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If I Were 10 Years Younger...

I'd totally be into this...

Halo 3 for the Xbox 360 goes on sale Tuesday morning at 12:00 midnight.

That's Crap!

As of October 2, 2007, families with children under the age of four will no longer be able to board before other passengers on Southwest Airlines. Those with “A” boarding passes will board first, and then families who do not have “A” boarding passes will be allowed to board the airplane before passengers with “B” and “C” boarding passes. This is presumably in accordance with Southwest’s first-come, first-served boarding pass and seating procedure, but probably has a little more to do with appeasing business travelers, who are more apt to purchase last-minute higher-fare tickets.

While I understand Southwest’s desire to make a buck, and I love Southwest Airlines in general, this is a bunch of bulls#!%. Does anybody in charge of these decisions actually travel with their kids? I’ve never flown with Danica by myself, but Kindra has, and I’m sure it’s pretty difficult. I’m sure it’s worse if you’ve got more than one small child. Giving families a small advantage is a nice way of taking care of them.

However, I will admit that if the “A” group isn’t too large, there probably will be ample seating for families to stay together if they board before the last two groups. I’ll also admit that I don’t really see the point of getting on a plane super early, since all you’ll be doing is sitting around and waiting for everybody else to get seated. It’s almost easier to let Danica run around the waiting area before we get on the plane than try to keep her in the seat once we get on the plane. The only advantages are not having to cram your stuff into the overhead compartment and being able to find the seat that you really want. Of course, all of this applies to business travelers as well, so why do they care so much about when they can get on a plane? They’re still going to have to sit on their butts and listen to any kids that happen to be whining… I also notice that a lot of them like the aisle seats, so do they really want to be knocked and bumped by parents carrying all the crap that you have to have when you travel with a child?

Still… Southwest allows check-in online twenty-four hours prior to departure, so I’m pretty sure if we fly with them that I’ll be doing that. It still irks me, though, so for now I’m boycotting Southwest.

For My All-Important Female Demographic

Here’s news for you that is unrelated in anyway to any of the male-centric stories and thoughts that I have and normally write about: the first first shot from the Sex in the City movie being filmed in New York.

In fact, the film began shooting this week and is being directed by the series’ executive producer, Michael Patrick King. All the cast regulars are back, including the men in their lives, and Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson (Dreamgirls) is also a part of the cast, supposedly as an assistant to Sarah Jessica Parker’s character, Carrie. The movie is due out sometime in 2008.

Sorry, I know nothing of the plot, nor do I know what SJP is wearing the in photo. I’m pretty sure it’s not from her Steve & Barry’s collection, but I could be wrong.

Early Thought of the Day

I realize I don't keep up with a ton of stuff in the sports world (despite working in it), but who the heck let Keyshawn Johnson on ESPN... as a reporter? It wasn't bad enough that we had to listen to him as an NFL player?

Actually, I didn't even know he wasn't playing anymore.

Oh well... at least it's not Terrell Owens.

Sam Bowie - The Next Generation?

If you're a sportswriter covering NBA basketball and haven't made this connection yet, you're brain dead. But when news that Greg Oden, the Portland Trailblazers' No. 1 pick in this past June's 2007 NBA Draft and No. 1 pick overall, will miss the ENTIRE 2007-08 season with microfracture surgery on his right knee.

If you’re wondering what this has to do with a guy named Sam Bowie, Bowie was drafted by the Portland Trailblazers as the No. 2 pick in the 1984 NBA Draft, behind a guy named (H)Akeem Olajuwon and right before a guy named Michael Jordan. Bowie was a 7-1 center out from Lebanon, PA, who was one of the most highly-recruited players ever. He was the last player ever chosen for the United States Olympic Men’s Basketball Team without any college or pro experience (he was a member of the 1980 squad). While playing at the University of Kentucky, Bowie had a serious leg fracture that led took most of his junior year and some of his senior year to rehabilitate, played in 76 games as a rookie with the Blazers, and then just 63 more over the course of the next four years. Over his 11-year NBA career, Bowie had five surgeries on his legs and missed two entire seasons. He was a good NBA center, but not the Greatest Player of All-Time.

