Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Great Week or Greatest Week

The week began on Saturday with a birthday party for my cousin who turns fourteen in four days.  I had a wonderful time and good food with the Arkansas half of my family.

On Sunday I got to hear three lessons at church from guest speaker Patrick Mead.  Also a long lost friend made a surprise return to Little Rock.

Monday I had a front row seat at Dickey Stephens Park for the 11 am game.  The Travs won 6-3 despite only getting six hits.  That night I was back at PV for another dose of Patrick Mead.

I can't remember anything that happened on Tuesday.  It must have been a lovely lazy day.  That may have been the day that I completed the last of the major story lines of Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion.  Time spent playing Oblivion has been a major contributor to the demise of this blog.

I returned to PV on Wednesday for Patrick Mead's finale.

Thursday I successfully talked myself out of mowing the yard and traveled to Clinton.

On Friday I hitched a ride to Lexington, that included a stop at the Dairy Queen.  In addition to the usual family fun, I watched the first of two little league baseball games.

Saturday started with donuts and then another trip to the baseball park.  Later there was a double birthday party, but alas no presents for me.

After church on Sunday the chocolate fountain at Golden Corral filled me to bursting with some help from the rest of the buffet.  Then I went to the pool and swam off a small portion of that feast.

I spent nine hours in the car on Monday, a small price to pay for all that came before it.  The DQ was again one of our stops.

The week wasn't perfect.  I did work three days last week, but a three day work week is an improvement from the norm.  I am slightly sunburned, but considering how much more time I spent in the sun than I usually do, it could have been much worse.

You may have noticed that this week lasted ten days.  There was just too much to cram into the usual seven days, so the week had to be extended.

Monday, May 7, 2012

A Tale of Two Movies

It was the best of times.  It was the hard to evaluate following the spectacular best of times that proceeded it.  I guess Dickens won't be able to help me write this.

On any other day I may have loved Blue Like Jazz.  I helped make it after all.  I was an associate producer on the movie.  By that I mean, I donated money to help get this publicly financed movie made.  As compensation for my donation, I received a t-shirt, a coffee mug, and a phone call from the director.  I also got my name in the credits.  A smarter man would have moved closer to the scene before taking this blurry photo.  The photo of Ellen's name is even blurrier.


I am having difficulty deciding how much I liked BLJ after watching Avengers just a couple of hours before it.  If BLJ had been the second best movie ever made, I would still be unsure of my feelings about it.  The gap is that wide between The Avengers and every other movie ever made.

Last year I rewatched all the Marvel made movies and rated them on a scale from one to ten (it has since been updated to include the original Fantastic Four and Punisher movies).  My favorite was X-Men with a 9.8 rating.  On that 1-10 scale Avengers gets a 42.  There are not enough superlatives in my vocabulary to describe this Joss Whedon masterpiece.

I realize that I have a reputation for exaggeration, but saying Avengers is the best thing ever put on film is an understatement.  At one point during the movie I thought, "This is the greatest moment of my life."  I cried twice during Avengers, once because it was sad and once because it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.  It will take every ounce of willpower that I possess to not go see this movie again tomorrow, and the next day, and every other day for the rest of my life.

Saturday, May 5, 2012

World Traveler

This morning at work I bumped into an old friend.  Flat Stanley was travelling from Centerton AR to Johnstown PA with a layover in Little Rock.  We had a nice visit and caught up on old times.  It was a mostly one sided conversation since the package he was in, while not sound proof, muffled his voice too much for someone with my hearing deficiencies to understand.  He wanted me to tell all of you hello and that he misses us and all the good times that we had together.