May 31 2008
Metanoia
The Haiku
It means change of mind
to the point of changed spirit –
which we all could use
It’s also the name of Bella’s production company (Monteverde/Verástegui’s company they created specifically to make the movie).
May 31 2008
The Haiku
It means change of mind
to the point of changed spirit –
which we all could use
It’s also the name of Bella’s production company (Monteverde/Verástegui’s company they created specifically to make the movie).
May 31 2008
Bust out the Genesis music, the rolled up sleeve blazer suit jackets, the Miami Vice large-o-sunglasses, and the red convertibles, because the NBA is going back to the 1980’s.
The Celtics defeated the Pistons 4 games to 2 to advance to meet the Lakers in the NBA Finals. This will be the first time that the Lakers and Celtics meet in the Finals in 20 years. It’s weird to think that the last time these two teams met was when Magic and Bird were the two superstars for their teams.
All I have to say about this is…..
May 30 2008

My wife’s been hired out to teach some line dances.
You may have noticed this, but which one is greater?
The Electric Slide
vs.
The Cha Cha Slide
Categories of Combat
Similarity to MC Hammer Video:
Winner: Electric Slide
Great use of balloon pants lets me forgive wearing an open jacket over a bikini.
Ability to be danced by even me:
Winner: Cha Cha Slide
“Slide to the left, slide to the right. Now breathe! In and out, in and out. Charlie Brown!”
Best mysterious lyrics:
Winner: Electric Slide
“Umb diddle luppa sure like to boogie!”
By the way, the real lyrics are:
Jiggle-a-mesa-cara
She’s a pumpin’ like a matic
She’s a movin’ like electric
She sure got the boogie
Jiggle-a-mesa? What, are they Gungan?
The Winner: The Classic, Electric Slide
Hey. I remember watching Macarena on Univision before Los del Rio ever got a hold of it.
By the way, the next time you’re hired out to teach dancing, check out this site that my wife found.
AND MIKE: Here’s your Star Wars parody.
The Haiku
It’s interesting
to dance to a sliding beat
outside the wedding
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Meesa funky Gungan!
May 30 2008
I take for granted how much of an accomplishment it is to sit up. I notice it now when I see the extreme effort, the ab workout that my daughter is doing to be able to accomplish something that no longer gains me my wife’s applause.
My daughter definitely is cuter than me trying to sit up.
Also! Make sure that you watch Alejandro Monteverde’s masterpiece, Bella. Very awesome movie.

It’s pretty much a slap in the face to cliches/stereotypes/conventions. And how does it do that? By portraying life.
Monteverde wrote it/directed it himself and many of the actors and production staff were working for passion and not money.
Many things I love about this film, but one of the cool parts is that it takes out all of the filler. You know how some movies will be all, “Leading man! I must leave now out of anguish and fear. Here is an establishing shot of me walking away to segue! Segue!”
Monteverde takes that out. It leads to some pretty interesting timeline aspects. Is this a flashback, foreshadow, or just a possible future?

