I went to see my brother Michael's performance as Adam and Noah in his high school's (and my alma mater) production of Children of Eden this weekend.

I don't know how much of my opinion comes from the fact that he is my brother, but I thought the production was fantastic. It was a long show, over 3 hours. But it moves right along, and before you know it, the first 90 minute act is over.

He doesn't have the most powerful singing voice in the cast, but he didn't detract from it (and it is much better than I would ever be), but he makes up for it with stage presence. When the little things that happen in every performance came up, he didn't miss a beat, even when his pants fell down mid-dance. :) (he was wearing a tunic, so it wasn't the obvious wardrobe malfunction we had a few years back in the Superbowl).

He also starred in productions of Our Town (he was the narrator, and a toss up for my favorite of his performances, tied with his Adam/Noah role), Pippen (he was the head), and Greater Tuna (he was one of the radio guys).

The house was pretty full, the fire marshal sign in the back of the house says capacity is 1045, there was probably over 800 people in attendance.

I wanted to give kudos to some of the other fantastic performers (in no particular order) from the show. Scooter Rosenthal (Father), Susannah Hallagan (Eve/Momma), Claire Walton (part of the snake/Yonah) and Tim Crawford II (Cain/Japheth). This is by no means the list of the cast that did a phenomenal job, but these are the ones that stood out in my mind as I watched the performance.

Kudos also go out to the army of parents and volunteers that helped out with costumes, sets, tickets, etc.. the animal costumes were very clever. I liked the alligators slinking around the stage on skateboards and the giraffes with the canes as front legs.

Great job guys, you all have a ton of talent, and if you keep up the hard work that you obviously put into this production, there is no limit to what you can achieve in the future.

This is likely my brother's last high school performance. He will graduate this spring. He plans on attending college for film production at either BYU or RIT in the fall.

For more on the play, and photos of rehearsals, click on the school's web site, here (it's a pdf, so you need adobe).

Does the ACLU really have our best interests in mind?

Recently, News10 (the local NBC affiliate) did a story about how easy it is for anyone to walk in off the street and view adult themed web sites at the public library.

Shortly after the story, complete with hidden camera footage and a convicted pedophile sent back to jail on a parole violation, County Executive Maggie Brooks threatened to pull county funding of the library if they didn't do something to filter out the porno sites.

Cue the ACLU.

They come riding in on their high horse and start screaming 1st amendment violations. They came in shouting about government censorship.

Here is why the ACLU is full of crap..

Sure adult themed websites are (for the most part) well within the bounds of the law. Adults, who are so inclined, have the right to view the material if they so chose, but is it the tax payers responsibility to provide it? In a word, No.

Now, an argument can be made that that is the government censoring what can and cannot be viewed at the library.

Perhaps.

There are books about Nazis, Marxism, all sorts religions, and many more subjects that some people may find offensive, and if you wanted to, you could do internet browsing on such topics.

The library is a place where people of all ages can come to do research on any number of subjects. It is an open source of knowledge.

Here is where I show a bit of ignorance. I do not remember the last time I was in a public library. I know you can read magazines, but I doubt you can read the latest issue of Playboy. You may be able to, I didn't check.

About the censorship, where I work, I can't even view my bank's website. There are a number of reasons why, but one reason is the whole 'unsafe work environment' thing. I can't go to an adult site from work because it might offend someone else.

The library employs people, why can't we use this reason?

What about that stupid 'no smoking' law? It's the same thing. I bet if there was a physical health effect like second hand smoke, there would be all sorts of people lobbying to block it.

Bottom line, If you are a consenting adult, you can pick up a copy of a porno mag in any number of places, but I don't want to pay for you to read it. If you want to view this material online, I don't want to pay for you to view websites of similar content.

The funding should be pulled until they install a state of the art filtering system, or until the computers are pulled from the libraries.

Well, I'm back in school.. I took a couple of weeks off, and reset my annual allowance of tuition assistance from work.. (boy, $8000 goes quick at a college...)

I am starting out in a financial management class. It is starting out as another accounting class. I really don't like accounting. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me, and after the last accounting class I took, all of the sudden Enron doesn't look so bad.. it is almost conceivable that it was all an honest mistake. :)

In the month or so since my last posting, a couple of things have piqued my interest, but not enough to devote an entire column to it.

