10 Things I Learned This Week

1. It's Always Nice to Come Home
Going on vacation is great, but there is something pleasurable about getting back to your own surroundings and sleeping in your own bed. Maybe it's because I've had the same pillow since I was 7... or maybe it's because Sarah and I aren't sleeping in single beds pushed together anymore. Either way, it was real nice to walk through the doors here Monday and crash out for the afternoon in the comfort of our own house.

2. The Dog Owns Us
Before Monday, we hadn't seen the little pug dog in three weeks. Halfway through the last week in Vancouver, we both longed to be home and wrestling with him. Once we got here, we immediately went out and bought him a new toy, as a present for being so good and to apologize for being away for so long. One of us has been with him for nearly the entire time we've been home. He gets our undivided attention. We're totally his bitches.

3. Speaking of Luke...
The inspiration for his name passed away Friday, as Paul Newman - Cool Hand Luke himself - lost his battle to cancer. I wrote about it yesterday, so I won't dwell on it too much here, other than to say again that we lost a legend and he will be greatly missed.

4. Fantasy Phenom
So I had five fantasy baseball teams this year. None will finish worse than fourth, with two battling for titles today. Of my four fantasy football teams, three are undefeated in first place and the other sits in third at 2-1. I'm drafting my first fantasy hockey team today and basketball season is just around the corner too. I know it might make me a super geek to love fantasy sports as much as I do, but I don't care. I'm damn good at it!

5. Next Stop: Kimberley, British Columbia
We've been officially going for a week or so, but now we know for sure where we'll be staying... on the ski hill in a bad ass condo with a fireplace in the living room, slate floors, stainless steel kitchen and a four-man hot tub on our balcony. Sarah will have to commute 30 minutes or so to work - a great cause for alarm to some, but not us - and I will have a 1 km walk to...

6. Kelsey's Here I Come
My new bartender/server gig at Kelsey's Restaurant at Kimberley Alpine Resort. Yes, I'm moving 3,000+ km to do exactly what I do here in London. But here I don't get free golf, free skiing, free lessons and deals on rentals. Or live nestled up next to the Rockies in a quiet little town where I have a hot tub on my balcony. I can't wait...

7. Ryan Reynolds is My Hero!
Always loved his work, now I love him as a person. Why? Because he is Mr. Scarlett Johansson! Homey traded up from Alanis Morissette to one of the Top 5 Sexiest Women on the Face of the Earth... nicely done sir and congratulations to you both.

8. Sometimes, You Don't Have to Make a Biopic
Saw the first trailer for the Notorious BIG biopic that's coming out in January. Gotta say, I'm not a fan. These are legends and icon in the business and the communities they came up in and someone thought it was necessary to make a glitzy refresher course on their lives with a bunch of dudes that don't even really look like them? How is Papa Doc from 8 Mile supposed to be Tupac to me? And Boobie Miles from Friday Night Lights as Diddy. Leave it alone Hollywood...

9. Anne Hathaway Loves Bum Sex!
She says so herself in an interview in the next edition of Esquire. Now this has nothing to do with anything important or useful in the world, but honestly, when a major Hollywood starlet goes on the record about thoroughly enjoying a trip down Avenue B, I feel the need to share that information with the masses. And by masses I mean the 37 of you who read this site faithfully. I love you all.

10. Time to Go Watch Football. Oh Wait...
I can't! Garry is gone for the weekend and while I don't need his presence or permission to catch the NFL, I do need the television receiver that he took with him to Midland this weekend! ARGH! Finally a Sunday where I am not in transit from Ottawa (Week One), picking up Sarah's mom at the airport (Week Two) or enjoying afternoon tea with a monster hangover (Week Three) and I get to stare at the ticker on NFL.com for the afternoon. Booo-urns!

Continue reading ...

Paul Newman (1925 - 2008)

We lost a legend last night and Heaven gained one of the greatest talents ever to grace the screen.

Paul Newman lost his battle to cancer. He was 83.

If you've never listen to anything I have said here over the months that I've been doing this thing, listen just this once:

Go to whatever movie store you rent from, even if you don't rent movies anymore, and grab as many of Paul Newman's old classics as you can. Make no plans other than spending the day watching greatness at work.

Get Hud.
Get The Sting.
Get Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid.
Get The Hustler and Color of Money.
Get Cool Hand Luke.

Pop some popcorn, grab whatever cold beverage you favour and just sit back.

Watching Newman at work, in everything, but especially along side Redford as Butch opposite Sundance and in The Sting and you'll wonder why we have to suffer through the scores of horrible movies Hollywood sends us each year.

The answer, in part, is that they don't make them like Paul Newman any more.

Enjoy a two minute glimpse at greatness here... best fight scene ever.

Thank you Mr. Newman.

Continue reading ...

Where Have Movies Like This Gone?

Someone needs to answer this for me because after spending the last year working at Blockbuster and watching the good, the bad and the ugly that Hollywood and everywhere else has to offer, setting in with Butch & Sundance last night was the best movie experience I've had in a long time.

I can't believe no one ever mentions this as their favourite movie. It's now officially mine. How could it not be?

Newman and Redford are a perfect match and play off each other better than any tandem we've seen on the screen in a long time. They are what every buddy movie pairing aspires to be and so very few actually capture.

And if that's not enough, this movie has current era tie-ins that should force anyone who claims to like movies to pick it up.

Sundance, as in, the film festival. I wonder where it got it's name?

Mallrats fans, this is where the daunting Mall Cop LaFours - he's got four kills! - comes from, name and white skimmer hat included.

At the end of Hot Fuzz, when they're shooting it out with the bad guys? Butch & Sundance.

Besides, it's two of the best ever running around robbing banks and slinging jokes on screen for two hours. If you've sat through Atonement, then you sure as hell can spend a night with Mr. Parker and Mr. Longbaugh.

And if you don't want to watch the whole thing, do yourself a favour and watch the Knife Fight scene and the scene where they're stuck on a rock ledge, pinned in by LaFors above them and a river below them.

I pissed myself. You will too.

"The future is all yours, ya lousy bicycle!"

Continue reading ...