HAPPY THANKSGIVING

The Rooney family wishes all of you out there have a very happy and healthy Thanksgiving!

Enjoy your time with loved ones. Don’t eat too much…oh, who am I kidding? Go crazy! Stuff yourself!

First Grade Feast

Yesterday was the “First Grade Feast” at Nolan's school. All of the first graders dressed as pilgrims and Indians and sat down in the hallway to have lunch together.

The menu included chicken nuggets, veggies and popcorn—just like the first Thanksgiving!

For entertainment, the music teacher led the kids in some songs and even the principal came down to perform a number for the kids on his guitar.

Fun was had by all.

Family hike

We had lunch early today and found ourselves with nothing to do. So we decided to hop in the car and go for a quick hike.

The trail we went to is not that far from our house. It runs between the GE R&D Center and KAPL. It starts on the side of River Road and takes you to the Mohawk River, right across from the Llenroc mansion.

It's actually quite a scenic hike when you consider that we're in the middle of town and a stone's throw from two industrial complexes.

A section of the area, I believe, used to be a commuter rail line that connected Schenectady to Troy a long time ago. The track is long gone and the area is all grassy now. But we did stumble across what looked like some old railroad ties--which thrilled a certain choo-choo fan in our party.

Oh my!

More great geek news...TrekToday reports George Takei (Mr. Sulu) will appear on "Heroes" as Hiro's father. He's set to make his first appearance in a cliffhanger episode on Jan. 29.

Meanwhile, the same article also reports Christopher Eccleston (aka the Ninth Doctor Who) will also be joining the cast. No word on who he will play or when he'll make his first appearance. Although I can't help bu wonder if he's goingto turn outto be the mysterious super serial killer Sylar.

NBC swag

This little NBC promotional item was passed on to me today. It’s my very own set of official “Save the Cheerleader…Save the World” pom-poms.

I brought them home and gave them to Thomas, who had fun shaking them and trying to place them on my head.

I’m looking forward to Monday night’s big episode of “Heroes,” in which we’ll supposedly find out why Claire the cheerleader needs saving and how that will save the world. The promo makes it look pretty cool—and we all know how well promos can be trusted.

VHS, 30, dies of loneliness

After a long illness, the groundbreaking home-entertainment format VHS has died of natural causes in the United States. The format was 30 years old.

No services are planned.

The format had been expected to survive until January, but high-def formats and next-generation vidgame consoles hastened its final decline.

VHS is survived by a child, DVD, and by Tivo, VOD and DirecTV. It was preceded in death by Betamax, Divx, mini-discs and laserdiscs.

Read the rest of the "obit" that appeared in Variety this week.

The story goes on to say that many retailers have stopped stocking VHS tapes since they no longer have shelf space for them. Subsequently, most studios have stopped producing videotapes.

Our two VCRs still get a workout in our household. They may not be releasing mainstream movies on tape anymore, but you can still find plenty of kid videos. And we also still haven't joined the 21st century world of DVRs. So if we miss a show, we still tape it, not "TiVo it."

Play ball

Major League Baseball owners approved television contracts today. The bad news is, the World Series will remain exclusively on Fox through 2013.

The good news is Fox will no longer have exclusive rights to the ALCS and NLCS. They’ll start sharing those series with TBS under the same system they used to have with NBC. Fox will have the ALCS next year, TBS gets the NLCS. Then the following year they’ll switch.

I don’t know if TBS will be any good or not, but at least it will be nice to have an alternative to Fox.

The ESPN article doesn’t make any mention of the Divisional Series. Right now ESPN gets some of those. I believe that’s part of a separate deal that’s still continuing.

Pahrump

If you watch “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” you might be surprised to learn that the dusty little town of Pahrump, Nevada—where Nate Cordry’s character got arrested and hauled before a gruff judge played by John Goodman—is actually a real place. It’s a town of about 40,000 residents west of Las Vegas.

Pahrump is in the news today because the town council there is fed up with those pesky illegal immigrants. So they passed a (unconstitutional) law barring people from flying the flag of a foreign nation higher than the U.S. flag or by itself. Doing so gets you a $50 fine and 30 hours of community service.

The town council also pushed through measures to deny services to illegal immigrants and make English the official language in Pahrump.

Coming soon

I’m pretty excited to find out one of my favorite books is being made into a movie. The lengthy title of the book is “Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II.” I suspect they’ll shrink that title down for the movie.

Peter Weir is in talks to direct. His most recent movie was “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.” He also directed “The Truman Show” and “Dead Poets Society.”

“Shadow Divers” tells the incredible story of two deep wreck divers who discovered a German U-boat about 60 miles off the coast of New Jersey back in the early 1990s. No one in the German or American governments had any idea how the submarine got there. These two guys spent the next six years obsessed with identifying the sub—risking their lives and their marriages in the process.

Although they survived, some other divers working with them were killed. This book portrays deep wreck diving as just about the most crazy, dangerous “hobby” anyone could ever take part in.

Although this is a non-fiction book, it reads like an adventure novel. It’s a real page-turner. I didn’t really know anything about diving or U-boats, but I got sucked into it and couldn’t put it down. It should be a great movie.

The story was also the subject of a documentary on “Nova” in 2000 called “Hitler's Lost Sub”. I’ve never seen it, but the companion website is still online.

The lost 'Spider-Man' footage

Well, Sony seems to have successfully exorcised that unfinished "Spider-Man 3" trailer from the Web. I can't find it anywhere.

TMZ.com has an article about how the movie studio scrambled to plug the leak and how Google and YouTube find themselves caught in a tangled web (get it?) when it comes to uploading copyrighted material.

But here's a screen grab of the top secret footage they don't want you to see...

Autumn

Kris took this picture back on Halloween. I just didn't get around to posting it until now...

2-D-lightful

Maybe I've been going a bit overboard with the movie trailers, but this one is worth while. Here's the latest trailer for "The Simpsons Movie"...



UPDATE: Well, it looks like the trailer got yanked from YouTube. So here it is on Google Video (why it's still available on one and not the other I'm not sure).

I don't really understand why studios don't want their trailers to go viral. Isn't it all about creating buzz for your product? I would think the more eyes that view a trailer, the more places it's available, the better.

Venom!

I don't how long this will last before it gets yanked--but check out this alternate trailer for "Spider-Man 3."

The big nit-pick on the one that came out last Thursday was there was still no sign of Venom. Then this trailer leaked out over the weekend. It's longer and clearly unfinished. A lot of the shots are missing their effects or are animatics. But stick around for the very end and you won't be disappointed!



