I Can Chop You In Half!

If you do not think that this movie looks like one of the greatest things to come along in our, or any, lifetime, then I will fight you. And that is no lie!

8+ Minutes Of Cool For A Friday Afternoon

He Is Human After All!

There's a bit of language, but this is worth a watch. Keep an eye out for the beer swilling...

Vacation?

Sorry to everyone who e-mailed, called, or left comments over the last several days who got no response or were only able to talk to me for a few minutes (or if I seemed surly at all) I actually got to take a few days off from work and "relax." I also had to ponder all the while whether or not I should attempt to move the family in the next year or so - I have a few potential job offers, none of which are closer to "home", some of which are for significantly more than I'm making now, all of which would be a change of scenery and would probably give the wife more of a shot at putting that college degree of hers to use. None of which I can afford to wait more than another couple of more days to act upon. And of course there's all the trappings that go along with that sort of thing - if you've been in the job market in the last few years, you know exactly what I'm talking about. What's a boy to do?

But that's not why I brought you here.



The vacation - I actually did some vacation stuff. The canoe was out on the water - more than once! Beer was drank. Fish were caught. Food was grilled. Cigars were smoked. No yard-work was done! Okay, that's a lie, I did mow the lawn on Tuesday. And of course I paid the price for taking time off when I returned to work yesterday.

Cindy and I have been doing some hiking as well - Ampersand Mountain is a great, short, tough, scenic, beautiful hike. Peter's previously blogged about it - Cindy and I weren't on the ball enough to remember to pack the camera. The hiking around here brings to mind something I'd been told but didn't really get the gist of before moving out here. The East Coast has its own unique brand of idiot. I won't go into to many details as I don't want to bore anyone, but out West I would invariably run into crowds around hiking areas - yuppie Seattleites, a few active soccer moms with noisy brood in tow, morons with no business being in the woods, etc. We've got some of that around here, especially right now, in the peak of the summer tourist season (seriously, does no one know what "trail etiquette" means anymore?), but the ones that trouble me the most are...The idiots that bring ski poles on a short, easy hike. Are you #$%&ing kidding me? They're also usually the ones wearing the most expensive, single purpose "outdoor" clothing, which only adds to my feelings of superiority over them. A walking stick if you're old or lame? Sure, but ski poles? Can someone explain? I wish I had some pictures of this phenomenon so we could all laugh...

Gogol Bordello!

I don't know how much of this band is real (the accent? really? has Borat made Eastern Europeans fashionable or funny or what?) but I do know that I want to hear more!

Pictures, Finally.

Say what you will about my intelligence, attitude, class, manners, or the fact that I was born a hermaphrodite, but Cindy and I are sure capable of producing some good looking offspring regardless.


A nice smile - this was just today. God bless the internets and the speed with which we can share pictures of our kids, or pictures of unsavory and unspeakable things, with each other!

The boy got to play some rugby last weekend - nice pass, ut I don't know what the grimace is all about...

It's very surreal for me to aknowledge that I'm the biological parent of a three year old. Ethan was already well into walking (running) and talking (back) when I showed up in the picture, so it hasn't been as weird for me to think about. But I used to be able to pick this toe-head up with one hand!

And finally, the best birthday present Connor got was, in my opinion, the pinata - because for once, the trauma was directed at an inanimate object instead of my nether regions.

Will there be more pics to come?

Where Have I Been?

I've been busy. I'll try to get some pictures uploaded in the next day or so, but here's some links to pictures and stuff from the end of the rugby season (I can't download them this year - I'll have to buy prints so I can remember when I'm old why I have so many aches and pains) - this last weekend was the CanAm tournament which is our home tournament (also the largest in North America) and our last gasp for the season - it was a great time, we played well, and I've got some serious muscular/skeletal issues now.

I am a bad, bad, man.

Third place is still better than we've done in 20 years or something.

I can take on like 12 guys. For real.

My buddy Alex on the attack.

Look for the "Dirty Uncle" in the front row - hilarious that someone actually did that!

Why do they always call me "Brendan?"

Action shot!

Watch the high tackles, son...

Again, the "Dirty Uncle" and also a nice "White Wall" haircut. That's Alex again, attemptin a hockey style jersey pull.

Scrum time.

B...Out!

I Demand Satisfaction!

I saw this the other day and wanted to pass it on - beautiful animation, funny, robots, boobies...enjoy!

