Another reason to not watch 'The View'

...as if I needed one.

It's been announced that Rosie O'Donnell will be taking over for Meredith Vieira on ABC's daytime talk show.

Rosie O'Donnell and Star Jones on the same show... If that isn't enough to give the Geek In Chief over at TVGeekSpeak.com heart plapatations, I don't know what is.

(On a related note, what's up with the head Geek? There hasn't been a fresh post on TVGS is weeks. Maybe Joe Video can shed some light?)

I'm still here

It’s been far too long since the last time I posted anything. I had some vacation time last week, then our friends the Reeds came to visit last weekend and the last few days have been busy at work.

So with all that I haven’t had time to blog—except for last Friday’s news about Star Trek. I mean c’mon, we have to make time for the important things, right?

Anyway, the vacation was good. I had three days off. We were supposed to spend that time in Boston, but when our plans changed I decided to keep the vacation time and just hang out around home. On Day 1 I took Nolan to a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. On Day 2 we went for a family bike ride and picnic. On Day 3 we took a day trip to the Mid-Hudson Children’s Museum in Poughkeepsie.

It poured buckets over the weekend. So our visit with the Mike & Sharon and their kids was a washout. We kept to indoor activities like a trip to the Children’s Museum of Science and Technology and dinner at Applebee’s.

Last night was Nolan’s first baseball game of the season. Sorry…no pictures. We didn’t even bother bringing the camera. Kris had her hands full with Thomas and Chester and I was busy helping to coach the team. He has another game this weekend, so hopefully we’ll snap some shots then and maybe even get some video.

About half of his team was also on his tee ball team last year, and I’m really proud of them. You can see such a big improvement since last year. It’s going to be a fun season!

'Lost' in space

The folks at Paramount are apparently pretty confident in their upcoming “Mission: Impossible III.” Before the movie has even come out they’ve handed its rookie director the keys to their biggest franchise.

You heard that right—J.J. Abrams will direct the next Star Trek movie! Abrams will also write the project, along with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, who wrote “M:I III” with him. Abrams, the creator of the hit show “Lost,” will also be a producer, as will his fellow “Lost” producers Damon Lindelof and Bryan Burk.

Paramount is hoping to have the movie out in 2008. The story will depict young Kirk and young Spock meeting for the first time at Starfleet Academy and sharing their first adventure together.

Abrams and company are going to write a new script based on this concept. However, this premise is nothing new. A similar script, called “Star Trek: The Academy Years” was written back in the 1980s. Harve Bennett, the man who produced Treks II-V wanted to make this next. It was initially given the green light. But then there was a regime change at Paramount and the idea was scrapped. Bennett left and “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country” was made instead.

The news about Abrams was reported this morning in Daily Variety. However, the article made no mention of longtime Trek honcho Rick Berman or any of the other names that have been familiar to fans as writers and producers for the last decade or two. It has long been speculated that Berman’s days at the helm should end following the flops that were “Star Trek: Enterprise” and “Star Trek: Nemesis.”

This also seems to confirm that Eric Jendersen’s script that’s been floating around recently is officially dead in the water. Tentatively titled “Star Trek: The Beginning,” it would have been set in the time between “Enterprise” and The Original Series, featuring a completely original cast of characters. The story would have dealt with the Romulan War that was referenced when the Romulans made their first appearance in the Original Series episode “Balance of Terror.”

As for Abrams, I’ll take the wait and see approach. I’m pleased to see Paramount is going after not only new blood, but some big-name new blood to revitalize Trek. But Abrams can be very hit or miss. Just look at his show “Alias” and even “Lost” and you will find some definite high moments and very definite low moments. While he’s written some great scripts for those shows and, as mentioned, Paramount is apparently pleased with “M:I III,” he also wrote “Armageddon” (not one of my favorite movies) and a draft for a Superman screenplay that was reviled by fans on the Internet.

