room. Which was quite odd, as I had checked over the floor thoroughly the night before. Eh, an edge is an edge, and now the border of the puzzle is finally completed.

Tomorrow: Completion!

Day 1 of the puzzle:



Morale is high, even though there is no picture for us to go on. There are lots of little green lines that go through the puzzle pieces. At first we try to set aside all of the green line pieces, but soon realize there are far too many - it is a 750 piece puzzle and it seems like there may be well over 100, along with at least 10 "corner" green line pieces, indicating that they create several boxes within the puzzle.

The only thing we know for sure is that there is a keyboard in the puzzle, and I work on creating that keyboard. Kim works on finding the edges.

Day 2 of the puzzle:



Morale is low, as we realize that one of the puzzle pieces is actually missing. This is different from the 50 other times one of us has said that "there must be a piece missing," as this time we are looking for an edge piece that has a green line in it, and we take out every single green line piece from the pile and find no edge piece. Perhaps Cassidy ate a piece, perhaps the company didn't pack it, perhaps we just lost it; whatever the case is, we are missing an edge.

However, things pick up when are able to integrate some of our completed inside pictures (keyboard, picture frame, suicide note) into the outer frame. What goes in the middle is anyone's guess, but it is at the least progress as we enter day 3.

For the first time in a long time, I started doing a puzzle. Of course, it was Kim's idea.

But its no ordinary puzzle. Its a CSI Puzzle. You are given a little booklet of "case information," you then put together the puzzle to get clues, and try to solve the case. It even includes a nifty blacklight flashlight, so you can see special "hidden" clues in the evidence, although all we have done with the blacklight thus far is point it at our clothes, see white splotches, and then laugh like 13 year olds.

The hardest thing about the puzzle is that there is no picture given of what it is supposed to look like. So there are various parts of evidence - a picture of the two guys in a wooden frame, a keyboard, a dead body, etc. But we have no idea of where they belong in the puzzle. In fact, last night we couldn't even find the fourth corner piece, leading Kim to state that the reason the puzzle was on sale was because it was missing pieces.

However, I made a great find this morning. I was eating a very stale garlic bagel, and happened to look on the kitchen floor. And there were a couple pieces of the puzzle, including the fourth corner! I was quite happy with my find. Let the crime solving continue...

Last night I was faced with an interesting situation.

Kim's brother was having a birthday party, and at this party a poker game developed. Involved in this game were Kim's brother, brother-in-law, father, and a few other guys who I did not know. I was invited to play, but I declined. My reasoning was as follows:

If I win, then they resent that I took their money, and they start to dislike me. And thus, in reality I lose.

If I lose, then I lose my money. Which is also bad.

I called up Fishman and gave him this situation (without my analysis or decision), and he came to the exact same conclusion. Its a lose-lose situation. Its a shame though, I kind of wanted to play.

On an unrelated note, I've essentially been immersed in a foreign country the last couple days. On Saturday I ate dinner with Kim's family, and then there was the birthday party last night. On both occassions, I was the only person who did not speak Vietnamese. A lot of times I would just zone out, and then become startled when I thought someone actually spoke something in English to me. I'd look in the general direction where I thought the statement came from, but then realize that I just imagined the words. I then would go back to zoning out/eating.

I was pleasantly surprised to find the new Harry Potter book waiting for me when I returned to my place in Highland Park yesterday. I had expected to see it on Monday at the earliest, but kudos to Amazon.com for two things:

1) For getting me the book as quickly as humanly possible (it was released in bookstores at 12:01 Saturday morning)
2) For sending me an email, refunding me a dollar off of the $17.99 price they originally charged me.

While almost every circular I see (even supermarkets) is selling the book at $15.00 or less, I still am pretty happy with Amazon.com. I didn't have to go out to an actual store to buy it, and I'm willing to pay the extra 3 bucks for that convenience. Also, they were nice enough to refund me that dollar.

Much like millions of other people across the world, I can't really explain why I like Harry Potter so much.

Kim just told me to write, "I'm a loser."

But I'm not a loser! I'm not these guys:



So there must be some other explanation.

I haven't been blogging much lately.

