Gwen and I are no longer speaking after our latest Pat Benatar riff. (See her blog for details). We've painted a line down the middle of the house; her side has its walls adorned with the best posters of Pat that 1982 has to offer. My side has protest-style banners with lines like "Hit me with your only three hits" and "Both of us knowing - Pat is a three-hit wonder!" But I digress. In all honestly, we've actually decided to stop talking about the issue which we both agree is for the best. Who knew Pat Benatar could arouse such passion?
In other news, I've had an annoying couple of weeks with the Army. I've never liked the Army to be sure, but often things are tolerable if nothing else. There have been several events over the past three or so weeks which have made life in the Army less than tolerable, however. Given the public nature of this forum, I won't elaborate because it's probably not appropriate (though again, I reference any readers to Gwen's blog as she expands on one such incident in a recent post). I will say, however, that my recent spat with Army life is based on the premise that I'm simply tired of being treated like I'm five years old, something the Army seems to do to everyone, even its highly educated, highly functional members, incessantly. Lately it has been driving me nuts, and certain occurrences the past few weeks have caused me to nearly sprint to the nearest calendar and assess my remaining time to the day.
The sad thing is that I would consider going on in an Army venue because of some of the specialization opportunities it offers. I say this because, unfortunately I've come to realize, I do not LOVE being a general internist. There are times when it's pretty good, and times when it's OK, but there are perhaps more times than I would like to admit when I want to slam my head in a car door repeatedly after a day of clinic. Currently, it pays the bills. But I do not love it. Which is sad, right? Aren't we supposed to love what we do?
The point is that I might be happier going on to do sub-specialty training, and becoming an "expert" at one smaller field of internal medicine rather than continuing to deal with the more obtuse primary care issues that arise in general internal medicine. If I choose to do this, I could probably walk in to whatever fellowship I like as long as I choose to do it in the Army. By having deployed and by merely hanging around, I have "done my time" and I've been told that if I wanted to sub-specialize it would be no great feat. Unlike the civilian world, where applying to a fellowship is difficult, and you have to come with a golden resume and a catalog of personal publications and research experience, the Army - fighting a horrible physician retention rate - allows you to simply "get in" and still get top notch training.
What are the pros of sub-specialization? Well, it pays more, for one. I don't need to make millions, but I will say the idea of working less (say four days a week?) for a comfortable salary is appealing to me. Also being a sub-specialist, as the name implies, significantly narrows the scope of what you're supposed to do, as such you can master something rather than being a jack-of-all-trades. I kind of like that idea. Also sub-specialty brings an increase in procedures (at least for the sub-specialties I am considering). I would love to spend more time using my hands in medicine. (Otherwise all that video game training is going to waste.)
The downside? Well the obvious - it adds Army time. Two to three years of training (based on the specific fellowship) followed by two to three years of additional commitment after said training. (An exception might be a "sleep medicine" fellowship, which is only one year and which is something I have been contemplating.) Also, I do not know how willing I am to thrust myself back into training mode. With the increased pay check down the road I suppose the end would justify the means here - but in many ways a fellowship is like residency-lite and I certainly did not enjoy residency nor do I have any wish to go back to it or something similar. Also, I don't know that I would enjoy being a sub-specialist more, I only think that I might. (My current interests are cardiology, gastroenterology, and the aforementioned sleep medicine.) Furthermore, all this extra time is just more time I'm not back on the west coast living the dream; it remains a top priority of mine to return to San Diego to be near the 'boys and begin my "settled life". I suppose I could extend that return date further, but sometimes I just get giddy when I think of being done with the Army and free to do whatever back in California. If I'm going to delay that, I feel like I better be damn sure it's the right thing to do.
There are a few other question marks. I may like civilian general internal medicine more than Army general internal medicine, but I don't know. Perhaps academic medicine? Again, not sure. I simply don't have the exposure to make a proper judgment. Also, it might be worse. I simply don't know.
Time will tell all this stuff, but if I want to sub-specialize in the Army, I probably have to decide in the next 4-6 months. One option is to apply for a fellowship and then consider turning it down should I get further on down the road and decide it's not for me. I'm still not sure. But I will say that after weeks like I just had in the Army, it's simply all too easy to throw up my hands and say to hell with it - I'm getting out, and everything after that is just gravy.
Holiday Recap
We took the tree down today - it was time. It's always sad, taking the ornaments down, stuffing Yodas and Darth Vaders back into their boxes, effectively putting the whole operation in Carbonite. But it must be done. The holidays are gone for another year and I suppose this is about my last chance to recap them in a somewhat relevant time frame. So here we go.
Obviously the big deal this year was the fact that my parents came out to Europe. Not only that - we were joined by long time family friends Ceil and Ken (Mom and Ceil were best friends growing up back in the Jersey 'hood) for a good portion of the trip as well. I hadn't spent a Christmas with my parents since I was a fourth year medical student, some five or six holiday seasons ago, and obviously it was nice to break that streak, especially all the way out here in Europe. And New Year's? Well, it's been at least ten, if not fifteen or twenty years since my parents and I were together on New Year's. Ironically enough when I was young we often spent New Year's Eves over at Ceil and Ken's down on the Jersey shore; Mallory and I and their children playing together and wondering why the adults got so loud and giggly as midnight approached every year.... So it was pretty cool to be together again.
