vivalaultra

I saw it last nite. It was quite good, but differed from the story in a few respects. Seriously, the short story is really, really creepy, moreso than the film and I highly recommend it to anyone.

About the ending: I thought it was magnificent, and I say that as a lifelong fan of Stephen King who has been reading the 'Dark Tower' series for 15 years. The story was about redemption and, in the end, that was what the Tower represented, a chance for Roland to redeem himself. Personally, I enjoyed it that King wrote about the second to last cycle instead of the last cycle. At the heart of the story, Roland was a tragic character and the story was almost a Greek tragedy, his tragic flaw was his obsession with the tower. I thought the whole ending worked in the scope of the novel. All of the characters had to fight their own personal demons to find their redemption and, in the end, so did Roland. I dunno, I just thought it worked well and, because it didn't have a 'final FINAL' ending, I think it'll live on forever. King's bitter note at the end was kind of off-putting to read at first, but I agree with the message of it-Reading a story just to get to the end and find out how it all ends is a lot less fun than just enjoying the journey and the getting there. Sometimes I don't think the 'non-ending' ending works, but in this instance, I think it did...or maybe I just took a great big gulp of Stephen King's Kool-Aid before I read the book. I certainly can see how some people would hate the ending, but I thought it fit and was pulled off well. Even though I knew what the ending was going to be about halfway through the 7th book (actually before that...reading the Revised edition of the first book was almost a dead giveaway of what would happen), I still was 100% emotionally involved and invested in the characters and the story, so, it worked for me. Personally, I think the perfect actor to have played Roland was Clint Eastwood, obviously, but, since he's an octagenarian now, I don't think he could do it. Viggo Mortensen would be an interesting choice; he certainly did a good job of pulling off the 'thin line between humanity and violence' in A History of Violence.

Ah....ok, I walked in after the play happened and only saw the argument so I was lost. About Buehrle: Do the Red Sox need more pitching, or are they just doing that so the Yankees don't trade for him?

What the shit's happening at the Cell? That whole play was just....weird. I'm not sure how they got bases loaded no outs; it seemed at best that Pagan would be forced and it would be second and third with one out.

Update!!: So, my girlfriend, Elizabeth, works at Wal-Mart in the Photo Center. One of the women she works with is married to a guy that's a firefighter in Pearland, the town next over from where I live in Friendswood. This guy apparently knows all the firefighters in the area. Elizabeth asked this woman if she knew what happened that nite, and, she did. Here's the story as I heard it: My neighbor, whose name is Jason, was a firefighter in Pearland for a while, but, he got fired for being a drunk (which I'd believe because nearly every time I saw him, he was sitting in his garage listening to country radio and drinking beer). And the blonde chick who I thought he was shacking up with was his wife (which I find odd because she usually only came over at nite and she wasn't there every nite). Anyway, after Jason got fired from the Pearland Fire Dept. for being a drunk, he got a job at the Friendswood Fire Dept. Wednesday afternoon, Jason and his old lady were out somewhere and Jason got drunk. Also, he had been drinking that whole day, which I can verify because I saw him drinking and mowing his grass and doing yard work. Anyway, they came home right before 6 PM and proceeded to get into an argument. They argued loudly and violently and Jason, in a drunken rage, went to get his gun. He told his girlfriend he was 'tired of [her] fucking shit' and shot up the television, the walls, and various other things about the house. Then, he turned the gun on himself and shot himself in the face. The argument was over $50. His wife, after seeing this, was so distraught and out of it that she sat there next to his body for 5 hours before calling the police. The girl that I mentioned in my first post that got led away to the ambulance crying, I thought it was a relative of the girl that was with my neighbor, but it was apparently the girl herself. My Dad has a theory: Jason and his wife got into a fight. Jason was drunk and getting violent, so the wife shot him up and then waited to concoct a story that would exonerate her before she called the cops. I guess this makes sense as to why the story hasn't been in any of the papers; I don't think the Fire Dept. would want it to get out that one of their employees, whose job it is to protect and serve the community, was actually a violent drunk that shot himself over an argument about $50. Yeah, so, anyway, that's what happened. Edit: Since my sister works for the Baytown Sun (newspaper in Baytown, Tx), she has a corporate password to PublicData.com where she can freely look up police records, background checks, etc. on anybody in the country. I looked up my neighbor. He was 34 and had been arrested twice for carrying a concealed weapon and twice for carrying a prohibited weapon. Man...ya think you know people.

