Sunday reading

Here's two weeks of reads I found to be interesting ...

Baseball ...
a 'Good citizen's' spot in Cubs' lore secure ... When the Cubs got rid of Kerry Wood last week, I was a little susprised given the strong season he'd had. Then again, the Cubs should've gotten rid of him years ago. But even through all of the injuries, he was a good personality to have around.

Politics ... from the day after the election ...
a A new morning in America
a America turns the page
a Shift in tone will bring a watershed for nation
a Nation crosses hopeful bridge
a Now, Promises to Keep, and Divides to Be Bridged
a Obama and America
a No Time for Laurels; Now the Hard Part
a For Many Abroad, an Ideal Renewed

More politics ...
a Light in November ... I became a fan of Kathleen Parker a couple years ago, but her stuff during this election cycle has been wonderfully entertaining.
a A Moment for the Ages, Many Years in the Making
a Finally, a Thin President
a Sitting on top of the world
a Thinking of Good Vibrations
a 'Renegade' joins 'Twinkle,' 'Rawhide,' 'Lancer' on list of Secret Service code names
a Obamas just like us except ...
a 10 most viral videos of the campaign
a What's up with Obama's Sox hat?
a For Obama and Family, a Personal Transition
a The Election Lives! ... This is a good one about the yet-to-be-decided Senate election in Minnesota.
a Tolerance fails T-shirt test ... Astonishing is one word to describe this one.

The Internet & media ...
a Google at 10: Searching Its Own Soul
a Election’s Over, So What’s Next for the Cable News Channels?
a Freaky hologram on CNN recalls 'Star Wars' ... Who wasn't saying this after the election?!
a In Era of Blog Sniping, Companies Shoot First
a Remember Me? The One With the 'O' Button?
a The Monitor embraces its future - a digital one
a Rejected Tribune Front Pages ... My friend Liz tipped me off to this one. My favorite is definitely the WHOOPS. page.
a We are not bemused. Or are we? A word's dueling meanings

Music ...
a Elvis mystery solved! ... and how the Tribune solved it.
a Shawn Colvin: Wild Child, Now 52, Finds Fun In Her Music
a Van Morrison discusses 'Astral Weeks,' which he'll perform at the Hollywood Bowl

TV ...
a Flagging ‘Heroes’ Attempts Self-Rescue
a In Its Final Season, 'ER' Is Embracing Its Roots
a 'How I Met Your Mother' fans await big reveal day
a Talking Obamas, Huxtables with Bill Cosby

Entertainment ...
a Fanning is a big girl and a big star now

Life & other stuff ...
a Toy Hall of Fame points to new addition: the stick
a Massive waves a mystery at Maine harbor ... This is fascinating.

Hide and Freak

... So I skipped out on Sunday night TV shows last night ...

And watched "Hide and Seek" instead.

That's one freaked-out movie. And I liked it.

Robert De Niro is scary good in the film. It's always good to see Elisabeth Shue. And the wonder that is Dakota has turned out yet another good one.

Now I want to watch it again just to see if I can pick up more of the clues that lead to ol' Charlie's big reveal ...

Streaming my pop culture consciousness ...

Don't mind me. Just rambling about some of the other things I've been doing / watching / listening to the last few weeks in between all the pennant races ...

(What do you think I'm doing as a I write this post? Watching the Brewers, of course ... I'd be watching the Cubs too, but that game's on ESPN, which means it gets blocked out in our region. Idiot cable ... By the way, the Cubs and Brewers are all tied up atop the NL Central heading into tonight. The Brewers just went up 2-0 on homer No. 47 from Prince, and last I checked the Cubs were scoreless ... There's still a solid week left, but judging by the last few nights, I'm really liking the Brewers chances right now ... )

... So I was holding out as long as I could, but over the weekend Hotmail made me change over to Windows Live. Me and everyone else I know who uses it agrees: We hate it ... but then again -- we agree on this too -- we've hated it every time Hotmail makes a change, only to wind up getting so attached to it that it's inevitable we'll hate the next change ...

* * *

... With the fall TV season starting up, Kates and I have been pressing ourselves to clean up all the movies that have stacked up on our DVR over the summer and on our entertainment cabinet ... Most of them have been put off for a good reason -- we weren't that interested in seeing them, but we kept hearing good things about them and there comes a time when you feel like you have to see them whether you want to or not ...

And so we watched ...

Pirates of the Caribbean? Even with all the hype surrounding the third installment this summer, never really interested in seeing it ... But it was pretty darn entertaining. Funny. And I've enjoyed the last few Johnny Depp movies I've seen so much that it's getting to a point where I'll watch just about anything he's appearing in ...

Spiderman 2? Again, with all the hype surrounding a third installment this summer, I couldn't care less about this movie -- because I thought the first one was horrible (and I saw it in the theater ... ) ... Turned out, I liked Spiderman 2 enough to actually want to see Spiderman 3. I still thought the barage of computer graphics were so fake-looking and poor I laughed, but the action (and watching Kirstin Dunst) kept me interested ...

