"Gordie wrote a story!"

Happy birthday to TV's Wil Wheaton who's 33 years old today.

"Nobody ever goes in...and nobody ever comes out."

We went and saw "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" last night. I enjoyed it. I've always been a fan of the "Will Wonka" film with Gene Wilder and I went into this latest with the expectations from that one.

The story from this movie follows that of the book. As such, there are certain things different in this one than the old movie. In this one, Veruca meets her 'fate' like she does in the book. Also, Violet brings her mother instead of her father, and Mike brings his father instead of his mother. Other than that, it was mostly the same. There were some things added in about Wonka's childhood that seemed added in to make the movie a bit longer.

The production design was amazing...though I think the 'chocolate room' in the earlier film was a little neater than the one in this one. The 'inventing room' in this newer film was a lot more detailed and interesting than the one in the earlier version I thought.

The songs were different in this one too. The ones from the early movie are classics, of course, but the ones in this film were pretty good too. It was hard to hear some of the lyrics due to the music, unfortunately, but from what I heard they were pretty funny and catchy.

I thought Johnny Depp did a good job as Wonka. His voice and mannerisms were pretty distinct. A few times he did or said some things that made me laugh out loud and that's always nice.

All in all, a good movie. A movie worthy of the earlier work.

Know when to walk away and know when to run.

Yakface.com | Star Wars Action Figure News!: "Yak Reader Tony Wan Kenobi sent in this report from Tulare,Ca:
Hi my loving wife again scored for me at our local wal-mart and target. First at walmart yesterday she scored 47-50. She decided to go back today and she found 51-55."

The insanity above--getting your wife to go hunt Star Wars toys for you--kind of illustrates why I'm getting out of the Star Wars toys business.

When I visited over the 4th I heard my second cousin's son (young kid) talking about a Star Wars figure he wanted. The thing was, I had two. Now, I'm 27 years old. I had two of a figure a little boy wanted. Of course, right off I knew I would send him one that I had. But the thing that got to me was the fact that they'd been hunting all over for this figure and couldn't find it.

Now, obviously I didn't buy ones they would have eventually found (especially since I bought them in Florida) but still, it made me think.

I'm not going to be into the business of buying some toys some kid might enjoy more. I'm not going to 'work' to hunt these things down anymore. If I see something I think is particularly cool, I'll get it. But I'm not going to be so focused on it anymore.

Fly me to the moon...

CNN.com - Eager fans cheer Discovery liftoff - Jul 26, 2005

I wanted to do this for the last launch attempt which was cancelled. This morning, on the spur of the moment I decided to drive out towards Titusville (route to KSC) to see if I could get a better view of the launch. I stopped when threre was a break in the surrounding trees where I thought I could get a nice view.

There was already a car stopped there, and shortly thereafter a bunch of people stopped too. I offered to take a picture of a group that was waiting in lawn chairs when one of their group was taking a picture of the other two. Behind me a Florida Highways truck stopped and the guy got out and walked up to my car. He asked if everything was ok and when I told him I was stopping to see the launch he said that's cool because he was too. After a shortly while I'd guess a couple dozen cars stopped along the same section of the highway.

It was an amazing thing to see. I'm glad I decided to head out there.

"You're gonna need a bigger boat."

Over the weekend I played some City of Heroes. While flying around Talos Island somebody announced they were taking on Lusca. It was a great battle. You have to take it down a tentacle at a time and it takes a long while. There were probably around 20 heroes fighting it at once. I wish I'd taken a screen cap...it was real 'justice league' type stuff.

"Remember, at 4:00 you have to shove a pineapple up Hitler's ass."

CNN.com - Atta's father praises London bombs - Jul 20, 2005

Somebody give this guy the 5:00 appointment.

Don't sell the sizzle sell the steak.

Omaha steaks has called again. See, the trick is to just say 'our freezer is full'. That gets them off the phone pretty fast. Sometimes you'll get a sly whip who'll say 'well, we can just delay shipment' but most of the time they say they'll call back later.