First of all, I appreciate any and all comments I get for my columns, but please leave your name (at least a first name) so I know who is responding to what I have to say.

There are a couple of things that seem to always be headline news of late (besides the war), the '08 presidential election, and the farce of global warming.

On the election front, I really am not too excited. The one candidate that I would like to see, probably won't win his party's nomination. Most of the Democrats scare me for one reason or an other, and the RINOs on the right are only slightly right of center, and for some, that is giving them too much credit, but given a McCain/Giuliani ticket verses a Clinton/Obama ticket, I think you know where I would come out on that.

On the global warming issue, I think the good people of Oswego, NY have a few things to say about that, and what about the 3 inches of snow that fell in Malabu, CA last month, or all of the citrus groves that were frozen?

Anyone who believes in the concept of global warming, and that we have anything to do to cause or have any power to stop it should read 'State of Fear' by Michael Crichton. I know it is a fiction, but it makes you think.

Besides, I don't recall seeing any pictures of dinosaurs driving their SUVs to cause the end of the last ice age. If they had, perhaps we wouldn't have any oil left for our use.

The current trend.

There seems to be a growing trend spreading.. It is all over the talk shows. Quite frankly, as an American, it kind of bothers me.

The trend I'm referring to is the defamation of Wal*Mart.

It seems that it's becoming popular to say that the largest retail chain is destroying the fabric of the US economy.

It seems to me that it is sour grapes. They are upset that Sam Walton was smarter than they are.

Isn't it just that Wal*Mart has embraced the idea of capitalism and does a better job than most.

Refresh my memory.. what is capitalism? Is it you do your best, unless your best is better than someone else's best?

Perhaps it's let the government put restrictions on one entity who earns more than another?

Oh yea, it's the idea that the goal is to do your best, and if someone does something better, than you find a better way to do it.

The nay-sayers blame Wal*Mart for putting small businesses out of business. But is that really the case? They say that their business practice is unfair, but is selling something for less than someone else really unfair?

Whether or not you agree with the business practices of Wal*Mart, you can't disparage them from doing anything they can (within the law) to make as large of a profit as they can. Doing anything less would be unfair to the shareholders and employees. Disparaging Wal*Mart is un-American, and stinks of communism.

It's obvious that Americans approve of Wal*Mart, or at least we tolerate them, otherwise, we wouldn't be flocking to give them our money. It must not be that important that they are 'running mom and pop shops out of business', or perhaps, they aren't. Didn't we go through this when grocery stores, butcher shops and bakeries started going away in favor of a larger supermarket?

I say good for them. I'm going to do much of my Christmas shopping to support one of America's icons. A company that openly opposes unions, a company that choses not to settle law suits to discourage frivolous suits.

All this, and the best prices and best selection. Oh yea, they re-incorporated the 'C' word in their advertising.. they actually said 'Merry Christmas' in a commercial. Keep up the good work Wal*Mart!

The dust is starting to settle on 'Decision 2006'.

Who is going to turn out to be the big winners and losers? It's still too early to tell, but the newly crowned democrats are tripping over themselves to raise minimum wage. That will only serve to slow down the strongest economy in the history of the world.

When I was in high school, I was all about the raise in minimum wage, but that was a long time ago.. and it was a very selfish view point.

First off, how many people do you know that are older than 20 that still earn minimum wage? If it's anyone you know, tell them to go back to school, get a real skill, and get a real job.

Working for minimum wage is good when you are in high school, or maybe even college, but if you are still making that amount, you need to look within yourself, not to the government, to better your financial standing.

Learn a skill, work in a factory, basically, make yourself more marketable.

People get paid what they are worth.

A lot of people complain that athletes and celebrities make too much, but I say, if someone is willing to pay it, they are worth it.

To those who say athletes are paid too much, and that teachers should get more (I agree that teachers are grossly underpaid) I say this: 'As soon as 50,000+ people show up and pay $50+ to watch you work, then you can complain that you aren't getting paid enough.'