The entire visit encompassed about two weeks from start to finish. Mom and Dad came in on a Friday, and were picked up by their former neighbors in Virginia, two Germans, one of which had worked for their government during their time in D.C. They hadn't seen each other in a long time, and had a good time catching up. Gwen and I met up with them on Saturday, in Koblenz, a neat little German town neither of us had been to before. As always, I rather relished the chance to ask real Germans questions about the language, culture, and customs. Particularly cool in this setting was the fact that both Dietrich and Waltraut and Gwen and I could compare and contrast what we each thought was best about the American way of doing things as well as the European way of doing things. Clearly there are advantages to both.
That night we walked around a Koblenz "Christmasmarkt", drank some gluhwein, and perused the trinkets. It was cold - a recurring them of the trip no matter where we were. (In fact, now I'm officially a "scarf-dependent wuss", a trait borne of this trip.) We went back to the house and had dinner and drinks and caught up. We spent the night there and headed back to K-town in the morning.
Christmas came and we had a big dinner over here at Gwen's house. Mama Stup helped Gwen cook up a fine meal. (And I dominated at lighting the candles.) Pete, his brother, and his brother's girlfriend joined us and we had a nice old family Christmas meal. It was nice for Pete to spend some time with my parents - both have heard much about the others. And of course, courtesy of my mom, Pete and his gang learned a lot more about Mallory than they ever thought possible....
On the day after Christmas Gwen and I had to work. We had to abandon my parents to pick up Ceil and Ken at Frankfurt Airport. From work I kept calling to check in, making sure they were doing all right and not getting too lost on the foreign highways. This was a classic role reversal here. They did fine, however, and when I got back from work Ceil and Ken were there and everyone was catching up.
Oh, I'd be remiss to mention that on Christmas Eve we spent at least two hours doing full on car care. Once my dad got it into his head that my wipers weren't ideal, and that Gwen's power steering fluid was low, there was no stopping him. I'll say that again - no stopping him. Gwen and my mom giggled while dad and I mussed with stuff in the freezing cold. After the cars were satisfactory, we went out to Strasbourg, France on Christmas Eve - see the pics for details. That was perhaps the coldest night of the two weeks.
On the 27th, we rolled up to Heidelberg, a nearby castle town which makes for a good day trip. We saw the castle, had some more gluhwein, and stayed for dinner. On the 28th, we were off to Cologne via train, and stayed there two days touring around and seeing the city. Highlights included the Cologne cathedral (already featured on this blog in previous posts), the Roman Museum, and the Gestapo Prison Museum (happy fun time!).
Next up was Brugge where we spent a few days as well as New Year's Eve. It's a beautiful Belgian city, which Gwen and I had not been to yet. Highlights there included the rustic look, the quaint feel, beer, chocolate, and large Christmas market. We had New Year's reservations for dinner which included a set course menu that turned out to be ridiculously expensive. It was good for sure, but one of those things probably not quite worth the money. Still, everyone got nice and dressed up, the wine was top notch, and we had a great time making toasts, chatting along, and simply enjoying each other's company, all of this going to make the night a success. We almost missed the fireworks because the dinner took four plus hours, but we hurried out of the restaurant and caught the show from the center square. I've now spent New Year's Eve in four different countries. (Everybody hurry up and think about how cool I am.)
On the 1st, we braved a horrific Belgian Train strike and spent all day making new plans to get back home - it was a long and stressful day but we were able to audible our way back and not lose too much time.
Speaking of audibles, one of the highlights of the two weeks for me was having Papa Stup in Man Room watching Giants football. We haven't been able to watch a game together in over two seasons, so this was a nice treat. The game in question was the Giants vs. Bills on the 23rd I believe. We ended up winning, despite the play of Eli Manning at the time, which made it just about a perfect experience for me. Giants won, but Eli looked terrible, something my dad would quickly and continually point out. Awesome. (This is the perfect kind of Giants game for me. The Giants win, but the players my dad hates (Eli, most of the secondary, several linebackers, at least two receivers, multiple coaching staff, etc.) play poorly, giving him an open forum to rant and rave.)
The Giants played the Patriots a week later while we were in Cologne. The game was one of those night games so it came on here at 2:30 am. I, being weak, was too tired to get up and watch, but dad took the laptop and hooked up the slingbox, and watched. The next day he recapped the dramatic game at breakfast and made me wish I had stayed up and watched it. Lesson learned, I suppose. (Hence my watching all of the playoff games diligently no matter the time.)
Anyway, it was a great visit and great to see my parents for a few weeks of catching up and joking around. It was great to have Ceil and Ken around as well - I hadn't spent any significant time with them since before high school. At the risk of sounding trite, I will say that the holidays are always a little brighter with family around.
What follows are some pics - unfortunately I only have the pics from my camera. Many more pics are out there from my parents' camera as well as Ceil and Ken's camera, so there are gaps here. Especially in that I had ZERO good pictures of Ceil and Ken. But here is what we do have.
Obviously the big deal this year was the fact that my parents came out to Europe. Not only that - we were joined by long time family friends Ceil and Ken (Mom and Ceil were best friends growing up back in the Jersey 'hood) for a good portion of the trip as well. I hadn't spent a Christmas with my parents since I was a fourth year medical student, some five or six holiday seasons ago, and obviously it was nice to break that streak, especially all the way out here in Europe. And New Year's? Well, it's been at least ten, if not fifteen or twenty years since my parents and I were together on New Year's. Ironically enough when I was young we often spent New Year's Eves over at Ceil and Ken's down on the Jersey shore; Mallory and I and their children playing together and wondering why the adults got so loud and giggly as midnight approached every year.... So it was pretty cool to be together again.