A link to this trailer went up on Ain't It Cool News over the weekend and then was quickly removed when Harry Knowles got a phone call from the Sony folks. I guess they wanted to keep Venom under wraps a little longer. But a quick search found it on YouTube. They'll probably get the cease and desist order too, so enjoy it while you can!

UPDATE: Well that didn't last long. About an hour after I published this post, I went to play the trailer for a co-worker and it was already gone. So I've replaced the YouTube version with one from Google Video. We'll see how long that lasts.

In the meantime, in case that gets yanked too, you can see a screen grab of Venom here.

Toothless

This was a very big day for Nolan—one we’ve all been anticipating for quite some time: he lost his first tooth!

One of his bottom teeth in the front has been wiggly for quite some time. For what seems like a couple of weeks we’ve been expecting it to come out “any day now.”

Finally tonight, right before bed, Kris was wiggling it and got a hold of it. When he pulled away from her, the tooth just stayed between her fingers.

Needless to say, we were all pretty excited.

Incidentally, the Tooth Fairy’s going rate right now is $1 and a couple of baseball cards.

Toon Trek

The geek-ization of the boys continues…

On Friday I got a copy of “Star Trek: The Animated Series” on DVD. It has all 22 episodes of the cartoon version of “Star Trek” produced in 1973-74.

As I kid, I was vaguely aware that there had been a “Trek” cartoon, but I don’t remember ever actually seeing it. I finally caught one episode on cable TV somewhere when I was in middle school.

The animated “Trek” is actually quite good. It brings back most of the original cast (sorry, no Chekov) and members of the live action show’s writing staff. The writers turned in scripts that were every bit as intelligent as the original show (except they’re only 22 minutes long). They didn’t “kidify” the show for Saturday mornings at all. Better yet, in an animated form they were no longer constrained by what passed for special effects on TV at the time.

Despite that reputation, I thought this would be a great opportunity to introduce Nolan to “Star Trek.”

When he was younger (possibly pre-Thomas) Kris used to sometimes watch reruns of “Star Trek: Voyager” with him. He used to call it “The Space Ship Show.” That routine didn’t last long and he hasn’t really been exposed to Trek since.

A couple of times I’ve caught one of the “enhanced” versions of The Original Series that started running this fall and I tried to get him to watch. But he didn’t show much interest.

So when I got my hands on these DVDs, I thought maybe he’d be more interested if it’s a cartoon.

We popped a disc in and sure enough it was pretty “adult” and “scientific-y.” I was thinking that it was over his head and that he must be getting bored. But he really dug it! In fact, he was clamoring for more. I couldn’t be more proud. It will only be a matter of time before we work our way up to “Wrath of Kahn” (“K H A A N N!!!”).

Thomas was around when we were watching the shows too. He wasn’t paying too much attention though. He was more interested in playing with his monster trucks. That’s ok. We’ve still got lots of time to work on him.

Heroes or villains?

Is “Heroes” helping or hurting the comic book biz? That’s the question Entertainment Weekly poses in an excellent article that looks at the relationship between Hollywood and the comic book industry.

My geek sense is tingling!

Speaking of "Spider-Man 3," here's the new trailer.



They're still not showing us Venom (although some concept art leaked out earlier this week), but Sandman looks great.

It looks like this is going to be a pretty dark Spidey film. It seems like the overall theme is going to be how thirst for revenge can consume a man's soul.

It looks like it's going to be great. I know what I'll be doing the weekend of May 4!

Energized Spider-Man!

While checking out iFilm in geeky anticipation of the new "Spider-Man 3" trailer, I found this commercial for Energized Spider-Man.



I got this toy for Christmas in 1978! He had a "web" you could pull out of his hand and hook onto a clamp that you'd attach to a table or bookshelf or whatever. Then watch him climb!

The other big gifts that Christmas: my spiffy "Star Wars" jammies, a Kenner X-Wing fighter and an Oscar Goldman doll (he was the Six Million Dollar Man's boss--he came with an exploding briefcase).

Bank of America: The Musical

Oh my God. Do things like this actually happen where people work? I swear, this is like a scene right out of "The Office." This might as well be Michael and Dwight on stage (or David and Gareth if you prefer the British version).

This video appears to have been taken at some sort of Bank of America conference, where an emlpoyee gets up and sings about their merger with MBNA to the tune of U2's "One."

A glimpse of the future

Here's a great quote from Stephen Colbert, by way of Couric & Co.:

"Tomorrow, you're all going to wake up in a brave new world, a world where the Constitution gets trampled by an army of terrorist clones, created in a stem cell research lab run by homosexual doctors who sterilize their instruments over burning American flags. Where tax and spend Democrats take all your hard earned money and use it to buy electric cars for National Public Radio and teach evolution to illegal immigrants. Oh, and everybody's high!" -- Stephen Colbert, a national treasure, on last night's Colbert Report.

The Sky's the Limit

Hey, "Heroes" fans...I spotted this T-shirt for sale on Television Without Pity.

The times, they are a changin'

George W. Bush has really let down so many people who were once on board with him.

I was convinced invading Iraq was the right thing to do at the time. I was pleased he was re-elected in 2004 (although I still don't think Kerry would've been good). But now we all know better and it's clear his "stay the course" (non) policy has cost his party control of Congress (Katrina sure didn't help either).

Nice job, George.

Let's look at the Sweeney-Gillibrand race (which is not my district). Sweeney didn't lose because of allegations of domestic abuse. That may have been the final nail in his coffin, but Gillibrand never should have been in striking distance in the first place. And she wouldn't have been if it weren't for the war.

The war is a mess and it motivated the Democrats like never before. They saw an opportunity and poured money into races that otherwise would have been no contest (like New York's 20th district). George Bush cost Sweeney his seat (although Sweeney certainly didn't help matters). And that was the case all over the country.

Now the Democrats have the House and could still wind up with the Senate. How will things change? Here's an excerpt from today's editorial in The Daily News...

The people's sentiment is crystal-clear on the war. They simply want out of the conflict - if there is a way to get out. But there isn't...

...But the bring-the-troops-home-now bunch has largely been marginalized; reasonable souls understand full well that this war, however disagreeable it is - and it sure is - cannot just be walked away from. For now, the anti-war fervor of this newly reconstituted Congress runs smack into the ugly reality that giving up the fight in Iraq will leave behind only catastrophe.

Which means soldiering on with a President, now decidedly lacking in political capital, while hoping for the best.

I'm sure there will be much flaming in comments. So let 'em rip, you guys...

Don't vote for Billy

Those "out of hand" political ads I mentioned? They've spread to our nation's schools!

Short term memory

There has been much talk about the nastiness of this year’s political ads. A lot of people keep remarking about how they’ve never seen it this bad before.

But here’s the thing—this is exactly how it has been for the last 230 years. Mudslinging is as old as our nation.

