Saturday Night Poker

Had a small five person Poker game tonight. I decided to take a couple of pictures to be silly. I got lucky and won although my reckless style of play made me the first person out last weekend.





Is he bluffing?

Shaun of The Dead
The rare movie where the audience is clapping. Shaun is the best comedy/horror film since An American Werewolf in London. Although not as good as that film, Shaun is much funnier. It is in fact one of the better movies this year. I love British humor. Black Adder/Red Dwarf/Faulty Towers/Fish Called Wanda/Four Weddings and a Funeral/Lock Stock, Snatch/ and now Shaun of the Dead can be added to the list of great British Comedy. The actors are perfect, the music is great(They remixed the Dawn of the Dead mall music), and the weapons they use are the best. No axes or shotguns are used here(well only a couple). The weapons vary from darts, tetherballs, fraternity spanking rods, records, umbrellas and many more silly things.
Simon and Nick are a classic comic duo.
There are many hysterical scenes here. The movie has a few slow parts but is much more consistent compared to most comedies.

What is Maine really like?

These pics are good because they highlight some of Maine's attractions.
Pics
These are not my pictures but I like them. They were sent to me by Grimmay by his buddy. They are simple but funny. I love it when people get digital camera's for the first time. Some of the best pictures are taken then.

Dodgeball
t=Yea I know. Its sad when a group of grown men play dodgeball, let alone an all out dodgeball league. I have to say I was surprised by the physical aspect to it. I was dead tired. I did just come from the gym but it was a different kind of excercise I guess. Exercise bikes and stairmasters do not get you in shape. I think I need to start jogging(ewww I know). I had a blast and we did not come in last place. We managed to beat a team of all girls(we only had one girl but she's pretty good). Who knows, perhaps I could meet my future wife playing dodgeball? I'll take some pictures next week or atleast try. We did only have 7 players while others had more. I guess that's our excuse too.

Zombie's, Ewoks and Geisha

Friday is the American opening of Shaun of the Dead. Trailor)
We'll bring a crew of people to see this film ) All are invited.

Tuesday is the release date for the Star Wars Trilogy. Empire is still my favorite film of all time but unfortunately Lucas has all but lost it. This was his greatest and last good film. At only 4 dvd's while the Lord of the Rings will have 12 minimum this is a bit dissapointing. Lucas will rerelease these in 2007 he says. Somewhere through the years Lucas became a business man and stopped being a filmaker.

What is impressive are the hordes of amateur Star Wars films on the internet. Some of these are really good. Myself and some friends spent eight years making one. It's good and is now being edited with all kinds of fancy special effects. It's just time consuming adding lightsabers and lasers etc. The equipment that is able to do this is also just now becoming available. Will I ever put it online? I doubt it. It was something fun to do back in school. It actually is not that good unless you are in the mood for a totally bad movie.
I'll put some of the fan spoofs online sometime. I'm a bit sleepy now however. Here is a good read for now:
50 Reasons Jedi Sucks
10 Reasons why it doesn't suck

Recent Books


Ender’s Game
I thought this would be a basic science fiction tale. I knew it was considered a classic but was totally surprised by the emotions and characters.
The physcology is brilliant. The relationship between Ender and his brother and sister is magnificent. This is easily one of the top ten books I have read. I would also recommend this on audio book or from audible.com. The major characters are read by different actors who totally nail their roles. I can’t wait to read the rest of this series.
This has the foundation to be one of the greatest series ever. Even if you don’t like Sci-fi check it out.
My one complaint is the obvious inclusion of some aspects to this book. What happened was Card wrote the second book in the series as a novel. Ender’s game was just a short story. He wanted to make Ender’s game a novel also and to make the two stories connected. There are some aspects that really do not fit and unfortunately it does bring down the overall book a level.
One thing I find fascinating is that book five in this series is the same story written from another character’s perspective. I’m going to buy that book today.


What If

What if Hitler had won the war, if Japan had another sneak attack, or if the cold war turned hot? What If? provides a fascinating new perspective on history's most pivotal events. Featuring today's foremost historians speculating on what could have happened, we discover where we might be if history had not unfolded the way it did.
This is a great read if you are a history buff. It assumes a bit of knowledge but is fascinating stuff. These are some of the best historians alive today. Ambrose(Band of Brothers) is excellent as always. I liked the bit on Annie Oakley and Keizer Wilhelm II. If only her shot had been true there would have been no World War I, WWII, Soviet Union, Cold War.

