Wednesday, December 16, 2009

The Year in Movies

I'd like to put a decent review together for the best movies of '09, but admittedly I want to see many many more movies than I actually have seen. Here are my rankings for the top movies I saw this year, none of which will be in any Oscar category other than special effects probably.

My BEST OF's

DRAMA: District 9
ACTION: Star Trek
COMEDY: The Hangover
HORROR: Drag me to Hell

OVERALL
District 9
Inglorious Basterds
Star Trek
The Hangover
Watchmen
Taken
Drag Me to Hell
The Last House on the Left
I Love You, Man
Paranormal Activity
Angels & Demons
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Saw VI
Adventureland
The International
Duplicity
The Fourth Kind
The Haunting in Connecticut
The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard


Topping the list is District 9, mainly because of originality, story, visuals, and acting. It basically had everything, and why it will not be nominated for any awards, I do not know. Well, I sort of do know. Wait, what's that? He wasn't in any movies this year? Did an angel just get it's wings?

The list of movies I want to see is too long to post, but if any of you have seen some good ones this year let me know.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Fantasy Help

I need help choosing my WR2 and Flex. Options for receiver are Jennings, Steve Smith (NYG), and Meachem. Options for the flex are those 3 plus Brandon Jacobs or Quintin Ganther. Any suggestions? Right now I have Jennings and Jacobs, but experts seem to like Meachem this week.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Just wanted to post this to prove my point...

...about what I said the pirates needs were in the offseason hot stove. Especially for the veteran need for the in back up catcher position, as I stated before when Josh posted on his blog about the available Free Agents this year, and who would be advantageous for the Pirates to sign.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Childhood Toys

Recently I took a trip home to Pittsburgh and found a few of my old Battle Trolls laying around. I was instantly transported 15 years in the past to probably some of the best times of my life - the days of battling with toys. I searched the attic for more stuff, but found out my mom threw mostly everything away after I moved out. It is understandable, but boy do I wish I had them back. She couldn't have known her 27 year old son still wants to play with toys he had when he was 8.

Nowadays, kids barely even play with toys. My brother has a pretty active imagination, but all he does is play Wii, Nintendo DS, and occasionally legos (I tried to get him to play with my old Magic the Gathering cards with me, but he is still a little young to grasp the rules). When I was a kid, sure there was Nintendo, but I spent the majority of my time playing outside or with toys. I had a very active imagination and would usually prefer to play at home by myself than with other kids (yes, I was a loser). I am the same way now, except substitute games with PS3. I especially loved battles, wars, fighting, etc. Stuff like that. Here are some of the best toys I can remember:

Battle Trolls: I mentioned these guys earlier, but I had about 8 of them. I grouped them into "bad guys" and "good guys", as I often did. I also had the shooting net, so that was sort of cool I guess. These sell for about $30 a piece now.

Battle Beasts: These were probably my favorite, and still are. I would love to collect them all, and by collect I don't mean be a pussy and leave them in their packaging. I mean open them, or buy them used, whatever, and actually battle with them. I have to think my battles now would probably be more advanced than they were as a kid - I mean, I have seen a lot of war movies - but the basic structure would remain the same. They are grouped into 3 factions - water, fire, and earth. I had about 15 as a kid but always wished I had more. Unfortunately, I never did any chores as a child so I didn't have much of an allowance. The black panther one was my favorite. These sell for about $10 used, up to $200 for an unopened 2 pack. Damn you Hasbro!

Monster in my Pocket: Other than the fact that this name seems extremely gay now, these guys were a cheap, easy source of fun. I remember building castles at the beach and dividing up the monsters to war on each other. Great times. And because they were just rubber, they were easily cleaned off. They had little numbers on the bottom that indicated strength, so that saved some time. However, I think I probably preferred to determine how strong each one was based on my own preferences. The werewolf was pretty cool.

