Tell me, Rabbi...

"Do you need to keep a separate computer and lj account to read not_kosher?"

(comment made regarding stupid_free's latest honoree.)

Anybody remember the Syufy Clap?

25 Movie Question meme stolen from the_ogre while he was getting popcorn.

( Bum bum Bum! Clap clap-clap clap-clap-clap! )

Getting closer, and closer...

744

San Francisco Giants: 9
Philadelphia Phillies: 4

Barry Bonds is beating the Phillies whether they pitch to him or not.

Bonds hit his 744th career home run in the San Francisco Giants' 9-4 victory over Philadelphia on Saturday, moving him within 11 of Hank Aaron's record of 755.

A night earlier, the Giants scored three runs in both the seventh and eighth innings after walks to the slugger on the way to a 6-2 win.

"Whether he's hitting or he's walking, it still changes the game," winning pitcher Noah Lowry said. "We've got other guys who can do some damage, and they're stepping up and doing it."

Bonds led off the second inning Saturday and sent the first pitch from Jon Lieber over the fence in center for his 10th homer of the year, a drive that traveled an estimated 438 feet. Bonds connected for the fifth time in his career against Lieber, who has given up eight total hits to Bonds.

The 42-year-old Bonds rounded the bases to cheers as "744" flashed on the scoreboard. Eliezer Alfonzo added a solo shot to start the seventh for his first homer of the year, and Pedro Feliz hit a three-run homer in the eighth after a walk to Bonds.

"I know a lot of times they're still going to pitch around him," first baseman Ryan Klesko said. "If we can continue to get big hits and put runners in scoring position, it'll put us in that much of a better position to win. Barry's swinging a hot bat."

That's ten on the year for Bonds. He's currently hitting .347 with 22 RBIs and 1 stolen base. His on-base percentage is .529 and his slugging? .806

11 to tie Aaron, 12 to make history. He could easily do it before the All-Star Break.

Great story, not so great movie.

Now that we've finally gotten back into the Netflix habit, I'm starting to see more movies roll in. Today, I watched Invincible.

For those of you who haven't heard of it, this is the story of Vince Papale, a then part-time bartender in South Philly who got the chance to try out for the Philadelphia Eagles when their brand-new coach Dick Vermeil basically threw the doors open for anyone to try out. Against all odds, Papale made the teams, and went on to place three seasons as a back up wide receiver and special teams standout. Great story, and made for the movies, right? so what went wrong?

First of all, they edited one very important fact from the film. Papale had played pro ball before. Admittedly, it was the World Football League (anyone else remember that fiasco?) but he wasn't the wide-eyed innocent the movies tries to make him. The other big problem was pacing. A sports film, any sports film, needs to keep the on field action coming. My favorite baseball movies of all-time (Eight Men Out andA League of Their Own) both have primary stories not having to do with the game itself, but the directors keep going back to the game to keep us in the game. In Invincible, the football is far too infrequent. He could have edited 20 minutes of Papale hanging with his buddies and gave us more context to the football scenes.

The actual game footage, and the shots of training camp, weren't bad. I think the standard for filming football was set by Any Given Sunday, they do a good job. However, going by this movie I have to believe that in the summer and fall of 1976 eastern Pennsylvania was either suffering from massive forest fires or volcanic ash fall. Every scene set in South Philly was filmed in this crappy sepia toned light. The director could have been less subtle by having random characters look into the camera and say "our lives suck." Again, far too much time was spent on this aspect of the lives of Papale's friends.. useless shots of the most unconvincing strike I've ever seen, long introspective drives.. get to the point!

A film from the same production team that covers another true "old guy gets break" story is The Rookie. A far, far, better film by any metric.

Next up.. Mystery Science Theatre 3000: The Prince of Space!

Heh heh heh hennnhhhh....

Viva Mexico! Viva Cervezas!

Since I have more connections to Mexico than Emperor Maximilian ever did, I decided to celebrate Cinco de Mayo by buying a 12 pack of Corona and drinking two of them. Yes, I am a wild and crazy party animal. Chips and salsa were part of the plan, but I was distracted by something shiny and never got to them. Tomorrow, I burn out my stomach lining. ¡Y más cerveza!

Yup, I'm drunk. 24 fluid ounces of Mexican goodness. And one of my favorite historical oddities, how German brewers came to Mexico and put it on the map as a beer-producing nation. We can thank the hapless (and bullet-ridden) Emperor Max for that. Being an Austrian Hapsburg (before the inbreeding really got bad in that branch of the family) he refused to travel to his new "empire" (which he couldn't find on a map - really!) without his brewmasters. The Mexican Republicans, in an act of sanity, didn't execute them when they came for Maximilian. (Her Imperial Majesty Empress Carlota, aka Charlotte of Belgium, was busy in Europe at the time, drumming up support for Max, going mad, and finally having a nervous breakdown all over Pope Pius IX. He had his own problems.. a thousand years of Papal rule over portions of the Italian peninsula was coming to an end - like he cares about a third-tier Hapsburg in Mexico of all places?) So while Max died, and Charlotte went back to Belgium to be insane (every year she would go down to a boat moored on a lake, climb in, and announce "Today we leave for Mexico.") the brewmasters learned Spanish, hired apprentices, and got to work making the daily siesta more enjoyable.

See? Get a history geek drunk and you get a lecture. Now, would someone please explain to me why I spell better when toasted off my ass than sober?