Greetings from my Social Media Break

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year, friends!

I started my social media hiatus on Friday, December 15th, which was about ten days ago. I drove up to the University of Vermont that day to pick up my eldest daughter Hannah, making it easy to leave Facebook and Twitter behind. I'd found myself getting a little too obsessed with seeing reaction to things I'd written, mostly for As For Football, over the previous months. I therefore wanted to break the habit of checking in with the world-at-large. 

Merry Christmas from Casa Cabeza!

It had gotten a little too easy to doom-scroll my way through the day, and with that had come a lot of unfiltered bullshit. Too much of what passes for opinion comes from miserable bastards looking to outsource their own unhappiness. I've missed interacting with AFF's Firstie Club, but the cold turkey approach seemed like the best thing for the moment, and here we are.

I've read quite a bit, I've listened to a few audiobooks from my local library, and I've watched a few movies. The beauty of all of this is that I've gotten to do it in the vacuum of my own space, allowing an easier place from which to form my own opinions.

5 Things on a Friday: Dune!

Hey everyone.  Long time, no see, yeah?  I hope you’re all doing really, really well.

Apologies up front, but the basic purpose of this post is to get you caught up on what’s going on with our family.  Sally has a new gig, and I’ve got a video for As For Football that I wanted to feature, so a lot of this is gonna be self-promotional.  Hopefully you’ll at least find it entertaining.

Happy Friday!  Let’s get it on!!!

Movie Review: The New Mutants

I took my kids to the Mansfield Drive-In Movie Theater last night to see the New Mutants.  A great experience overall but probably not one that we would repeat on anything like a regular basis, mostly because the theater itself was over an hour’s drive away.  Needless to say, this was my kids’ first experience with a drive-in.  We brought lawn chairs but forgot to bring a boom box and thus learned the hard way that my car’s speakers aren’t as loud as I might’ve hoped when you’re sitting outside.  Volume issues affected our enjoyment of the film, unfortunately.  It was hard to hear at times.  Still, we all enjoyed ourselves quite a bit.  

6 Things on a Sunday: Dragon’s Lair + Free Wrestling

I’ve been working on this post since the middle of last week, but without my regular commute rides on the train, my writing schedule is out-of-whack.  Also, the COVID-19 outbreak has gotten so bad that making jokes about it isn’t really in good taste anymore.

Happy Hour at Casa Cabeza in the era of COVID-19.

Well.  Let’s do it.

5 Things on a Friday: Purple Rain

Hey folks, happy Friday!  Let’s do it.

Six Things on a Saturday: Divining Artistic Pretensions

It feels like the world has gone off the rails.  It wasn’t this week in particular or anything, but…  wow.

Let’s get to it.

5 Things on a Friday: Back on the Bandwagon

5 Things on a Friday returns for a special NFL Playoff/MLB Cheating edition.  Enjoy!

I don’t want national media respect anymore. I want them to have to cover the Tennessee Titans in the Super Bowl which is their worst nightmare.

— Two Tone Fanatics (@twotonefanatics) January 14, 2020

TRON Reconsidered

I didn’t love TRON when I first saw it in theaters. Mostly because I’d had enough programming at the time to understand that, “This is not how computers work.”  Partly, too, because the movie is deliberately weird.

Alas, I missed some of the film’s subtler themes.

15 Must-Watch Movies from Disney+

Disney+ is coming next week, and with it comes a bunch of old movies.  

This is my initial recommended watch list.  I’ve tried to go heavy on relatively older movies for the benefit of younger viewers who maybe missed some of this when it first hit theaters.  Hell, I saw at least half of these on VHS back in the day.  Lots of you weren’t around for that, I know.

I’ve tried to skip the obvious.  You don’t need me to tell you about Star Wars or a blockbuster that came out just five years ago.  Most of these are favorites from when I was a kid, meaning the late 70s to early 90s.  That doesn’t seem that long ago to me, but I’ve got teenagers myself now, so I know it seems like an unfathomably long time to some of you.  The newest entry on this list is 2008’s Bolt.  That might be a little too new for the criteria, but what can you do?

After some internal debate, I’ve decided to list these in the order in which I intend to watch them.

Enjoy!  And feel free to add on if you’ve got something I missed.

Quick Thoughts: Endgame and the MCU

Finally saw Avengers: Endgame over the weekend.  My kids and I felt very much like the last people on Earth to get to the movie, but I know that’s not true.  In fact, I work with a couple of guys who’ve never seen any of the Avengers movies. I mean, I know it feels like Marvel have taken over the movie world, but it’s still a specific niche, believe it or not, and there are plenty of folks who aren’t paying attention.  It’s just a very loud kind of niche.

Lots of folks have published thoughts about Endgame.  It’s unclear that the world needs mine.  I’m gonna give them to you anyway, though, mostly because I’ve not yet had any time to grill or to think overmuch about how I’m going to write about grilling.

*big-time spoilers ahead*

5 Things on a Friday: In the Top 10!

Happy Friday, everyone.  Let’s go!

Quick Thoughts: Ralph Breaks the Internet

Sally, the kids, and I saw Ralph Breaks the Internet over the weekend, and we all liked it.  Most of the reviews I’ve seen talk about the ways in which the movie cleverly captures the quirks of online life, and I agree that they did a nice job with that.  But the movie also went to kind of a lot of trouble to get into issues of toxic masculinity and girl power, and while I think those aspects are great in concept, it’s this that I wanted to talk about.  Bottom line, I didn’t love some of the movie’s basic premise nor the way the plot resolved itself.

*Spoilers Below*

No seriously.  I am gonna get straight into the movie’s climax right after the jump.

5 Things on a Friday: Let Them Eat Goat.

Happy Friday, folks.  Let’s go.

From ClipArtExtras.Com

Quick Thoughts: A Star Is Born

Sally and I went to see A Star Is Born last night, starring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper in which Cooper is himself making his directorial debut.  I liked the movie a lot, but I had some thoughts about it, too.

Detailed spoilers are below.  Click through at your own risk.

5 Things on a Friday: Bye Week Blues

Tough week without an Army game this Saturday.  Not that the guys don’t deserve a break or even that I and my family don’t have other things that we need to do with our time.  But still.  You wait all damned year for college football season, it’s tough to miss even a week of it.

Oh well.  There are other games, I guess.

5 Things on a Friday: Last Look at Liberty

Hey, ho.  Let’s go.

5 Things on a Friday: Waiting for My Giant Seahorse

I was on vacation the first three days this week, and it still feels like it’s been a long week.  Argh!

Happy Friday, folks.

Thoughts on Solo & the Star Wars Universe

We saw Solo: A Star Wars Story over the weekend.  Everybody liked it okay.  I don’t think it was anyone’s idea of a great movie, and even my kids saw some of those closing double-crosses coming, but it was still entertaining, and that’s fine.

Stupid Movie Reviews: Valerian & the City of a Thousand Planets

Welcome to Stupid Movie Reviews!  This is a new, uh, maybe bi-weekly segment on the blog.  This week, we’re looking at a rather enjoyable stupid movie,Valerian & the City of a Thousand Planets.

5 Things on a Friday: Return to Chaos

Happy Founder’s Day!

On March 16, 1802, Thomas Jefferson signed a document declaring "that the said Corps, when so organized, shall be stationed at West Point... and shall constitute a military academy. The Corps of today celebrated the 216th anniversary of Founders Day.

Photos by: CDT Alex Werden pic.twitter.com/TbVyf7fJgq

— US Military Academy (@WestPoint_USMA) March 2, 2018