"Do you know where 1640 Riverside Drive is?"

Luckily, directions were not needed this time. Today's journey back to the comic store store I'd already went to was uneventful. Second time around is easier I suppose. I went there hunting the old Marvel GI JOE comics. I've recently gotten back into them thanks to a find in the Superman store in Metropolis, Illinois believe it or not. Anyway. I've decided to try to get the complete collection. I'm not entirely sure just how many I have in storage at my Mom's--but I do know what the covers look like for the ones I already have.

Military Jokes Military Humor

This had me busting up. :)

CNN.com: "Police say evidence left at the scenes has given them what may be a 'significant breakthrough' in the case."

Boy, what a world. Let's hope these bastages get caught.

CNN.com - James Doohan, 'Star Trek's' Scotty, dead - Jul 20, 2005

RIP :(

Google Moon - Lunar Landing Sites

36 years ago today. Fantastic achievement!

SI.com - NFL - NFL agent Rosenhaus performs CPR, saves boy - Tuesday July 19, 2005 8:21PM

Luckily Drew was able to use his dark powers to resurrect the boy.

I wonder what hotel it was...

Hitting to all fields...

• yesterday I slept until 2pm after going to bed at 2am. I guess that's called 'paying your sleep debt'.


• Stargate, Atlantis, and Battlestar were all great. The new guy on Stargate will add a little comic relief, which is good.


• We had dinner at the San Angel Inn at Epcot on Saturday. I noticed that while most people write Gonzalez with an 's' at the end (not how my last name is spelled) Mexicans almost always write it with a 'z'. I wonder if that know something I don't.


• On that front, I noticed something else. I had always thought that I was the last male Gonzalez from our family. Turns out, there must be others. I get emails from my Great Aunt every so often and there are other male Gonzalez's in the To: fields. It's a little bit of a weight off my back I guess--though it was probably the height of hubris to assume I was the last.


• I had a dream last night that I won $20,000 from some casino coin machine. woo hoo!


• Roofing company guy is up on the roof looking for problems. Since they re-did the roofs in our complex after the hurricanes people (including us) have had problems with leaks. He's pounding away up there...I'm waiting for him to come down and say nothing is wrong with it. My response will be, of course..."What the hell were you pounding for then?"

More later.

CNN.com - Harry Potter frenzy begins - Jul 15, 2005

Just got back from Borders where they're having a big celebration tonight. After Court went to bed I decided to surprise her by going and picking up the book. There were more people there than I thought. Luckily, I got a good number and only had to wait around 45 minutes. There were a lot of people there in costume and stuff--even the employees. A few teens customers were looking and acting like they were too cool to be there. My question would be: Why are you there then?

Hitting to all fields...

• For today's comic book store adventure, the first place I went to turned out to be somebody's damn house. Switchboard.com shows it as a "Comic books and Collectibles" business...must be somebody web-based business. jeez. At least the second place I went to existed--even though the web directions were for shit. Took me forever to get there because they had me go a stupid way...and the cherry on top was that I took a wrong turn anyways. Getting there: 40 minutes. Getting home: 10 minutes. Figure that out. Anyways, I was in such a bad mood I bought stuff there I didn't really need and could have gotten cheaper on amazon. oh well. Seemed like a nice enough place.


• Trip to Canada for work, which was supposed to be in two weeks, has been moved to 'no clue' status. That's always nice.


• Did my second taskforce (in as many days) for City of Heroes last night. I was up until 2:30am I think. Damn things take 4+ hours because they're like 15 missions in a row. Luckily, nobody dropped off. Actually, I dropped off once or twice because bellsouth was having a maintenance period starting at 1am this morning. Luckily enough I was able to connect back on with no probs. Even got a shiny new badge too.
  


• Heard tell it's a possibility Mark Cuban might buy the Cubs. (I'm not gonna say anything and jinx it)
  


• Serenity comic book was very good...it's too bad the show got cancelled. Yes, I got all three covers. :)

Oh yeah...and new Stargate, Atlantis, and Battlestar tonight!

