Where Have You Gone Napoleon?

Before we get down to business, let me tell you one of the pratfalls of being a teacher: Predicting the snowday.

Like anything else, the cancellation of snow due to inclement weather has evolved. We get automated voice mails and text messages the minute it happens. Back in the day though, I had to watch the bottom of the screen and wait for my town to come up. You'd see the list scroll through..... Medfield, Medford, Melbourne Academy (Now, you'd be thinking, "Yes, YES! It's gonna happen!"), Methuen.....

Wait, no Melrose? What! This has to be a mistake!

I'd check other channels, but in the end..... No Dice. I had school. And now I was late.

It was like betting in college pre-internet, pre-satellite TV. Then, you had to go over to Headline News and watch the ticker to see if your team covered. That was actually fun. Sometimes, you'd get wrapped up in the story about a family who lost a loved one on a river in Denver or something. But eventually, your team would come up (usually my team won 24-20 and didn't cover the 4.5 point spread) and you'd get your information. But watching for the snow day is much less fun. Because the night before, you always made "the call."

What is "The Call." It's simple. Should I drink or not?

And this past Thursday, when it was snowing like it we lived on Hoth, I made the fateful decision of getting really drunk. Went to dinner. Crushed a few beers. Went to another bar. Drank some more. Watched the snow come down. And at midnight, I walked out of the bar and I saw..... No snow and perfectly drivable roads. So then I knew that I had to call in sick.

But before I did that, I had to call my friend Scott who I was driving to work the next morning. Well, I guess I should have remembered that in the year 2007, you can save messages. I haven't heard it yet, but apparently, I was rambling, apologising profusely, and being..... Well, drunk.

My point? I'd love to know if there is technology whereby you can put a voicemail onto a blog page, because that would be awesome to have.....

Catching up on a few issues..... Or as Bob Ryan might say, Emptying Out The Blog Desk Drawer Of The Mind

I was actually going to defend my favorite sport this week with a 5000 word entry (par for the course) in the wake of The Mitchell Report and then something funny happened..... Nothing.....

The one sole interesting nugget was the Clemens bit, but really, is anyone at all surprised that he took steroids? I love that we have bashed Bonds all these years as he crushes offensive record after offensive record, but yet we praised Clemens as maybe the best pitcher ever, or at least the best one we have ever seen. But lest you forget, he WAS consistently called the greatest pitcher ever, given what he did in this ridiculously offensive minded era. But now, we all have to call him a "cheat," just as we have called Barry one. Why did we never before? You know what I think. But hey, race still isn't a problem in this country, is it?

Other than than, what on the list was surprising? I was shocked to hear Todd Hundley took steroids the year before he hit 41 homers. Eric Gagne on roids? Shocking. Before he was the best closer in baseball, he was an out of shape starting pitcher with a career ERA of four and a half. And Lenny Dykstra on roids? I thought he got those forearms from lots of reverse curls.....

I'm excited about Charlie Wilson's War. But can it do what so many of this years war/current events couldn't do and that is make money? It's actually a sad statement on our country that NO ONE went to see In The Valley of Elah or Lions For Lambs as they were quite well reviewed. Many people go with the "It's To Early" excuse for these films, but I think it is something else. Back in '03 when the war machine sprung alive, you may remember that 90% of the population gave the green light to war and so now we see that they are wrong and so would going to these movies prove that they are wrong? Would it be some weird acceptance of their collective miscalculation? Because no one likes to be proven wrong. Speaking of being wrong, Titanic turns Ten this month.....

I know many of you have orally heard this rant, but Superbad was superterrible. It gets an amazing 75 on metacritic and I just do not get it. There was a 35 minute piece of the movie where you literally DID NOT LAUGH. It was almost like the writers had this great idea, but couldn't make it two hours and so they put in the ridiuclous character who backs into to the fat kid. Why was he in it? And then there's the host of the party? He was not good. Screenwriting 101 tells you NOT to introduce random characters if you are not going to use them later (actually, it says if you are going to introduce a gun in act I, then it better show up in act III. But you get the point). Just cut those scenes. That would make the movie shorter and tighter. And then a 75 may have been appropriate.

Further, why are people consistently calling these movies "a wild, raucous, romp?" They are not that! They are chick flicks with a bunch of dick, fuck, and masturbation jokes. Wow. So original. I used to hear those in middle school. I actually think it is harder to make a PG or PG-13 comedy because you can't fall back on saying fuck a bunch of times or having someone use "new" hair gel. That's what makes Napoleon Dynamite so perfect. Same with Ferris Bueller's Day Off and even something like Dumb and Dumber ("Samsonite! I was way off!").

