What is wrong with people?

When can I just stay in my house and not have to go outside anymore?

Today on the way home I got stuck behind a car that seemed to not want to turn
at an intersection until there was no car coming from the other direction for
about a mile.

So I gave a little "are you going to turn or what" wave.
Ok so she finally went.
Then after the next turn she started driving about 10 mph in a 30 zone.
So I did the little are you going to go or what motion.
This prompted her to slam on the brakes and try to get me to plow into her car.
I was driving somewhat close to her because she was going so slow but not close enough that would cause me to hit her.

She continued on even slower, then slammed her brakes again.
This time she stopped so I tried to go around her and this is when her craziness
came through after she now speeds up and tries to ram me from the side and forced me into the other lane of traffic.

After all that we are both stopped at a stop sign next to each other and she opens her window yelling at me and flicks a cigarette at my car.

Then she gets out of her car, so I yelled at her asking her were she learned how to drive.

After she got out of her car I decided to just go.
She punched my car while i was going away from her.

At this point I look back and see her on her phone so I just figured I better not push it and get out of there.

She looked like she was in her early 20's.
I just don't get what causes people to be this way.

A Few quick movie reviews

Wall-E 5 stars
Hancock 4 stars
Meet Dave 2 star
Eastern Promises 4 stars
Tropic Thunder 3.5 stars
Sweeney Todd 3.5 stars
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SWEENEY TODD

Another movie directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp.
Basically a horror, revenge, musical.
Who could have known that Depp and Helena Bohnam Carter could sing so well.

I was really surprised how much I liked this.
Usually I could do without a musical, this one was really good.
Almost All the songs worked, and there was plenty of blood.

The ending really came out of the blue for me, I really
never expected that to happen.

3.5 stars out of 5
Recommended


TROPIC THUNDER

Ben Stiller stars in and directs a movie that's a movie within a movie.
Robert Downey Jr. plays, a dude playin', the dude, disguised as another dude!
Downey steats the show as a method actor who
surgically alters his look to look like a black man.

This is a comedy/satire but it also pretty gory being a film about making a war film.
great stuff and a few surprise cameos too.
Any movie that makes fun of Hollywood and does it well is worth a look for me.

3.5 stars out of 5
Recommended

EASTERN PROMISES

Viggo is a driver for the Russian mob.
He is there mostly to clean up the mess the the bosses son keeps getting himself into
but this time he has to clean up the boss's mess.
Seems a diary was found on a young pregnant girl who died during childbirth.
The boss is implicated in a horrific crime in the diary.

Mortenson was nominated for an Oscar as a leading actor and he deserved it.
He was one scary son of a gun in this movie.
He has a fight with two thugs that is not like any other fight scene I've seen before.

This movie is a Must See.
4 out 0f 5 stars


Meet Dave

Eddie Murphy's latest is almost a have to see it to believe it.
Murphy is a spaceship from another world coming here to find a probe that landed months before as they are looking for water to save their home world.

Dave is piloted by an army of tiny aliens and the captain looks just like Eddie Murphy.
While I actually laughed out loud a few times this is just typical slapstick and really just for younger kids or preteens.

2 out of 5 stars

Hancock

Will Smith's most recent summer blockbuster finally comes to dvd.
Smith is John Hancock and has superman like powers but has no idea how he got them or were he's from.

Hancock reluctantly saves the day but usually has to be prompted into action.
At least once by a child on the street who has to wake Hancock from a drunken sleep on a city bench.

Hancock is not the typical hero and always causes much financial damage
everytime he stops the bad guys.

Finally the city has had enough and he has to turn himself in as consequence
for his destructive behavior.

It won't be long before the city needs him again to stop all the rising crime while he's in jail.

So with a new attitude and help from a Public Relation specialist, Jason Bateman,
Hancock learns how to become a real hero.
That's not the end of the story.
He learns someting that he never thought possible.

