Now Playing: The Eiger Sanction

This was one of those movies I'd always heard about but never actually managed to see. This is why Netflix was invented - to grant me the ability to catch up on flicks I've otherwise missed. Then I watched The Eiger Sanction and realized why I'd missed it.

I wouldn't go so far as to call it obscure but it's not on the tips of everyone's tongues when they mention classic 70's cinema. This one finds Clint Eastwood as an art professor who is a retired assassin for the US government and is pulled into "one last job" for the ripe sum of $20,000 after an American agent is killed. He's to "sanction" the assassin who did in the American agent and if he feels up to it then he'll get the chance to "sanction" a second badguy who was also involved in the hit. I started snickering right away for a number of reasons not the least of which is Eastwood's hilarious delivery of badass lines.

Eastwood is a genuinely funny man. In his heyday back in the 1970's he was the trademark for American gravitas and ball-busting, but the way he delivers venom-filled lines in either this or Dity Harry or anything else is laugh out loud funny. The Eiger Sanction is filled with gems and watching him in his prime throw out one awesome line after another is always a fun way to spend a few hours.

Unfortunately, the film was also directed by him which means it takes its time getting to where its going and once it does... not much happens. Eastwood has improved his style over the years (obviously considering his Oscar for Unforgiven) but you can tell he's still looking for his own voice in his early directorial efforts and The Eiger Sanction is no different. The crux of the movie's threat hinges on him climbing the Eiger mountain with a foreign team, one of who is the other assassin he's supposed to kill. The catch is he doesn't know which one it is and has to climb the mountain with them anyway.

That sequence winds up being the last half hour of the two-hour movie.

Up to this point, Eastwood's character is investigating who the assassin might be and training for the climb. There are a few digressions throughout and eventually he winds up on the mountain. I can respect how the real climbing was achieved, including Eastwood performing his own stunt at the end where he has to cut his own rope while dangling over a 1,000-ft drop, but the movie itself barely gets off the ground, so to speak. It just sort of ambles along and then everything is over and the credits roll.

Overall, it's more a look back at a film in the 1970s than it is a look back at a great film from a defining decade of American cinema. Also, the obsession back then with using natural lighting to make everything look "real" and "authentic" looks really awful with a weak transfer. When Eastwood, or anyone in the film, walks through a dark room the entire screen goes black until someone opens a door or window. That may have been the intended effect back in the day but it looks awful now.

Now Playing: Collateral Damage

One thing I like about Arnold Schwarzenegger movies is they're honest. You know what you're going to see right from the second it starts. Arnold is going to face a crisis, usually personal in nature, then is going to kill a ton of people before squaring off with the ultimate bad guy and killing him/her/them. Good wins out over evil. It's comfort food in a way. Sometimes you get a three course meal though in the likes of Predator or The Terminator where everything is pure cinematic perfection.

Other times you're left with an Almond Joy like Collateral Damage which is little more than a snack that leaves you hungry again 20 minutes after you finish it.

Arnold plays a firefighter named Gordie Brewer whose wife and little son are killed in a bomber's attack on the Columbian embassy in Los Angeles. He swears vengence, especially once the weak-kneed politicians in Washington decide to negotiate with the terrorists to find out what their "special needs" are. And what happens when weak-kneed politicians try to negotiate with terrorists in Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, boys and girls?

Before you have time to try and examine how many plot holes are in the first 15 minutes alone, Gordie has shipped himself down to Columbia and makes a beeline straight for the bad guy's camp. Of course, he runs into problem after problem which fortunately can all be resolved with liberal use of explosives. Apparently Gordie was on the bomb squad prior to being a firefighter, which means he can blow stuff up with the best of them then put out the fire. He's practically a Renaissance Man in that way.

Director Andrew Davis does what he can to spice things up, including a wicked shot at the beginning of the bomber walking on the other side of a barrier from Gordie's son. But the film feels entirely pedantic and workmanlike. This was clearly a paycheck flick with zero passion felt for it and it shows. Heck, even the score is ripped off from a dozen sources.

I'm a sucker for lame action flicks but the only difference between this and one of these from the 1980's is the ending. There's a slight twist towards the end that any one who has ever seen a movie will peg about 45 minutes into the film. But if this were the 1980s the ending would be totally different. Or the exact same only then the producers would get to scream, "Look! We're being edgy!"

Uh, not so much this time, hombres. Maybe someday Arnold will return to us, but if he has his way then this and Terminator 3 might be the last we'll see of our beloved Austrian Oak on the big screen for years to come. Vaya con Dios, Austrian Oak, you will be missed.

Now Playing: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

Speaking as a native Texan, the Enron disaster caught us by surprise as much as the next person. One minute we're hearing stories about one of the top 10 companies in the world and how many billions it's making daily, and the next we're seeing live news shots of the corporate HQ in Houston as employees are vacating in a mad scramble. Over the next few months, story after story came out about how this multi-billion dollar corporation was nothing more than a house of cards and that CEO Jeffrey Skilling and top honcho Ken Lay had been the ones stacking the deck over the last decade. The resultant disaster was the equivalent of a tsunami hitting Wall Street, not to mention the billions in pension and retirement funds that went up in smoke overnight for thousands of people.

The investigation into where the company started and what ultimately went wrong is where Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room comes into play.

The documentary states very clearly at the start that this is a story about people and this is absolutely true. We see the beginnings of Ken Lay and get some insight into where Jeffrey Skilling first came into play. We also learn how heavily invested in Enron, and specifically Lay, the Bush family was and probably still is. It was at this point where I instinctively felt my eyebrows raising, but in keeping with it you learn plenty about everyone involved with the company. Was the Bush family involved in the collapse? Not at all. Were they complicit in earning money from the company as it essentially scammed everyone in sight? Absolutely.

But then again, the documentary carefully points out, so was literally every one else.

Enron did deals with every single major bank on the planet and if you were in the energy industry then you had to, by necessity, deal with Enron. The amount of tentacles this beast had is staggering to discover, and even more amazing is how everyone invovled suspected something was wrong right from the start. But since everyone was making record profits (their Houston-based law firm, which is currently going down in flames I might add, was paid $1 million a week at Enron's height) no one cared whether the money was blood money or not. Enron played on everyone's greed so succssfully that the resultant bankruptcy has become a textbook case.

So much so that it's now the opening chapter in corporate bankruptcy class in law schools across the country.

The film interviews everyone it can from Enron insiders, former traders, one of the former PR guys, top executives, and then talks to people outside the company. We meet a line worker who sold his retirement funds off (initially valued at north of $300,000) for around $1,200. We hear tapes of the Enron traders as they gangrape the California power grid time and again. Grey Davis gets his say as well, and I was stunned to feel sympathy for the man by the time the documentary was over. When this was going on, all I knew was that California had rolling blackouts and people were pissed at Davis and that's where the extent of my knowledge ended. I went to E3 back in 2003 and at the time there were protestors outside the Staples Center demanding everyone sign the "Recall Grey Davis" petition but that was the extent of my personal experience with the craziness engulfing the state at the time.

The documentary explains why Enron was doing this, who was doing it, and why Ken Lay had not a care in the world to stop it.

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room is indeed a story about people, and these are people you will come to despise. The brilliant move by the film makers is how they boil down the complexities of corporatocracy into easy to understand sound bites that don't pander to the viewer. My Fair Lady was a financial analyst for several years and a stock trader before that and she was flabbergasted that Enron managed to get away with the shenanigans they did. She understands all this stuff naturally while it normally sails over my head. But this film very carefully explains the details of what happened and why, so the viewer never feels left out in the cold.

The great tragedy of Enron though is how many people were left out in the cold on account of the insatiable greed of a few. This is a solid film with a skillfully told narrative that anyone involved in business of any kind simply must see. For the rest of us, this is a lesson in what can happen when Big Business runs amok without proper checks and balances in place. But when you consider how WorldCom and Arthur Anderson folded shortly after Enron did, it makes one wonder whether we'll be able to prevent this from happening again.

Now Playing: Cocaine Cowboys

It's funny to look back on your childhood and recognize that momentous events from your formative years are seldom among your personal memories. I have no recollection of President Ronald "Ronoldus Magnus" Reagan being shot by John Hinckly, nor do I recall the bomb that was "Ishtar" when it hit theaters. I do recall the Challenger explosion but that's because I was watching in Dr. G's third grade class in 1986, which is also why I missed both "Predator" and "Aliens" in the theater that same year.

People that lived during those years have very different memories than those of us raised during those years, and it's fascinating to examine the dynamic. Take for example the show "Miami Vice." Personally, I never was allowed to watch it because it was a cop show where the heroes were dark and the violence was serious. Naturally, I gravitated towards "Sledge Hammer" (which remains David Rasche's defining role whether he likes it or not) because it was loud, silly, and over-the-top in a fun, childish way. But one thing "Miami Vice" was centered around was the booming cocaine industry in south Florida and the influence the drug cartels had on both the state and popular culture as a whole completely escaped me.

