Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Trade deadline

Just under today's trade deadline, Yankees pitcher Scott Proctor has been traded to the Dodgers for infielder Wilson Betemit.

Nolan has an autographed Scott Proctor ball. He'll probably be bummed to hear the news.

Silver Lake Slideshow

I haven't had a chance yet to sit down and put together a whole video of our vacation, with moving and still pictures and music and whole nine yards like I had wanted. In the meantime, here's a Picasa slidehow...

Saturday, July 28, 2007

The Deathly Spoilers

I'm about one-third of the way through "Deathly Hallows," which is why I thought this was funny...

The Onion

Final Harry Potter Book Blasted For Containing Spoilers

NEW YORK—Harry Potter fans throughout the world were shocked, disappointed, and outraged to learn last week that J.K. Rowling's 750-page...

Raiders of the Lost Legos

The kids don't really have much an interest in Indiana Jones (yet). But after having so much fun with Nolan's "LEGO Star Wars" video games, I might just have to get this for myself.

"LEGO Indiana Jones: The Video Game" is set to come out in Summer 2008. Check out the way cool trailer for the game.

Here's a bit from the LucasArts press release:
"In addition to providing the quality bonding time inspired by any good family game, LEGO Indiana Jones delivers something a little different for everyone. Parents will enjoy the humorous take on some of their favorite movies, and their kids get some rousing action/adventure gameplay that may also introduce them to Indy's original adventures for the first time."
The game will feature levels based on the first three Indy movies. If the game and the new movie are successful, then I'm sure we can expect "LEGO Indiana Jones 2" down the road.

Thursday, July 26, 2007

'Do you suppose she'll still be with him?'

It's official (as if there was any doubt)...Karen Allen will be appearing in Indiana Jones 4 as Marion Ravenwood.

This picture was posted tonight on Ain't It Cool News. They also have a little write-up on the Indiana Jones presentation today at Comic-Con in San Diego.

UPDATE: I've got to admit, despite my earlier naysaying about the prospect of a fourth Indiana Jones movie, I am getting really pumped up for this. I mean seriously, I'm thinking now about making sure I take May 22, 2008 off from work so I can be at the first screening.

Who was I kidding? I knew I would get excited once I started seeing set photos like this and tidbits about the plot started leaking out.

Speaking of which...IndianaJones.com got an overhaul tonight. The page now shows Indy's hat and whip resting on a large crate that reads "Property of Dr. Jones."

Hmmm...what could be in that crate? Have we ever seen a crate like that before in an Indiana Jones movie? I wonder...

A tale of two Spocks

It's officially official. Once again from AICN, here's Zachary Quinto and Leonard Nimoy together at Comic-Con for the announcement of his casting.

UPDATE: There are more photos from the presentation on StarTrek.com. That's where I also found an image of the new teaser poster.

In other news, the part of Captain Kirk has not been cast yet. There were rumors for quite a while about the role going to Matt Damon, but that's not going to happen.

J.J. Abrams confirmed that Nimoy will be appearing in the movie as old Spock.

Right now the script does not include an appearance by old Kirk. But Abrams said they would like to include Shatner somehow if they can figure out how to make it work with their story.

The release date for the movie will be Christmas Day 2008.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

'You were right...'

I spotted this on Ain't It Cool News tonight...It looks like George Lucas is finally ready to admit the fans are right. He was spotted wearing a "Han Shot First" T-Shirt on the set of "Indy IV."

Making it more ironic is the fact that this picture shows next to Han Solo, er, I mean Harrison Ford.

Sylar to live long and prosper?

J.J. Abrams has promised some big "Star Trek" news at Comic Con later this week. But a juicy tidbit may have slipped out today at the Television Critics Association gathering in Hollywood.

Zachary Quinto, who plays super bad guy Sylar on "Heroes," was asked about the persistent rumors he's in line to don Leonard Nimoy's pointy ears as young Spock in the new Trek movie. Here's his answer, according to TV Guide’s Michael Ausiello...
"I'm under strict orders not to say anything,"

Hmmm...what does that tell you? Would be under "strict orders" if he didn't have the part?