And yet, somehow every two years the nastiest campaign ads ever are produced. It’s kind of like how every year our Christmas tree is “the best tree we’ve ever had” and how every holiday is “the busiest travel day of the year.”

Granted, the Sweeney-Gillibrand race has been pretty dirty. We’ve had our share of political fist fights in the past, but not many get as “personal” as this one has.

Nonetheless, you watch—two years from now there will be a new crop of nasty campaign ads and I guarantee people will be scratching their heads asking, “Wow, when did it get this bad?”

Anyway, don’t let any of this keep you from the polls. Voting is one of the most important things we get to do! I was still undecided on a few races down to the wire, but in the end I made my decisions. Tonight we’ll see how things turn out.

Rocketeer

Nolan and his friend Chris attended a Cub Scout campout today. We weren't able to spend the night since the boys also had their last soccer game of the year this morning. So we just went for the day.

The big activity for the scouts was launching some Estes Rockets.

We were very fortunate--only one rocket got stuck in a tree. All the rest were recovered intact. That inludes Nolan's rocket, which shot high in the sky and then sailed down into the woods. But the "recovery team" went charging into the woods and quickly found it on the ground.

John Kerry's poor simpleton soldiers

The "uneducated" fighting men and women of America are reaching out their hero from Massachusetts...

'I don't recall'

We are approaching the 20th anniversary of the day news of the Iran-Contra scandal broke--Nov. 4, 1986.

The whole story provided me with an excellent civics lesson, teaching me what the 5th Amendment was all about.

There's an interesting post on the Daily Nightly today about what it was like when the story broke. They've also included a video clip of the NBC Nightly News from that date.

There is also this observation from NBC News Senior Investigative Producer Robert Windrem...

The scandal also resonates now in ways that couldn’t be imagined back then. Today, the Lebanese magazine that broke the story would be online. Experts and journalists with responsibility for the region —- not to mention bloggers -- would have found it almost immediately and pushed it out a lot quicker. And what few recall is that the scandal unfolded in large measure because of the White House’s nascent e-mail system, a prototype electronic mail system from IBM called the Professional Office System (PROFs). As North and countless others have learned since, e-mail leaves a long digital tail that lives on even after being deleted.

Does CTU know where you are?

Thanks, joevideo.

Trick-Or-Treat

We’re gearing up for Halloween. Today Kris and Thomas carved pumpkins…



Friday night there was a Halloween part at Nolan’s school. That gave the kids a chance to try out their costumes. Nolan is going as SpongeBob SquarePants this year. Thomas is (surprise, surprise) Thomas the Tank Engine. Kris made the costumes herself and did a fantastic job…


At the party people who saw Thomas kept saying things like, “Hi, Thomas!” and “Look, here comes Thomas.” And I kept wondering, “How do all these people know him?” Yeah, that dad’s a real sharp one, isn’t he?

High tech communications

I meant to blog about this yesterday, but alas, I got too busy.

Anyway, here’s a history lesson: Oct. 26 was the anniversary of the opening of the Erie Canal. It was on that date in 1825 that New York Gov. DeWitt Clinton traveled on the first vessel to make the journey on the canal from Lake Erie to New York City.

Here’s the cool part that I learned yesterday…soon after Clinton departed, people in Manhattan knew he was on the way. The route was lined with cannons, spaced just within earshot of each other. They were fired, one after another, to spread the word. It took just 80 minutes for the signal to reach its destination.

Here’s how George Condon described the cannon telegraph in his book Stars in the Water, the Story of the Erie Canal…

“[The] first gunner lighted the fuse … fearsome enough to be heard by the next, unseen, gunner down the line because it seemed as if the echoing boom from the northeast came so quickly as to step on the lingering reverberations of the first roar … it rolled through the country of the Mohawks, the Senecas, the Onondagas, the Cayugas, the Oneidas, and the Tuscaroras … moved east, through the Niagara Country, the Genesee Country, the Montezuma swampland, through the Mohawk Valley, past the Catskills, and down the Hudson… It took the cannon telegraph relay only one hour and twenty minutes to reach the island of Manhattan and deposit its historic word before turning about for the return relay to Buffalo.”

Telecommunications sure have come a long way.

Some other facts about the canal that was known as Clinton’s Ditch: it was 360 miles long, 40 feet wide, and 4 feet deep—just deep enough to float barges carrying 30 tons of freight. It was built by European immigrants—mostly Irish—who were paid $10 a month. They were also given whiskey, which was stored in barrels along the construction site. No mention of any mules named Sal.

Falling leaves

I went for a run this morning through Central Park and so many leaves were falling to the ground. It was so pretty to see the different colors falling through the sky. This fall seemed to be nice and gradual, with temperatures slowly dropping. But I think the end is near with 26 degrees on the thermometer this morning and day light savings approaching this weekend. I'll be running in the dark pretty soon.
People ask me what's new and I really get lost in the many activities we have to say what so I end up saying not much. But the kids are constantly doing something and seem to have smiles all the time. Thomas loves preschool. If you ask him, he will say no because he loves the controversy. But he asks if it's a Kiddie Car day and cries if it isn't. He still has trouble separating when Chris brings him there, but he quickly changes his tune and goes with the flow afterward. The fire truck came this week. Thomas also has fun at story hour at the library and a social program in Colonie called Toddler Tales. We're trying to get him some boy friends so he can have some play dates. Nolan, on the other hand, is play date central. He's had a lot of boys over from school. He is finishing up soccer this weekend, has a Creepy Crawly Ball at the school tonight and is getting ready for his first Cub Scout Campout. He has a computer class he takes after school on Mondays too. So I guess that's what's new in a nutshell.
Be sure to watch the leaves before their gone. That's true of your kids too!

Still searching

That M&M's game I blogged about before has a timer built into it, so you can tell how much time you've cumulatively wasted between saves. At the 1 hour mark, I've figured out 45 of the 50 movies.

The last five are driving me nuts. I know there are sites where you can look up the answeres, but I don't want to cave.

'The Google'

It's always interesting to ask a president (of either party) if they know the price of a gallon of milk and see how they answer (I think that was part of a "West Wing" episode once).

Yesterday, CNBC's Maria Bartiromo interviewed President Bush and asked him the 21st century equivalent of that question: "Do you ever use Google?" Here's his answer:

"Occasionally. One of the things I've used on the Google is to pull up maps... I forgot the name of the program, but you get the satellite, like I kind of like to look at the ranch... reminds me of where I want to be sometimes."

As I've mentioned before, I also use the Google for many of my needs on the Internets.