The entire visit encompassed about two weeks from start to finish. Mom and Dad came in on a Friday, and were picked up by their former neighbors in Virginia, two Germans, one of which had worked for their government during their time in D.C. They hadn't seen each other in a long time, and had a good time catching up. Gwen and I met up with them on Saturday, in Koblenz, a neat little German town neither of us had been to before. As always, I rather relished the chance to ask real Germans questions about the language, culture, and customs. Particularly cool in this setting was the fact that both Dietrich and Waltraut and Gwen and I could compare and contrast what we each thought was best about the American way of doing things as well as the European way of doing things. Clearly there are advantages to both.
That night we walked around a Koblenz "Christmasmarkt", drank some gluhwein, and perused the trinkets. It was cold - a recurring them of the trip no matter where we were. (In fact, now I'm officially a "scarf-dependent wuss", a trait borne of this trip.) We went back to the house and had dinner and drinks and caught up. We spent the night there and headed back to K-town in the morning.
Christmas came and we had a big dinner over here at Gwen's house. Mama Stup helped Gwen cook up a fine meal. (And I dominated at lighting the candles.) Pete, his brother, and his brother's girlfriend joined us and we had a nice old family Christmas meal. It was nice for Pete to spend some time with my parents - both have heard much about the others. And of course, courtesy of my mom, Pete and his gang learned a lot more about Mallory than they ever thought possible....
On the day after Christmas Gwen and I had to work. We had to abandon my parents to pick up Ceil and Ken at Frankfurt Airport. From work I kept calling to check in, making sure they were doing all right and not getting too lost on the foreign highways. This was a classic role reversal here. They did fine, however, and when I got back from work Ceil and Ken were there and everyone was catching up.
Oh, I'd be remiss to mention that on Christmas Eve we spent at least two hours doing full on car care. Once my dad got it into his head that my wipers weren't ideal, and that Gwen's power steering fluid was low, there was no stopping him. I'll say that again - no stopping him. Gwen and my mom giggled while dad and I mussed with stuff in the freezing cold. After the cars were satisfactory, we went out to Strasbourg, France on Christmas Eve - see the pics for details. That was perhaps the coldest night of the two weeks.
On the 27th, we rolled up to Heidelberg, a nearby castle town which makes for a good day trip. We saw the castle, had some more gluhwein, and stayed for dinner. On the 28th, we were off to Cologne via train, and stayed there two days touring around and seeing the city. Highlights included the Cologne cathedral (already featured on this blog in previous posts), the Roman Museum, and the Gestapo Prison Museum (happy fun time!).
Next up was Brugge where we spent a few days as well as New Year's Eve. It's a beautiful Belgian city, which Gwen and I had not been to yet. Highlights there included the rustic look, the quaint feel, beer, chocolate, and large Christmas market. We had New Year's reservations for dinner which included a set course menu that turned out to be ridiculously expensive. It was good for sure, but one of those things probably not quite worth the money. Still, everyone got nice and dressed up, the wine was top notch, and we had a great time making toasts, chatting along, and simply enjoying each other's company, all of this going to make the night a success. We almost missed the fireworks because the dinner took four plus hours, but we hurried out of the restaurant and caught the show from the center square. I've now spent New Year's Eve in four different countries. (Everybody hurry up and think about how cool I am.)
On the 1st, we braved a horrific Belgian Train strike and spent all day making new plans to get back home - it was a long and stressful day but we were able to audible our way back and not lose too much time.
Speaking of audibles, one of the highlights of the two weeks for me was having Papa Stup in Man Room watching Giants football. We haven't been able to watch a game together in over two seasons, so this was a nice treat. The game in question was the Giants vs. Bills on the 23rd I believe. We ended up winning, despite the play of Eli Manning at the time, which made it just about a perfect experience for me. Giants won, but Eli looked terrible, something my dad would quickly and continually point out. Awesome. (This is the perfect kind of Giants game for me. The Giants win, but the players my dad hates (Eli, most of the secondary, several linebackers, at least two receivers, multiple coaching staff, etc.) play poorly, giving him an open forum to rant and rave.)
The Giants played the Patriots a week later while we were in Cologne. The game was one of those night games so it came on here at 2:30 am. I, being weak, was too tired to get up and watch, but dad took the laptop and hooked up the slingbox, and watched. The next day he recapped the dramatic game at breakfast and made me wish I had stayed up and watched it. Lesson learned, I suppose. (Hence my watching all of the playoff games diligently no matter the time.)
Anyway, it was a great visit and great to see my parents for a few weeks of catching up and joking around. It was great to have Ceil and Ken around as well - I hadn't spent any significant time with them since before high school. At the risk of sounding trite, I will say that the holidays are always a little brighter with family around.
What follows are some pics - unfortunately I only have the pics from my camera. Many more pics are out there from my parents' camera as well as Ceil and Ken's camera, so there are gaps here. Especially in that I had ZERO good pictures of Ceil and Ken. But here is what we do have.
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| Holidays 2007 |
Giants Win! And who let that Predalien out?
What a weekend.
Most importantly, thanks to my Giants, America will not have to endure "America's Team" (puh-lease that stupid-ass moniker) any more in the post season. This is awesome. Could anything have been worse than a Patriots/Cowboys Super Bowl? I say no.
I stayed up until 2 am local time watching the game - celebrating alone in Man Room with my fists raised and a grin from ear to ear as the final interception sealed the deal. This was the final pose after four long quarters of fretting and worrying, alternatively being pumped and then pissed, the type of behavior which is quite characteristic of watching one's team in a big game against a monster rival, ups and downs alternating frequently.
