Riding with the window down…

Let me preface this by saying, I am the most flirtatious and charming guy you will ever meet. I don’t say that to brag, but to explain my nature. I have been a flirt since I was a small boy - it is my nature. I aim to be charming with everyone - from a hottie walking down the street, to the freakin’ mailman. It doesn’t matter if the person is 8 or 80, I enjoy making people smile and laugh and take joy from the positive feedback I receive. This isn’t done to get someone in bed, or even start a relationship - it’s just to share in a little positivity.

I have had to sit back and evaluate this part of my personality in light of my new relationship. It adds an entirely new element to “my nature.” Now, I have to deal with feelings of guilt, jealousy, and more. Is it right for me to flirt with a member of the opposite sex? Is that something that can coincide with a healthy relationship? Will it cause fear and doubt in the mind of my spouse/girlfriend? Is it okay to flirt and be charming as long as the subject is someone that I would have no interest in (someone too old, too young, wrong sex, etc.) ?

Is it fair to the object of my flirtation? I have no doubt that my current relationship is “the one.” Should the fact that I am “off the market” make it cruel or mean of me to give false hope to someone else?

If I were single, would this change the answer to any of those things? If I am viewing all these flirtations as superficial, fun diversions - it that fair to the flirtees?

Or, is the act of flirtation innocent and something that should be enjoyed by all involved? How do you go about doing that yet still making it perfectly clear that it is just simple hi jinx and nothing more?

I am guessing that 1) flirting with others while in a relationship is something that should be curtailed whether you mean it innocently or not, 2) flirting with others while not involved is something that is fun, but you need to be careful to not mislead someone. What are your thoughts?

I’ve fallen woefully behind in my movie reviews, so I’m not gonna waste any time - let’s jump right in.

Since this is going to be a very long post, I thought I would list the ones that I reviewed up front so you can decide which ones you want to read. They range from extremely recent, to quite old - with some oddball ones tossed in for good measure.

Up
Year One
Terminator Salvation
Taken
The Hangover
Stranger than Fiction
The Wrestler
Jeremiah Johnson
Eagle Eye

Up was a fun film. I have to admit, it wasn’t as good as I was expecting, and that’s just because so many people mentioned how much they loved it. Sure, it was a lot of fun. Sure, the humor was good enough to appeal to people of all ages. Sure, the animation was good. Sure, it had some great dog-related scenes/content. But you know what? It was just not that amazing.

As you can see from my rating, I liked it alot - I was just disappointed that it wasn’t as great as I had heard. The characters were a lot of fun and aside from the very sad story about the old man and his love, I dug almost every part of the film. Expect it to be a really good film - just not one of your all-time favs.

RATING 7 out of 10

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Terminator Salvation is so bad, I am not going to even invest the time required to find a picture to post with this review. This film is bad beyond description.

Christian Bale phone it in, McG (director) should go back to shooting lame music videos - he is a no-talent hack. The story and dialogue read like they were penned by 2nd grader - and I’m talking about the 2nd graders that ride the short bus and lick the windows on the way to school. This is quite possibly the worst movie I have seen in decades. Heck, I have already wasted too much time writing about it…. ugh!

RATING 2 out of 10

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The film Taken scores better marks with me than it should for a couple reasons. 1) I have always been a very big fan of Liam Neeson (with the exception of the Star Wars garbage.) 2) It featured a lot of great action scenes - hand-to-hand combat in particular, and 3) even though she doesn’t get much screen time - Maggie Grace is nice to look at.

Sure, it comes across as way over-the-top, but when done with a believable setting and backed up by a superb actor capable of selling it, it works. Not only will the action and intensity keep you interested, but the emotional tugs provided by a father trying desperately to save his daughter will win over anyone with a heart.

RATING 7 out of 10

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The Hangover was a funny little Vegas romp that I expected to be mildly amusing. Anyone who has been to a good bachelor party knows that these are stories you will tell the rest of your life. (Manny)

The interesting twist in The Hangover is that the narrative is about trying to remember what happened rather than just being a fly on the wall as the hi jinx ensued. Told in this way, the film is probably funnier than it would have been with the traditional formula.

Sure, it is sophomoric. It is absolutely juvenile and appeals the lowest common denominator. But lets face it - sometimes that is fun! The Three Stooges made careers out of going for the cheap laugh. Director Todd Phillips has made a career out of this kind of movie - Old School, Road Trip, etc. and he scored again with this one.

