Had some “grunt work” to do over the past few days, so been watching movies while I work.  Here’s my opinions:

Been watching a few movies lately.  Thought I’d write out some brief reviews:

What Women Want: - Man, this is one of those movies that I always enjoy, and put at the top of my movies lists.  Yet watching it for about the 6th time in my life I really started to not enjoy it.  I mean the first 2/3 of the movie are good bordering on great - but the final third of it is just goddamn awful.  ***

The Terminal: First half of this is amazing.  Easy ****1/2 if not *****.  Great premise, great story, Hanks is fabulous.  Then it all goes to hell, as they completely americanize it with typical Hollywood BS.  The love story and all the other shit - god, how can one half of a movie be so good, and the other half SO FUCKING BAD?  I can’t even rate it it was that horrible.

Shaun of the Dead: Dunno what the big deal is about this movie.  I mean it was good, but some people treat it as the second coming of christ.  Hot Fuzz was better.  ***

Just Cause: Definitely not a movie for repeat viewings.  I read the book about 10 years ago and watched the movie right after and I think I enjoyed both - might have watched the movie since then - but just watched it again and found it fairly boring.  Basically something that has been done much better in other movies.  Still, the performance of Ed Harris as the psychotic killer on death row is fantastic.  **

The Wedding Singer: Must be about the 9th time I have seen this movie now.  Still a classic, also it gets bonus points for having Journeys “Don’t Stop Believin’” playing when Sandler attempts to get married but dumped at the alter.  One of Sandlers best. *****

The Client: This movie has PRECIOUS MEMORIES for me as it was the first time I read a book then the movie.  Basically I didn’t read that type of novel back then so it was my first ever Grisham book too.  Overall it’s an alright movie, nothing spectacular but a solid performance from Tommy Lee.  ***

Gran Torino: Fuck, YES!  I had the ending spoiled for me so I couldn’t watch it for awhile until I forgot about it - 13 months and 2 days after getting it spoiled I couldn’t remember the specifics so watched it again.  A seriously fucking awesome movie - the performances of everyone bar Eastwood are pretty blah - but Eastwood is just AMAZING in this.  The way he growls etc - god, so great.

SPOILERS AHEAD: I’m still disappointed in the ending though.  I get it - the only way to stop the gangs was that - but man, I just wanted Eastwood to go all RAMBO on their fucking asses.  Completely get what he was going for, but still not what I wanted, especially considering how bad the American justice system is.  I’ll go with ****1/2.

Well I’m back to being addicted to Football Manager, the 2010 version in this case.  Of course not long after starting a game I hope to be long-term, I find out that it’s got the same horrible bugs as Football Manager 2008, where the regens suck and it makes long-term games unplayable.  Sigh.  Hopefully it will be fixed in a patch.

Anyway I know a lot of FM fans read this blog, so thought I would start writing season summaries:

End of Season 1:

I started as an unemployed Graeme Souness to start the game, with leagues from the USA, England, France, Germany, Italy, Holland, Scotland and Spain running.  I ended up getting a job with Hibs in the Scottish Premier League.  They were 2nd bottom and doing very badly, including a 6-0 HOME defeat against St Johnstone.

We had a decent team, but were broke.  I took over on January 1st 2010, and my first game was on January 2nd against rivals Hearts.  I went with a very defensive formation with a flat back four, 2 DMCs, 1 ball winning midfielder, 2 wide midfielders and 1 striker.  We managed to win 1-0 in a huge result.

We continued to do well in January, although in front of goal we seemed to be weak, missing a lot of easy chances.  With no funds, I sold  Kevin McBride, Colin Nish and Patrick Cregg, bringing in my only signing of the season, Leigh Griffiths from Dundee.  Griffiths is a 19 year old striker with 16 in finishing, 15 in Acc/Pace, 12 in composure and a few other decent attributes.  He forced his way into the first team immediately with a double against Motherwell when I dropped Derek “I skipped training” Riordan, and proceeded to score a 90th minute equalizer against Aberdeen in the next game.  He would go on to score 8 goals in 14 games.

