Odds and ends from my brain

The ATM machine at work now offers me the option to 'Get Cash', instead of the apparently far too confounding 'Withdrawl' option. I can't tell you how mad this makes me. Why not just put three big dollar signs right in the middle of the touch screen? America is dumb enough as it is, we don't need our banks making these allowances for the weaker minded. What's next - will I go to church on Sunday and find that communion has been renamed 'holy eating' to avoid confusion? Bah.

Worst joke of the baseball season (so far): wadE, responding to Matt M's query about Indians pitching coach Dick Pole - "Yeah, he and (former Twins pitching coach) Dick Such were in a porno together - 'Two Dicks, No Waiting'".

Worst joke part II, the unpleasant sequel: Matt S, responding to that joke - "Yeah, and their highly successful follow up, 'A Trip to the Mound'".

Ross and I saw 'Changing Lanes' a week or so ago... decent enough flick. Problem was I didn't really care about either of the characters or what happened to them. Affleck and Samuel L. both had some good monologue moments, and if they'd ended the movie on a different philosophical twist I'd have liked it more. Definitely a solid 2 Trent rating.

Why did my old car have an umlaut over the "N" for neutral on the drive shift? Was my car dutch? Was I supposed to say 'nyootral' whenever I needed to in description of the car's functioning? This still bothers me...

What's the deal with the NBA playoffs and the insane breaks between games? Back in my day, they played the first two games of the series back-to-back, had a day off for travel, played the next three back-to-back-to-back, had another day off for travel, and played the last two. I'm not saying it has to be that way exactly, perhaps an extra day off or two might make the games more interesting. However, the NBA (as per usual) has taken things to unhealthy extremes. Maybe if they didn't let the players rest so much the scoring would increase and have some chance of being entertaining. wadE says the NBA is a whore for weekend TV ratings, and I completely agree. Plus, it's boring. How am I supposed to care who's winning the Celtics-Sixers series when it might take TWO WEEKS to be decided at all? It's (to channel Bill Walton) Terrible!

Also on my movie radar recently - "A Beautiful Mind". Best picture? You bet. Plus, it blindsided me with the plot... I thought it was just going to be something about Math. Low expectations, I know. It's a good thing my friend was too much of a wimp to go see "Panic Room". Heh. I had my head buried in the sand about this one. It's worth the ticket, go see it. 1 Trent.

Karin Winegar wrote a great column this weekend about misuse of apostrophes. Read all about it here. I couldn't have said it better myself.

But while we're near the subject, I want to make one thing absolutely clear. An athlete in the middle of a slump, does NOT need to get 'un-tracked'. Repeat after me, folks: A train derailment is NOT a good thing. When you hear about one on the news, everyone is not happy that it happened. So when Todd Helton breaks out and goes 3 for 4, he has gotten ON TRACK. Morons...

Could we arrange a cross-promotional sport so I can get Duke's Carlos Boozer and the Atlanta Braves's Jung Bong on a team together? Boozer and Bong, the possibilities are staggering.

Why didn't they find Fred McGriff a better looking hat for that instructional video he endorses? If you can't get a pro ballplayer anything better than a foamy mesh-back, I don't trust you to teach my kids. Hell, a beer helmet would have been better. Of course, McGriff seems to be made of wood in that commercial, so maybe the foamer was the only thing that didn't make him fall over.

Finally, I went to see "Panic Room" with a couple of Native Companions while down in Indiana this weekend. I won't lie to you - I'm a Fincher Freak. I even liked "The Game". This movie is good. Damn good. It's a break-in movie, it's basically a horror movie, except with only about 6 characters total, so very little slashing. It had me on the edge of my seat for the last hour. I think it still has one of my NCs on the edge of her seat (Sorry about that Jar Jar). I'm gonna have to break out the solo half-trent for this one.

I need to write these more often, I'm sure I'm forgetting something. It must be the Alzheimer's. Peace out.