Movie Reviews from the Crappy weather weekend

Since the weather was not cooperative for fun things like mtn biking, I relaxed at home and got some chores done (it's amazing how dirty a little townhouse with one person in it can get in a week???) Anyway, I decided that while I'm doing that I'm going to watch some movies. I watched "What happens in Vegas" on TV (see previous review - it's still funny after multiple times!) And then I got "Yes Man" and "The Spirit" at Red box.



Let's start with "Yes Man". I had heard that this was "Liar, Liar" all over again. Actually, "Liar, Liar" is probably funnier, but this movie had its moments. I chose the picture above because this was quite possibly one of the funniest scenes I've seen in the movies in a while. Luiz Gusman (left) is threatening to kill himself by jumping off the ledge. Jim Carrey, who has been saying YES to everything, including guitar lessons breaks out the "Jumper" by Third Eye Blind. For those of you who don't know it, the first line is "Wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend." Anyway, as he's singing, Luiz chimes in, the crowd below starts singing and then, of course, Jim pulls Luiz in from the ledge. It was clever and funny, and I like the song - so it was all good. Anyway, the movie has its moments, Zooey Deschanel is the love interest (and yes they follow the Romantic Comedy formula to the letter, you won't be disappointed with this one) and she's really good in it. For those of you who are "Flight of the Conchords" fans Jim's boss is played by Rhys Darby who plays "Murray". The role is very similar and very funny yet kind of sad, just like Murray.

For a Red box, it's worth the $1 and I was entertained for the most part so I'll give it a 3 out of 5.



This one is a bit hard to judge. I was constantly interrupted while trying to watch this one (darn Home Teachers!) and I didn't really get into it. I think that's because it was pretty boring. even when I was paying attention, I just didn't care that much. The characters weren't interesting, the storyline wasn't compelling, really. Samuel L. Jackson hasn't been in a good role since Pulp Fiction (ok maybe I'm exaggerating, but seriously, does the guy EVER say no to a role???? Maybe he has ridiculous bills and just HAS to work, who knows...) The point of all that is, he is annoying as "The Octopus" actually only slightly less annoying than the main character, "The Spirit". I'm usually pretty easy to entertain, but this movie just did nothing for me. Since it was only a buck at Red Box, I'll give it a 2 and I think that's being kind. I mean it wasn't crude or ultra-violent or anything that might preclude someone from seeing it, but it was just boring. rent it as a last resort on a day when you really have nothing else to do.

View from my balcony - snow! what the??

I guess it's true what they say: "If you don't like the weather in Utah. wait 10 minutes."

I still can't believe it was snowing today in Draper.

Live at the Real Match - with some Sun!

It had been raining most of the day so it was nice to have some sun at the Real match vs the NE Revolution. What was even nicer was the seats we got for $12! 4 rows up and on the goal line. (Have I mentioned how cool this stadium is??? It's awesome!) So, when Real (and it's not THE Real, it's just Real) went crazy and scored 6 goals in the 2nd half, I was right there for all of them, it was ridiculously cool! I'll be going more as time permits. Need to take Griff to some matches too. The ONLY bad thing about this match was I had my phone tuned to the Jazz game and that turned out badly. Anyway, nice job Real, keep it up!!!

The view out of my sunroof

The weather has just been awesome this week. I was driving home and there seemed to be hundreds of para-gliders out at the point of the mountain. Unfortunately my phone camera is no good or you'd be able to see more than just dots in the sky (you can click on the picture and it'll get bigger so you can actually see the para-gliders)

I've lived in Utah long enough to know the weather is screwy, but if it gets crummy all weekend after such a nice week, well...I may just have to move :-D

Z-Tejas - Gateway

I'm pretty sure I've reviewed Z-Tejas before, but it is one of my favorite places! I haven't been in a long time because I don't get downtown a lot. But, I had a friend in need and we ended up having lunch there and well, I'm not one to complain :-D

It just so happened to be "Happy Hour" so we got appetizers (actually we didn't know it was happy hour, we just got a pleasant surprise when we got the bill and it was a lot less than we expected - sweet!!!) We ordered the "shrimp - guacamole quesadillas" and "potstickers" and I got their house salad as well - needed some greens and veggies!!! Everything was awesome, SO good! I got done eating and wanted more. I think the only potstickers I've ever had that were better were at Cheesecake Factory, surprisingly enough - and that might be just because the sauce is so good there you can drink it straight. The sauce at Z-Tejas is also tasty but not to the point of wanting to put it in a big gulp cup and drink it with a straw. Anyway, the shrimp - guacamole quesadillas were also excellent!!! I'm always a little wary of shrimp from a non-seafood restaurant in Utah, but it was very fresh and tasty - highly recommended. Oh, and the guacamole is "hand-hacked"! So that means it's good. Actually, I just thought the term "hand-hacked" was funny - it was actually very good!!! Not as good as Stacy's guacamole, but good for a restaurant!