Well, I kind of got off on a tangent, but what it comes down to, is that less than 2% of the population make minimum wage (according to the department of Labor estimates that 2 million Americans earn minimum wage, and we all heard the reports of the 300 millionth American a few weeks ago). Raising minimum wage will only increase the operating expenses, which will result in one of 2 things happening.. small businesses will go out of business because they can't afford to pay the high school help more than $5.15/hour, or they will pass the higher costs on to their customers, causing all of us to pay more for our goods and services.

It's just another example on why a vast majority of the unions in this country are just dead weight in the economy. Take a look at the industries that are dominated by union labor.. how are they doing? (I'll give you a hint.. the automotive and airline industries)

I'm not one to say 'Write to your Congressperson', but if you are so inclined, it won't be a bad idea.


As always, I encourage your thoughts and comments on this or any other topics.

Happy Turkeyday!

On this day of thanx, most of us have much to be thankful for, but sadly most of us (myself included) take what we have for granted.

On a lighter note, a thanksgivig tradition that has stood for several years gets better today.. for some..

For as long as I can remember, the Cowboys and Lions each host a game each Thanksgiving day, this year, the League did us one better, they added a 3rd game.

This is a good thing, right? It is, unless you are not able to get the NFL network..

That's right, you can only see the 3rd game if you are one of the 14 subscribers of the league owned network.

Ok, it's not that low, but most cable companies don't carry it, including Time Warner (my cable provider).

Both companies (Time Warner and NFL network) have links on their website to contact eachother to petition viewers and potential viewers to express an interest in the channel.. a virtual game of chicken. who will buckle first? only time will tell.

But this is all a moot point, I'm not going to get to watch much football today.. I'm taking my grandma to the casino today, it's going to be fun!

Have a great turkey day, don't eat too much (just kidding.. go nuts!), but keep the spirit of the holiday in mind.

I wasn't one of those freaks who spent days camped out in front of a a store to be the first to get a Playstation 3. I probably won't ever even get one..

I wasn't even one of those guys who got up early to stand in front of a store to get the new Nintendo Wii. I wanted to get one, I just didn't get up at an ungodly hour to get one.

And I'm not going to be the guy who spends $5-600 on a system that retails for half of that.

I'll be getting one in a few days, when they are back on the shelves.

If you see one for sale at the list price, drop me a line!

As I pulled the curtain closed behind me in the voting booth this morning, I couldn't help but wonder why we need to spend millions of tax dollars to replace voting machines that seem to work fine.

And to replace them with what? Computers that have not been proven to be 100% reliable.

The way I see it, the old fashioned machines are reliable, and completely non-biased.

There were never any 'hanging chads' in NY. Why? well, partly because most New Yorkers are smart enough to figure out the basics of voting, they have a severe case of picking the wrong candidates, but we can figure out the ballots.

How many of the candidates that I voted for will win? With the poles closed for not quite an hour now, it is difficult to say.. it's likely that 3 for sure, (Clinton, Spitzer and Cuomo ), and possibly a third, (that alleged felon Hevesi), but the rest we'll have to wait for the results.

What will come of the future? Only time will tell, but to quote a line from Robin Williams latest movie (which I haven't seen, the line was used in the commercials) "Politicians are like diapers, they both need to be changed often, and for the same reasons."

As always, I welcome your comments.

You need to watch this 3 minute video, and share it with everyone who thinks we are not making a difference in Iraq.

http://www.glennbeck.com/realstory/iraq-video.shtml

Election day is just over a week away, and the campaigns are coming down to the wire. I'm not entirely sure who I am going to vote for.. I know a few I will vote against, (but they will still win..)

Here's how I will vote:

Against former president Hillary Clinton for senator, and against Eliot Spitzer for governor and against comptroller Alan Hevesi (he should be in jail, but that's a different story)..

I plan on voting for Tom Reynolds, not so much for him, but there is something about Jack Davis that doesn't sit well with me.. can't say for sure what it is.. (his 'Danville' crack sure didn't win him any votes..)

If you have a candidate that you support, and want a chance to convince me to vote for your person, leave a comment and state your case.

You may have seen or heard the political advertizements featuring Michael J. Fox supporting candidates that support expansions in stem cell research.

Talk show host Rush Limbaugh put his foot in his mouth this week by calling him out, saying that he was either off his meds or faking it.