Tick-tock

Speaking of “24,” while setting up the link to Fox’s “24” site for my previous post, I couldn’t help but notice the message that the season 6 trailer is going to debut tomorrow. Check out www.24trailer.com at 3 p.m. ET Tuesday for a first glimpse of what’s in store next for Jack Bauer.

The trailer will also air during the World Series tomorrow night.

'Save the cheerleader...Save the world'

NBC's “Heroes” is easily my favorite show on TV right now. I so look forward to sitting down in front of the TV every Monday night and satisfying my inner comic book geek.

My favorite character on the show has to be Hiro—because he is a comic book geek who embraces his new abilities and adventures with such wide-eyed enthusiasm. It's what every kid with a comic book collection dreams of.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do in January when “24” returns on the same night and time.

Exploring the dark side

Here's a great time-waster, courtesy of PLANET3RRY.

To promote their new dark chocolate M&Ms, and to tie in to Halloween, M&Ms has launched a clever online game. This picture contains images that represent the titles of 50 "dark" movies. When you think you see one, click on it and type your guess in to see if you're right.

How many can you find? I've been working on this for a while now (you cansave your game and come back to it later) and I'm stuck at 35 out of 50. Some of them are pretty obvious. Others, not so much.

Not it!

I thought this was pretty outrageous when I first read about it earlier in the week. But at the time I thought it was limited to just one kooky school in Massachusetts.

Now it seems there are more schools banning "tag" and other playground games that include any sort of physical contact. Another school in the Bay State as well as schools in Wyoming and Washington are worried about lawsuits if a child is hurt in a contact game.

Never mind the jungle gyms, swing sets and slides.

If one of my kids was somehow hurt playing tag, suing the school would be the last thing I'd think of. When I was in the seventh grade I broke my arm playing football on a playground. No lawsuits were filed, nor were they even considered. Accidents happen.

Officials at one school say they've ordered kids to come up with other games to play.

"What we require is that children do not touch each other," said the principal at one of the schools.

Where do we draw the line? Is duck, duck, goose out? You know, someone could suffer a head injury!

Treehouse of Horror!

You've got to check out the cool "Treehouse of Horror XVII" promotion over at thesimpsons.com.

You can make your very own promo for the annual Halloween episode! They've posted loads of clips, music and sound effects from the show. Then you can use their simple editing tool to pick and choose the elements you like and put them together however you want.

Once you're down you can share your video with friends and even submit it for a chance to win a trip to the Simpsons 400th episode party.

Here's my entry.

Here's one of the ones someone else created that I liked.

Enjoy.

Tiger Cub Fun Day

We had a fantastic time at the Tiger Cub Fun Day yesterday at Camp Boyhaven. There were all sorts of great activities for the boys to take part in.

I haven’t been to Boyhaven in close to 25 years.

While we were there I bumped into longtime scout leader Jim Burgess and Marc’s dad, Don Colosimo. Mr. Burgess told me that a long time ago, probably during my brother’s era, my dad got some parachutes from the Air National Guard and gave them to the scouts to be used for games and activities. Mr. Burgess said those parachutes are still being used a Boyhaven today.

Anyway, here’s some quick video I youtubed of the relay race yesterday. Each cub had to put on a hat and vest, run around a tree and then pass the hat and vest off the next cub…

Thomas the Tank Engine

Thomas and I spent some nice one-on-one time together this afternoon while Kris and Nolan were out together. We built a big track with his wooden Thomas the Tank Engine parts and played with his trains.

It was good to have some nice, simple fun at home on a quiet afternoon. We had so much fun that I grabbed the camera to take some shots…

Rooney wrap-up

Sorry, everyone. It’s been a while since I’ve neglected the blog for this long.

It certainly hasn’t been for lack of material. Maybe that’s just the problem. There has been too much going on. This has been a crazy-busy week.

Last weekend was filled with good news and bad news. The good news was that we had a very nice visit with Kris’ parents—and the scenery on the drive up and back through the Adirondacks was some of the most beautiful I’ve scene on that route. The bad news is I forgot to bring the camera. But the good news is that Aaron was in Lake Placid over the same weekend and he did bring his camera. So check out his blog to see what the peak foliage looked like.

Oh yeah, and there was another small piece of bad news—the Yankees loss to Detroit Saturday. As bummed as I was about that, it’s hard to complain about it being one of the low points of the week when just a few days later Cory Lidle was dead after his plane crashed into a high-rise on the Upper East Side. So while I have other thoughts about Joe Torre and A-Rod, maybe I’ll save them for another time.

Work and school and, it seems, life in general have been keeping us busy lately. Looking ahead to the weekend, we’ve got another soccer game tomorrow (I’ll have to tease his coach, who also coaches the girl’s varsity team, about the incident at the girls’ game this week) and our first Cub Scout outing on Sunday—the Tiger Cub Fun Day at Camp Boyhaven.

I’ll leave you now with a couple photos Kris took of the boys playing basketball in the driveway…

Rockin' out with the Blue Man

I thought Blue Man Group totally rocked tonight!

Back in the 1990s, BMG started out as bunch of guys who wanted to make fun of pretentious performance artists. Somewhere along the way they became some of the most well known performance artists in the world themselves.

Likewise, their “How to be a Megastar 2.0” tour is meant to be a parody of arena rock concerts. But in fact, this was one of the best concerts I’ve seen (granted, I don’t get out to a lot of concerts). Hearing their cover of The Who’s “Baba O’Reilly” alone made it all worth it.

Thanks to the miracle of YouTube, here’s a sample of one of the numbers they performed…

Page puns

From the Double Entendre File: I just heard this on Tucker Carlson's show on MSNBC. This is the last sentence from the editorial in today's edition of The Hill, a newspaper described as being "for and about the U.S. Congress"...

[House Speaker Dennis] Hastert and [House Majority Leader John] Boehner need to get on the same page or Republican troubles will continue to mount.

As Tucker points out, no, if these two guys were to "get on the same page" that would only make their problems much, much worse.

Anniversary Blues

Tomorrow Kris and I will celebrate 11 years of wedded bliss. We’re marking the occasion one day early tonight by taking in the Blue Man Group’s “How to be a Megastar 2.0 Tour.”

Blue Man Group! How cool is that?!? I’ve always got a kick out these guys on TV, in their Intel commercials and various talk show appearances (granted, they don’t talk). Over the summer we saw parts of their special on PBS and enjoyed it.

So when I heard they were coming to Albany I just had to get tickets. We’re pretty psyched.

Tomorrow after soccer we’ll be heading up north to visit Kris’ parents for the weekend. Maybe I’ll offer a Blue review after we get back.

Biff sings!

Check out actor Thomas Wilson, aka Biff Tannen of the "Back to the Future" movies, sing about being asked endless, annoying questions about his most famous role...



