The football game went rather well, although a ton of people never showed up who had been talking it up for a couple of months (Brandon, I'm looking at you).  Still, the turnout was good and had plenty of spectators.  I didn't know a few of the players this year, though, and I don't even know who brought them, so when I put the video together I'm not sure how I'm going to give people credit.  But Tony Lopez showed up to play, as well as Mr. Mike Flannery, who I didn't know was coming, so I was quite pleased.  The only problems were the fact that the snow made it impossible for me to keep proper footing and that my team ended up losing.  Next time I'm going to make sure that Greg, Tony, Fiske, and Chuck don't end up on the same team. 

And yes, I said video, so I'm hoping to cobble something together for people to enjoy.  I only got action from the first half, as my camera froze up from being out too long.

The night before Thanksgiving, Greg and I saw Walk the Line, the Johnny Cash movie.  Now, I'm no expert on Johnny Cash, I'd leave that to Darryl.  But I saw Harry Potter with him instead, so I guess I'll have to wing it.  Joaquin Phoenix has gotten high marks in my book for a long time, since he started doing M. Night Shyamalan movies and playing Roman emperors.  Phoenix is fantastic no matter what I know of the The Man In Black, and I know enough to say that he deserves an Oscar just as much as Jamie Foxx did when he played Ray Charles last year.  Thing is, I know plenty about Ray, so I was pretty happy with that turn of events.  But Walk the Line is a better movie than Ray, in my own opinion.  Ray was sort of a summary of Ray's life, where as this movie was played out as a story that happens to have actually taken place.  There's no moments like "Hey Johnny, this here is my friend Elvis.  Well, bye."  There's a lot of good character development and Joaquin's imitation of Cash's singing and guitar stylings were right on.  Reese Witherspoon is great (as usual) as June Carter, and also shows off a decent set of pipes (if you're into that sort of country thing).  It's probably this year's biggest Oscar grab bag movie, so check it out now.

Mom had knee surgery yesterday, so she's not going to be playing. 

Fran, Darryl, Chelsey and myself saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire the other night and we had a kickin' time.  The movie started off kind of crappy (the effects were too whimsical and the overall tone was too cheery, but it's a kids' book for crying out loud), but in time it morphed into another great adventure.  I remember seeing last year's movie and really enjoying the characters and their interaction.  That tradition continued in this one, even moreso, so when the story took a backseat to Ron, Harry, and Hermione's chemistry, it was a joy to watch.  The story, though, seemed to be a mishmash in some parts.  It's hard to take a book as long as this one was and turn it into a succinct story (at two and a half hours no less), so there were parts where Darryl and I were saying "Why'd they skip that part?" even though we hadn't even read the book or knew the story at all.  Still, a great dose of fun, which we haven't had at the movies in a very long time.

Okay then, I'm off for the evening.  Hope to see you at the big game!

Finally put together the VFL preview video today, so give it a click and check it out! 

Not much has happened in the last two days, except the fact that Greg and I went bowling today, which I'm starting to think should happen much more often.  I haven't been in about a year, but I bowled an 89 on the second (of three) string.  With that kind of score, I'm thinking it's time to get back into it.  I love candlepin, baby!

There was a big club across the street that seems to be a hotspot in town, called Skyline.  I found this amusing because Albany is not a city that can boast an impressive skyline.  This is because a couple of hours to the south, the biggest and greatest skyline on the planet is found on a small island called Manhattan.  So, due to this club being down there, I could hear dance music playing as I was getting to sleep.  I was immediately reminded of the scene in The Birdcage where the club's music starts playing and they try to explain it away to Gene Hackman.  "Now, mother, you know we live above a nightclub."  "Oh, I always thought that was someone's television set!"

On Friday, Fran and Dad went to Troy to see the school that has been scouting her for a while, and Mom and I stayed at the hotel.  She had a cold, anyway, so it was better to have her rest up.  It really wasn't all that bad, because we had Fran's laptop, so we could go online and I watched most of Star Wars Episode III at one point.  They got back a little early because Fran wasn't enthused about the place, and we went driving around town looking for a place to eat, eventually going to the Macaroni Grill.  I'd give it an unfavorable rating, but we did go to Bertucci's the night before, so I could be eating dinner with Giada DeLaurentis in Tuscany and probably be underwhelmed aside of their brick-oven goodness.

Saturday saw us make the trek across New York state and a few bridges to George and Kelly's new house on Long Island.  They've been turning it into a great little place to carve out a life for themselves.  It was also George's birthday, so it was plenty festive.  We had good food, good wine, played Halo 2 (okay, that was just me and George), and enjoyed a little time to unwind.  We stayed overnight and headed home on Sunday. 

I learned over the weekend that George Takei (Mr. Sulu from Star Trek) and Anderson Cooper from CNN are gay.  Not a gay couple... I realize that probably didn't read the way I figured it would.  But those were big surprises, as I'm sure you might be.  Not that I care, of course.  But I guess that in Sulu's case, it's only another example of how much of a ground-breaking show Star Trek really was!  Ha, I'm such a nerd. 