I've started teaching LSAT once again, and nothing really comes up in class that I feel like I can really blog about. What would I even write? This student came up with a great question and totally stumped me? I suppose writing about stupid questions/students would be kind of funny, but a little too mean spirited for this blog.

I've been playing poker a decent amount lately too, and that also is not ideal blog material. Firstly, very few of you would understand poker terminology like "flush draw" or "two overcards," terms that are necessary for a full understanding of how I got screwed, how I busted an idiot, etc. Secondly, and more importantly, reading about poker is insanely boring unless you play a fair amount.

I've also been watching a ton of CSI, courtesy of Blockbuster Online. And again, its not solid blog material. I've been toying with a blog entry delving into American's fascination with CSI (and the results of this phenomenon affecting actual juries), but haven't had any startling insights regarding the topic. I guess I could go into random facts I learn from the show. Nah.

So with those three pursuits occupying the bulk of my time, and each of them not being blog worthy, the result is inevitably a dearth of blog entries. A poor excuse? You betcha. But an excuse nonetheless. Perhaps some entertaining things will happen to me soon.

I'm getting old.

I'm sure I've started a post with that exact line before. But I keep getting older... and feeling older.

This past weekend I was at the Borgata with Ben's family. We had rooms for Sunday and Monday nights, with an afternoon of golf and a spectacular meal at Old Homestead scheduled also. Fast forward to Monday night. Ben and I both resolve to get completely wasted, as we need to drink away the punishing golf defeat we suffered from his parents.

The drinking began in the Amphora Lounge at The Borgata. The waiter asked what I wanted. I replied, "Give me a glass of your cheapest merlot." He seemed a bit taken aback by this, and said ok. Ben's mom then told me that they don't charge for drinks in this Lounge. I replied with my usual, "I see." I quickly switched over to Ten and Tonics after this complete ordering debacle. After a few of those, Ben and I went to play some table games. After a couple hours of Blackjack and a Poker variant, I was down $200 on the trip. I hit up the ATM.

Here is where things get very fuzzy. I know these facts for sure:

1) We played craps for the rest of the night
2) I was getting a continuous stream of drinks
3) I almost threw up on the craps table
4) I came up to the room at 5:30 AM, somehow up $350

Its the last part that confuses me the most. As I was at a $10 minimum table, and I was not (at least, I don't think I was) betting much more than that. I recall fingering some black chips ($100) in my pocket, and never really being able to figure out how they got in there. To swing from $200 down to $350 up by betting small amounts on the craps table is a minor miracle. The fact that this occured while I was on the verge of booting is a gigantic miracle.

What is making me feel real old, however, is not that I have a very fuzzy recollection of the night's events. That happened all through college anyway. What made me feel old was my headache after I woke up. It was, without question, the worst headache I've had in my life. And it did not go away. Not after I chugged a bottle of gatorade. Not after a crippling 2 hour drive back to Highland Park. Not after five nauseating bites of 3 day old macaroni and cheese. No, it did not go away until 6 PM, when I woke up from my 3 hour nap.

The mind is willing. But the flesh is weak. Back in the day, I would have felt kind of crappy, but been up and running by noon. Now, I'm so debilitated that two days later I'm still feeling the effects.

Damn you old age.

Movie Review: War of the Worlds (spoilers involved)



At some point in my later years at Duke, a bunch of us were pretty pumped up to see Vanilla Sky. The trailers and commercials made it seem like an awesome movie. The only problem with it was that it was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. The only positive that came out of it was the phrase "tech support!"

At one point in Vanilla Sky, Tom Cruise is told by someone that when things go wrong in his dream (or whatever it was), he could simply ask for "tech support," and help would be on its way to correct the error. Cruise then began to scream for "tech support" in quite a hilarious manner. Following suit, we all would bellow "tech support!!!" whenever anything went wrong with our lives - a paper that was too hard to write, being out of beer, econometrics exam, etc.

Lets just say War of the Worlds was Vanilla Sky, but without the phrase "tech support."

Lets start with the characters. Tom Cruise plays a horrible Dad who gets his two kids to take care of for a few days. He is hell bent on survival, and there isn't anything terrible about his role in the movie.