Even if we (note: this is the point where I begin to use the collective "we" when speaking about the G-men) get waxed in Green Bay in a week (against the mighty Pack and their leader Indiana Favre, which America must be collectively rooting for something wicked right now), we can still hold our heads high knowing that we knocked the stupid Cowboys off their stupid one seed perch in the divisional round. (Interesting fact: A number one seed had never lost in the divisional round in the current playoff format until just yesterday! Ah, let that besmirch the Cowboys organization forever! Let the Dallas infighting begin! I love it. I just love it. I'm one step away from rolling on the ground and giggling like a lunatic right now.)
In watching the game, I realized a few things about Dallas. I don't like Tony Romo. He's not a bad player, or even a bad guy, don't get me wrong - he just bothers me. He is the new Donovan McNabb in that he can seemingly escape any amount of pressure, dart to some open space and then wing a strike down the field; this was McNabb's specialty just a few years back before his rash of injuries and now Romo's taken that mantle from him. I hate watching that against my boys. Hate it. The big difference here is that I might like McNabb if he were on another team, but Romo? It's like watching Kirk Cameron or Corey Haim (or some other pre-teen "hunk" straight out of Tiger Beat magazine) hop right off the page and then toy with your defense. I don't like his beady little eyes, his goofy belongs-on-MTV smile, his celebrity dating, the whole package. I know he's just a fun-loving guy at heart, but he bothers me, especially when galloping around our pass rush. There, I said it. I'm glad we rattled him good in the second half of that game to the point where he turned into a screaming ninny, yelling at the refs, his receivers, his linemen, and everybody else. He looked like Ryan Seacrest threatening not to go on camera because some intern didn't bring him his favorite donut. I loved it.
I also had a long debate with myself during this game over which fans I hate worse - Dallas fans or Philly fans. And I have decided on Dallas fans (at least until we play a big game at Philly again). I have no love of Philly fans as everyone knows (there are grudging exceptions - G Mount) and as the scar on the back of my head from a peanut M&M can attest to, but you have to at least give them some mild credit when it comes to comparing them to Cowboy fans. Yeah, the Eagles fans are a bunch of surly jerks who love their team, hate yours, pick fights and step over their own mothers to boo children, but at least they don't have that special "Texas" bullshit attitude that Cowboy fans bring. They don't carry around that same kind of cocky sneer or that puffed-chest, two-hands-on-belt-buckle attitude which they feel gives them the authority to name themselves "America's Team" or say stupid crap like "How 'bout them Cowboys" with an accent that can only correctly be described as 'inbred'. Yes, for now, Cowboy fans take the cake. They truly suck.
I just thought I'd share all that. Switching gears, I was relatively pleased with Eli's performance, or in this case non-performance (just don't screw up), and though I haven't checked officially with my dad, it's quite possible that after these past few weeks of decent play Eli might even be allowed into the Stup home one night if he were found cold and starving at the doorstep, a statement that most certainly wouldn't have been true around the stretch that ended with the Buffalo game. I'm also finding myself falling for our defensive coordinator. He's making ridiculous in-game adjustments and he's doing it with a smoke and mirrors secondary. We just shut down Romo, Witten, and T.O. for a full half without either one of our starting cornerbacks. He might just be my new hero.
In other news, I watched ALL the football games this past weekend, even the Jags versus Pats game which required me to stay up until 5 am to finish. I still hate the Patriots, and will now join forces with my San Diego boys to wish the Chargers a stunning victory next Sunday. Could we possibly dream of a Giants/Chargers Super Bowl? I know it's quite unlikely (and could possibly even destroy some of my strongest friendships should the Chargers win such a hypothetical), but one can dare to dream. Either way, I'm a Bolts fan big-time this week. And if the Giants lose to the Pack and the Pats prevail? Well then I'd morph into the biggest Pack fan there is. That's all there is to it.
I knew this would be a good weekend because it started off with a bang. The kind of "bang" only four simple words can bring: Aliens versus Predator: Requiem. Oh, there was a requiem all right.
After being a fan of the good-bad-ness of the first Aliens vs. Predator movie*, where you had middle-linebacker esque Predators doing WWF moves on Aliens ( what's not to love?), I decided there was no way I could miss the sequel on the big screen. Going to this movie was like paying respects to my former 14-year old self.
(*This coming on the heels of my being a huge fan of most all of the Predator and Aliens movies; actually here is my informal rank order of these movies from best to worst in case you were wondering - and don't say you weren't: Aliens (best overall film), Predator (pure testosterone but well done, barely edged about by the more complete Aliens in my book), Alien (A little slow, but dark and classic), Alien 4 (the first 75% was actually quite good, the ending awful), Predator 2 (Movie tagline "He's in town with a few days to kill" Nuff said. On the down side, still not sure how an overweight, out of shape, over the hill Danny Glover can go toe to toe with a predator in hand to hand combat when Arnold in his prime got his ass absolutely kicked), and lastly, Alien 3 (forget this one happened)
So I convinced a grudging Gwendolyn and even more grudging Pete to come watch with me. The result: Popcorn bliss.
Don't get me wrong this is a bad movie - but I like to think its more good-bad than bad-bad.
First off, it's better than the first movie (that one teeters far closer to bad-bad than good-bad, despite the WWF moves), and both are highly "MST-able" and don't think for a minute we weren't making cracks the entire time. Walking in, I was excited by the potential for a high body count. Anyone who's seen the preview (you have to watch this thing - it's ridiculous) knew there would be blood.
