Just a wine connossieur...

Amanda and I can really relate to this...we don't actually drink wine all that often, but we love great wine and we love the whole business and art of wine tasting. It's one of our favorite things to do. The countryside, the people you meet, the different flavors and smells of the wine itself, the cuisine that is associated with wine, the whole thing.

It's Talk Like A Pirate Day!

One of my favorite holidays of the year...the day where it is proven, without a doubt in the eyes of my students, that I am not just odd, but freakin' weird.

So avast me hearties! Speakin' the pirate tongue for me!

I'm a moron

Or at least I pretended to be Sunday evening.

I was having a pretty decent weekend. Sleeping in, Amanda making breakfast, watching the Angels (even if it was them losing), going to Ben&Jerry's for free ice cream, checking out the Bass Pro Shop (holy hell, going to have to have a seperate blog entry for that alone!), great dinners, made my own blue cheese butter with Stilton, it was going great.

And then I realized that I have left my cell phone, a Motorola Razr, in my pants. Said pants had, by this time, gone through the wash cycle and were now thumping around in the dryer.

We are broke until the first and I just ruined a several hundred dollar phone because I frickin' forget to take it out of my shorts pocket.

I don't know what it worse, the feeling of being a goddamn moron, the feeling of being unconnected (first time without my phone in something like 10 years), or the feeling of knowing I'm going to have spend money we don't really have to just throw around.

Not cool.

Copy Cat!

Now that's just funny.

My little baby girl

I swear in this picture my baby girl has gotten tired of the ultrasound and all the picture taking and is had enough. No more paparazzi!


And here is her profile. Beautiful girl.

It's a GIRL!!!

It's a baby girl on the way!

We just had the ultrasound this morning and it's pretty definitive that we have a little Lorelei...or Loralei (we haven't decided upon spelling just yet) coming in January.

Perhaps the most comforting thing was that everything appears totally normal. All 10 fingers and toes, the brain and spine are developing just fine, the heart is pumping away perfectly, the little kidney and bladder and functioning, the whole bit. Everything is just fine. I sighed a massive sigh of relief when we were told that.

I have to admit I was kinda hoping for a boy; I was using the male pronoun and was really looking forward to explaining the advantage of the designated hitter rule in the American League and how it's better for baseball. I suppose I still can, but now I'm gonna have to learn how to play Barby and pretty pretty princess too.

It's a girl!!!

Benoit and concussions

I was right. It turns out to be very likely that I was right about the reason for Chris Benoit's murder/suicide. This article, http://www.wsbtv.com/news/14047066/detail.html, reveals that too many blows to the head, too many concussions, is what probably led to to his heinous crime.

In a way, I feel vindicated. In a way, I'm glad it wasn't steroids. Now it'll be interesting to see how many news media outlets pick this up.

3:10 to Yuma

Great movie. We saw it last night during the national "sneak preview." We went to get our tickets early, since this sort of thing does sell out. And while our theatre was probably 90-95% full, there were a few empty seats. BTW, the mall was so crowded it seemed almost as hot and was very much more humid than it was outside...where it was about 110 degrees.

Anyway, the movie itself. It's a traditional Western in nearly every way. It is a remake of the original 1960's version, but neither did they try to "modernize" it (which often means making it suck) nor did they do a Van Sant and just reshoot the movie, shot for shot (a reference to the Psycho remake if you aren't aware).

The film, especially in the first half to two-thirds, is really a character piece. It really seems to focus upon the Russell Crowe and Christian Bale characters, their motivations, their goals. The shoot-em-up at the end was incredible. And all the character work early on really pays off with the ending. It really does pull you in emotionally.

Go see it. A very good film and should be considered come award season.

Baby Ticker!