Entry 416: American Crossword Puzzle Tournament

I didn't put up an entry last weekend because I was at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (ACPT).  And there will be no entries other than this one for at least another week because we are going to visit S's parents in South Carloina.  (It's the kids' spring break and we gotta do something with them.)  Don't worry, however, if you are jonesing for your DG fix, you can read my lengthy post about ACPT.  It should hold you over.

Until next time...

Entry 415: More Stitches

Following in his brother's footsteps, Lil' S2 fell at daycare and busted his head open, requiring stitches.  I had to pick him up and take him to urgent care.  It actually went very smoothly -- a pleasant surprise -- all things considered.  Unlike big brother, who injured himself late on a Friday night, little brother had the courtesy to do so in the middle of the workday, so we could take him to urgent care instead of the ER -- so much easier.  The waiting room was literally empty when we arrived, and we were seen by the physician within twenty minutes, and that includes the time it took to fill out the paperwork, take his vitals, sit in that little room, etc.

The wound wasn't long but it was deep.  It took two sutures to seal it.  The physician gave me the option of numbing it with anesthetic or just doing a quick hit-it-and-quit-it.  I went with the latter.  As she (the doctor) explained to me, sometimes numbing makes things worse because it still requires a needle poke, and it burns a little at first, and it prolongs things, and that area feels weird for a while after the procedure is over, which some patients, especially kids, don't like.  For two stitches, it seemed to me no anesthetic would be the least discomforting option.

And I must say, he took it amazingly well.  He was stoic throughout almost the entire process, only shedding a few tears when the little hook they use actually pierced the skin.  "It hurts!  It hurts!"  Then when it was over -- and it only took two or three minutes -- it was like nothing had happened at all.  It's incredible how resilient kids are.

S and I were both working from home when daycare called, but S had an important meeting coming up, so I had to go.  I was annoyed at first, but it's a very good thing I went instead of her.  She can't handle seeing the kids in any sort of pain, to the point that she has to leave the room when they get a vaccine shot.  For this, I had to be there front-and-center, holding his heading still and comforting him.  I don't think S would have handled such a duty very well.  I didn't like seeing my son in pain, of course, but it was pretty interesting to see the doctor at work up close.  She did a real good job... or so it seemed to me anyway -- it's not like I'm an expert on suturing wounds.

In other news, March Madness is upon us, which means I'm fanatically keeping tabs on all the games.  Last night I was up until 1 am watching the end of a borderline blowout because I knew I wouldn't be able to fall asleep without knowing the result for certain.  The thing is, as I've mentioned before, my company does an office tournament competition -- it's a little different then the standard one -- and I've won it three of the past five years (I've only played six total).  There is only one person in the office who has ever won four times, and he did it over like 25 years, so I would basically be the all-time champ if I win this year.  And I'm currently in the lead!  The thing is, it's just for fun, but it also makes me look smart, and looking smart in front of your coworkers and bosses is never a bad thing.

There was a giant upset in the tournament.  The little-known (outside of the greater Baltimore area) school University of Maryland Baltimore County became the first 16-seed to beat a 1-seed (University of Virginia) in the history of the tournament.  Two coworkers of mine and my boss' son attended UMBC, and I've never once heard a single mention of the basketball team before this -- I didn't even know they had one.  The upset did not help or hurt me in my picks, but it could hurt me this round.  I need them to win again tomorrow against Kansas St. (a low pick for me), but that's highly unlikely -- I suspect it was fluke win over Virginia and flukes don't generally happen again, which is why they're flukes.  But, you never know -- we shall see.

That's all I got for today.  Until next time...

Entry 414: Naps and Whales and Such

We will see how far I get in this post without interruption.  S is supposedly putting Lil' S2 down for his nap (Lil' S1 is occupied with the iPad, as per usual), but I can hear those little legs running around upstairs.

And no sooner did I finish that sentence then he came bounding down the stairs and wanted me to take him on a walk, which I did, so I now have little time to finish this post, but I will do my best.

