The Horror

It's now October, and all I can think is where are all my horror movies? It's been quite some time since a good one has been released, and there appears to be nothing on the horizon. Sure, Rachel Getting Married comes out this month, but I'm far too terrified to watch that. I've seen previews for Quarantine and it quite frankly looks terrible. Ditto The Haunting of Molly Hartley. What happened to the quality horror movies of the past? Or even the mediocre ones? Is the genre just tapped out? It seems like all that comes out anymore are formulaic teen slasher movies, or mindless gore fests like Saw 2-5? Yes, there is a fifth one of those steaming piles due out.

Whatever happened to Dark Castle Entertainment? They never put out a great movie, but at least they could be counted on to put out a watchable movie like Thirteen Ghosts or the House on Haunted Hill. I guess I spoke too soon. Upon further review, Dark Castle Entertainment is still putting out films, but their recent offerings have been awful. And what has Tim Burton been doing lately? Sure a lot of his movies are a little on the goofy side, but most are watchable.

I guess there are no scary stories left to tell. At this point I'd even take a well done remake or an old timey monster movie. The only Halloween-ish movie I'm at all interested in seeing is the Ricky Gervais/Greg Kinnear opus Ghost Town and that's really a comedy. But it reminds me of the Frighteners a bit and I really enjoyed that. It's tough times for horror fans.

Quote of the Day

Thanks to Pat for bringing this fantastic Holmgren quote to my attention. I don't know why, but it's hilarious to me.

Seattle's strange journey at wide receiver caused the team to bring back wayward former first-round pick Koren Robinson -- who, fittingly, strained a quad a day after signing his contract -- and trade a 2009 fifth-round pick to Denver for Keary Colbert. Speaking of Colbert, after watching him for a few days, coach Mike Holmgren told me: "The guy looks fantastic.'' Fantastic? "It's all relative,'' he said. "Right now, he looks like Jerry Rice.''

It's Over

The Mariners season that is. After sweeping the hated A's to finish the season, they played themselves out of the top pick in next year's draft, proving they really can't do anything right. I just hope that co-worker Bob is right when he says it doesn't matter. His theory (and he's been right before) is that Stephen Strasburg, the consensus top player in the draft and ace pitcher for Team USA in the Olympics, will command too high an asking price for the Nationals and will conveniently fall in the lap of the M's with the second pick. Not only that, but the Nats will refuse to deal with his agent - the evil Scott Boras - and that Strasburg, from San Diego State, has said that he doesn't want to play on the east coast and he and Boras will do whatever it takes to keep him on the west coast. Sounds reasonable, but we'll have to wait and see.

Regardless, the M's put on their annual end of season party for their employees tonight and it was a pretty good time. With all the guests that were brought, 1,100 people were in attendance. The food wasn't fancy but was tasty. Some comfort food was in order after the disaster that was the 2008 season, so they served up chicken pot pie, mac & cheese, and of course some salad, bread, a variety of desserts and drinks. Nothing fancy, but tasty.

Several prizes were given away. For the 8th consecutive year I emerged empty handed. I didn't get the tickets to watch a game in the owners suite. I missed out on the trip for 2 to spring training. I didn't even get one of the MANY items autographed by Kenji Johjima, leading me to start the rumor that he won't be back next year. To date the only memorabilia I've received from the ownership is a Joel Pinero autographed ball I received 2 years ago. Yes, that was after he left the team.

Matt Tuiasosopo and Ryan Rowland-Smith were in attendance. I didn't wander over to meet Ryan, but did talk to Matt briefly. Let me tell you, that man could have any woman he wants. In the short time I was there, I became the unofficial photographer as the crowd of women around him shoved cameras in my hand to take their picture with him. Ah, to be young, good looking, and rich. I refrained from asking him the 3 top questions on my mind though. I wanted to ask if Zack is still in the NFL somewhere, but figured he probably didn't want to talk about his brothers. I then wanted to ask him if he wants to punch Ichiro in the face, but thought that line of questioning might get me in trouble. Most importantly, I wanted to ask when he, Zack, and Marques were going to start pumping out some kids to revitalize the struggling UW football program. I'm pretty sure that would have gotten me fired.

I probably should have warned him that I've got a fairly good track record of players I've met leaving the team shortly after. Most recently I've met Adam Jones. Sean Green is still here, but Scott Atchison is history, Willie Bloomquist won't be here much longer. Mike Morse has probably played his last game.

Wrapping it up, I'd just like to say that hands down, the worst prize given away was a game used bat from Ben Davis. Where did they find that? Also, I'm pretty proud of myself for covertly taking a picture of my boss' boss taking a seat in my section to talk on her cell phone during Saturday's game. I'm pretty sure if I got caught doing that it would be a firing. Unfortunately she was turned the other way and I didn't want to risk the inevitable wrath that would have come from waiting for her to look my way. That being said, she got a few beers in her tonight and was way friendlier than I've ever seen her before. Friendly to the point that I may or may not have been on the receiving end of some, uh, good will. I don't think so, but one witness seems to think there was some minor flirtation going on. That would be just my luck though, the only woman I could attract being one who is 10+ years older than me and universally disliked by her employees. Sounds about right.