Across the Nightingale Floor

This is a historic/fantasy novel set in ancient Japan. I liked this book but would not recommend it. It is just a bit too familiar in that it’s been done before.

Memoirs of the Geisha

This is tough one to review. I got through this quickly and wanted to see what would happen next. I know it is badly written, totally predictable, and full of shallow characters. I am guessing most critics probably did not like this story. I don’t know, something about it kept me desiring to read more. I did notice this is on many people’s best ever lists and Spielberg is working on a film version. Perhaps me knowing it was not a true story took something away as I read it.

Greatest Food Moment?

This thought just popped into my head and I have no idea where I am going to go with this. I'm trying to think of a moment in time where I ate something soo good that I still remember it. Sometimes this memory is soo strong that the actual smell can also be remembered.

• First time I had chocolate chip cookie dough(thanks ben and Jerry's and the eventual roll of pure cookie dough you could buy to make cookies with but eating the entire roll of cookie dough was heaven).
• Maple Syrup Candies. I am unsure if these little pieces of pure sugar ecstasy are just sold in New England. I remember on long car rides my sister and I would eat little pieces of the candies at a time. We would then save the rest, putting the sticky, saliva soaked piece of candy back in the wrapper for later consumption.
• Hot pudding cake. In one of life's little tragedies I can no longer find this. This was a hot chocolate cake with hot chocolate pudding at the bottom. It used to be sold at grocery stores. Sometimes after a long day of school my mother would have this waiting for us.(where my sister and I would promptly "divy" up each precious inch of hot chocolate pudding cake).
• Corn Fritters. These little fella's were the evolutionary highpoint of pancakes. Shaped like their greasy little cousin, the Chinese chicken finger, Corn Fritters had a truly unique taste. They were doughy, mushy, had a few pieces of corn inside, were served hot, and if served well the fritter was actually an island surrounded by syrup. I know of only one place that had these, Red Sand's in Windham Maine. They took them off the menu eventually but kept these just for me. Its been atleast 20 years since I have had one, Red Sand's is closed, but I am considering calling them and getting the recipe. If my mission succeeds I will share the recipe with all. Also do not confuse these with the apple fritter. The king of the fritter is and always will be the corn fritter.
• Bonney Eagle Jr. High School chocolate chip cookies. These were truly epic cookies. For 50 cents one could buy a the biggest, least cooked, wrapped in grease paper cookie. When I walked by the cafeteria I could always smell the cookies being baked. I was intoxicated by the smell, the flavor. Two dollars got me two cookies and two chocolate milks which was my lunch for years. Sometime in High School the recipe was changed and the cookies were less doughy. A sad day.

Rain Yeah!

More rain today as we are getting the remnants of one of the many hurricanes we've had. The good news is the Red Sox won last night, the bad news is that today's game will probably get rained out.

Another busy week with no posts from me. Hopefully I'll get some time soon, just been working late everynight.

Laser Surgery

I was curious if anyone has had this done and what their thoughts are on it. This is the laser eye surgery.

My Fridge

The funny thing is I don't drink soda.

More pics for Monday

More Acadia Pics



We are getting a dodgeball team going! I never knew dodgeball leagues existed )
At the very least it should be funny.

I need anything to try to keep we away from Everquest 2 which I just preordered. I am a huge gamer, or used to be. Recently I have kicked the gaming habit and have been going to the gym and playing lots of Basketball etc. I got a PC in 1982 and played pretty much everything. For most of my life I managed to keep things out of control, played lots of sports, went out etc. I was always a huge gamer however. I just needed that one game to push me over the edge.
Then came Everquest in 1999. I was like 23 or 24, had been going out to a lot of bars and was tired of all that. Many people are the same at that age as they realize they are wasting lots of time and money, tons of many in fact. I got hooked on EQ in a bad way often working 8 hours then coming home and playing 8 hours. I got friends hooked, oddly met a bunch of local people playing the game, and in general had a blast. I even managed to make thousands on Ebay selling items etc. This was all over all the national magazines etc thanks to the timely arrival of Ebay and Paypal. Characters were selling for 1,000 dollars or so.
I saw firsthand what this game could do to people. Some of my buddies were quitting their jobs, I knew some new mothers that would play all day every day which could not have been good for the babies. I think many had a serious problem and I feel bad for those that lost sight of what's important. It's sad I know, but they really did make an addictive game. The results of making the perfect game are that people never wanted to stop playing.
I have not played in years, in fact most of us have not played. EQ 2 is 2 months away. I have actually been productive lately , teaching myself Thai, and was going to start taking classes(I want to learn Chinese). I dunno tho, the temptation is there. If anything playing EQ will guarantee I never get married(although I have buddies that met/married people they met in the game, one buddy I introduced the girl to online. He was a buddy from High School. They are married with a kid, maybe named after me or my Everquest character?).
I've really gotta stop writing now as I could go on forever and know thats not a cool thing to do.