Also, WWE superstar Eddie Guerrero passed away last night.  Just another example of how pro wrestling seems to suddenly kill off great performers.  Eddie shall be missed by us wrestling fans who enjoy watching the technical guys do their job.  Somewhere, Chris Benoit is crying.

I was going to have a new movie up today, but the footage didn't come out very well and I didn't have time to try a reshoot.  Hopefully I can try to get it done next week, as it has to do with the Thanksgiving football game and I don't really want to let it sit on the shelf too long.

In other news... Tuesday night, we had the big contract meeting with Charter's representative to talk about the cable contract.  Wouldn't you know it, we managed to get the thing resolved in only two and a half hours.  Ultimately, I'm pretty pleased with it.  Their guy tells us that he can get us full coverage for the town (I'll take his word, but we still have him on tape, tee hee), fix the Channel 11 signal, etc.  All for a four year deal, which I feel A LOT better about than ten years, especially seeing as how by the end of 2009 there will be a whole new set of rules for television standards. 

Well, then... that's it from here.  I'll see you all when I get back.

Well, I just finished reading Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, a collection of essays on peculiar aspects of pop culture.  I'd been looking for the book after I decided that he was my favorite writer for SPIN (Marc Spitz is in close second).  Chuck is a talented writer who has spawned a following of geeks, and at first glance you (and maybe me) would think the guy is the typical emo-style dweeb that you'd like to stuff in a locker, no matter what your social standing.  However, I'd always loved reading his columns in the magazine, especially for the fact that he would commonly make references to songs, movies, and TV shows that I thought only I remembered or thought were of any merit.  He's also a huge sports fan, which surprised me as much as finding out how big a baseball fan George Will is.  The book's chapter on the Celtics/Lakers rivalry of the 80's is actually a profound look at more than just two basketball teams; instead, the rivalry was more or less about everything you could think of.  Just read it, you'll see what I mean.  It helps to be a Celtics fan, I guess.   

ANYWAY (as he often remarks in the book when he gets off track), after reading a lot of Chuck's work, I tend to think about things like he does.  For instance, today, I realized that people are becoming more and more militant about what music they listen to.  I remember in junior high there was a massive schism in my class, divided by rap and rock.  You couldn't like both, not even for a second.  Those tensions would ease in high school, but for those two years, it was a blood feud.  But now that I think about it, it's become even worse, only now, it seems to me that it's about credibility, obscurity, originality, etc.  Is it because I'm older?  Maybe.

But maybe my age has nothing to do with it.  Sure, I've gotten to enjoy my Rolling Stones as well as my OutKast, but when someone mentions the Killers, I go into a fit of rage.  I hate the Killers with a passion.  But I love the Strokes.  And Franz Ferdinand.  And Interpol.  Some people would say that all four of those bands deserve to be wiped off the planet, and others would seem to be cool with all of them.  But I think they're fantastic.  Let me use them as examples, as I believe it would make sense.  Let me mention I'm also making it up as I go along.

I think it goes like this...  When the Strokes came out, they started a huge resurgence in garage bands and other forms of rock that I happen to find both "valid" and "cool."  I love the Strokes even now, although there's been a backlash for starting a new movement of "old is new" bands.  It's much like how Green Day is responsible in some way for Sum 41, Blink 182, Good Charlotte, Simple Plan, etc.  I hate all those bands, but I still think Green Day is cool, because they were the first and they're sincere about their thing.  With the Strokes, everyone was on their side until the rest of the stripped-down bands came along and stole their thunder, some of them only emerging simply because the Strokes were selling records.

The Killers came along not too long afterwards.  I know that I'll sound clichéd, but let's be honest.  They did MTV shows like TRL.  They made a video with Eric Stoltz in it.  But most importantly, they had no personality and no real respect for where they were coming from.  They were riding this massive wave of popularity for easy-to-play rock that girls would dance to.  They made the cover of SPIN, but only to be exposed as the boring and uninteresting band that they were.  Sure, they sported the image of the movement, wearing sharp clothes and acting like rock stars of their ilk should.  But it seems like an act.  In the meantime, Franz Ferdinand blasted their way out of Glasgow, Scotland and conquered the world by doing almost the exact same thing as the Killers, but actually meaning it.  The untrained ear would think they're the same band in some ways, but read an interview or two, and you at least get the sense that Franz Ferdinand actually love what they're doing (or perhaps learned to love it) and the Killers are just in it for the money and the chicks.  At this point, it doesn't matter what the music sounds like, because the line has been drawn. 

Where am I going with this?  I have no idea anymore; this isn't even what I planned on writing about, really.  I was going to talk about the significance of buying a CD rather than downloading (either for free or paying).  Maybe I'll save that for another post.  Maybe I can actually think it through, too.  If you read this whole thing, let me know if it was worth reading over on the chat board, would you?  Thanks, I need the feedback if I'm going to keep writing this crap.