Thanks, Joe Video.

They report, we decide

Jeff Jarvis over at BuzzMachine makes some really intersting points today as he comments on the 10th aniversaries of Fox News, The Daily Show and Al Jazeera. Here's a sample...

FoxNews is 10 years old this week. This year, Al Jazeera turns 10. So did The Daily Show. All that the three have in common, besides birthdays, is that they brought new voices to TV news: no longer the allegedly objective, cold, institutional tone that journalism took on when it became a monopoly, one-size-fits-all business in this country, thanks to the impact of broadcast on the media marketplace. These fraternal triplets each brought perspective to news, a distinct and clearly apparent worldview, and a passion about serving a public that each believed was underserved.

I know many people have strong feelings about Fox News and Al Jazeera. If you're on the far right, you might find The Daily Show irritating.

But Jarvis goes on to make a very good point: How can adding more voices with more opinions to the conversation be bad for democracy?

A former co-worker I have great respect for once taught me that those with strongly held views should not be afraid to have those views challenged and listen to what the other side is saying.

'Indiana, let it go'

In a recent interview George Lucas said "Indiana Jones 4" is still in development, but not exactly on the horizon. He says he and Steven Spielberg are still trying to come up with something everyone in involved can agree on.

That's the same line we've been hearing for the last...I've lost track of how many years. At one point this was supposed to be out in 2005 to dovetail with "Star Wars: Episode III." Now we're in the latter part of 2006 and Lucas saying they're about a year away from being ready to shoot.

I'm getting tired of hearing about this movie that's never going to happen. They really need to just let this one go.

Foleygate: a dramatic reading

As if the slipping support for the war wasn't enough, this Mark Foley perv might just single handedly (no pun intended) swing the House to the left. Yeah, it's not looking too good for the GOP.

I don't blame you if you don't want to read the transcript of Foley's IM converstion with a Capitol page. You might feel like you need a shower afterward.

Instead, check out this dramatic reading of selected excerpts...

Soccer season

I brought the camera to catch shots of the action at this past Saturday's soccer game. I just didn't get around to posting them until now.

I only shot stills this time. I'll try to grab some video at a future game. If you want video, you'll have to go back to the clip from last year with the crazy father completely overreacting to his son's goal.

Nolan scored two goals this past Saturday. Although he didn't even realize he scored one of them. It sort of ricocheted of his leg.

Of course we don't keep score at a soccer game for first graders. But if we did, the red team would have won 12-1. Just ask any of the kids--they all keep track!

Google World

Google is slowly taking over my life. As you can see, I use Blogger (a Google product) to run this site. I use Gmail for my primary, non-work e-mail. I keep track of my schedule on Google Calendar. I have a Google personalized homepage. And I'm completely addicted to keeping track of all of my feeds on Google Reader.

Granted, I prefer YouTube to Google Video.

So what portion of my life will Google insidiously weave it's way into next?

My post-season pledge

Good afternoon and welcome to post-season baseball. Before we get started, I'm making a pledge right now not to whine (at least not here) about the Fox coverage or the late start of the games like I do every year.

If you want my thoughts on those issues, here are the old links:

• Damn delays
• Post season baseball
• Celebrity sightings
• Play-byplay, Fox style
• MLB's Late-Late Show

Power suit

Am I the only geek that finds it ironic that there is a news piece about Japanese scientists creating a "power suit" that augments someone's strength on the same day the news breaks that Robert Downey Jr. will star in the new "Iron Man" movie?

What happened to T.O.?

It seems most people are abandoning the notion that Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Terrell Owens attempted suicide and are embracing his explanation that he had a bad reaction after mixing pain medication with supplements.

T.O., who was back at practice today, says he was out of it and didn't know what he was saying when police responding to the 911 call from his publicist, Kim Etheredge, asked him if he was trying to hurt himself. They say he answered “Yes.”

Granted, that possibility was one of the first things I suggested upon hearing the breaking news yesterday morning. Everyone else is now on board, but this time I'm the one who's not so sure.

Here's the sticking point: the police report. It says Ethridge told police he was depressed and that he apparently swallowed most of his prescription.
Etheredge and T.O. flatly denied that yesterday. So were the police just making this stuff up? That's what they'd have you think. Here's what Etheredge said yesterday:

“I am just upset that I just feel they take advantage of Terrell,” she said. “Had this been someone else, this may not have happened.”

Yes, everyone is out to get poor T.O. Here is the response today from a representative of the Dallas police union:

“The officers reacted because they were called to this location to do this job. Now they're being put under a microscope by some fancy little football person,” Senior Cpl. Glenn White said. “Give me a break. Those officers are 10 times better than this man. ... We police officers don't go out to these calls and make stuff up.”

I'm not saying I believe T.O. attempted suicide. I'm merely not dismissing the possibility.

People are saying that it makes no sense that someone would try to kill himself one day and be out tossing footballs and acting like nothing is wrong the next. Um, hello?!? That's textbook bipolar disorder.

Again, I'm not saying he definitely tried to kill himself or that he is bipolar—just that it's possible. Either way, I do believe that something much fishier than a random allergic reaction happened at T.O.'s house Tuesday.

UPDATE: Here's CBS correspondent Armen Keteyian with another take on the T.O. drama.

Free popcorn

My never-ending quest for free stuff brings us to the Dale and Thomas Popcorn company (by way of PLANET3RRY).

It seems October is National Popcorn Month and they're celebrating the occasion by giving away bags of what they describe as "the most mothwatering, munchy and crunchy popcorn you've ever had."

Granted, you need to send them $2.95 for shipping to get your free popcorn.

Cub Scout kickoff

This is a big night tonight: Nolan’s first Cub Scout meeting!

They start the Cub Scouts younger than they did in my day. I started in the third grade, but now they begin in first grade.

We went out and bought him his uniform last week, which prompted me to go up in the attic and bring down the box with what’s left of my old Cub Scout memorabilia. I still have the kerchiefs, medals and handbooks from all three years of Cub Scouts.

The Pinewood Derby cars we’re pulled out for the kids to play with as toys long ago.

Now it’s Nolan’s turn. Hopefully there will be plenty of Pinewood Derbies, Blue & Gold Banquets and trips to Camp Boyhaven for years to come.

Rough game

This makes me feel a little better about my (so-called) golf game...

Japanese golfer has rough time, shoots 19 on par-3 hole

"Superstitious or not, Japanese golfer Mitsuhiro Tateyama is likely to shudder whenever he comes across the number 19 in future after an horrific round Thursday at the Acom International."

10 years of tickles

I cannot believe it's been 10 years since "Tickle Me Elmo" first hit the shelves.