At first thought, it seems pretty insensitive, (many would say you shouldn't expect less from Rush, but I digress.. ) but he (Fox) does have a history of doing just that for his own political gain. When he testified to congress a few years ago to campaign for funding for research, he, by his own admission, did not take his medication in order to visably worsen his condition to emphasise his point.

Where do I come out on this matter? I've always been a fan of Michael J Fox, when I was younger, I wanted to grow up to be Alex P. Keaton, and I loved the Back to the Future movies, but they are both right.

Could Rush have done a better job of calling a spade a spade? probably.. did Fox do something to exagerate his condition? Does it really matter? He is campagining for something that is very importaint to him.

Bottom line, this time of the year, the airwaves are flooded with political comercials. It seems that each candidate is busy telling you why the other guy would do a worse job than him, rather than why he will do a better job than the opponent.

Week 7 is all but in the books (Giants/Cowboys tonight) and the 76 Buccaneers can rest easy.. the Oakland Faders have left the ranks of the win less. There are now no win less teams in the league.

The 72 Dolphins may have something to worry about.. both the Bears and Colts are still unbeaten. The Colts looked good yesterday, and Peyton had a pretty good game (25/35, 342yds, 4TD). In doing so, they opened the season 6-0 for the 2nd year in a row.

On to baseball. Game 2 of the World Series was last night, and the talk is about Kenny Rogers. Was he cheating? He says 'no', Cards manager Tony La Russa apparently didn't think so either.. so who am I to say otherwise?

It's a long unspoken rule in baseball that if you aren't cheating, you aren't trying, and it's only cheating if you get caught. Having said that, I would have to say he wasn't cheating, since he didn't get caught.

Was it risky to allegedly have pine tar on his hand? Yes, he risked being suspended for the remainder of the series. But he got away with whatever he had on his hand in the first inning. We'll see what happens next in game 6 (if it's needed).

I went to the pre-season game the other night that pitted the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Toronto Raptors.

It was billed as a chance to see the league's hottest star, LeBron James.

About a week before the game, it broke that he might not be playing, and the complaints started. Shortly before the game, the Cavs held a press confrence to confirm that since LeBron played over 30 minutes the night before in a game against a team from Isreal. Long story short, he didn't play.

The next morning, it was all over the news. On the local sports call-in show, virtually every call was someone complaining on what a punk King James was for not playing.

Would I have liked to see the phenom play? Absolutely. Am I upset that he didn't? No. After all, it was a pre season game. In the pre season, the stars don't always play.

What bugged me about the reaction is how many people who said things like 'who do they think we are?' and 'they must think we are a bunch of hicks'. With each successive call along this theme, it proved we are.

Now, could it have gone down differently? Better? Yes. I have been to a few NBA games, (in Arco Arena, Sacremento and the Delta Center, Salt Lake). This was not an NBA game.

-Sure there were NBA players, out of the 12 best players from both teams, only 6 got into the game.
-There were no cheerleaders
-It was the quietest 9400+ crowd I've been part of.

Should LeBron have played? Yes. Don't get me wrong, every time you take the floor in a basketball game, you risk serious injury, (speaking from experience, I blew out my knew playing ball about 10 years ago, and it's still not the same..), but let's be serious, how likely would it have been?

Would it have made more sense for him to sit out of the previous night? Well, with Comissioner Stern's goal to globalize the league, they wanted to show off the next super star. The game was broadcast back in Tel Aviv.

They probably made a few NBA fans in Isreal, but they sure made a lot of Cavs haters in Rochester. Especially when he acted like he was going to get in the game, as chants of 'We want LeBron' echoed in the rafters of the War Memorial, only to turn around a few steps away from the bench and head back to laugh at all of us.

I'm not asking for him to play the whole game, or even a half, but would a few minutes have posed a grave threat? Probably not.

Bottom line, he should have gotten into the game. Was it as big of a dis on Rochester as Bob Matthews, Bob Lonsberry (who I sat right behind, thanx again to WHAM for the tickets!) and John DiTulio made it out to be? No. Will the league be back in town any time soon? Probably not.

Go Kings!

With the first round of the playoffs complete, lets check in and see how I did..

I went 2 for 4. Picking both NL series, and missing both AL series.. (at least the winners..)

At this point, it looks like it is going to be tough to pick against the Tigers, although, who outside of the east bay saw the A's ripping through the Twins like they did? I'll pick the Tigers in 6 and the Mets in 5.