Mount Desert Island

I think Mount Desert Island is one of my favorite places. I have lived in Maine most of my life but only came to Acadia park three years ago. Maine in general is beautiful but this place has something special. First of all it is an island with plenty of ocean. There are also man freshwater lakes, tons of them. If you like to swim this is the place for you.
What really makes Acadia unique is that it is loaded with hiking trails. 100's of them in fact for all skill levels. These are not the rough hiking trails you see throughout New England where if you stray off the trail you get lost. These trails are well maintained, cared for, and marked. Any cliff area has iron ladders built into the mountain. I have done sheer cliff once and prefer a nice iron ladder built into the mountain. Most of these hikes are between 1-4 hours making it ideal to let's say hike in the morning, grab some pizza and blueberry pie for lunch, take a swim then hike again. MMMMM blueberry pie.
The small touristy town of Bar Harbor is also here and yes Martha Stewart unfortunately has a place here, or had I guess.
I'd recommend Acadia for anyone. Many say its the most beautiful place in America. It atleast has something for everyone.

Below are some pics. I'll add a permanent page later.


Me on the mountain




I was upset I did not see any wildlife so I took a picture of my little friend here totally owning this mushroom.

Evil Brother

I was reading a funny post at Ben's site and wanted to think of my own sibbling "skirmishes"
I don't think I can think of many but I'll try.

I do remember sticking my sister's barbie doll in a grill. I remember the hair melting rather quickly. Her face did not melt but kind of caught fire all of the sudden. Now I am not that evil, she did not want these barbies anymore and actually "gave" them to me for torture. Alas she would not give up any Cabbage Patch kids. I remember I had to use my own toys eventually. My Mr. T doll was the toughest to destroy. He even survived an m-80 somehow. We eventually had to melt him. I also remember sticking Pericles(from Clash of the Titans) to a rock and throwing him in the lake where we had previously placed Obo One Kanobi's head in a special tomb. Many years later we found Ben's head but not Pericles. I remember while snorkeling thinking I could see Ben's floating head out of the corner of my eye. He's probably still there, waiting, lurking, ready for his revenge.
Back to the melting Barbie. In a way she got her revenge as I put her sister in the road taking great pleasure every time she got run over. I leaned on against a tree and crushed a hornet's nest. That hurt. I lost count of how many times I got stung as a child. I once tried to plug up a yellowjacket nest with a rock and the rock fell off. I threw a rock at a huge hornet nest in a tree, hitting the supporting string and watched as the nest hit the ground and exploded in hornets. The worst was when I poked a dead tree and got stung over 100 times. Not fun.

Anyways I've completely lost track of what I was saying. My sister took the last twinkie once and I broke the door trying to get to her. I told my parents after we moved out of that house that years before I had put a good sized crack in the door. This was a big thing. After a long school day I looked forward to my after school twinkie. I was not a happy camper.

My older sister is 8 years older than me. She used to be a bit of a brute. I remember the day I hit her and she started to cry and my mother laughed. I could finally defend myself! If I ever get a scanner I'll put some of my baby pictures up. She used to "palm" me, holding me by the top of my head.

I think I need to stop for now. I guess I was never abused by older siblings and was the cause of some trouble. I'm not a bully by any means and never was, I just liked to torture barbies I guess. I doubt my sisters will read this, if they do I just wanted to say Hi! Shelley, thanks for the milkshakes with the egg and Jaymie thanks for eating that last twinkie!

Videos

Just fooling with some small vidoes I took. I do not currently have a good camera. These are low quality videos bit it gives me an incentive to eventually get a good camera.


Acadia Videos

Back from Acadia

Here is a picture of my aunt on the cover of Woodenboat Magazine.