Don’t take your girlfriend’s parents to it, if you are trying to be seen as an intellectual. Don’t take your mom to it, unless she enjoys some good fart jokes. Don’t take your kids to it - period. But, if you want to go see a funny film with some friends that won’t bat an eye at crude jokes, crude language, and generally illegal treatment of a baby - this is your film.

RATING 8 out of 10

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Sorry, I got tired of blogging - I promise to write up reviews of the other four I listed when I get some time.

Six months and 36 pounds ago, I didn’t really have a goal for my weight loss - and in the grand scheme of things I still don’t. I sorta pegged 200 pounds as a preliminary goal and put the deadline of June 21st (for personal reasons) as a target date.

I am four pounds away with four days to go so it is likely that I will miss it by a pound or two, but that’s not really important. What is important is that I will shortly have lost 40 pounds and be on my way to looking decent in public with my shirt off. The closer I get to 200, the more I realize that I need to add muscle and still drop some gut, but I am pleased as punch with the results so far.

I am thinking that somewhere around 180 (but with much more muscle) is a good final destination for my fitness goals, but who knows - it will probably remain one of those moving targets.  All I can say is that I feel better in general, I have more energy, and a life that was always great anyway, is feeling even better now.

I crashed my bike the other day - okay, crash may be a bit hyperbolic. I did have a mishap, but it was nothing serious. I was heading up a sketchy hill with a lot of loose gravel and just as I was thinking, “I should clip out,” I was on the ground before I knew it.

Cornering on an uphill, when your tire slides out, and you’re clipped into the pedals, usually means only one thing - you’re going down. It always means the fall will be ungraceful. Without the ability to put a foot down to catch, all you can do is hope to guide gravity a bit with some frantic body english. I splayed out over the handlebars and managed to break my fall with gloves on both hands taking the brunt of the impact. My right knee however, smacked hard into the top tube of the bike frame.

After a second to pause and do an internal system check, I popped up and went about my ride. I really didn’t notice the knee until the next day, but it has been pretty tender since.

As falling off my bike is something that comes very rarely, I had to think hard to remember the last time it happened.

I was riding the Ant Hills in Houston and decided to take the much more technical route in an area that gave us a choice. Dave took the high road as I bombed in and out of the trees, over vines, around rocks, and up and down gullies and ravines. As this was the first time I had taken that route, I should have done it slower to scout it a bit, but I was having a blast.

I broke out of a heavily wooded area and saw something I wasn’t expecting - a straight drop of about thirty feet with a narrow bridge crossing a ravine smack dab at the base. I was halfway down the drop before it even registered that this was not going to end well.

In an effort to cut right and line up with the bridge, I slid hard. The bike reacted more than I expected and my right shoulder smacked hard into an Oak tree about ten inches in diameter. I remember the impact, I remember instantly laying on my back on the tiny bridge, and I remember my bike flying through the air directly toward my head. Then it went black.

The guy that was down there watching it, tells me that my left arm shot out, grabbed the bike by the frame inches from my head, guiding its momentum enough to miss. Apparently, then I just lay there silently. He said that about ten seconds later, I kinda looked up and just lay there still for a bit.

I do remember waking up on the bridge and trying to decipher how I got there, but have no memory of the attack of the flying bike. I walked up the other side of the hill back to the easy trail where Dave was waiting with a look of triumph for having beaten me to that junction.

“Fear can keep us up all night long, but faith makes one fine pillow.”

– unknown

Mom, Avis (her sister) and myself took a trip out to Goliad, Texas today and it turned out to be a nice little jaunt. First, we headed over to the Presidio La Bahia, the mission where nearly 400 Texan captives were gunned down in cold blood by the invading Mexican army. This, along with the recent massacre at the Alamo in San Antonio, inspired Texans to rally behind General Sam Houston as his army conquered the Mexican dictator, Santa Anna at San Jacinto just outside the city that would be renamed in his honor, Houston.

The story of the Presidio La Bahia is fascinating and being able to walk the only fully restored Spanish mission in the United States is inspiring in itself.

For more pics, of the days events - head to my Flickr page

After that, we had a great lunch on the town square at The Empresario. It is a great little small town restaurant where everyone knows everyone else. It was great to watch the interactions. One gentleman, after finishing his lunch, walked toward the front door. It took him nearly 20 minutes to cover the 30 feet as he had to shake hands, and stop and talk with nearly every person in the place. I really dig small towns.