Should I pile on the Yankees like everyone else? Why beat a dead horse? Because it's fun! All the Yankee lovers out there who proclaimed the class of baseball could do no wrong. Well, I guess $213 million isn't the best way to win another championship.

Rumors are circling like vultures as to the fate of converted short stop Alex Rodriguez and manager Joe Torre, what should happen? I'm not Brian Cashman (ha! that's funny, like he has made a personnel decision in the past 5 years!). It would make sense to trade A-Rod, but who will take him, and his inflated contract? What will Torre do? Dare I say it? Will he end up in Beantown? Wouldn't that be the ultimate slap in the face to Yankee fans!

Anyway, World Series pick? (again, I reserve the right to re-pick after the LCS are complete) Mets over the Tigers, in 6, despite losing Floyd the other night.

It’s that time of year.. Baseball playoffs start tomorrow (well, at least as far as I’m concerned..). Game one of the Mets/Dodgers series is 4pm eastern, on ESPN. If you care, you already know what happened in today’s 3 games.

My picks for the first round are: Twins (over the A’s) in 4, Yankees (over the Tigers, as much as it pains me to say) in 4 in the American League. In the National League I pick, Cards (over the Padres) in 3, and Mets in 4 over the Dodgers.

The LCS series are a bit tougher to pick. As a Mets fan, I want to pick the Mets, and against the Yankees. Also as a Rochester Red Wings fan, I want to pick the Twins, since most of the team played in Frontier Field over the pas couple of years (Justin Morneau for MVP, but the Yankee bias will probably give it to Jeter).

I am hesitant to make picks after just 3 games, but I think it will probably be another subway series, hopefully with different results from 2000. Only time will tell.

Well, it’s been a while since I posted anything new here.. I have no real excuses other than I’ve been lazy.

I think for today, I’m just going to write about the little things that stick out every now and then..

The other day, I went to the Buffalo Bills game. The company I work for is a large sponsor of the team, and as such, we (as a company) get a bunch of tickets.. including several to opening day, which was this past Sunday. This year, the festivities included a visit from the NY Jets.

For those who know me, I am slightly less a Bills fan than a Yankee fan. I’m not particularly a Jets fan, but I have nothing against them, so that is who I rooted for. A friend of mine wore a Curtis Martin jersey and drew several jeers as we walked to our seats. It was amusing to see how ignorant and just plain stupid some Bills fans can be. They kept saying things like “they don’t even play in NY, how can they be the NY Jets, they should be the Jersey Jets!” which always struck me as odd, (since I am a Giants fan, who lend out their stadium in East Rutherford, NJ to the Jets). You see.. the NY in the Giants and Jets does not refer to the state they play in, it is the metropolitan area that they play in. It is the NYC Giants/Jets, not the NY State Giants/Jets.

Oh, and last I checked, when I was at the game, I wasn’t in Buffalo.. I was in Orchard Park. Thanx for disproving your own argument for me.. but I guess if you were smart enough to figure it out, you probably wouldn’t use that argument..

BTW.. the jeers were less vocal after the game.. (Jets 28, Bills 20, Thanx for playing).


Staying on the sports theme, the hockey pre-season has started. The past couple of years, it has been difficult to be as much of a hockey fan as I would like.. Part of it stems from a lingering bitterness about the NHL being the only major sport to have an entire season canceled because billionaires and millionaires couldn’t figure out how to divide several hundreds of millions of dollars.. another part is that I lived in Sacramento for a few years. Sacramento is kind of a weird town, as far as sports go, it is pretty much the Kings and nothing else. There was less NHL coverage in Sacramento than NBA coverage in Rochester.

Will I be able to be close to the game this year? Only time will tell. A friend of mine convinced me to play in his fantasy hockey league this year.. that might force me into it.


As the summer comes to a close, another golf season is quickly closing. I have had a chance to play a couple of nice courses of late. I took part in a tournament at the Links at Ivy Ridge, and a regular round at the Batavia Country Club and Ravenwood Golf course. I recommend each course, and would rank them in this order: Ravenwood, Ivy Ridge and BCC. I would like to get down to Reservoir Creek, in Naples before the season ends, especially as the leaves are turning. If you want to get down there, and need someone to fill out your group, drop me a line.


