Hobbits Still Carrying That Ring

It's been quite a while since filming wrapped on The Lord of the Rings trilogy down in New Zealand. Since that time the cast had a chance to celebrate together at the Oscars in 2004 before the Fellowship parted ways for other acting opportunities. Unfortunately, the two main Hobbits, Frodo and Sam, never realized that the movie was actually over. After spending so much time together carrying The Precious to Mount Doom, they simply continued their journey, carrying that damn ring around everywhere they go.

It must be tough. One minute, you're on top of the world, winning an unprecedented 57 Oscars and sweeping every category at the awards. The next, nobody even remembers your real name. We should have seen this one coming though. After the Goonies in 1985, Sean Astin wouldn't leave Corey Feldman's side until Corey Haim beat him out for the lead in The Lost Boys. Similarly, Elijah Wood stalked Leelee Sobieski for 3 years after Deep Impact, refusing to admit she was only his wife in the movie. I guess this was a match made in Middle Earth.

Fortunately, their journey included a weekend of booze and debauchery in New Orleans for Mardi Gras this year. Before carrying the Ring to Bourbon Street and getting their hairy feet covered in the sludge of the French Quarter (yes, they still refuse to wear shoes), they paid a visit to Children's Hospital. While singing songs of Middle Earth to cheer up the kids, Ali was able to steal a quick moment with our Hobbit friends. The ring (not pictured) is in Frodo's front left jacket pocket.

By the way, Ian McKellen was taking the picture. Gandolf never misses a party, and he has mad photography skills!

Grizzly Fake

So I just finished watching the film 'Grizzly Man' on Discovery Channel and all I have to say is this - this movie is a fake. The documentary of bear-lover Timothy Treadwell, who meets his end at the hands of the very grizzly bears he was supposedly protecting, is a hoax. It has to be, and he are my reasons why...

• Treadwell and mystery girlfriend (who, although she spent 2+ summers with Treadwell, only twice appears on tape and in both case her face is mysteriously veiled) had audio only of his last moments. A supposed professional documentarian leaves his lens cap on so there is only muffled audio of his demise - audio which we don't get to hear.
  
• His remains aren't found until 'Grizzly Man' director Werner Herzog (a hilarious Arnold Schwarzeneggar wannabe) traces his route and conveniently stumbles across them.
  
• The coroner who examines Treadwell's remains is probably the most questionable doctor in the history of the world. He is actually licensed, according to Alaska's medical professional licensing website, but I cannot believe that an actual doctor would behave in such a manner when discussing the death of two people for a movie.
  
• The only person to have photos and audio footage of Treadwell's death is Herzog. And, in order to spare the audience the gruesome details, they are not shown in the film. Further, Herzog hands the audio tape to Treadwell's friend and tells her to destroy it.
  
• Treadwell's remains are immediately cremated after his autopsy.
  
• The family and friends interviewed are the most unbelievable group of characters ever committed to film. I thought his father was actually the dad from 'American Pie'. Not one shows honest emotion.
  
• Treadwell supposedly had a diving scholarship to Bradley University. Bradley University has no swimming or diving team.
  
• Treadwell is a liar, claiming to be in the wilderness to protect the bears. But in the movie when faced with his one opportunity to protect the bears (when photographers are throwing rocks at a female grizzly) Treadwell instead chooses to keep himself hidden and safe at a distance.
  

Treadwell is obviously playing a character throughout. His tirades are insincere, relying on an uncomfortable overuse of swearing. His friends try to paint him as a rebel and a tough-guy who was "hell-bent on destruction" in order to inject some character background and conflict, and they fail miserably because he's obviously gay (not that there's anything wrong with that). What Herzog tries to portray as paranoia (when Treadwell responds to smiley faces and a message saying "Hi Timothy" carved in a tree trunk) is just Treadwell trying to create drama out of what is quite obviously just a playful message either left by other hikers or maybe even done by Treadwell himself (seeing as Treadwell was, supposedly, illegally trespassing in a wildlife sanctuary).