Walking is one of the few ways we can get him to go down these days.  He's at that unfortunate age where he doesn't absolutely need nap and he certainly doesn't want to nap, but if he doesn't take one the chances of a six pm meltdown go up drastically.  S and I have different mindsets on this.  I take a more laissez-faire approach -- I'll try to get him down, but if he's not into it, then I'm not pushing it too far.  And then after that initial window has closed, I actually prefer if he doesn't nap because if he sleeps too late in the afternoon it's a nightmare to put him to bed at night.  I'd rather deal with an early evening meltdown than have it be 10:30 pm and he's still running around.

The other thing I will do is the walk, like today.  S also opposes this because she says she doesn't want us to "rely" on this method, lest nothing else work.  My feeling is: There's not much left for us to "nap train" him for.  He's basically done with them.  We should be squeezing out as many as we can while we can -- if the only way to do that is with a walk, so be it.  It's actually a good thing for me because I enjoy walking and I get some exercise.  Today it all worked out because S was very tired, and she wanted to nap, and he was annoying her, so she was in whatever works mode.

Sleeping schedules is one of those things where S and I have learned to compromise -- the compromise being, you do it your way when it's your turn; I do it my way when it's my turn.  And we keep our mouths closed when the other one is doing it their way.  (Although that latter part is not as stringently adhered to, by either side, as it should be.)

In other news, I started reading Moby-Dick on a whim, a while ago, and I'm almost done with it.  It's really quite good (which is probably why it's, you know, a classic and whatnot), but it's pretty long, and there is a lot of whale talk into it -- like a lot a lot -- like multiple chapters that are just about describing the anatomy of a whale in textbook-like detail.  I wonder how accurate most of it is now, being that it was written over 150 years ago, and our knowledge of whales has surely increased dramatically.  Actually, I wonder how much of it was accurate even by the standards of the day.  But it doesn't really matter.  The beauty of the book isn't in it's description of whales; it's in its little observations of life that still remain true today.  It's amazing how much I can relate to a Nantucket whaler from pre-Civil War America.

It's also got a bunch of terrific arcane words in it I only know from Scrabble and crossword puzzles.  Here is an incomplete list:

• Fain: Happily willing
• Tierce: Third
• Poser: Baffling question or puzzle
• Stove: Smashed (past tense of stave)
• Wight: Human being

Another thing about Moby-Dick is that I have yet to read what I think of as the iconic phrase from the book: "Thar she blows!"  Everything I've read so far is "There she blows!"  (Emphasis mine.)  I wonder if somebody says this later (I still have a bit left) or if this is just one of those misnomer lines like "Play it again, Sam."

Anyway, everybody is up now, and we are off to the park.  Until next time...

Entry 413: Life Update

Life is pretty good at the moment -- or at least it's as good as it can be with our current toddler-president and his cast of fuckups and cronies and fucked-up cronies running the country.  Trump is always in the back of my mind, stabbing my brain with a rusty ice pick every time I get too happy.  But the resistance seems to be holding up, strengthening even -- I'm cautiously optimistic about the future.  And it can't get here quickly enough.

On the positive personal front, I got a pretty substantial raise at work, around 10%.   My company used to be part of a parent company that owned two other businesses.  They were struggling and were cannibalizing the profits of my company.  I was told by my boss that, once upon a time, the situation was reversed, so we couldn't really complain too much.  But it really started to drag us down.  Finally, the owner of the parent company (my boss's boss's boss) sold the other two businesses and kept ours.  It was the best case scenario for people like me because I didn't have to deal with the disruption of being sold to a new owner, and with the dead weight jettisoned, there is more money available for salaries.  Win and win.

We will likely need the money, too, because we are thinking of buying a new more expensive house.  S has been agitating for a bigger kitchen for years, and we thought about renovations, but we don't really have the layout for it.  It'd be a lot of money just to get something we kinda like; I'd rather hold out for something we really like.  The market is insane right now (it's always insane in DC), but it would be somewhat mitigated by the fact we already own property, which is appreciating too.  (The smart financial move would be to sell in DC and move to a cheaper area, but there is not a cheaper area in which we both would like to live.)  I think we will look into moving in earnest next summer, or, if I have it my way, 2020.  I'd like to move into a neighborhood zoned for decent schools, and Lil' S2 will be in kindergarten then.  If we move before then, we run the risk of being denied a spot in the neighborhood pre-K progame because kids are not legally required to attend pre-K in DC and the city is not legally required to admit them (no matter where they live).  If we stay where we are, it will be easier to get him into pre-K (less competitive), and thus we will not have to pay for daycare anymore, which is good.  Now, even if we move, Lil' S2 could probably attend the same charter school as his brother (sibling preference), but we are looking for places mostly on the other side of the city.  If I have to drive across DC every morning, and add 45 minutes to my daily commute, I will not be happy -- and that's a huge understatement.