The body count of humans alone who die on screen (not counting any implied deaths, of which there are far more) is a healthy-if-not-spectacular 25 - I know because we counted. Plus there are more Alien schoolings than one can shake a stick at.
The plot is totally irrelevant, but here it is. Things actually start right after the end of the first movie. A dead predator is brought on board their ship as they leave Earth. As the predator pilots tend to other things, an Alien embryo pops out of his dead stomach. Only this is no ordinary Alien - this is a "Predalien", an unholy hybrid and sure to be a dynamic ass-kicker.
Somehow this Predalien (Love that term by the way. Pete argued that we should call it a "Pralien", but I couldn't disagree more strongly) grows up fast and then starts taking out Predators on the ship. All the ruckus from the fighting (these are Predators, dammit, they fight back) causes the ship to crash to back to Earth in a small Colorado town. Also aboard the ship are several face suckers kept in stasis in jars. These break and those things get out all over the woods in seconds. A human hunter and his son stumble onto the ship and they're toast in minutes, each getting a face full of face-sucker. The Predalien, of course, survives the crash and he gets out and starts looking for some shit to mess up.
Meanwhile, back on Predator world, a lone predator somehow is able to watch a video feed from the battle helmet of another Predator who died on the ship. He sees this Predalien in the clip and decides he needs to investigate. Our question at this point wass, what, no Predator CNN? You'd think a ship full of Predators which crashes on another planet has all kinds of sensors and alerts back on the home world and video and news of this would be just plastered all over Predator CNN, with mug shots of individual deceased predators on screen with their birth years and such, but no. Apparently it's no big deal. Instead this ONE Predator decides to take his ship to Earth and find out what is going on.
What ensues over the next 20 minutes is some hilarious parody of CSI - Predatory style. The lone Predator lands on earth, finds the now empty ship, and begins doing all this technical assessment. He also destroys evidence everywhere he goes. He uses special lenses in his wide array of visual fields to track the slime left by face huggers as they crawled out of the ship, and uses special Predator chemicals to destroy bodies, metal, and anything else. The whole thing had a comical CSI effect - I half expected him to don a white lab coat and break out a magnifying glass at one point and start doing ballistic checks. Just get to the killing already. What's funny in the end is that for all the Predator's special visions capable of magnifying and analyzing the slightest hint of chemical residue, and also the fact that he's oh, I dunno, a master PREDATOR, he seems to have trouble with simple peripheral vision and hearing, never noticing Aliens slithering around him until they're right on top of him. (At which point he schools them, repeatedly.)
Needless to say, as he tracks the Predalien (his ultimate prize) and destroys evidence of people with holes in their stomachs along the way, he occasionally stumbles in to some hapless human (they're always toast) or a normal Alien or two (likewise schooled). The Predalien acts like the queen Alien in this movie, commanding and controlling the rapidly breeding (and ridiculously fast growing) Alien legions, which run around the town and cause all hell to break loose.
The human characters aren't worth much and kudos to the filmmaker for minimizing any attempt at back story because people coming to watch this movie simply don't care, and I was no exception. There is the new Ripley-type (a female Marine just back from deployment), and the new Arnold-type (not really) is an ex-con with street smarts. There are other humans running about, most of which get schooled in a ridiculous manner (yes!), but they are completely unimportant.
The Predalien is a mixed bag for me. It's big, it still moves fast, it really looks like a combo, and it hisses a lot. I prefer the CSI Predator fighting regular Aliens more, though. Not sure why, but I don't need the gimmick. Just give me an old fashioned Predator going middle-linebacker hit on an old fashioned Alien and I'm happy. On the upside, you do get to see the entire array of Predator weaponry, from the usual shoulder cannon and blades to laser whips (booya!), thrown blades, and even a laser-net which kicks some ass.
A big downside to this film, however, is that it is too dark. Gwen and I were complaining about how dark it was, and how it was hard to see when the fights started (in close quarters, at night) early on. This only got worse because at one point the Predator fires lasers at the Predalien in the town's Power Station and takes the whole thing out, the result being a total blackout. Sigh.
I won't give away the film's ending, but I will say the government callously bombs the whole town for containment purposes as about three humans escape in a helicopter. Oops, I guess I just did give it away. The final duel between the CSI Predator and the Predalien is not bad, looking often like a Nike Football Commercial, and right before the aformentioned bomb drops, and everything in the town (including the Predator and the Predalien) are obliterated, you see the Predator rip out the mini-mouth of the Predalien and stab it with it's tri-spike in the face just as the Predalien lances the Predator with its tail - the ultimate stand-off resulting in death for both. Prior to this fight, the CSI Predator makes like the original and strips off his weapons and armor, choosing to go hand to hand with a worthy foe. For the Predalien's pre-fight routine, well he merely hisses some more.
There are more than a few homages to the original movies (the prefight routine of the CSI Predator being just one), but my favorite was one of the main characters screaming "Get to the chopper!" at the end. Unfortunately his voice was generic and not Arnoldian as we have come to know and love. Still, it was a nice touch.
Anyway, if you're in the mood for a good-bad movie, you could do a lot worse than Alien versus Predator: Requiem.
So anyway, that (in addition to playing some TF2 with the boys online - always a blast) was my weekend. Aliens, Predators, and the Giants ("we") winning a huge game. Even going back to work today wasn't too bad. After all, my office is two doors down from a Cowboys fan...