I was producing the news on the weekends back then and I remember doing stories about how stores couldn't keep the furry Muppet in stock. I also remember showing a radio station promotion where they ran over an Elmo doll with a steamroller. And I remember closing our newscast one night with a closeup of Elmo sitting on our news set.

We eventually wound up with one of these contraptions in our house several years later.

Today Fisher-Price took the wraps off the 10th anniversary edition of the doll, code named T.M.X. for "Tickle Me Extreme" of "Tickle Me 10." This version can stand up and then fall over laughing when tickled.

Retailers are hoping to catch lightning in a bottle again. I predict the toy will be popular, but won't match the craze from 1996.

Arg!

Avast, ye scallywags! Today, September 19, is International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

'Death to anyone who says we're violent!'

This business with the pope and the outrage over his statements about Islam is crazy.

Last week he gave a speech where he referenced a record of a 14th century conversation between Byzantine Christian emperor, Manuel II Paleologus, and a Persian scholar. Here is the piece of text he quoted:

“Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

The pope didn't say if he agreed with that sentiment at the time, but he sure is backing off from it now.

Muslims took this as a criticism. They thought the pope was saying Islam was a violent religion.

So how have they responded? With violence. Churches in the Middle East have been attacked. A nun in Somalia was murdered.

On Sunday the pope said he was “deeply sorry” about the angry reaction to his speech. The Vatican says the pope's use of the quote is being taken out of conext. Nonetheless, a militant group led by al Qaeda vowed a war against the “worshipers of the cross.”

But Islam is not a violent religion, right? At least it's not supposed to be. The Muslim leaders of the world need to do a better job reminding their followers of this fact.

'Studio 60' poised for success

This could be a good year for NBC. I think they’ve got a hit on their hands.

Earlier tonight I watched the pilot episode of the new show “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” and it looks like writer-producer Aaron Sorkin is poised to knock another one out of the park.

The show, about life behind the scenes of an SNL-like comedy show, is kind of a cross between his earlier shows “Sports Night” and “The West Wing.” Actually, it’s more like what “Sports Night” should have been had they not tried to squeeze that into a strictly-comedy mold (okay, maybe “Sports Night” wasn’t exactly knocked out of the park, but I liked it).

The great rapid-fire Sorkin dialogue is there. And I think Matthew Perry may have found a character that will make people forget about Chandler.

On the other hand, Bradley Whitford spent the entire episode in a jacket and tie, since the story begins with him at a Hollywood awards ceremony. As a result, it’s kind of hard to shake the image of his “West Wing” character. Hopefully that will change down the road.

I also have to give NBC a lot of credit for letting the show turn a harsh critical eye on themselves. Judd Hirsch’s rant at the start of the show skewers the current state of network TV, but takes a couple stabs at some NBC shows in particular—from “SNL” to “Fear Factor” to “The Apprentice” (without actually naming them, of course).

I’m looking forward to following this show.

By the way, look for a guest appearance by “Desperate Housewives” star Felicity Huffman, playing herself. She, of course, was one of the stars of “Sports Night.”

'We have the technology'

I was a big fan of "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "The Bionic Woman" back in the day. How cool is it that we now have a real life Steve Austin and Jamie Summers?

A former Marine from Arkansas recently became the first woman to be outfitted with a bionic arm.

A Tennessee man received a set of bionic arms back in 2001.

Meanwhile, a quick Google search turned up this picture of my first lunch box from 1st grade 1978...

Never, ever feed them after midnight...

Last night Kris and I caught part of the 1984 movie “Gremlins” on Sci-Fi.

We were debating whether or not the movie was appropriate for Nolan when we got to the part where Phoebe Cates’ character tells the horrible story of how her father died on Christmas Eve. He broke his neck trying to slide down the chimney of her family’s home in the Santa suit.

“That’s how I learned there was no Santa Claus,” she said.

Well, I guess that settles that debate…

Five years later...

Today is kind of a depressing day. If you watch the news, all you’re going to hear about is the anniversary of September 11th and the funeral for Trooper Joseph Longobardo.

There seems to be an enormous amount of attention paid to the anniversary of the attacks this year. Over the weekend, every time I flipped through the channels I would stumble across a special of some sort about the attacks—and I kept on flipping. Not because I didn’t care, but because it was just too depressing.

That got me thinking about our fascination with numbers. Is the fifth anniversary any more important or significant than the fourth was or the sixth will be? Yet there is something about the numbers divisible by 5 that makes them seem extra special. Why is that?

I had the Today show on this morning and I heard Matt Lauer remark about how there would be a moment of silence at Ground Zero at 8:46 a.m., when the first plane hit. He said he was sure there would be a similar moment of silence in every town and city in the country.

But at about that time, I was getting ready to leave for work. I kissed my wife goodbye. I noted the painters hard at work on my neighbor’s house. On the radio Mike & Mike were recapping Sunday s football games. People were walking up and down the street and in and out of the nearby grocery store. Life was moving on.

And maybe that’s the greatest tribute on 9/11. Americans are still going about their daily lives in the face of a world threatened by terrorism.

Double-Oh-Awesome!

I am psyched for “Casino Royale!” A lot of people have had reservations about Daniel Craig and the new direction of the James Bond films. To them I say: check out the new trailer! This movie looks very cool.

I read Ian Flemming’s “Casino Royale,” the first Bond novel, last year. Looking at this trailer it looks like parts of the movie are going to be pretty faithful to the book.

Obviously, there are also plenty of parts that are completely original. But then, the book did come out in 1953. It’s in pretty serious need of an updating. Besides, it didn’t have a ton of action in it.

Don’t get me wrong. I like the Pierce Brosnan films a lot. But it looks like this more serious approach to Agent 007 is going to succeed in getting him back to his Ian Flemming, “Dr. No” roots.

Starting school

It sounds like the first day of pre-school was a resounding success.

When Chester and I came back from our early-morning walk a little before 7 a.m. we found Thomas already dressed and ready for the day. Of course, his school doesn’t start until 9:15.

Nolan’s bus picks him up at about 7:30. When he was getting ready to leave, Thomas ran to the closet and put on his shoes. He then got his backpack and proceeded to fill it with every one of his Thomas the Tank Engine trains. He couldn’t understand why Nolan was getting leave while he had to wait longer.

But wait he did and when the time came Kris and I both took him to his school. It was an odd feeling. He’s going to the same pre-school Nolan went to. So we had been there plenty of time before, but of course this was different.

When it came time to enter his classroom he was a little apprehensive. But he soon found a cool table filled with macaroni and toy dump trucks to play with, and that was all he needed. I don’t think he even realized we left.