I'll confess that I felt sure that Oden HAD to be the Trailblazers' pick, because you can't pass up an opportunity for a dominant big man. The point guard and center spots are the two hardest spots to fill on a basketball court, so if you’ve got an opportunity at a big, you have to go for a big. Too bad Oden wasn't dominant. Not that he had a horrible one-year stint as a college basketball player at Ohio State. He averaged 15.7 points and 9.6 rebounds, most of it while dealing with an injury to his right wrist (so much so that he shot free throws left-handed - yes, he's a righty - for a good portion of the year and ending with a respectable .628 FT%). The real issue is that Durant was incredibly dominant offensively. Durant is a rare offensive talent, Oden is a mobile big man with good defensive skills and some offensive limitations. Still, scoring forwards can be found. Mobile bigs are not. For a more cohesive argument, read this article by Bill Simmons on ESPN.com where Simmons lays out his reasons that the Blazers should’ve gone with Durant, even without recent developments.

Of course, beyond the wrist injury (which he had surgery for) and the current knee injury, Oden was also diagnosed with a bulging disk in his back just before the draft, tonsillitis that sidelined him after two games in the Las Vegas Summer League, and withdrew from the Olympic Team trials because of “fatigue.” He’s (supposedly) nineteen years old! Maybe the Blazers should’ve thought twice. But again, it was a sound basketball decision, if not a fantasy basketball decision.

So is Greg Oden Sam Bowie redux? It’s too early to tell. Bowie went through some seriously crazy and ridiculous injuries, while Oden just seems to be a nineteen-year-old going on fifty. The Phoenix Suns’ center, Amare Stoudamire, underwent similar surgery two years ago, and he returned this past season as an All-Star. So, there is hope.

I like Oden. He seems like a good kid and could be pretty good. I don’t necessarily think he’s a basketball player at heart, unlike Durant perhaps, but would’ve been great for the league and the Trailblazers from a marketing and fan perspective. Hopefully he’ll play in the 2008-09 season and we won’t have to talk about Oden-Durant like we do Bowie-Jordan.

Line of the Day (or Last Night)

Comedienne Kathy Griffin won an Emmy last night for best reality TV show, My Life on the D-List. Here's part of her acceptance speech:

"A lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus. Suck it, Jesus. This award is my god now."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... you have to know her style to find that funny and not offensive, but she makes a living being slightly nuts.

9/11

I suppose I would be remiss if I didn’t mention something about 9/11. That was six years ago, can you believe it? MSNBC was running the actual news coverage they did in real time tonight, and I caught some of it. It really was surreal to watch it again, since I remember watching it all live back then.

I was also in a meeting today that the moderator asked us to start with a moment of silence. He relayed the story of his daughter who worked in the World Trade Center at the time of 9/11, and how he and his wife spent the entire day wondering if their daughter, who was eight months pregnant at the time, and her husband, who worked near the WTC, were okay. Fortunately, his daughter had a cancellation in her schedule, and she was at a doctor’s appointment instead of at the WTC. Her husband was okay, too. It’s hard to ignore a man who tells a story like that.

Somebody’s gonna blast me for this, but there’s a part of my brain that thinks the Bush Administration let this happen. Regardless, America still hasn’t taken a hard enough look at our foreign policy to understand how our actions abroad affect how we are perceived, even if some of those perceptions are based in the radicalized faiths of a few nutcases. *Step off soapbox*

In any case, God bless those families who lost loved ones, the families who found loved ones safe, and I’ll be thankful for being in a country where, if we try hard enough, we can do things right and help each other along the way.