So time will tell what Abrams has in store for Trek. I’m a “Lost” fan and I liked “Alias” when it was good. So I’m keeping my fingers crossed for Star Trek.

Marathon Man

Congratulations to my brother Tim. He just finished the 2006 Boston Marathon with a time of 3:29:09! His pace at the end was 7:59. Here's his stats:

5k 0:24:26
10k 0:48:44
15k 1:13:20
20k 1:37:30
Half 1:42:38
25k 2:01:44
30k 2:27:11
35k 2:52:54
40k 3:18:20

Start Time Offset 05:02
Pace 07:59
Official Time 3:29:09
Overall 5543
Gender 4881
Division 1950

The qualifying time for his division is 3:30:00. So this means he's automatically qualified for next year's Boston Marathon.

Way to go, Tim!

Hoppin' down the bunny trail

The Easter eggs are all colored and ready for the Easter Bunny to hide tonight.

>>See the video here!

The Bunny still isn’t sure where he’ll hide them. In some years he’s hidden them in the backyard. Some years they’re indoors. I guess it depends on the weather. Even though tomorrow is supposed to be nice I have a sneaking suspicion they’ll be indoors so the kids can look for them right away.

In other news, we’ve had a busy day. Nolan had his first baseball practice of the year. He’s on the Stewart’s Shops team. Hopefully we can somehow convert that into free ice cream!

Starring as Chris Rooney...

So who would play me in the movie of my life?

I saw this earlier today on MSNBC. The site MyHeritage.com has an app that lets you upload a photo of yourself and then their software will find what celebrities look most like you. They have about 3,200 celebrity photos on file to try to match to you.

So who would play me? I tried a few different pictures of me and got different results each time. At first it thought I resembled a young Matthew Broderick. But a subsequent attempt matched me to Eugene Levy (apparently I’m destined to become Jim’s dad from “American Pie”).

Some of the other matches for me included Harold Ramis and Tom Welling (I don’t see that one myself).

While most of my attempts matched me to various celebrigeeks, Kris fared much better. I tried two photos of her. The matches included Amanda Peet, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Alba and Elle Macpherson. Not too shabby!

'Your attention please...'

Is Yankee Stadium the same without that familiar voice echoing from above?

Longtime stadium announcer Bob Sheppard—the man Reggie Jackson once called the “Voice of God”—missed his first home opener in 56 years! He threw out his hip last night at his Long Island home.

Sheppard is thought to be in his 90s. He won’t tell anyone his age.

He’s going to sit out this homestand and is expected to be back for the next one.

Sheppard has been introducing players and delivering messages over the public address system since 1951.

Yippee! Look who's 3!

Today is Thomas’ third birthday!

We got an early start on the celebration this weekend with Kris’ parents. The boys had a great time playing with grandma & grandpa.

Of course, a highlight for any kid’s birthday is the cake and presents—both of which Thomas enjoyed. He also got a kick out of how the icing on the cake turned his tongue blue!

We’ll continue the festivities today with a trip to the train store to pick out a new choo-choo and a visit from his friend Stephanie and her family and my mom for dinner—not to mention more presents and cake.

Happy birthday, Thomas!

Plattsburgh on 'The Daily Nightly'

I'm a loyal reader of Brian Williams' Daily Nightly blog. So imagine my surprise when today's post from the NBC Nightly News anchor included the following:

Greetings and thanks are due to several groups: the journalism students from SUNY Plattsburgh, N.Y. who visited 30 rock today -- it was great spending time with students, as it always is...

I'm willing to bet this means the annual NBS-AERho convention is in New York City.

Back in 1994, my senior year at Plattsburgh, we went to the convention in New York. While we were there we attended tapings of "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," "Rush Limbaugh: the Television Show," "Phil Donohue" and "Live with Regis and Kathie Lee." We even got to spend some time with Regis as the current students apparently got to do today with Brian Williams.