Trash Bag Bunch: These guys came in dissolving bags, so you never knew which one you were gonna get. This was sort of cool for an 8 year old, but looking back, I'd be pissed off getting the same one over and over. I had about 8 of them probably, and battled with them in the typical way.

Matchbox Cars and Micromachines: I'm sure most kids had these, so they are pretty self-explanatory. I would either race them or have destruction derbies with my friend. We loved bashing them up. I'm sure my mother did not appreciate that though as much as we did. I remember my grand mother had a pretty cool collection of them, so when I went over it was a treat every time.

Legos: I mainly played with legos and building blocks at my grandparents' houses. I liked to build, but looking back it was probably sort of boring. I liked more actiony stuff.

Lincoln Logs: Lincoln logs were GREAT for building fortresses. Probably not what the creators intended, but when you sent a bomb in the resulting blast were pretty impressive (and by that I mean throwing a bouncy ball into a wall and it falling down, whatever I was easy to please). Plus, they were easy to clean up and came in a convenient tin can.

Board Games: These are probably another dying breed with kids and families, but I LOVED playing with my mom and sister, and occasionally my dad when he wasn't off on a bender (just kidding, but he WAS probably watching tv instead). Some of my favorites were Hungry Hungry Hippos, Life, Dizzy Dizzy Dinosaur, Hero Quest (only with my dad - my sister did not have the patience), Break the Ice, Lite Bright (not really a game), Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders, and many more.

Axis & Allies
: This was a risk-like game except World War II themed and much more detailed. I only played war by myself with the pieces though. I especially liked the bomber planes.

Nintendo/Game Boy: I would be remiss if I didn't add these guys. Don't get me wrong, I definitely played a lot of video games. I especially loved the baseball game for Game Boy, and Wario's World. Great times.

I'll stop there since this is getting long.

Since my sister didn't like playing with me because I was too competitive and she didn't like monsters or fighting, I often had to stoop to playing things she enjoyed. Sadly, this included things like racing carousel horses (at least they were racing), having barbie fashion shows, pretty pretty princess, playing with toy cats, etc. Mostly this ended in me doing something to make her cry and getting sent to my room. That happened a lot.

Check out these examples for some of the highlights of the 80s. There are so many others I have either forgot or not included, but to name some other activities I did include having a stuffed animal wrestling league (I had like 40 in it and the royal rumbles were amazing), my friend and I flying paper airplanes off my deck to see which went further (each plane had a sponsor we would color on, and we kept standings), and others. I also collected baseball cards religiously but I will have to save that for another time.

I would love to get a Facebook group together (if it actually mattered, liek Futurama's sort of did) or some sort of petition to Hasbro to bring some of these toys back. Kids today don't understand what it was like to have action figures and monsters. Sure, video games are great, but where is the imagination? I'd rather create a world in my head than play one that was already created for me. But that's just me.

In conclusion, if you see me playing with children's toys, please don't call the police. I am not trying to lure unsuspecting kids, but rather enjoying a part of my childhood that still comes in tangible form.

Lastly, does anyone have suggestions on what cheap toys now might be worth a lot more in 20 years? I'd love to start investing.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Heroes Season 4 - Part 2

CLAIRE
In another typical Claire plot line, she is off to school to be independent and try to lead an ordinary life, but we all know that something will happen and her dad will have to save her, but then she gets mad at him for interfering, and then she figures out he was only doing what was best and they hug and he calls her Claire-bear. Well, this season is no different, so I'll save you the boring details. In short, a girl at school who can turn invisible is trying to kill her, she has an ugly lesbian girl friend, and she gets caught healing. Whatever. The invisible girl is trying to ruin her life so she would turn to Samuel's group, and to piss off Noah because he killed the girls parents or something. Dumb. It left off with Claire pondering joining the circus of heroes since she'll never make it in the real world.