Actually, I don't live in the actual 'Houston' city limits. I live in Friendswood, TX, which is about 15 minutes southeast of Houston, in the 'burbs. However, I'm sure that if it's reported anywhere outside of the Houston area, it'll be referred to as a Houston double murder. When they had the serial killer in Baytown a few months ago, the AP was calling it a Houston serial killer even though Baytown is like...almost an hour outside of Houston. My updated theory is that whoever was in the house when the gunshots went off is dead, both the victims and the killer. That would explain why the police don't seem to be looking for a suspect or asking neighbors questions or anything like that; it doesn't seem like they're investigating to find out who did it. Also, that might explain the length of time between when I heard shots fired and when I saw the cops. If all parties involved are dead, it's probably less likely that anyone would call the cops immediately after. I think whoever did the shooting shot himself after killing the victims. I'm waiting for like...one of the ServiceClean guys to be alone over there so I can go see if he can tell me anything about what happened. I don't wanna go over to family members and start being nosey.

The DFA'd Milton Bradley got traded by the A's to the Royals for pitcher Leo Nunez. I bet he's pissed.

Darrin Erstad is back for the SOX~! and he's already grinding, baby! Sliding dive to rob a basehit! He's playing baseball! Ohhhh yeah! Oh, did anybody mention that the Cardinals picked up Tomo Ohka a few days ago? I think I did, but...anyway...if their rotation shapes up to be: Wainwright Maroth Ohka Wells Thompson in a few days, that's...still not...very good at all. Edit: Darrin Erstad 'grinded' a little too much and had to be pinch-hit for in the bottom of the first. Sorry, Czech.

The final episode kind of went back and forth with Winnie and Kevin's relationship. I think that they left it open enough with Winnie and Kevin that they could've had them together for the 'final year' that never happened if they wanted to. They could've done the whole storyline where Kevin and Winnie are together but Winnie was going to go Harvard or something while Kevin was going to stay in town, something like what 'Boy Meets World' did that one season (at least I think that they did that storyline). However, I think that because they didn't have one more season to do a 'Kevin and Winnie get back together only for them to split up in the end again' storyline for the 900th time, it made the whole relationship and certainly the barn scene more impactful. Looking back at the last episode, I'm glad that it ended there the way that it did because, I think, if they did do one more season after that, it would've probably not been as good as it was when it ended. I have all of the episodes from ION saved on my DVR box (I also have all the originals taped on VHS). I agree that the quality of picture and sound isn't near as good as the first-run episodes and the ION versions take commercials at really awkward times, making for some choppy cuts, but, still it's all good. I'm watching the 'Poker' episode right now. Good episode.

The ending's not a copout by any means. What happened was that what turned out to be the series finale was supposed to just be the season finale. The show was kind of 'on the bubble' about whether it would be brought back for another season or not. If it was brought back, it would've been the last season with Kevin's senior year. However, knowing that the show might be cancelled, they filmed the long steady shot of the cast at the parade so that, just in case the show didn't come back, they could overdub some type of conclusion onto it. I remember when I first saw the finale, I thought the ending was incredibly poignant, especially the part about how Jack dies, because of the contrast of showing a scene with all of the family together celebrating and 'future Kevin' talking about how everything ended up. I also really liked the last scene of the show, after the parade, with Kevin and his Dad talking in the kitchen. Perhaps even moreso than the Kevin and Winnie relationship, I liked the relationship between Kevin and his Dad. The scene with the two of them in the garage after Winnie dumps Kevin at the museum and Kevin tells Winnie he doesn't want to be her friend at Paul's party is absolutely wonderful.

I don't wanna live in no fuckin' murder house. I'll be like...having sex or something and the ghost of the dead fireman will creep up on me and try to kill me to avenge his grisly murder. I'll drive a haunted Mustang, but I ain't sexin' or using the toilet in no haunted house.

I'm faking British. My Dad's planning on waiting for the two fire fighter's buddies to leave so he can go ask the cleaning crew what happened and how bloody everything is. He's also very interested in the 2005 Dodge pickup and the 2007 red Ford Mustang that belonged to the victims. He's going to wait and see if the cars don't move over the weekend and then he's going to try to buy em both on the cheap.

Nah, that ain't my murder. I don't live in an apartment complex; I live in the 'burbs. I've been scanning newspapers all throughout the area and the internet the last few days and I haven't found a damn thing about it. Right now, they have a cleaning crew over there doing carpets and stuff. Therefore, I deduce that it was a grisly murder. I also deduce that there wasn't a break and entry involved. I didn't hear any arguing or struggle or anything before I heard the gunshots and the house looks pretty much the same as it always has, no broken windows or busted doors either in the front or the backyard (I totally was snooping in their backyard). They have a couple of the volunteer fire fighter's fire fighting buddies over there in the driveway. I was going to ask them what happened, but they look really depressed.