It did not, however, escape those who survived some of the bloodiest years in an American city since Prohibition. Cocaine Cowboys dives headlong into the 1970s where everything began, and continues right up through the present. This documentary gets so many things right that it is virtually impossible to be bored by any of it. The trick behind a solid documentary is having an excellent story teller behind the scenes, but Cocaine Cowboys goes a few steps further by having excellent story tellers in front of the camera as well. For example, we immediately meet John Roberts and Mickey Munday who prove themselves fascinating to listen to even as they talk about things no sane person would ever do.

Roberts was a guy looking to get rich any way he could as fast as he could. He did some low-level dealing here and there most notably with importing pot. He brought in as much as he could as fast as he could, and eventually met up with Munday who was a redneck bush pilot. Munday came up with various smuggling routes and flew the plane into the state until there was so much pot that you couldn't give it away, much less sell it.

Then they switched to bringing in cocaine from the Columbian cartels and thus began the greatest influx of cash that Miami has ever seen, before and since. But along with the drugs came some bloodthirsty criminals looking to carve out their own piece of the city and the police were overwhelmed almost overnight. The resultant drug war makes Scarface look tame by comparison, and even though I routinely mock that horrible, horrible film I realize now that it was a parody that, if anything, didn't go far enough. Pretty much everything seen in that film had a basis in facts pulled from the streets of Miami from 1975-1980. Yeah, it was that deranged of a town and frankly I'm amazed that the place wasn't nuked from orbit just to be sure.

Cocaine Cowboys is just as energized as its subject matter, but does the viewer a service by peeling back the glossy sheen of the 1980s and examining what was really going on underneath. There are dozens of interviews with the criminals and cops involved and some of the best and worst stories come from the same source - one of the top killers in the drug wars who is interviewed behind bars. His name escapes me but he instantly proves charming and likeable, and his stories of how he grew up are great. Then he starts getting into the details of how he and others killed people and that charm remains in tact. It's then you realize the guy is practically souless (with the exception regarding his stance on children), and his stories become truly scary confessions.

This is a magnificent documentary that covers all aspects of the Miami drug wars and shows its lasting impact on the city and the culture that survived. The "where are they now" segment at the end caps everything off beautifully and the final line of text made me laugh out loud, and drew actual applause from My Fair Lady. Don't miss this one.

Now Playing: Munich

Steven Spielberg frustrates me sometimes. Last year was a banner year for him with the crowd pleaser War of the Worlds and the deeper, and more emotional Munich. I hated the first, and have just seen and loved the second. The last time he did a double feature in one year was back in 1993 with Jurassic Park and Schindler's List and I love it when he cranks things out. When he's working on a harsh deadline, he seems to rise to the challenge and he does magnificent work with Munich.

Based on the true events at the 1972 Munich Olympics in which several Palestinian terrorists working for an organization called Black September infiltrated Olympic Village and seized the Israeli dorms, capturing most of the athletes. The ensuing stand-off and confrontation when the terrorists tried to flee at the Munich Airport resulted in a bloodbath as all of the athletes and terrorists were killed. The Arab world at the time declared it a great victory.

Israel declared war, but not overtly. Instead, they sent a team of handpicked men after the targeted planners of Munich and the film chronicles their hunt.

This is brutal, stark work harkening back to the great films of the 1970s. Spielberg brilliantly recreates the world as it was right down to the innocence of the time. Munich came on the heels of a number of world changing events, and this was one of the first major attacks where terrorists were given a face and a name to everyone. The men on the hunt, though, had very specific names and faces to track down and they were relentless in their pursuit. But eventually word made it to the other side and the men found themselves as much the prey as they were the hunter.

Eric Bana make have taken a lot of guff for the overblown disaster that was Hulk but he's a sharp actor with very keen instincts. He plays the team leader, a devoted young man with a family who risks everything for the sake of national vengence. Guiding him down this slippery slope is the brilliant Geoffrey Rush who is merciless in his desire to prune what he views as nothing more than weeds. Anytime Rush shows up you know he's going to bring his A-game which is why I'm so excited about his return in the next Pirates of the Caribbean movie because his Barbossa was the best part of the first film next to Johnny Depp.

Daniel Craig continues to impress me by choosing work that completely takes him away from James Bond and I hope that Casino Royale's mammoth success means he has better and better scripts to choose from. He's solid here as the driver and he and Bana have a solid rapport with one another.

The only demerit I'd throw at Munich is a cliched technique that Spielberg obviously knows inside and out and that he, frankly, should have known better than to use here. Even high school kids today know about Munich and what happened. We don't need to flashback to it throughout the film resulting in a B-story where we want to see what happened. The finale at the airport is relentless, brutal and proof of a master film maker at work, but it would have been far more powerful if we didn't keep cutting back to Bana making love to his wife.

Even I wouldn't stoop to that as a metaphor and I'm fairly shameless in exploiting emotions.

But overall I can see why a lot of people praised it. Top to bottom it's excellent work from everyone involved.

Now Playing: The Constant Gardener

Sometimes a movie comes along and knocks the wind out of your sails. It's been a long, long time since one has done that to me (what can I say? I'm hard to surprise.) but The Constant Gardener left me floored, stunned, angry, and emotionally wrecked. In short, it kicked my teeth in and for that alone I loved it.

To say the least, the movie is an emotional drain as British assistant diplomat to Africa Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes) and his activist wife Tessa (Rachel Weisz) find themselves in the middle of a conspiracy involving governments and drug companies all vying for billions in profit at the expense of the African soul. Justin is blind to the damage his employers are wrecking on millions because he considers himself a small man, incapable of helping even one person. Tessa is convinced that one person can make a difference and her goal behind the scenes is to expose as much of the corruption as possible.

The first shocker is the opening car wreck where Tessa dies. She's killed in the opening frames and after a few flashbacks where we see the abrupt courtship between Justin and Tessa, the film follows Justin's increasingly frustrated attempts to uncover what his wife was working on. One of the many beauties of this film is seeing a man who dearly loved his wife try to make good by her by continuing her work. She may have kept him in the dark for her own reasons, some obvious, some not, but it remained important work nonetheless.

As Justin's understanding of Tessa's work grows, so does his fury. He's never blinded by rage though. If anything, the further down the rabbit hole he sinks the more determined he is to see things through regardless of what it costs him. He understands that a man with nothing to lose is someone to fear, and the Powers That Be soon understand that as well.

Weisz may have won an Oscar for her role here but I'll be damned if I can understand why. She and Fiennes have perfect chemistry, but she's always been sort of a blank to me. I've heard that criticism leveled at other starlets like Jessica Biel and while that's certainly true, I will accept that Weisz is the better actress between the two. She just never goes beyond the surface here, in my opinion, but obviously I'm in the minority since she's clutching her Oscar while I'm left dreaming of mine. She's strong enough as Tessa Quayle, a woman determined to change the world while protecting her husband from its dark secrets at the same time. Whenever Tessa and Justin are on screen together you can see and feel the spark between them, even if they don't initially understand it themselves. She even tells him early on, "You'll learn me."

Justin realizes after she's gone that he failed miserably to do so. In picking up the pieces of his life, he begins to realize that hers never really fit in with his. As he plunges headlong into his pursuit of what happened a funny thing happens. He falls in love with her all over again as he begins to understand what exactly she went up against and was crushed by. Fiennes pours his heart and soul into Justin and the final sequence is heartbreaking, the closing shot and final line of dialogue in particular. Fiennes shows how closed off Justin was in the beginning, and how he is steadily reborn through the course of the film. Fiennes anchors The Constant Gardener in such a strong way that even some of the flakier aspects of the plot are easily forgiven.

This is a stunning film from director Fernando Meirelles who knocks it way out of the park. Even though the film does sometimes show off for the sake of showing off, it still feels like a passion project. It also captures the sheer anger of John Le Carre's novel as it shows just how brutal and unforgiving life is in Africa, and just how far down its nose the drug companies view the continent. It's stunning stuff by itself, but the heart and soul of the film remains the love story between Justin and Tessa and that aspect is fantastic. See this film immediately if you get the chance.

Duck Hunt - Part 2

I hadn't bothered with the alarm clock since dad is usually up at 5 a.m. anyway and I figured, rightly so, that he'd knock on the door when it was time to get up. Knock he did right at the stroke of 5:15-ish. Oddly enough, I didn't have any trouble waking up and just throwing on clothes, but I did feel somewhat out of place when I saw both dad and Brother G wearing the same camo shirts while I made do with a light green one I wore down the day before.

We sauntered out into the lodge as only we men can do and found absolutely nothing waiting for us in terms of breakfast. So Brother G and I snagged some water bottles from behind the bar, then found some stiff granola bars to munch on before the big hunt.

Mmmm, tasted like victory mixed with peanut butter.

Once we scarfed those down, our guide walked in and asked if we were all set. Guide-Me-Yonder then walked us out to his truck where we loaded up our guns, ammo, flack jackets, mortars, walkie-talkies, and some Snapple (don't ask). Once everything was ready, Guide-Me-Yonder put pedal to metal and we tore off down the winding road and headed towards the river.

It bears mentioning that it was pitch black outside underneath a cloud-covered sky and with temperatures hovering around 60 degrees. Basically the absolute worst weather possible for duck hunting.

