Video Editing

Finally overcame some issues with my video editing software- here's some clips from my personal collection. Something for everyone.

SEINFELD ON "ENOUGH ROPE"
On being single vs being married and enjoying the simple things





KENNY ANDERSON
Before CP3, there was Special K. Sure didn't live up to his potential.




MICALLEF on "THANK GOD YOU"RE HERE"
Playing an Englishman. Champagne comedy.

Weekend reflections

"Donut King" prices are spiralling out of control. $2 for a donut I can buy in a 6pack at Coles for $3? That's crazy! You need to take a good hard look at yourself "Bakers Delight" also or the both of you will end up like Pizza Haven who got power hungry and started charging $7 for a large pizza and are now defunct................

Everyone has been banging on about Collingwoods great finals history under Mick Malthouse. The only catch with that...he's won as many permierships in his time at Collingwood as Neil Craig has at Adelaide. It's great to win a final or two here and there but who cares if you don't win the big one occasionaly? That's why I wasn't heaps cut that the Crows lost last week because we were never going to win the flag anyway..........

One thing that bugs me is couples who share facebook pages or email addresses. Ridiculous. They are free! It's not like it's a cost saving method........

At the "McCafe" yesterday a lady told the checkout girl she was in a hurry for her breakfast as she needed to take her children to school. Once she got her food she sat and ate with them for half an hour. Dishonest..........

Going for a walk at 9:45 at night isn't the same as a 9pm walk. Not quite as relaxing when you think someone is following you, a car full of hoons yells stuff out the window and a possum jumps in front of you and scares the hell out of you, all with your senses being dulled because you're listening to your Ipod.

Drillbit Taylor

Last night wifey redeemed herself and picked "Drillbit Taylor", something I knew just came out this week, and while it wasn't going to be any "Casablanca", I thought it would be alright. It was.

Drillbit Taylor (Owen Wilson) is a bum looking for a few quick $$$ to escape to Canada. He stumbles across an ad placed by three kids being bullied in school looking for a bodyguard and sees his opportunity. He'll take their pay, plus also steal a lot of stuff from their houses. After a while he comes unstuck when one of the bullies discovers his true identity and Drillbit has some talking to do as the boys hopes are dashed. Will Drillbit save the day? See it to find out.

Not brilliant, but I giggled a fair bit through it which means it struck something with me. Probably a lot of mixed messages about whole bullying issue (actually come to think of it maybe it didn't really address it at all) but the movie was probably more about some boyish laughs than about addressing the issue of school bullies.

Wilson was alright, started pretty well but got kind of annoying after a while. Generally he's best as the 2nd banana and not the main man (see "The Big Bounce" for proof). Younger guys ie 12-31 will probably get some laughs and enjoy it.

Paul's fast paced weekend

The big weekend started Fri night when I went to our church's "Men's Camp". The first night was pretty casual, I played some "Tipayatung", which is basically a quiz game mostly focused on music and movies and not those pesky topics like geography and art. I won, but never got over not recognising a line from "When Doves Cry". After that played some Hold 'Em and came a poor 3rd. The toughest part of the night was getting my bed ready in the dark.

SATURDAY
Saturday was good, built around discussion and playing a combo football/netball game. It's sad how unfit I am and how my footy skills have declined to near-unco status. Luckily I found my niche as a goalkeeper, which involved standing on a chair for the whole game trying to catch balls. One of the bonuses of spending the whole day with the guys was I got to miss out on seeing the Crows lose. Losers.



At night went to see my favourite Adelaide sports team- the 36'ers. They were playing the South Dragons just around the corner at Knox, which was very convenient for me. There was an ok crowd but being by myself I got to sit pretty much wherever I liked. My best spot was a few rows behind the 36'ers bench and a few metres behind Boti Nagy. I think of all the "celebrities" one could meet, he'd be in my top 5. You could have a chat with probably the authority on SA basketball for the last 30 years and talk to him about all sorts of things (eg how I also didn't like Willie Farley or also think Shane Heal is a goose) and he probably wouldn't be a jerk.

Anyway, here's my thoughts...........