Most importantly, thanks to my Giants, America will not have to endure "America's Team" (puh-lease that stupid-ass moniker) any more in the post season. This is awesome. Could anything have been worse than a Patriots/Cowboys Super Bowl? I say no.
I stayed up until 2 am local time watching the game - celebrating alone in Man Room with my fists raised and a grin from ear to ear as the final interception sealed the deal. This was the final pose after four long quarters of fretting and worrying, alternatively being pumped and then pissed, the type of behavior which is quite characteristic of watching one's team in a big game against a monster rival, ups and downs alternating frequently.
Even if we (note: this is the point where I begin to use the collective "we" when speaking about the G-men) get waxed in Green Bay in a week (against the mighty Pack and their leader Indiana Favre, which America must be collectively rooting for something wicked right now), we can still hold our heads high knowing that we knocked the stupid Cowboys off their stupid one seed perch in the divisional round. (Interesting fact: A number one seed had never lost in the divisional round in the current playoff format until just yesterday! Ah, let that besmirch the Cowboys organization forever! Let the Dallas infighting begin! I love it. I just love it. I'm one step away from rolling on the ground and giggling like a lunatic right now.)
In watching the game, I realized a few things about Dallas. I don't like Tony Romo. He's not a bad player, or even a bad guy, don't get me wrong - he just bothers me. He is the new Donovan McNabb in that he can seemingly escape any amount of pressure, dart to some open space and then wing a strike down the field; this was McNabb's specialty just a few years back before his rash of injuries and now Romo's taken that mantle from him. I hate watching that against my boys. Hate it. The big difference here is that I might like McNabb if he were on another team, but Romo? It's like watching Kirk Cameron or Corey Haim (or some other pre-teen "hunk" straight out of Tiger Beat magazine) hop right off the page and then toy with your defense. I don't like his beady little eyes, his goofy belongs-on-MTV smile, his celebrity dating, the whole package. I know he's just a fun-loving guy at heart, but he bothers me, especially when galloping around our pass rush. There, I said it. I'm glad we rattled him good in the second half of that game to the point where he turned into a screaming ninny, yelling at the refs, his receivers, his linemen, and everybody else. He looked like Ryan Seacrest threatening not to go on camera because some intern didn't bring him his favorite donut. I loved it.
I also had a long debate with myself during this game over which fans I hate worse - Dallas fans or Philly fans. And I have decided on Dallas fans (at least until we play a big game at Philly again). I have no love of Philly fans as everyone knows (there are grudging exceptions - G Mount) and as the scar on the back of my head from a peanut M&M can attest to, but you have to at least give them some mild credit when it comes to comparing them to Cowboy fans. Yeah, the Eagles fans are a bunch of surly jerks who love their team, hate yours, pick fights and step over their own mothers to boo children, but at least they don't have that special "Texas" bullshit attitude that Cowboy fans bring. They don't carry around that same kind of cocky sneer or that puffed-chest, two-hands-on-belt-buckle attitude which they feel gives them the authority to name themselves "America's Team" or say stupid crap like "How 'bout them Cowboys" with an accent that can only correctly be described as 'inbred'. Yes, for now, Cowboy fans take the cake. They truly suck.
I just thought I'd share all that. Switching gears, I was relatively pleased with Eli's performance, or in this case non-performance (just don't screw up), and though I haven't checked officially with my dad, it's quite possible that after these past few weeks of decent play Eli might even be allowed into the Stup home one night if he were found cold and starving at the doorstep, a statement that most certainly wouldn't have been true around the stretch that ended with the Buffalo game. I'm also finding myself falling for our defensive coordinator. He's making ridiculous in-game adjustments and he's doing it with a smoke and mirrors secondary. We just shut down Romo, Witten, and T.O. for a full half without either one of our starting cornerbacks. He might just be my new hero.
In other news, I watched ALL the football games this past weekend, even the Jags versus Pats game which required me to stay up until 5 am to finish. I still hate the Patriots, and will now join forces with my San Diego boys to wish the Chargers a stunning victory next Sunday. Could we possibly dream of a Giants/Chargers Super Bowl? I know it's quite unlikely (and could possibly even destroy some of my strongest friendships should the Chargers win such a hypothetical), but one can dare to dream. Either way, I'm a Bolts fan big-time this week. And if the Giants lose to the Pack and the Pats prevail? Well then I'd morph into the biggest Pack fan there is. That's all there is to it.
I knew this would be a good weekend because it started off with a bang. The kind of "bang" only four simple words can bring: Aliens versus Predator: Requiem. Oh, there was a requiem all right.
After being a fan of the good-bad-ness of the first Aliens vs. Predator movie*, where you had middle-linebacker esque Predators doing WWF moves on Aliens ( what's not to love?), I decided there was no way I could miss the sequel on the big screen. Going to this movie was like paying respects to my former 14-year old self.
(*This coming on the heels of my being a huge fan of most all of the Predator and Aliens movies; actually here is my informal rank order of these movies from best to worst in case you were wondering - and don't say you weren't: Aliens (best overall film), Predator (pure testosterone but well done, barely edged about by the more complete Aliens in my book), Alien (A little slow, but dark and classic), Alien 4 (the first 75% was actually quite good, the ending awful), Predator 2 (Movie tagline "He's in town with a few days to kill" Nuff said. On the down side, still not sure how an overweight, out of shape, over the hill Danny Glover can go toe to toe with a predator in hand to hand combat when Arnold in his prime got his ass absolutely kicked), and lastly, Alien 3 (forget this one happened)
So I convinced a grudging Gwendolyn and even more grudging Pete to come watch with me. The result: Popcorn bliss.