NOAH
He is unemployed, single, and bored after everything that happened in season 3. He is pretty key to this season because he basically is involved somewhat in every story line and sort of ties everything together. The most obvious connection is with protecting Claire, which goes how you would expect. He also mentors Tracy somewhat, and brings the Haitian back. He finds one of Samuel's compasses and begins to piece together what he's up to...I think. I actually sort of forget everything he has been doing, but he has a smokin hot love interest. She was apparently his partner before and she tried to get him to cheat on his wife, but he is a family man blah blah. Well, now that he's single he is partnering back up with her, in more ways than one! Huzzah! Actually, I don't think anything happened yet but they did have Thanksgiving dinner together, so whatever.

MOHINDER
He finally appeared in the last episode that I saw. Since he lost his weird manmade-the fly-like power, he has been back in India with his gf/wife and teaching school. He finds some more of his father's work though and wants to find out more, so he comes to America. He wants to find a boy that was in Coyote Sands that shook the Earth when he was born. Turns out, it was Samuel (convenient timing..).

SAMUEL
I bet you are wondering who this guy is after all the times he has been mentioned so far. Basically, he is the villain of this season, who **SPOILERS** kills his own brother and blames it on Danko to make the heroes unite with him against the humans. He has a "family" of people with powers, some of which include a blade wielding speedster, a hot gypsy lady with tattoos that can read people or something, whatever she is hot and bangs Sylar/Nathan, and an old man with Hiro's powers. In addition, he has amassed enough people to fill a large carnival. He is trying to get everyone with powers, especially our main characters, together so that he can use his power, which Hiro just revealed to him - the ability to..um move the earth. This power intensifies with more heroes around him. His motive is unclear so far, but it pretty much just seems like he is a jerk and wants to be powerful and kill humans. He has at one point or another spoke with every main character I think. His role with each is: He uses Hiro to find the information on his powers, he uses Mohinder to bring that information, he finds Nathan/Sylar after Sylar comes back from the dead and tries to recruit him. Sylar begins to see images from his past such as killing his mother in the House of Mirrors, but refuses to believe it and become it. One day he wakes up as Nathan for no reason and flies away. For some reason, when Peter touches him, he gains Nathan's power and not Sylar's. Whatever...Samuel recruits Tracy so she is joining him, and he tries to get Claire on board, but Noah is skeptical. Hiro is stuck with him for now because Samuel trapped Charlie somewhere in time, but Hiro also showed some members of the family that Samuel killed his own brother, not Danko. I think Samuel has visited Peter as well but I can't remember what happened.

Currently, "Nathan" has regained control of himself and is with Peter. They heal Parkman in the hospital, but Sylar may or may not have gotten back into his own (Nathan's) body when he touched Parkman's hand. That was where it left off pretty much, except Nathan was still acting like himself. It is yet to be seen whether or not it is actually Sylar who is waiting to shape shift back to get some revenge. Nice to know he has a motive though - boy does he hate the Petrelli's and Parkman...I am hoping Nathan turns into Sylar when they least suspect, then he and Peter battle it out to the death (hopefully Sylar wins...)

Oops I forgot Tracy. Whatever, She has been 3 different characters during the series and the last 2 have been equally as stupid and have contributed practically nothing to the plot. I want Nikki back damnit! No sign of Micah either.

It is difficult to summarize 11 episodes compactly, so I'm sure I left some important stuff out. What do you think? Anyone watching still? Don't mention yesterday's episode yet if you are because I haven't watched it yet.

Heroes Season 4 - Part 1

Since we haven't talked about Heroes all year I figured I'd bring it up. My order of Monday shows this fall was, sadly, How I Met Your Mother, Monday Night Football, Dancing with the Stars, video games, risk on my computer, staring at a wall, Heroes. However, I was curious, so since Leigh was sick this last Thanksgiving weekend and we couldn't really do anything outside the house, we watched the entire season online. I must say, this season definitely blows away the last 2 and has actually pulled me in again. I will recap each main character and what is going on, for those who haven't seen it yet. There may be some spoilers so if you are planning on watching it on DVD or something then you may want to skip this part.

