This photograph, by Thomas James Salsman, accompanied a story I wrote on Chris Ward, a local comic book writer. Not really "accompanied," more like "one-upped." It really is quite cool. The comic book seems pretty cool too and it occurs to me that the comic is a medium I should hip the kids too.

If I had purchased tickets for Rod Blagojevich Superstar, I would have been quite miffed at his appearance at last evening’s performance. For, you see, I wouldn’t have been attending to laugh with the disgraced ex-governor, but at him. Letting him play along with the joke makes it seem as if it’s all just a light-hearted ribbing instead of a public belittling of one of the most corrupt politicians and ridiculous people that history has produced.

I can’t believe the Jose Feliciano post didn’t generate more discussion. "Light my fire, light my fire, light my fire."

Rachel Getting Married was an oddly compelling movie. I’d watch it again. And as a pure eye candy, I’ve never been a fan of Ann Hathaway, but I must say that the heroin-chic look works for her. She can act too.

I may or may not have gotten hit on by a woman at the Lincoln Library used book sale on Saturday. Evidence against is that I had all four kids with me, I hadn’t yet showered, and the fact that I never really got hit on much when I was single, childless and presentable. Okay, I guess I didn’t.

I haven’t seen the remake of The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, but I did watch most of the original this evening and absent Walter Mattau, it can’t possibly be as good. Walt is seriously funny.

Well, that’s it. Not much, but nobody reads blogs anymore anyway.

For some, it’s scaling a mountain summit; for others it’s kicking heroine. As for me, I conquered one of my life’s goals by completing a Sunday New York Times Crossword Puzzle. I’ve come close many times, even completing it once, only to discover an error. But this time, I was perfect. Granted, it was fairly easy for a Sunday puzzle. There was only one word I’d never heard of (Ypres – a city in Belgium), and the theme was pretty straight-forward. But none of this distracts from my feeling of triumph. Does this make me a nerd?

As Sure as the Moss Grows in Killarney

Enjoy the warm weather while you can. Next Saturday is the St. Pat’s Day parade, an event that annually lures  cold fronts down from Canada and sends temperatures plummeting. We always have temps in the 50s and 60s during the week leading up to the parade, only to have them pulled out from under us by the time we take our place on the 5^th Street curb. So predictable is this phenomena that my dad is making a batch of chilli next Saturday, a dish he only makes in chilly weather.

Lights That Flash in the Evening

The weather outside will be inconsequential after the parade, as Justin Townes Earle (Steve’s boy) and Jason Ringenberg take the stage at the Hoogland as part of the Bedrock 66 concert series. You may be familiar with Ringenberg from his Jason and the Scorchers days. I’m less familiar with Earle, but I’ve been listening to songs on his MySpace page and he does a mandolin-accompanied cover of the Replacement’s “I Can’t Hardly Wait,” of which I highly approve.

Speaking of hot shows at the Hoogland, Sarah Borges and the Broken Singles released their first single and two non-album tracks as an EP on iTunes last week. The album will be released later this month. It’s more indie-rockier than previous cuts. Their supporting tour hasn’t been announced yet, but I’ll post when they get near to thee.

A Plea of Redemption/A Call for Justice

Last week I was rightly taken to task by Yellowdog for being part of a team that purchased mulligans* at a trivia contest. I defended myself by stating, correctly mind you, that it simply isn’t possible to win without them if they are offered. That doesn’t mean I don’t feel dirty about it.

Mulligans, even more than vague or inaccurate questions/answers, are threatening the sport that I love. Organizers simply must find another way of raising additional funds without sullying the sanctity of the contest. I may have to resort to the most radical form of protest against social ill currently available to us. That’s right, I’m starting a Facebook group: Citizens For the Purity of Trivia Nights. Join the fight, won’t you.

Krauthammer

While I remain liberal on many social issues, this is why my fiscality tends to be conservativy.**

I Am So Not Unconflicted Over Jennifer Aniston

I’ve not been a Jennifer Aniston fan. Most of this stems from her association with the show, Friends, which I abhorred for its one-note characters, base sexual innuendo and the gross cliche-ing of the word "so." She also ended up on the wrong side of a tiff with Angelina. I am nothing if not loyal to Angelina.

