Smoke Signals 3: Movies, Wine, and Death

Hello and welcome to another installment of Smoke Signals my micro Blogging in my blog. Huh? Just little thoughts I have had that do not warrant full blogs. Not too many today but some good stuff.

-The Avengers came out on Blu-ray and DVD this past Tuesday. And as a huge comic geek I will state here and now this is the best comicbook movie I have ever seen. It is a real life comic come to life. Funny, dracmatic, action packed, hits all the comic book beats. It's a winner and a movie I will probably watch multiple times a year.

-Speaking of movies I was thinking of these two movies the other day and came to the realization it would be an amazing mind blowing double feature. LA Story and Joe Vs. The Volcano. Both are bizarre magical films that use LA as a magical place, but the artistic vision of the directors is what makes them a great pair. Two films that are unlike any films you have ever seen. With actors Steve Martin and a host of cameo apperances in LA Story and Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan (playing 3 roles!) in their first film together. Both are romantic comedies, but instead of your typical Rom-Com's they are more like Fairy Tales. Though both are funny. 2 original movies in an era when original movies are no longer around too much. Case in point:

-Looper and Dredd. Everyone complains about the fact that their are no original movies, or strong R-Rated action and or horror films for older people. PG-13 is the cashcow with the teenagers going to these action and horror films that are mostly retreads of things you have seen before but can't go to the next level due to the rating. If some PG-13 movies were rated R, and were able to get away with more maybe things wouldn't be so bad. But here we are with Dredd which is a great grown up movie. A hard R-rated action film much like Die Hard or Robocop or Total Recall (the original with Arnold) with lots of violence but strong visuals and story. It maybe comic book burnout or the fact that not a lot of people in America know who the hell Judge Dredd is since he is a hugely popular character in Great Britain but the film is tanking here. Looper comes out on Friday and I have heard from people who have seen it and I know that it is an amazingly original film one that needs to make a lot of money so Hollywood will not be content with cookie cutter films. People always scream about how there are no original movies in Hollywood anymore. This one is so you better go see it. If not Hollywood will see the box office and say no one wants to see orignal films and we go back to getting films about boardgames.

-Browsing through Wal-Mart the other day I discovered from Hallmark their Halloween treat of the year. My Pet Ghost. A plastic bottle with a oval window in it and a button you press at the top. When you do a ghost appears in the bottle in a painted background and makes noises at you. There are three different phrases/noises. There are 3 different kinds and they are awesomely fun. Bought one for myself and have it on my desk at work. Worth a look see for under 10 dollars.

-Heard the sad news of crooner Andy Williams passing. He will always be remembered by me for his Christmas songs including the most wonderful time of the year. But his claim to fame is Moon River which is a great song. RIP Andy. My dad really liked you and so did I.

-Finally I just wanted to let everyone know one of my all time favorite wines is the Coppola wines. Francis Ford Coppola director of the Godfather Movies, Apocalypse Now and more is a fantastic winery manager and has turned his small winery into an award winning behemouth taking over other vineyards and releasing them under his imprint as well. But I like it not only because it's Coppola, but he really knows what he is doing with the wine. Available at all wine and liquor stores, I reccommend you pick some up.  Cheers.

Smoke Signals 2: Sports, Movies, SMG, and me

Welcome to Smoke Signals my mini blogger on my blog. Just a bunch of random thoughts I've had recently.

-My Facebook at work is not working, everyone else at work has working Facebook. I even downloaded Google Chrome to see if that helped. It didn't. Our IT guy was on my computer today. I wonder if he did something to it.

-As readers of my blog know, I have a crush on Sarah Michelle Gellar. Just found out she and her husband Freddie Prinze Jr. are expecting their 2nd child soon. Which may but the damper on a second season of Ringer. But for now who cares. Congratulations!

-The NFL draft started yesterday. The Ravens had the 29th pick overall. They ended up trading out of the first round for more draft picks. It makes sense, it makes real good sense, but I kind of wanted the Ravens to draft someone in the first round. I watched the whole thing waiting for it. In the end it was a good move and hopefully we will get some good players.

-The Baltimore Orioles who were projected to be a terrible team with at least 100 losses are now in a tie for first place. Now this doesn't really mean much right now since they tend to do good right out of the gate, liek last year they started 6-1 but soon started to fall badly. However this year seems to be different. Their pitching staff is pretty damn good. And they are getting the clutch hits they need. They are 5-1 against The Toronto Blue Jays who were supposed to be a good power this year. They are 0-3 against the Yankees and 1-2 against the Angels, so we shall see. May will be a big month for them. But now it is fun to watch this team.

-I have a zit. At the age of 38. WTF is up with that???

-My family pet Bonnie is not doing to good. She has not been eating alot the last 24 hours and threw up about 6 times last night. I still blame me letting her go out to eat grass. But she is old and she is showing it. Someday I will write a blog about my adopted cats Bonnie and Clyde. Just pray for her.

-Today April 27th is the last Friday before the Summer movie season starts. It's always seemed to be a weird movie day. Releasing a film a week before the first Summer Blockbuster knowing full well that you will be getting killed in your second week is always interesting to me. I will be writing a Summer Movie Rememberance blog sometime this summer. Should be fun.

-Maybe I will write it next weekend after I get back from the Mighty Marvel Movie Marathon. 6 Marvel Comics movies in order in one day, concluding with a midnight show of The Avengers. Starting at 1130am and going til about 230am. Should be interesting.