We arrived at the river bank a short while later, then unloaded our gear from the truck and moved it over to the long raft Guide-Me-Yonder had in a trailer we'd been towing. Since it was black outside, and silly me for leaving my night vision goggles back at Casa de Skim, I'd completely missed it. Guide-Me-Yonder threw the raft on the ground, which we promptly filled with equipment, let Ol' Yeller out of her cage so she could run around, then picked up some rope at the front of the raft and wrapped it around his upper half.

At first I thought that was sort of a peculiar way to hang yourself, driving down to a river with three other guys with guns and a dog then wrapping a rope around your neck and walking away until it stranggles you, but he pulled the raft over onto the river (which I hadn't seen since it was, wait for it, pitch black) and started heading towards our spot. We followed as best we could.

Now, here's where we were - a small river in central Texas at roughly 5:45 a.m. on an overcast morning. Zero visibility except from the lone flashlight Guide-Me-Yonder was pointing out in front of him, and he was about 30 feet in front of us. We were covered head-to-toe in gear that would make a survivalist proud, and the thick black high-water boots we had on were trudging through the riverbed while the water hit us mid-thigh. Oh, and because this wasn't fun enough we carried our shotguns on our shoulders. I carried mine across both shoulders because it seemed to provide better balance, but that didn't stop or even slow the stream of profanities issuing forth from Yours Truly's otherwise clean mouth whenever I slipped.

We hiked like this for around 10 minutes which meant all of us were sweating like hogs in August by the time we reached our designated "hot spot." Looking at it from the river, I took the right flank, Brother G took the left flank, and dad took the middle. Meanwhile, Guide-Me-Yonder and Ol' Yeller set up a little ways to my left, and there we waited for the flocks to come hither. We sat there a moment in silence before Guide-Me-Yonder stood up and walked to the river where he proceeded to toss several duck lures into the black water. When he returned to his spot, we all hunkered down. We waited for roughly 45 minutes before the first hint of trouble stirred up.

We heard the echo of a few shots fired down river (to my left) and figured the birds would eventually migrate down to us. Then we heard the distant roar of something else, something that belongs on a river but not at that moment. It was an airboat firing up its engine, and the noise must have carried down stream far past our hot spot. Airboats by themselves are not something one uses when stealth is a key factor like in, say, duck hunting, where you need your enemy to pretty much be up on you without realizing it before you can get a clean shot.

Guess what went right out the window the second that fool fired up his engine? If you said "any chance of surprising anything between here and Kansas" then five points are awarded to Gryffindor. It was unreal that this fool would go out RIGHT THAT SECOND and look for his spot, which he did while right in front of us.

The roar of his engine grew and grew and grew until we saw him spin around the corner and slowly go past us. One would think he'd be in a hurry to get to his spot considering he was late, but not this clown. Oh no, he decided to take his sweet time and slowly inched his boat upstream while waving his floodlight to and fro looking for his own hot spot while we just stared at him. He must have seen us pointing our guns at him with a "YOU WILL LEAVE RIGHT THIS SECOND!!!" look on our camo-covered faces because he hurried past where we were once he recognized he was in the wrong spot. He tore down the river and eventually his engine switched off...

Only to switch back on a few moments later as he kept going.

"That fella's gonna get his ass blown off if he pulls that crap again going back in," said Guide-Me-Yonder.

"No kidding," replied my dad. "What sort of asshat comes out late in a %#$@'n airboat? It's not like the birds are deaf. Hell, they probably heard him two states over."

In short, we were already hot under the collar from the clothes, the weather, and sludging through the riverbed but now we were pissed too. At least we were armed and could start blasting at any moment so relieving stress was the least of our worries.

Guide-Me-Yonder waded out into the river and reset the faux ducks he'd dropped as lures when we first arrived, since they were now everywhere but where they should have been. Once he finished, he motioned us to reset ourselves and get ready. So we shifted our weight on our seats, rechecked our firearms, chugged some beer, smoked some weed, flipped through the available men's magazines, made smores, and basically waited like bumps on logs for the next hour.

Then we heard it.

It was soft, and at first our ears didn't pick it up. But the wind carried a slight sound upon its back and Guide-Me-Yonder whispered to us to get ready. We stared at the sky in vain trying to pick out which birds were ducks, yet all we saw were crows and more crows and maybe a plane. But that could have been a duck too.

"FIRE!"

Guide-Me-Yonder shouted at us and we three kings of army surplus looked up again and spotted two birds flying overhead. Four shotguns turned towards the sky and opened fire with a thundering cacophony.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

We emptied our guns at these nefarious foes, only to see nothing in the sky once the smoke cleared. We looked at the water below to see if their scattered remains were at least visible, but there was nothing.

Not even a feather.

It felt like that scene in Predator where Mac grabs the mini-gun and unleashes Hell on the jungle followed shortly by Dutch, Dillon, Poncho, and the remaining team who open up nine cans of whoop-ass only to hit air.

"Not a thing, not a &*$%'in trace. No blood, no bodies. We hit nothing," said Poncho.

We, too, sat in awe. Clearly, this breed of bird was far more devious than we'd been lead to believe. One minute they're flitting harmlessly about and the next... they pull a Houdini and vanish before our very eyes.

Oh, it was on.

Guide-Me-Yonder warned us to prepare for more ducks. I wondered how any of them could have heard that racket and thought it sounded like a reasonable place to relax and have a cold one. Of course, their slippery friends may have gone back and told them that right in front of us was the best place to chill because we'd hit everything but them. Clearly, the Army was mistaken in rejecting my application for sniper, though that may also have to do with listing "Pisces" under accomplishments.

We threw some more brush up in front of our position, then radioed for backup. After we were laughed off the frequency by the police, Guide-Me-Yonder decided some recon was in order. He whistled to Ol' Yeller and they headed downstream a bit to see whether Charlie was around the bend. They exchanged hand/paw signals and went in tandem down the river, only to return a few minutes later.

"They are coming..." he said.

We readied ourselves for the onslaught, and hid in our respective foxholes. The brush was pulled high and nary a foe would evade us this time. Then we heard Guide-Me-Yonder whistle. When we turned to look at him he was pointing at the stream off to his left and then we saw them.

Two birds, minding their own business, thinking they were so high and mighty as to defy us.

We cocked, locked, and were ready to rock when Guide-Me-Yonder whistled again at us. He raised his weapon and aimed at the birds, as did we all, then nodded his head at Yours Truly to take the first shot. I aimed right between them and squeezed the trigger.

BLAM!!

The scattershot hit them both square in the chest and they launched into the air.

BLAM!

The one on the right made it about six inches off the water's surface before Guide-Me-Yonder's shot brought it back down. Brother G and my dad fired as well but neither hit the second target.

BLAM!

Guide-Me-Yonder's next shot took down the fell beast and it splashed into the water followed a split second by Ol' Yeller leaping after it. Once the dog snatched up the first bird, he returned and dropped it right at our feet then headed back out for the second one.

I understand now why people who have been in combat say firefights never last as long as they do in the movies, and describe "engagements" as quick and startling. It was over before we knew it, but we were victorious...

"Heads up!" shouted Guide-Me-Yonder.

We spun around and looked straight up to see another few birds coming in, and the shotguns went up and blasted the birds out of the sky. Two more were felled by this last round, and while I suspect Guide-Me-Yonder was the one who tagged these as well it remains unclear who fired from the Grassy Knoll. There may have been additional shooters but with so much carnage it was difficult to tell friend from foe. Fortunately, we five made it out alive with our victory birds safely tucked away.

Then we heard the roar of the airboat again, and it sounded like it was coming straight at us.

Yes, again.

"Oh for the love of God..." said dad.

Sure enough, that bloody airboat came roaring around the bend and headed straight at us. It flew past us without so much as a glance and headed down river. Once it was out of sight, each of us loosened our grip on the guns. Instinctively, we'd all wanted to shoot the fool but fortunately restrained ourselves.

We agreed that it had been a fine hunt, then took a round of pictures holding up our guns and dead birds in celebration of our victory. After gathering up the decoys and throwing them back into the sled, we headed towards the spot where we came in. Since it was pitch black at the time we arrived I figured Guide-Me-Yonder's thoughts were to just head in the driection we came from and when we see our truck we'd be fine. So it was that we hiked back through the river lugging our guns, ammo, flack jackets, mortars, walkie-talkies, and what was left of the Snapple (really, don't ask).

After loading things up when we made it back to the truck, Guide-Me-Yonder and Ol' Yeller's noses perked up simultaneously. At first, I figured Charlie was hiding in the bush somewhere waiting to ambush us but since none of us was taken out by a sniper on the way up stream I figured we were safe.

"Hold it a sec," Guide-Me-Yonder said under his breath. "Gotta check somethin' I saw up stream."

He walked back to the river and waded in a few feet, then knelt and looked off in the distance for a minute. Meanwhile, we finished unloading our guns and were ready to head back to the ranch for some breakfast when Guide-Me-Yonder walked up.

"Spotted a couple a birds up the river a stretch," he drawled. "Let's hop on in and go check 'em out."

We crammed back into the truck and Guide-Me-Yonder peeled off up the hill and around the bend.

Imagine our surprise when he turned around a corner and we found ourselves watching a Motorcross track fly by on the left.