When Kris picked him up he couldn’t wait to tell her about every detail of everything that happened! With Nolan the conversation would go like, “How was school?” “Good.” “What did you do?” “Stuff.”

If the first day is any indication, it seems like pre-school is going to be a great experience for Thomas.

Back to school

The alarm clock went off at 6:45 a.m. this morning. I went downstairs to feed the dog and start making the coffee.

Soon after came Nolan, all dressed and ready for the first day of school.

After breakfast he was ready to gear-up and head out for the bus. He had his backpack and another bag full of back-to-school supplies he needed to bring in on the first day.

His backpack looks pretty cool. When we went camping over the summer, he completed a book full of puzzles and quizzes about the environment. That earned him a “junior naturalist” patch, which Kris sewed onto his backpack. It looks really good.

He didn’t want a big fuss at the bus stop. I insisted on one picture, but I promised not to take one of him getting on the bus.

He’ll be getting home in a couple of hours and I can’t wait to hear from him—especially about his first experience with lunch in the cafeteria!

Tomorrow it will be Thomas’ turn…

The digital frontier

Last night I got my first glimpse of the “new and improved” version of the original “Star Trek.”

As you may have heard, the classic “Trek” series is going back into broadcast syndication this year with updated modern CG effects.

You can get an idea what the shows will look like at STAR TREK: Enhanced. The site is from one of the guys behind the new effects. It features some clips, including a side-by-side comparison of his “proof of concept” video playing next to the original footage. It shows the first few minutes of the episode “The Doomsday Machine.”

I’m not sure what to make of it. Yeah, it looks good—certainly better than it used to. The changes are not as drastic as the changes George Lucas made to the “Star Wars” movies.

But was it necessary? I don’t think so. With all good sci-fi, the story matters more than the effects. And in 2006, the cheesy effects are part of the original show’s charm.

Who Wants to Live Forever

Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of Queen, would have turned 60 years old today. Wow.

Sadly, Mercury died of pneumonia complicated by AIDS in 1991.

Mercury was a great performer and Queen was truly one of the best bands around in the 1970s and 80s.

Freddie died much too soon. I’d love to know what Queen would have done throughout the 90s and into today.

Meanwhile, Mercury’s birthday is causing controversy in Zanzibar. He was born there when the country was still a British protectorate. A huge beach party is planned for this weekend there to celebrate the occasion. But a Muslim leader in Zanzibar wants the party banned because Mercury’s gay lifestyle conflicts with Muslim teachings.

Summer wrap-up

Well, summer is basically over. Labor Day has come and gone and tomorrow Nolan goes back to school.

For having no plans, we kept pretty busy over the weekend.

On Saturday we took the kids to the main the branch of the Schenectady County Library to kill the morning. We picked up a ton of books and some DVDs: “Bionicle: Mask of Light” for Nolan, a Thomas the Tank Engine DVD for Thomas and “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” for mom and dad.

After the library, we stopped by mom’s for lunch. Later in the afternoon, the Rooney boys all got haircuts (we have a great barber—Kris!).

That night we flattened out the futon in the basement and we all watched Nolan’s Bionicle movie together. I’m not that familiar with the Bionicle toys, but apparently they’re some kind of spin-off of Legos. The movie was kind of like “Lord of the Rings” with robots. We all thought it was pretty cool.

On Sunday Nolan’s friend Danny came over to play. Meanwhile, Thomas and I spent some time hanging out at Barnes & Noble where he played with the train table there. Then we walked over to PetSmart to check out the animals.

We had dinner with mom that night. Then after the kids went to bed we popped in “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” and quickly proceeded to both fall asleep. We’re both fans of Kevin Spacey and John Cusack, but this movie just couldn’t hold us.

On Monday we headed over to the Sportsplex of Halfmoon. It’s a large indoor soccer facility. They have an area in there they call Tippy’s Play Zone. It’s a space filled with three bouncy bounces and plenty of soccer balls, kick balls, footballs and all sorts of other fun sports equipment for kids to play with. We met our friends, the Price family, there and had a great time.

So those are the highlights of our final summer weekend. It seems like it wasn’t that long ago I was blogging about the start of summer. We’ll have updates on the start of school and preschool soon.

Sad death downunder

Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin killed
(AP): "AP - Steve Irwin, the hugely popular Australian television personality and conservationist known as the 'Crocodile Hunter,' was killed Monday by a stingray while filming off the Great Barrier Reef. He was 44."

This is truly sad news. Steve Irwin was very entertaining and had a very likable TV personality. I remember when Nolan was about 3 years old, we used to wake up on Saturday mornings and watch "Croc Files," the Discovery Kids version of his show "The Crocodile Hunter."

He wil surely be missed by many.

Belated camping shots

As I mentioned before, I pulled out our camera while camping in New Hampshire last weekend only to discover the batteries dead and I didn’t have nay back-ups with me.

We were camping with our friends, Mike & Sharon Reed, and fortunately their camera was working just fine. Sharon e-mailed us a bunch of photos and a couple of videos yesterday.

Pictured here are Nolan and Thomas with Simon and Ava Reed. This was taken during a nature hike at the campground we were staying at.

I’ve youtubed the videos she sent. The first is of Nolan and Simon on the swings…



The second clip shows a Rooneys vs. Reeds volleyball match…

An Inspirational Enterprise

You’ve all seen those “Successories” posters before. You know, the ones that have some sort of nature picture or an athlete making an amazing play and it will say something like “DETERMINATION” with some sort of inspirational quote or message under it.

Well, a “Star Trek” fan with too much free time has created a series of Star Trek inspirational posters.

A co-worker found this site. He uses the one pictured here as his desktop wallpaper.

Some other good ones include:

“EXPENDABILITY: Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Ensign Ricky are beaming down to the planet. Guess who's not coming back.

“INGENUITY: Yes, it is perfectly reasonable that Kirk had the know-how to make the gunpowder and put together the bazooka to defeat the Gorn. That's why he's the goddamn Captain.”

“KOBAYASHI MARU: It's okay to cheat, if you just really don't like to lose.”

If you’re a Trek fan then you'll find them pretty funny. Check it out.

Crash course

I was already running late to get home from work last night. I wound up being even later after getting rear-ended.

I was on Route 7 near Lisha Kill Road when the car in front of me braked suddenly. I quickly hit my brakes and avoided hitting the car. Then I remembered to check for that minivan that was tailgating me. I glanced in the rearview mirror and instantly knew what was going to happen next…CRASH!

No body was hurt. I had a little headache last night. That’s about it.

The car has a couple of gashes in the back bumper. That will have to be replaced. Near as I can tell, everything else seems fine.

