Recently, I encouraged a fellow blogger to post a review of a film which I had heard was absolutely rotten. Since, I had not seen such, I decided to see for myself just how terrible it was.

Some genius decided to give one of the most popular characters in the Batman franchise her own shot at a solo picture on the big screen. Unfortunately, the character bore almost no resemblance to the character at all. Instead of going too far indepth, I will tell you what it is not.

Catwoman in the movie is not Selina Kyle who was introduced decades ago as the sometimes feline nemesis and sometimes love interest of Batman. Instead, she is given the convoluted name Patience Phillips. I had NO patience with this mess and as most people will tell you, I usually do have some degree of patience. She is also endowed (after dying and being resurrected by a cat) with superpowers. The only power I am aware of that the feline fatale possesses is her cat-like reflexes and her nine-lives that she seemed to have used up in the movie Batman Returns. The movie Catwoman does however make a silly attempt to allude to other women who put on the cat-suit including Selina Kyle. Too little too late I’m afraid. That is as far as I feel I need to waste space remarking on this tragedy of a movie. I cannot believe that Bob Kane, creator of the original character, would have his name anywhere near it. He should have sued.

Halle Berry accepted her 2005 Razzie Award in person with her Oscar in hand and made the following statement:

“First of all, I want to thank Warner Brothers. Thank you for putting me in a piece of _____, god awful movie… it was just what my career needed.”

I am so glad that I did not have to spend a dime to see this thing. I only wish that I could have my 90 minutes + returned to me.

There’s been lots of talk of this number on my blog lately, but this time I’m referring to the movie 21, not the tv show.  I have to admit, I was a little reluctant to see this movie because the previews reminded me of Ocean’s 11, and I was not a big fan of that movie.  I also thought I might have trouble following the movie 21 because I don’t know how to play many of the popular card games prominent in Las Vegas; like poker, and most importantly Blackjack.  But I didn’t have trouble following the movie, and I actually enjoyed it from start to finish.  It was a good mix of action, thoughtful dialogue, good acting, and plot twists; all of which add up to a well-balanced and entertaining film.

The movie revolves around a college professor, played by the enjoyable and versatile Kevin Spacey, who trains a “club” of gifted math students to excel at the game of Blackjack.  They develop a system and take trips to Las Vegas to win lots of money.  Enter student Ben Campbell, the club’s newest recruit, who only wants enough money to pay for his dream of attending Harvard medical school.  He gets caught up in the lifestyle, however, and it’s interesting to see what happens next…  I won’t spoil it – it’s a good movie, go see it!

What a time for me to stumble across this article on CNN – Don’t Let a Hospital Kill You

I visit the doctor’s office monthly, and it’s time for me to start visiting every 2 weeks already!  Also, I will be a resident of a hospital in about 2 ½ months!  As I’ve written before, I try really hard to put my faith into the doctors and nurses who care for me, however, my husband is a born skeptic of the medical community.  Sometimes it’s difficult to cast his doubts and concerns aside, especially when I read something like this.  Also, since I grew up in a huge metro area, even though I love our small community, I have to be honest and say the small hospital here scares me a at least a little.  I haven’t shown my husband this article yet…  maybe I’ll wait until the baby and I are home and healthy in July?

Also from Worthyboards comes this hilarious real-life humor- thanks, Glory2000!

TOP 7 MORONS OF 2007

1. WILL THE REAL DUMMY PLEASE STAND UP? AT&T fired President John Walter after nine months, saying he lacked intellectual leadership. He received a $26 million severance package. Perhaps it’s not Walter who’s lacking intelligence.

2. WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM OUR FRIENDS: Police in Oakland, CA spent two hours attempting to subdue a gunman who had barricaded himself inside his home. After firing ten tear gas canisters, officers discovered that the man was standing beside them in the police line, shouting, ‘Please come out and give yourself up.’

3. WHAT WAS PLAN B??? An Illinois man, pretending to have a gun, kidnapped a motorist and forced him to drive to two different automated teller machines, wherein the kidnapper proceeded to withdraw money from his own bank accounts.

4. THE GETAWAY! A man walked into a Topeka, Kansas Kwik Stop and asked for all the money in the cash drawer. Apparently, the take was too small, so he tied up the store clerk and worked the counter himself for three hours until police showed up and grabbed him.