I actually don't have any complaints about Z-Tejas at all, the service was excellent and the food was top-notch so I guess I'll have to go with 5 out of 5 - very rare but it does happen.

Spring Break

Well, Spring Break is already over. I can't believe Griffin was over for 10 days!!! We had such a good time just hanging out. I'm definitely losing it though because I literally have zero pictures of anything we did! :-D

We played, we scootered, we skateboarded, we swam, went on walks and ran, we played baseball (this was when I outlawed video games - the kid is 6 and has a hard time catching a baseball - he can hit - no problem, but catching is rough.) We went to the park, we watched movies, we played in the snow, we read books (he is doing SO good at sounding out words, he does it with signs we see as we drive along, it's pretty funny), and we made delicious dinners (he's back on cheese-smashes, so we did some of those too).

My favorite part of the whole 10 days was every time he said he wished he could stay with me all the time. :-)

He was such a good boy the whole time. He plays really well with other kids - he and Kamas are like best buds now, he was well-mannered for the most part and was respectful of other people's houses as we went around seeing people.

All in all, this was a really fun time and I am so happy he got to come over for a cool spring break!

New Baby Blake!

I've seen cute babies before - but I don't think I've ever seen such a cute BRAND NEW baby. I mean Blake is the cutest little bug! Nice job Andrea!!! Congrats to Paul too!!!

Griff was super happy to have a new little cousin, he was telling anyone who would listen the rest of the day. :-D

Happy Easter!

I'm not sure why, but since I've been in charge of Easter for Griff a couple of times in the last few years, I've realized that I don't put a lot of thought into the part of Easter surrounding the Easter Bunny. I'm not sure why, we always dyed eggs and had easter egg hunts growing up, but for some reason - I always forget that part.

SO, Lance told me about the Lindon city Easter Egg Hunt and I decided to take Griffin down there. It started at 9, we got there at 9:03 and it was OVER! It was like piranhas stripping a cow who has wandered into the Amazon river! Just a buzz-saw of little kids stripping that park of all it's easter egg goodies. So, I decided we'd go over to Walmart and get a few things so Griff could do an easter egg hunt. We invited Griff's buddy Kamas over too, so it would be a bit more fun, and it was, despite the bad weather - it did stop raining long enough for us to get out there and hunt eggs! Here are a couple of pictures and some video:

34 candy filled Eggs and a sports-themed basket. The footballs and camo eggs proved hardest to find - or if I placed the eggs at eye level (as you'll see :-D )

Griff with the Easter goodies, pre-hunt.

Griff and Kamas start the hunt!

Soccer egg - part 1 (the boys try to find an egg at eye level :-D )

Finding the Soccer egg - part 2 (I begin to worry)

The finale (the last egg was a football egg - watch Griff walk right over it :-D )

Restaurant Review - Mikado

Since I've been adhering to my resolution to not eat out more than 2 times a week (doing very well with that by the way, thank you!) I haven't had the chance to file a restaurant review in a while. So here's one - Mikado Japanese Restaurant (just East of Southtowne Mall, next to 5-guys Burgers). My mission buddy Jeff Christensen and I have been trying to get to lunch for a while and it finally worked out the other day, and he recommended Mikado. I'd never been, and I like Sushi, so I was glad to go along. The ambience is nice, the service was good, and that's about where the "good" ended for me - or at least the great. I guess I've become somewhat of a Sushi snob (if that's possible in Utah???) but seriously if it's not Tsunami, I just don't like it much. We got several rolls that were on the lunch special (maybe that was a hint?) and we got one or two that weren't. The two we got that weren't specials were OK. The specials were not very good at all. The ingredients seemed fresh and the rolls were well made, but they just didn't have very good taste. And, they weren't super inexpensive - not too bad, but for the money, I would have rather had Tsunami all day long. I guess the silver lining is I know I'm not missing out on anything by never going to Mikado again. Really, I feel the same way about Happy Sumo too. The way I am, I'd just prefer to go to the place I KNOW is fantastic and not chance it with places I don't know. The cool thing about going to Mikado with Jeff, beside catching up with an old friend, was he has a frequent diner card there and it ended up cutting our bill in half, so that was nice - Thanks Jeff!!!