Yet my Aniston aversion has softened as of late. She appeared in two movies that I really like, Office Space and The Good Girl, and although she wasn’t really the reason I like those movies, she did bring something to her roles.

The other reason I’ve come to admire her more is because she is popping up quite frequently in magazines and on Web sites and, quite frankly, she looks amazing. The problem is, that seems to be the entire point of her celebrity at this point.

I don’t recall accolades for any recent performances, but the press is relentless in telling us how incredible she looks. There’s that, and her courage in the face of being perhaps the most celebrated female cuckold of all time.

It’s pretty amazing how her publicist has been able to keep her on the A list and the covers of supermarket tabloids.

Saturday Chore Watch

Hats off to my kids for picking up twigs and pieces of bark from the yard and putting them in a yard waste bag. Then pouring the bag into the wagon. Then dumping the wagon into the yard. Thanks for the effort.***

*For those not familiar with this practice, teams are allowed to purchase a set number of mulligans (usually ten) which are used in lieu of correct answers to win points on difficult questions. As I posted on Facebook: "they’re bullcrap. Imagine facing fourth and long on your on 25 and being able to buy yourself a first down. Or if your worst free-throw shooter gets fouled in the waning seconds of the game and you can decide to just purchase the winning buckets. Who could be proud of that. It’s a g-d travesty. Pure, unadulterated greed and it’s ruining trivia nights across the country."****

**Our previous administration wasn’t good at this either, so offering up their record as a defense for the current is no defense.

***Victor did go on to put in a good day’s work and earned five points towards the 30 needed for a new DS game.

****You know you’re important when you can quote yourself.

Arresting Development
The Bluths will return in motion picture. Apparently the entire cast of Arrested Development has signed on, save for one unidentified holdout, along with the show’s creators. I know the TV to big screen thing seldom bears fruit, but I just can’t imagine that the collective talent behind one of the greatest sitcoms of all time won’t be able to pull it off. I just hope they don’t take advantage of the less restrictive censorship of the R-rating to have Tobias overcome his never-nudeness.

Real F@*#ing Funny
On the Springfield comedy front, I took in the ADHD Production of Danger Adult Content II at the Hoogland a couple of Fridays past. It was a series of skits by a troupe of local talent that didn’t include Gus Gordon. As a neophyte to the local theatre scene, I didn’t know that was allowed. But they somehow managed and boy did they let the profanities fly.

Mary Young, who sometimes comments here under the fiendishly clever Web moniker “Mary”, starred, along with the inimitable Patrick “the Patrick” Russell, Nancy Cole, Gina DeCroix, Grace Hughes, Connor McNamara, Jeff Nevins, Mac Warren and FM radio’s own, Johnny Molson.

Silly Joel provided musical interludes between skits, with Nick “Mr. Cacciatore” Rogers dropping dope beats behind mad renditions of Billy Joel’s album-oriented-rock songs. The band also groveled mercilessly for donations of beer from audience members, with reported success. I don’t believe that is allowed at a Gus Gordon production.

For me, live entertainment usually means going to hear a band. I’m finally learning to appreciate live theatre and to realize that there’s more going on in Springfield than she just renditions of stage classics.

I’m Saint-Like
This weekend, Patty Redpath and her seven children moved into their Habitat for Humanity home, or as I like to call it, “the house that BFS built.” The dedication was on Sunday and it was a “moving” experience. In all modesty, it is quite satisfying to have pitched in on something that has a huge impact on other people’s lives. I should do it more often.

I Really Screwed Up This Time
They gave me 48 hours, plenty of time to take advantage of the unbelievable deal that I was presented. But I dragged my feet and now it’s too late. So my family will have to suffer all winter long here in the frigid zone and I have no one to blame but myself. Why, oh why didn’t I take the Amish up on their offer?

You may have seen the ad in last Wednesday’s SJ-R. The Amish were offering, free of charge, the popular HEAT SURGE miracle  heater. All I had to do was purchase one of their finely crafted oaken mantels. But no, I put off ordering and the next thing I knew it was Friday and the offer had been rescinded and now my family will freeze. And it’s all my fault.

If by the grace of God the Amish find it in their hearts to extend the offer and run another newspaper advertisement, I swear that I will atone and phone the operators who will be standing by to take my order.