"We get roughly 500 to a thousand folk down here come March," Guide-Me-Yonder said. "People who live 'round here hate it 'cause of the traffic, but it brings in good money to the ranch."

Of all the things I didn't expect to see that day, a Motorcross track would rank pretty high on the list. I had to admit to being curious to see it when the place was hopping because it looked well laid out. I really got a close look when Guide-Me-Yonder cut a hard right and my face smacked into the window courtesy of the G-force. It didn't help that Brother G thought shoving me against the door would be funny.

His time will come. Oh yes, it will come and that right soon.

We came to a screeching halt on the other side of the course, then fled the vehicle alongside dad and Guide-Me-Yonder. Ol' Yeller stayed in the kennel as Guide-Me-Yonder motioned to us to follow him. He pointed over a hill towards some trees.

"Right on the other side of that is a path leadin' down to the river. You two head that way, and me and your dad'll head back towards the river to try and flush 'em towards ya."

Eh, why not? It worked so well in Predator, so why not in real life? That would be sarcasm, just to clarify for those in the peanut gallery.

Brother G and I loaded up then headed towards the woods. When we reached the edge we walked further in wondering what we were looking for. So long as it wasn't the Blair Witch I figured we'd be all right. Then we found what Guide-Me-Yonder initially pointed us towards.

A ravine was about three feet down and completely covered in fresh mud.

"Any bets on whether it's actually quicksand?" I asked.

"If you want to go first and get pulled under then I'm taking your birds," replied Brother G.

Ahh, brotherly love. Nothing quite like it.

We found a small path (by "small" I mean roughly the width of my thigh) down towards the river and made it to the edge. We carefully slid into the knee-deep water and looked down river where we saw a flock of ducks sitting. With weapons at the ready, we waited for the signal from the far end. And waited. And waited some more.

WHOOSH!

The flock took off and headed north which was away from us. Brother G and I looked at one another and we both shrugged. We stood there in the water for another minute before I heard dad shouting my name.

"Guess it's time to leave," I said.

We helped one another up into the ravine and back towards the truck where dad and Guide-Me-Yonder were waiting.

"Let's get back and snag some breakfast, what do you say?" asked my dad.

"Sounds like a plan," I replied.

We hopped into the truck and again were slammed into the windows as Guide-Me-Yonder debated whether the truck could actually take the Motorcross track. Happily he only made it up one hill before opting to forgo the rest. Unhappily, that meant a straight shot downhill with Guide-Me-Yonder shouting "YEEEEHAAAAWWWWW!!!" at the top of his lungs and refused to hit the brakes.

My shorts were not amused.

Eventually, we made it back to the hacienda in one piece and unloaded our gear. Walking into the building we smelled food, but couldn't peg what exactly it was.

"Welcome back, senors," said the helpful waitress in a thick Mexican accent. "Today the chef has prepared some grilled ahi tuna along with an assortment of greens and cabbage for your lunch."

We looked at each other.

"Wasn't there a place called The Skillet back up the highway?" I asked.

"You know," replied my dad as he pointed at me, "I seem to recall just such a place. Shall we head that way?"

Brother G and I were already climbing into our trucks by the time dad finished his question. After killing game and showing the world what monumental badassery the Skim family was capable of, we demanded hot food guaranteed to clog every artery in our bodies. Grilled ahi tuna?

Sorry chef, but we're hunters. Hunters don't do grilled ahi tuna.

After lunch, dad and I headed back to Big D while Brother G split off towards Cow Town. It was an excellent way to spend Friday and Saturday morning and I figured I'd get the chance to rest once I walked back through the doors of Casa de Skim. Flying past the Wal-Mart driver still stuck in the southbound traffic was kind of funny, but by this point the traffic jam had turned into an armed stand-off complete with SWAT units so humor was in the eye of the beholder.

On the plus side, a pretty cool event would happen that evening which I was completely unprepared for. Dad mentioned he'd love to do this again so we'll see what happens next season. Here's hoping the flock we scared off doesn't use the interim to plan revenge for their fallen comrades.

Duck Hunt - Part 1

A few weekends ago, my dad, brother (Brother G) and I (Yours Truly) headed south of the metroplex in search of big game. By "big game" I mean "tiny ducks that are crafty buggers" and the weather couldn't have been nicer for the last weekend of the season. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and the temperature was in the mid-60's.

If you know anything about duck hunting, this is the absolute worst weather for it. In an ideal world, it would have been raining, or at least about to, the temperature would have been down in the 20s or 30s, and we'd have been hating life so much that blasting anything out of the sky would have brought instant relief.

Male bonding at its finest, ladies and gents.

Since Brother G was coming from Cow Town he was going to meet dad and Yours Truly at the ranch we were staying at. In the meantime, dad and I braved getting out of Big D alive in south-bound rush hour traffic at 3:30 p.m. on a Friday while the North Dallas Autobahn was under construction. In short, we were so monumentally screwed right from the start it was a wonder we made it through at all.

"Oh don't worry, just hop on the Tollway and you'll be fine," Mother Dearest assured us before we left. "All that construction... surely they wouldn't be doing it during rush hour!"

Ahh, but this is Big D, boys and girls, and performing large-scale construction projects on major thoroughfares at the absolute worst time imaginable is what they specialize in. It also helps that seldom does one see a construction worker actually working. For the most part, things are just blocked off thus diverting traffic into one or two lanes when six would not be enough. Meanwhile, the road crew is off getting a brew.

In short, Big D has its head up its rear end so far that when it opens it's mouth you can talk to the head resting on the tongue.

It took us roughly half an hour to cover the few miles from where we entered to the southern-most toll plaza and by the time we arrived we were thankful the guns were stowed in the back because we were ready to start blasting. When we managed to make it through that nightmare, we crossed over onto I-35E south-bound and that actually flowed for a little bit. Once we crossed over Frozen Trinity and continued south we saw a seconds-old wreck in the north-bound lane.

"Man, what is it about being with you and seeing wrecks?" dad asked me.

"Hey, at least we're not in them," I replied.

WHAM!

Just kidding.

But he was right. Usually whenever it's just the two of us driving somewhere we see a wreck as it happens at which point he whips out his cell and rings 911. It's the oddest thing too, because neither of us has an explanation for it. Sort of like Bigfoot and Roswell, and how three people unrelated to my company are standing outside my office right this second having a very loud conversation for no apparent reason. If they're trying to feel cool by discussing the latest financial market forecasts then they need a) new subject matter, and b) to recognize that financial statements are the last thing on this planet I care about. Well, that and tapioca.

Traffic flowed southbound up to a point just south of the 67 split and there we came to a dead stop... for close to an hour. When we finally were moving again we covered a matter of inches, not feet, and we could not figure out what was going on. Also, it is important to note that while I have a flash temper, it is nothing compared to the short fuse my dad has especially when it comes to ridiculous traffic congestion. He pealed off on the side road and we flew past the stacked up cars and trucks. One Wal-Mart truck driver in particular was leaning out his window waving his fists and shouting. Any normal person would have mistaken his pleasant approach as the Texan way of saying "hello," but an observant fellow like Yours Truly noted the firearm in his hand and chose not to wave back.

Actually, this is the Texan way of saying hello on the freeway, now that I think about it.

We did this for roughly another half hour, too. When we managed to get south of a small town I noticed on the road that the three available lanes funneled down to one and that the line was stacked up for several miles. Fortunately, we found a spot to get back on I-35 that was far enough south that the lanes opened back up. Dad gunned it and we raced the encroaching darkness trying to get to the ranch before sundown. The goal? Put me on the gun range and have me knock out some shooting since the last time I'd fired a gun was when I was 15.

Let's just say it's been a while.

We hit Hillsboro and hung a right then gunned it along some winding two lane road that lasted for-freaking-ever, but at this point I'd resigned myself to never leaving the road again. I figured by this point we may as well go all Mad Max on everyone we saw because weren't getting out of that truck anytime soon. At least it had butt warmers and satellite radio, though listening to Kelly Clarkson with your dad while on a road trip to kill ducks is a new experience in awkwardness that I wouldn't recommend to the faint of heart.

When we made it to the WB Ranch (no affiliation to the studio) we pulled up in front of the very large resort-style main house. I opened the door and fell out of the car since I'd been unable to feel my legs for the last half hour. Dad, of course, walked around like it was nothing and he went to check us in. He came back out a few minutes later and kicked me in the leg.

"Hey, let's get some shooting in while it's still light out. They've got a gun for you to use so let's go."

So I climbed back in the truck and Dad drove us out to the gun range which was about a minute west of the house. By this point, I'd regained enough feeling from the waist down to be able to stand on my own so we got out and Dad tossed me the shotgun. It was a very nice over/under double-barrel shotgun made in Italy, which means it fires cleanly and efficiently and doesn't have much of a kick.

For the record, the last time I'd fired anything comparable I was roughly 14 or 15 and wasn't the strongest lad on the block. As such, the rifles and shotguns I fired back then tended to hurt me far more than they probably should have. It took me a few shots to get the feel of firing a weapon again after so long, but my eyesight and instincts quickly regained their focus. Dad pulled the trap trigger and shot a clay pidgeon up into the air.

BLAM!

Tagged it with the first shot and blew it up nicely. Aww, yeah.

