Should Ratatouille Be Nominated For Best Picture?
My answer is – YES! I actually take back what I previously said about Beowulf; I had somehow forgotten I had seen this wonderful film over the summer. Ratatouille is by far the best film I had seen all year.
Disney/Pixar are contemplating pushing Ratatouille for the Best Picture Oscar at the Academy Awards, but the Mouse House is worried that such a push, might diminish their chances of winning the Best Animated Feature Oscar.
clinical vs. business
Work continues to weave its own crazy web. I am one of four clinical analysts in the IT department for a local hospital. We handle most things clinical; everyone has their own departments from within the hospital that they are responsible for. I am responsible for several departments, but my two big ones are lab and radiology. Now, I don’t know the first thing about clinical; I have no medical background, and the terminology rolls off me like water off a duck’s back. When I took this job over a year ago, I was absolutely terrified. But I’ve learned a lot over the last 12 months, and my mentor and fellow analysts have been great in assisting me. In fact, my counterpart (a nurse) and I made a deal – she would help me with all things clinical if I would help her with all things technical. (more…)
update 112707
It’s been over a week since my last post. During the work week, I’m pretty exhausted mentally and physically to put in an entry. There’s a lot to talk about, but it gets to the point where I don’t know what to blog about. I know I’m coming off a nice holiday weekend where I had plenty of time to put some thoughts online, but instead I took advantage of it by relaxing and spending time with my wife. Not to mention I spent most of the past week or so rebuilding the laptop. Hopefully things calm down for me with a nice 6-day weekend coming. And maybe it won’t take me 10 days or more to write about something.
Beowulf
Beowulf – 5 out of 5 – Outstanding retelling of a classic poem that I hated reading back in high school. The film has an all-star cast including Anthony Hopkins, Robin Penn-Wright, John Malkovich, Crispin Glover as the demon Grendel, Angelina Jolie as Grendel’s mother, and Ray Winstone as the fearless warrior Beowulf. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, it was done in beautiful CGI; we happened to catch it at a theater with a digital projector, and it was shown in 3D. Spectacular!
Viewing films in 3D have certainly improved. I was always impressed with 3D presentations done in theme parks like Disney and Universal. However, I found myself with a headache because of straining my eyes to visualize the 3D effects. Those attractions lasted 5 to 10 minutes; I wasn’t so sure about a film lasting nearly 2 hours. I had nothing to worry with Beowulf. In fact, the 3D presentation was done so well that I had forgotten I was wearing special glasses. Lots of action and great storytelling made this the best film I had seen this year.
UPDATE: 11/30/07 – I forgot about Ratatouille. So I digress and say Beowulf is one of the best films I have seen this year.
wish list update
With a baby on the way, I’ve decided to take down my wish list page. I don’t need anything for Christmas this year; it’s all about our baby now. If you’re wanting to get something, please save it for the baby!
update 111807
Sorry for the lack of updates. There seems to be a lot going on, and with the holidays quickly approaching, there’s not a lot of time to do much blogging. My laptop has also been giving me grief for the past week. Windows Media Player has suddenly stopped recognizing the WMV file format, so I’m unable to view videos. There are other media players that I can use offline, but when I want to watch movies on Netflix’s site, it no longer works. I completely uninstalled and reinstalled WMP, but I still get the same result. My friend suggested installing Windows on top of everything, but that didn’t work either. So I’m currently trying to back up all my data so I can do a complete rebuild. This normally wouldn’t be such a task for me, but without an external HD, it’s a challenge (and time-consuming).
Christine and I have started to spread the news of her pregnancy to our friends and co-workers. Those we have told are very excited and happy for us. We had stopped in Babies R Us the other night, and I have to say, it was pretty humbling. I learned …
- about swaddling,
- that Serta makes mattresses for babies,
- and that I can’t hear the baby’s heartbeat unless I have one of these.
I certainly cannot wait for our little peanut to come into our lives!
'tis the season
To my family – we need wish lists! Thanksgiving is next week, and Christmas is just around the corner. Mine is posted here.
UPDATE – 12/1/07 – I’ve disabled the link to the wish list page. I’m not concerned about receiving gifts this Christmas. If you’d like, save for May/June of 2008 when the baby arrives!
world's hottest chili pepper
ESPN’s Rob Stone vs. NMSU’s chili pepper (thanks to Joe Tan!)