I'm sure Peter Ensel, my old advisor and current head of the communications department was in on this. Way to go Plattsburgh gang!

Vindication!

As you may recall from my “Home Improvement” updates on our basement renovation last year, the only real snag in the process came when it was time to install the carpet. We went with a guy called the Carpet King, which turned out to be the one really bad decision we made in the whole process.

What should have been a one-day job stretched over several days for various reasons.

In the end we were sold much more carpet than was needed and the King (aka Stan Kubik) refused to take it back, citing his no returns policy. Instead we got him to use the excess to carpet our stairs upstairs.

But there was still more left over. The King agreed to bind it and return it to us at no extra charge so we could use it as a rug in our foyer. For weeks I would call him or stop at his store to see him in person and ask for our rug. He always had excuse after excuse why it was not ready.

He probably didn’t have it. He probably used it in another job or accidentally threw it out.

Anyway, he wore me down and eventually I stopped calling him. I gave up and just decided I didn’t care anymore. However, part of me always felt bad for allowing him to get away with something.

That brings us to today’s news. The King has been arrested by Colonie police on charges of larceny and forgery. He’s accused of taking money for jobs and then never completing the work.

Shocker!

I feel a bit vindicated. But I also feel a little guilty. Maybe if I had kept on the guy last year, other people wouldn’t have been scammed?

UPDATE: WNYT interviewed me for their story on the Carpet King. You can view the video here.

It's about time

Ok, wrap your head around this one... at 1:02 and three seconds Wednesday morning, April 5, 2006, the time and date will be 01:02:03:04:05:06.

Woah.

Now does this somehow relate to the "Lost" numbers?

'24' shocker

If you haven’t watched tonight’s “24” yet, I won’t spoil it for you.

But holy crap!  It was an act all this time?  I don’t think anyone saw this coming!

Weekend recap

We had quite the busy, rock 'em sock 'em weekend.

Saturday morning we took the kids to an Easter egg hunt sponsored by Parsons (the adoption agency we used). Besides the easy-to-find eggs (the event was held indoors because of fear of rain) there was a bouncy bounce (click for video), games, crafts and a magician.

We returned home for lunch and then Nolan and I went to the movies. He wanted to see “Ice Age: The Meltdown,” but it was sold out. So I told him he could either see “The Shaggy Dog” now (it was starting in about 15 minutes) or we could come back to see “Ice Age” tomorrow. He picked “Shaggy Dog.”

After the movie I hung a railing in the stairway going down to the basement. That’s a project we’ve been meaning to complete since the basement was finished last year.

Saturday night mom watched the kids while Kris and I went to an auction to benefit the Niskayuna Co-Op Nursery School. Our kids didn’t go to that school, but Nolan’s friend Danny does and his parents, our friends Ray and Marlene, were in charge of the auction.

We had a good time. There was a live auction and a silent auction. We had the winning bids on a couple silent auction items. We picked up a package that included four tickets to a Tri-City Valley Cats baseball game and a gift certificate to TGI Fridays. I also got some cheap tickets to an Albany Conquest arena football game. However, I got “ebayed” on a baseball autographed by Bubba Crosby. I had the high bid all night long until someone swooped in at the last minute to outbid me by $5.

Sunday we all slept in a little, courtesy Daylight Savings Time.

After church Nolan had a party to mark his last religion class of the year. Kris volunteered in Nolan’s class. While they’re is in class, Thomas gets to eat doughtnuts and play with the other kids waiting while their older siblings are in class and I always enjoy visiting with some of the other moms and dads.

Saturday was supposed to be the day we celebrate Chester’s birthday. When we adopted him in 2003, we weren’t told his exact birth date—just that he was born sometime in April 2000. So we picked April 1 to observe his birthday. But since we weren’t home much of the day on Saturday we made it up to him by taking him to PetSmart to pick out a big ol’ birthday bone for himself.