-It's not NBA standard, but it's amazing the depth of basketball now for just 3 teams folding. The 36'ers worst player is Brad Hill, who has improved heaps since his last stint here when he was a scared rookie playing as the 8th or 9th man.
-We started Ballinger, Maher, Holmes, Bruce and Tyndale. That means we had Schenscher and Cooper coming off the bench as our bigs and Winitana and Hill as swingman. Davidson and Kersten didn't suit.
-The Dragons team was pretty strong as well, featuring Olympians Ingles and Worthington , Nick Horvath, Mika Vukona, a new import and a few middle range players who look heaps better playing for Brian in Gibson, Carter and Herbert.
-Must be weird for the Olympians going from Beijing to Boronia ie Goorjian coaching against Scotty Ninnis instead of Mike Krzyzewski, Joe Ingles getting court time, Mark Worthington getting in fights with people from the same country instead of foreigners.
-The 36'ers coaching staff wore jeans and crappy tracksuit tops. They looked they'd just come from the pub. Goorjian looked he was going to a disco after.
-The Dragons got off to a 14-0 start before we got on the scoreboard. Their D was great and we couldn't get a decent look. Then we brought on the 7"2 guy.
-Wasn't super impressed with Aaron Bruce to start with as he just looks like a social basketballer but as the game wore on (especially after the near fight with Worthington) he won me over. Really tough,excellent body languange, aggressive, quick...a lot to like.
-Back to the near fight. Worthington was right up on Bruce, so he elbowed Wortho, who then grabbed Bruce around the throat for several seconds until he was dragged away. Just the foul on Bruce though.
-The 36'ers drew closer in the 2nd and kept it reasonably close in the 3rd but the Dragons blew them away in the 4th.
-It seems the 36'ers still have a way to go until they get their rotations right seeing as we seem to have 2 centres, 1 point guard, 1 shooting guard, 2 guys who are SF/PF and 3 swingmen. I think our best line up would be..

PG- Bruce
SG- Maher
SF- Tyndale
PF- Ballinger
C- Schenscher

-Need to see more of Tyndale before I know if he's a good import. Seems to be very athletic with some good moves but got clearly frustrated in this game (also nearly got in a fight).

Here's my player thoughts and rankings.

Maher- thanks to lots of free throws (several not from his own work) he scored enough but is starting to show his age, especially against a young team. 6/10
Ballinger- never got into the game much and not many plays ran for him but was ok. 6/10
Schenscher- too soft a lot of the time but near unstoppable in the post when given some space. Needs a lot more intensity otherwise Ninnis may kill him. 6.5/10
Holmes- also never got into a groove but did some ok things. Shot looked awful most of the night. 5/10
Cooper- Not given heaps of time but his shot looked improved and was ok on D as usual. 5/10
Hill- much more poised than his last stint. Can hit the 3 and get to the ring. 5/10
Winitana- active but didn't do anything exceptional. 4/10
Tyndale- got frustrated and down early. 4th quarter showed some class but got too predictable and got some charges and turnovers against him. 4/10
Bruce- our best player for the night. Played most of the game and improved as it went on. A little turnover prone at times but solid at both ends of the floor. Promising. 7.5/10

For the Dragons........

Horvath- great game. Scored near 30 and looked unstoppable in the key. Our guys played him way too soft and let him get the ball where he wanted it. Shane Heal cut him, so........ 8.5/10
Carter- solid all game. Ran the offence well. 7/10
Orr- barely played and shot an airball. 0/10
Gibson- very effective. Did his job 7/10.
Ingles- fallen in love with his 3pt shot a little. On offence unless he could get a big dunk always dished off. Disturbing. 7/10
Herbert- great game, active both ends. 8/10
Vukona- just ok. 6/10
Worthington- seems to more concerned with starting fights. Not his best game. 5/10
Darden- shows something but not dominant by any stretch. 5/10

One last note- wore my jumper that I'd worn to the men's camp to the game. Didn't realise 'til I got home that I had a name tag (piece of tape with my name written on it in texta) on. So that's good.

SUNDAY
Father's Day. Got me some pancakes and presents (licorice and a Sidney Poitter book), then headed to church for tech desk. Really good service, highlighted by a boy band parody. After church our home group ran the BBQ, then we came home. I spent the day with the boys, then at night chilled watching Idol. Thankfully Sophie got a wildcard spot and should make the Top 10. Sadly no place for the little froggie kid Olly.

Julius Hodge

Good news for Julius Hodge fans. He now as a blog. Man, they let anyone who can string two words together have a blog these days. Even if their good isn't grammar!

Australian Idol

So Channel 10 has been awash with Australian Idol for the last 4 nights. There's been some ok performances and some pretty ho-hum ones. So far my favourites are still 'lil Tom Williams and Sophie Patterson, with Wes Carr looking ominous. I'm hoping the frog kid gets into the wildcard show because I reckon he has star potential.

