Never send a boy to do a man's job. Especially if he's a girl

It just goes to show you: Sometimes compulsion mixed with infinite patience sometimes pays off.

Twelfth Night was released today!!! Tuesday, 8/30 will be another date that lives in… something!!!

Of Shakespeare’s comedies, this ranks #2 for me. Much Ado is far and away the favourite, of course, but this narrowly beats out Taming of the Shrew. What can I say? I have a thing for cute, strong women who like a good fight. Anyway….

I’ve been looking for copy of this movie on DVD for the past 3 years, and seeing as how I have 3 DVD players and no VCR in my room, I’ve set up at least 4 E-Bay searches, hoping something would come up, and then cancelling them 6 months later because nothing ever did. Until just a while ago, the only 2 versions were either Region 4 encoded British copies, or were Region 1 with unremovable Chinese subtitles. But that’s all gonna change today.


For those of you who don’t know the play, it’s about a woman, Viola, who winds up shipwrecked in a strange country. Having lost her brother and everything else in the wreck, she decides to make her way by posing as a boy and serving the local Duke, Orsino. This Orsino chap happens to be in love with another woman, Olivia, who wants nothing to do with any man, including Orsino. Of course, he sends his “boy” to woo Olivia in his name, and, of course, Olivia falls for the unusual “boy.” All of this while, of course, Viola falls for the lovelorn Orsino.

I know, I know. If you see one more “Girl-meets-Boy-who-likes-other-girl-who- herself-falls-for-Girl-who’s-fallen-for-Boy” movie, you’re gonna puke, but I tell ya -- this one’s worth it. It’s an all Brit cast in a British production (hence the 9 year wait for the Region 1 DVD) of a really good play. Imogen Stubbs puts in a great perfomance as Viola – strong, funny, and a glimpse of vulnerability that reminds you that she’s supposed to be alone and living a lie. I’ve never seen her before, and I’ll most likely never see her in anything again, but in this, she’s money, Mr. Peepers. Helena Bonham Carter is fun as a confounded-but-in-charge Olivia. And Ben Kinglsey turns in his usual strong performance as one of Shakespeare’s clowns, who all know more than they should.

So if you haven’t heard a good accent recently, like cross dressing or cross garters, are in the mood for some subtle homosexual undertones, or if you need a little bit of greatness thrust upon you, this is your flick. Watch it, or do What You Will.

As a side note, I tried to get it at Best Buy today, but apparently they only carry it online. Guess I'm the only one who's been clamouring for this particular release. Guess I'll have to wait a little while longer.

36 Hours, 168 Hours Ago

So, it took about a week to fully recover from last weekend, but now I’m pretty well rested and able to summarize the tale. It was a heck of a 32 hours, starting at about 5pm Saturday and going on through to about 1am Monday morning.

It started with a really long drive to Irvine to go see Coldplay with my cousin, Louis (right). Actually, it turns out it was about 62 round trip miles too long. It seems we both got distracted by a Best Buy and missed the only clear indication we were in Irvine. We sped past and by the time we realized it, we were beyond San Juan Capistrano and 53 miles from San Diego. We were finally able to turn around, and by the time we got to the venue, Black Mountain was halfway through their opening set. As it turns out, I didn’t consider it a big loss. We found our seats and Coldplay was on stage about an hour or so later.

What can I say about Coldplay? Most of the time, I find that they’re pretty much a light rock band. As Chris Martin said that night, they’re pretty much “feather rock.” But there are times where the guitars go off, the drums hit their stride, and the music hits a place worthy of quite a few hard rock bands I’m into at the moment. The Strokes. Bloc Party. Interpol. Coldplay pretty much runs the gamut musically, killing you with ballads, bringing you up with catchy little pop songs, and then smashing down the doors with a bit of an edge. And live, they’re awesome. The crowd gets into it, they feed off the crowd, and it’s off to the races. Plus, Chris Martin has such a great stage presence. He made the entire amphitheater feel pretty small, and like I tell my cousin, he’s just plain funny.

So the concert ends about 11:30, and we manage to avoid any navigational mishaps on the way home. In bed by 1am or so, and up again at 6 ‘cause the family’s headin’ to Disneyland! It had been a while since I’d been there. The biggest draw for me is always SpaceMountain, but it’s been closed for a coupla years for renovation. But, it was re-opened in May for the 50^th Anniversary and it was about time to check it out .

The weather wasn’t too bad, and as it was a Sunday, the lines weren’t too bad. In fact, I think the longest wait we had most of the day was 35 minutes! Thank you, FastPass. They’ve added these pretty cool murals around the park that are made up of smaller pictures of people’s kids. They also added a new ride in the form of Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters – a take off on my Small World idea where you have light guns and the point is to shoot at targets placed throughout the ride. Pretty fun stuff.

But again, the point of the day for me was Space Mountain. They’ve changed the video that plays on the monitors scattered throughout the line, and slightly re-did the loading area, adding a new big screen and the making some changes to the large hanging engine. Then there’s the ride itself.