Anyway, I hate dealing with school stuff.  It's simultaneously boring and stressful.  That's part of the problem with "choice."  Proponents of choice -- in school, in healthcare, in consumerism, etc. -- always frame it as facilitating freedom but I often find it does the opposite because I have to spend so much time and energy sorting through the various options.  I'd feel much more free if there was only one school, and I could sign my kids up for it and be done with it.

In other news, Krav Maga is going pretty well.  I'm getting to be among the best in the entry level class, so I need to test up pretty soon.  It's just a matter of finding the time to train for it.  I'm confident I could meet all the requirements with a little practice, but I actually have to do the practice, not just talk about it, and therein lies the rub.  I've had little motivation to move up thus far, but I'm starting to feel overqualified in my current class.  Plus, I'm not getting any younger.  It's not going to get any easier.  I haven't really done anything like this since high school wrestling, and the biggest difference is recovery and bending over.  I feel just as strong as I did back then; I have just as much endurance, just as much power; the balance and footwork and coordination are still strong.  But I'm so sore after every workout, and it takes me days to recover (just in time for next class to repeat the process).  Also, I struggle with anything that requires me to get down on my knees or otherwise bend over.  Sometimes we do bear crawl in class, and it's aptly named for me because it is a fucking bear.  If you give me the option of thirty push-ups or bear crawling the length of a wrestling mat and back, I'm taking the former.

Lastly, the wife and kids are doing fine.  Well, the wife is actually pretty sick at the moment, but she'll get over it.  Lil' S2 is also a little thorn in our side right now -- he never wants to go to sleep or otherwise to anything we ask him to do -- but that too shall pass.

That's all I got today.  Until next time...

Entry 412: You Are a Good Guy with a Gun

You are a good guy with a gun.  You are in a crowded area and you hear gunshots.  You hear people screaming; you see chaos unfolding.  You hear more gunshots and more screaming; you see more chaos.  You see blood and bodies.  You see people falling down.  You see people running.  You see people hiding.  But you're not running, and you're not hiding.  You're a good guy with a gun.  It's your duty to get the bad guy with a gun.

You survey the situation.  You locate the shooter.  He's within range.  His back is to you.  Your weapon is drawn.  He's turning toward you!  What do you do?  You have a split-second to decide -- less time than it took you to read this sentence.  Do you pull the trigger?

If no, then you're about to die and so will many more after you.  If yes, then you just shot another good guy with a gun who had already shot the bad guy with a gun -- you killed your brethren.  You killed a hero.  But it's not your fault -- is it?  It's an impossible decision.  All the firearm training in the world does not -- cannot -- prepare you for this moment.  A gun isn't enough; you also need ESP.

And are you even that good a shot?  Have you ever been in a high-stress combat situation?  This isn't shooting paper at the range.  Do you know what adrenaline does to your motor skills, to your eye-hand coordination?  Do your muscles have any memory for this at all?  Because you can't practice this; you can't simulate these stakes.

What if you miss?  Once, and the bullet probably lodges harmlessly into an inanimate object.  But what if you miss twice, three times, four times -- how big is your clip?  And where did that bad guy go?  And is he even a bad guy at all?  Chaos is still happening around you.  People are still dropping around you.  Are they ducking for cover?  Or are they shot?  And by whose bullets?  Are you now doing the bad guy's work for him?  And is he even a bad guy at all?

Now the police are here.  Your gun is drawn.  What are they to think?  What do you look like holding a gun in the middle of a mass shooting?  Better hope they're better with the Zener cards than you are.  Better hope you don't look threatening (although, keep in mind, you are holding a gun in the middle of a mass shooting).  If you're a woman, you might have a chance.  If you're a man, probably not.  If you're a dark-skinned man, definitely not.  If only you had remembered to wear your "good guy" hat when you left the house this morning.  You are usually so diligent -- of all the days to forget!

