In Loving Memory...

To a close family member who passed away this week. She will be missed imensely.

THE LLOG

http://thellog.blogspot.com/

Check out this blog from my brother. I couldn't recommend it enough, as he definitely has some views and opinions that are to be heard. So do me a favor and take a swing by there and check it out.

Posters

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20207076_20207394_20206638,00.html

I always thought that the movie poster for Silence of the Lambs was a great one. And of course, Pulp Fiction makes the list.

The Draft

Gotta say I think they made some smart moves tonight with the draft on Raw. Here's the breakdown in case you missed it.

TO RAW
Batista
Rey Mysterio
Michael Cole
CM Punk
Kane

TO SMACKDOWN
Triple H
Mr. Kennedy
Umaga
Jeff Hardy
Jim Ross

TO ECW
Matt Hardy

Definitely gives us some new material to work with. Edge vs. HHH? Batista vs. John Cena??

The day the laughter died

George Carlin passed away today, and what a shocker that was to find out. I first discovered Carlin's comedy several years ago, when sitting up late at night flipping through the channels and coming across one of his HBO specials. I laughed my ass off that night.

About a year ago, I decided to get another one of his HBO specials from Netflix, and while laying on my couch in the middle of the night, by myself, I listened to Carlin tell joke after joke, as he had me laying on the couch in hysterics.

"Yeah, it's a purse, and I got a picture of of your mother in here sucking off an indian!!"

While the title of this post is "The day the laughter died", I'm sure that George Carlin's comedy will live on forever, and even when we're long gone, our children's children will be watching Carlin and laughing their asses off, and saying "Man, that was one funny motherfucker"

George, thanks for the laughter. You will be missed.

Andrew
6/23/2008

Motion City Soundtrack

Is anybody out there a fan of these guys?

I heard the song "Everything Is Allright" on my Pandora player months ago, and never really pursued any more of their songs. But recently I have, and I gotta say these guys are awesome. I'm digging most of their songs and am nearly ready to go buy their albums. And if you know, then you know I don't buy a lot of albums, so that tells you how much I'm digging their tunes.

Here's a few of their videos. Take a listen!

One Year...Plus a Day

Yesterday Ruth and I celebrated one year of marriage and I must say, it feels great to finally put that one year stamp on it. Not that it didn't feel great before, it just feels so nice to finally be able to say one year.

The last year has been the greatest year of my life. I can honestly state that without any question in my mind. I couldn't have asked for a better wife than Ruth. She is truly the greatest woman I have ever met and I'm confident, that in fifty years when we're celebrating that anniversary, that we'll be just as happy and just as content. I love her with all of my heart and I'm more than lucky to have found her.

I love you Ruth. Forever.

Andrew
6/22/2008

10 TOP 10

So did anyone catch the American Film Institute's 10 Top 10 on CBS tonight. I had no idea it was going to be on, and Ruth and I are flipping through channels and we see clips of John Wayne in some old movie on a primetime station, so we stop and have a gander.

Basically what AFI has done here, is taken ten genre's and made seperate top ten lists for each genre. I feel a recap coming on.

TOP 10 ANIMATION
10. Finding Nemo
09. Cinderella
08. Shrek
07. Beauty and the Beast
06. Toy Story
05. Fantasia
04. The Lion King
03. Bambi
02. Pinocchio
01. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Pretty good list. I personally would've put Nemo higher, and maybe added Toy Story 2 into the mix somewhere. I've never been a fan of the really old Disney classics, such as Cinderella and Snow White.

TOP 10 FANTASY
10. Big
09. The Thief of Bagdad
08. Groundhog Day
07. Harvey
06. Field of Dreams
05. Miracle on 34th Street
04. King Kong (1933)
03. It's a Wonderful Life
02. Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
01. The Wizard of Oz

Surprised by the inclusion of Big and Groundhog Day, as they are two of my personal favorite flicks. I would've knocked off Miracle on 34th Street, possibly for LOTR: Return of the King. Have never seen the Thief of Bagdad. Also, No Pirates??

TOP 10 GANGSTER
10. Scarface
09. Little Caesar
08. The Public Enemy
07. Pulp Fiction
06. Scarface: The Shame of a Nation
05. Bonnie and Clyde
04. White Heat
03. The Godfather: Part 2
02. Goodfellas
01. The Godfather

Well, of course, Pulp Fiction would be #1 on all of these if I were making them, but alas, I haven't the power. Who couldn't totally call the Godfather on this one. Surprised with the omission of The Untouchables and would've been nice to see Mean Streets and Carlito's Way on there.