My first trip, I got to sit in the first row. You head up the big hill and there’s a change in the “start-up sequence” and you’re slightly thrown off balance visually, whicha sets up the best part of the ride. Before, you pretty much orbited this large “sun” in the middle of the room – a large dimly lit orange ball. It was pretty dark, but there was some tiny bit of light. Now, that ball is gone and it’s replaced by pitch black and constantly moving stars. Even in the fron row, where I used to sometimes see the track, I had no idea where this thing was gonna go. And then there’s the speed! I thought that maybe it was just ‘cause it had been while since I had been on it, but the second time was felt just as fast. So there’s still a very good reason to go to Disneyland, and my only regret was not being able to go on again.

Smoke and Mirrors

So it’s been about a week since I last wrote something. I’ve had a few half-assed ideas about my next post, but I couldn’t really get behind any of them so they just sorta fizzled out. Nothing huge is out there right now, and while I do have the occasional random musings, they generally don’t fill themselves out in any meaningful way. And so I find myself writing about the fact that I’m effectively blocked. You like that one, Alanis?? Yeah…. Like rain on your wedding day.

Like I said, I’ve had a few ideas:
Missed Opportunities – The idea came from the drive from LA, which kinda worked as a practical metaphor, but it was heading towards self-indulgent and rather trite, so I cut that sucker off at the knees right quick. I don’t wanna be that guy quite yet.
The Tiger Uproar – not enough material.
The Self-Importance of Sports Writers – bleh, and while I do have a few things to say, I don’t wanna narrow the already narrow audience. I’ll save it for December.
Being on the Outside – see Missed Opportunites, but I might do that later in a more upbeat way…
I also thought about doing a sort of Fantasy Draft Preview, detailing who I’da picked, but again with the narrow audience and the sheer length.
And I've notice that so far, my posts have scewed a bit negative: I hate blogs, HP's depressing, my teams suck, don't trust the baby.... And I'm generally not a negative guy. "Very ominous endings."

All of them have their own merits, but I really just wasn’t into them. Consequently, I didn’t write them. But that just left me with this nagging feeling in the back of my mind – “Gotta write! Gotta write!” – and that just blew. In fact, it was one of the reasons I was hesitant to start this blog in the first place, and is now officially Argument #1 Against Blogs – The Imperative to Write. I think when I get to 5 reasons, I may write a post about that too.

On the other hand, I have found that blogs are good in that they give you an imperative to write. I always figured when I died, someone would be left rummaging through my computer and end up finding a file filled with essays about this and that thing that urged me to put it on virtual paper. Now, I not only have a reason to write it, but a place to put it. In fact, having the place to put it forces me to write it in the first place. To channel Annaka for a sec – Circle of Life, indeed!

Okay, I’ve stalled enough and have bought myself some time to put something together that’ll actually be worth reading. For now, though, I can get the damn writing monkey off my back for at least a few days.

'Tis the Season

So Football’s on it’s way back, and we’re gonna finally have Hockey by the beginning of October. Stanford football starts before that, and every year, it comes down to one question: Why the hell do I root for these losers? Well, lemme tell ya.

NFL: Ricky Williams is back, we drafted Ronnie Brown, Randy McMichael is on the cusp, Chambers and Boston and Booker are gonna line up on the outside and my Dolphins are still gonna stink like 12-day-old tuna that’s been left out in the Miami sun.

Now, of the teams I root for, this is the oddball of the bunch. How does a guy who’s lived in California his whole life (though I have been to 6 states: CA, NV, UT, CO, AZ, and WY (for ten minutes – five before we realized we were there, another five to get back) ) end up rooting for the team all the way across the country? Simply put – I was 6 and they wore blue. That’s it. My first football memory was the Dolphins v. 49ers Super Bowl and I liked blue. They got their butts handed to them that day, but I remembered them, so when I started to follow football at age 13, I just stuck with them.

They had Dan Ma-freakin’-rino, the Marks Brothers, and a pretty dang good D and barely a sniff of another Super Bowl in over 20 years. When they were good, they could never get by the Buffalo “We Almost Won” Bills. Why haven’t the Dolphins won? Gee, I wonder….

NHL: Ah, the Kings. Now, in my defense, these guys have been losing since before I was born, so it can’t be all my fault. They started in 1967 and only one appearance in the Finals in ‘93. Funny story about that…

I started watching hockey in ’92 during the Albertville Olympics. I got hooked on it ‘cause of Ray LeBlanc – more specifically, his goalie mask. It had an eagle on it with the stars and stripes and it looked pretty cool. I caught a glimpse of him while flipping through the channels and stayed around to get a better look. The US was winning the game, and the announcers were talking about the surprising Americans, so I kept watching and got hooked. They did well in the tourney, finishing 4th I think (they were in the bronze metal game, but I was watching steadily by then, so…).