CNN.com - Rehnquist silences retirement speculation - Jul 14, 2005

3 more years! 3 more years!


We can but hope.

Ok, so I headed out after work today to try to find a comic book store. I had gotten directions to one from the internet and I mailed them to my phone. Unfortunately, I left off the mileages so once I hit the last place I had no clue how far down it was or whatever. Consequently, I came home without going to a comic book store since I could not find it.

Tune in tomorrow when I try to find it *again* during lunch.

gah...

I'm working on something for work and it's not working. (let me throw work in there a few more times)

Anyways, what I've got is fine for what I need...but I'm trying to be slick and make it a little nicer and it's just not happening.

Should I throw in the towel and call it? Or should I keep plugging away?

Decisions, decisions...

GateWorld | Your Complete Guide to Stargate!

Both Court and I are really looking forward to tomorrow's season premieres of SG-1 and Atlantis. After the demise of Enterprise :( it's nice to be able to look forward to some good scifi TV. Also, Monk has started back up so we're watching and enjoying that too.

This season Stargate is moving away from Egyptian mythology and moving more towards Arthurian/Medieval type stuff. Looks very interesting. They've also added a new team member...Ben Browder who used to be on Farscape. I've never watched Farscape but I know some people who have and they've enjoyed him.

Anyways, we're going to order up some $5 Little Cesar's and have a good time.

(I'm also looking forward to Battlestar, but Court doesn't watch that...yet!)

I've gotten my cat addicted to dog treats.

It could be worse. He could be addicted to starbursts.

The Superficial - Rob Thomas is offended: "'If I were gay,' says Rob, 'Tom wouldn't be on the top of my list. It would be Brad Pitt. I'm more offended by the rumours saying I'm Scientologist.'"

I've only heard about 3-4 things Rob Thomas has ever said...but they've all been funny as hell.

Ok.

Please keep in mind, anonymous posters, that nothing makes me happier in life than the false sense of power I get when I delete comments from people who're being nasty or making racist comments.

Yes, Michelle called people losers...directed to the person (or persons) that has made multiple racist comments on my posts.

If anybody wants to slam on somebody, slam on me. I don't care, really. Particularly when it's either from somebody I don't know or somebody I do know that's not identifying himself (or herself...) for some reason or another.

Everybody is free to come here and comment. I try to make the posts interesting but mostly they're random thoughts I have and stuff I want to talk about.

Let's direct the comments to the posts (or at me, personally) and not to other posters.

Channel 2 sees future in expanding Web site: "*'This Old Cub,' the 2004 documentary about Cubs third-baseman and broadcaster Ron Santo, will air for the first time at 7 p.m. Saturday on WGN-Channel 9. The film, narrated by actor Joe Mantegna, was written, produced and directed by Santo's son, Jeff."

Give it a look if you have the time.

From Sunday night to Thursday night I get about 4-5 hours of sleep a night. Now, this is no one's fault but my own. Ever since I was in college (actually, before that) I just haven't been able to go to bed before 1am or so. Sometimes I start reading around 1am and stay that way for hours. Sometimes I eventually drift off in my chair with my glasses on and my book in my lap. I usually make up for the sleep-loss by sleeping in big time on the weekends, but sometimes I have to get up early for one reason or another.

On Sunday we got up around 9am for the Cubs/Marlins game...and I didn't exactly get to bed early the night before. During the weeks where I don't catch up on my sleep during the weekend there's usually one night a week where I have to go to bed early--like before 11pm--or I'll start hallucinating or something. As I fell asleep watching the beginning of the All-Star game, it seems tonight will be that night.

Press Briefing by Scott McClellan

Wow. Way to go press corps!

ESPN.com - ETICKET - Searching for Bartman

I'll let it speak for itself.

