"So, what's left?" I asked as I always do at sporting box offices.
"Uh, it's uh, standing room only."

We mulled it over and decided that rather than dealing with the sweating masses of Worcester on the concourse, we'd just head to the mall and have fun on our own merit.  We did indeed manage to have a good time, and I hope that situations like this prompt the city and the team to consider expanding the park or building a new one!

Things have actually been exciting down at the store for the first time in a while.  After months of telling customers how great things are going to be and having nothing to show them except the fact that their favorite jelly has been discontinued, we've got results.  The pharmacy is being built, produce underwent an amazing transformation in only a couple of days, and Mom's company has been taking care of putting in the new lights.  There's more to come, too.  I'm excited to see how the frozen section turns out when all this is done with.  Stay tuned, folks.

Separated at birth?

Just now, I realized that Brazilian soccer superstar Ronaldinho bears a striking resemblance to Eddy Gordo, the Tekken character I used in the clips you see in my new video.  I was playing Tekken 3, which came out in '98, and I don't think Ronaldinho was playing professionally then.  I might be wrong, I only just started paying attention to soccer a few months ago in my withdrawls from not having any hockey to watch.

In other news... Greg and I hit Bay Path with his father earlier in the week.  We had a good time, and we played pretty well... at least for the first nine.  We took a short break and then headed back out to play nine more.  Things didn't work as well the second time around.  Still, it was a lot of fun to play with both of them.  I'm still hoping that Dad and I can get out once before the season is over.  Greg and I also took in a Tornadoes game, and we had a blast.  The team is actually pretty good for their level.  They can all hit, let me tell you.  We saw three or four home runs (one of which was a grand slam) and one guy hit for the cycle (even though the single he got in the ninth was an error... they reversed it to make everybody happy).  A great time, indeed.  Cheap, too.  Get out there before the season's over!  Not to mention, they are already in the Can Am playoffs.

Since this summer's movies were so bad, I only saw five.  I'm going to start working on my summer movie wrap-up soon in that case.  But since there's been nothing to see, I've been trying to dig up as much as I can on the movies coming in the fall.  Everybody knows how excited I am over V for Vendetta, but another film I'm dying to see is Darren Aronofsky's next picture, The Fountain, which has had a long and difficult history.  Aronofsky is the young mind behind Pi and Requiem for a Dream, two edgy and technically genius films, and The Fountain looked like it was going to be a crown jewel for Warner Brothers.  They had Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett signed on, the budget was around $80 million, and the story was kept mostly under wraps, except that it was known the action would take place in three different time periods, circa 1500 AD, the present, and 2500.   However, Pitt dropped out to do Troy (not a bad idea, mind you!) and Blanchett got pregnant (rewrites didn't work, and she went on to do The Life Aquatic in the meantime, also not a bad idea).  So, The Fountain got shelved for a while until Hugh "Wolverine" Jackman replaced Brad Pitt and Rachel Weisz took over the female lead.  Note: I love Hugh, but Brad still would have been cooler... and Rachel Weisz is unbelievably gorgeous, so I'm not complaining for a second.  However, the budget got slashed, but seeing the job Aronofsky did on Pi with so little money, I'm sure he could pull something out.

If I've piqued your interest, take a look around the World Wide Netweb.

Okay, so now that I've basically typed out everything you could have read on most movie preview sites, here's the reason I started talking about it in the first place... Last night I was getting really antsy trying to dig stuff up on The Fountain... release dates, trailers, you name it.  We had the same three production stills and a recent report from Comic Con with Aronofsky and Weisz (which included Darren's quote, "Warner Bros doesn't know what the hell to do with this film.") and that was it.  So after losing most hope this morning, I checked out NP1 favorite, Toshi Station... and it turned out that Warners has finally put up a "site" for The Fountain.  For now it's semi-creepy music and a flash animation of Peter Parks's Petri dish photography.  A screensaver, but no trailer.  Oh well.  Soon, I hope.  Really.

Speaking of Portland... I've given serious thought of going there myself in a few weeks to see Interpol play... that is, if they don't come around closer on this leg of their tour.  They had just added a month's worth of shows for September on their website, but the final show is Sept. 30 in Portland.  I'll have to keep an eye on things.  I think the Palladium would  be a great place for them to do a show. 

Well, tonight I've got a school committee meeting to shoot for Channel 11, and that will probably be another great six or seven hours.  Tomorrow is also the selectmen's turn, so I've got a full week ahead of me.

Also, Dane Cook's new album is too funny to listen to while driving.

Now, it's no secret that I love the classic NES game "Paperboy."  Actually, I think it's one of my favorite video games of all time simply because it's maddeningly tough but still has a great personality and some strangely placed characters.  Well, I found out today that Something Awful-spawned video group Mega64 has finally returned to their old tricks, and have created a real-life Paperboy scenario.  If you've played the game (especially if you've played it as much as I have), you're going to love it.  If you haven't played the game, that's okay, it's still great.  Go to Mega64.com and click on the picture of the fella that I like to call "The Spaz" to see it in all its glory.

That's all for now.  Good night, good news.

I hate to get the month off on a downer note, but a couple of weeks ago, Dad's diagnosis came back as multiple sclerosis.  At first I was pretty upset to hear about it, but at least we finally had something to go on rather than just sit around twiddling our thumbs over it.  Now that we know, we can start treatment.  It isn't as bad as I anticipated, but it's not like it's going to be a fun disease or something.  Still, Dad's been getting a little better as it is, which is a possible way that MS can work sometimes.  Sometimes you get it and everything just hits you at once over a period of time and it never goes away.  There's also forms in which you can have an "attack" of the symptoms that stick around for a while and then pretty much go away and lie dormant for an undetermined period of time.  It's early, we can hope and pray for the best.

In other news, Greg's birthday is in a couple of days and I set up a tee time at Quail Hollow for us that morning.  It'll be only my first time out this year.  How pathetic is that?  It's August now and I'm finally getting out?  Jeeze.  I hit a bucket today and I think that I'm going to need to make sure my back is nice and loose; I was pulling a lot of my shots because I would tighten up and swing around like a drunk.  I'll also need to dope myself up on allergy meds.  I mowed the lawn yesterday without any Claritin and today I'm feeling the effects something fierce.  There, I just sneezed once simply thinking about all the crap I inhaled yesterday afternoon.

Also, my TV is dying quickly before my eyes.  That's just great.  Oh well, I guess I can go to Best Buy on Friday and look for a new one.