We stood out there for the next 20 minutes while I warmed up to shooting again and my aim was spot-on for the most part. If I wasn't blasting the targets dead-on I was at least clipping them enough to send chunks flying, so I was feeling pretty good about myself. Brother G drove up and we caravaned back to the main house where we met the other guests. Apparently this is a pretty big thing to do for people and this group were going out on a mixed-game hunt the next morning. Translation: Over the course of a day they'd be presented with a variety of animals to blast out of the sky whereas our hunt was more, uh, specialized.

The three of us drove back to the hacienda and unloaded our trucks. We each had our own room and the beds were nice and comfortable. While I wouldn't go so far as to describe them as "spacious" I would say that comfort was foremost in the designer's mind. As was "garish Western theme" but to paint a more accurate picture we must return to the main entry.

Imagine you're standing two feet away from a bison. You look it in the eyes, it stares back at you then snorts, its tail swatting the flies away from its backside. All this time you're also holding your nose with both hands because the thing smells so awful the only thing your brain has a desire for is an immediate and lengthy shower. Now take that thing's head and stick it on a wall. Now put another on the opposite wall. Add roughly a hundred variety of antlers and horns to the general decor be it chandeliers or even tables, then throw some stretched cow hide over most of the furniture and tile floors and call it a day.

Basically it's what happens when someone who used to work as a sales clerk for Western Warehouse designs a room, then throws a gourmet chef in the kitchen because the place wasn't ostentatious enough.

On the flip side, they did have a nice fireplace as well as a good chef who served up some very tasty strip steak. Outside there was a roaring fireplace surrounded by three of the biggest, widest, and deepest leather benches I've ever sat on. Correction - you don't sit on these, you lay back on them. I'm 6'1" and sitting so my back was against the rear of the bench meant my legs were pointed straight out in the air. My dad and Brother G both lit up cigars, Cubans of course, while the three of us talked and enjoyed the night air. We retired shortly thereafter and hit the sack because morning was going to be on us soon enough.

Oh, did it ever.

A Request From the Peanut Gallery

So it's been brought to my attention recently that I need to divulge with greater frequency the goings-on of My Fair Lady and Yours Truly's lives. Rest assured that when such interesting bon mots should surface they will soon appear for your viewing pleasure. Simply commenting that My Fair Lady worked late one night while I sat at home and watched TV or vice versa does not strike me as interesting enough to comment on.

Now, that being said let me assure you that additional stories will crop up from time to time but they must pique my interest enough for me to write about them. For example, anytime I do battle with My Fair Lady's German-engineered vehicle high comedy will result.

Also, it's become obvious after the cruise saga that writing out lengthy stories is far more fun for me and gives you, Dear Constant Reader, plenty of bang for your buck. The downside is whenever I'm writing one of these it tends to take all of my focus and as such the blog posts become less frequent. Apologies all around, but a large post is coming up this week.

The Dangers of Tahoe

What you are about to read is a story told to Yours Truly this morning by the Travelling Man. I have altered the screen names but otherwise this is as it happened, shocking in its immediacy...

Travelling Man: dude, i should tell you about my failed trip to Tahoe last week
Travelling Man: it's a good story
Yours Truly: do share
Yours Truly: /loves story time
Travelling Man: well children, once upon a time, Todd was trying to go skiing in Tahoe
Travelling Man: w/ 3 friends.
Travelling Man: He flew out to Reno 2 Saturdays ago... in the morning
Travelling Man: all of a sudden, a huge dust storm blew into Dallas
Travelling Man: the evil dust storm grounded all the flights... Todd's friends couldn't fly out of Dallas all day
Travelling Man: Todd was stuck in Reno and lost $60 at blackjack
Travelling Man: things were looking down
Travelling Man: The next day, the evil storm was vanquished by the heroic elf of the lower woodlands, and the 2 friends flew to Reno (1 friend bailed
Travelling Man: At that moment, a fell wind blew across Tahoe, and caused a massive winter storm
Travelling Man: The 3 travellers bought chains for the SUV and tried to make it to Tahoe, but were turned away by the vicious whipper winds
Travelling Man: Regrouping at a local Starbucks tavern, the three decided to retreat back to Dallas
Travelling Man: Todd's 2 friends each bought additional $300 plane tickets that evening to Dallas
Travelling Man: Todd couldn't get out until Tuesday
Travelling Man: But fortune was about to smile upon Todd.
Travelling Man: In Reno, Todd played a $40 stake at a blackjack table, and walked away with $120
Travelling Man: Making back the $60 he lost on the first night, Todd left Reno for Dallas with $20 of the Casino's money
Travelling Man: Todd was victorious, but the Casino vowed it would get its revenge
Travelling Man: The End.
Yours Truly: /raises hand to ask a question
Travelling Man: yes
Travelling Man: skinny kid in the front
Yours Truly: What's an enema?
Travelling Man: class dismissed

Nothing like a good story to get the day started right.

30

So I go into the weekend of my thirtieth birthday blissfully unaware of the dangers in store. Upon reflection, I'm far too trusting which I find ironic considering my past stance on believing everyone had their own agenda.

Maybe I'm growing soft in my old age.

The week before, My Fair Lady was laid off by her law firm. Apparently this is common place among both law firms and manufacturing jobs because no one blinked an eye except her. To their credit, her co-workers immediately demanded her resume and started calling every contact in their respective roll-a-dexes to make sure she could pack her office things and take them straight to her next gig. My dad e-mailed me earlier in the week saying he was having a client get together in the bank that coming Saturday night and it'd be a great networking event for My Fair Lady to attend.

So we had a shindig Saturday night and all was right in the world.

Friday I spent the entire day going over documents for a contract at work. Growing up I'd always heard my dad (a banker by trade) complain about losing days of his life when large contracts were under negotiation and I completely understand that now. It actually made me feel like I have a real job now because up to this point I've never reviewed anything with this level of importance.

We all have to grow older sometime, but hell if I'm going to grow up.

Brother G called me at some point in the day and told me the wireless connection at his house in Cow Town was on the fritz and had been for the better part of that week. I love it when people call me for tech support long after the initial point of failure, then are surprised by my reluctance to move quickly in assisting them. He asked me to swing by Saturday morning and since My Fair Lady had a scheduled shopping appointment with her friend it seemed like as good a time as any.

All this time on Friday, meanwhile, My Fair Lady was at home supervising the installation of brand new carpet in Casa de Skim. When Yours Truly arrived home the installers were trying like mad to finish that night. The work was excellent but since we have a winding staircase with individual stairs each requiring new carpet they asked to come back in the morning and finish then. My Fair Lady and I worked out the time frame and figured she could wait for them while I went to get an oil change prior to trekking over to Cow Town.

Oh, and everything that was upstairs earlier in the week had been moved downstairs to our living room to make way for the new carpet. In short, we presently have about 15 feet of space in which we can actually move around on the first floor. But the carpet looks great, no doubt about that.

The sun rose on Saturday to find us still blissfully happy with our new carpet. Apparently, this is what makes people my age happy and I should just get used to it. I plan to put a stipulation in my will that states as follows:

"Should the subject of said will ever use the phrase, 'Why yes, shuffleboard sounds like a fine idea' then said subject will be subject to immediate termination with any and all extreme prejudice within the surrounding environment. Details related to subsequent funeral arrangements are covered in Section F. Paragraph 2.'"

After my car was detailed I headed over to Cow Town to find Brother G studying away. He apologized once again for not being able to make the planned dinner on Monday night celebrating my birthday on account of the four tests he would stare down that week. As such, he really needed to get on the internets something fierce, as did his roommates. He told me then how Charter had been out earlier in the week for roughly four hours but weren't able to bring their connection back up.

It took me all of five minutes to fix it and here's how:

Step 1. Unplug the small black power chord from both the router and the cable modem. Let both sit idle for two minutes.

Step 2. Plug the modem back in. Let sit idle for one minute.

Step 3. Plug the router back in. Let sit idle for one minute.

Step 4. Test your computer's internet connection. In the case of Brother G, his machine was running slow and took a full minute for Google to come up.

Forty-plus minutes in the car for this and Charter couldn't figure that out inside of four hours? Oy.

Since he had to hit the library for the rest of the day, Brother G and I headed out and hit Potbelly's for lunch. I hadn't been since My Fair Lady has a close encounter with some poorly cooked chicken salad there, but the combination of their meatball sub with one of their chocolate shakes was too good to pass up while I was off on my own. He then drove to the library while I returned to Big D to find My Fair Lady still out shopping. I made a beeline for the couch and took full advantage of my Saturday afternoon to powerlevel my characters in Final Fantasy XII.

A few hours later, My Fair Lady returned home with purchases in hand and said it was time to get ready for the party. We changed then headed out and pulled into the parking lot right around 7:30. Dad's decorating team must have worked overtime when he first hired them because the lobby of this branch is extremely nice. Stained wood floors, plenty of open offices and a roaring fireplace in a brick hearth make things very warm and equally inviting.

Of course it is. They want your money, and if you feel nice and comfortable then you're more apt to willingly fork it over.