A gentlemen's duel
Uploaded by nettouch

Edit - Thunder & tarnation! It seems the full video's been pulled from the sight where I saw it - here's the preview from YouTube.

Radical!

Tell me that this isn't the best six minutes of celluloid ever. Go on, tell me. We have:

• 80's fashions
• Obvious stunt doubles
• Actors riding bikes attached to trolleys for the close-ups
• Weird 80's dialogue (listen for the "respect" comment at the beginning)
• Music by The Scorpions
• A premise that in and of itself is nothing short of breathtaking
  

Mastodon As Foodstuffs? (You'll Only Get That If You Love The Metal)

I wouldn't recommend watching this without headphones if you're somewhere that others might here...

I do wish that more people would take this message to heart!

Whippet Good!

That dog can eat whatever she damn well pleases...

I Can Turn Invisible If I Just Try Real Hard!

Noooooooooo!

Don't click this link. I warned you...

More to come!

Films

The boy got straight A's this last trimester/quarter in school - actually, in the parlance of our modern world, it should be "the boy got straight one's this last trimester/quarter in school." So Cindy and I took him to see a movie last night (it was free popcorn night as well, and everytime we hit that, I eat enough popcorn to feel ill for at least the next 12 hours). What did we see?

FF4 - ROTSS

I wasn't a big fan of the Fantastic Four as a kid - but I like these movies. They're pretty goofy, and light on story, but that's sort of what I expect from a movie based on a comic book. A good 90 minutes of entertainment is great - I can't help but think of all the utter crap that has been released as adaptations of comics and video games whenever I read a negative review of an entertaining flick like this.

Anyhow. Spoiler - The Fantastic Four do not allow Galactus to consume the planet. And Jessica Alba looks weird in this one - I don't know if it was funky tinted contacts, the odd wig, or the makeup they had on her, possible drug use, or what, but, it was weird to the point of distracting. Like "That person has devil eyes" distracting. Also, they manage to pull out that stupid hover car that I do remember from the comics. And while it's definitely more StarWars-ey than it was in the comics, that has still got to be one of the worst superhero methods of perambulation ever devised. What a hokey, hokey vehicle!

Bryan, go see the movie. I think you'll like it - thumbs up from me.

Second. I wasn't too excited when I first heard that the Transformers was being brought to the big screen - until I saw that preview about a month ago, now I'm way excited. In related, updating-our-childhood news, I just heard Spike Jonze - who usually makes watchable stuff, is adapting "Where The Wild Things Are," and there's already a still from the movie released..And...Tell me this doesn't look way, way awesome:

Blogging Again?

With the warmer weather, and a few interesting things occuring on the internets, my blog-mind™ has been a virtual hive of activity. Here's a few more pictures, we'll see if I bother captioning them, you stupids.

And we line up for a line out. For those not in the know - a line out occurs when a ball goes out of play during a match. The team who didn't kick (or did kick if it's following a penalty) gets to throw the ball in. It has to go down the tunnel, but the throwing team gets a tactical advantage in deciding how far it gets thrown. Lanky guys like me get to jump - and be lifted, sometimes by our testes - into the air and snag that bad boy. This particular match, our line outs were shit. But this last weekend, against some pretty good teams, I ruled - I think I caught all of ours and stole 4-5 of the other teams' throws. Pat on the back.

Here's Lake Tanganyiki...Or what seemed like it. There aren't really any good East-West Interstates in New England. So you look at the map and try to find the shortest distance. Then, 2/3 of the way through your trip, you realize that the road map in the car has no indication of elevation, so what looks like 50 miles is really about 100 because you're climbing all of these crazy ass hills and mountain passes. At least the mountains back here aren't as tall as those out West, or there's a good chance there'd be some Donner Party-like occurences. This, by the way, is in either New Hampshire or Eastern Vermont.

When you road trip with kids, there inevitably comes a moment when one of the little ones either spills a drink all over themself or manages to urinate twice as much volume as they've ingested all week. I think in this case the kid slamed an entire bottle of Gatorade™ and then proceeded to urinate approximately three times as much liquid out of his body as was in the bottle to begin with. Cute picture though...

The littlest one, enjoying some tummy time. Man, has he been a squawker the last few nights. And I sleep more soundly than Cindy does, so if I'm tired and irritable, it's amazing that she can even function.

Hopefully, Cindy's going to throw a few more pictures of the chillin's up on her blog - probably not today, as she's in Plattsburgh, but go check it out in the next day or so.