This is surely a pathetic attempt by Treadwell and his wannabe actor friends to hit the big-time because this is the most unconvincing 'documentary' of all time. If you showed me both 'Best In Show' and 'Grizzly Man' and told me to pick the fake, I would say 'Grizzly Man' without hesitation. Anyone who calls this movie 'gripping' or 'moving' or 'touching' is a absolute moron - a giant, gullible, retarded moron. This movie was so poorly done it is comical. The level of skill involved is amateurish - I could make a better movie in my spare time. It actually makes me quite angry (well not angry per se, more like disappointed in the gullibility and stupidity of people in general) that this movie is receiving such critical acclaim and actually won an award at Sundance. Discovery Channel and a lot of other people are going to feel pretty stupid when, I'd say probably about 6 months from now, Treadwell and Herzog come clean and says the whole thing was a giant publicity stunt - like Blair Witch, except somehow a better kept secret. And you can all think of this as my big "I told you so".

I Sure Hope This Weekend Is More Exciting Than Last Weekend

Last weekend, Steph and some friends headed up to Philadelphia for a girls' weekend. For your enjoyment I put together a list of the events that transpired as my better half was gone.

FRIDAY

• Snuck out of work early (4:45pm) in order to catch the 5:34 bus. Got to the bus stop at 5:24 to see my bus pulling away. Next bus doesn't come until 5:55 so I began the 30-minute walk home. Approx. 10 minutes into the walk my bus passes me. Damn.
  
• Had planned to work out, but too taxed by the walk home. Instead, I settle for 2 episodes of 30-Minute Meals and Good Eats. Now I'm hungry. Must get food.
  
• I stop to get some movies. There is absolutely nothing at the video store. My hate for Hollywood burns like the fires of 1000 suns.
  
• I stop to get some beer. After paying, the automatic door closes prematurely and crushes two life giving bottles of MGD. The foreign cash register will not accept a return. As I leave, high school kids lament my loss. I hate high school kids.
  
• Mmmmm... Chicken cheesesteak and cajun fries.
  
• I eat too much and fall asleep on the couch by 10pm.
  

SATURDAY

• I awake with the thought of Dunkin Donuts coffee and a chocolate glazed. Unfortunately, last night's chicken cheesesteak and cajun fries, which seemed like a good idea at the time, do not seem like such a good idea now.
  
• Cleaned the bathroom.
  
• Cleaned the kitchen.
  
• Swept the family room.
  
• Off to BestBuy! Maybe the weekend will pick up.
  
• I ask one of the salesmen where their universal remote controls are located. I am less than enthused by the selection. After debating the options for 45 minutes, I decide none are what I am looking for and decide to leave. On the way out, I spot the remote I was looking for in a different location. BestBuy agrees to honor a 10% off coupon I have. Cha-ching!
  
• Leave BestBuy and head to the mall to do some moseying.
  
• Debate the merits of the different styles of Gold Toe dress socks for approx. 30 minutes at Hecht's. Finally decide on a 3-pack of Fluffies (charcoal) and a 6-pack of Casual Crew (assorted colors). Due to a President's Day sale the socks are 25% off. Cha-ching!
  
• Mmmmm... Domino's thin crust and buffalo chicken kickers.
  
• Nate Robinson wins the dunk contest by jumping over Spud Webb and missing about 43 other dunks. I was hoping Dominique Wilkins would show up and tear out Robinson's heart with his bare hands and do a 2-handed, 360-degree, windmill dunk. He did not.
  
• Fell asleep on the couch at 11pm.
  

SUNDAY

• Mmmmm... Dunkin Donuts coffee and chocolate glazed.
  
• FA Cup 5th round on FSC. Cha-ching!
  
• Steph's home! Hooray!
  
• Steph's sick and has the whooping cough and no voice! Boo!
  
• Mmmmm... Egg drop soup, steamed dumplings, and sesame chicken. I think my forture cookie says I'm a loser, but my Mandarin's a little rusty...
  