Above the main floor is a conference room where the board of directors meets on a weekly basis. There is, of course, a full bar as well so the directors are well taken care of. This is also where my dad hosts as many bank and friend-related functions as he can. We walked up the steep stairs and towards the room. After we rounded the corner and saw the room itself, I had enough time to wonder why two of my friends and three of my co-workers were there before I heard it:

SURPRISE!!!!

I looked above me and hanging in the doorway were red 30's strung up like garland. I quickly scanned the room and saw my co-workers, parents, softball team, and friends all toasting me and I couldn't help but realize just how shifty My Fair Lady and everyone else in my world is.

We made the rounds and shook many hands and as we did so I noticed the decor. It seemed that My Fair Lady had convinced my mother that since I was 30 it would be a good time to bring out all the old toys I used to play with and set them up for the world to see. If there's a personal hell that all of us envision, I was somehow managing to live it right then and there.

"Hey Mitch!," my boss from work shouted at me from across the room. "How about you give us a demonstration of how these things work?"

Personal Hell, live and in technicolor.

My parents had Mexican food catered in and it was fantastic. What made things even funnier was the famous queso dip was snatched up by everyone but Yours Truly. I had two whole chips the entire evening, but it was fine by me. There were plenty of fajitas available and that's what drew my focus as did my birthday cake. Fortunately there were not thirty candles on it for which my lungs were grateful. There were, however, plenty of cameras in attendance so expect pictures to start appearing across the internet at some point this week.

But probably the best part of the evening was when my old friend Haus Frau walked in. Of all the people I never expected to see there, she was right up at the top. She and I go back to our freshman year of college and were tight friends right from the start. That would be 12 years now, for the mathletes among the readership. Apparently My Fair Lady phoned her up to ask if she could come down for this and it happened to be on the one weekend in a series of months when she had nothing going on. As happy as I was that my friends and family (save for Brother G and Diva) were all present, my excitement ramped up to positive giddiness when she showed up.

After making the rounds and speaking with everyone at least thrice, I had to excuse myself to use the facilities downstairs. That's when I noticed how much cooler it was downstairs than up. So when I walked back to the party I kept a conscious mental note of the temperature difference, only to wonder how I never noticed we were partying in a blast furnace.

My mother was busy fanning herself and pounded on the thermostat alternatively screaming at and pleading with it to drop at least a degree. Preferably ten, but even a little would have helped, according to her. Personally, I didn't think it was that bad especially since I kept drinking water from the cold fridge behind the bar.

Around this point is when everyone decided to start breaking up, though not on account of the heat which dad swore to take care of first thing Tuesday morning. Everyone started migrating downstairs and out into the night towards parts unknown. My parents, My Fair Lady, and Yours Truly cleaned up then we also left the premises and returned home where we promptly crashed.

It falls now to thank all who came to the party so please bear with me. I've been asked before where I come up with the nicknames I use for everyone, but that would be telling. Suffice to say that if there is an actual name used below then don't take it personally. I just haven't come up with an appropriate handle for you yet. That doesn't mean I won't someday, it just means that day is not today. So thank you again to My Fair Lady and my parents, to Crayola and The Librarian, Fireball, Travelling Man, Haus Frau, Dutchess, Aggie Babe and Hollywood, El Jefe and Belle, Pam, D&G, The Cowboy, JT & Marilu, The Team, 20/20 and Leia.

Now I get to spend the next thirty years keeping one eye on My Shifty Lady at all times. Happy birthday to me, and here's to a long road ahead.

I've Gone Nintendo.... Again

For the record, I haven't owned a Nintendo console outside of a GameBoy Advance since the Super Nintendo Entertainment System waaaaaay back in the day. By "in the day" I mean before the interweb took over our lives like the nefarious octopus it is.

So it was a shocker to me when I started falling for the Wii at last year's E3. As noted previously, I was not a fan of the name nor am I one now especially when the code phrase "Revolution" was both cool and appropriate at the same time.

But I am no longer sitting on the sidelines scorning from afar, because I braved Target this past Sunday and now a Wii sits in my living room. So My Fair Lady and I have played Wii Sports repeatedly, and since she had a bad day on Monday she immediately came home and threw on Wii Boxing then proceeded to clobber three opponents as though she were Rocky in a pantsuit.

Once I threw the towel over her head and escorted her from the ring she sat down exhausted from her battles. Fortunately, her eyes weren't too swollen so no cutting was involved. I am thinking about getting her a mouthpiece especially if she spends any more time with Wii Sports this coming weekend.

But it appears that in the last two weeks I've somehow managed to explode my backlog beyond all comprehension and it's thanks to Nintendo. I picked up the DS Lite two weeks ago and have mostly been playing with it. On the docket for that I have Castlevania: Portait of Ruin, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Trauma Center, Brain Age, and Hotel Dusk: Room 251. That's all in the last week, by the way. Add to that anything else I get for the Wii and said backlog has shot through the roof. Now couple all that with yet more role playing games for my PS2, like Final Fantasy XII, which take hours upon hours to complete and I'm set for the year at least.

On the plus side, I've decided to retire my Xbox though it will still be available for the LEGO Star Wars saga. Since Microsoft has abandoned the console completely in favor of the 360 I may as well abandon it too. Heck, out of my stack of games for it I only play a small handful regularly and those are finally starting to appear on the backwards compatible list so when I upgrade to a 360 later this year I can continue to play those. Since this is the year when the "required Five" will be complete I can justify an upgrade.

So how does the "required Five" apply to the Wii since there aren't five must-own games out for it yet? Simple: I knew I'd get one eventually but My Fair Lady wanted one now. I think this is the great lesson of the current generation of gaming consoles - games have been far too complicated for far too long. Compare the Xbox controller to the motion sensor remote of the Wii and you'll realize there is no comparison to make.

One is for gamers, the other is for everyone else. Also, one is intuitive only to people who have played games for the past 20 years, whereas the other is intuitive to anyone who touches it. Now you tell me which one is more appealing to the mass market.

Nintendo will win this generation hands down if they somehow manage to keep the games flowing. Every developer in the world experienced a "holy crap!" moment when the Wii started selling like gangbusters and all of them are working on games for it. We can expect the market to be flooded with Wii games in roughly 18 months and from that point on there will be no comparison. Already the Wii is outselling the PS3 at a 4-to-1 ratio and that lead might even grow to 6-to-1 should the right games hit.

Imagine if LucasArts cranks out a Star Wars game where players can whip out a lightsaber and sword fight with dark Jedi. There isn't a person born since 1977 that wouldn't want to at least try it. The best part though is we know it's coming. It's too obvious a license to print money for everyone involved.

Hence, I've gone Nintendo again after all this time because the Big N finally got its mojo back in a big, big way.

Now Playing: Adv. of Brisco County, Jr.

This show brings up some pleasant memories from long ago. This aired back in 1993 while I was in high school, and it was on Friday nights before a little-watch sci-fi show called The X-Files. My sister and I watched this double-bill every week together and according to the Nielsen ratings it seemed, and felt, like we were the only two watching it. We kinda preferred it that way because while we were and remain close we didn't have a whole lot in common to talk about. I was a guy in high school and she was a girl in middle school. Simple human nature meant we'd have as much in common as an astronaut and OJ Simpson.

But we had Brisco County, Jr. each and every week and it was a fun time to be a Bruce Campbell fan.

At the time, I was new to the Cult of Bruce. I'd recently picked up Army of Darkness and heralded it for the genius that it was. That flick got me to go pick up the first Evil Dead which I quickly followed with the sequel. By this point I was hooked so when FOX announced they were doing a Western series starring him it seemed too good to be true. I have no idea how this managed to get a full 27 episode order from FOX because this is the kind of quirky and original show they tend to axe mid-way through the third episode.

It all starts when Brisco's father, legendary lawman Brisco County Sr. played briefly by R. Lee Ermy, is gunned down during a prison break by the evil John Bly (Billy Drago in full creepy mode) and his gang. So it falls to Brisco County, Jr., Harvard educated lawyer and professional bounty hunter, to track down the members of the Bly gang. He's aided by his horse Comet, who Brisco talks to more frequently than Wilbur did to Mr. Ed, and associate Socrates Poole nervously portrayed by Christian Clemson. Along the way he trades barbs and eventually becomes partners with the awesome Lord Bowler, brilliantly played by Julius Carry, and tempted by the luscious Dixie Cousins who caused me to fall head over heels in lust with actress Kelly Rutherford as she tries to out Mae West the infamous actress herself.

Oh, and since the story is set in 1893, there are constant references to "The Coming Thing" which is, essentially, the future. Brisco is an optimist by nature so he's always cheerful when greeted by something new that is an obvious forerunner to things we have today. Assisting him with these gadgets is Professor Wickwire, hilariously played by none other than the great John Astin. Wickwire is equally optimistic about the advances technology will make in the coming century and the combined glee both he and Brisco express over marvels is a lot of fun to watch.

Overall, the show remains entertaining after all this time, no doubt in part to the stellar casting of the main characters and the way the secondary characters are so hilariously fleshed out. I'm thinking about Pete Cutter in particular, with Aaron Viva a close second. Pete shows up in the first episode and recurrs throughout the season as a sort of constant nemesis for Brisco and he's always hilarious. Witness this brilliant exchange from the pilot once Brisco (masquerading as outlaw Kansas Wiley Stafford at the time) snatches Pete's gun away from him:

Scratchy: "Oh my God! He stole Pete's Piece!"

