Short version: they took source material that I thought would be completely unwatchable as a movie, and turned it into a movie.

Seriously. A movie about how the Oakland A’s general manager used unconventional thinking and statistics to build a winning baseball team for the 2002 season. ‘Statistics’ and ‘Baseball’ are not words that you build a dramatic movie around. I enjoyed the movie, but I wasn’t captivated by it. I feel like I enjoyed it because I am nerd enough to have enjoyed the book, and I feel like it probably has some appeal to more casual baseball/sports fans.

I do also generally enjoy Brad Pitt.

The performances were fine. Pitt was good, Philip Seymour Hoffman actually looked quite a bit like Art Howe (although he just sounded like himself), and Jonah Hill was also good. And that’s pretty much it. It was well written, and it told the story of a baseball season.

wadE and I agreed on the word ‘underwhelmed’. It’s a nice, watchable movie. Great for Netflix/Redbox prices, and a good movie for baseball/sports fans and/or people who just want to watch Brad Pitt look good for 2 hours. I’m not sure how it got an Oscar nomination for anything, let alone Best Supporting Actor In a Role about a Nerd with barely 20 lines in the whole movie. (What? It was just Best Supporting Actor? Huh.)

So, yeah. Moneyball. I suspect you already have an idea about whether or not you’re interested in seeing it, and I’m here to tell you that whatever you’ve already decided, you’re right. Stick to your guns.

Catching up on some sports-related web browsing, and I see the following link headline from yesterday’s “football” game:

Marshall catches 4 TDs; AFC wins Pro Bowl

Upon reading this, my brain had the following discussion with itself:

Wilber Marshall? . . . No, that makes no sense. Hm . . .

Leonard Marshall! . . . No, same problem there.

Defeated, I had to click on the link to find out that it was Brandon Marshall who did the thing with the ball in the game I didn’t watch or care about. But at least I was slightly amused by that point.

The short version: numerous good points don’t overcome a bad ending.

(But backing up, a quick intro. We’re gonna try this thing. I posted this on The Facebook this morning, that I want to make Thursday night “Movie Night”. Hopefully I’m either gonna see something in theater, or start working through my backlog of Netflixes. Even more hopefully, I’m gonna write up reviews. We’ll see how this goes…)

Layer Cake (2004), starring Daniel Craig, and featuring quite a good ensemble cast, including two members of The Order of the Phoenix (Dumbledore and Shacklebolt, if you must know). Jokes aside, Michael Gambon was good in his role, and Tom Hardy is the other ‘known’ name, although his role was smaller. And Sienna Miller was, of course, gorgeous (but that was pretty much all she had to do in this one, was look gorgeous).

Pretty straight forward Brit Crime/Gangster/Suspense movie. Well written for the most part, well paced, plenty of twists and turns in the plot, but not confusingly so. Fairly easy to keep everyone straight, which is good in an ensemble cast while characters are dying and you’re trying to keep factions and loyalties straight, etc, so on and so forth.

I enjoyed it, right up until the last 30 seconds, which were absolutely pointless. I didn’t see any of the original marketing for this film, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they teased it with the SHOCKING twist at the end. I thought it was uninspired, and honestly unnecessary.

I guess overall I do recommend seeing this if you’re in the mood for something in the Snatch/Lock Stock vein. Just keep your expectations low.

My favorite local newspaper has always been the Minneapolis Star & Tribune. While I have never subscribed to the “Strib”, I have read its website nearly every single day over the past 10+ years.

Apparently the days of “free loading” are over.
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In case you weren’t aware, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts starting giving out the “Mark Twain Prize for American Humor” in 1998. The intent of the prize is honor an individual who has made a significant contribution to American humor.
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A friend of mine at work were discussing the various nicknames we could use as code to discuss our various coworkers. We’ve had a lot of turnover recently and needed a fresh batch of names, as well as revisit some of the new ones.
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working from home, and i have sportscenter on in the background. the college basketball segment comes on, and i hear the annoyance that is dick vitale start screaming about “diaper dandies” and “dookies.” sounds awesome.

Honestly, I wouldn’t have expected Greenpeace to be so hip to the tubes.

They’ve adopted a whale. They’ve invited the internet to name it. Yes, typically that’s what you’d call a bad idea, but go easy on them – they did try so very hard. They took 11,000 submitted names and whittled the list down to 30. That’s no mean feat. But they just couldn’t resist temptation. 29 of the names were deep and meaningful, but that 30th name… they just had to let it slide in there.

Honestly, I’m not trying to pre-bias anyone. You can cast your own vote right here. But I know you’ll be able to tell who that 30th candidate is, in a classic Sesame Street “One of these things is not like the other” kind of way. And how could one possibly resist a name so charming?

So of course you know who’s in the lead. Even despite some shenanigans. We’ll have to check back on December the 7th to see if internet voting is as predictable as I think it is.

From Jake, via The Big Lead:

I consider this retroactive visual evidence for all the times in college people thought wadE and I were insane for referencing this incident. Plus, it still cracks me up.

Each year my family makes an annual pilgrimage to New York to visit my in-laws. I say “my family” because this includes travelling with our dogs, Luna and Solei.

I dread this trip each year, not because of the in-laws, because of travelling with the dogs. Luna and Solei do not travel well. Since they are small dogs they can travel with us in the airplane cabin, in a carrier, under the seat in front of us. Like most dogs, they do not like to be confined. Solei doesn’t tolerate it well, she gets antsy and moves around a lot, and has been known to cry loudly. This is nothing compared to Luna who we believe was not treated very well for the first 8 weeks of her life at the puppy mill. Luna has managed to escape 3 separate times from her carrier. One of those times she actually ate her way around the lock on carrier and hopped out. Last year we worked with our vet to find a drug cocktail that would “take the edge off” for the trip. On the flight out we didn’t give them quite enough. On the flight back we had a lovely 4 hour delay on the ground in LaGuardia. So the drowsy effects wore off long before we boarded the plane. This year we were more successful with only a one hour delay (on the plane no less) at MSP, and a half-hour of circling JFK. Solei slept most of the way and Luna was… well, Luna. But a better behaved version who only bit me once (which is not a normal part of her personality).

But I digress. Coming to New York for the holidays is always an experience larger than life. The personalities, the packed schedule, the food, the drink. During my first 4 days here we had chinese food from the venerable King House, dinner and drinks in Greenwich Villiage, lunch in Princeton (New Jersey), interactive murder mystery dinner theatre in Philadelphia, a fantastic Italian seafood dinner in northern New Jersey, and a family first birthday party.

These first few days consisted of 300 miles of driving, more than 50 bucks in tolls, trips on the LIRR and New York Subway, about 35,000 calories, hearing “fuck” 476 times, hating the Jersey Turnpike, hating the traffic in Philly on a Friday night (2 hours to go 30 miles), kicking the keg at a first birthday party, many Dunkin Donuts, and proof that my iron constitution is finally getting some rust on it.

And we haven’t even hit Thanksgiving yet!

Thanksgiving will consist of equal amounts of human and dogs in the house (seven of each). But expect a full report on that after the weekend.

With that being said, I hope you and yours have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and give thanks for the wonderful things in your life.