Also at least with a movie like High Fidelity or Love Actually (two movies that are so, SO well written), they are SOLD as chick flicks. But they also happen to be funny. So it frustrates me that critics "sell" Knocked Up, 40 Year Old Virgin, Wedding Crashers, and Superbad as hilarious romps when all they are is chick flicks. I really wish they'd bring back the true nonsense comedy like Austin Powers.....

A few tunes I either forgot, were tough cuts, or I just heard are Sad, Sad City by Ghostland Observatory, Icky Thump by The White Stripes, Rockers To Swallow by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Big Girls Don't Cry By Fergie (Yeah, you read that right) and In Transit by Albert Hammond Jr......

I've seen a lot of movies this year, but I realised that it may be a very, very long time before we have another year like 2006. In case you have forgotten, 2006 had Pan's Labyrinth, Babel, Little Children, The Queen, the hugely underrated Inside Man, Letters From Iwo Jima, awesome Half Nelson, Borat, wicked fun Casino Royale, Brick, The Lives of Others, The Last King of Scotland, awesome Miami Vice, Hard Candy, Dave Chapelle's Block Party, Notes On A Scandal, The Illusionist (please, please, PLEASE see this..... I'll say no more) the best horror film ever The Descent and one of the all time best films ever made, United 93. See any or some of these and you will NOT be disappointed. Especially see Inside Man. It gives you faith in filmmaking as we know that to make a great actioneer/thriller/twisted plotter, you don't need to remake a film or do a sequel. And I didn't even mention Inland Empire, which I haven't seen yet and The Departed and Little Miss Sunshine, which both sucked.....

I know we're all Jennifer Love Hewitted out, but more disconcerting than her ass was her arms. Girl, don't you know that you can judge whether you'll be a good long term investment by the size of your arms? And did anyone notice the age she got married. 28. Further proving my Magic 28 Theory. And if you don't know that, there will be a blog soon about it, only the women who read this might never talk to me again after I post it. Not that that many women talk to me anyways.....

Dan Shaughnessey wrote a really fun article about things that are perfect. It was great to remember/look up some of them (The last paragraph of Gatsby REALLY IS perfect). It also got me to think about some things that are perfect, like chocolate shakes, my Darth Vader Christmas ornament, Ray Allen's jumper, Dave Matthews singing the chorus to "Crash" live, Mark Ruffalo's performance in You Can Count On Me, the lyrics to The Features "Someway, Somehow," Junior Griffey's catch in Yankee stadium, NHLPA 95, Antonio's Pizza, Cameron Diaz in that pink dress in The Sweetest Thing, the ridiculousness of Red Dawn, Sangria outside in the summer, The opening of Paradise City, Brooke Burke during her Wild On days, and Shaugnessey's article. You can read it here.....

www.boston.com/sports/football/patriots/articles/2007/12/09/zeroed_in_on_elite_company/

Video games are awesome. However, I often talk to my brother that sports games have actually gone DOWNHILL because they got too realistic. My boy Chuck Klosterman (he, along with Pitt, Beckham, Clooney, Matt Beringer, Leo, Ruffalo, Manny, and Peter Gammons are all my boys, they just don't know it yet) wrote a great piece about it (I can't find the link or remember where I saw it, but trust me, it was good!) and I agree with him. Bring back the days of the overly fast clocks from Sega Hockey (or even Nintendo Hockey) and just play. NBA Jam for Genesis had the same idea. Games take 5 minutes, you can talk tons of trash, and eight guys can have turns at playing over the span of an hour. But if you still like a fun video game, you gotta get Buzz Trivia for PS2. It is so fun. It comes with it's own buzzers, a seriously diverse amount of questions, and a simple format. Go get it.....

Rolling Stone, you've officially lost my subscription. They released their "Best of" issue and while it has some good stuff on it's song and movie list- including a hilarious Manny reference- it is worthless because it does not put Boxer on it's top 50 albums of the year. But it does have Linkin Park and Brittney Spears. Yes, I'm serious. However, I think they may have plagiarized from me. I have no link to it again (further proof of Rolling Stone's worthlessness), but I had it first. You even saw the date on the blog.....

I've noticed that I've now had 18 entries in my magnificent blog and none have been about politics. Probably because our political system is so aggravatingly stupid. But I will say this: If he Democrats nominate Hillary, they will lose 70-30, no doubt. And it is difficult figuring out who worries me more: Huckaby or Romney. If either wins, this country is awesome. At least I'll still have my blog. And stellastarr* will have a new album by then.....

Heard of the movie Juno? Well, it's getting huge buzz. And it's written by Diablo Cody. And guess where she got her start? Blogspot baby! It's gonna happen. I know it.....