Pete: "You're... touching mah piece..."

Brisco: "It's alright, forget about it." He hands Pete back his piece.

Pete: "Forget about it? You mean... rip it from my memory like a picture from a book? Picture of a small boy, kinda shy, with big ears who only wanted to be liked. And the laughing faces of all his classmates, mocking him, just 'cause he forgot to wear his pants to school! Is that what you mean?"

Brisco: "Uh, you lost me Pete."

Scratchy: "You touched Pete's Piece. That's not something you wanna do."

Pete: "It's done. I'm calling you out, Kansas!"

I died laughing when I heard this exchange again recently and Pete's bizarre mindset just gets funnier as the season goes on. Not to mention his obsession with using painted rocks to derail his quarry is always good for a laugh.

As for Aaron Viva... well, the less said about him the better. While it's obvious who he's based on, he's played so perfectly that any hint on what to expect would ruin most of the fun. I spent most of the episode where he shows up holding my sides from laughing and it's the performance that sells it. He turns up again towards the end and is again painfully funny. I wish the series was renewed because it would have been so great seeing the further adventures of these people.

But the good news is the show doesn't truly end on a cliffhanger. Sure there are some unresolved issues, but the Bly gang is taken care of by episode 20 and no clear threat for the coming years has emerged by the final episode. Brisco and Bowler ride off into the sunset and I can accept that. But this is a great, fun show to check out and it is well worth your time.

I'm Actually Excited About Gaming Again

Everyone who the tag "gamer" applies to knows the feeling. The sense that no matter what you play you just do not care. Regardless of which console you switch to or whether you pull out the old stand-by's (break glass only in case of emergency) nothing seems to capture your imagination. The chances of this frequently happening are magnified ten-fold if you work for a video game site because you'll find yourself assaulted by one poor title after another and you have to play them.

For examples, no one in their right mind would voluntarily play through Eragon but I have, start to finish. Play enough of these back to back and you start to lose hope not only in your ability to go forward in your life, but in humanity as a whole.

But then you come across something that rekindles that imaginative spark which you thought had long since been snuffed out. In my case, one thing ignited it and the other threw a gallon of gasoline on it.

The first was cranking up Final Fantasy XII. I've been an addict of this series since the NES days but the last one I played all the way through was part nine. I managed to get about three quarters of the way through part ten before I grew so bored I physically couldn't go on. I skipped part eleven altogether since it's an MMO and those have no appeal to me. But I fired up FFXII and all of a sudden I was enraptured.

The story is far more appealing than the majority of the others in the series. Far too frequently, Japanese-based RPG's overthink their story line which doesn't add layers so much as bulk. Go back to Final Fantasy VII or VIII and see too shining examples of how a game can buckle under the weight of too much self-importance. The story for the new game cuts through all that by taking a very basic concept (two nations at war with each other, and people caught in the middle try to figure a way out) and building their characters around it instead of expanding the story so it changes with each new revelation. You never knew what was happening in some of the others because the endgame was never in sight, sometimes not even at the very end. Combine that with an excellent new combat system that keeps the battles in-game and very rarely is the immersion stripped away.

The second thing, and that which ignited my gaming passion into a full-fledged bonfire, was buying a DS Lite. Courtesy of a friend up in Manitoba, Canada, I received a black onyx DS Lite the other day and when I'm not playing FFXII I'm playing on Nintendo's genius handheld. Crayola Smoker lent me two Mario games I have no interest in and a Metroid-based game that I tried and failed to like even remotely. But he also lent me the brilliant Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and that clicked with both Yours Truly and My Fair Lady in such spectacular fashion that a blog post devoted to just that is forthcoming. I've also picked up Castlvania: Portrait of Ruin and falled in love with how it shows off the map on one screen while I play on the other. It's also cool how you have the option to draw your own family crest at the beginning courtesy of the stylis pad.

I also picked up Brain Age and Hotel Dusk: Room 251 today. To be clear, I haven't gone on an all-out buying spree for anything in the better part of two years. This is a strangely familiar sensation for me, but I'm so out of practice that it feels odd, not unlike going on vacation for two weeks then coming home and trying to drive to the store. You have to remind yourself, however briefly, what exactly you should be doing and how you should be doing it.

I'm frankly stunned that a handheld of all things could re-inspire me but it has. Of course, having My Fair Lady shout "OBJECTION!" over my shoulder while we played Phoenix Wright may have something to do with that. But for now, consider me stunned.

Of all the things I could have missed...

... in my post regarding My Fair Lady playing a Wii...

She read the column tonight and pointed out how I never said anything about her playing two games at once, one on the Wii and the other on the DS. I looked through the column and sat there dumbstruck that I'd completly breezed right past that.

It was, after all, the point of the column itself that My Fair Lady was willingly, gleefully in fact, playing two videos games on two separate systems at once as I sat there in utter shock. Yet it completely escaped my memory when I actually wrote the column.

I could be a smartass and say it actually didn't flow well with what I was saying and then I could look all snobby and highfalutin like some other writers and that a small digression took away from the larger narrative.

But then I'd be completely lying about it and I feel bad enough as it is. Obviously I'm completely losing my marbles as I approach the salad years and I should come to accept that. When I start reposting prior stories and claim them as new it is time to put me out to pasture, boys and girls.

At this rate, that should be about this time next year.

Now Playing: The Shield Season 4

One thing I learned while watching the lastest season of The Shield is not to watch another TV show at the same time and expect to get anything done in the interim. While watching this and The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. I soon realized I wasn't going to have time to do any blogging until they were finished but now that they are I'm switching over to movies for a while. Those are far easier to burn through in one sitting and review so the TV shows will have to wait for a bit.

This season of The Shield finds Vic Mackey and his crew scattered to the four winds after the falling out at the end of year three. Only Ronnie is still working with Mackey and they're focused on monitoring the body shop sting they set up last year. In the meantime, Aceveda moves onward and upward into his position of city councilman and new captain Monica Rowling (Glenn Close) takes charge of the Barn. Is she going to go after Mackey or will she let him do his thing? Those questions and more take center stage as Rowlings quickly institutes a seizure program where the cops can and will take all property bought with drug money and that includes homes, cars, stereos, etc. All proceeds will go to the city, the police, and back into the community.

Naturally, this doesn't sit well with the local kingpin Antone Mitchell (a frightening Anthony Anderson).

While the show doesn't find its footing until roughly episodes five or six, The Shield remains formidable television. Any show where Anthony Anderson comes off as the most evil and dominating badass that show has ever seen is doing something right. Mitchell is brutal, but he's a thinker. He's highly intelligent and determined to rule the streets one way or the other. I think why the show doesn't start off as fascinating as it quickly becomes is on account of Mitchell being relegated to the side lines for the first few episodes. You sense a threat from him, but nothing we haven't seen already until he performs an act that nets him two cops under his thumb. From that point forward, Mitchell is a force to be reckoned with and Anderson is terrific. Frankly, I never knew he had this level of gravitas in him and I hope for bigger and better things happen to him.

Close is equally strong as the hard headed Rowling who is determined to do the right thing come hell or high water. She knows going in that the situation in the Barn is sticky and that Mackey is a particular loose canon, but she believes what she's doing is for the good of the community first and foremost.

That's a far cry from Aceveda who's as politically and selfishly motivated as ever. Benito Martinez gets saddled with the most ridiculous storyline of the season, a rank previously held by the Julian character, as he is still badly coping with his rape from last year. The conclusion to it is good for two reasons: 1) It's satisfying to hear what happens finally to the rapist in question, 2) It finally brings closure to the dumbest subplot this side of Julian's "gay-not gay" saga from previous years.

I also liked how Rowling gets better results than Aceveda ever did because she's thinking like a cop all the time instead of a politician most of the time and a cop some of the time. By the end of the season, things are starting to return to where they were when the show started and whether that's a good thing or a bad thing depends on how they handle it in season five. I'm hoping for bigger and better things when that season finally hits disc in a few months, but The Shield season four is a heck of a good ride if you can get past the bumps in the first four episodes.

Also, The Shield can be gut-bustingly hilarious at times, none moreso than this season, and the writers need to bring the funny more frequently.

Friend's B-Day Induces Shock. Film at 11!

This past Saturday saw a funny thing happen on the way to the asylum. My Fair Lady and I went over to Crayola Smoker's house to celebrate his 30th. Already there were Fireball and The Librarian so it was a full house of fun, especially when Crayola whipped out his Wii and told us to have at it.

No matter how many times I write a variation on "ha ha, I said Wii!" it will never get old. It's the gift that keeps on giving. Thank you, Nintendo.

This was the first time My Fair Lady had actually touched a Wii and up to this point she'd been drooling over the chance to have one in the house. I'd only played the demos at E3 which did not include anything involving Mii's or Wii Sports so my prior involvment was somewhat limited. The first thing Crayola told me to check out was his collection of Mii's.

"Dude, you'll love just how creative some of them are," he slyly hinted.