-I love watching my kids grow up and start to develop their personalities. I also see a lot of me in my kids. Recently Noelle started making up stories on her own and reading them to us. I used to do the same thing when I was a little older then her. In fact I wrote a lot of them down. I had written like 3 books, all about 33 pages long with illustrations, and my mother typed up some of my short stories and laminated them. I hope we can do something similar for Noelle.

That's it for now.

Smoke Signals Holiday Edition: EASTER

I am Catholic. Maybe not the best one in the world. But still, I am Catholic and we are in our Holy Week. Maundy Thursday is today. (The day of the Last Supper), Good Friday is tomorrow, and Easter Sunday is Sunday. Now I love holidays, and Easter is a holiday. It may not be my favorite holiday, but I still have great memories of Easter's past. So what I plan on doing with my Smoke Signals around the holidays is give you some memories of past holidays. Look for my next one to be 4th of July. So here we go, some memories of Easter Past.

-One of my more recent memories is of getting confirmed. I was never confirmed as a teenager, at that age I was still feeling my way around my religious beliefs, and kind of rebelling since I did not like going to church or CCD. When I met Dawn (my wife for those who don't know) her family was highly religious and as we were planning our wedding one of her wishes was to be married properly in a church. Not just to appease her parents but because she wanted to. And yes I wanted to also. My vision of marriage always included a church service. But in order to get married in a Catholic church, I had to get Confirmed. They have adult confirmation called RCIA. So I went through that for 6 months or so. We get confirmed at midnight mass for Easter. So I went through the process, my stepmother was my sponser and my wife and family cheered me on. My mother threw a pre confirmation dinner for us with Lasagna, and not only was Dawn's family there but so was my Grandmother. So all in all a nice memory.

-Going to a lot of midnight masses for Easter. Some were so startling and interesting with most of them starting in complete darkness and then a lone light appearing and low music and things started getting brighter and louder as our Lord was risen. Amazing!

-My parent's always liked to hide our Easter baskets and they were clever. Once, it was in the oven, once in the Fridge, once OUTSIDE. I try to bring that same feeling I had to my kids, they are still young, but they will probably start getting into it more.

- They also not only gave us candy and eggs, but we got small presents as well. I remember one year I requested a Voltron metal action figure. Got it to.

-As I got older and before kids and marriage I usually worked on Easter Sunday. Not everytime, but a few times. I remember once when I was a bagel baker. I was in at the shop at 3am on Easter Sunday to make the bagels. So about 6 am the sun was starting to rise and we opened later on Sunday so I was still the only one there. I remember looking out our front door. It looked onto York Road and a bank across the street. In the grass in front of the bank was a rabbit. no joke. I dubbed him the Easter bunny. Kind of cool. Though Bunnies are normal in that neighborhood, it was still kind of cool.

-Speaking of bunnies, you know it is Easter when a giant pink Bunny can be seen on top of the roof of the Mary Sue candy warehouse. You can see the bunny off of I-83.  Bizarre.

-When I worked for WLIF 101.9 LITE FM. I had to work the Bunny Bonan-zoo at the Baltimore Zoo. Always a lot of fun. Easter Egg hunts, candy. It was great.

-We dyed eggs. I always remember it being fun, but I had gotten away from it. Last year my wife and kids and I decorated eggs. Hopefully we can do it again. Always did it the day before Easter.

-When I was in Kindergarten we had a class pet. A bunny named Benjamin. All the class got to take him home for a weekend. I was lucky enough to get him on Easter weekend.

-My Grandmother used to have bendy bunny figures out for the kids. I remember playing with them a ton when I was little. I've been able to get some to my kids and hope they enjoy them as much as I did.

-My Easter movie has always been Monty Python and the Life of Brian, which is a satire of organized religion. Hilarious. This year I hope to get the kids into HOP a great Easter movie about the Easter bunny. Noelle and I saw it in the movie theater when it came out last year and we both enjoyed it.

-One year Easter fell on my sister's birthday and she wanted to celebrate by having us go with her on a boatride buffet down the Potomac in DC. Was awesome, except for the fact I was sick as a dog.

That's all I remember for now. Hopefully next year I will remember more. Happy Easter!

Smoke Signals 1: Will Ferrel and Parking cars

I have decided to create what I like to call Smoke Signals, small little bits and pieces out of my head that I am giving to you. I used to have a column in my college newspaper called Out of My Head where I would sometimes right these things. I thought it was only right to bring it up again but this time as a theme for my blog Off the Rez, I christen thee Smoke Signals.

- Saw an ad for Will Ferrel's new movie where he seems to be speaking entirely in Spanish called Casa de mi Padre. Don't know what to think of this. Either it is really weird, or really genius.

- I hate how my neighbors park. The parking spots in front of our houses have two bright white lines telling you where you can park. And the lines are perfect for a car, truck, SUV, minivan or whatever. Yet both my neighbors insist on either parking right on the line, or ignoring the line and parking wherever, thus cutting down another parking spot. This makes me livid. I know I have issues.

-The Cow in Reisterstown is now open. Huzzah for Italian ice and or Gelato!

-Moved my office from a nice quiet and fairly private spot to a noisy not so private spot. Don't know how I feel about this yet. First couple of days have been eh.

-Finished my top 103 REM songs of all time, but am still constantly making changes. I will be happy with it someday. Hopefully.

-While talking REM strted to really listen to Reconstruction of the Fables or Fables of the Reconstruction one of their albums I was very meh on. But now is a lot better then I give it credit for.