Are you wondering if you should have run?  Are you wondering if you should have hid?  Are you wondering if you just made things worse?  Do you still even feel like a good guy with a gun?  Or do you feel like a confused human being in a desperate situation, who doesn't know what to do -- just like everybody else around you?

Entry 411: My Top 100 Movies

Real-life things happened this week -- and not good real-life things.  I have thoughts on them, of course I do, and maybe I will share them another time.  But for now, I have two kids in my charge -- one of them is watching a movie, the other napping, so I have to hustle through this post.  When time is of the essence, I find it better to go with lighter fare.  So, I have ranked my top 100 movies of all time.  This was prompted by a facetious tweet I sent out saying Phantom Thread, which I just watch this weekend, was around my 77th favorite movie ever.  It came in 66th, on my actual list, so not too far off.

Before I give the list I'll quickly state the criteria: The rankings are based on a 50-50 split of (a) how much I remember liking the movie when I saw it, and (b) how much I like it now thinking back on it.  All movies on this list have to be reasonably strong in both categories.  For example, I loved The Chipmunk Adventure when I first saw it -- I would request it frequently when my parents would rent us videos -- so it ranks very highly in (a), but not at all in (b), so it doesn't make the list.  On the flip-side, a movie like Fight Club, I didn't love immediately after seeing it, but it stuck with me, and I found myself thinking back on it with intrigue, and so it ranks relatively highly.

Okay, the list.