Dakota Fanning plays his daughter, and she fluctuates wildly from "smart ass intelligent kid" to "annoying insane screaming girl who you want to slap." At one point in the movie she informs Cruise that she is allergic to peanut butter. He asks, "since when?" Fanning deadpans, "Birth." And then in other scenes she is letting loose piercing screams for her mommy. I realize she is supposed to be young, but why give her the apparent wit of a teenager at some points and then the whining selfish attitude of a 4 year old at others?

And then we have Justin Chatwin, who plays Cruise's obnoxious teenage son. He wants to fight the aliens. When army guys drive by, he tries to get onto their convoy. When army guys begin a huge fight with one of the alien walkers, he gets in a big fight with Cruise about whether he is allowed to stay and watch/help. He is the classic "I want to punch this guy" character, which would be fine except I doubt the script calls for that kind of portrayal.

Overall, the characters in the movie are moronic. The ground is quaking and a gigantic alien walker pops out of the ground. The people stand there and see what it does. Kim said it best: "What are you doing? You think its going to give you presents??" You don't feel a lot of sympathy for the people dying, because you can't help but think they deserve it.

And then there are the plot holes. Ohhhh boy. So nothing electric works because of an Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP, see The Matrix). Even wristwatches don't work. Yet, when we get a first glimpse of the alien walker, what do we see? A guy with a camcorder! And then, to reinforce the gaping plot hole, he drops it on the ground after being vaporized, and the movie cuts to the digital viewfinder of the camcorder, which is working perfectly! Come on!!!

Want to hear another plot hole? Sure you do. So later in the movie, Cruise cannot convince his son to get away from this gigantic battle involving tanks, helicopters, fighter jets, and the like against one of the alien walkers. His son says "he has to do it" and gets away from Cruise, towards the battle. He goes over the hill, and almost instantly a gigantic fireball comes from the walker, killing everything. A bunch of flaming jeeps come rolling out of the battle (presumably full of dead bodies). Yet at the end of the movie, the son is alive and in Boston. The tanks couldn't survive. The army guys couldn't survive. But the son did.


(not as tough as Justin)

You know, I wouldn't even have a problem with the son surviving if they flashed back to HOW he lived through the monster fireball. I don't even need to see how he survived the alien walker disintegrating him. Just show me how he survived the fireball. Maybe he fell in a big hole and a tank rolled over it. Just give me something!

And here's the best one. Cruise goes looking for his once again insane daughter (who has fled the basement of a house they were hiding out in), and finds himself being chased by an alien walker. Cruise seeks refuge in a truck. The walker wraps an arm around the truck and lifts it like 30 feet into the air. Cruise is still inside the truck, when he sees Dakota Fanning on the hillside, about to be swept up by one of the other alien walker arms. The VERY next scene is Cruise running across a field to get to Fanning.

Did he fall out of the truck? No, that was impossible since the alien arm was effectively super locking the doors. Did he climb out the window? Unlikely, since the alien arm was taking up half of the window area. Did he suddenly evolve a latent human ability of teleportation? That seems unlikely, yet is the only thing that can explain how one second he is in a truck being crushed by an alien arm, and the next be on the ground running in an attempt to save his daughter.

And finally, there is the biggest plot hole. I like to call it "the ending." Others may simply refer to it as the "last half hour of the movie." When the DVD comes out, I may rent it simply to find the deleted scene entitled "Explanation of How Humans Win." After Cruise and Fanning escape one of the alien walkers, they get close to Boston. Cruise notices that some of the red root stuff that was growing all over the earth is beginning to die. No further explanation of this red root stuff, stuff that I've seen for the last hour of the movie and had no idea what it is, is given

In Boston one of the walkers is dead, and Cruise asks some of the army guys how it happened. They said they have no idea, just that it was staggering around and then fell over. They run into another walker, and its also staggering around, and Cruise notices that some birds are pecking at it, indicating that the shields are not working. The army guys then blow it up with some bazooka rounds. Why are its shields down? I don't know. The alien pilot guy falls out of the walker, and you would expect like some scientist to come up and be like, "Ohhhhhh, such and such killed him, and will kill all of them soon enough!" Nope. An army guy just says "all clear," which is totally stupid because the pilot isn't even dead! He's moving around!