Sorrow

I almost never listen to the End, but it seems like every time I flip by there lately I have to stop so I can listen to Bad Religion before they move on to some of their usual alterna-crap. For the time being at least they are contributing to society rather than detracting from it.

Today's Weird News

Ben & Jerry are considering putting the cone back in the ice cream cone according to this story. The real tragedy here is that after reading the whole article about PETA pressuring them to make ice cream out of human breast milk instead of cows milk, that was the best I could come up with.

Luckily, battery charges were dropped against a West Virginia man accused of farting and fanning it toward a police officer. Even though he got away with it, I think the idea stinks.

Am I the only one who thinks that skirt is a little too short on the Sarah Palin action figure? And what the hell is strapped to her leg? And why is she wearing a Matrix trench coat? And who is the target audience for such a toy? All questions I'll never have an answer to.

Finally, a quiz! Which of these McDonalds burgers is fresh and which is 12 years old? If you picked the one on the left, goodwork. I'm loving it.

Good Bye WaMu

I'm sure you've all heard by now that another local company has been sold. In what's been a tough week - the sale of Safeco to Liberty Mutual officially closed on Monday - the FDIC seized WaMu and later in the day it's assets were purchased by JP Morgan Chase Bank. I haven't been able to figure out what effect this will have, and most likely nobody will know for a while. But I saw that the stock has dropped to $.44 a share in after hours trading. I've been thinking about buying some but have been unable to determine what will become of the shares. I'm sure JP Morgan will right the ship, so if the shares are converted to JP Morgan stock, then it could be a good investment. On the other hand, it's possible that the shares are now worthless. Anybody with some insight is welcomed whole heartedly. And I really hope that all the WaMu employees in the area are able to retain their jobs.

**Update**
Per the Seattle PI, don't buy any WaMu stock.

It's probably worthless. Stockholders, who had already seen shares plunge 95 percent since their October 2007 high of $36.47, have the lowest priority for claims against WaMu.

"Equity investors generally get the short end of the stick on these kinds of things," said "Stock Trader's Almanac" author and publisher Jeff Hirsch. "The company goes belly up, you lose."

What little remains of the company that used to own WaMu will go toward paying off creditors ahead of common shareholders. The creditors' claims are likely to be far larger than the money available to pay them.

Preferred shareholders, and even bond-holders, are likely to get cents on the dollar. Investors who hold senior notes or other debt will be notified by the FDIC as to their treatment as claimants of the receivership."

Everybody Hates Ichiro?

According to the latest news, a "clubhouse insider" said that the rest of the team hates him and at one point there was even talk of several players ganging up on him and administering a beat down. While I'm certain that he's arrogant, I still find it very hard to believe that this is true. I think it's a made up story by a sports writer with an axe to grind who'd like to see Ichiro traded. But since the only player to come out and defend Ichiro was JJ Putz, who knows. Firing up a couple brain cells, I can't think of too many suspects who might have said that. Carlos Silva has been pretty vocal about his dislike of some of the guys in the clubhouse, but since he's been outspoken, I have a hard time believing he'd turn anonymous now. The only other player I can come up with is Erik Bedard, but that's just because he seems like a jerk who would hide behind anonymity. But then again he never talks to the press. So what's the consensus, is there any truth to this story or is it complete b.s.?

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

I'm not a fan of Jim Carrey, so I put off watching this for a long time in spite of good reviews. The premise is pretty good - the technology exists to wipe bad memories from your mind and so people have all memories of exes erased. While interesting, I still felt that it fell short in it's execution. The story telling is a little stylized - jumping around in time and not following a time line. In the years to come it will probably come across as dated but is in vogue now so don't wait too long to watch. Very early on, it becomes clear what direction the movie is headed, and from that point on I couldn't help feeling that it was taking too long getting there. I thought there was too much filler and it could easily have been trimmed by 25 - 30 minutes. The performances by most of the actors was very good though. I hate to admit it, but Jim Carrey can really pull off some quality dramatic performances. To me he is a lot like Robin Williams in that in comedies both come across as so desperate for approval that the performances are way over the top and more annoying than amusing but when they dial it back for dramas they can be quite compelling. Sadly, the same can't be said of Kirsten Dunst. I think her best performances were in Interview With The Vampire and Jumanji and her career has been in a steady decline since. But winding this up, I'll say that the Spotless Mind is a good solid middle of the road movie. Could have been better, but at the same time could have been worse.

Friday Jr

Welcome to Friday Jr! In order to make the week more tolerable, I've had to come up with a way to make the week seem shorter somehow and that way is to start referring to Thursday as Friday Jr. It's almost Friday, but not quite. I don't know how that relates to the rest of the week, I guess that makes Monday Friday's wicked step mother. I'm just working on one day at a time for now, so happy Friday Jr.

Useless Trivia

What Academy Award–winning Hollywood director gave his three daughters middle names inspired by where they were conceived?