Austin Powers in GOLDMEMBER (3.9 of 5)
Part three, and if you follow the Hollywood trend the most commercial – but not the best. True but don-t fret; all is good in the world! This flick is funny…. real funny. Austin is the same old Austin, and plays the straight man to a much-improved Dr. Evil. Hard to improve upon perfection, but mike did it again. Dr. Evil is still the B-Movie Villain who wants to be A-List Bad Guy. Scott Evil and Mini-Me expand their roles and it is wonderful to see the new directions. Mini-me even has one of the best jokes in the film, not to bad for a guy who plays a mute. All the other players were perfect as usual. Caine was fun to see, but didn-t add much to the film. Two running jokes were so bad that I can’t even recall them right now. But everything else hits the mark.
A side note that I thought was funny….Mike Myers hates guns, and if you watch any of the three films you can see him blinking wildly and not aiming when ever he has to do it. That-s not a quirk of Austin, that-s a quirk of Mike.
By the way the thing that makes this a 3.9 instead of a 3.5 movie is the great opening sequence staring Austin and newcomer Dixie Normus…he he…worth the price of the film all by itself. Saw it at the Bridge in a Directors Hall…Perfect Showing.

More Big Brother 3 Pics in the NEW Cam Gallery.

Started some test jogs on the foot today- still tender, but getting there.
Some more of those HAMAS towel heads bombed a college cafeteria today in Israel. What the hell is going on with the morons? If you want to win this thing you need to follow the rules: Hit military targets…NOT civilians. The UN and the “Infidel” countries (or as I like to say “The Ones with Trees”) are about at the breaking point with these Militant Muslim fucks. Once they cross the line again, you will see the poor Muslim countries get cut off from the western world (financially). Sharon is handling it the right way; Use military intelligence to seek out the people making the bombs and giving the orders, and exterminate them with minimal collateral damage. Then fall back home.
Who knows “jihad” may be coming and I still don-t know the ratio of Militants to Peaceful Muslims in these countries. “The West Wing” says Al Quida is to Muslims as The KKK is to Christianity. If this is the case then that-s like .001% of the population of these countries are the problem, and we should keep doing what were are doing. Continue to surgically remove the tumors from the earth. But if 9/11 opened a new wave of recruitment in these countries, and the numbers are more like 50%. Then something much more drastic must be done.
Anyways Deb is looking great and has a new entry in her DIET JOURNAL today.

Monday Afternoon last week old roommate Phil invited me for a Houston-s/Tanguray Gin Paintball party at Close Encounters in Newhall. It was Wednesday at 10am, so I asked for the day off. After picking up 2 more Huston-s bartenders we were of. All the paint, food, air, drinks were free so a great time was had by all. Phil and I got separated from the start (he was late coming up the hill). He was yellow team, I was red. 5 or 6 of the players had their own stuff. The rest of the 40 were first timers. We played on the field that 2 years before had given me my most glorious moment: Phil/Me showdown in the canyon; he had the better gun-I had the better aim. I am in a lot better shape now so running the hills was a bit easier than last time. Since we were playing with newbies I ran the gamut of rolls : Wing attack, bunker hold, field commander. The last couple games were-capture the flag- so I fell back into my familiar sniper roll. And in the second to last game The 2 girls who stayed back with me and I successfully defended the flag against 12 enemies. Even had a few of the other team come over and congratulate us after. They wiped out most of our team, and still couldn-t get to the flag…he he. Now to the final game. A few of the other team went home (it was 3pm and they had to work that night) so they asked for volunteers to switch sides. As I started to walk over, I was grabbed by three people on my team and was pulled back, Ok…I guess I was wanted. Our general came up with a plan for this-FOOTBALL- game. Surround enemy but don-t advance…then at the 10 min mark regroup and assault down the middle. 10 minutes because that-s when the reincarnation period would be over. A bad plan-but what the hell…it-s the last game. The General and I were the flag defenders all was good till the call back came at 9 min-HUH? They still have a full team. As the march up the middle was started we started dropping like flies. I went halfway up the ridge to spread out more when I slipped. As I slide the hill my foot slid under a root while I kept going over. My foot didn-t release til I heard a-POP- in my ankle, then it slide out from under the root. I was a heap at the bottom of the canyon. I was even shot 3 times before they realized I wasn-t moving. After 2 min I was able to limp off the field. Before I even reached the netting, the other team had won ( The first game not called because of time). The foot swelled up like a balloon, but after x-rays were negative, all I could do was stay off it and ice it.
Here we are one week later and I still hobble around and have to ice it each night.
I didn-t take any pics the day it happened. But here is my foot today-.

Most of the swelling is down and the blood has settled to the bottom of the foot.

I managed a few bike rides with deb. But when we moved up to 14 miles, my ankle would just get worse.

We did see a flick on Saturday:
K-19 (3 of 5)
A History Channel story, which should have been on the history channel. It was a true play by play of what happened. But nothing worthy of a big screen treatment. All the actors were good, but you learn nothing about them throughout the movie. It-s like watching one baseball game and thinking you know the life story about the shortstop. The History channel probably would have done a better job with the background. Kathryn walked through the direction on this, blanking out the great promise she showed with Near Dark, Blue Steel and Point Break. Saw it at THE BRIDGE in a directors screening theater. Perfect showing until the moron next to us decided to take a cell call in the last ten minutes of the film. THANK GOD FOR HOME THEATER!!!!!