Needless to say we are back in FL. The drive home was abyssmal. Lots of traffic and two accident--one pretty serious--slowed us down two hours from our trip up. Keep in mind please, a drive from FL to IL (and back) gets old after about 45 minutes.

Court started driving in both cases and then got tired so I took over and drove most of the way on both trips. Hooper was tired as hell on the way back and slept on the passenger's lap the entire time. We probably should have done it that way on the drive up as well.

We got in at 3:30am Saturday morning and both slept until around noon. We saw 'Fantastic Four' that afternoon after unpacking. More on that later.

We went to the Cub game (more damn driving) on Saturday and saw the Cubs beat the Marlins 9-2. Why the Cubs couldn't have won the last damn game I saw them play before this in Florida I don't know.

I did get a mini-bat, putting my collection of mini-bats at 4. I've bought mini-bats at Pac-Bell (Giants), Bank One Ballpark (Diamondbacks), SkyDome (Blue Jays), and now Pro Player Stadium (Marlins). I'm going to make it a mini-goal to collect bats from different baseball stadiums I visit. On the horizon is a trip to Tropicana Field to see the Devil Rays...and possibly a day in/game/out flight to Atlanta in August or September.

Everybody's got to have a hobby.

I've just decided the next TV we get will be a DLP projector and screen.

There. I've said it.

I just gave Boots a pupperonni. Hopefully they're not made from ground up cats or anything.

Britain launches search for bombers.

Britain is our greatest ally, and an attack on them might as well be an attack on us.

In a way, yesterday and today have been what Warren Harding might call 'a return to normalcy' for me. I went into the office for work. I have to say, it's very nice to be back in the 'real world' career-wise. I have always missed my friends, but something about the simple task of driving into work, getting settled, and getting to work really made me feel 'normal' for the first time in a long time.

Though I've recently been assured to the contrary by the boss, I sometimes feel like less of a 'worker' when I work from home, or that I'm really just getting away with something, I guess. I don't know. I'm happy they're happy with my work, of course. Of course I'm happy that I wasn't told that I couldn't work from home under the last regime change as well. It has just always felt a little weird. I sometimes think that other people think I have a pretty easy job because I work at home...not that I particularly care what anybody thinks.

In any case, I am excited about what the future holds in terms of returning to IL. These last few days have been nice. We've had a good time visiting with everyone and seeing Tom off to start his journey towards serving our country overseas. Best of luck to him and God bless him for it.

In terms of things here--though I've seen that some things will not be exactly how they were before I left I am still excited. Maybe some things will go back to the way they were before. Maybe the things that don't aren't meant to anyway. Such is life. That's why they play the games, right? To see what happens.

CNN.com - Storm Cindy�tiring as Dennis rallies in Caribbean - Jul 6, 2005: "The models disagree, however on where it finally will make landfall -- anywhere from New Orleans to Tampa, Florida."

Ah, Florida. I can't leave you soon enough.

CNN.com - Bush tightlipped about high court candidates - Jul 5, 2005: "But he has said he won't have a 'litmus test' for judges on that or other issues."

Boy, I miss the days when the only time I saw 'litmus test' was when I had to find whether something was acid or base.

Visited with family today and had a very nice time.

In the 'I feel old now' department, I wore my 'Classicly Trained' shirt with the original Nintendo controller on it...only to have my second cousin's young son ask me..."Is that a radio?".

Oh course, he's got a PS2. But oh man.

With this I happened I noticed just how few of the Justices that were on the court when I originally learned the make-up (for school) are still there. Some have retired (Day O'connor, now) or died (William Brennan, Warren Burger, Thurgood Marshall) but some are still around, like William Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia (who replaced Burger).

Of course, this is a big political matter, as she will be replaced by President Bush. Also, I have to believe Rehnquist himself (80 years old) will be retiring soon. These are big political matters because the court can make pretty big decisions regarding our country. President Bush will have the opportunity to greatly effect the future of this naiton, for good or ill.

(of course, his pick will have to be confirmed in any case)

I have to laugh when people think not talking to you is some kind of punishment. :D