1. Pulp Fiction: Lists like this are impossible.  You could take any movie and swap it with any other movie within 20 spots of it, and it would still look "right" to me.  But I go with Pulp Fiction because this is the movie that most blew my fmind when I saw it.  I was 16 or 17; I had never even heard of Quentin Tarantino; I was at theater and had no idea what to expect.  When I got what I got it...
2. Raiders of the Lost Ark: Probably the movie that brought me the most joy the first time I ever saw it, when I was, I don't know, seven maybe.  Still holds up as a great action movie, but the plot is thin, and it's never explained how Indy and Marion got back from the island at the end.  Speaking of Marion, Karen Allen is the key to this movie.  She's phenomenal.
3. The Big Lebowski: My favorite Coen brothers movie of all time; my favorite comedy of all time (unless you count Pulp Fiction as a dark comedy, which is fair).
4. City of God: My first "non-chalk" pick, and apparently my favorite foreign film ever.  Brutally excellent.
5. The Lives of Others: Another foreign film.  This is one I would recommend to others before City of God because it has broader appeal, I suspect.
6. Rocky: My favorite movie during high school wrestling season.  A little slow now, but that's not a bad thing.  The make-out scene with Adrian is uncomfortable to watch in retrospect because he blocks the door and doesn't let her leave.  But Rocky is an imperfect protagonist, and maybe that was an accurate reflection of how things happened at the time.
7. The Empire Strikes Back: This will always be the best Star Wars movie to me.  I can say this with certitude because I will never see another one as a little kid again.
8. Trainspotting: Would be even higher if it didn't pale in comparison to the book.  But if not for my love of this movie, I never would have even read the book.
9. American Movie: Am I laughing at Mark or with him?  Am I on his side or hoping he fails for my entertainment?  I've never really answered these questions, but I love this documentary nonetheless.
10. Moonlight: The first recent movie on the list.  Great characters, beautifully shot, nothing really happens -- exactly my type of movie.
11. Stand By Me: If you see this movie for the first time as an 11-year-old boy, you will like it.
12. Bloodsport: I've seen pretty much every dumb action movie made between the years of 1988 and 1995, and this is the only one that I truly love.  There's no message or meaning or really even much of a plot, just Jean-Claude Van Damme at his Jean-Claude Van Dammnest.
13. Word Wars: This movie got me into competitive Scrabble.  G.I. Joel, Marlon, Joe, and Matt are the greatest foursome in documentary history.
14. Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory: My favorite movie for a large portion of my childhood.  Weird and magical.  Gene Wilder is fantastic -- puts Johnny Depp to shame.
15. Back to the Future: Another childhood favorite.  I so wanted to be Marty McFly.
16. The Reader: Totally underrated because it came out in 2008, the same year as Slumdog Millionaire (which was way overrated, in my opinion).  Kate Winslet is so good.
17. Goodfellas: Not huge on gangster movies -- except this one.  So many great scenes, but the one in which the camera is panning through restaurant to "Then He Kissed Me" sticks out the most.
18. The Shawshank Redemption: This was a "hidden gem" between my friends and I in high school -- or so we thought.  It turns out everybody thought the same way, and so it has been played on a continuous loop on basic cable for the past 20 years.  It's like when a song you love gets played to death on the radio.
19. Storytelling: My favorite Todd Solondz movie.  Fucked up, of course, but spectacular.  It's also very short (under 90 minutes), which I recently found out (if Wikipedia is to be believed) is because they cut an entire third act of the film starring James van der Beek. 
20. The Man Who Wasn't There:  Coen Bros no. 2, and my favorite Billy Bob Thornton performance ever.
21. Ghostbusters: Another movie I loved as a kid.  Still decent as adult -- just a succession of Bill Murray one-liners -- but probably wouldn't even make my list if not for the way it enthralled me as a ten-year-old.
22. The Wrestler: I'm fascinated by behind-the-scenes professional wrestling, so this movie hit the spot for me -- also helps to have Mickey Rourke and Marissa Tomei give amazing performances.
23. Silence of the Lambs: Scared me more than any movie I've ever seen, and I was, like, 14-years-old when I saw it.  I wasn't a little kid.
24. Hoop Dreams: With the advent of ESPN's 30 for 30 and other documentary sports series like NFL Network's A Football Life, this one probably wouldn't be anything special today.  But 25 years ago it was the bomb.
25. Mulholland Drive: I like David Lynch, but I'm not a huge connoisseur of his work.  Love this movie, though -- incomprehensible but still watchable (unlike, say, Inland Empire).  And Naomi Watts -- brilliant and sexy as hell.
26. Star Wars -- A New Hope: Always liked Empire better, but still a great movie.