Maybe It’ll Grow on Me… Like "The Phantom Menace"

That’s the title to the new Indiana Jones movie, due next year. Seems like the title of a Choose Your Own Adventure book or an Indy novel. Leave it to George Lucas to come up with something that is right out of a 1930’s or 40’s serial.

Here’s a picture of the cast, with director Steven Spielberg. L-R, Shia LaBeouf (prounounced la-BOOF), Spielberg, Ray Winstone, Karen Allen, and Harrison Ford. Also in the movie, but not pictured, is Cate Blanchett.

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And c'mon!!! Blue Harvest!

Family Guy - "Blue Harvest"

‘Nuff said.

Of course, if you don’t get the “Blue Harvest” reference, Google it and you’ll understand.

Thought of the Day

Do you ever find yourself wishing your life was like a book so that you could skip to the end and find out if it’s a fairy tale or an Edgar Allen Poe story?

Hail to The Chief

Happy 54th birthday to NBA great Robert Parish. Inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2003 and named one of the NBA’s 50 Greatest Players of all-time, “The Chief” played fourteen years with the Boston Celtics, and twenty-one years overall (four with the Golden State Warriors out of college, two with the Charlotte Hornets, and one with the Chicago Bulls). He owns the record for most games played (1,611) and is the third-oldest player to play in an NBA game at age 43 (Nat Hickey of the Providence Steamrollers and Kevin Willis of the Dallas Mavericks are the two ahead of him). Incidentally, his Celtics teammate Cedric Maxwell gave him the nickname after the character in the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest because of Parish’s stoic nature.

Also, it would have been baseball great Ted Williams’ 89th birthday today. Others celebrating birthdays: tennis player Andy Roddick (25), actress Cameron Diaz (35), bazillionaire Warren Buffet (77), and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly (would’ve been just 210).

Boldy Going?

I write a lot about movies, television, and pop culture in general, mostly because I’m a product of growing up in the 80’s and 90’s. Now, people my age are in charge of the pop-culture machine so there are a lot of things in development that I’m interested in. I also blame it on a lack of proper education (as my wife points out, what the heck are you actually supposed to do with a degree in Asian-American Studies?) and proper media coverage of actually important events. Regardless, I continue on, for my own enjoyment and possibly yours.

You may have heard that J.J. Abrams (see above), creator of Felicity, Alias, and Lost, is working on a new Star Trek movie for release Christmas 2008. So far, all anybody really knows about it is that it will feature a young James T. Kirk, Spock, and Bones McCoy, and that the principal actors are Leonard Nimoy (reprising his role as Spock), Zachary Quinto (Sylar from Heroes, as a young Spock), and Anton Yelchin (from mostly small TV roles, as a young Pavel Chekov). Other actors rumored to be wanted by Abrams are Tom Cruise (as Captain Christopher Pike, the original captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise) and Russell Crowe (as the unspecified bad guy). Matt Damon was the fans’ choice for a young Kirk, and Ray Liotta the choice for a young Bones McCoy, but those look doubtful. And although people are clamoring for William Shatner to reprise his role as Kirk, even in a cameo, that does not seem to be happening either.

The big mystery is what the story is going to be. In a recently posted article on Ain’t It Cool News, the new rumor is that there will be some sort of time-travel twist to the movie, in which Romulans from the future find themselves transported into the past. This leaves them with the ability to alter history, by eliminating a key historical figure. What historical figure? James T. Kirk, of course. But if an older Spock were to know about this possibility, he would then be put in place as protector of the timeline… Very Back to the Future: Part II, as the article states.

Regardless, I think that whatever Abrams does, it’ll be pretty good. I’m not sure of the whole divided-timeline idea, but it might actually better serve the “reimagining” of the Star Trek universe. The fans are excited to see Quinto as a young Spock, and he certainly looks the part, but it’s definitely going to be difficult to fill the shoes of a man who was Spock, much more so to me than William Shatner is Kirk.