Tonight Madam Parker and James Spargo should get through and that would be my top 6 right there.

Columbo & Australian Idol

Had a lot more time for tv lately due to illness and lack of visitors. Here's 2 of the highlights.



COLUMBO
On Tuesday and Wednesday I went down hard with flu-like symptoms. Ended up doing a bit of work but got a little R&R too. Sat down Tuesday and watched "Columbo", a show I hadn't seen in probably 15 years. It was a really good one about a dentist who found out his wife was having an affair with one of his patients, so he put poison in a filling which eventually killed him but he set it up to make it look like the wife spiked his drink. Very good episode, impressing me so much i watched another episode the next day. The next one was about another wife having an affair, also involving a spiked drink but this time strangulation also, which was a good twist. Good stories, good cast all held together by the glue that is Peter Falk as Columbo. Top shelf murder mystery and a lot less gory thatn those CSI shows they have these days.

I'm even thinking about getting a season on DVD, and this trailer may have tipped me over the edge.





All week it's been auditions for Australian Idol, and wifey and I are right into it. There seems to be a decent variety of performers this year, only problem being that several will bomb out when the weekly theme is completely foreign to them ie when the country & western kid has to do disco or the metal guy has to do an Elton John song. Early favourites would have to be Tom Williams from SA or the folky chick from London. Looking forward to Sunday Night's episode. Stay tuned for a comprehensive recap.

Juno

So on Friday, against my preference, wifey got out "Juno" from Blockbuster. I was so not keen on seeing it for several reasons, yet was surprised- it annoyed me even more than I expected.

Juno (played by Ellen Page) is perhaps one of the most annoying leads from a teen movie in recent memory. She's a cocky, alternative teenager who decides one day she wants to express her feelings physically with her longtime friend Bleeker (played well by Michael Cera). As luck would have she gets pregnant and is faced with a big decision. She decides at first to go the abortion route but when she gets annoyed in the waiting room she decides to just give it up for adoption. She quickly finds a suitable couple called Mark and Vanessa (played well by Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner) in a local paper and her mind is at ease. She's a little cautious at first but eventually becomes very comfortable with them as Mark turns out to be really cool and Jennifer seems really genuine and excited. Just when things seem too perfect, Mark and Vanessa split and Juno has another big decision to make. Luckily though everything turns out cool and Juno can shoot the baby out and get back to her real life and emerging cool band.

Objectionable and troubling on many levels. If you're a parent and your teen daughter gets pregnant, I wouldn't recommend getting out the popcorn and popping this on. Deals with some extremely serious topics in a very irresponsible and appaling manner.

At the end of the movie wifey thought I was over the top with my analysis, yet has issues with some of the violent stuff I watch so I guess the moral is.......

"Different movies, different things to be offended by"

Crows v Saints

On Sunday arvo dad, James and I headed to the Telstra Dome to watch the Crows take on the mighty Saints. Here's my observations.

-There was a lot of fanfare for Robert Harvey's 380th and possibly last game in Melbourne. It was only going to be his last game if they lost. I guess Saints supporters normally go the pessimistic route.
-I entertained myself and James with a lot of questions Harvey may be asked after the game eg
"What would have been your most disappointing season?"
"Which team mate frustrated you most?"
"Who was the worst coach you had?"
"Did Grant Thomas really know what he was doing?"
-Not to my surprise, Craigy (pictured) opted to start Rutten on Riewoldt. Now I love Rutten but here's a few problems with that match-up. (1) Riewoldt is much taller. (2) Riewoldt is much fitter. (3) Riewoldt can jump much higher. On Riewoldt you really need a taller player with an engine who can leap ie Nathan Bock.
-Crows start well, drilling some good goals from a variety of players.
-In the 2nd half we absolutely stunk. I made about 37 references to the Bock/Rutten matchup which was really hurting us. James started off being annoyed by me but came around to my philosophy by the 3rd quarter. For some reason Craigy played Bock on Riewoldt when Kossy was down forward but when Kossy went to the ruck, moved Bock to Charlie Gardiner. He stuck with this genius game plan, as well as Massie on Milne. Now unless Massie is our best defender, why would you play him on Buddy Franklin one time, then on Milne another? Mind boggling.

Anyway we looked awful in the 2nd half and our midfield gave us nothing. Originally I thought we'd get a home final and a win in the 1st round but now we likely face StKilda or Collingwood in week 1. We're toast.

