As winter lurches toward February, there’s always the Australian Open to keep my mind off the cold. For tennis fans, it’s probably the best televised tournament in the U.S. Between ESPN2 and Tennis Channel’s live and tape-delayed coverage, there’s rarely an hour of the day in which the tournament isn’t on TV. It is two weeks of tennis nirvana and it allows ample time to get a good look at players’ tendencies.
Take their serves for example. It’s not hard to notice Andy Roddick repeatedly flop his sleeves or Novak Djokovic excessively bounce the ball before serving. But have you ever noticed Rafael Nadal pull out his wedgies? I was happily oblivious to his dirty habit until my brother unleashed a spirited rant about it. Now I can’t unsee it. Check the video and keep an eye out at the 0:12 second and 0:32 second marks for proof.
If Hollywood isn’t remaking 80s TV shows or bringing comic books to life, it seems like they’re remaking films from abroad. I recently got an idea of what’s to come after checking out the Swedish mystery The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and the South Korean thriller The Chaser. The Girl remake will be directed by David Fincher and will star Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara and Stellan Skarsgard. It is slated for a late 2011 U.S. release. The Chaser’s remake rights were picked up by the producers of The Departed, which happened to be a remake of the Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs. No word yet about a potential release.
If you’re into books, you’ve probably heard about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by now. It’s part one of the late Stieg Larsson’s Millenium Trilogy, and centers around a journalist investigating a decades-old mystery and the titular character who helps him with Google. The plot is interesting enough and certainly not unlike what you’d see in a Hollywood movie, but the scenes of sexual violence will certainly grab your attention. I’m not sure if the remake will approach the scenes more or less graphically, but it’s certain to get a reaction either way. I’ve never read the book(s) and this was my first exposure to the Millenium Trilogy I’ve been hearing a lot about. Ultimately it’s a nice diversion for a couple hours that doesn’t stick with me after the end credits start rolling, much like other Hollywood mystery-thrillers. And while we only get glimpses of the main character’s past here, I’m not all that eager to explore it further.
The Chaser is a good case of a lame name for an awesome movie. It’s about a cop-turned-pimp who’s investigating the disappearance of several of his girls. He tracks down the culprit, who he believes to be selling his girls, but then finds himself in a much graver situation than he expected. Given the plot’s premise and an unflinching depiction of violence, the film is tense start to finish. With numerous twists and turns, the questionable morality of the lead character and the vague creepiness of the antagonist, I was hooked. The Chaser was a great watch and affirmed my belief that South Korea is currently producing Asia’s best movies, much like Hong Kong did in the 90s.
…not for winning the Golden Globe for his supporting role in The Fighter (haven’t seen it yet), but for being the best Jesus lookalike in recent memory!
Major League Soccer’s Philadelphia Union will be sponsored by Bimbo Bakeries USA next season. The breadmaker’s parent company Grupo Bimbo is based in Mexico and sponsors clubs in Mexico and Costa Rica. Bimbo’s deal as the team’s shirt sponsor means its logo will be prominently displayed on all team apparel.
I’m sure fans of opposing teams will come up with something crafty to taunt the Union with by the start of the next MLS season this spring, and I have no doubt it’ll be something better than the Philadelphia Bimbos.
People mostly attribute having a song stuck in your head because it’s the last thing you heard before work. But how does a song gets stuck in your head if it comes out of nowhere for no good reason? Inception? That happened to me once several years ago. I was taking my first exam of the new school year, and all of a sudden Steven Tyler is wailing that Armageddon song, aka the most annoying song Aerosmith ever recorded in my head. There was no reason for this, I hadn’t heard it in months. It just showed up. I don’t know about you, but it’s pretty hard to concentrate when there’s a song you don’t like stuck in your head. Rather than answer the questions, I was wasting my mental energy simultaneously singing the song and wondering where the hell it came from. Suffice to say, I failed the exam because of that and I will always hate that Armageddon Aerosmith song.
As much as I go on about the toughness of action movie heroes, I want to pay tribute to a real man. Dick Winters, World War II commander of Easy Company, died on Jan. 2, 2011. He was 92.
Like so many others, I know of him because of the HBO mini-series Band of Brothers. Whether or not Winters’ exploits were exaggerated for television, it’s readily apparent that he was a great leader and a man of character, and someone worth aspiring to. Read more at the Washington Post and The Patriot-News.
Just as the toilet is where I do my best reading, running is when I do my best thinking. I don’t know if it’s the increased amount of blood flowing through my body and the subsequent surplus of oxygen flowing up to my brain, but there’s a certain level of clarity achieved while running.
Today’s random thoughts:
Temperature this afternoon was in the mid 20s Fahrenheit and sunny, yet it felt chilly enough running with the proper clothing. I can only wonder how much stuff that guy on the mountain bike was wearing as he rode past me. He has to factor in wind chill.
Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve noticed music beats at a slower tempo after I’ve been running for a while. My playlists are only so long and I often hear the same song twice during a workout, usually at the beginning and the end, and there’s a noticeable difference in a song’s beat. Haven’t done any research yet, but off the top of my head I’m thinking it’s related to either blood or endolymph flow.
I’m glad I wasn’t running at a faster pace today, otherwise I would’ve been run over by deer. This is not the first time that a couple of Bambis popped out of the woods in front of me. While this doesn’t happen all the time, it occurs just enough to be a concern, especially if one of them has antlers. I keep having thoughts of getting stabbed/impaled by them after a near-miss…
Cold weather is great for motivation. Run to stay warm. Run fast enough to get home before the sun sets, or freeze your ass off!
It’s Friday and all I want to do is drink. I’m more of a beer guy, but I will certainly start drinking more whiskey if I could keep it cold without getting diluted.
Thankfully, the good people at Teroforma found a way to make that happen.
Taco Bell’s relentless promotion of its Touchdown Five Buck Box can be considered a success, as I developed a major craving for a Beefy Crunch Burrito and Crunchwrap Supreme with each subsequent viewing. Too bad for Taco Bell I succumbed to my habit of checking the nutritional information before making a run for the border. I really, really wish I didn’t do that. The Beefy Crunch Burrito and Crunchwrap Supreme are a combined 1,050 calories. The whole box comes out to about 1,500 calories if you get a non-diet drink. Considering we only need to eat 2,000-2,500 calories a day, this box will fast track anyone to fat city. With this info firmly stuck in the back of my mind, I’m going to have to be really “hungry” (translation: drunk) or have the metabolism of Michael Phelps to voluntarily eat this.
As winter lurches toward February, there’s always the Australian Open to keep my mind off the cold. For tennis fans, it’s probably the best televised tournament in the U.S. Between ESPN2 and Tennis Channel’s live and tape-delayed coverage, there’s rarely an hour of the day in which the tournament isn’t on TV. It is two weeks of tennis nirvana and it allows ample time to get a good look at players’ tendencies.
Erratic Automatic Mk II 