Fun Lunch Tips from the Kitchen at BFS
If you’re like me and getting bored with that salad you have every day for lunch, try tossing some shredded broccoli slaw into the mix. It ups the nutritional count and adds a crunchy texture to the bed of greens. Enjoy!

Hold the Pickles, Hold the Lettuce, Keep the Change, It Won’t Upset Us
McDonald’s has hit upon a novel way to bolster their bottom line during the current economic downturn – shortchanging me.

Twice in recent weeks McD’s staff have taken it upon themselves to round down on the changed owed to me and stick the extra pennies in the company till. A $3.11 breakfast bagel, for which I proffered three and a quarter, netted me only a dime in return. When ordering a single item off of the dollar menu, the clerk first proceeded to tax me on the extra dollar I graciously donated, then decided that I wouldn’t be needing the two cents I had due. Not wishing to hold up the line, I drove forward without protest on both occasions.

The fast-food behemoth estimates that they serve 47 million customers each day. Let’s imagine that they’re skimming the equivalent of two cents American off each order, that’s a cool $940,000 in additional profit, doing nothing more than slightly pissing off their customers under the guise of employee incompetence. Pretty shrewd, Kroc, pretty shrewd.

The iPod Unearths a Gem
Every once in awhile, the random shuffle mode on my iPod will discover a great song that I didn’t know I owned. Last week, it offered up to me Jeff Buckley covering a Leonard Cohen classic widely-known through John Cale’s cover on the Shrek soundtrack. I speak, of course, of Hallelujah. It’s an awesome tune with dark and provocative lyrics, typical of Cohen, who parlayed his prodigious talents, and overcame his average looks, to land Rebecca De Mornay. Buckley, sadly, drowned.

Sometimes, This Blogging Thing Pays Off
Considering all of the joy that this blog spreads, the countless number of people who have been positively impacted by my musings, I’m criminally underpaid for my efforts. But it’s all worth it when a commenter gives me free beer.

Gish, master home-brewer at Red Cobblers Brewery, bestowed upon me a six-pack of sudsy savories last Friday. I’m not particularly good at describing beer by its bouquets, hints of flavor and effervescence. I can tell you that this is no bathtub brew.

My favorite style of beer is pale ale – hoppy and bitter. The problem with some pale ales is that by bottle’s end, they can be a little harsh on the stomach. I’ve always favored Sierra Nevada’s ales because they don’t have this effect. RC’s Artful Pale is similar, and I definitely could drink an entire football game’s worth. Lots of flavor without causing a disturbance.

The Watch Me Pale is similar to the Artful, only less so. Gish says that he cut back on the malt to reduce the calories and alcohol content. For the life of me I can’t figure out why you would want to that, but still, a very nice beverage.

Perhaps my favorite, or at least the most interesting, was the Nameless One. Here I will attempt some brewology and say that this ale has a wine-like acidity that surprises the palate. It’s not really fruity, but it does put me in the mind of Merlot. I really liked this one.

I haven’t tried the Ma & Pa Chapman’s Purely American Bitters yet. Perhaps tonight I’ll catch a bit of MNF and pop it open.

Thanks Gish.

Mexican Breakfast, Anyone?
Gwen Vernon brings the sexy back.

Self Promotion

My column this month is on my undying need not to be on public display. It was inspired by a Heartland story, that ran last Friday, on two people who thrive in the spotlight.

Please Get Out of My Head!

Another columnist wrote recently on one of the unsung benefits of Google and the age of ready information. It’s during those times when you’re struggling to retrieve a piece of information that’s been catalogued in your brain, but you can’t seem to bring up.  So you go to Google, type in some clues and chances are the answer will appear within the first couple of results.

But do you remember what it was like before Google?

Trying to recall a fact, however trivial, could be torturous. Despite there being no pressing need for the information – it could be completely inconsequential – your mind would not let you rest until the answer to your internal query had been found. You’d rack your brain, then rack it some more.  Any attempt to shrug it off or distract yourself would be futile; you’d be forced to slam your book shut or turn the TV off and give your undivided attention to your fruitless pursuit. If you were lucky, you’re brain would bail you out and supply the answer. If not, you were left to anguish.