The Cat in the Hat. Ok, so I've never heard good things about this movie. But c'mon, it's got Mike Myers, Dakota Fanning and Spencer Breslin, and it's based on a Dr. Seuss classic. How bad can it be right!? ... Started watching it, and was happy to see Alec Baldwin, Kelly Preston and Sean Hayes too. Thought it wasn't too bad, but then again, it was being held up by Dakota, as usual, stealing the opening scenes as the primped and proper Sally, poking around on her palm pilot and making her to-do list ... Then Myers broke in as the cat, and the movie just started going from bad to worse. Kates and I fell asleep and woke up after the movie was long over. And I don't care to go back and watch what we missed.

And last night, I stayed up after the baseball games to watch Dodgeball. Yeah ... I'm going to liken this one to my experience watching Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle: A movie that starts out so silly and juvenile you want to turn it off ... but you can't keep from getting attached to the characters, and by the last 30 minutes you're rooting for them and you're glad you stayed on the ride ...


* * *

... I've gotten hooked on watching FX's "It's Always Sunny in Phladelphia." I'd never heard of the show until I ran across a preview for the premiere a couple weeks ago. So I tuned in, and enjoyed it ... In the premiere you had a guy infiltrating a group of enviro-hippies and then sleeping with their leader's girlfriend out of revenge. Two guys (one of them is Danny DeVito's character) become so addicted to digging through trash bins they turn into bums and don't realize it. And a couple ends up painting a baby (which they found in a Dumpster and named D.B. for Dumpster Baby) brown so he might appear Latino and have better odds of appearing in a commercial ... It's good old-fashioned silliness -- almost like the kind you'd find at Second City, or any other improv comedy club. It's funny stuff.

* * *

... I recently got a hold of Kelly Clarkson's new album. Right now, I can hardly stand to listen to it; it's too dark ... But I'm open to the possibility it could grow on me ...

... In the meantime, I've really been getting into The New Pornographers, Feist and Mates of State (Lawrence, Kan., baby!) -- who, by the way, all appeared together in a smashing performance on Letterman a couple weeks ago ... I've been clicking on "Fraud in the '80s" almost every time I've turned on my iPod for the last month ... I'm mesmerized by Kori Gardner's organ playing and the duo's punchy pop harmonies ... Check out the video ...

Performers that rock

… I read something on another blog about the notion that Amy Poehler is saving “Saturday Night Live” these days …

I could go with that.

Her imitation of Dakota Fanning last night was spot-on and HA-larious …



And Avril Lavigne rocked. Plain and simple. She's fun to watch ...

Sunday reading

... The Shins strong -- and overdue -- showing on SNL last night inspired me to pull out my Shins CDs this afternoon. Great stuff ...

Here's some good reading (and cartoons, courtesy of Cagle's Cartoons) that caught my eyes this past week ...

Entertainment buzz ...
a What does Oprah believe?
a It's Not All About the iPods, Oprah
a You'll likely read more about Britney in '07
a Comedy writers aren't laughing about 'Studio 60' ... I have to agree: It's a show about a comedy show, but the comedy in the show that the show is about isn't funny at all!! ... I so wanted it to do well, but at this point NBC would be wise to let it fade away ...
a Who's that 'Studio 60' nominee? ... whatever. I've admired Sarah Paulson long before Studio 60 came along ...
a Matthew Fox talks about his dark side
a Vieira Settles In, and 'Today' Gets Ready to Go Long
a Tween actress' sex scenes raise ire ... Oh, Dakota, why must you grow up so fast? Please don't become a ruined child star ...

Music ...
a Ain’t it odd? Song lyrics defy grammar rules music ... Get over it, English teachers. Alanis Morrissette's ironic is one of the greatest songs ever, whether you like it or not ...
a Will compact discs go the way of the LP? ... Whatever. I'm still buying them -- heck I'm still buying LPs. The sweet cover art, liner notes and that feeling of tearing off the wrapping -- like opening a new toy on Christma morning -- is a big part of what makes certain music so special and enduring ...

News & trends ...
a Theme party ideas for February's major events ... As cheesy as some of these suggestions are, these parties could be a lot of fun to host! Who's in?
a After laughter, action ... Great column. So true.
a Too Casual To Sit on Press Row? Bloggers' Credentials Boosted
a 1870s dead horse photo sparks mystery ... Great story!! from Sheboygan!!
a Is there a new calling for Apple? ... My friend Sean appears to be obsessed with the iPhone; his eyes looked as though they were going to pop out every time the mega-hyped gadget was mentioned this week. I, on the other hand, prefer to use my phone as a phone and for calling people only, thank you very much.
a Kathleen Parker: Clicking on death ... So true.

Baseball ...
a Suppan joins Brewers after dinner, $42 million contract ... Now let's hope he holds up. If he does, it could be a very good Brewers season ...
a Don't Expect Hall Call, Big Mac