Friday, June 25, 2010

Musical Friday

This is my favorite music video in the entire history of music videos. Probably because I love the song and this reminds me of when Chevy Chase used to be funny. Plus, this is from an era when MTV actually showed music videos. Let's go way back to 1986 to enjoy Paul Simon's, "You Can Call Me Al." (Typing that made me feel like Casey Kasem)

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Movie Review: "Date Night"


Last night my wife and I had a date night. We have been trying to do Date Night's more often. Usually it involves dinner somewhere, maybe running some errands, and occasionally a movie. Once we went for a really long bike ride which just about killed my out of shape self.

Anyway, last evening after dinner we went to the cheap theater in town to see "Date Night," starring Steve Carell and Tina Fey as the Fosters. They are a married couple who has fallen into a rut, until they decide to break their normal routine. They head into the city for a fancy dinner, and when they hijack another couple's reservation, the mayhem ensues.

Steve Carell and Tina Fey automatically make a movie funny, and this movie was funny. In fact, it would have been a 4 star movie, except the last 20 minutes are sorta iffy. Carell is his usual self (he plays a similar character in everything) and Fey is witty as a suburban mom out of her element. The movie has a real "Adventures in Babysitting" feel to it, and is really hilarious at times, but falls flat at other times. Overall "Date Night" is a very solid 3 star movie.

Monday, June 21, 2010

I Guess I'm Supposed to be Outraged

Over the past few days, the liberal media has been in a tizzy because BP CEO Tony Hayward went yachting this weekend. The liberal media wants us to be irritated about this, after all, how can this man go yachting when there's an oil spill?

This even came up at the White House press briefing when spokesman Bill Burton said, "You know, look, if Tony Hayward wants to put a skimmer on that yacht and bring it down to the Gulf, we'd be happy to have his help," which brought raucous laughter from the adoring press. Burton quickly followed with, "But what's important isn't what Tony Hayward's doing in his free time; it's what BP is doing to take... responsibility for the mess that they've made."

The White House should be careful since President Obama went to a baseball game on Friday night to watch Stephen Strasburg and the Washington Nationals against the Chicago White Sox. And then, on Saturday, the President played golf. And of course, this is what the right wing media wants me to be outraged about today. How can the President watch baseball and play golf when there's an oil spill, unemployment at 10%, a skyrocketing debt, and trouble in Afghanistan?

Look, I can't get outraged about either. Tony Hayward is an adult, as is President Obama. If they believe they can fit these leisure activities into their lives, then more power to them. We spend so much of our time trying to demonize our political opponents that we remain distracted from the real problems, and the media (both left and right) is guilty of promoting this. We have real problems in this country, and frankly, Obama's golf game and Tony Hayward's yacht don't even make the top 100.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Rain, Rain Go Away

Living in Iowa, thoughts of the Flood of 2008 are still fresh in my mind. Even though my house and neighborhood were not significantly affected, the community I live in was greatly affected, and is still recovering from this disaster.

The flood occurred in June of 2008. This June, we've been having crazy amounts of rain again. While it is nothing compared to 2008, it's still a bit nerve racking. Every time I drive by a little creek or any of the many rivers in Eastern Iowa, I notice how full they are. Every time we get a forecast like we have for today (80% rain chance) and tomorrow (80% rain chance), my mind goes back to 2008.

We are in about a 2 week cycle now where we've had rain almost every day. On Friday alone, we got 2.79 inches of rain. Luckily, we remained dry yesterday, but the ground is still really soggy, so any more rain will mean more flash flooding. On Friday I drove through what I thought was shallow water...once I was in it, I realized it wasn't that shallow. Luckily my car made it through, but it was not fun. The extended forecast shows chances of rain through the middle of this upcoming week. Hopefully after that we can get some dry time, we really need it.