I remember once, twenty years or so ago, having a single snippet of melody stuck in my head. I was able to keep it at bay for most of the day, but that night, as I awaited sleep, it returned on a continuous loop and the only way to stop it was to discover its origin. I became so desperate that I turned on the clock radio and started scanning the dial, even though I knew the song was no longer in regular rotation. It was hell.  

In case you’re wondering, it turned out to be "Secret Lovers" by …well, why don’t you tell me who sang "Secret Lovers"? No Googling, please.**

Break Me Off a Piece of That Football Cream

In honor of the previous item, please enjoy Andy Bernard in his attempt to remember a candy bar jingle:

Glen Frey. Jive Turkey?

I wasn’t really a fan of the song "Secret Lovers" (by whom?), but back in the days before iPods we spent more time listening to the radio and whatever it had to offer. Which brings me back again to my favorite radio station.

In addition to playing great music you won’t hear anywhere else, WQNA also plays songs that you haven’t heard in years, maybe decades. I’m referring to those songs that recieved airplay in the 70s and 80s, but never made the jump to classic or oldies stations after they fell off the charts. For example, you still hear Naked Eye’s "Always Something There to Remind Me" fairly often on the radio, but when was the last time you heard "When the Lights Go Out"?

As a result, these forgotten oldies remain firmly in the time and place when we first heard them. And even if you didn’t like them then and don’t like them now, they are still mighty powerful at conjuring up some nostalgia.

Just this week I heard Glen Frey’s "Sexy Girl." I was immediately transported back to my freshman year in college. I can remember sitting in my dorm room, hearing it play on the Friday Night Six-Pack, and thinking, "What? Get yo ex-Eagle ass out my radio!"***

Best Two-Word Joke

Pretencious? Moi?

Sound/Texture Ten-Times Worse than Fingernails on a Chalkboard

Sandpaper. Can’t stand the stuff.

A MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant", Perhaps?

How is it that once again I wasn’t nominated as our city’s First Citizen? Okay, maybe I’m not "Best Blogger", given the commercialization of that award (Der verdammte Smoot!), but clearly my work here has had a profound and positive impact on our community that is immeasurable in scope. Maybe that’s the problem, there’s simply no way to quantify how many lives I’ve bettered.

Na-na na-na na-na na-na,  Na-na na-na na-na na-na

This morning, in a totally unscripted moment, all four kids were in bed with me watching YouTube clips of the circa 1960s Batman television show. I believe "campy" is a word often used to describe that show. Perhaps it’s that campiness that’s allowed it to stand the test of time. I should rent the feature film starring West and Ward for the kids.

Whenever I think of a film from my past that the kids might like, my inner Jack Valenti takes over and I immediately give it a mental review for inappropriate material. For instance, a couple of weeks ago I made reference to "Top Secret", a movie that one local blogger called "criminally underrated." As I was replaying it in my head I thought, "you know, the kids might get a kick out of this." And then I got to the scene with the cow suit. Likewise, the automatic pilot scene in "Airplane."  That Abrahams and Zucker and their mildly suggestive sexual content.

Until Next Sunday

Well, that’s it for now. Probably way too much. Thanks to the Hoods for a great party last Saturday. Should I be sorry or not that I left with the kids before Russ karaoked Jimmy Buffet?

 *Performed by the Bangles. Music and lyrics by Christopher Tracey, better known as …?** and ****

**A BFS action figure for the first caller with the correct answer.

***I was struggling for an identity back then.

****For some reason I always thought Jules Shear wrote this. It turns out he wrote "If She Knew What She Wants."

“Let’s see here, what am I, chopped liver?”

It’s a throwaway line, but as delivered by the gawkily cocky Chase, it got a good laugh. I still trot this one out from time to time when the situation dictates.

Speaking of Chase, what happened? He was undeniably great on SNL and in his early movies (Caddy Shack, Fletch, Vacation.) Yet he’s fallen on unfunny times. Some trace his downfall to his ill-fated talk show. I’ve also heard he can be a tad difficult, so maybe he’s not someone that director’s are lining up to work with.

In sports, we’re used to seeing the play of past greats deteriorate before our eyes. You wouldn’t think that age would have that effect on comedic actors. Who knows, maybe Chase gave us  his best and simply doesn’t have anything left.