After that, we walked across the street to the courthouse square and particularly the “Hangin’ Tree.”

What a gorgeous old oak! The legend says that as soon as someone was found guilty in the courthouse, they were escorted outside, a rope was tossed over the tree limb and justice was meted out on the spot.

All in all, it was a fun excursion just a few miles outside of Victoria and a great opportunity to have more conversations with Avis and Mom. Fun stuff!

I have to admit that when I saw the previews for Kung Fu Panda, I was not at all inspired to see it. Hey, I dig the animated/CGI children’s movie genre, but this one just didn’t do anything for me. Then, in a moment of boredom while being unable to locate anything decent on Netflix, I added it to the queue. Let’s just say it wasn’t as bad as I imagined.

I nearly turned it off about 20 minutes in because it was too corny, too lame and too immature. I actually sorta zoned out while watching it and working on something else and was surprised a few minutes later to realize that I was pausing my work and finally stopping it altogether as I watched the storyline unfold. Somehow, it sunk in that these characters were interesting to me.

In the end, the story ended up being rich enough to hold my attention and I was glad to have seen it. I think I came around because Jack Black (Po) wasn’t over-the-top and when combined with great animation, was a very empathetic panda. Was it one of my top CGI films? Not even close. Was it one I will watch over and over? Again, not even close. Would I recommend it? Sure, why not?

Not exactly a ringing endorsement - but much better than I expected to rate it.

RATING 6 out of 10

Monsters vs Aliens is another recent CGI film that left me a little underwhelmed. I went to see it in 3D and while the new technology in 3D film is nothing short of amazing, MvA was nothing special.

It may have fallen short for me simply because of the animation style. I just didn’t like the monsters or the aliens. The comedy in MvA was very good - you can’t go wrong with giving Seth Rogan a boatload of great lines and just letting him go.

The story certainly held up and although nearly every single scene was pinched from other movies, it was put together well. The action was top-notch with several tense moments intercut brilliantly with comic lines. The characters were certainly likable. As an action-packed fun flick for the kids, MvA scores big.

If I had liked the animation style, it would certainly have earned a couple more stars.

RATING 7 out of 10

“Life is awesome… and it sure beats the alternative!”

I’ve managed to keep dropping the weight despite some trips to the “fattest city in America.” Houston, Texas. At last weigh-in, I was 208 pounds - a full 32 down from when I moved to San Marcos.

I only recently started to actually do strenuous workouts. Up until now, it has all been about 1) lowering my caloric intake, and 2) getting back into cycling. I added P90 X last week and while it has been kicking my butt, the results are starting to show.

Don’t be mistaken here - there is some photographic skill going into getting this shot. Everything from setting the lighting right, shooting from the right angle, and yes… some serious “sucking in.” It also didn’t hurt that I had the shirt as a souvenir from the Nike Football Camp I was at this morning (as media, not participant) and they seem to be designed to make you look like you’re in better shape. Whatever it takes though, I am happy that my body is getting closer to how I would like, and who knows - maybe one day, I’ll be comfortable taking my shirt off in public - haha.

Yes, coming out this year is an immersive world that takes the Grand Theft Auto/Saints Row genre to the next level - APD: All Points Bulletin. Slated for release later this year, APB takes the bad-guy-shoot-em-up-free-roaming game setting and infuses it with ‘roids. No longer is it you against a world of computer-controlled mental midgets, it is you against other real players - and we are talking thousands of them.

From what Blake was telling me, it will also include good guys. You can play on the side of the law, but I don’t imagine that will be much different when it comes to gameplay. Blake also says there is talk about evening the playing field due to the fact that most gamers will automatically choose to be a bad guy. I can see the attraction to escaping your life completely and being bad, but it just never appealed to me. Going way back to the days of Dungeons and Dragons, I have been unable to feel comfortable playing on the side of evil - just a personal quirk of mine.

Morals in an imaginary world aside, this does look like a fun title. I can’t decide whether I am going to play it or not mainly because I know how much I like these free-roaming games. This means that I can lose countless hours in pursuit of imaginary success in this imaginary setting. I definitely look forward to checking it out.

No clue on the release date and even if it will be out for the Xbox, but I am sure my crack research team (Blake) will keep me up to speed.