SYLAR
By far the most interesting and likable character of the entire series, Sylar definitely does not disappoint this season. In the Season 3 finale Nathan was killed, so in order to preserve his life, Angela Petrelli had his memories planted into Sylar's shape shifted body by Parkman. Therefore, Sylar's mind was erased (or so we thought) and was now stuck as Nathan. However, after some time, Parkman begins to have continually more intense visions of Sylar in his head. Sylar actually gains enough control to start controlling Parkman's body (and bangs his wife, which led to a funny exchange). So, Parkman tells his wife and child to leave and not tell him where they are going so Sylar doesn't know. After they go, Parkman has a beer and Sylar appears to be hurt by it. So Parkman gets the idea to start chugging liquor and eventually Sylar disappears. Unfortunately for him, Sylar was faking and when Parkman was awakened by his wife and a police officer, he was now completely overtaken by Sylar. After some hilarity, Sylar learns what happened after threatening to kill a waitress. He and Parkman are about to go find Nathan and switch back, but Parkman tricks him and ends up getting shot up by the cops, which appears to kill him but we all know he's not dead...they wouldn't kill off Sylar that easily.

PETER
Peter lost his power to hold onto everyone's abilities, and instead can only hold one at a time. At the beginning of the season, he has super speed, so he uses it to save people as a paramedic. A deaf lady named Deanna, who works at the hospital and is actually sort of hot in a weird way, has an ability to see sound as colors. So far nothing has really come of it other than a pseudo love story with Peter when he can see the colors with her and they play an annoying song on the piano. She was depressed and dropped out of med school, but Peter and Hiro convinced her to go back. That's about it with her. Peter is busy saving lives when Hiro appears. I'll get into why in a minute. Hiro is sick so Peter needs to cure him, so Bennet tells him about a boy who can heal. They go to find him but turns out he can also kill, and he touched his parents during an argument and killed them both. Peter and Noah convince the boy to remember how to heal after Peter gets shot up by police, so after Peter is saved he takes the power back to the hospital to save Hiro. When he gets back, Hiro is gone. Nathan then shows up looking all messed up and tells Peter they need to go to a storage container to see something.

NATHAN
As my second favorite character probably, I was glad to see he was back for Season 4. However, how long could they keep it up being that he is dead and is only memories in Sylar's body? He begins to see his memories as out of body things and not reality, then he realizes he has telekinesis so he is really confused. He wants to verify his memories so he goes back to see the mother of an ex-gf who ran away while they were dating. He sees visions and realizes she actually died while they were drunk in the pool, and tells the mother, who is friends with Angela. She pretends to not believe him, but when Nathan confronts Angela she confesses and he is pissed. The mother puts a hit out on him, because apparently that is easy to do, but he lives because he has Sylar's healing power. He crawls out of the ground in his grave, and we see he has turned back into Sylar, with amnesia. He is led to "the carnival" home of Samuel and his collection of heroes. I'll get to that later.

HIRO
Hiro is dying from a brain tumor and wants to right all his wrongs before he bites the bullet. He goes back in time to make his sister and Ando fall in love, so they do and that's done with. After some shenanigans and trying to save people and learning about the butterfly effect, he loses control of his powers and goes back in time to Peter's hospital. He collapses and is put in bed. He also saw Samuel at some point who taught him stuff. He talks to the deaf woman while Peter is gone and realizes he should go back and save Charlie from Sylar. He toys with past-Sylar for a while and eventually saves her. Then she starts to die from her tumor and Hiro convinces Sylar to remove it from her brain. Then Hiro finds out she didn't want to be saved if it was really her time to go, but then she forgives him, whatever. Samuel goes back in time because he has his own teleporter, who is old and dying, and kidnaps her and convinces Hiro to work for him.

I'll get to Bennet, Claire (blah), Tracy (blahx2), Samuel, Mohinder, and the current status later.