27. Taxi Driver: De Niro is great, of course, but teenage Jodie Foster steals the show.
28. A Serious Man: Coen Bros no 3.  Their most underrated work.
29. Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse: The Apocalypse Now documentary that is significantly better than the movie itself.  An amazing look at the inscrutably thin line between massive success and catastrophic failure.  
30. Pee-wee's Big Adventure: Rewatched the "Tequila" scene recently -- still entertaining.
31. Return of the Jedi: The best beginning to any Star Wars movie, in my opinion, at Jabba's compound.  The Ewoks and the ending (a "Teddy bear picnic" as described by Harrison Ford) really take it down a few notches, though.
32. Y Tu Mamá También: Loved it when I first saw it.  Would love to watch it again.
33. Fight Club: See above.
34. Forrest Gump: This movie got really played out, really fast, but I'm not gonna act too cool for school.  I loved it when it came out.
35. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: This was the first "adult" book I ever read, so it holds a special place in my heart.  The movie is not as good (of course) but I remember it holding up to the book reasonably well.
36. 12 Angry Men: Saw it relatively recently.  Loved it.  Lee J. Cobb is the man.
37. Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Not into slasher movies, but this one transcended the genre for me.  The best horror movie I've ever seen.
38. Inglorious Bastards: It took Tarantino nearly 20 years to produce another masterpiece (in my view) after Pulp Fiction.
39. Naked Gun: The funniest movie I had ever seen from, like, age 12 through 16.  Saw it relatively recently -- still pretty funny if you can get over it starring a real-life murderer.
40. Boogie Nights: Another one that got "played out" for me -- largely through reading Bill Simmons who's obsessed with it -- but I was super into it when it first came out.  And I'm the first (and only, to date) person to put DIRK DIGGLER in a New York Times crossword.
41. Reservoir Dogs: Tarantino's first movie and third best, in my opinion.
42. Happiness: Probably Solondz's most famous movie.  I came a little late to it.  I saw Storytelling first and like it better.  But this one is still fucked up and good.
43. Babel: As you can probably tell, I have a thing for relentlessly dark movies.  My favorite Brad Pitt movie.
44. Menace II Society: Another dark one.  Of the early '90s teen hood dramas I thought this one was a little bit better than...
45. Boyz n the Hood: Although hearing Ice Cube talk about this movie -- he thought it was going to flop so badly, he was worried it would kill his nascent acting career -- bumps it up a few notches.
46. Dead Man Walking: Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon -- terrible politics; great actors.  They were absolutely phenomenal in this.
47. Princess Bride: Not as in love with movie as many others of my generation, but still thought it was excellent.
48. The Slingshot: Probably the most obscure movie on my list.  I saw this in high school with my friend JW at an art theater in Olympia, WA, and we both thought it was awesome.
49. The Natural: My favorite baseball movie -- a sentimental choice.
50. The Muppet Movie: Speaking of sentimental, whenever I hear "Rainbow Connection" I get legitimately emotional.
51. Boyhood: I like that Linklater tried something new by filming this movie over 12 years, but it was totally unnecessary.  It would have been just as good if he used makeup to age Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette and used several different actors for the kids.  In fact, it probably would have been better, as I didn't love Ellar Coltrane's acting as a teenager.  Still an excellent movie though.  Hit home for me. 
52. Terminator: I think the sequel was a better movie, but I saw this one first at age 12 or so, and it totally messed with my mind, in a good way.
53. Terminator 2: Judgement Day: I also thought it was a cop-out to make Arnold the hero in this one.  But Robert Patrick was fantastic as the evil terminator so it all worked out.
54. Bull Durham: Best baseball movie I've ever seen through adult eyes, even if Tim Robbins is one of the least believable athletes in filmdom.
55. The Three Amigos: Still funny and stupid today.
56. The Squid and the Whale: Great dark comedy.  What I want Wes Anderson movies to be, but he only produced this one.  He didn't write or direct it.
57. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters:  I mentioned it in my last post -- great, fun watch.
58. Swingers: Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau are going to take over the world!  Or they will never do anything as good as this movie again.  (Did any actor go from fresh-faced to haggard faster than Vince Vaughn?)  The fact that his movie featured NHLPA '93 for Genesis moved it up like 15 spots for me.
59. Dig!: Great documentary about the Dandy Warhols and Brian Jonestown Massacre.
60. America Beauty: Loved it when I saw it.  Has since lost a lot of its charm.  Kevin Spacey being a creepazoid doesn't help.