5. DID I SAY THAT??? Police in Los Angeles had good luck with a robbery suspect who just couldn’t control himself during a lineup. When detectives asked each man in the lineup to repeat the words: ‘Give me all your money or I’ll shoot!’ The man shouted, ‘that’s not what I said!’.

6. ARE WE COMMUNICATING??? A man spoke frantically into the phone: ‘My wife is pregnant and her contractions are only two minutes apart’. ‘Is this her first child?’ the doctor asked. ‘No!’ the man shouted, ‘This is her husband!’

7. NOT THE SHARPEST TOOL IN THE SHED! In Modesto, CA, Steven Richard King was arrested for trying to hold up a Bank of America branch without a weapon. King used a thumb and a finger to simulate a gun. Unfortunately, he failed to keep his hand in his pocket. (hellooooooo)!

Well, I thought I was teaching at church today, but I found out otherwise- right before I was going to teach.  As the kids sang worship songs, I went into an adjoining room to look over the lesson again.  When I came out, the family pastor was there with his Bible ready to teach.  Oh well.  I was actually going to ask him last night, but I talked to another teacher who said he saw on the email the ones who would teach this weekend and he thought my name was on it- also that the email said that this month would be the same schedule as last month.  So I decided not to bother John.  It looks like I should have bothered him after all.  Plus when I talked to him afterward I think I may have sounded like I was shifting the blame to that other teacher I talked to when in fact it was me who decided not to talk to the one I should have.  I hope I’m just being critical of myself.  Anyway, one of the kids I saw earlier this week made it to church, but the other one didn’t.  Oh well, I hope he shows up next week while I still remember his name. 😛

Well, perusing Worthyboards I encountered this Godtube video I thought I would share.  It’s about fitting into church.  Just so you’re prepared , it was in their humor forum…

[godtube]https://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=a7bedeb99312cc5d7f4e[/godtube]

I also learned of another video site while looking for a teaching example- it is called Teachertube!  Needless to say, I will be looking through some of these videos, hopefully to post about here!

As I sit here typing away at this blog, I have three other computer related tasks going on. I’m transcoding/burning two DVD’s, I have a load of laundry going, I’m re-installing some software on another computer, and finally checking out a laptop to make sure everything is working properly. If you include the fact that one of the DVD’s is being burned on a Linux box, you could say I’m learning a different OS too. Why am I doing all of this now? Good question, and it is one I asked myself. I spent the better part of this evening installing some new and improved hardware on my main computer. It is the one I do most of my DVD work on, and I was just bogging the system down. I noticed I was able to transcode and burn a DVD faster on my laptop, than the main box. Something isn’t not quite right there. I knew I had a problem with the video card in the main box, so I swapped that out.. I also put in a dual core processor, since that is what my laptop has in it. After all that work I had to put the machine through its paces, didn’t I? And Now I think the box with twice as much memory, a faster processor, and more disks space finally catches up with the laptop. I don’t think my hard drives on the desktop are nearly as fast, and I think that is what is slowing the desktop up this time…

Dryer buzzer, time to get the laundry.

Just one joke, but an interesting one.  Yes, even Christians can laugh at jokes about hell.  As usual, I claim no ownership whatsoever of this stuff I dredge up on the ‘net:

Dr. Schambaugh, of the University of Oklahoma School of Chemical Engineering, Final Exam question for May of 1997. Dr. Schambaugh is known for asking questions such as, “why do airplanes fly?” on his final exams. His one and only final exam question in May 1997 for his Momentum, Heat and Mass Transfer II class was: “Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with proof.”

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle’s Law or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:

“First, We postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a mass. So, at what rate are souls moving into hell and at what rate are souls leaving? I think we can safely assume that once a soul gets to hell, it will not leave.

Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for souls entering hell, let’s look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, then you will go to hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and souls go to hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in hell to increase exponentially.

Now, we look at the rate of change in volume in hell. Boyle’s Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the ratio of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay constant. Two options exist:

1. If hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter hell, then the temperature and pressure in hell will increase until all hell breaks loose.
2. If hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until hell freezes over.

So which is it? If we accept the quote given to me by Theresa Manyan during Freshman year, “that it will be a cold night in hell before I sleep with you” and take into account the fact that I still have NOT succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then Option 2 cannot be true…Thus, hell is exothermic.”

