Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Movie Clip Wednesday - Best Movie Wedding Scene

That Movie Clip Wednesday Film Buff, Boxer wants to take a little break from Movie Clip Wednesday. This MCW Meme has everyone picking a clip from their favorite movies based on a weekly theme while trying to keep the clip or clips to around 3 minutes long. So Joanna Cake has graciously picked up the standard and is running with it. And because she's British and they have that royal weeding thingy going on over there this weekend, her first theme out of the chute is Best Movie Wedding Scene.




Weddings can bring a dramatic element, a comedic element or a mushy boring element to a movie. The mushy boring ones like My Best Friend's Wedding or The Wedding Planner I can do without. A dramatic one and best movie wedding without a doubt (in my opinion) is Connie and Carlo's wedding in the opening of The Godfather. I like the old-timey-ness, the music and all of the subplots going on during the wedding. It's really too long of a scene to present here, so I'll just say it's the best and move along.




That leaves the comedic element and for that one I chose to go with Frank the Tank's wedding in 2003's Old School. Not so much the wedding but the reception. And what made the reception was The Dan Band. They are known for performing originally female-performed pop songs, with added obscenities and swearing. They were also in 2009's The Hangover. When you see this clip, listen carefully to the vocals and also look at he older dancers on the floor.



So there you have it. I wonder how Will and Kate's wedding would go over with this band? Anyway, get out your Kleenex (because there's always crying at weddings - what?) and head over to Joanna Cake's for more zany nuptial madness. And thanks to our new hostess for continuing the MCW tradition.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Visual Haiku - Chicken

Know southern fried pride?
F-ed with genetically?
Could be last supper.


Saturday, April 23, 2011

Monday, April 18, 2011

Boy Scouts - The Trail of (Raindrop) Tears

This past Saturday (April 16th) the Troop did a hike in eastern Pennsylvania along the Skippack Creek Trail in Evansberg State Park. We'd been wanting to do a hike for some time because we have a number of scouts that needed a 5 mile hike and compass/map reading training as a requirement for the rank of 2nd Class.


We had postponed this trip two other times because of scheduling conflicts and were on the edge as far as canceling this trip. The weather forecast (as everyone now knows) was not promising but we felt we could get it in before the heavy stuff came down. We ended up with 5 scouts (including The Pudge) and 3 leaders (including yours truly). The Boy was supposed to go but I couldn't get him out of bed and quite frankly, I didn't try too hard. This was just going to be a trip for me and The Pudge.


No one in the Troop had ever been to this state park or done this trail before, so it promised to be an adventure. It was only an hour or so ride and the GPS found it with no problems. So after we huddled up and decided what routes we wanted to take (there were several options), went over some basic map reading skills and discussed safety, we were on our way at about 9:30AM.




The sky was overcast, temps around 50 and the forecasters said it would start raining around noon. That gave us 2 1/2 hours to cover 5 miles - no problem right? Well, we forgot we were in Pennsylvania. The first couple miles were relatively flat, maybe 20 or 30 feet of elevation change and mostly followed the north side of the Skippack Creek. The trail criss-crossed with the horse trails which were rocky and made of brownish clay. The horse trails were well used and pretty sloppy because of the hoof prints and "horse deposits".




The only other people we saw were fishermen who were trout fishing in the creek. We got to a highway bridge that took us to the other side of the creek. Looking at the map, we decided to cross to the south side of the creek and go down about 3 miles to another bridge where we could cross back over. This turned out to be a tactical error on the part of the leaders as I will explain later.






As we followed the creek on the south side, we had a substantial elevation change, maybe 100 to 150 feet. And it was an almost straight drop down to the creek below. No big deal but it was a lot more effort. Along the way we saw this tree and weren't sure if it was woodpeckers or bugs. I'm thinking woodpeckers or some other type of bird.




The boys also found these raccoon tracks. Part of another 2nd Class rank requirement is identifying indigenous animals.




The park boasts that there are a lot of 18th and 19th century structures and ruins throughout the park. We came upon one around 11:30AM and decided this was a good place to eat lunch.




After lunch we continued on about another 2 miles - and the rain started. Nothing heavy but enough that we broke out the rain gear. We got to the 2nd bridge and found that it was - OUT. I mean gone - as in not there - under construction - no way to cross. We looked at the map again and we had 2 options; proceed forward another 2 miles to a bridge we crossed coming into the park and then walk another 4 miles to the cars or backtrack about 4 miles. We chose to backtrack.


As we started back up the higher elevation, we noticed the clay paths were becoming extremely slippery. And I noticed I was starting to get a lot of pain in the groin area of my right leg. But we kept moving along. One scout (Simple J from my Eagle Project post) was having a real tough time keeping up with the scouts and started having a meltdown on us. Fortunately, he's the scoutmaster's son, so he dealt with that.