Hmm… it seems to be difficult to convey the sense of interest I have in the story without writing a lot about the Star Trek mythos and history. Just thought I’d keep those of you on the outside informed.

Geek... out.

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Quick update: the role of Uhura has supposedly been offered to actress Zoe Saldana, who has appeared in Abrams' short-lived ABC creation Six Degrees and Pirates of the Carribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. She also has a role in James Cameron's upcoming sci-fi epic, Avatar.

Across the Universe

Okay, in light of the fact that I’ve been feeling very cynical the last few days, here’s a trailer for a new movie called Across the Universe, which is a story about a young man from Britain who moves to the U.S., the girl he meets, and the turbulent Sixties era they live through. I have to admit, the reason I first saw this trailer is because I read that the music in the movie was that of The Beatles, probably the greatest band to ever record an album (and I don’t care what kind of music you prefer, you probably agree with me). Anyway, it seems like an okay movie, but the soundtrack really helps:

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And because I can’t help but write something a little negative, it was reported on AICN (Ain’t It Cool News for the uninitiated – http://www.aintitcool.com/) that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson will be taking Eddie Albert’s role in a remake of Escape from Witch Mountain. Now, I haven’t seen the movie since I was a kid, but I did love it when I was younger, so I’m not really sure how I feel about this. Especially in light of the fact that The Rock will be a taxi cab driver, instead of a grandfatherly figure driving a Winnebago. Hmm.

I actually like The Rock. He seems like a decent dude and would be good if he stuck to Schwarzenegger-type roles (action and action-comedy). He seems kinda likeable in the upcoming, sure-to-be-a-flop The Game Plan, in which he stars as a star quarterback who suddenly finds out he has a ten-year-old daughter. He’s also starring the upcoming Get Smart, based on the old TV show, with Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Alan Arkin, and Terrance Stamp that’s due out June 20, 2008. Here’s the trailer:

Well… that wasn’t as negative as I thought it was going to be. =)

Miss Teen USA… NOT. Or, Feeling a Little Masochistic?

WHAT?!?!

Dude, she finished as the THIRD RUNNER-UP. What the hell?

Here’s the transcript, just in case you didn’t catch all of that:

Question:

"Recent polls have show a fifth of Americans can’t locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think this is? "

Answer:

"I personally believe… that… U.S. Americans are unable to do so because… that some… people out there in our nation don’t have maps and… uh, I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and the Iraq everywhere like such as and I believe that they should… our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S…. err, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future. "

I know you just read that about ten times... People CLAPPED for that. Okay, there’s polite, and then there’s recognizing that a girl needs to be in really special ed. Maybe it was her Make-A-Wish. She didn’t even have the decency to just pack it up and go home. I woulda just dropped a light fixture on her and ended her misery. You gotta know when to hold ‘em, and you gotta know when to fold ‘em.

Her explanation was that she “completely misunderstood” the question. “I wasn’t expecting (the question). I lost my train of thought.” Sweetie, your train took off a loooooooooong time ago.

AND, she ended up on The Today Show! I LOVE Matt Lauer’s second question to her. Here’s the clip, in which she has a second chance to answer the question (skip the first part – it’s the clip from the Miss Teen USA show, because to watch it again would be completely insane):

It’s killing me, too, because she wants to be a special FX artist? Oy. Look out Appalachian State. And we should not let her move to SoCal – we have enough trouble with the blonde airhead image already.

FYI, I had to watch the clip seven times to make sure I got all of it. I think my brain is deteriorating as I write this…

Ghetto Move

Ah-HA! Proof that Oprah is Harpo:

Oprah is planning a benefit dinner on September 8 for Barack Obama near her Santa Barbara estate. The problem is that she wants her guests to stay at the nearby San Ysidro Ranch, which is totally booked by a wedding party. According to MSNBC.com, Oprah’s people have been contacting the bride to either move or cancel some of the rooms to accommodate Oprah’s guests. The bride, who is an attorney, is refusing. Oprah’s people deny that any calls have been made, but the ranch has confirmed that the wedding party has cancelled some of the rooms without a cancellation fee because “there was such a demand for the rooms that weekend.”