The student, Tim Graham, got the only A.

Memory for remembering scripts that is.  We all know about my memory for names and faces by now.  Memorizing scripts used to be a breeze, but now I just can’t seem to get it right.  I had two weeks this time, and it was better, but I still changed a few of my lines because I couldn’t quite remember them.  I know part of this is actual rehearsal time- we seem to be able to run through it an average of 1.5 times before the performance- but even with this handicap I feel I had a better handle on the memorization at the beginning of the year.

Today we also had a crisis getting props together.  There was supposed to be a squirt gun, for example, but I had to improvise by using a flashlight instead (cool flashlight by the way, in the shape of a cordless drill so I think it worked).  Also I had to make a backpack have some semblance of a rocket jet pack using some printed graphics and rolled-up paper tubes.  Of course the tape on this and another prop failed.  I will have to bring duct tape for the two groups tomorrow.

And now, I have to study the lesson for tomorrow’s 4th/5th grade class- it is my turn to teach again, and this time I have more than a half-hour notice so it needs to sound like it. 🙂

There are two sports that I really cannot stand to watch. I realize that this may put me in the minority especially in this area where it seems that both sports seem to have legion of fans (particularly in my own family).

The first is NASCAR racing. How anyone can sit for 3-4 or sometimes 5 hours at a time watching cars go around and around a track is beyond me. My mother regales us with stories of her youth and spending weekends at the area race track watching local drivers compete. I can sit through maybe an hour of televised auto racing before I excuse myself and do something more constructive. I do enjoy cheering for my favorite drivers. These are not the more popular stars including Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Jeff Gordon, etc. I chose to chose the most colorful name I can think of, usually one who is nowhere near competing. Names like Dick Trickle (Tricky Dicky or Trick Dickle as I used to call him), Hideo Fukuyama ( I wonder if he is related to Chicago Cubs acquisition Kosuke Fukudome sorry if I insulted the new Cubs outfielder), or my new favorite… AJ Allmendinger.

My second favorite sport to fall asleep to is professional golf. Honestly, whenever I hear that someone hit a birdie I say… what kind? At a recent extended family gathering where everyone was gathered around the television quietly waiting for Tiger Woods or some other player to take a shot, I shouted “THREE AND A HALF!!!!” They were not amused. When I want to watch golf on television I stick with the classics: Caddyshack and Happy Gilmore. And if I want to play a good round, I much prefer going eighteen holes at the area miniature golf course.

Sometimes I really think I would prefer watching paint dry or worse yet….. The multi-colored bar code test pattern on the television screen HAHAHA.

I was just wondering why movies based on comic books always start with the character introduction. Why do we go back to Superman getting sent to Earth? Why see Batman’s parents shot over and over again? Why see Peter Parker get bit by that spider? Why go into all of this?

I realize that not everyone has read the comic books that these characters are based on, and they do need to know a little about the character, but can’t there be a better way?

What got me thinking on this was one of my favorite movies has a larger than life hero. In the first movie, we weren’t given a big background on his character. He was just there, larger than life and doing many things just in the first 5-10 minutes of the movie… It took Peter Parker 1/2 the movie before he even became Spiderman. The first Batman movie with Michael Keaton was actually good in this, but Batman Begins went to the Introduction again…

Why can’t we have a Super Hero movie, where the first time we see the character he is already the Hero. (Again, Batman with Michael Keaton did this, and so did “V for Vendetta”.) If we really need the back story, it can be filled in with short flash backs or dialog on screen. I think it would be more fun for the general audience just to see the characters unfold. To learn their strengths and weaknesses as the movie unfolds.

Until putting these thoughts down, I never really understood why this is now the standard practice for all “Superhero” movies. I now have a theory. Superhero movies are done in this fashion for the main purpose of selling the sequel. We get an “introduction”, and the design is to leave the movie wanting more. The last 20 minutes or so are filled with the big fight scenes and mass destruction. The audience is left with many unanswered questions (not in that introduction). They are left wanting (maybe subconsciously) more. Then the next movie is released. Just my thoughts.

Oh, that hero that just started doing his thing at the beginning of the movie. The one we didn’t really know much background on until the third movie was released? The one where another movie is soon to be released? That would be Indiana Jones…