Even if you don’t care for my Sunday columns that appear in the SJ-R, surely you must look forward to the investigative stories that I uncover. This week, I expose some local residents who – get this – look like celebrities. I confronted them and made them explain themselves in this hard-hitting piece that is sure to set the city reeling.

Oh stewardess. I speak jive.

Even if ya’ duzn’t care fo’ mah’ Sunday columns dat appear in de SJ-R, sho’ manly ya’ gots’ta look fo’ward t’de investigative sto’ies dat ah’ uncover. Ah be baaad… Dis week, ah’ ’spose some local residents who – dig dis – look likes celebrities. ah’ confronted dem and made dem ‘esplain demselves in dis hard-hittin’ piece dat be sho’ man t’set da damn city reelin’.

The proceeding paragraph is a translation of the first paragraph after interpretation by the Dialectizer. Other cartoonish dialects include: Moron, Cockney, Pig Latin, Swedish Chef, Hacker and Elmer Fudd. It’s basically a parlor trick for the Internet age. I’m sure it will piss somebody off.

It’s me britches!

I’m proud to say that I’ve been sporting the same jean size for over ten years now. Sure, the snugness fluctuates, but I haven’t had to go up a size and I’m currently enjoying a period of relative comfort when I button the waistband. The downside to this story is, I appear to be losing height, a precarious predicament for someone who didn’t have a lot to begin with.

The 30-inch inseam used to suit me just fine. However, the last two pairs of jeans I’ve purchased extend well past heel level and have me walking on a swatch of denim. I realize that I’m suffering from changing fashion trends and not osteoporosis.

First drooping waist bands, now descending inseams, soon, style will dictate that we simply drag our trousers behind us.

Preaching to the choir

I didn’t watch the debate and thus I’m not qualified to comment on it. I am confident that the candidate you support was great and thoroughly embarrassed the other guy. It’s always that way with debates.

Goodbye, Neek**

.

Last night we bid adieu to famed A&E editor, Nick "Unpainted Huffhines" Rogers and his wife, the cellist Abby. They’re heading to Indiana.

To mark the occassion, their band, Silly Joel, played a show at the Pizza Machine. SJ is a cover band specializing in, you guessed it,  Billy Joel songs, and, opportunistically, a few by Prince. Before hearing them, I thought they were basically a joke band. They are, but they’re also highly entertaining. I liked the Prince songs better, although Moving Out was a hoot.

It was an enjoyable night out. I got to see a couple of blog gers, some folks from the SJ-R, and a local actor whom I’m in the midst of interviewing for an upcoming story.

They’re finally fighting, those Irish

So far have the Irish fallen that I no longer watch the games live. Practical and health concerns have compelled me to DVR the broadcasts and tune-in should the result be favorable. With four active kids, I just can’t block off four hours on a Saturday afternoon to watch football. And since bad Notre Dame football induces angina, I’m better off not subjecting myself to that which causes me pain.

But I’ll be damned if the boys aren’t 3-1 and coming off their most impressive performance in years. Seeing as most of their playmakers are freshmen and sophomores, perhaps better days lie ahead. For those of you that care.

The Keglers

For a belated birthday party, I took Victor and a couple of his amigos bowling. Since we let Mark tag along, he completed the foursome so I didn’t bowl. However, during a bathroom break, I did avail myself of a couple of turns. It’s worth noting that without the deflector in place, three of my four throws would have ended up in the gutter. I do have a Wii bowling average in the 170s, a much better barometer of one’s athletic ability.

*Official BFS admiration to the first person who can name the song that this title was inspired by.

**A free two-week pass to BFS-Infinity if you can name this character.

"You can’t make everybody happy all of the time"

Without looking up, Victor broke the silence and said, "It’s true, daddy, you can’t make everybody happy."

The sentiment isn’t an original one, but it certainly qualifies as a truism. And even though the notion is tinged with cynicism, it’s a lesson that a young kid like Victor needs to know. That he picked up on it already, on his own, speaks well for his ability to deal with what life has in store for him.

The Pipes, the Pipes
Sometime around high school, I made the decision to change my name. I would no longer be Danny, the boy of Irish wonder, but Dan, the mature up-and-comer. A drummer and quiet by nature, I didn’t like being associated with the wise-cracking bassist of the Partridge Family.