What? You can’t keep a few house guests at your estate, Oprah? It cost $64 million, fer cryin’ out loud! And there aren’t a few guest rooms? Sheesh. That’s pretty low of her to ask a BRIDE to move her wedding party for a fundraiser. Two things: 1) I’ll bet the bride is white, and 2) I’ll also bet that Oprah never would’ve asked if the bride was black.

Remember When You Used to Do Things Like This Just for Kicks?

Seventeen-year-old George Holz of Glen Rock, NJ has done what the entire geek community has been waiting for: hacked the iPhone. Holz and three collaborators managed to unlock the AT&T-exclusive iPhone so that it will work on other cellular networks. According to Holz, it took five hundred hours of work (equivalent to eight hours a day, everyday, from the June 29 launch of the iPhone) to hack the device.

Holz then made a deal to trade it to Terry Daidone, co-founder of CertiCell, a Louisville, KY-based cell-phone repair company. The deal reportedly was for a Nissan 350Z (!, see below) and three standard 8GB iPhones, which Holz said he will be giving to his collaborators.

Daidone said that he had no plans to commercialize Holz’ work.

Read the original article here. Here’s a pic of the car the kid is now rollin’ in:

Finally! Doing Something Worthwhile with the Space Shuttle

When the crew of the Space Shuttle Discovery lift-off in October, the one thing they can be sure of is that they’ll be well-armed. In honor of the 30th Anniversary of Star Wars, the crew will carry Luke Skywalker’s original lightsaber into space with them.

The lightsaber will begin its journey today in a ceremony at Oakland International Airport, where Chewbacca will hand over the lightsaber to NASA officials. From there, it will fly aboard a special Southwest Airlines flight that will be pushed back from the gate by Chewie, Boba and Jango Fett, and other characters from the movies. It will arrive in Houston, Texas at 4:20 PM CDT to be greeted by a squadron of stormtroopers, R2-D2, and others at William P. Hobby Airport. From there, it will travel via a fleet of Hummers under police escort to Space Center Houston where it will be on exhibit through Labor Day.

Universal Tie-In

Just in case you’re bored or an insomniac, there will be a total lunar eclipse tomorrow morning, beginning at 4:51 AM EDT, reaching totality about 5:32 AM EDT, and ending at 7:22 AM EDT. The only views of the total eclipse will be in the Western Hemisphere, since the moon will have set in Europe, Asia and Africa by the time the eclipse begins. The best views are where I am, on the West Coast, but I’m not counting on being awake. It would be neat, though.

FYI, the next total lunar eclipse will be on February 21, 2008 and will viewable from the Americas, Europe and Asia. Mark your calendars now.

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Interesting how this eclipse coincides with the release of NBC’s Heroes DVD, since a total solar eclipse played a prominent role early in the series and in the marketing (see picture, above). The significance of the eclipse in the show hasn’t been revealed yet, but I believe they are supposed to touch on it this season. I wouldn’t put it past the marketing guys to have chosen the release date based on eclipse. Regardless, I’m running out to purchase it tomorrow. I know – you’re hardly surprised.

The choice I have to make is whether or not to buy the first season of Friday Night Lights, as well (a steal at $19.95). It’s a great show that got mediocre ratings last year, but I’m sure the low price on the Season 1 DVD set is a way to generate some interest. Go rent or buy it if you’ve never seen it. Even Kindra likes it, and she was wary of watching it because it was supposedly “just about football.” It’s actually a very well-done show. I wrote a little about it last year here. The show deals with all the ups and downs that are associated with high-school life (and life in general) not just for students, but for their parents and their community as well. It just happens to be set around a football-obsessed town.

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* -- Universal is the studio that produces Heroes, just in case you were wondering what the title had to do with anything.