61. Dumb and Dumber: My favorite Jim Carrey movie -- still makes me laugh.
62. Saving Private Ryan: Not that into war movies, but really liked this one.  The sniper was my favorite character. 
63. Fargo: Coen Bros no. 4.  Last one on the list, I think.
64. Apocalypse Now: I didn't like Marlon Brando's character -- other than that, morbidly terrific.
65. The Shape of Water: Saw it recently; really liked it.  I recently found out the same director did a movie called Devil's Backbone, which I also liked (as well as Pan's Labyrinth, which I also liked, but I knew he did that already).
66. Phantom Thread: As somebody on Twitter said, "So beautiful, so boring."  I typically really enjoy movies like that, this one was no exception.
67. Sling Blade: The only movie on the list I haven't seen all the way through.  I came in around minute 20 or so, only half watching, and my eyes were glued to the TV by the end.
68. Adaptation: The premise is kinda hokey, but it worked for me.  My favorite Nic Cage movie.
69. Total Recall: The best non-Terminator Schwarzenegger movie, by far, in my opinion.
70. In the Name of the Father: Barely remember anything about it.  But I know I really liked it.
71. Whiplash: Another one I saw recently -- very good.
72. Vacation: The best of the National Lampoon's movies.  I liked it, in large part, because Chevy Chase reminds me of my friend's dad.  Also young Anthony Michael Hall and Jane Krakowski.
73. Rollerball: Reminds me of that Family Guy spoof.  Totally dated and corny, by today standards, but I loved it at age 15 or whatever when I first saw it.
74. First Blood: Legitimately good action movie.  All the sequels make us remember it as hokier than it actually was. 
75. Cinema Paradiso: Another one I don't remember much from, but know I really liked.
76. Man on Wire: I'm sucker for documentaries, especially if they are good.
77. Roger and Me: See above.  The only Michael Moore movie that didn't feel farcical to me.
78. Spellbound: See above.  There's a kid in this movie I totally identify with.  He was way smarter and way nerdier than I was, but watching it, I knew exactly what he was thinking.  I even remember the word that knocked him out: BANNS.
79. The Royal Tenebaums: Mixed feelings about Wes Anderson, as alluded to above, but this one is my favorite of his movies.
80. Eyes Wide Shut: Never have I been so wanting to see what was going to happen next in a movie.  The answer, ultimately, was a pretty boring orgy followed by nothing.  But the journey was worth it, just for the sake of the journey.
81. Die Hard: The fact that it became trendy among a certain factor of men who list it as their favorite "Christmas Movie" makes me like it less.  But, c'mon, this is a damn near perfect action movie.
82. Office Space: Solid cult-classic comedy.
83. Major League: One of those "you have to see it as a 13-year-old male baseball nerd to really appreciate it" movies.
84. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective: It has some really awful, unfunny parts in retrospect, but, again, context -- nothing made me laugh harder as a high school student.
85. Plaster Caster: Weird, interesting story that not many people know about.
86. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans: Although I thought Adaptation was a better movie this is my favorite Nic Cage performance.  It's just so bizarrely terrific.
87. Ferrs Bueller's Day Off: Sentimental choice.  After Marty McFly, I wanted to be Ferris Bueller.
88. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure: Similar to above.  Thought it was awesome as a kid.
89. Spaceballs: Three in a row with the dumb comedy I loved as a kid.
90. The Karate Kid: Four in a row?  Not sure if this qualifies as a dumb comedy or not.
91. This is Spinal Tap: Saw it relatively recently, and it's funnier to remember the scenes than it is to actually watch the scenes, for some reason.
92. Towelhead: Kinda like a wannabe Todd Soldonz movie, but still good.  Just now learned that this was the same guy who createdd Six Feet Under and wrote American Beauty -- huh.
93. Gravity: Somehow a cool movie even though the plot is absurdly thin and the character development is virtually nonexistent.  Credit Sandra Bullock for that.
94. Django Unchained: The greatest "Didn't Know How to End It" movie of all time.  The first two-thirds are amazing.
95. The Book of Eli: One of those movies you watch on a plane on a whim and are very pleasantly surprised with how good it is.
96. Beyond the Mat: Again, I was fascinated with professional wrestling, especially of the late '80s and early '90s.
97. The Sixth Sense: Didn't see the twist coming.  (I never do.)  Thought it was cool.
98. The Namesake: Hit's home for my wife, so by proximity, it hits home for me too.
99. There Will Be Blood:  Didn't like the script that much, but Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano are brilliant in it.
100. Chasing Amy: I'm not a huge Kevin Smith fan, but I like him enough so that my favorite of his movies is that last movie on my top 100 list.

