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Is that his real name?

I’m not a baseball fan, but my wife is – or at least was when we got married.  Her favorite teams are the cubs and the red sox.  When I was offered discount tickets through my job to a diamond backs game hosting the cubs – I knew it was a good idea to pick them up.  Stephanie asked our friends to watch the kids, which they agreed without hesitation, and we were off.

To be honest, most baseball games are just too slow for me – but last night was different.  First, the stadium was packed – with cubs fans.  So many that chants like “Let’s Go D-Backs” were drowned out by “Let’s God Cubbies!”  and during the seventh inning stretch, when we all sing “take me out to the ball game” – the cub fans were much louder than d-back fans.  “Root, Root, Root for the D-Backs” was again changed to “cubbies”.  The score at the end of the game looked more like a football score than a baseball game – 10-6 cubs.  Now, while I do wish the D-Backs had won – going home with a happy wife was worth the loose.

Among the highlights – a grand slam home run, ice cream in a waffle bowl for $6, and my wife hi-fiving strangers.  But a personal favorite for me was finding out there is a player on the cubs team with this for a last name: Fukudome.

I have no idea how he pronouces it, but I know how I read it…

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Movie Reviews myThoughts

A Night at the Movies: The Dark Night

Ok – I know it was likely irresponsible of me, but I went to the midnight showing of The Dark Knight.  I really enjoyed Batman Begins and knew this was also Heath Ledger‘s last movie – I really wanted to see it.  I text messaged a friend at 10:30pm and asked if he wanted to see it with me and within the hour we were on our way… to a sold out theater … without tickets.  Minor oversight, one quick call on my cell and we had tickets to another theater across town.

I’ll start with what I didn’t like – they changed Rachael!  In Batman Begins, Rachael was played by Katie Holmes – very cute… but this version was played by Maggie Gyllenhaal – Not as cute.  The movie wasn’t quite as dark as Batman Begins either.  What I really loved about Batman Begins is how it really removed the cartoonish nature of some of the Batman villians as well as Batman’s charactor.  I’m not saying the The Dark Night is comical at all, just not as dark as Batman Begins.  My only other negative thoughts are the length.  Some movies are three hours long and at the end you say – wow, that was fast – I wish it were longer… this isn’t one of those movies.  It had about three endings – kinda like a preacher promising to close the sermon down at noon on a Sunday morning, then preaching to almost one.  Sometimes you don’t mind if the preacher just kept on going, other times you think – “I wonder how long the wait is at the restaurant…”

Ok – on to the positive: Heath Ledger.  He was amazing.  Did you see Johnny Depp play Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl?  Do you know how he brought something special to that charactor?  Well, Heath Ledger did that something special for the Joker.  Don’t get me wrong, Jack Nicholson played a great Joker – but Heath Ledger was truly amazing!  He really took the charactor over the top in the best way.  If I were rating the movie based soley on his performance, it would easily be two thumbs up, 5 stars, a must see.  But, I’m not rating the Joker only…

In all, I give it 3 stars out of 5.  They traded out the eye candy, they missed several shots at a big ending, but the Joker was amazing, the special affects were good, and a few other points I will keep out of the review so I don’t ruin the movie for you.  For now, I have less than three hours before I have to go to work – so g’nite!

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myThoughts

Happy 4th of July

Happy Independence Day!

Picture from Jeremy Sackrider