One decade down...

Today we celebrate 10 years of debt home ownership! It was on this date in 1997 that we signed our name on the dotted line (repeatedly) and became the proud owners of our humble little abode.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Super snail mail

Right now if you get a piece of snail mail from the Rooneys, it's likely to come with one of the Postal Service's commemorative "Star Wars" stamps stuck to the envelope.

Maybe when we use those up, we'll pick up the Marvel Comics Super Heroes stamps that go on sale later this week.

Could all of this be the Post Office's attempt to reach out to geeks and youngsters who would be more likely to use e-mail?

Monday, July 23, 2007

Adirondack adventures



Well, in about nine hours I will be back at the daily grind. I’ve been on vacation since July 12, and it’s been terrific!

Actually, the vacation started with Nolan’s birthday – 7-years-old! We had his party at a nearby park with a really cool playground. He invited a few friends from school. They goofed around on the playground, had a kickball game and ended the party with a water gun fight.

Two days later we left town to spend a week at Kris’ uncle’s camp on Silver Lake, in the heart of the Adirondacks. It was a full week of hiking, fishing, swimming and other outdoor fun.

We spent our first day there with Kris’ family. Her sister and brother-in-law were up visiting her folks that weekend. So all four of them came out to the lake for the afternoon.

The Silver Lake Bog Preserve is walking distance from the cabin. We all set out to walk that on Sunday, but pets aren’t allowed in the preserve. So Thomas and I took Chester back to the cabin while Kris and Nolan continued with the hike. The route leads out to the bluffs overlooking the lake with a nice view of Whiteface Mountain in the distance. They came back with some nice pictures. Hopefully Thomas and I can make the hike next time (sorry, Chester).

Meanwhile, Thomas, Chester and I were having our own adventure back in the cabin. Our friendly game of Monopoly was interrupted by the discovery of a chipmunk inside the cabin. We chased him around from room to room before eventually running him out of the house not long before Kris and Nolan got back. The whole escapade was one the highlights of our trip for Thomas.

Monday brought one of my highlights—our trip to the summit of Whiteface. We drove up the Whiteface Mountain Veterans Memorial Highway, making stops along the way to take in the view (that’s where the panoramic shot above was taken). From the end of the road, it’s just a rocky one-fifth of a mile hike to the top of the mountain. We all made it—even Chester, perhaps the world’s only mountain-climbing Basset hound.

The view is absolutely breathtaking. I wish I could have spent more time up there taking it all in. I could spend all day just sitting there soaking up that scenery.

On Tuesday we hopped in the canoe and paddled down to the beach. It’s about a half-hour canoe ride, but once you arrive there you have a shallow, sandy beach all to yourself. It’s great for the kids. We actually didn’t swim a whole lot on this trip. The water temperature was never much more than 72 degrees. Maybe we were being wimps about it. But we did get in the water a few times, including this day at the beach.

Wednesday turned out to be our biggest hiking day. Despite the fact it rained earlier that morning and looked like it could rain again any minute, Kris declared, “We Rooneys are hearty folk!” And with that we threw on our rain ponchos and headed up Silver Lake Mountain. Round trip that was a 1.8 mile trek (and it never did rain again).

Later in the day, on kind of a whim, we drove out to the Adirondack Visitor Interpretive Center at Paul Smith’s College. This is a great, family-friendly stop that I recommend for everyone. There are some hands-on exhibits; live birds of prey and miles of nicely groomed, easy to hike trails. After spending some time in the butterfly house, we wound up hiking a couple of the trails (see the panoramic view of the Heron Marsh below), for a total of another 1.3 miles.

Thursday was our only real washout with the weather. But we made the most of it. Nolan recently declared fish are his favorite animal. So we paid a visit to the Adirondack Fish Hatchery and learned about how the fish are bred and used to stock the ponds and lakes. They had some impressive looking landlocked salmon when we were there.

Friday we went into Lake Placid and hiked some of the Brewster Peninsula Nature Trails. The village was bustling with people in town for the Iron Man Triathlon. It was about as crowded as Lake Placid gets, but there weren’t many people on these trails. We thought it was kind of neat that we found a scenic place to enjoy views of the lake that a lot of the tourists in town probably didn’t even know about.