I know I’ve not been as diligent with this page as I would like to be, but part is a lack of inspiration. If you have a topic you want my take on, feel free to drop me a line, and I’ll write something up. Your feedback on anything that I have written or anything you would like me to comment on will spark me to write more.

I read an article on-line the other day that made me think... It was about that whack-job Cindy Sheehan who has taken a personal crusade against the president. Everyone knows who this anti-American is, she is the one that bought a parcel of land near President Bush’s Crawford, TX ranch to hold continual protests about this war.

But that’s not what this is about... Just a bit of background that got me thinking...

She was in the news because she had just been released from the hospital from a self-inflected ailment. This article, by the way was on the Clinton News Network’s website (you know, CNN.com).

The poster child for ignorance was treated and released after suffering from exhaustion and dehydration stemming from not having eaten any solid food for reportedly 37 days and hanging out in the 100+ degree Texas sun. She was on a hunger strike called the “Troops Home Fast”.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not a warmonger, but if we are going to do something, we should go large, or go home. Didn’t we learn anything from Vietnam or Korea? We should either go all in, or let the Middle East deal with their own problems. But again, I’m getting off topic..

The thing that sparked my interest as I read about this ignorant communist was the entire concept of the hunger strike. What do you hope to accomplish by not eating? Do you think that by you not eating, that I am going to change my way of doing things?

What is the incentive for me to change because you are stupid enough to not eat for over a month?

Can these hunger strikes be effective? Somehow I doubt it.. yet they keep being used. So as long as these hippy-freaks are wasting their time and energy on such effective methods of protest as hunger strikes and picketing, we will continue to run the country, after lunch, that is.

A nickel for your thoughts?

No, your thoughts haven’t gone up in value.. it’s just that if Representative Kolbe (R. Arizona) gets his way, I won’t have a penny to give you. He has introduced a bill called the Currency Overhaul for an Industrious Nation Act. (cleverly acronymed to C.O.I.N.).

Among other things, the primary target of this act would be to eliminate the antiquated penny and round all cash transactions to the nearest nickel. Cash transactions ending in a 1, 2, 6, 7 would round down, while those ending in 3, 4, 8, 9 round up.

Now, this isn’t a new idea. It gets tossed about every few years. Rep. Kolbe also introduced it in 2001. He thinks it has a better chance of getting through this time around, mainly because the cost of zinc (today’s pennies are about 97% zinc, and are only copper coated) has sky-rocketed. It now costs about 1.4 cents for the Mint to stamp out a single penny (that’s the kind of efficiency that makes our government so powerful).

Should the penny go the way of the $2 bill? (Which, incidentally would be re-introduced in this act.) Most Americans are opposed to eliminating the penny, I personally would not be.

Sure, we would end up spending extra money on cash purchases... but let’s all be honest, how often do we actually still use cash? How much more often do we pull out the debit or credit card for our purchases? I use plastic considerably more than cash.

I also have containers full of pennies that I will never use at both home and in the office. They tend to get in the way more than they are beneficial.

I want to get your opinions on this. Let’s all kick in our 5 cents on this topic, leave your comments below.

When I started this blog, I said I was going to include movie reviews. I haven’t yet done one, partly because I am lazy, partly be cause I will go for months without going the theater. (Hollywood has been in a funk, and hasn’t had many good movies lately.. but that’s a different story, for a different day..). Please post whether or not you agree with my takes on these movies, I’m interested in seeing other’s takes as well.

I have seen 3 movies recently that I wanted to give my two cents worth. Let me start with the most recent, Superman Returns.

Before I get into the review, a friend of mine takes credit for the timeframe of this movie. About a year and a half ago, he said “I hope Christopher Reeve would just die”. His logic behind this statement is that they aren’t going to make or release the new Superman movie with him still alive. Sure enough, a couple of weeks later, he passed, and now we have the Superman 5, thanx Joe.