TOP 10 SCIENCE FICTION
10. Back to the Future
09. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
08. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
07. Alien
06. Blade Runner
05. The Day the Earth Stood Still
04. A Clockwork Orange
03. E.T. the Extra-terrestrial
02. Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope
01. 2001: A Space Odyssey

Not really my department to be making corrections. I will say, it'd have been nice to see the original Terminator on there. A Clockwork Orange and Back to the Future = two more of my favs. The Day the Earth Stood Still was terrible.

TOP 10 WESTERN
10. Cat Ballou
09. Stagecoach
08. McCabe and Mrs. Miller
07. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
06. The Wild Bunch
05. Red River
04. Unforgiven
03. Shane
02. High Noon
01. The Searchers

Where in the hell is The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance??? I love that movie, and they left it out? WTF! Anyway, anyone who knows film, could've called the Searchers, and it is a good movie. I like High Noon better though.

TOP 10 SPORTS
10. Jerry Maguire
09. National Velvet
08. Breaking Away
07. Caddyshack
06. The Hustler
05. Bull Durham
04. Hoosiers
03. The Pride of the Yankees
02. Rocky
01. Raging Bull

Caddyshack? Really? Couldn't they have put something a little more credible in there. I mean, hey, I love Bill Murray and Chevy Chase, but c'mon. Why not Friday Night Lights or A League of Their Own? Nevermind.

TOP 10 MYSTERY
10. The Usual Suspects
09. Dial M for Murder
08. Blue Velvet
07. North by Northwest
06. The Maltese Falcon
05. The Thrid Man
04. Laura
03. Rear Window
02. Chinatown
01. Vertigo

Well, I'm really glad that Blue Velvet and Dial M made it in. But a lot of my all time favorites would've fit perfectly beside them. Se7en, Memento, Mulholland Dr.??? There's three all time greats right there. North by Northwest is terrible, and I wasn't blown away by Chinatown either.

TOP 10 ROMANTIC COMEDY
10. Sleepless in Seattle
09. Harold & Maude
08. Moonstruck
07. Adam's Rib
06. When Harry Met Sally...
05. The Philadelphia Story
04. Roman Holiday
03. It Happened One Night
02. Annie Hall
01. City Lights

Well, Manhattan is one I would've included, along with Pretty Woman. The rest are fine.

TOP 10 COURTROOM DRAMA
10. Judgment at Nuremberg
09. A Cry in the Dark
08. In Cold Blood
07. Anatomy of a Murder
06. Witness for the Prosecution
05. A Few Good Men
04. The Verdict
03. Kramer vs. Kramer
02. 12 Angry Men
01. To Kill a Mockingbird

Well, there's very little courtroom stuff in Kramer vs. Kramer, and that goes for In Cold Blood as well. Instead of those (and no knocking them, because Kramer vs. Kramer is an all-time favorite of mine) they should've slipped in Philadelphia and Inherit the Wind.

TOP 10 EPIC
10. The Ten Commandments
09. Reds
08. Saving Private Ryan
07. All Quiet on the Western Front
06. Titanic
05. Spartacus
04. Gone with the Wind
03. Schindler's List
02. Ben-Hur
01. Lawrence of Arabia

No Braveheart? Oh well, this list looks about right, other than that.

Man, they should really do this again sometime, as it is a great idea for a show. Think of all the catergories that they could've gone into. TOP 10 Prison movies, biopics, cop/detective flicks, foreign films, war movies, horror movies, screwball comedies, teen comedies, true stories...my God the possibilties are endless, I say.

Andrew
6/18/2008

A Bit of Fry and Laurie

So after finishing off House M.D. (okay, last post and I'll shut up about House for a while) I got to searching Hugh Laurie and end up finding tons of great stuff on YouTube. One thing that I did find was that Laurie was one of the stars of two huge British sitcoms. Jeeves and Wooster and A Bit of Fry and Laurie, both co-starring Stephen Fry. They both look like hilarious shows that I'm seriously thinking about picking up in the very near future. But anyway, here is a couple of clips from A Bit of Fry and Laurie.