24
With the writer’s strike in full swing, here’s a little something for Jack Bauer fans … 24: The Unaired 1994 Pilot
Girl Gets Detention for Hugging her Friends
I remember seeing this headline on Digg and thinking how stupid this is. Then I heard it on the radio this morning on my way to work and realized it was a local school that made national headlines.
District Superintendent Sam McGowen said that he thinks the penalty is fair and that administrators in the school east of St. Louis were following policy in the student handbook. It states: “Displays of affection should not occur on the school campus at any time. It is in poor taste, reflects poor judgment, and brings discredit to the school and to the persons involved.â€
Happy Birthday Mom!
Just want to send my best to Mom on her birthday. Here she is with Dad at Epcot last May.
Happy Birthday Mom!! 
Flickr plugin not working
Since upgrading to WP 2.3, I’ve had difficulties getting my albums to display on the “pics” page. If you came from Joe Tan’s site by clicking on the “Tenyjr.com” link, you already know my page doesn’t work properly. That is why the “pics” tab is no longer available. When I find the time, I will work on resolving this issue. In the meantime, there are plenty of working samples on Joe’s site and on the Flickr group.
Transformers
Transformers – (3.5 out of 5) – Having owned the toys as a kid, this was kind of a nostalgic trip for me. Lots of action and the special effects are the true stars of this film, and Shia LaBeouf is great and keeps the movie going. A good popcorn movie, although it fizzled towards the end (costing it a star on my rating scale).
ultrasound
CL: “It’s a peanut!”
white, clean, and neat
I’ve upgraded WordPress, and this will be the third time I’ve chosen to go back to the Cutline theme. Of all the themes I’ve used, this one is the easiest to manage and customize. And it’s easy on the eyes. I went with black not too long ago (for monitor-power-saving reasons), but I just wasn’t happy with it. For my return to Cutline, I trimmed the header images (and removed the text depicting the site name) and kept it random. I plan on creating a static home page; this will be the simplest way to get my Flickr photos displaying nicely on my site.
expecting the unexpected (revised)
Christine tells me that my version of the story in which she tells me she’s pregnant is inaccurate. This is how it went down:
“It’s a pregnancy test.”
I said nothing.
“It’s a positive pregnancy test,” she says.
“Is it yours?”
“Yes!”
“Are you serious?”
expecting the unexpected
One night, Christine came home from work. I was in the bedroom watching TV and working on the laptop.
“Close your eyes and put your hand out,” she says to me.
I do as I’m told. I’m expecting candy, chocolate, maybe a homemade cookie baked by a patient of hers. Whatever it was, it didn’t feel edible. It was made of plastic. My first thought was a handy dandy toothpick holder, a freebie from my employer, something I can probably pick up on my own from HR. I opened my eyes to see what looked like a white plastic letter opener. I sat there, quiet (only because I didn’t know what it was).
“That’s a pregnancy test,” she tells me.
“It is?”
“Yes. It’s positive.”
I’m pretty sure my mouth hung open as I stared at the test in my hand.
“Really?”
She nodded.
“You’re pregnant?”
“Yep!”
When we got married, Christine’s clock was ticking. But we couldn’t conceive, no matter what we tried. It got to the point where we both accepted the fact that it wasn’t gonna happen. I think we were both ok with that, but sometimes I wonder “what if”. Daniel is my stepson. I treat him as my own, but I constantly remind myself that he is not my child. When we picked up Salem from the pound, he helped fill that void. I spoil that dog rotten; he is my child, my son, my boy (even if he has four legs and a lot of fur).
Needless to say, Christine’s news was a pleasant surprise and wonderful to hear.
“Well, this changes everything!” I said.
“Yep!”
bad day, bad mood
I had a very bad day at work, and it ended terribly. Wireless devices in the lab failed to work towards the end of the day; I stayed late to try and resolve the issue but came up empty. I will have to go in for a few hours on Friday to fix this, which also happens to be my day off. These devices go into production on Monday, and I need to make sure they’re working properly. Then I have to deal with an attitude at home. The attitude is in response to parents trying to assist with homework. WTF?!?! No appreciation; just attitude as to why we suggest changes. It’s an English paper, and the grammar is incorrect. That’s why you should make the damn changes. I’m so pissed off right now. This is not how I wanted to start off my 4-day weekend.