So overall, I'd give Mikado about a 2.5 out of 5. The food wasn't horrible it was just OK, and for the normal prices, I'd expect GREAT. If you like Sushi, go to Tsunami. ;-)

It's officially Mountain Biking season!

That's right, I went out for the first ride of the season this morning (and it's about stinkin time!!!) The weather was so nice yesterday that I resolved to hit the trails first thing this morning. So, I pumped up my tires, lubed up the chain and derailleurs, filled up the camelpack, threw on some warm under clothes, just in case, and headed out to see how the Bonneville shoreline trail was shaping up!

Since this was my first foray into mountain biking for 2009, I decided to take the road up Traverse Mountain to Mike Weir Drive to catch the trailhead there. Much to my dismay the trail looked like this:

Yep, there was still snow out there. Undaunted (and since I had just peddled halfway up Traverse Mountain, I wasn't about to turn back for a little snow and mud) I struck out on the trail anyway. In many places the trail was fine and I was able to cruise along at a decent pace. In other places, it looked like this behind me:

I swear I had to peddle twice around in the mud to get as far as once around would normally propel me! It got exhausting, especially for the first day. And yes, those are coyote prints in the trail, they were all over the place along with a few small deer prints. I was hoping to be able to tell Griff I saw a mountain lion, but no such luck.

I got out to about the Temple:

And decided to turn around as the trail was only getting worse as I went further up. I guess that only makes sense. :-D

On the way back I got covered in mud, but it was so much fun! Almost like a mountain bike slip-n-slide in some muddy areas. Funny how mud is still fun even now! I got home just fine:

But had to throw my clothes in the wash immediately and hop right in the shower. Unfortunately, since I didn't have anyone with me to take this picture, you can't tell how muddy my legs are or how muddy the bike is. You can see some of the specks on the shirt, but I'd already wiped my face off at this point.

Next ride will be on the lower section above the Draper pool to see if it's a bit dried down there. It looked like it was, so I'll keep my fingers crossed! B-)

Go Speed Racer!

Watched Speed Racer on DVR.

Obviously this one has been out for a while if it's already on the movie channels, but I never saw it. I think someone back then told me it wasn't any good. Well, they were wrong, I actually liked it a lot! I liked the stylized way they made it kind of look like a cartoon while still using real-life actors (and a lot of CGI, I know, but it was good CGI). I like Emil Hirsch, he's a good actor, and even Christina Ricci is good in this. Plus John Goodman is usually good, but he wasn't funny in this one.

The story follows young Speed Racer as he becomes a professional race car driver in the shadow of his dead brother, who was also a race car driver. He is beguiled by the rich and powerful team owner, but rejects his lucrative offer and spends the rest of the show avoiding the attmepts on his life as he races his car.

I'm not a Speed Racer afficionado, but I always thought Racer X was the bad guy who was trying to ruin Speed and his racing career, but in this he's a good guy. Matthew Fox plays Racer X, Jack for those of you who are LOST fans. He was good as well in the movie. Susan Sarandon plays Speed's mom and even she's tolerable, though usually I'm not a fan (not since Bull Durham anyway).

So, I'd go with a 4 out of 5. The story is a bit long, but actually I didn't mind as much as I thought I might when I saw it was 2 hours and 15 minutes long. For a movie based on a comic/cartoon, it was actually very well done and not cheesy at all. If you have the movie channels, it was on Cinemax I believe. If not, see if you can find it on Redbox, or I saved it on DVR if you want to come over, I'll definitely watch it again.

Playtime with Griff and Q

Quincy loves other kids, so when Griffin is over, they have a pretty good time playing. Mostly Griff running around and Q trying to catch him. At least this time they slowed down long enough to play this ball game. Griff also lost another tooth (not this night, but a couple nights before)! And yes, the tattoo was an April fool's joke ;-)

The pics are a little blurry because these kids don't sit still for long :-D

New Tattoo!

Yeah, I got bored and finally found a place that could do this tattoo right (Anchor Ink tattoo in SLC - thanks guys!!! )

It really hurt, it took 4 hours to complete. I'll get the old school Jazz logo when this one is healed up.

Here are the pics:





When it's healed up, I'm adding "GLORY GLORY" above it. It was just hurting too much to continue after 4 hours - and actually there is a little touch up to do on this too.

I'm pretty happy with it, now let's hope they win the quintuple!!! Come on you Devils!!!