The weather was beautiful Sunday, so we spent a good part of the rest of the day outdoors. The boys, Chester and I walked to a nearby park to play some baseball. I’d pitch to Nolan, he’d hit the ball, Thomas would go running after it. I also beamed with pride watching Thomas pick up a bat and hit a ball pitched by Nolan.

While Thomas napped, Nolan and I took a break to play some videogames. Then we went back outside to play more in the backyard. We tossed the football and played a little more baseball. Thomas eventually woke up and joined us.

By Sunday night we were all exhausted!

Woohoo!

UPDATE: The teaser trailer for “The Simpsons Movie” has been pulled from YouTube. But here’s a link to the official trailer page on the Quicktime site.

Spring training

A sure sign that spring has sprung…baseball has returned to the Rooney backyard!

Kris glanced out the window today to check on the kids who were playing in the backyard and caught this sight. Apparently Nolan was giving Thomas some pointers on hitting and throwing.

And she says Nolan hit the ball Thomas was about to pitch in this shot. Way to go little sluggers!

Beware the apple bus!

The kids enjoy surfing YouTube with me for funny, kid-friendly video clips.

Their favorite at the moment is “Spider-Man: The Peril of Doc Ock” (see below). It’s basically “Spider-Man 2” condensed down to just under four minutes. Oh yeah, it’s also done completely with Legos. It even includes the sequence where Spidey and Dr. Octopus duke it out on top of a moving commuter train.

The other morning Thomas woke up and came down stairs to fine me sitting at the computer. He crawled up into my lap and asked to see the “apple bus.” I had no idea what he was talking about, but he insisted there was an apple bus video with a train in it.

Somehow I figured out he was talking about the Spider-Man video, although I still didn’t get the apple bus connection.

Then when Doc Ock appeared on screen, with his mechanical arms flailing about, Thomas declared, “He an apple bus!”

That’s when the light bulb went off.

“You mean octopus?” I asked.

“Yeah, apple bus,” he answered.

So without further ado, here’s Spider-Man vs. the evil Dr. Apple Bus…

The more you know...

Hilarious! Check out these April Fool’s Day PSAs from the cast of “The Office.”

UPDATE: Sorry! I just realized now (4/3) that I've had the wrong link for this. It's been corrected!

More map madness

Entertainment Weekly has a nifty interactive analysis of the mysterious "Lost" map.

Thanks, Joe Video, for the link.

Can we see that again?

If any of you Losties would like to get another look at that map that was on back of the blast door that lowered down on top of Locke, here you go (click it for a larger view)...

There are several phrases written Latin. Here they are with translations:

Ut sit magna, tamen certe lenta ira deorum est—The wrath of the gods may be great, but it certainly is slow

Malum consilium quod mutari non potest—It's a bad plan that can't be changed

Sursum corda—Lift up your hearts (to God) (this phrase appears three times)

Credo nos in fluctu eodem esse—I think we're on the same wavelength

Aegrescit medendo—The disease worsens with the treatment. The remedy is worse than the disease (this phrase is written near the two "incidents")

Cogito ergo doleo—I think therefore I hurt

Hic sunt dracones—Here are dragons (In the New York public library sets a small copper sphere known as the Lenox Globe. This 1503 artifact dates back to a time when the world, in its entirety, was yet to be explored. If you look closely at the Eastern coast of Asia near the equatorial line you can find the Latin words, hic sunt dracones, which translates to, here are dragons. These simple, etched words signified the end of "discovered" lands, words warning sailors of the uncertainty and dangers of the unknown. This warning held many a brave man in check but for a select few; it issued a silent challenge to push forward. These men recognized the fact that no true opportunity or progress can come without risk. They were willing to face their dragons.)

These are not all literal translations. When you run some of the phrases through a Latin translator tool online they come out sounding a little like gibberish, but these English phrases are pretty close.

Thanks, Kelly.

Getting paid to talk

I've been taking voice acting classes. Play the audio post to hear all about it...