Enjoy





Jeeves and Wooster: The Complete Series

A Bit of Fry and Laurie: The Complete Series

House M.D.: Season One Review

The Players
Hugh Laurie as Dr. Gregory House
Jennifer Morrison as Dr. Allison Cameron
Omar Epps as Dr. Eric Foreman
Jesse Spencer as Dr. Robert Chase
Lisa Edelstein as Dr. Lisa Cuddy
Robert Sean Leonard as Dr. James Wilson

Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital is the setting for the best...yes, the best medical drama I have personally ever seen. Dr. Gregory House, along with his crach diagnostics team, Foreman, Chase and Cameron, are presented, on a weekly basis, with an ultra rare set of symptoms and are forced to act against the clock to try and figure out exactly what they must do to save their patients. In the first season alone they are presented with such ailments as: neurocysticercosis, tuberculoma, anthrax, leprosy, acute intermitent porphyria, copper allergy and african trypanosomiasis, just to name a few. House takes great pleasure in trying to figure out the puzzles that surround the patients who are suffering, and only wants the cases that have a challenge to them.

On the other hand, you get to see House, working clinic duty. Almost the exact opposite of the ultra rare cases, this is where we get to see House diagnose the simple cases, such as this gem...

patient: "I'm having pain in my legs"
House: "Have you been doing any running lately?"
patient: "Well, I have been running for about two hours every morning. I'm training for the big marathon.
House "Hmmm...Odd, you're running two hours a day and getting pain in your legs??? I'm puzzled"

So who is Gregory House?

In a backstory (and in a much later episode) we hear that House has had a thigh muscle infarction in his right leg, basically disabling his leg and forcing him to walk with the use of a cane. Bitter, depressed and sarcastic are just a few words I'd use to describe Dr. House, who "loves nobody" and believes that "everybody lies". Constantly putting pressure on his trio of doc's to do better, come up with better answers and figure out the problems, House alienates himself from, not only his trio, but everyone else that comes around him. If it wasn't for his sheer brillance in the medical field, he'd have been fired from his position years ago.

Season One hits with a bang, delivering House at his finest, right from the get go. This is not one of those shows where you have to drag through two or three seasons, just to get to the good stuff. Here, some of the great episodes are laid out to you from the first disc and do not let up.

If you have any desire to see a Grade A show, with great acting, great plot and some twists, turns, excitement, suspense, tears and huge laughs, then do yourself a big favor and pick up the first season of House M.D. Trust me, you will not be disapointed.

"Candy canes?! Is this some sort of SICK joke??"

Andrew
6/17/2008

Arrested MacGyver

Just to give you an update, Ruth and I have finished off the first season of House, and...WOW, what a fucking great show. Definitely moved to the very top of my list of favorite shows. I'll do a little review of that soon, and post it up here.

Next up, Arrested Development and MacGyver. We're nearly done with the first discs of both of them. No opinion yet, I'll let ya know.

Lastly, we picked up the first seasons of C.S.I., Grey's Anatomy and Six Feet Under on Friday, as well as Scrubs: Season 2.

Andrew
6/16/2008

The Suckening

It was "Date Night" tonight for me and Ruth, so we decided to go catch a movie and some dinner and since her birthday is next Friday, I let her pick the movie. She picked The Happening, which was fine by me, seeing as how I am a huge M. Night Shyamalan fan and own all of his other movies (except for Wide Awake). And let me go on record as saying...possibly one of the Top 10 worst movies I've EVER seen.

SPOILERS AHEAD








So we start out on a pleasant day in Central Park, NY and all is well, until the wind starts blowing and all of a sudden people start comitting suicide. And we see some pretty wild shots of a woman sticking a hair pin in her neck and construction workers jumping from scaffolds. So what could be causing all of this? Terrorists! Or at least that's what Marky Mark and the funky bunch think. So they take to the road, heading for small towns, where they'll be safe, fleeing Philly. And when I saw "they", I mean, Wahlberg's wife, played by Zooey Deschanel, Wahlberg's co-worker and friend, played by John Leguizamo and his daughter. While on the road they start to hear reports that major cities all over the Northeast are being suicide ridden, and the possibility of a terrorist attack seems less likely. So what's the cause? Could it be the plants, Marky asks? Well, he asks, but we never get a solid answer. And what shitty acting to boot.

I mean c'mon, does that not sound like the dumbest outline for a movie you've ever heard. Plants are angry at us for polluting the environment, so they start attacking us? How exactly are plants able to make people kill themselves? PLEASE! The whole concept of a scary movie, is to make the viewer at least concieve the idea, being presented, as a possibility. The Happening is just ludicrous.

Avoid it at all costs. Save your money. See the Incredible Hulk or something.