Despite some solid performances, we were unable to get in the top 6, although it was always a lofty goal.  We did manage to pip Hearts on the last day of the season to go above them, which I was rather proud of.  Final league table:

Summer signings I have made are Jamie Ness and Nacho Novo from Rangers, and Jay Emmanuel-Thomas from Arsenal.

My current team:

That is minus Joao Pereira, a right back we had on loan, who ended up being the pick of the players for best 11.

For next season, the board have given me a nice gift.  With expectations of just mid-table, they’ve given me £1.3m to spend, and added £10k a week onto wages.

Looking at my team, if I stick with that formation I’m solid for DMCs, for AMCs, for strikers, for CDs and for LBs.  I COULD do with a better keeper although Stack did a solid job last year, and I 100% need an RB.  Although I notice Kenny Miller would be interested in coming to us, so don’t be surprised if I blow the whole budget on him.

Finally I got the youth team through - and I got a pretty decent regen in 6′3″ striker Scott Moffat:

Hopefully he will be leading the line within the next few years.

Didn’t realize it had been that long since I last updated.  Sorry about that.  Let me try and cover a bunch of topics in one post:

Sports: My tips sites are doing great - my NBA Tips site is at 14-4 for the season so far, or 77.8%.   NFL is at 34-25 or 57.6%.  I’ve also been making arrangements to go to a lot of sports games lately.  I really wish I lived in a town with some actual big sports teams as I would so get season tickets for everything.  Shit, I’d even sit through the Toronto Argos every other week.  I went to Leafs vs Senators on Tuesday in Ottawa which was fun, and this Saturday I’m off to Toronto to see the Leafs vs Capitals, then the next day it’s Raptors vs Magic.  Got a ton more basketball & hockey games lined up, and also going to see Patriots vs Bills on Dec 20th I believe which I am pretty pumped about.

Books: Haven’t been reading much lately.  Read Filth by Irvine Welsh for about the 9th time - seriously his best book bar none, and I highly recommend it.  I read that again as he brought out a kind of sequel to it in Crime.  Just started that - it’s starting a bit slow but hopefully it will pick up.

TV: Haven’t watched much lately.  Started going through Family Guy as I bought the box set of that like a year ago and it’s been sitting gathering dust.  I’ve probably only watched about 20 episodes of it in total, so it is nice to go through it one by one.  The early episodes are quality - not so sure about the later ones, but I did catch one on TV last night(where Stewie was in the future and saw the older Stewie) and it was pretty lame.

Video Games: Haven’t played much Xbox lately, which sucks as I’ve got an achievement challenge where I need to get more gamerscore points than another person.  He’s currently at 62,865 and I am at 60,076.  I did beat Harry Potter the other day - I think it’s Order of the Phoenix but it might have been the other one.  Either way it was shit.  I tried out Chronicles of Riddick today but sad to say it was too hard for me - that was a bit depressing.  Granted I was playing it on hard, and with the achievement challenge I have it in my head I have to rush through games, and that really isn’t one I should rush through, but MAN did I ever suck at it.

Hopefully I find time to play games this week.  I have a whole stack of games that I’ve either bought/rented and not played, or played a little.   Games that I have to go through include Godfather II, Lego Indy 2, Blitz 2, Bionic Commando, COD 3, COD WaW, COD MW 2, Cars Mater National, Monsters vs Aliens, Bolt, All Pro Football 2K8, The Incredible Hulk, Bakugan, Ben 10, Fantastic 4, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Virtua Tennis 3, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Mini Ninjas, PGR 4 and probably a few others I can’t remember off the top of my head.  So yeah, lot of fucking games to play - just have to sit down and do them.

Work: Had a lot to do since I got back from Edmonton, and did it all.  I’ve got one new site that is almost done(I just need a couple of articles to add to it, a caricature and a header) and I’ll post it here - it’s a pretty neat site and fun to work on.  Other than that, I’m basically in vacation mode until the end of the year - I basically work just whenever I feel like it now - some days I do fuck all, other days I will be like “Yeah I want to do that today” then do it.  Fun way to work, and I may just continue like this for the next little while.