Dream Team v Boomers

A tad belated I know, but last Weds night sat down to watch the much hyped Boomers v Dream Team game.

Was all ready for the 10pm start, but we were running a little late due to the gripping end to the Australia v Japan womens softball game. 15min gone and we're still watching softball. Now I know people love softball, but here's just a couple of reasons I thought they should have left the game and gone to the basketball.

1/ In 2012, softball won't be being played in the Olympics
2/ Softball is probably about the 83rd most popular sport in the world. Basketball would be 2nd
3/ The basketball game had been in the news all day. The softball hadn't.
4/ The softball game wasn't even men's softball.

Anyway at 10:30pm I jumped for joy when Japan scored and hence won the game. I've never been happier to see Japan beat Australia. We joined the basketball action a few minutes into the 2nd quarter with Australia down by about 8. I'd been watching the scores on ESPN and knew we had a great 1st quarter and only trailled by 1. Unfortunately that's as close as it ever got as the Aussies offence went down the toilet, causing many fast breaks. While Patty Mills's drives were spectacular, the US seemed to easily score everytime after he did. Anyway some nice signs for the London where our team will probably be made up of 5 NBA players

PG- Mills
SG- Newley
SF- Ingles
PF- Bogut
C- Jawai

Coming To America

In my opinion this is the finest comedy of all-time. Here's why.

"Coming to America" hit our cinemas in 1989, my first year of high school. I first got wind of it by some bus ads that focused on the fact most of the main characters were played by Eddie Murphy. To my knowledge this was the first time an actor had played so many roles in a movie, of such diversity (this was before he tried this several more times, generally all in awful films except "Bowfinger"). Eddie Murphy was a star and when the reviews came out I knew I had to see it. I'm not sure when I saw it, but I'm pretty sure it was a year or so later on VHS. Here's my Top 20 things about the movie.

1/ Sexual Chocolate. Randy Watson's parody of "The Greatest Love Of All" opened my eyes to the crappiness of modern music. Hilarious scene.

2/ Screen debut for Cuba Gooding Jnr and one of the first for Samuel L Jackson (and yes there was an "F" bomb)

3/ The song "She's Your Queen To Be", most notably the line about being "free from infection"

4/ Arsenio Hall. Awful as Semmi, but brilliant as Morris and Rev. Brown.

5/ John Amos' line "I feel like breakdancing".

6/ "Soul Glo"

7/ Maurice talking about his rise through the ranks at McDowell's

8/ Frankie Faison as the landlord. Just discovered he was Chris Rock's manager in "Down To Earth" and was in 40+ episodes of "The Wire".
*Darren, this may be the clincher to getting me to watch it.

9/ The barber shop scenes.

10/ The girl who talks about her Hollywood ambitions.

11/ Akeem courting Lisa.

12/ Akeem meeting his wife.

13/ The Black Awareness rally.

14/ "I do not use chemicals. Only fruit and berries"

15/ The basketball game

16/ Scenes at their apartment

17/ The night club scene

18/ The hold-up scene

19/ The bad acting of Shari Headley

20/ Sheer rewatchability. Still holds up well after 20 years

Landmark comedy. If you've never seen it, get it out. If you haven't seen it in 5 years, give it another watch.

The visitors keep on coming

From Friday to this morning we had the pleasure of the company of my sister-in-law Breea and Shane. Here's what we got up to.

FRIDAY
After their first experience of crazy traffic (even busier than North tce on a Friday night), they got in, settled, then suggested we head out for a meal. We decided something quick, close and easy was the way to go so went for "Smokin' Joes". We all went for Chicken Parmy's and were all well satisfied. We then came home and watched "Coming to America"). Amazingly, I've never reviewed it, so see next post for my review.

SATURDAY
Had pancakes for breakfast, then all but Isaac and myself went shopping. We hung around and then picked up James and headed to the footy (see post below). Got home around 6:30, had some stir fry, then watched "Michael Clayton" (see post below, again)

SUNDAY
We headed to church while Shane and Breea caught up on some zzzz's. Came home and headed to the Caribbean Gardens. Hadn't been since it was best known for selling pirated video games. Those were the days. Now it's mostly fake gangsta clothing, bongs, crappy art, toys and food. Managed to get a few bargains though which made it worth while. Our boys turned ferral after an hour or so though so time was ticking. Here's some pics.





After this came home and had some pizza while flicking the tv. I went for a well overdue walk, came home and everyone was in bed, so i did likewise. Lovely little weekend.