This is the third time in less than a year my car has been involved in some sort of collision. In December someone backed into it when it was parked on the side of the road. In February a woman stepped out in front of me during a snowstorm, causing me to swerve and hit a guardrail. Now this. Needless to say, I’m on a first name basis with the guy at the body shop.

Just to add insult to injury, when I got home I was a little flustered getting out of the car and wound up locking the keys in it. We only have one key for my car. It’s one of those keys with a microchip in it and it costs about $60 to get a copy. We’ve never got around to doing that. Anyway, we wound up having to call AAA to get to get the car open.

Tigers vs. Yankees

The Tigers are playing the Yankees in a day-night double header today. That has Nolan excited.

At some point earlier in the season I told him that the Tigers were really good this year. Not long after that he decided he was a Tigers fan in addition to being a Yankee fan.

So who is he rooting for today? He insists he's rooting for both teams.

Meanwhile, the cable is out here in Menands. So I guess I'll have to actually do some work.

Blame Canada

"South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, while speaking at the Edinburgh International Television Festival in Scotland, said they have it on good authority the Marines guarding Saddam Hussein have been making him watch their movie "South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut."

In a subplot to the hysterical 1999 movie, Saddam dies and goes to Hell where he engages in a homosexual relationship with Satan.

Fender-bender, shmender-bender

How does a big league ball player smash his brand new Porche into a county-owned garbage truck without anyone finding out about it?!?

Nature vs Nurture

So I had a dentist appointment today and my good friend Marlene watched the kids so I could go. I was having a busy day with lots of work at home in the morning (still recuperating from camping) and rushing to this appointment. I get back to her house and her daughter Stephanie was crying like she had been hurt. Thomas had just finished wacking her with a metal pole. Poor Marlene blames herself for having the pole out! Of course, Thomas is tired and he gets himself in trouble when that happens. What's a mom to do? We apologized and decided we won't do that next time (how many times have I heard that one?). I can't tell you how many times I have said no hitting, please listen to me, be nice to your friends, ... And I'm as nonviolent and noncompetitive as they come. But I tell you, Thomas definately pushes the envelope with me. He teaches me constantly what it is to be patient and non-impulsive, things he still has yet to grasp. And Chris is laid back and calm, while Thomas is all about the drama. Thomas impresses me with his ability to laugh when being yelled at and defying for the fun of it; these ideas never occurred to me when I was little, Miss Goody-goody. So are we as parents at fault? Is the nurture part of the arguement to blame? Or is it his nature and personality, things we can't really control? As a matter of fact, the more I do try to be strict and control him, the worse it is. Having a "home-grown" child and an adopted one does make me think a lot more about the nature vs. nurture debate, especially because they are so different. Of course, Thomas is only 3 and I just keep hoping these challenging traits will serve him well as an adult. In the end, he is an adorable, intelligent, little imp that I love to pieces. Even when I do yell at him and have bad parent moments at times, I hope he always knows that.

New widget

You may have noticed the box on the right side of this blog labeled “Things That Caught My Eye.” Here’s where that came from…

I had been using Pluck as my RSS reader. However, I recently switched to Google Reader.

Both readers have their pros and cons. But one of the nice things about Google Reader is that it can generate a little customizable piece of code I can drop into my blog. Now with a single click I can send headlines from Google Reader to this space.

Sometimes I stumble across interesting articles, but I don’t have the time to write something up to provide a link with. This will make it easier to share some of the items I find interesting with all of my loyal readers.

Back from the woods

We returned from our final camping trip of summer 2006 yesterday afternoon.

Unfortunately, the batteries in our camera died. So I wasn't able to get any good pictures.

But, as always, the kids had a good time in the great outdoors. They really love camping. At home they love their TV and video games like any kid. But once we get to the campground it's as if they forget about all that stuff. They don't even ask for it. All they care about is playing baseball, going on hikes and roasting marshmallows. It's a nice change of pace.

This will likely serve as our farewell to summer. School starts in about a week and a half.

Back to the woods

We're heading off on camping trip number three tomorrow. We'll be in New Hampshire with our friends the Reeds. Cross your fingers and hope we don't get rained on too much.

Picture and recap to follow...

Klingon karaoke

When Worf and General Martok talked about doing deeds worth of song, I don't think this is what they had in mind.

This is a video from little lost robot that I thought was just goofy enough to share. Qapla!

Don't try this at home

Summer is winding down and the fall TV season is right around the corner.  But one of the best things about summer TV is discovering some cool shows on cable that I might otherwise miss the rest of the year.

This summer I’ve really gotten hooked on MythBusters on Discovery Channel.  It’s a bunch of special effects whizzes and science geeks who take various myths and urban legends and put them to the test.

One really good episode tested out the legend that the Confederate Army built a rocket powered-missile during the Civil War.  Could that be true?  Using only materials that would have been available in that era they managed to build and launch a rocket, but it couldn’t go as far as the legend suggested.

This show is a lot fun.  They tackle everything from historical myths to modern day issues, like will your cell phone really interfere with the instruments on an airplane?

The best part is that a lot of the experiments usually involve blowing something up or some other form of destruction.  It really makes me wish I paid more attention in science class!

Snakes on a popcorn bucket

You had to know this was going happen. Some pranksters in Phoenix released two live, venomous rattlesnakes in a movie theater during a showing of "Snakes on a Plane."

Boston Massacre 2006

Wow! Going into this series, I was just hoping the Yankees would take three out of the five games against the Red Sox. A sweep just seemed like too much to ask for. But the Yanks just finished winning five at Fenway. Unbelievable! The last ime that happened was 1943.

Not even the big bat of Big Papi could save the day!

You know this is a series that no one will forget for a while in New York or Boston. What a way to add to the rivalry!

This puts the Yankees 6 ½ games in front of the Red Sox in the AL East. The Sox now also find themselves 4 ½ back in the Wild Card race behind the White Sox and the Twins.

There is still a significant amount of baseball left to be played, including four more games between the Yanks and the Red Sox. Anything can happen. But the Red Sox sure have dug themselves into a hole. BWAHAHA!

RELATED NEWS: Zimmer recalls 1978 Yankees sweep over Boston

ALSO: Celizic: Yankees are best team in baseball now
Mike Celizic's commentary on MSNBC.com this evening begins like this...

“We still have a chance.”

That's what Theo Epstein, architect of the Boston Red Sox 2004 World Series championship team, told reporters Sunday — one day before the Yankees completed a five-game sweep at Fenway Park and ballooned their lead in the American League East to 6 1/2 games.

It's probably the same thing Custer said at Little Big Horn.

Trying to remain patient

In case anyone is wondering, I'm withholding comment on the awesome weekend Yankee fans had until after today's game. I just don't want to jinx anything. It's kind of like not talking about a perfect game too early on.