Beards and scarves, baby.
But Bella avoids melodrama. It’s not a telenovela, not even close. The incredibly tense-emotion-type stuff is released by natural means, like in my favorite scene. Main man is reminiscing with main woman in an old car. “Last time I drove this, I went to jail.” We see why and there’s tears and all that, but then younger brother hops into the back seat with a, “I’ve met the woman I’m going to marry.” (Even though he’s known her for only a week.)
Monteverde and Eduardo Verástegui (main man) said in the “making of” that they wanted a refreshing movie where a Latino family didn’t have to deal with drugs, gang violence, or running from La Migra. Those issues are nowhere to be seen, because frankly not everyone in New York is living in the seedy underbelly.
It won lots of awards, including top prize at Toronto. It’s in the same category as Chariots of Fire, American Beauty, Life is Beautiful, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon “Li Mu Bai!!!” and Hotel Rwanda .
Not bad for a dollar rental from the kiosk.
(I should have learned from Stardust. The kiosk rocks. (Even if I did fall asleep during 300.)(The Spirit? Hmmmm. Will Eisner…Samuel L. Jackson…Intriguing noir.))
And yes, Devin, A Study in Emerald is amazing.
May 30 2008
The Los Angeles Lakers defeated the San Antonio Sterns*eerr*..Spurs 4 games to 1 in the NBA Western Conference Finals, and will advance to the NBA Finals to face the winner of the Detroit Pistons vs. Boston Celtics series.
As an avid Phoenix Suns fan, something just felt good about watching the last remaining minute of the game, and watching the face of defeat fall upon Tim Duncan and Manu Gibobili *whoops* Ginobili. I find it odd that the Spurs can’t seem to win back to back championships, and added to that weirdness, they can only win titles on odd years(1999*, 2003, 2005, 2007). The reason for the asterisk on 1999 is because that was the year the NBA had a strike/lockdown, and only half the year was actually played.
A lot of people said that this year the Suns had a terrible match-up in the first round against the Spurs, and that the western conference finals should have been Suns vs. Lakers, and I would tend to agree with that. While players like Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker, and Tim Duncan are sticking around, most of that team is not guaranteed to be sticking around, especially because most of them are well over the age of 30, and having this series speak as evidence, the Spurs can’t keep up anymore while carrying dead weight.
Upon the Spurs losing to the Lakers, I realized that Manu Ginobili has a striking resemblence to either Andy Garcia, or the guy who played the art gallery clerk “Serge” in Beverly Hills Cop: http://www.detroitbadboys.com/images/manuBalki_01.jpg
May 29 2008
The Haiku
Playing bass guitar
on Sunday, Star Wars before
and energy drinks
May 29 2008
In honor of this saturday’s Star Wars session in which I get to play the Chiss “Z’enon”, I thought it’d be cool to show how Criss Angel demonstrates how to prey on unsuspecting innocents and convince them that Jedi powers apply to real life too.
May 29 2008
I just got an e-mail from a friend with this video. Thought I’d share:
“Search your peelings…”
May 28 2008

The Haiku
It is always nice
to have a place to go wild
and rock a little
I forgot that they were going to do the Lifehouse Skit. Always awesome.
The second freedom concert. Very fun. No babies delivered (I think).
My brother and I got River City Ransom on the Virtual Console.
Pros:
Cons:
Still fun, but there are some major glitches. My brother and I must have skipped over quite a bit, even though we were actually trying to play. And the passwords are pretty easy for kids to enter. Here’s ours:

Slade – We missed, like, four bosses. Here’s just the beginning of the FAQ:
The Beginning—————————————–>
Crosstown High School:
Easy enough, just pummel on everyone and grab the cash.Sticksville #1:
Make sure to grab the trashcan once you’ve cleared the area.Grotto Mall:
Buy Dragon Feet from the bookstore, and then continue onwards.Sticksville #2:
Use the railing to stall your opponents, before dealing some serious
death from above! Ignore the path upwards for now, and instead leave via
the right.Sticksville #3:
Avoid the pit and use the wall to get the drop on the enemies here. Unlike
the other enemy turfs you’ve been on though, there’s only four normal punks
here. Once they’re defeated, we come face-to-face with our first boss![%%%]Boss: Moose [07b.1][%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%]
Part of the Mob gang, he’s still not all that tough. Like normal punks,
climbing the wall will freeze him in place, so your best bet is to lure him
towards the middle of the screen, and then go with the death from above
tactic, climbing back up once you’ve knocked him down.
[%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%]Once he’s out of the way, leave via the way he came in.
May 27 2008

The Haiku
What’s up with my feet?
They have all ten toes but still
look like funky yams
Another shot of the Zone of Corto (MGH) and a cast for orthotics. One side of my fascist is .47 cm but the injured fascist is .84 cm (that’s bad…but it comes with free ice cream…that’s good!), according to today’s ultrasound. (Like my foot’s givin’ birth to the ugliest vegetable ever.)
The Big Question: Did God design my foot but my finite eyes don’t appreciate the beauty or are my feet a result of the fallen nature of the world’s entropy?
If I ever go for my Philosophy doctorate (as my fellow grad students suggested)…
Tonight we present the doctoral thesis “Predestined Podiatry in a Post-modern Pedagogy”, as defended by an immensely hairy manbeast and his just-off-the-mountain Gorgosh yams.
On the bright side, my oldest daughter was working on reading Go, Dog. Go tonight and my youngest was trying to get people’s attention by grunting/grabbing faces in order to laugh at them.