My new name caught on fairly well, although family and certain friends from my St. Al’s days continued to call me Danny. It never bothered me when they did, or do.

I bring this up now because today most of the people who know me, or know of me, know me as Dan. That’s why I was quite surprised to get a Google Alert today (yes, it’s slightly egotistical to set up a Google Alert for your own name, I’m not free from vanity) for Danny Naumovich. It was a ZoomInfo page, of which I know nothing about, except that it linked to some of my blog posts and SJ-R columns, where I’m known exclusively as Dan. Not much of a mystery, as these things go, but still I wonder.

Madonna is a shrewd political observer . . . or a dumb chick from Detroit
When ignorant or manipulative folks on the right attempt to link Barack Obama to Islamic terrorism, there’s no shortage of people on the left at the ready to rightly point out the ridiculousness of the comparison. Will they also be willing to point out the ridiculousness of comparing John McCain to Adolph Hitler and Robert Mugabe, as some marginally talented and freakishly-toned pop stars have attempted to do? Or do you talk yourself into finding a hint of truth in the preposterous when it applies to someone you’re obligated-by-ideology to hate?

Where the Action Is
Although I’m officially, and genuinely, undecided, I did want to venture downtown on Saturday for the big happening. I think it’s still fairly safe to call Obama the presumptive next president, so there’s no doubt that history was being made, but I also wanted to witness the spectacle. The problem was that my wife had a catering gig and whatever I decided to do, four kids would be in tow. This presented certain logistical problems in that they couldn’t have cared less who was in town to announce what.

I had my own concerns about bringing them to such an event. What if something happened, real or perceived, that caused the Secret Service to react? And what if the throng, sensing the danger, began to panic? Could I guarantee the safety of four young charges in stampede-like conditions?

Saturday evening, I was sitting on the porch when my neighbor the cop came home. He said that organizers didn’t plan well for the heat and the multitudes and that he spent the day pulling spent people out of the masses into safety. I’m glad that we decided to go to the soon-to-be-even-better water park instead.

Baseball needs a good editor
I know it will never happen, but if they would only chop a month off both the beginning and end of the schedule, baseball just might be tolerable. As it is, it’s like watching a halfway-decent movie that drags on for over three hours. And it plays everyday from spring through fall. Thank heavens football is about to arrive.

I’ve always felt that while it’s wrong to judge people by their appearance, you can judge them by their taste in movies. So what does my queue say to you about me?

Oh, and would whoever has the last copy of What’s Up, Tiger Lily? please return it. It was making its way up my queue as recently as a couple of weeks ago, but now it’s on the saved list and it’s availability has been classified as unknown.

Jason Bateman looking very much the corporate ditty writer in Juno, also starring Jennifer Gardner and Ellen Page.

For me, good dialogue is one of the most important elements of a film, more important than plot, way more important than car crashes or bomb blasts, although considerably less important than beach scenes of Angelina Jolie. And I’m not one of those people who will criticize colorful or quirky dialogue because “real people don’t talk like that.” If I remember correctly, that was one of Roger Ebert’s quibbles with Raising Arizona, the movie that gave us the best infertility line of all time: “Her insides were a rocky place where my seed could find no purchase.” Sure, real people don’t talk like that, but it’s still damn funny, especially coming out of H. I. McDunnough’s poor-bred mouth.

So while I enjoy eccentric dialogue, I felt that young miss Juno spread it on a little thick and it came across as too cutesy and clever. Almost every line was delivered sarcastically or ironically, and consisted of hipster lingo, offbeat expressions and pop culture references. A little bit of that would have been fine, but it was so pervasive that after awhile it was hard to hear Juno over the sound of screenwriter Diablo Cody’s keyboard while she was riffing out one-liners. As other critics have mentioned, Juno also referenced things that a teenager today would not likely be familiar with, such as that master of madcap, Soupy Sales.

Despite all of this, I still liked the Juno character and I think that Ellen Page is a fine actress. Here are few thoughts on the rest of the cast:

Jason Bateman was okay, and I’m a big fan thanks to his career-reviving work as Michael Bluth, but I didn’t really buy him as a Melvin’s fan who dreamed of indie rock stardom. He, like Michael J. Fox, is just too non-threatening looking to play an arty or dangerous character. I would have cast James Franco or Mark Ruffalo in that role.