Tape Transfers

For those of you who don't know, I have about a 1,000 tape wrestling collection and last May I purchased DVR and started the very long process of transfering those 1,000 to DVD.

First to be transfered we're the WWE Pay Per View's and with a huge sum of those, I managed to knock out somewhere between 100 - 150 of my tape collection.

Recently, I started going through tapes of pure wrestling television. Basically, about 300 - 400 tapes filled with shows that I've taped from television myself. I figured, that I didn't really need all of that stuff, so I was trying to weed it out. I was doing a great job and actually managed to trash a lot of tapes that way, but now it's just getting too tedious, and with still like 250 to go, I need a break.

So back to transfering whole shows, as that is easier.

So, if you're wondering what I'll be doing anytime in the near future, you just got your answer. I really need to badly get this project done. I am dying to be rid of the videotapes and see my whole collection portrayed on DVD.

HOUSE!!

So we've got five episodes left of House M.D. and let me tell you, if you haven't seen it...you must! After coming off the Dexter kick that we were on, we made no hesitation getting right into another terrific series, and one that, in my opinion, may be better.

We loved it so much, in fact, that we gathered up a small grouping of DVD's and took them to the mall tonight to sell, so that we could buy the second season. I'll do a more formal review when we're finished with season one, but I was so excited about finding such a gem, that I had to say something about it.

It's a marvelous show, and one last time, seek it out, buy it, watch it and love it!!

Enjoy the video. Don't worry nothing really gets spoiled in the vid. Just a video showing how depressed a man Greg House actually is.



Andrew
6/12/2008

...And i bid you a warm welcome

So if anyone is out there, and actually reading this, I welcome you. Hopefully the posts that I will proceed to write here, will be of some interest to you. But, first and foremost, I hope that someone will at least read them.

So who am i?

Well you can call me Andrew. I currently reside in Morgantown, WV, home of the West Virginia Mountaineers. I live in an apartment with my wife Ruth, the love of my life and the most amazing person who I have ever met. I consider myself extremely grateful that I get the honor and the pleasure and the thrill of spending the rest of my life with her. I work at a place called Teletech, a company that recieves the customer service calls for Bank of America. So...basically I sit in a chair all day and talk on the phone, a thriteen year old girl's dream job. I'm still in training there and actually haven't taken any calls yet, so we'll see how it goes. So far, so good.

What are my interests, you may ask?

Well, remember when you were a small child and you were outside playing and riding your bike and lifting girls skirts?...Take a minute to reflect......

Ok, are you done?

Well, while you were outside, running around, playing games, yours truly was watching television. I'm a TV junkie. I watched pro wrestling for years, and still adore looking back at old videotapes and reflecting on my youth. I found an art in pro wrestling that many usually never get the pleasure to find. I truly love wrestling, and as a young child, the men who wrestle on television were my best friends.

Now...not so much.

Not that I hate it or anything now, but to be honest with you, I haven't watched an episode of any wrestling program in months. I would much prefer watching classic footage.

Otherwise, I watch a lot of TV in general. Dexter, Oz, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Coupling, Taxi, Friends, Seinfeld, 24, House, Scrubs, Roseanne, A&E Intervention and The Twilight Zone, are some of my favorites. So you'll probably hear a lot of opinions on that type of stuff.

Movies?

Uh huh. Love them. I've worked in three video stores and have developed a love affair with film (don't tell my wife. Shhhh). Pulp Fiction, Clerks, Se7en, Memento, Carlito's Way, The Shawshank Redemption, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Vanilla Sky, About Schmidt, Sideways, Fight Club, 12 Monkeys, Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill series, Sin City, Halloween, Blue Velvet, Last Life in the Universe, The Apartment, 12 Angry Men, Cool Hand Luke, Dial M for Murder, Buffalo '66, Big Fish, Lost in Translation, About a Boy, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Mulholland Dr....I could honestly go for hours here. I've probably missed some of my very favorites. So a lot of movie talk, is also in store.

I smoke, but I've never drank, except when my wife bought a cheap bottle of wine to our second meeting, and I downed it. It was pretty terrible. And besides that, feel free to ask me anything you like. If you're reading this, then you're reading my thoughts and the effort that I went through to put it up here for your eyes. So, if you're reading this consider me a friend, and you can ask away, pal.

adduvall@yahoo.com

E-mail me anytime. Be it a question, a cool website you came across, a really wicked video you found on YouTube...I'd be happy to hear it all.

So...in conclusion...I bid you a warm welcome.

Andrew
6/10/2008