I smoke like a fish, yo. Nah, I don't drink or do drugs, so I smoke. I usually don't smoke THAT much. Usually only when I'm watching a ballgame or writing something or playing video games, just something to keep my hands occupied.

So, this morning when I woke up, I looked over at the neighbor's house. They had two or three dudes that were bringing out clothes and stuff and sorting them into bags. At noon, the porch light was still on, which struck me as sad. I just pulled back into my driveway from doing some errands, and I saw a cleaning van that was next door, apparently cleaning up the 'scene'. What strikes me as odd is that, as I said earlier, I heard the murder at 6 PM. I went to the gas station to get cigarettes at about 8:45. My neighbor's truck and his lady's Mustang were in the driveway. Nothing odd there. Then, at midnite is when all the people showed up. I'm not sure if like...nobody reported hearing gunshots at 6 PM and if the police just were alerted to the crime scene at midnite or what. I'm pretty sure that there were multiple victims, as the gunshots I heard lasted almost 45 seconds and it sounded like many, many rounds were fired. I think I might should go talk to the police dept. and tell them about how I heard the shots fired at 6. I wonder if I would've called in when I heard the shots originally if that would've made any difference.

I wish to update! I just returned home at 3:45 AM from picking up my Dad at work. When I returned, I noticed that in addition to the various police officers and grieving personages in my front yard, they now had a news crew filming the scene and the Medical Examiners investigating the house. I asked a female cop what had happened and she told me that my neighbor had 'passed away'. I asked her if it was natural causes and she told me that she would 'prefer to let the family tell me that'. I told her about how I had heard firecrackers/gunshot noises at about 6 PM and asked if that was what had happened and she said 'Yeah'. So, apparently, earlier this evening, I heard the sounds of a jealous lover murdering my neighbor and his girlfriend. And when I walked in my house, I saw my cat, Spunky, eating a rat on my living room carpet. He had like...ripped that shit in half and sucked most of the meat off the bones. I picked up a rat stomach and what I think was the kidney. This has been a rather odd turn of events this evening.

She's pretty sexy, but she's not as hot as Astros' beat writer Allyson Footer. The Astros might be 9 games back in the division, but they lead the majors in sexy female beat writers.

I'm watching the Cubs/Rangers game and I notice that on the backside of their pitching mound, they have the Ranger's logo carved into the mound. I also notice that the Angels have this. I haven't noticed this anywhere else. I wonder if a lot of teams do this and I just haven't ever noticed it. Either way, it's a nice asthetic touch.

While it would be nice to upgrade offensively at catcher (Barrett would be a significant upgrade offensively over Ausmus), Barrett's just not a very good defensive player. Also, I wouldn't feel comfortable with him catching Oswalt or playing with Berkman since their history is confrontational. Also, he's a FA at the end of the season. So, if I were GM of the Astros, I wouldn't trade for Barrett, but, if I DID trade for him, I certainly wouldn't want to give up a high prospect or Chris Burke or somebody like that for him. Uh...maybe a AAA arm that hasn't done much at the ML level like Miguel Ascencio and a AA journeyman like Todd Self for Barrett and cash.

He was pretty adamant about not shifting to RF either, but he's been a good little trooper thus far (more or less). I'm sure if the opportunity presented itself for Griffey to go back to Seattle, and that was the only way he could play and he had near Mays's record, he'd jump on it.

My Dad had the Southwest thing the other nite, and he found it bland and untasty. I guess the quality of pickles at McDonald's are not as high as the two essential pickles they give you at Chic-Fil-A. By the by, does Burger King still have that burger that has the onion rings on it? That thing was all kinds of good.

Uh...maybe. He's averaging about 25 HRs/year for the last 4 years. He's 37 now...the question is if the annual injuries piling up will allow him to play for another 5-6 years or so. He could always spend a few years reliving the glory days in Seattle as a DH. Personally, I see him playing till he's 40 and getting 654 for his career.

Oh? What did Sarge do?

Well, Hunter Pence just made the #1 webgem of the night. It wasn't quite Gary Matthews Jr., but it was pretty damn good-an over-the-shoulder basket catch that robbed Vlad Guerrero of a triple, and he ran into the wall for good measure.

These California Angels...they go first to third pretty well. Speedy little boogers.