Jennifer Garner is always a delight to behold, but she can look slightly Tolkienish when she tucks her hair behind her ears. That said, she beautifully portrayed the pain of unrequited maternity.

J.K. Simmons’ turn as the gruff but supportive father was reminiscent of the dad played by John Ashton in Some Kind of Wonderful (“Ya know what that means? Ya got yer first year’s money, Keith.”) Both roles portray a parent’s ability to think that their kids are complete idiots, yet still do right by them.

Michael Cera was likable, but he didn’t get to mutter any of his trademark asides, the subtlety of which helped to balance out the crudeness in Judd Apatow’s comedies.

That’s about all I have to say. I found Juno enjoyable enough, I gave it three out of five stars on NetFlix, it just didn’t live up to the hype. After reading a few of Diablo Cody’s columns in Entertainment Weekly, it’s become really apparent how her personality overwhelms her writing. Hopefully she can break free of that tendency before she scripts her next movie.

*Adapted from the On the Treadmill series that is currently on hiatus. I’m still watching movies while I exercise, I just haven’t felt compelled to review them.

Against our better judgment, we donated a majority of our winnings back to the cause. Unfortunately, by the time we made that decision most of the other contestants had already exited the building so there was no announcement made to appreciative applause of our grand gesture. Really, what’s the point of doing a good deed if you aren’t lauded for it? I mean, you don’t put a quarter in a Salvation Army kettle if there isn’t a ringer there to say thank you so the other shoppers will overhear. Do you?

I hope that publicizing our generosity here at BFS will in some small way make up for the sting of not taking home our full share of the winnings.

Ask the Commentor
Reviews of the recently released film 21 have reminded me of a question I’ve long had about Vegas gaming ethics. I could seek an answer from an expert, but I thought I turn to you instead.

Why is it against the rules to count cards in Blackjack?

I can understand that if you’re working in collaboration with a confederacy or employing the use of electronic devices that both would be considered un-player-like, but why is it wrong for a single person using nothing more than the memory capacity of their own brain to keep track of the cards? Isn’t that what you do in other forms of poker, look at the cards that are showing and determine the probability that the card you need will be dealt to you? Why should a person with Rainman-like abilities to survey and process vast amounts of information in a short period of time not be allowed to call on that gift at the Blackjack table?

A Diss Is Just a Diss
A bit was made last week about some digs directed at the local blogging community by our weekly independent newspaper. First I want to thank Just Two John for his nice words about BFS in his thoughtful rebuttal piece and everyone else for defending the movement.

I didn’t really find the IT’s piece to be terribly mean spirited. The blogging in their underpants (pajamas) crack isn’t the most original of put-downs, sort of like snickeringly suggesting that a cop might be overly fond of donuts, but, like everyone else, we bloggers are fair game for satire.

The new Cap City feature in the IT, in which the somewhat-offending piece appeared, often contains quick little shots of playful commentary on local issues. Why, it’s almost blog-like in that respect. I’ve found it to be a welcome addition to the paper.

The truth is however, contrary to the opinion of the IT, we local bloggers are more interested in rationally commenting on the important issues of the day than in “typing about (our) unrequited dreams and day-to-day anxiety.” That should be obvious to anyone who pays any attention at all to what we do.

Crisis Averted/Returning to Blog
For months I’ve been anguishing with a problem that had left me questioning the meaning of it all. I simply couldn’t find a pair of socks suitable to my casual business attire. Dress socks are too insubstantial, white athletic socks are gauche and boot socks are too thick which ultimately result in cramped, sweaty feet. And I didn’t want that, I wanted a decent sock that’s comfortable, that will stay on my foot!!! So distraught was I that I couldn’t even blog about it and seriously considered shutting down BFS to live a barefooted and cloistered existence where inadequate stockings could no longer make my life a living hell.

But then Fortuna smiled upon me right there in the sundries section of TJ Maxx. There, I discovered that the good people at Adidas had recognized the great unfulfilled need in the sock market and released a line of athletic-weight stockings in fashionable, earth-tone colors that provide the perfect transition between my khakis and oxfords.

All is well for now, but I sense trouble on the horizon concerning a reoccurring problem I’m having with the Kellogg’s company. Stay tuned.