And really I probably have 100 more that would have been on this list had I wrote it on a Wednesday instead of a Monday.  That's how capricious these types of things are.

Until next time...

Entry 410: The Sad, the Rad, and the Bad

Some sad news this week.  A guy I went to school with -- elementary school through high school -- unexpectedly died in his sleep.  It's really affected me in a way no death has before.  It's not because I was close to him -- on the contrary, I barely knew him.  He was a year older than me, and I can remember having exactly one conversation with him one time when I was seven -- he asked me if I wanted to play football with him and his friends at recess, as I stood their silently, like a fanboy, watching them play.  We played indoor soccer on the same team for a year or two in grade school.  But he was the best player on the team, and I was somewhere near the bottom, so the rules of boyhood social hierarchy dictated we didn't intact often, if at all.

But those days are long gone, and now it seems as if he was just a middle-aged dude raising young boys, like me.  And that's why it hit me so hard.  I saw photos of him online with his three boys, all under ten, and I couldn't help but imagine if that was me.  The thought of my kids being fatherless is just... I don't have words to describe it.  But for a lot of you, I don't need words to described it, because you have children and know exactly what I mean.  I also clicked on his wife's Facebook page (we went to school together too), and it looked as if she hadn't posted anything since his death.  So, it was full of normal photos of her being normal and happy (one of them was captioned "Life is good"), and again it just made my heart sink imagining that being S.  One of her friends posted a Go Fund Me type link for funeral expenses and to help keep her afloat during what must be an impossibly difficult time, so I gave her $50 -- anonymously.  It felt weird giving money to somebody I barely knew, and I didn't think the "Hey... Remember me?  I know we didn't hang out in high school but..." message would be appropriate.  But I wanted to give something, perhaps selfishly, perhaps trying to assuage these visions of dread I've been experiencing.  I don't know.

I am also very curious about how exactly he died.  The only thing I heard is that it was "in his sleep" but that's not a cause of death.  Forty-year-olds don't just die in their sleep.  Something else has to be going on, and the fact that it hasn't come out yet -- that it's been omitted in all the announcements I've seen -- makes me wonder... even if it is none of my damn business.

Anyway...

In other news, happier news, this interview with Quincy Jones exists.  If you want to know what a whip-smart, ridiculously brash, 84-year-old music icon has to say about nearly every major celebrity of the past half-century, in the most giving-no-fucks way possible, then this is for you.  Here's what he says about the Beatles.  It might be the twentieth most provocative thing in the interview.

... they were the worst musicians in the world. They were no-playing motherfuckers. Paul was the worst bass player I ever heard. And Ringo? Don’t even talk about it. I remember once we were in the studio with George Martin, and Ringo had taken three hours for a four-bar thing he was trying to fix on a song. He couldn’t get it. We said, “Mate, why don’t you get some lager and lime, some shepherd’s pie, and take an hour-and-a-half and relax a little bit.” So he did, and we called Ronnie Verrell, a jazz drummer. Ronnie came in for 15 minutes and tore it up. Ringo comes back and says, “George, can you play it back for me one more time?” So George did, and Ringo says, “That didn’t sound so bad.” And I said, “Yeah, motherfucker because it ain’t you.” Great guy, though.

 In other, other news, my most recent deep-dive is this story about how the "bad guy" from the documentary King of Kong, Billy Mitchell, is being stripped of some of his high Donkey Kong scores.  I've gone back and forth on this one.  I really enjoyed the documentary, so I bought into the idea of Mitchell being a villain.  But there's always more to it than that, and documentaries are usually more interested in telling a compelling story than they are an accurate story, and antagonists make things more compelling.  Plus, even if Mitchell is a legit a-hole, it doesn't make him a cheater.

But then again, the case against him is pretty strong.  The tl;dr version is that all the available footage of his high scores look as if they were generated by a Donkey Kong emulator, not an original arcade game.  The reason this matters is because emulators can be more easily manipulated and thus require a higher standard of proof.  So, the claim isn't that Mitchell cheated necessarily; it's that he misrepresented the type of machine he used, so his scores are no longer considered "official."  Now, Mitchell claims he didn't use an emulator, and that the raw footage of his games will prove that.  The only thing publicly available at the moment are uploads to YouTube, which, could, in theory, be fakes.  (In fact, if you read the first linked article, it suggests that it's possible somebody did fake it.)   Supposedly, the original footage, which was being held by a gaming association called Twin Galaxies, will be made available soon, and it, according to Mitchell, will exonerate him.

I'm dubious.  For one thing, making a fake tape of his game using an emulator and uploading it to YouTube to discredit him sounds really hard.  How on Earth would you even do it?  It would have to be a near pixel-for-pixel match with the original to fool anybody.  For another thing, Mitchell is already hedging, saying that maybe his original tapes do look like he used an emulator, but that could be explained by other technical reasons, which he conveniently doesn't understand.  (And equally conveniently, this is something that will be extremely difficult to establish isn't true.)  If I had to put money on it, I would say he cheated, or at least lied, in someway -- but who knows?  If somebody actually made a fake tape to discredit him that's even more interesting.  I'm eager to see if anything else comes out of this story.

And it also goes to show that people will cheat at anything.  It people are competing, people are cheating -- sports, chess, bridge, Scrabble, and apparently video games.

Until next time...