This should hit newstands soon. I am curious to see what the article is about.Wooden Boat Website
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Just got back from Acadia. I wish I had more time but I guess thats how any good vacation is. I'll get some pics up soon.
Here's a funny link I just saw.
Jaws with bunnies in 30 seconds!
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Here are the top nine comments made by NBC sports
> commentators so far during the Summer Olympics that
> they would like to take back:
>
> 1. Weightlifting commentator: "This is Gregoriava
> from Bulgaria. I saw her snatch this morning during
> her warm up and it was amazing."
>
> 2. Dressage commentator: "This is really a lovely
> horse and I speak from personal experience since I
> once mounted her mother."
>
> 3. Paul Hamm, Gymnast: "I owe a lot to my parents,
> especially my mother and father."
>
> 4. Boxing Analyst: "Sure there have been injuries,
> and even some deaths in boxing, but none of them
> really that serious."
>
> 5. Softball announcer: "If history repeats itself,
> I should think we can expect the same thing again."
>
> 6. Basketball analyst: "He dribbles a lot and the
> opposition doesn't like it. In fact you can see it
> all over their faces."
>
> 7. At the rowing medal ceremony: "Ah, isn't that
> nice, the wife of the IOC president is hugging the
> cox of the British crew."
>
> 8. Soccer commentator: "Julian Dicks is
> everywhere. It's like they've got eleven Dicks on
> the field."
>
> 9. Tennis commentator: "One of the reasons Andy is
> playing so well is that, before the final round, his
> wife takes out his balls and kisses them... Oh my
> God, what have I just said?"

Gators and Sandpeople

I took a couple of pics from my brother in law's camera he took of Acadia and a couple of summer random pics. I'll post some of mine soon on a seperate page. Most are scenery shots so nothing too exciting. I managed to see no wildlife except a bald eagle. My camera could not handle taking a picture while he was moving. I do however have a nature pic that may just be the first of its kind ever on any blog! I'll unveil this picture tomorrow!

I used to spend hours making entire sand cities. Notice how old the little guy is, he's been hanging in sandhouses since the sixties. The family and Jim and I(my red shirt does not match those green pants I realize. It only gets worse the older I get and not being married)


Not the gator riding masters. There can be only one.

The above meal with the family had one interesting event, well a few.
Almost everyone got crab/lobster. By the end of the meal my arms were covered in "juices."
My niece asks me to play hangman. I say "no, last time we played you spelled all the words wrong and that stressed me out." She was only like 6 then. I'm an evil uncle but they are tough kids and joke it off. I ofcourse wasn't serious (well kinda).
We did have a three hour life game earlier. I played to win. Luckily I won the lottery and had a bestseller. I had two kids, was an entertainer and owned a very profitible stock.

Thursday

I'll be going to Acadia Park for the next five days. I can't wait to do some hiking.
I've got a few pics to post from last weekend and maybe some others goodies if I find them. I may have my father bring his laptop which would be nice for posting pics.

Here is an interesting story out of Bangkok:

BANGKOK (AFP) - Drinking urine can eliminate sinus trouble, turn grey hair black and even cure cancer, a Thai academic said, citing a study of local Buddhists who engage in the unorthodox practice.

Ratree Cheepudomwit, of the Thai Traditional and Alternative Medicine Development Department, said hundreds of urine drinkers attested that consuming a daily cup worked wonders for their overall health and helped slow the ageing process.

She said that in June she queried 250 members of Santi Asoke, a strict indigenous Buddhist movement believed to have thousands of followers, and 204 respondents said they had learned from ancient Buddhist manucripts that drinking one's urine improved health.

"Of the respondents, 87 percent confirmed that it had head-to-toe benefits for them, including for example reduction of dandruff, grey hair, sinus problems and cancer," Ratree told AFP.

The medical elixir was not easy on everyone's system, as about one in 10 urine drinkers suffered diarrhea afterwards, but the practice should not be viewed with disgust, she said.

"Other groups of people who drank urine were Buddhist monks who practised in accordance to scriptures which are more than 2,500 years old," she said.

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Last weekend can be described with three pictures:






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This picture says a lot. We have Dave obviously reacting to his dart shot. I have a pretty good idea what happened here from the look on his face.



Here is Mom in a convertable!


Mom and Dad eating (my sister took this)

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The next three are pics taken from the net:
This is a funny one:



This one is from Whonose:



This from Lynn's site


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Red Sox
The Sox are on fire! The New York Yankees lost 22-0 which was a great game!
A lot of people who read this may not know much about American baseball rivalries. The Yankees are like the Manchester United in the soccer world, always buying the best players and always winning. This started when the Sox traded Babe Ruth to the yankees after the 1918 season, hence the "curse of the Bambino." The Red Sox have not won since. Maybe this is their year.

Damon makes a nice catch.
Below is a picture that makes me happy.