It took me a while to decide my true feeling of the movie, and after careful consideration, I will have to say that it was a good movie, and worth seeing. I think Brandon Routh did about as good of a job as could be done portraying the Man of Steel. He had many of the mannerisms of the late Reeve. He had a good look. I don’t think that Kate Bosworth was a good pick to play Lois Lane. She was too young. I base this on a couple of things, first off, if this movie follows the original 4, she would be older. Add to the fact that she now has a 5 year old, and it throws it all off. Supposedly she was the top reporter for the Daily Planet when Superman left, and 5 years later, she looks to be 25, it just didn’t seem to make sense to me. The best job of casting without a doubt goes to Kevin Spacey as Lex. He (Spacey) was phenomenal, but what was the last movie he was in that he didn’t do a good job? (he has been in bad movies, but they weren’t bad because of him..)

The movie was very athletically pleasing. The physics of the movie were pretty good. (when he caught the plane, it didn’t just stop, it collapsed. BTW, what stadium was that in? I tried to get a look, but there weren’t many good shots of the stadium..). there were few plot holes, Luthor had his typical ‘less than intelligent crew’ with the one-liners you can expect for a comic movie.

I am not going to get too much into the plot and a curious path that the movie takes, which I am not sure I like it (and am leaning towards not liking it). It isn’t expected, but you are not surprised when it is revealed.

Overall, I would have to say if you are a fan of the original movies or the character himself, go see the movie.

----------------

My next review is for another one of the early summer’s big draws, The Da Vinci Code. I’m going to start out by saying I didn’t read the book, had little desire to read the book, and would have rather have gone to see Superman that night, but my family wanted to see it (they had all read the book).

It is still a mystery how Forrest Gump was able to solve the code, (but then again, I’m still wondering why they were surprised when they had problems with the Apollo 13).

My biggest beef with this movie is, if I wanted to read the book, I would have. I don’t like reading movies. I get it, you’re speaking French.. a bad accent gets the same point across (see Steve Martin’s Pink Panther). It’s fine to have the first few lines spoken in the foreign language, to establish that it is not English, then switch to the language of the audience.

The movie had a ‘National Treasure’ feel to it, and Nicholas Cage did a better job then our favorite Bosom Buddy, and to me, it was more interesting watching American history rather than a made-up treasure hunt based on the Bible.

I won’t say avoid the movie, especially if you read and enjoyed the book, or if you like the ‘keep you guessing’ type of movie, but I would recommend ‘National Treasure’ first.

---------------

The last movie I am going to review here is a movie I rented, ’16 Blocks’. In a nutshell, Bruce Willis is a burnt out cop (I know, it’s a stretch..) who is tasked with getting a witness to a court appearance 16 blocks away (hence the title..). Sounds easy enough… until he finds out that the two-bit criminal witness will be testifying against a handful of dirty cops who want him dead.

The premise is pretty believable, but some of the things that happen are a bit far fetched, but that is part of the fun.

The DVD offers an alternate ending, which, according to the director, is the original ending. You have the option of watching the theatrical version, or the alternate ending as you watch the movie. You can also watch the other ending separately. I think I prefer the theater ending, but they are both good.

This movie didn’t seem to do as well as the other two, because it made it to Blockbuster pretty quick, but I did like the movie. It is worth checking out.

------------

So, wrapping it up:
Superman Returns: 7.5/10 a ‘go see’.
The DaVinci Code: 6/10 a ‘see if you want’.
16 Blocks: 8/10 a ‘go rent’.

Happy viewing!

An open letter to active service men and women of the US Armed Forces. This was meant to be online for Memorial Day, but like many other Americans, I let other things distract me from the reason Monday was a holiday.

Dear Sir or Madam.

I want to join in with countless Americans and say “thank you”. Despite what you may hear on the CBS evening news, many Americans support you. You do the job that the rest of don’t have the stones to do.

I, for one respect you. You are grossly under-compensated. You put your life on the line every day for people that you will never meet.

You had your day on Monday. But one day is not enough. A parade is not enough. Another excuse for a picnic is not enough. It’s a good start, but not enough.

I am not going to pretend to know what you have gone through. I am grateful for the horrors you have seen. For all of those days you have marched in the burning desert sun, sweltering jungle heat, or frozen tundra.

My condolences to all the members of your squadron who will never come home, there are too many of them. You have not lost them in vein.

May God continue to watch over you.

Sincerely,

A concerned citizen.

P.S. please pass this on to your friends and relatives of the Armed Forces both active, reserves, and retired, I want to get this out to as many soldiers as possible.