Support our Athletes

You know what's been the worst thing about the winter Olympics coverage? The race to point out the next athlete to choke. Bode Miller? Choker. Sasha Cohen? Choker. Apolo Anton Ohno? Choker. The Men's Curling team? Chokers. Give it a rest already!

Steph had on the Today show this morning as we were getting ready for work and Katie Couric was interviewing silver medalist Sasha Cohen. Couric said she was at the event the night before and "wanted to hit someone" because they kept replaying Cohen's fall. You know what she did next? She proceeded to show the exact same footage of Cohen's fall on national television for 2 minutes! I thought (and hoped) that Sasha was going to hit her.

The Olympians compete in sports that practically no one in America cares about except for 3 weeks every four years (and a lot of us not even then). They make peanuts compared to the athletes in the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL. Heck, most of them, gasp!, work regular jobs like you and me to make a living. You think playing in a Super Bowl or the World Series is pressure? Those are team sports. You've got a whole team to share the blame, to deflect any criticism that arises. Furthermore, those events happen every year. Sure, they're a big deal. But they're usually not a once in a lifetime type thing. Oh, and not to mention the Olympics probably have about 20 times the audience of either of those events. Plus, if you lose a Super Bowl you can still go home to your solid gold house and wipe away the tears of disappointment with $100 bills which will then be thrown away because they have been tainted with your suck.

Most of these Olympians have one shot at winning and fame. They are all trying to stretch their 15 minutes into a lifetime. They are competing in sports where a fraction of a second or a moment's indecision is the difference between fame and infamy. There are no second chances. There are no late-inning rallies or 4th quarter drives. You get 1 shot, once every four years, to prove you're the best. Let's all cut these guys some slack and show some support instead of jumping on their backs and beating them down.

Yes, I Love Technology

Yes I love technology
But not as much as you, you see
But I still love technology
Always and forever

Man, technology rocks, but it is damn addictive. Follow this slippery slope... Ted buys a laptop computer. Ted buys a router to set up a wireless network at home to link new laptop with old desktop. Desktop is very slow but functional. Things are running smoothly.

Christmas arrives. Ali buys Ted an iPod. Ted buys Ali a TiVo. Ted spends hours ripping his entire music collection and organizing it - every CD ever purchased plus every song ever downloaded, don't forget every CD Ali ever purchased. Album art attached to all songs. iPod running smoothly. Then we move back home. Ted spends hours again setting up TiVo to wireless network. Everything running smoothly.

Now Ted endeavers to stream his newly archived music collection to TiVo so his home stereo can play music and display album art. This means a central storage location is needed. Ted buys a network hard drive. Portable, gigantic and easy to install. Very smooth. Able to access it through TiVo using 3rd party software installed on the old desktop. Additional bonus - our entire photo archive can stream to TiVo from the network drive, as well as movie times, weather, traffic and other cool apps that can all be viewed through TiVo. But, things not so smooth!

The old desktop is painfully slow and barely can run iTunes to host the streaming. Also, Ali cannot work on presentations, reports or internet on the slow beast. Enter Super Bowl pool victory (see below). Now Ted buys new Dell desktop as an internet hub/MS Office machine. Things running smoothly again.

Latest snag requiring late night internet research, how to run iTunes from 2 different computers when using a shared music library. What's the problem, you might ask. Well, every time a new song is added using one computer, the other one doesn't recognize it. Every time you modify ID3 tags for a song on one computer, the other doesn't recognize it. This makes a shared music library obsolete! Difficult to add the same files and make the same changes twice (once for each computer).

So here is my latest solution...
1) Copy your iTunes library files (iTunes Library.itl and iTunes Music Library.xml) to a safe location as a backup. This will save all count, rating and playlist info.

2) Uninstall iTunes on both computers. I used Control Panel to complete this. Then I manually deleted the iTunes folder in the My Music folder under My Documents on both computers.

3) Reinstall iTunes on both computers as normal.