We cut to a scene of a lot of alien walkers fallen over, apparently dead. After the mandatory reunion of Cruise with his ex-wife (in a section of Boston that has received ZERO damage from the hundreds of alien walkers), we hear Morgan Freeman's voice. Ahhhh, here is the explanation of why the aliens suddenly died. Freeman states that the aliens were as good as dead as soon as they stepped foot on the planet. Bacteria killed them.

So let me get this straight. Aliens, before man was even around, planted these big alien walkers underground. They then waited however many years for humanity to develop. Why did they wait for humanity to develop? Honestly, I have no idea. If these aliens wanted Earth's natural resources, they would have just taken the planet over when they planted the walkers. However, in one scene, you see one of the walkers sucking the blood out of a person. They want our blood? This seems unlikely though - the alien walkers use a disintegration beam to kill millions of people. If they wanted blood, why would they vaporize people? It would be like robbing a bank and taking a blowtorch to all the cash. In any event, lets assume that the aliens have some good reason for invading. They've planned this attack for the last hundred thousand years. They are WAY past our level of technology. And they FORGOT to take into account that there are bacteria on Earth that might kill them???

You know what, I can't even write any more about this movie experience.

The top 5 sides at Boston Market

5) Sweet Corn

The website says it tastes better than normal because they season it with garlic butter... I'm not so sure. There are these mysterious black specks in the corn that make it taste much better than normal, and garlic isn't black. Oh well, its still a quality side if you're looking for a non-green vegetable.

4) Homestyle Mashed Potatoes

Most people go for these. And with good reason. The amount of butter and milk used to make these would probably nauseate you if you actually saw it. Still, you can't argue with the taste, which is damn good.

3) Hot Cinnamon Apples

Some people may question this high of a ranking for the apples, as they may be "too dessert like" to be considered a true side. Hogwash. These apples are like homemade applesauce, only much better. Plus, they are a fruit, which I hear is good for you.

2) Macaroni and Cheese

Two things make this macaroni and cheese exceptional. First, they use rotini, which is almost unheard of in the macaroni and cheese world. Secondly, the sauce is composed of three cheeses, and is usually pretty abundant. Sometimes the sauce is so abundant that it spills into the other side dish, which is a pretty good thing (unless you have the apples).

1) Savory Stuffing

Sometimes the stuffing is a little mushy. Sometimes its hard. No matter what consistency it is, the stuffing is absolutely phenomenal. Celery, carrots, onions, along with the actual stuffing, and they use a special broth (lard probably) to give it that extra touch. I've always been tempted to get double stuffing as my two sides, but usually go for the Mac and Cheese. But I never have considered double mac (or double anything else, for that matter). The stuffing is just that good.

I was not at Live 8 in Philly.

I was not around to feel the music; to sense the huge upwelling of social awareness that the event was designed to create; to speak with people who felt unified in one message:

Poverty is bad.

When Dave Matthews was asked by a reporter whether he thought that world leaders were watching the concerts and "rocking out to them," he replied that he didn't think they were rocking out. But that he thought they were watching and going to be moved to action.

I agree. If by "moved to action" you mean, "totally indifferent."

Can you imagine a world leader turning on the TV, seeing a bunch of drunk and high people at a music concert, and thinking, "Man. I didn't know so many people were against poverty! I should really do something about it..."

The biggest problem with the idea of the concert though, was its focus.

In 1985, Live Aid raised over 245 million dollars for famine relief in Africa, but most of those funds went to line the pockets of corrupt dictators. Some people began to recognize that its the brutal leaders of these countries that are causing the poverty.

Bono himself stated:

This is the number-one problem facing Africa, corruption; not natural calamity, not the AIDS virus. This is the number-one issue and there's no way around it.

One would think that the focus of Live 8 would be on getting rid of the corruption - you know, the CAUSE of the poverty. However, armed with this realization, the planners of Live 8 did not decide to rail against corruption. They did not decide to raise a lot of money, and give it charities to distribute in a fair way. No. Instead, they decided that the focus should be on doubling foreign aid and forgiving governmental debts. Apparently, these musicians didn't seem to realize that doubling aid and forgiving debts are just what the corrupt dicators need to solidify their hold in these poverty stricken countries.