I picked up the Wii-mote and started cycling through the various Mii's and I had to hand it to Nintendo. The Mii creation all by itself is an ingenius mini-game that stretches players' imaginations. Crayola had Admiral Ackbar and Vitto Corleone among his posse and how he managed to nail them with such accuracy is a testament to just how awesome the tools are.

I went through the process of crafting mine and naturally took in the opinions of all involved.

"What do you think?" I asked when I was semi-finished.

"Not bad, but lower basically everything," said Crayola. "One thing I think Nintendo did was set everything too high by default. You lower all the features right from the start and your Mii will look a lot better."

Upon reflection, the man had a point. I motioned enough with my hand to droop my Mii's face a bit and settled my features. When everyone was satisfied with how my Mii appeared it was time for My Fair Lady to take a spin.

She took the Wii-mote from me and looked at the TV with a "what now?" expression on her face. It wasn't that she was mystified by it, per se, but I could see the wheels turning as she worked to comprehend how something so small with so few buttons could perform just like the Xbox controller she'd used with me on the LEGO Star Wars series. She started waving it around towards the TV and just stared for a second.

"Where's the, you know, the thingie?" she asked. "Oh wait! Is that hand thing me? You know, the one that keeps moving around?"

She figured out which hand was hers on screen when she clicked on the A button and selected the option to craft a Mii. There were four of us playing so three hand icons were transparent on screen at the time My Fair Lady was moving about. She went through the Mii creation process and managed to capture her likeness quite well. As soon as her Mii was finished it was thrown out into the Mii-pasture and she laughed as it stood up and walked around.

Then we were ready for some Wii Sports, the game all Wii's ship with and Nintendo's reigning shining star.

We went through various training stages on Wii Tennis, Wii Bowling, and Wii Golf though regrettably we did not get to the Wii Boxing. Through it all, My Fair Lady steadily improved her Wii-skillz by twirling the Wii-mote through the air.

"Look! I'm getting better! Really I am... ow!"

About then is when she bumped her hand on the sofa in front of her in the middle of a roll during Wii Bowling. That's the caveat about Wii Sports, my friends:

Stand where there is nothing around you and you will lessen the odds of random furniture destruction.

Then Crayola piped in with a suggestion:

"Hey guys, anyone up for Warioware?"

Now, the Warioware games are an odd duck to say the least. Imagine the loudest and most obnoxious anime Japan could possibly conjure then filtered through the prism of 1970's style Saturday morning cartoons drawn by people clearly on ecstasy and you'll be in a good starting point. Warioware refers to the Wii-mote as a "Form Baton" and then instructs you to stand in various poses while it hurls one 10 second mini-game after another at you. For extra points, you play with a group of friends and treat the Wii-mote as a hot potato by tossing it back and forth for each mini-game.

If done right, chaos and laughter will ensue.

The resulting insanity was hilarious. My Fair Lady, Fireball, The Librarian, and Yours Truly tossed the Wii-mote back and forth and between us managed to strike enough silly poses that it makes me happy a YouTube employee wasn't there. Since it was a long week followed by a long day, My Fair Lady and Yours Truly had to leave shortly thereafter. We made it home about 20 minutes later and fell asleep roughly 20 seconds after that. But one thing was perfectly clear:

My Fair Lady wants a Wii, and she wants one right now come hell or high water. To date, I've never seen her express interest in anything video game related outside of the Frogger remakes and the LEGO Star Wars series. But this... this is just something else. It's lust, pure and simple.

Basically I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone whenever the Wii comes up in conversation now because nine times out of 10 she's the one starting the conversation and doing most of the talking.

Now Playing: Thank You For Smoking

About 10 minutes into Jason Reitman's brilliant Thank You For Smoking I was gasping for air on account of how hard I was laughing. After seeing this I've become even more disenchanted with the usual bluster of awards talk because none of the Best Actor discussions I've seen have brought in Aaron Eckhart for his potrayal of Nick Naylor. Per the norm, at least several brilliant performances go ignored by the Academy and I could see the Oscars completely passing Eckhart over and that is a huge mistake.

Simply put, the man is brilliant as Naylor, a genuine snake who is the point man for all PR the tobacco industry puts out. Naylor is front and center and as he points out about 30 seconds into the film, when you think of all the people and industries that hate and actively seek the destruction of the tobacco industry, they all have to go through him first. What makes him so delicious a character is the way nothing sticks to him in the slightest. He's so slick he makes oil seem dry, and Eckhart is hilarious as he navigates Naylor through one awful situation after another.

Oddly enough, some of his best scenes are with a kid actor who up to now has been nothing but a blank for me. Cameron Bright was the creepy empty-space kid in Birth and X-Men 3 so him showing not only life but actual pleasure at being a kid was sort of weird for me as a viewer. His scenes with his dad Nick are terrific because, much to his mother's chagrin, he is his father's son and seeing him learn from the master is pure comedy gold.

On a related note, Katie Holmes again shows a the complete lack of gravitas that caused her to be the lone sore spot in Batman Begins. She plays a reporter who hooks up with Nick for the sake of a story and while I'll grant she delivers on the knock-out line of the film (regarding Nick and his segment on tv) she never comes off as the hard-boiled investigator her character so clearly is meant to be. Maybe it's for the best that Looney Tom and his cult have her locked away in a dungeon somewhere. At least she won't screw up the The Dark Knight when it hits next year.

I could go on and on about the performances with special accolades to William H. Macy as an activist senator and Maria Bello and David Koechner as Nick's compatriots in arms. But for me the buck stops with the great J.K. Simmons who simply demolishes everyone and everything in his path to get to the funny. Just as he does in the Spider-Man films, Simmons fires words out of his mouth so fast you'd think they'd come from a machine gun. Everything the man says in Thank You For Smoking had me in hysterics and for that reason alone I'd recommend the film.

But there is so much more going on here that this demands repeat viewing. What elevates the film considerably is how it doesn't obviously take sides in the issue, as surprising as that may sound. Oh sure, you get a lot of positives and negatives on both sides of the tobacco issue pretty much start to finish and by no means does the industry come out clean. But in the end the film tries to hammer home one fact above all and that is this is a free country and we should enjoy those freedoms to our hearts' content.

Try Thank You For Smoking and I can guarantee that you'll enjoy it.

Ice, Ice, Baby '07 Ed.

So the other day a few storms blew threw north Texas and brought with them a 30+ degree drop in temperatures across the state. The meteorologists were jockeying for position on top of the pile to claim that it was the worst disaster to hit the metroplex in forever. If there was ever any doubt that the media at large thrives on bad news (the more horrific the better) then please bear witness to the way these witless wonders react when a rogue flurry hits their collective windshield.

My Fair Lady and I went to another showing of the particular house we have our eyes on Saturday afternoon during a slight pause in the cold rain. When we returned we spent some time packing our place up in anticipation of selling it within the next few months. After that we took a nap and when I woke up I went downstairs and flipped over to Channel 8 news. The first thing I did was laugh at the cute news chick who was dressed as a matador. The second thing I did was laugh harder at the proclamation that the weather guys had been there since 4 a.m. that morning chronicling the storm systems moving into the area.

Guys, there was a lot of cold rain outside but not any ice as far as I could see. Of course, the section of Dallas I live in may as well be a black hole as far as Mother Nature is concerned. Very rarely does a storm system hit the city and not go completely around us so my objectivity is somewhat tempered by this fact. North and south of us was apparently covered in a sheet of ice yet we were left out of it. What little ice we saw was mainly on my car the next morning which gave me a nice workout as I tried to get it all off.

Of course, My Fair Lady gets to her office downtown and four other people are there. The firm she works for is, shall we say, a little larger than that so when she called me I had to laugh at her expense.

"You'll never guess who's here today," she said.

"Uh, the Pope."

"No, His Holiness apparently has the day off along with all the partners and the support staff. Me, Other Guy, and Secretary #45 are the only ones here. What do you think I should do?"

"Leave." I was really into this conversation right from the start.

"I can't just go home early, even though I should."

"What are you talking about? It's not like anyone is going to stop you. If the security guards have taken the day off too then there's no one left to stop you. Go out to your car and go home."

"I'm thinking about it. But what about you?"

"Well, by this point everyone's made it in so I'm stuck. But you go have fun!"

Just to clarify, by no means was I trying to be a martyr. Everyone who works in my office had arrived by this point (late morning around lunch time) so it would have been physically impossible for me to split without being noticed. My Fair Lady figured that she may as well stay and knock out some contract work she had on her plate.

In the meantime, I fired off some e-mails and burned through the first disc of "Samurai Jack Season 3" which is exactly what I would have done were I at the house.

Was I working from home or relaxing from work?

You decide.

In the meantime, the ice burned off by noon and the weather forecasters were all in shock over how narrowly we averted disaster. Guys, by noon on Sunday, THE DAY OF THE STORM, your estimates of 3/4 to 1 full inch of ice had been scaled back to barely a quarter inch of ice and even that was just a possible. I get that this is Texas where shouting "flurries" has the same impact as screaming "FIRE!" in a crowded theater, but you people need to lighten up a bit.

If for no other reason, when disaster does strike in the future I won't be so focused on whether or not the news chick's co-anchor is going to step off camera then return dressed as Zorro.

Olay!