4) Change the iTunes Music Folder Location to the Network Hard Drive location on each computer.

5) Download and install TweakUI from Windows website.

6) Run TweakUI for each computer according to the instructions at the link below. I placed the My Music folder into a new My Music folder on the Network Hard Drive. I pointed both my laptop and desktop to the same location. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302398

7) Paste the iTunes library files from step 1 into the new iTunes folder on the Network Hard Drive. This will automatically transfer your previous Library into the new iTunes. All playlists will be perfect!

Everything now works absolutely perfectly - until the next thing I want to fix. I love technology!

College Football Instantly Replayed

The NCAA just releases the news rules regarding instant replay for next season. Some major changes have occurred that Irish fans everywhere will love.

• Coaches are now granted one challenge per game. Coaches first call a timeout and then signal that they will be challenging a "challengeable" call. If the challenge succeeds, they retain the challenge and can use it again and again until they lose a challenge (and the timeout comes back too!).
• Home teams in non-conference games have the choice of whether or not to use replay.

That means that Charlie Weis will be deciding every ND home game whether or not to use instant replay. Unfortunately, we play at USC this year, so Pete Carroll will most likely opt out of instant replay again (coward).

It'll be interesting to see how this affects the NCAA game now. Replay officials up in the booth will still be able to stop the game at any time for a review, but in addition to that, the coaches challenge was also implemented. Hopefully, it'll stop some home-town conference refs from making a crappy PAC-10 look good at home against non-conference teams.

Also, the NCAA enacted some measures to shorten games.

• Hafltime will be 15 minutes (shortened from 20) when both teams agree to it. You can bet Grambling and Southern will stick with the 20 minutes halftime.
• Clock starts on kickoffs as soon as the ball is touched by the kickers foot (the 5 seconds save really add up!).
• Also, the kicking tee is shortened by 1 inch (from 2 inches). This reduces touchbacks and adds more kick returns. It also means that kickoffs by ND kickers will now land at the 20 instead of the 10.
• On change of possession, the clock is started when the ball is set (as opposed to the snap). This doesn't concern ND during home games, as NBC takes TV timeouts after every change of possession.

The average college football game last 3:26, so hopefully this will reduce it to around 3:15. Personally, I'm just excited about Charlie using those challenges. The trouble is, if you use one early and lose, you don't have one for later in the game when you might really need it. Oh well, it makes things a little more exciting.

Computer Fallacy

I'm going to try to run a recurring entry on this site called (you guessed it) Computer Fallacy. Using my mad computer skilz, I will try to point out egregious technological fraud perpetrated in books, television, and movies.

Today's fallacy is courtesy of Stephen King's latest novel - Cell.

FALLACY - ALL CHILDREN ARE COMPUTER GENIUSES

Without going into too many details of the book I'll give you this - people go crazy from their cell phones. The mastermind computer whiz in this case is a 12 year-old kid from a boarding school in New England (it's Stephen King, everything is in New England). Without having a computer in front of him, without analyzing a cell phone, and having no details on the pulse that drove people crazy this kid is able to draw on his many years of computer expertise to figure everything out - how it happens, the human brain's response, and how to reverse the effects. Christ, how do I get this kid on my Math Bowl team?

C'mon, King! Gimme a break! I know it's hard to believe, but just because little Johnny has used a computer since age 9 doesn't mean he's Mozart. Kids aren't any more capable on computers than their grandparents, they're just more comfortable around them whereas older folks act like Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. Comfort != Genius. Kids do two(2) things on computers - play video games and download porn. If you have a computer question that doesn't involve bludgeoning someone to death in GTA 3 or double penetration, look elsewhere for your answer, because a kid won't have it.

Free Stuff!

Over the past weekend, I finally made the big jump on my Marriott Rewards program from Silver to Gold status. Because I travel a decent amount for my job, I have to have overnight stays, the vast majority of which are with Marriott hotels. The Rewards program gives me all kinds of neat-o free stuff that can be purchased with points. I can buy more hotel rooms, air travel, car-rentals, cruises and all kinds of other things with my points. Also, going from Silver to Gold status means that I'm finally eligible for the Gold Member Benefits, which gives me discounts to Marriott hotels that are currently under-utilized.

