Hallelujah

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060520/ts_afp/afplifestylebritainfrancesocietyoffbeat_060520070017

Boycott DaVinci

Not because some feel it's an afront to the Catholic church, but rather because it's a terrible book. Any changes that Ron Howard or Akiva Goldsman make would compromise the story -- so, if they can't make any significant changes, why would the movie's quality be much better than the book's?

I will say that the story is an imaginative concept, but that's where the praise begins and ends. The only reason it's a page-turner is that the chapters are so damn short, leaving the reader with mini-cliffhangers every three pages. Dan Brown skipped over writing The DaVinci Code for the big screen and went right to television, inserting several convenient points for commercial breaks.

I won't give anyone a literary alternative because I don't read fiction that much. I prefer to do my reading through images, shown to me at 24 frames per second.

Shout Out

Long time, no blog, I know. At least I'm not Jamie. I was out of town for nine days since my last post, so I'll give myself a pass.

Vegas was awesome and I'm happy to have introduced my ladyfriend to it. We had a great time. Did you know that Tom Jones dances like a fiend? The Tom Jones phenomenon is deserving of its own blog entry.

In addition to seeing TJ, we visited nearly every hotel on the Strip (sorry Tropicana and Monte Carlo), drove a Hummer and a Corvette, saw the sunset from atop the Stratosphere, witnessed a wedding from atop the Stratosphere, saw a cheesy Sopranos-themed dinner show, bowled at a 24-hour bowling alley, ate an astronimically-priced dinner, sat by the pool every day and visited downtown Las Vegas (that's where The Golden Nugget and Binion's are). The capper is that I lost a lot of money the first two days and then made it all back, plus a little more in the last two days.

Get thee to Vegas!

Anyway, the purpose of this post is to send a shout out to Elliott, who is making the journey to LA from Boston -- here's hoping you make it big. If I'm ever out there, I'll be sure to find you camped outside Paramount studios, refusing to leave unless you can take Rick Berman with you.

Idiot Nation

Johnny Damon pretty much played his heart out in the years he was in Boston. He was an outstanding leadoff hitter, especially in the last few years. If he had to decide between crashing into a wall or missing an opportunity to catch a fly ball, the ball would win every time. He hit two home runs in game 7 of the 2004 ALCS to slam the door on the Yankees. So what if he had a weak arm? Can you say that Manny Ramirez is the perfect left fielder?

Doug Mirabelli is an above average backup catcher who has the ability to catch (block) knuckleballs with very little incident.

When did this "idiot nation" become truly idiotic? Even after a World Series win, I'm still sometimes embarrassed to be a Red Sox fan.