REIGN OF FIRE (4.8 of 5)
Wow…All I expected. Dragonslayer meets Road Warrior. A unique and pleasing combo that works. It was dark, it was British, it was moody, but it nailed everything.
A big war between an army and 100-s of dragons wasn-t there, but that-s ok. This was a series of One on One confrontations knowing that the real scale was up above the clouds. The first 20 min, showed the fear of living in these times. Then Enter Van Zant and his Army division. A straightforward American who has traced the terrors roots to London, and came to kick ass. The palette of the film was limited due to the fact that the entire earth was scorched. Just the orange and red of the dragon-s flames supplied any color at all. But when the bull attacks Van Zant-you can see how well the color contrasts work. Bowman-s work is straight forward, but he is 3 for 3 in my book and that doesn-t include his membership in the best 10 X-Files episodes or A-team or Quantum Leap or 21 Jump street or MacGuyver or Brisco County Jr. Hell-if he did an Airwolf he would have been my favorite director of all time. Went to the-great- Bridge cinema for this one. Other than the Hispanic couple behind me, interpreting everything, the showing was perfect. What-do we need a pre-show-El silencio es Dorado- slide now? Is it just me or is the American white culture the only one showing courtesy anymore?

Road to Perdition (3.8 of 5)
Well made is all I can say about this. Everyone did a great job making a gangster movie from the 40-s. Everything that happened, I expected. There were no surprises, No bad acting, no flaws. It was the Godfather on a much smaller scale. Nice.

Since Deb started her diet we have been riding our bikes every day. She wants to do an hour, so this is the route we have been using for the past 2 weeks. We have deviated a little when we have a set destination like a bike shop or my work. But most of the time we stick to this 9-mile route.

See ya out there.
P.S. Pro Baseball is becoming more of a joke everyday…yesterdays All-Star Game was just one more chink in the armor.

No movies this weekend..instead I outfitted Debs Bike with new cruiser bars and a new seat. Went for a 4 mile ride to test it out. I did whip out the Laserdiscs on Sunday and watched SPEED (4.8 of 5) and HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER (4.7 of 5). Also watched the third installment of THE DEAD ZONE on USA Network. A good show with a good style.
Short week and a long weekend ahead.
Have a good one. (stay away from Vegas – the new ground zero)

All for now..have a good weekend..I am gonna try to catchup on my flicks.

I have been moving the site around in an attempt to make it more accessible. TOP TEN and WEBCAM are gone. The MOVIES are now in the gallery section along with the BIRDS and CELEBRITIES. Any morally questionable content now has password protects. (So I can avoid another “Brother showing to his students” fiasco)
Additions:
Cam Gallery: for JENNICAM and IZZICAM from the last couple years (Password Protected).
Gallery: Paintball pics from the March 16th video that Deb made.
Debs Journal is now firing on all cylinders. (Journey into the mind of an Optifast user)
More on the way, including all the new DVD’s and LD’s

In other news Dan asked me to build him a Video Editing Computer. I convinced him to pick up the new T1600 E-Machine. So last night I installed the Firewire Card/Memory/100 G Hard Drive and Software he wanted. He also wanted 20 G’s of data from one of is other machines transferred over. The E-Machine and XP Home took like a duck to water without a single hiccup. The South Koreans are really coming around.
Full System:
Athlon 1.6 Ghz runnng XP Home
40G + 100G Hard drives
512 M DDR Ram
16x CDR
Firewire / USB 2.0
Final Cost $700

Old Friend Andy Muckle is accepting a job in New York and is moving sometime next month. Jeff and I are scouring our old videos to find any footage so we can make a montage for a farewell party. Should be fun.

MINORITY REPORT (3.9 of 5) This was good, good atmosphere, good story (most of Dick-s are), good acting, good chases. A fun romp through the TIMECOP future. So why is it not the greatest Steven Spielberg Movie ever. It-s soulless. He tried with the Pre-Cog going through the Tom-s son-s life in the attic. But the was the closest it ever gets. Tom and Colin were the only ones working hard here. Everyone else was window dressing. This was at Regal in one of the Big Four (Note to self: I like white people in theaters)

FROM HELL (4 of 5) I really like this movie. The Hughes brothers showed that they can direct a non-black film. And do it with the same styles that got them there. Johnny Depp was his usual good, But the rest of the cast was excellent. Coltrane and Holm threw together some of their best work. Visual intriguing, perfectly paced, and just gory enough to top the jack the ripper flicks to date. Good job boys. If you didn-t read the comic book then the turns the film takes are unique and fascinating. Deb didn-t think the ending was satisfying, but just like spider-man (she didn-t like that ending either) I though it was perfect. Saw this one on DSS so of course the sound, aspect ratio, projection and seats were perfect, he he.

WINDTALKERS (3 of 5) It was good, but suffered from the exceptional WE WERE SOLDIERS and BLACK HAWK DOWN coming out before it. It seemed more like a paintball movie then a gritty war flick. Everyone walked through their characters, and made them very uninteresting, although the Slater/Whitehorse connection was very good. Most of the battles lacked the Woo punch I am used too. So the movie seems like anyone could direct it. I hate to say it, but Mike Bay could have made this an exceptional movie. I didn-t feel cheated because I loved old-time war movies. And that-s what this was: a late 50s early 60s Audie Murphy flick. Saw this at the AMC Galleria, projection and sound was good, seats (as always) were bad.

SATURDAY - Deb made me breakfast Saturday morning, she is getting used to the Optifast,(Check her journal on the main page) but I still feel guilty eating around her. Then off we went to Minority Report.

SUNDAY- After Phil and Jen cancelled our ICC meeting. Deb and I went shopping. Picked up a IR remote for the PS2 (Want to start using it as my main DVD player), a hair dryer, and found a great bike for Deb. A Huffy 26- 6-Speed Cruiser-$99 at Target.