Don't get me wrong this is a bad movie - but I like to think its more good-bad than bad-bad.
First off, it's better than the first movie (that one teeters far closer to bad-bad than good-bad, despite the WWF moves), and both are highly "MST-able" and don't think for a minute we weren't making cracks the entire time. Walking in, I was excited by the potential for a high body count. Anyone who's seen the preview (you have to watch this thing - it's ridiculous) knew there would be blood.
The body count of humans alone who die on screen (not counting any implied deaths, of which there are far more) is a healthy-if-not-spectacular 25 - I know because we counted. Plus there are more Alien schoolings than one can shake a stick at.
The plot is totally irrelevant, but here it is. Things actually start right after the end of the first movie. A dead predator is brought on board their ship as they leave Earth. As the predator pilots tend to other things, an Alien embryo pops out of his dead stomach. Only this is no ordinary Alien - this is a "Predalien", an unholy hybrid and sure to be a dynamic ass-kicker.
Somehow this Predalien (Love that term by the way. Pete argued that we should call it a "Pralien", but I couldn't disagree more strongly) grows up fast and then starts taking out Predators on the ship. All the ruckus from the fighting (these are Predators, dammit, they fight back) causes the ship to crash to back to Earth in a small Colorado town. Also aboard the ship are several face suckers kept in stasis in jars. These break and those things get out all over the woods in seconds. A human hunter and his son stumble onto the ship and they're toast in minutes, each getting a face full of face-sucker. The Predalien, of course, survives the crash and he gets out and starts looking for some shit to mess up.
Meanwhile, back on Predator world, a lone predator somehow is able to watch a video feed from the battle helmet of another Predator who died on the ship. He sees this Predalien in the clip and decides he needs to investigate. Our question at this point wass, what, no Predator CNN? You'd think a ship full of Predators which crashes on another planet has all kinds of sensors and alerts back on the home world and video and news of this would be just plastered all over Predator CNN, with mug shots of individual deceased predators on screen with their birth years and such, but no. Apparently it's no big deal. Instead this ONE Predator decides to take his ship to Earth and find out what is going on.
What ensues over the next 20 minutes is some hilarious parody of CSI - Predatory style. The lone Predator lands on earth, finds the now empty ship, and begins doing all this technical assessment. He also destroys evidence everywhere he goes. He uses special lenses in his wide array of visual fields to track the slime left by face huggers as they crawled out of the ship, and uses special Predator chemicals to destroy bodies, metal, and anything else. The whole thing had a comical CSI effect - I half expected him to don a white lab coat and break out a magnifying glass at one point and start doing ballistic checks. Just get to the killing already. What's funny in the end is that for all the Predator's special visions capable of magnifying and analyzing the slightest hint of chemical residue, and also the fact that he's oh, I dunno, a master PREDATOR, he seems to have trouble with simple peripheral vision and hearing, never noticing Aliens slithering around him until they're right on top of him. (At which point he schools them, repeatedly.)
Needless to say, as he tracks the Predalien (his ultimate prize) and destroys evidence of people with holes in their stomachs along the way, he occasionally stumbles in to some hapless human (they're always toast) or a normal Alien or two (likewise schooled). The Predalien acts like the queen Alien in this movie, commanding and controlling the rapidly breeding (and ridiculously fast growing) Alien legions, which run around the town and cause all hell to break loose.
The human characters aren't worth much and kudos to the filmmaker for minimizing any attempt at back story because people coming to watch this movie simply don't care, and I was no exception. There is the new Ripley-type (a female Marine just back from deployment), and the new Arnold-type (not really) is an ex-con with street smarts. There are other humans running about, most of which get schooled in a ridiculous manner (yes!), but they are completely unimportant.
The Predalien is a mixed bag for me. It's big, it still moves fast, it really looks like a combo, and it hisses a lot. I prefer the CSI Predator fighting regular Aliens more, though. Not sure why, but I don't need the gimmick. Just give me an old fashioned Predator going middle-linebacker hit on an old fashioned Alien and I'm happy. On the upside, you do get to see the entire array of Predator weaponry, from the usual shoulder cannon and blades to laser whips (booya!), thrown blades, and even a laser-net which kicks some ass.
A big downside to this film, however, is that it is too dark. Gwen and I were complaining about how dark it was, and how it was hard to see when the fights started (in close quarters, at night) early on. This only got worse because at one point the Predator fires lasers at the Predalien in the town's Power Station and takes the whole thing out, the result being a total blackout. Sigh.
I won't give away the film's ending, but I will say the government callously bombs the whole town for containment purposes as about three humans escape in a helicopter. Oops, I guess I just did give it away. The final duel between the CSI Predator and the Predalien is not bad, looking often like a Nike Football Commercial, and right before the aformentioned bomb drops, and everything in the town (including the Predator and the Predalien) are obliterated, you see the Predator rip out the mini-mouth of the Predalien and stab it with it's tri-spike in the face just as the Predalien lances the Predator with its tail - the ultimate stand-off resulting in death for both. Prior to this fight, the CSI Predator makes like the original and strips off his weapons and armor, choosing to go hand to hand with a worthy foe. For the Predalien's pre-fight routine, well he merely hisses some more.
There are more than a few homages to the original movies (the prefight routine of the CSI Predator being just one), but my favorite was one of the main characters screaming "Get to the chopper!" at the end. Unfortunately his voice was generic and not Arnoldian as we have come to know and love. Still, it was a nice touch.
