Nothing feels quite as satisfying as when you get to use a quote from a movie in casual conversation. For example, I was looking at through a Star Wars book with Logan the other day. He pointed to the Death Star and said, "Moon." I smiled and replied, "That's no moon. It's a space station." I really couldn't have asked for a better set-up. This leads me to my latest top five.

Top 5 Quotable Movies

1) "The Blues Brothers"
What line in this movie isn't a good quote to use in everyday conversation?

- "Did you get me my cheese-whiz, boy?"
- "This is glue -- strong stuff."
- "How often does the train go by?" "So often that you won't even notice it."
- "This place has got everything."
- "Who wants an orange whip? Orange whip? Orange whip? Three orange whips."
- "Oh, we got both kinds. We got country and western."
- "That ain't no Hank Williams song!"

2) "Star Wars"
Enough said.

- "Just like Beggar's Canyon back home."
- "This R2 unit has a bad motivator."
- "Traveling through hyperspace isn't like dusting crops, boy!"
- "The Force is strong with this one."
- "What an incredible smell you've discovered!"
- "Great, kid. Don't get cocky."

3) "Ghostbusters"
Even though this is about ghosts in NY, there's a quote for almost every situation.

- "When someone asks if you're a God, you say 'Yes'!"
- "Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria."
- "I blame myself." "So do I."
- "Mother pus bucket."
- "Listen! Do you smell something?"
- "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Nice shootin', Tex!"
- "The flowers are still standing."

4) "Real Genius"
Our favorite under-appreciated movie from the '80s.

- "First, you have to get back at Kent, it's a moral imperative."
- "I'll file this under 'H' for toy."
- "Do you run?" "Only when chased."
- "Would you qualify that as a launch problem or a design problem?"

5) "Army of Darkness"
Good smack-talk for video games although nobody can deliver the lines like Bruce Campbell.

- "Gimme some sugar, baby."
- "First you wanna kill me, now you wanna kiss me. Blow."
- "Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun. "
- "Hail to the king, baby."
- "Clatto Verata N... Necktie... Nickel... It's an 'N' word, it's definitely an 'N' word!"

There are a plethora of other quotable movies out there, but these seem like the ones we quotes most often. Let us not forget "Caddyshack," "Mystery Men," "The Big Lebowski," "Clue," "The Matrix," or "Aliens."

If a monolith is a one large block of stone, I wonder if two large blocks of stone would be referred to as a stereolith.

I know that I'm getting old because my back aches a bit more each day and I just don't get the voracious popularity of MySpace. I might as well be sitting on my front porch in my rocking chair saying something along the lines of, "These kids today with their loud rock-n-roll music and their MySpace accounts..."

I get MySpace in theory. It's a social networking site. You don't need to have any computer skills whatsoever to use it and it provides an area to collect and share pictures, music, videos, personal data, and thoughts. Plus, you can collect friends like social playing cards.

What I don't get is MySpace in practice. There are so many MySpace pages that are truly hideous to look at. Some are completely unreadable because there's black text on a dark image background. Some take several minutes to load due to the massive amount of embedded audio and video. Plus, people use the comments section to ask questions. It's called "Comments" for a reason.

Again, I get it in theory. Yeah, you're "hacking" the system to do what you want to do. Great. Power to the people and all that, but the pages are still ugly. Now where's my Metamucil?

I've recently realized that there's yet another thing out there that really bugs me. It's people that don't understand how to use their widescreen TVs.

Widescreen televisions are made for one single purpose -- to view movies at their true aspect ratio. You know how the movie theater screens are big rectangles and normal TV screens are almost square? Widescreen TVs allow one to watch a movie as it was meant to be seen. I won't go into detail here. Just let me assure you that it's a much better way to watch a movie.


Here's the problem. Movies can be viewed in letterbox format for normal TV screens (black bars at the top and the bottom) so it's a smaller picture, but the whole thing is there. The thing is the widescreen TV needs to know what aspect ratio it's supposed to be using. Is it widescreen? Is it letterboxed? Is it a normal TV feed (not widescreen ratio)?

People don't tell their TVs what ratio it needs. It's just a couple clicks on the remote, but I keep seeing people watching movies in funky ratios. I even saw it on some widescreen TVs in a million dollar display in Vegas. Come on, people! Doesn't it look weird to you? Seriously, just look at it. It's all distorted or really small.