Imagine that you have a friend who wishes to play poker. You lend him 100 dollars and send him off to the poker room in The Borgata. He promptly loses it, and asks you for another 100. You give it to him, and once again he loses it. This pattern continues for a year, and he now owes you ten thousand dollars. A third party comes along and says that the solution is not for you to stop giving him money. The solution is not for you to instruct him on how to play better poker. The solution is for you to forgive his debt, and now for you to give him 200 dollars every time he asks you for poker money.

I can't stop thinking of the Simpsons episode regarding a trillion dollar bill.



Castro: Comrads, our nation is completely bankrupt! We have no choice but to abandon communism!
All: [sigh]
Castro: I know, I know, I know... but we all knew from day one this mumbo jumbo wouldn't fly! I'll call Washington and tell them they won.
Man: But presidente, America tried to kill you!
Castro: Ah, they're not so bad. They even named a street after me in San Francisco!

And then of course, Castro gets the trillion dollar bill from Mr. Burns, and communism lives on in Cuba, due to a form of foreign aid.

I've been sore for the last couple days. Why?



Its called Mocap Boxing, short for Motion Capture Boxing. Unlike traditional boxing games where you toggle a controller to move around and hit buttons to throw punches, in this game you move your body around to move around... and throw punches to throw punches. The gloves weigh approximately 2 pounds each.

You would be surprised at how sore you feel the next day. I put in a dollar, got to the third guy, and then lost. I felt a bit of a twinge in my arm, but attributed it to the fact that the right glove wasn't working (I was using my left arm pretty much exclusively, until I switched up the gloves).

The next day I was actually in pain. I only played the game for like 6 minutes; how on earth was I so sore? Am I really that out of shape? Apparently not, as I searched around and found out that I'm not alone. The game actually bills itself as sort of an exercise tool; it shows the number of Kcals that you burn when playing.

I'm aching to find one of these games close by and give it another try.

I went to the Cherry Hill Mall today with Kim, and we wandered into a Hall of Heroes store. They had some cool tee shirts, but nothing really spectacular. As we were leaving, there were some vending things near the entrance - you put in a quarter or two, and you get a little plastic egg with a "prize" inside.

These caught our eye:



Obviously, the Ralph one was the true prize, but Mr. Burns would be pretty good too. What would the worst one to get? Probably Milhouse, followed closely by Bart.

We put in FOUR quarters (thats what the machine demanded), and hoped for the best. Of course, we got a Milhouse. I kept thinking of the episode where Lisa and Bart go to the shore with their parents, and Lisa invents a new persona to try to be cool. Bart gets stuck at the shore house playing a board game where you have to get a good date for the prom, and the "dud" date is a picture of Milhouse. I felt the same way. The dud was clearly Milhouse.

We wanted another shot at the Ralph. As Kim went up to the cashier for change, I eyed the eggs in the machine. There seemed to be an awful lot of eggs containing a blue haired character, and Marge is not one of the options. Kim came back, we turned the knob, and out came our second try.



Lets just say I have one of these on my desk, and another in my car.

Damnation!

I can't remember the exact quote. And only two or three of you who read this will know what I'm talking about. Wilkins, you're one of them. Please fill in the blank.

"But what about (insert country name here), Mr. Hitchens??!!!"

Thats what I always think about whenever I read a Christopher Hitchens column.

Here is another good one by Hitchens, on "sending" our sons (and daughters) to war.

Today begins an unprecedented amount of trips to the Borgata. It should be close to 3 in a 5 or 6 week span, which may put me in the category of gamblaholic. I'm addicted to gamblahol! Today me, Kim, Allister, Caitlin, and some of Kim's friends are going down for the night. Next Sunday, I'm going down for an extra unprecedented two night stay with Ben and his parents. And then in late July or early August, my Mom wants me and her to go down for a weekday night.

Needless to say, the potential repercussions to my bank account are staggering. I always think of going to AC or Vegas as a cost; the max I'm going to lose is say, $300. If I come out even, then I feel like I'm way ahead of the game. If I lose that $300, that was the price of entertainment. And who knows what happens if I actually win. I've only won a few times, and all I remember is pure elation and drunkenosity.