Alright, I am off to do a few things then play Modern Warfare 2!

I remember trying to watch the Sopranos something like 8 years ago.  My roommate rented season 1 on DVD, but after a few episodes I was bored shitless and couldn’t stand it.  However I was in the mood for a serious drama after trying out The Shield(and as I was watching it with my wife, I could only go at a pace where we both could watch at the same time), so decided fuck it - to give the Sopranos a try.

Wow.  Just wow.

From here on out there’ll be spoilers about the show.  So if you’ve never watched it yet then stop reading now.

Overall, this was just an amazing fucking show.  It was just so well written.  It wasn’t built on suspense and intrigue - it was just a beautiful story.  What I really liked was how there was so many mundane details, yet they kept it from being mundane.  Like when AJ tried to kill himself, and Tony comes home, starts eating the lincoln logs and takes a minute to notice.  Shit like that was just so beautiful.

There was a few weird things about the show.  Like something would happen, but then they’d not follow up on it for a few episodes(if memory serves me correctly Adriana getting flipped was one of them).  Also the story progression from the end of one season to the beginning of the next was crazy - you’d come back and someone else would be in jail, with only a small mention of how they actually got there.

But really those are just small nitpicks.  Overall The Sopranos was just a fantastic show.  Some of the shit they did in it was so beautifully done.  I really liked how they would bring you back to harsh realities, like when Tony killed Christopher for example.  Or the way Adriana was killed etc.

Also the dream sequences - oh man.  Especially the Kevin Finnerty one.  Just amazing stuff, and I usually hate dream sequences.

Of course - the ending.  What I love about it most is how ambiguous it is - there’s no definitive conclusion.  You can make assumptions based on facts - but there’s no solid conclusion of what happened.   I’ve been speaking to my friends and heard all the arguments about it.  That’s what is so amazing about the ending.  Was the dude just going to the bathroom?  Or was he there to kill Tony?  There’s just so many ways you can read into it all, and that’s what is so great about the show.  Everyone has a theory - but there is no definitive conclusion.

Also think about that ending - how suspenseful it really is.  Yet it’s over the most mundane thing - Meadow unable to park.  Again, just phenomenal.

And now - I feel sad.  Because it is over.  The show is over.  You really feel like you were living through the life of the Sopranos.  It’s one of those shows you just wish would go on indefinitely.  And now I think back - and there is so much stuff that happened that seems so long ago.  Richie.  Tonys mother.  Pussy.  etc etc etc.  Plus being able to watch it again with a whole new viewpoint on them.

Just amazing.    I’ve been loving The Shield, but so far I have to put The Sopranos as my favourite television series ever.

For serious TV shows - still working my way through Sopranos.  A few episodes in on season 6.  I plan on a heavy TV watching week, where I finish off Sopranos as well as blast through Dexter season 3.

When it comes to sitcoms - after Spin City, I still had Mad About You to finish off.  I watched the first half of season 6 on that one, so second half of season 6, then season 7 and I am done that.

On the flight over to Budapest, I loaded up my ipod with a bunch of shows, including Lucky Louie based off a few youtube clips I had been shown.  All I can say is holy shit - one of the greatest shows ever, and I watched every episode on the flight.  Absolutely amazing show, big thumbs up and I am gutted it is over as it was incredibly funny.  Too many funny things to say about that show, although I’ll post a few of my favourite clips at the end of this blog post.

Finally - on the flight back, I used the airline TV system to watch some shows.  I watched the movie The Proposal which was horrible - and that’s saying something, coming from the guy that watched Confessions of a Shopaholic 3 times, and Definitely Maybe 9 times.

Frank recommended I watch Big Bang Theory, and he explained the show pretense to me.  After one show I was hooked.  Sadly the airline only had two episodes of it, but I acquired every episode of it so far and have been watching them.  A few episodes into Season 1 so far, and it is just a really good fucking show and I’d recommend it to people.  It’s so very different but still the same, if that makes sense.

Finally - Lucky Louie Clips: