Rest in peace, Nancy and Daniel Benoit

I am still in shock, not quite two days later, about the news of what Chris Benoit did. What drives a man, or woman for that matter, to not only kill their spouse, themselves, but also their young children? There are any number of stories in the news about this so-called familicide and it's just unfathomable.

I'm also of a split-mind about him; does he retain any of my respect for what he did professionally? Does his last few hours invalidate the previous 40 years of his life?

I don't know. I don't have any answers. I'm just still stunned and shocked by it all.

Chris Benoit, Rest In Peace

I just spent the last few hours sitting on the couch with Amanda watching the Chris Benoit tribute show. My head hurts, my eyes are red and I'm confused as hell.

I tuned in thinking it would be the continuation of the horrible Vince McMahon fake death storyline. I change the channel to find that Chris Benoit is dead, along with his wife and young son. I was stunned.

While he was never one of my favorite characters, he was always someone I had immense respect for. He clearly was one of the most intense workers out there and clearly one of the most technically savvy. He may not have been good on the stick, but in the ring, he brought out the best in himself and whoever he was working with.

The worst part about watching those shows is watching these big tough guys, these guys that beat the hell out of each other for a living, these guys that play a$$holes and tough bastards, crying and unable to hold it together on camera.

Now I'm reading news that it may have been a double murder/suicide. I desperately hope this isn't true. I just cannot fathom it at all...

The Police Reunion at Dodger Stadium

It's always great to see musicians as artists, and that was what the Police were Satruday night. But let me begin at the beginning.

First, dinner at Philippe's a few blocks away. Great french dip sandwiches, but apparently my wife wasn't the only one with that idea. At one point, I went to the bathroom and some guy, breaking Man Law, asked if everyone was going to the Police concert. Everyone said yes. Some guy even asked me as I was washing my hands how to get from Philippe's to Dodger Stadium. Hundreds of people must have had the world-famous frensh dip sandwiches before going to the concert.

Second, parking and crowd control at Dodger Stadium. Crowd control was efficient, if a bit fascist. Parking though? $20 for general, $35 for preferred? A blight upon your souls, the lot of you. And how few bathrooms do you think are necessary? Finally then, getting out? Dear lord, it took nearly an hour to get from our car to a freeway, and that still wasn't the end of it. I'm glad I grew up watching the Angels; that way I don't have any urge to go the the accursed parking of Chavez Ravine.

The opener was Fictionplane (though it sounded like Futureplane at the time), a pretty cool band. But given that the singer is Sting's son, it's obvious how they got that coveted slot. Not bad, and the vocal similiarities between the two singers is obvious.

The second opener was the Foo Fighters. Wow. Does anyone enjoy rock'n'roll more than Dave Grohl? I've never really thought much of the Foo Fighters, except to think that Grohl makes suprisingly radio friendly music for a guy that was the drummer for Nirvana. But they put on a great show. At one point, Grohl ran out into the audience. I think he wanted to get to the fenced-off pitcher's mound, but he couldn't get there. And I'm pretty sure security hadn't been briefed on his unexpected jaunt onto the field. He eventually climbed some risers behind one of the control booths and played rock god for a bit.

Then were The Police. Great show. Good stage effects and lighting and all, but it was amazing to watch artists at work. Most, if not all, of the songs were reworked versions of what were originally on the album. Some of that was to trim the song down so that the three of them could perform on stage live without any DAT tracks or anything. Some of that was simply their creative urge to update, change, tinker, fiddle and just improve their own creations. So they didn't come screaming out the gates, but Sting was charismatic and in-control. Everything seemed in-synch and again, it was just cool to watch three very accomplished artists working their craft together in front of about 55,000 people. Notice, if you haven't caught it, I'm calling them artists, not musicians. It's one thing to play an instrument; it's another to create art.

All in all, a good show. Our view wasn't that hot, as the bad cellphone picture will attest to (taken during their performance of Synchronicity II), but the sound was great and we didn't miss a thing that any of the bands did.

Too good not to post

Re: Verizon commercials

The Police Reunion

Saturday night I get to see The Police in concert. Hell yeah!

I can't claim to be a really massive Police fan; I don't really like "Roxanne" for example. Really, I'm a huge fan of their Synchonicity album more than anything. Their other records, not Regatta de Blanc or Outlandos d'Amour? Before my time really. I know, I know. I like the Beatles and they were sure as hell before my time. But for some reason, it was only that one record that really struck a chord with me. One of my favorites really.

But the concert should be great. Three very talented musicians playing together and having fun together. Apparently, some of them have been reworked and "updated" since the last time they were performed live (if ever), especially so they are something that the three of them can play together without extra musicians.

Should be a hell of a show!

Go Angels! (and Happy Father's Day)

Some of you might know I'm a fan of the Angels. Or properly, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Now, before anyone gets the chance to level charges of being a bandwagon fan, I'm not. I grew up watching the Angels. Those were the games my father took me to as a child. I remember watching Fred Lynn, Bobby Grich, Nolan Ryan, Brian Downing, Rod Carew, even Reggie Jackson when he became an Angel for a few years. He taught me the game and how to keep score from up in the cheap seats, because that was usually the best we could afford. Sometimes my mom and younger brother would come, but they were more interested in eating ballpark food. I was happy with hot dogs and peanuts. I still am.

Like many American men, some of my best memories of my youth are connected with baseball. Playing catch, going to the game, whatever. For me, my father will always be intertwined with baseball. And it's something I always think of on this day.

So, Happy Father's Day and go Angels!

What the HunterCat is probably wishing

I'm getting too old for this sh!t

I really am. And what's worse, is that I can see it happening.

Okay, so I've not been sleeping well the past few weeks. Got something big on my mind that I'll be telling people about in person before I say anything here. I've also been stressing about getting the school year finished. Grading, filing reports, making final deposits, end of the year meetings, all that. Well, Thursday night is our graduation and it's also our Grad Night at Disneyland. Amanda loves the Maus Haus and if you chaperone, you get to go for free. The lines really aren't that bad, except for Splash Mountain and Space Mountain and they feed you, give you massages, show you movies and do free character sketches. As an aside, I had Eeyore drawn and Amanda had the Ariel, the Little Mermaid. Turns out the illustrator drew the Little Mermaid for 24 books, the paper dolls, and other stuff. So a veritable Disney expert drew Amanda's favorite character. How cool is that?

Anyway, this is the third time we've done Grad Night. Three years ago, we were running around until they were nearly kicking us out, at like 5:45 in the AM. Two years ago, we gave up at about 5. This year? I think we were toast about 3:30. We went on It's A Small World at about 4:15 and were nearly lulled to sleep in the boat, even with that song repeating ad nauseum. We had to just keep moving in order to not just collapse from fatigue.

We were back on the bus by 5:20 and had all the kids on board just before 6 am. We were back at school I think by 6:45, were Amanda and I went up the street to my parent's house to sleep. Unfortunately, I still had end of year meetings to attend, so I got about an hour of sleep before I had to go back to school. I didn't finish until noon and we didn't make it home until about 1pm. Let's make it tougher; we had to go to see Amanda's niece and nephew perform in their final band concert of the year, down at Biola, by 7:30...so up at 5:30 we were. Now, Amanda had about 9 hours of sleep. I had about 5.

In fact, as I write this (and I feel like like I'm babbling), Amanda has gone back to bed on a Saturday afternoon. Neither of us will be back to normal until Sunday/Monday.

I'm thinking that this will be the last Grad Night for us for a while.

Vampire Cat!

LARP at The Block

Well, that was interesting. The closest I've ever come to public LARPing was the GenCon SoCal game. And that wasn't very public. I have to admit I wasn't sure it was going to go well. Too many civilians, too many distractions, too open an area.

But it all came out pretty well. Yeah, people wandered off for food, beer, Starbucks. But I gotta be honest, some of the best persistent roleplaying went on that night that I've seen in a while. It was great how many people kept themselves in-character for so much of the night when it would have been so bloody easy to slip out of character so many times. Maybe some people weren't roleplaying their best, maybe, but they kept going at it, staying in-character for the vast majority of the night. Too often, I've seen people just start hanging out when the game goes away from them, when their interest flags, when they simply get distracted. But wow, so many people got into character and stayed that way.

It was also interesting to notice that we weren't even the strangest people at The Block. Okay, maybe we were, but we weren't the strangest looking ones. I was slightly worried that "Johnny Chang" would stand out, faux-hawk and all, but nope, he looked almost normal down there (which was exactly what I would have hoped for!). Even Taylor, gothed up as he was, didn't stand out any more than a tall, black goth ever stands out. By the way, I've only met him a few times but he seems like a cool dude. Strangely, the oddest looking one out of us all was probably Shawna and that was because of her white lab coat.

But good game. Christian, you missed out!

Movie Review - POTC: At World's End

Wow, does Disney know how to make an amusement park ride or what? Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End certainly isn't going to make anyone forget about true greats like Citizen Kane, but it's certainly one hell of a good time.

And you know what? There's nothing wrong with that. Let's be honest. For the $10.50 you are paying to see a film now, it had better capture your imagination and transport you to another place and/or time. Even a serious movie had better do that; it doesn't matter how important a film is or how valuable the message is, if it's boring then it's not worth my hard-earned dollars. I loved Children of Men and Pan's Labrinyth, two of the best films I've seen in years (that aren't LOTR). And both of them were pretty serious movies. But they both transport the audience to another world, another time. You forget that you've been sitting on your butt snarking popcorn and sucking soda for two hours because your mind is no longer in the theatre, it's in the world presented by the film makers.

POTC: At World's End did that for me. I know the film is over 2 hours and 40 minutes long, but it really didn't feel that way. I got on the ride and enjoyed it while it lasted. It's big, it's fun, it's loud, it's fantasy, it's the sort of pirate every little boy wishes they could be.

It's not a perfect movie. As pretty as she is, Kiera Knightly has never really been able to sell herself as Elizabeth Swan. She's just never been convincing. That awful line in The Curse of the Black Pearl, something like "he's not a blacksmith, he's a pirate" was the most painful part of that film. Her speech to rouse the troops before the big battle sounded rehearsed and too practiced and not enough convincing.

Which does go back to the script. It does have it's rough spots and it seems they cluster around the Swan character. It's like they need the strong female, but they don't really know how to write her. Add in elements left hanging by the script, such as what happened to Tia Dalma/Calypso after growing 100-ft and creating a massive whirlpool? Wasn't she bothered by what happened to Davy Jones?

But overall, this is a fitting conclusion to the trilogy. Geoffrey Rush, Johnny Depp and Bill Nighy all do an amazing job; sometimes perhaps too well for the rest of the cast. The effects are incredible and the film has a certain epic wierdness that I think Terry Gilliam would be almost jealous of.

Be warned; the film does have more than it's share of twists and turns. If you aren't paying attention, if you forget that all the characters have their own personal motivations, if you have an extra-long bathroom break, you may end up slightly confused. But if you are reading this, then that probably doesn't apply to you.

All told, I'd give this an A- just for much fun it is.