The rain kept steady but the wind started picking up. The scouts were troopers though and once we got back over the first bridge, even Simple J was in better spirits. The scoutmaster had a GPS that tracked our distance, so all told we hiked almost 8 miles on a trail I would classify as an intermediate level of difficulty. A couple of the younger scouts (and one who just joined the troop with this being his first scout outing ever) who I thought might have trouble doing the trail were outstanding, even leading a good bit of the time with The Pudge, who was the senior scout on the trip. I, on the other hand, didn't fair as well and could barely lift my right leg at trails end and am still in some pain (but getting better) on Monday afternoon.




We huddled up again under a pavilion to review the map and trail we had just taken. We also reviewed some orienteering skills and everyone got the requirements signed off in their handbooks. This state park was in very good shape and very clean. The trails were well marked and very clean. Except for the rain and my crumby picture taking, it was a nice trip and one that we all decided we would like to do again sometime. Maybe a Fall hike.

See Boxer, I'll still post when I have something to post.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Movie Clip Wednesday - Best Movie from Outer Space

That Movie Clip Wednesday Space Age Barbarella, Boxer wants us to leave the confines of earth for this week's Movie Clip Wednesday. This MCW Meme has everyone picking a clip from their favorite movies based on a weekly theme while trying to keep the clip or clips to around 3 minutes long. This week's theme is Best Movie from Outer Space or Best Movie Set in Space, depending on which part of her blog you're reading. I will go with the latter because, quite honestly, I don't know any movie that has come from outer space with the possible exception of Caddyshack 2.


Well, this isn't the best movie set in space, but I like it a lot and it's keeping with my recent movies-from-the-80s sub-theme. That movie would be 1984's The Last Starfighter. It's a movie about a boy (Lance Guest was 24 when the movie was made) who is recruited through a video game to "defend the frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan armada". One of the first movies to use CGI, it has some good battle scenes and some good sets. It's kind of a Star Wars knockoff and has a certain Spielberg-esque quality to it. This was Robert Preston's last film.


And this is a first for me. I have secured the services of both Hulu and YouTube to show the actual scenes that I wanted to show (God, I hope it works). The 2nd clip is the infamous "Death Blossom" scene. I always thought that was cool name for a weapon of last resort. Make sure you click on "A Gung Ho Iguana".







If you're looking for some good alien-on-alien scifi action, then head on over to Boxer's, Princess Leia of the bloggoshere.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Movie Clip Wednesday - Best Party Scene

That Movie Clip Wednesday Birthday Girl, Boxer wants us to celebrate (belatedly) her birthday with this week's Movie Clip Wednesday. This MCW Meme has everyone picking a clip from their favorite movies based on a weekly theme while trying to keep the clip or clips to around 3 minutes long. This week's theme is Best Party Scene. After having deferred her birthday celebration to do a tribute to Liz Taylor, the inventor of the vodka fountain has decided to revisit the topic of parties (she is presumably dried out by now). Party scenes? - well there are the classics like Animal House, Revenge of the Nerds (wonder joints?) and Old School. But in honor of the birthday girl, I wanted to go a little more off the beaten path (Buzz, that's different for you).


And once again, thanks to YouTube, I had to go with my third choice because of clip un-availability. But my first choice was the morgue party scene from 1982's Nightshift with Michael Keaton and Henry Winkler. This was the first time I ever saw Keaton and he was funny. The whole scene with the fraternity partying with hookers in a morgue to the blaring sound of Van Halen's You Really Got Me reminded me of - Boxer.


Chuck Lumley: As we sit here and idly chat, there are woman, female human beings, rolling around in strange beds with strange men, and we are making money from that. Bill Blazejowski: Is this a great country, or what?


My second choice was 1984's Bachelor Party. The first Tom Hanks movie I can remember (although I did see him first in Bosum Buddies) featuring the very hot (although now Charlie Sheen certifiable) Tawny Kitaen. Who can forget the hotel party with the drugs, the hookers, Angel and The Reruns (big hair B-52s styled girl band) and bestiality, all of which reminded me of - Boxer.


Rudy: Let's have a bachelor party with chicks and guns and fire trucks and hookers and drugs and booze!


So the clip I offer today - my third choice - is Rodney Dangerfield's Back To School (1985). The Oingo Boingo party in the dream dorm only reminded me of Boxer because of the hot tub scene. The clip is a little long (Well, maybe you can help me straighten out my Longfellow) but here's Rodney with some of his best one-liners:

So there's your party scene Ms. Mayhem. I hope you all enjoyed my little romp through the puke and beer cans.

Trendy Man: Mr. Melon, your wife was just showing us her Klimt.
Thornton Melon: You too, huh? She's shown it to everybody.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Eagle Scout - Update


I forgot (well, I didn't actually forget - I was busy) to post that last week The Boy passed his Eagle Board of Review and is officially an Eagle Scout. I never thought we'd ever get here, but we did. And amazingly, he wants to stay active in the troop as a Junior Adult Leader and Merit Badge Counselor. We'll see how long that lasts once college starts. All we need to do now is figure out if he wants some kind of ceremony/party. He says not but I think the Mrs. has other ideas.