Any more and it gives away too much.
Hancock is an action movie but it is more then just that.
It's also a character study and an unusual love story.

4 out of 5 stars
Highly recommended

Wall-E

Saving the best for last this week.

Based partly on Chaplin's CITY LIGHTS, this movie is practically a silent film
as there is very little dialog until the second half of the movie.

700 years in the future there are no people left on Earth and only one
little robot, who for 700 years has been trying to clean the planet of all the trash
and junk that has piled up.

A ship soon comes from the sky and another little robot comes out.
It's love at first site for Wall-E and his adventure begins.

EVE, goes back into the ship and Wall-E grabs on and goes for a ride and
an exciting surprise.

Sure it's animated but Wall-E is the best movie I have seen this year.
Wall-E, I think, is the best movie so from from Pixar,
Including both Toy Story movies and The Incredibles.

This is story telling at it's best, with very few spoken words to mess it up.

5 out of 5 stars
Highest Recommendation

Opus and Bloom County are no more

Opus has come to an end.

A year or so ago Berkeley Breathed mentioned
the end of the Opus strip and something about
killing him off, then he took it back,
said he was just kidding.
Apparently he wasn't kidding at all.

I suppose the last 2 strips
can be left to open interpretation.

For me it's clear what happened.

In the weeks leading up to this,
Opus ended up in a animal shelter with a dog.

Starting with the Aug 31st strip
BB essentially tells Opus his fate.
In that strip BB discusses the circle of life
and Opus notices that other comic
strips went away due to the creators croaking,
BB... "we'll be trying a different circle."


Next he meets Elvis who appears because,
"I hear you'll soon be checking out for good, hound dog"
and advises him on choosing his final place wisely

Through the 3-4 strips after that,
Opus is trying to understand
what he was put on earth to do.


Here realizes his destiny is to take
the place of the dog in the shelter so dog can go free.

Taking Elvis' advice about choosing one's
final resting place wisely,
Opus imagines that after he "goes"
he would like to
be in a happy place,
a warm place, a friendly place.
A beloved children's book.

As Steve Dallas is looking down at the book,
we see a reflection in Steve's glasses
coming from above.
We see a refection of Opus smiling.

So my interpretation is that Opus' life
was ended on the physical sense.
His spiritual being was caste into BB's
children's books to be seen there
and remembered by children for all time.

So don't mourn Opus because
he is in his happiest of all places

A place of his own choosing.




Go back to April and read Opus final adventures.

www.comics.com/opus

Phillies and Destiny

There is no other sport that has the same feeling
and can create emotion
the way baseball can.

To quote James Earl Jones from Field of Dreams.....

“The one constant through all the years, ..., has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is part of our past, ... It reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again.”

Baseball is truly more then simply a "sport" it is a past time, it is a way of life.

I will never enjoy watching any event more then watching baseball.

There is nothing better then seeing my favorite team play my favorite sport
and winning the championship, the World Series.

In the past there have been so called
"teams of destiny" and
I believed in the destiny
of teams in the past.

In 1964 the Phils seemed to be a destiny team.
They had everything going for them that year.
A perfect game on father's day.
The game winning hit and MVP for the all-star game.
Rookie of the year.
Johnny Callison would have been MVP if not for the collapse.
It was all there for their destiny until it all fell apart in 1 week at the end of the season.

The 1983 Phils had a touch of destiny
because this was their 100th season.
they made it to the series that year but couldn't quite get it done.

Again, in 1993 destiny seemed to be with them.
The Phils controlled the East for the entire season after they took first place after their second game, and started 3-0.
They beat the powerful Braves in 6 games but couldn't get past the Blue Jays.

Phillies 2008 edition didn't have the team of destiny feel.
They had a team of purpose feel.
After winning each level of this season, the Eastern Division, the first round
and the NLCS, there was celebration but there was still a sense of purpose.
They always knew they had more to do.
And they did it.