Anyway, if you're in the mood for a good-bad movie, you could do a lot worse than Alien versus Predator: Requiem.
So anyway, that (in addition to playing some TF2 with the boys online - always a blast) was my weekend. Aliens, Predators, and the Giants ("we") winning a huge game. Even going back to work today wasn't too bad. After all, my office is two doors down from a Cowboys fan...
Too Good Not to Share
It came to our attention that a photo of Gwen from her deployment has made the official "Army Times Photos of the Year" list for 2007.
This piece of news, besides being the funniest thing I've heard in a while, is yet another powerful indication that Gwendolyn - aka Major Brophy (although she's still just Captain Brophy in the photo) - isn't just strong; she's Army Strong (Tm).
I'm not sure how much I would pay to see Gwendolyn be featured in one of those highly dramatic Army Strong TV commercials, but anyone reading this can rest assured that it would be quite a lot.
It appears it was taken by a professional photographer who visited Ramadi in early 2007. Gwen remembers him being around, but only vaguely.
Here is one link (follow link to 2007 "Army Pictures of the Year"). And here is another. Don't say I never gave you anything.
In all seriousness, it's a pretty cool photo. It's certainly easy to see her deployment beleaguerement, and I like to interpret her expression as a greater symbol of the emotions and feelings of many soldiers who have spent a long time overseas, far from home, in difficult places, working ridiculous hours, for questionable reasons, and seeing repetitively some of the worst things humanity does to itself.
This piece of news, besides being the funniest thing I've heard in a while, is yet another powerful indication that Gwendolyn - aka Major Brophy (although she's still just Captain Brophy in the photo) - isn't just strong; she's Army Strong (Tm).
I'm not sure how much I would pay to see Gwendolyn be featured in one of those highly dramatic Army Strong TV commercials, but anyone reading this can rest assured that it would be quite a lot.
It appears it was taken by a professional photographer who visited Ramadi in early 2007. Gwen remembers him being around, but only vaguely.
Here is one link (follow link to 2007 "Army Pictures of the Year"). And here is another. Don't say I never gave you anything.
In all seriousness, it's a pretty cool photo. It's certainly easy to see her deployment beleaguerement, and I like to interpret her expression as a greater symbol of the emotions and feelings of many soldiers who have spent a long time overseas, far from home, in difficult places, working ridiculous hours, for questionable reasons, and seeing repetitively some of the worst things humanity does to itself.
Happy New Year Blog
After two weeks of hosting and traveling, I'm back. I dropped my parents off at the airport this morning, and Ceil and Ken (friends of the family from way back) likewise the day before. Christmas and New Year's have come and gone, and it was great seeing everyone and of course seeing some of the sights. A full report on the comings and goings will follow over the next week or so, as I piece together all the events of the trip and try to come up with some semblance of a coherent narrative with photos.
For Gwen and I now, it's back to work and the relatively dull routine that existed before the holidays. There's some comfort in that I suppose, but still neither one of us really likes going back to work these days, and there's definitely going to be a lot of sighs tomorrow when I had back as I'm sure there were for Gwen when she headed back a couple of days ago.
Both of us are on call for the upcoming weekend, her the entire weekend and myself Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. The Giants have a playoff game that will require viewing (and it's not like I'm not going to watch the OTHER playoff games, too) and I also have a whole bunch of new video game related Christmas presents to dive into, including most significantly a Wii which was given to me by Gwendolyn and augmented with various games from several parties. A gamer's work is never done I suppose.
The only small plus (though this is actually more of a negative) is that fantasy football is over for another year, and thus some of my time is freed up from that end. For the first time in a long time, I did not win a championship in any of my leagues, despite playing in four - my most ever. The lesson I think is to keep a tighter hand on what fantasy related football events I allow myself to participate in. I think next year I'm going to focus on two or three core leagues, and eliminate some of the fluff (salary cap football, only one pick 'em pool, etc). Things got a little ridiculous this year. Also one commissioner-ship is enough for me - having been a commish in two leagues made my performance at the job suffer in both I think. All that said, in the back of my mind I'm already looking forward to next year's draft.
And there it stands. More holiday updates to follow. For now, just had to bust out a quick post and flex the old blogging muscles again.
For Gwen and I now, it's back to work and the relatively dull routine that existed before the holidays. There's some comfort in that I suppose, but still neither one of us really likes going back to work these days, and there's definitely going to be a lot of sighs tomorrow when I had back as I'm sure there were for Gwen when she headed back a couple of days ago.
Both of us are on call for the upcoming weekend, her the entire weekend and myself Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. The Giants have a playoff game that will require viewing (and it's not like I'm not going to watch the OTHER playoff games, too) and I also have a whole bunch of new video game related Christmas presents to dive into, including most significantly a Wii which was given to me by Gwendolyn and augmented with various games from several parties. A gamer's work is never done I suppose.
The only small plus (though this is actually more of a negative) is that fantasy football is over for another year, and thus some of my time is freed up from that end. For the first time in a long time, I did not win a championship in any of my leagues, despite playing in four - my most ever. The lesson I think is to keep a tighter hand on what fantasy related football events I allow myself to participate in. I think next year I'm going to focus on two or three core leagues, and eliminate some of the fluff (salary cap football, only one pick 'em pool, etc). Things got a little ridiculous this year. Also one commissioner-ship is enough for me - having been a commish in two leagues made my performance at the job suffer in both I think. All that said, in the back of my mind I'm already looking forward to next year's draft.
And there it stands. More holiday updates to follow. For now, just had to bust out a quick post and flex the old blogging muscles again.
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