I'm also only 15 nights away from Platinum status - the highest level short of owning your own Marriott hotel. Every time I check into a hotel as a Platinum member I'll get a free gift - usually a nice fruit basket. The perks of travel are pretty swell, huh?

Happy Valentine's Day

Here are some cards to share with your loved ones...












More can be found here - http://www.i-mockery.com/minimocks/valentines06/

Hypocrites All

As the Super Bowl approached, Jerome Bettis was a media darling. He could do no wrong. Why? Because he was always super nice and polite to the media. In return they had an unspoken rule that they would never bad mouth The Bus. Stupid fumble that almost cost his team the Super Bowl? Nah. Being a mediocre running back for 13 seasons? No way, he's one of the best ever. We'll call this the Bettis Effect.

A couple days ago news broke about an NHL gambling scandal being run by Coyote's assistant coach Rick Tocchet. Implicated in the scandal was Janet Jones, who happens to be the wife of Wayne Gretzky. Oh, and Wayne Gretzky is the head coach of the Coyote's who handpicked his long-time friend Rick Tocchet to be his assistant. So far Gretzky has kept his head out this mess and the media has done little to levy any blame on the Great One. This is likely because Gretzky was the face of hockey for almost two decades. In addition, he was always polite to the media and the media loved him in return. Bettis Effect.

Flash back almost a decade. After winning 3 straight championships and while still in his prime Michael Jordan suddenly "retires" from basketball. Rumors abounded that Jordan was politely "asked" to leave by NBA commissioner David Stern because of his rampant gambling habits. It was/is well known that Jordan has a love for gambling and would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars every year to support his habit. After a two year absence, Jordan returned to the Bulls and led them to three more championships before retiring again. Jordan's leave of absence was hardly ever questioned and Jordan's gambling habit is rarely discussed by any media outlet because Jordan was the face of basketball and was always cordial with media. Bettis Effect. Big time.

At this point you're probably wondering where the hell I'm going with this. Well, here you go - Pete Rose got a hosed because of his abrasive personality and sub-superstar status throughout his career.

Rose has been banned for life from baseball because he bet on the sport while still manager of the Reds. Former baseball commissioner Bart Giamatti had some sort of vendetta with Rose and hounded him like a dog until, with no actual evidence against him, Pete agreed to the lifetime ban. Now I'm not saying Pete didn't bet on baseball. He most likely did given testimony and evidence from sources, albeit extremely sketchy and questionable sources. My beef is that Pete was, and still is, hounded mercilessly for this. People keep digging, and digging, and digging for concrete proof and demanding that he admit to betting on the game. Pete Rose was never the best player in baseball. He was a very good player for a very long time - long enough that he was able to set records that will probably never be broken. Pete wasn't exceptionally talented. He busted his butt throughout his career to be better than he honestly should have been. Most importantly, Rose was, to put it mildly, a dick. Nobody really liked him. So when damning evidence popped up, people jumped on board to bash Rose and wouldn't let up until he was out of the game.

Here's what I'm saying - this kind of thing never will happen with Gretzky or Jordan. I bet if you dug deep enough into either one's records you could find evidence they gambled on their own sports. But these guys are such icons and so savvy at marketing and PR that it'll never happen. Their respective leagues wouldn't allow anyone to level such accusations against them. And probably their best cover is that these two were considered "good guys", so the media wouldn't touch them if they ate a baby on national television. Heck, the media and public are even willing to forgive Joe Jackson, who not only gambled on baseball but threw an entire freaking World Series (to the Reds, no less). But Joe seemed like a nice guy, so we make excuses as to why he should be forgiven but none of his conspirators.

Pete Rose was a great ballplayer but probably a bigger jerk. And no athlete has paid more dearly for being a jerk.