I propose that every widescreen TV that is abused in such a way be forcibly taken from their owners (who are put on a blacklist somewhere) and given to someone who will take proper care of it...like me.

Thank you for being patient during the allotted waiting period. The Vegas images are ready for viewing. Here's what happened in Vegas.

It seems that everyone has been asking us the same questions since we've returned from Las Vegas. I thought it in everyone's best interest if I just made a Frequently Asked Questions list.

Neither of you had been to Vegas before? Seriously?
Yes. Seriously. First time for both of us.

Where did you stay?
The Mirage. Center of the strip. Best. Pool. Ever.

Did you do any gambling?
It's Vegas. Gambling is an obligation.

How'd you do?
We broke even, but we didn't really play all that much. A few slot machines and a few hands of Blackjack. We were there for the spectacle of Vegas.

Did you see any shows?
The Amazing Jonathan at the Sahara. Funny stuff.

What was your favorite part?
Lounging in the lagoon of a pool at the Mirage with our 32 oz. margaritas was great. Also, hanging out in the "Star Trek" themed Quarks Bar drinking our huge, smoking James Tea Kirk beverage was loads of fun. Oh, and the Sirens of TI show at Treasure Island was all kinds of terrible. Quite enjoyably terrible.

Do you have pictures?
Of course. You'll have to be patient through the allotted post-vacation waiting period before you can see them.

I was walking to a wonderful local cheese shop the other day and noticed this in a nearby window. I thought to myself, "I can't remember the last time I had a good rolfing."

Abandon hope all ye who boot up iTunes and are fond of organizing your own music.

After many years of resisting the iPod, I finally gave in. Wendy is now part of the White Headphone Nation. Don't get me wrong. I really dig the iPod. It has great sound, a sleek look, and it runs as smooth as a needle on freshly-pressed vinyl.

The reason I resisted wasn't because of the iPod itself, it was because of the mandatory software it came packaged with -- iTunes. True, iTunes has a good user-interface and is very handy when it comes to playlists, but to a person like myself, who is very particular about his organization, it's the Marquis de Sade of software.

Here's an example to show you how particular I am when it comes to organizing. I hate that movie rental stores have a "Classics" section. Just because a movie is old means it has no genre other than being old? That's just silly. Put the movie in the genre that has been designated for it. Noir, Drama, Comedy...all these are viable options. Pick one.

It's much the same as to how I feel about how iTunes organizes things. I have three singles by the same artist. Is it all in one folder? No. Under the artist folder, there are three different folders named for the three albums with one song in them apiece. Now how am I going to easily listen to all my Britney Spears in WinAmp when I have to grab each song individually? I'm not.

The other thing that bugs me is Various Artists. In much the same way the "Classics" section is a poor classification, Various Artists is a lazy term of categorization. Is it a Soundtrack? A punk compilation? All covers of Frank Sinatra songs? Masters of Comedy starring Sinbad? There is a proper category to use. Pick one.

My music is set up just right on my computer. I shouldn't have to bow to the whim of the iTunes engineers when they look at my hard drive and re-arrange it. But I digress...

It has been quite a hassle, but I'm keeping my music in my own folder structure and mapping iTunes to use it. The problem is that when I change anything in those 28 gigs, I have to go to iTunes and re-map it. Pain in the ass, but that is the price of being particular. I accept the consequences for that cool, little, white rectangular solid.

After hearing some rave reviews about how craptastic The Punisher was, watching it became a moral imperative. Comic book movies are known to be bad ideas. There's something about translating a story from one visual medium to another that just doesn't always work out.

It's not that this movie is good. No, it's far from being a good movie, but it is quite enjoyable. The bad one-liners, the two-dimensional characters, and the over-the-top and needless explosions just made this movie completely craptastic. This is a Saturday Sci-Fi Channel movie if I've ever seen one (and I've seen my share).

For example, instead of killing a guy, he puts him in a car and starts it up. The car proceeds to hit other cars in fiery collisions as it keeps going into the middle of a field of cars. Explosion after explosion, but the guy isn't dead yet. No, it's not until he gets to the last car that his own car explodes. The camera pulls back and reveals a flaming Punisher skull. Now that's some serious commitment to branding.

Also to note is the film stars Thomas Jane who is the poor man's Christopher Lambert. When you can't afford the Highlander, get the Punisher.

I guess I didn't realize how far Nike was going to brand themselves in other markets.


photo taken in Effingham, IL