After that, I stumbled onto a few Kings games. Apparently, we had the best player in the league (who knew???). I watched every once in a while through the end of the season. When the next season started later in ‘92, I caught a few games and it was fun, but no real commitment. 1993 rolls around and one day in April, I’m at home on Saturday flipping again when I hear Al Michaels getting ready to do a hockey game on ABC! Why the heck is Al Michaels doing a hockey game? (I had yet to believe in Miracles) And then I notice he’s doing a Kings game – game 1 of the Campbell Conference Divisional Playoffs! The channel surfing ended right there and for the next few months, I grew to not only to love my Kings, but to hate Theo Fleurry, Cliff Ronning, Doug Gilmour, and half of Les Habitants. I also developed a grudging respect for Kirk McKlean, Felix Potvin, and freakin’ Patrick Roy.

So I’m all psyched for the Finals and the Kings win Game 1! This is gonna be great! Then it all starts to go downhill like Alberto Tomba (I loved that guy). McSorely’s stick. All the overtimes…. Horrible. They lost in 5 games just as I was getting hopelessly hooked on what is now my favorite sport. 13 years later and they’ve won all of 1 playoff series. I’ve watched every game I could.

Stanford: Again, this can’t be all my fault. I mean, we’re smart. Apparently that doesn’t mean much in Tennis, Swimming and Water Polo, but for some reason it can only seem to hurt you when it comes to Basketball and Football.

Why I root for Stanford is pretty obvious, and we actually had a few close run-ins with huge success while I was still a student, but for some reason, whenever I’ve tried to follow my beloved Card since graduation, it hasn’t turned out well. If I watch a basketball game, it always seems to be during our 3 minute scoreless stretch. God forbid I should think about watching during the last 5 minutes.

Oh, and remember that game against USC last season? I was out at Lake Pyramid until some time early in the evening. Someone on the radio mentioned the game while we were driving back and said USC was losing at half-time. I had forgotten all about the game up to that point. The next half we’re demolished and the game ends in a romp. Damn radio….


The moral of the story: Don't root for teams I like.
Don't ever convince me to pick your team as my team. No team in a major sport has ever won anything once I picked 'em. Dan Marino went into the Hall of Fame this weekend, and the only reason he is not the hands down best QB ever is that I saw him play in his only Super Bowl appearance. Stanford went to the Sweet 16 before I was in 6th Man. I was at the 2000 Rose Bowl. I'm a curse. I don't pick losers, I create them.

Maybe I'll start to root for the Ducks.....

Ah, screw it. With my luck, they'd win the whole damn thing.

A Warning

Next time you're in the market or drug store, and you see this package, be advised:


This baby is not to be trusted! He's up to something and his evil plans must be stopped at all costs!

I know that is isn't great Blog material, but every time I see this package, he reminds me of a Baby Palpatine: "Yesss. Uuuse your anger." I was in Target today and...

Harry Skywalker

So it’s been about a month since Harry Potter rushed back into the collective consciouness, so I figure I, as a devotee of Mr. Potter, I should get around to writing about it. And seeing as how I finished it only last week, now seems like the perfect time.

Before reading it, I was sure the Half-Blood Prince was Hagrid. Mom was a giant, dad was a regular guy. And it couldn’tve been HWMNBN, ‘cause that woulda been too easy. And who’da thought it was who it turned out to be? Oh, well.

I was telling my cousin a little about the story (he’s not a reader, but a few of us in the family are and he likes to keep up) and he compared it to another iconic series and I realized he was right: Harry Potter 6 is the Empire Strikes Back of the series. I can easily imagine Harry in his school robes, standing by the window of that Republic Med Ship wit Ginny at his side, staring off into the distance as Lando and Chewbacca go searching for Horcruxes. I mean, you have the huge loss, the not too suprising betrayal, more of the backstory, a frightening journney of discovery, an epic battle, and a love story cut short by circumstance. Either all mythologies are the same, or JK Rowling’s cheating!

We also discussed the humorous possibility that in the end, Harry is killed by Voldemort and he rises to full power with nothing to stop him. The End. Can you imagine how utterly pissed people would be? Kids crying all over the world. Parents outraged. The movies would be pretty poitnless. The Vatican would be all but yelling “SEE!! SEE!! WE TOLD YOU!!!” And JK would still be richer than the Queen. I mean, she could really phone it in at this point – it’s the last thing she’ll ever have to write and she’s already richer than the Queen!

Beyond that, all I have to say is:
1) Regulus Alphard(?) Black (I can already imagine the story)
2) Yes he’s dead but the portrait’ll help
3) Snape’s okay, but still not cool
4) Malfoy will end up helping Harry in the end
5) The number of Horcruxes depends on how many/which theories you believe: The ring and diary are gone. Voldy’s one. The Goblet is a 4th. The neckalace may be in Grimaud Place. Who knows about the 6th. But could the seventh be… Harry? It would kinda make sense.

I’d write more, but I’ll never be richer than the queen. Wotcher, kids!