We had planned to leave first thing Saturday morning, but in typical Rooney fashion we wound up leaving Friday night instead. It just seemed easier that way.

So that was our big vacation for the summer. We took a ton of great pictures. Hopefully in the next few days I'll be able to throw together some sort of slideshow.

In the meantime, life now returns to normal. We’ve got one more camping trip planned before the summer is over.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Indy in action

I've got to admit...seeing this yesterday got the juices flowing...

The latest rumor says the plot for Indy IV, which we know takes place in the 1950s, involves the Russians, Area 51...and the Ark of the Covenant?!?

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

What would we do without the Net?


Breaking News: All Online Data Lost After Internet Crash

Trailer park

A couple of good movie trailers popped up today that I thought I'd point out.

First up is "Fred Claus." How bad can a movie be when it has Vince Vaughn, Paul Giamatti and Kevin Spacey. In this one, Vince Vaughn plays Fred, Santa's underachieving and much less successful brother. It looks like if you liked "Elf" then this will be right up your alley.

Then there's "Get Smart." I mentioned here a while ago how spot-on I thought the casting was in this. Now we get our first glimpse of Steve Carell in action as Agent 86. Looks great!

Last, but not least is that mysterious J.J. Abrams project you may have read about. The teaser trailer is playing before "Transformers," which I haven't seen. However, it hit Apple's Quicktime site last night.

The movie is made up of a cast of mostly unknown actors. The trailer has a very "Blair Witch Project" feel, as it shows home video of a bunch of twentysomethings reacting to an apparent attack on New York City by some sort of giant monster.

The odd thing is that there is no title for the movie. At the end all we're given is a release date: 1-18-08. Or is that the title? Supposedly, the working title was "Cloverfield," but what is the movie's official name? No one seems to know for sure.

No one even really knows what the movie is about, beyond what we see in the teaser. Abrams and Paramount aren't saying. The whole thing is cloaked in secrecy. In this age of Internet spoilers, it's amazing how a project like this can be kept under wraps for so long!

There's a whole viral campaign to go along with this mystery movie. There are several sites that may or may not be connected to the movie and offer clues to what it's all about -- much like Abrams' hit TV show "Lost."

I don't know what it's all about -- but consider my interest piqued!

'Kill da wabbit, kill da wabbit...'

What some people have called the greatest cartoon of all time celebrates its 50th anniversary this week. I give you Warner Bros.' classic "What's Opera, Doc?"...



Of course, when discussing Bugs Bunny and classical music, it's impossible not to give a shout out to "Rabbit of Seville" and "Long-Haired Hare."

Monday, July 09, 2007

Think before you blog...

Here's how I feel sometimes...

Think Before You Blog

Friday, July 06, 2007

Comfy canine

Our friends the Brownells watched Chester for us when we went camping a couple of weeks ago.

Here's one of the photos Ray sent us to demonstrate Chester made himself at right at home while we were gone.

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Happy Fourth of July


We managed to get some Independence Day activities in before the rain started today.

This morning we went to see the annual July 4th parade in Alplaus. That was a lot of fun -- I don't know why we've never done that before. This may be a new family tradition.

The boys and I also went for a bike ride this morning around the neighborhood and we had a cookout tonight at my mom's with my sister's family too. Although the "cookout" consisted of me grilling in the garage while everyone else stayed inside and out of the rain.

Hope you had a great Fourth. Here's some highlights from the parade...

We still hold these truths to be self evident...

EDITOR'S NOTE: I posted this last year on this date, but thought it was worth repeating...

Happy Independence Day one and all.

You can read a copy of the Declaration of Independence at the National Archives site. Seems very appropriate today.

Monday, July 02, 2007

Indy & son

I thought Harrison Ford looked pretty good in that earlier shot of him in his Indiana Jones getup. But as you can see from this shot of him and co-star Shia LeBeouf on the set of Indy IV, they aren't going out of their way to hide his age.

There are plenty of more set pics here and here.