2007 = Year of the Movie?

2006 was a pretty bad year for movies. (for me anyway) I looked back and saw maybe 2 movies I was actually looking forward to, and maybe a handful of others that I saw just for the hell of it. Out of all those movies, I can think of only 1 that I really enjoyed (and subsequently bought the DVD on release day).

My last post mentioning some new movies got me thinking about 2007. I realized that it has the potential to be a really great year for movies. Off the top of my head, I could name 5 movies I was REALLY looking forward too, with a bunch of other minor ones included. So I decided to go ahead and make a full list of "Movies I want to see in 2007." This list includes a ranking of how badly I want to see it (out of 5) and my prediction on if it will actually be good or suck.

Movie	Release Date	Ranking	Suck or Good?
Epic Movie	Jan 26	2 out of 5	Suck
	This is another spoof movie that looks to be somewhat funny. I'm sure it will suck, but hopefully make me laugh a few times.
Ghost Rider	Feb 16	5 out of 5	Good
	First comic book movie of the year, I think it will be good but has suck potential.
The Number 23	Feb 23	2 out of 5	Good?
	Weird thriller with Jim Carrey. Looks interesting...
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles	March 23	5 out of 5	GOOD
	I have hopes this movie will be in the top 3 for 2007.
Spider-Man 3	May 4	5 out of 5	GOOD
	This should be one of the other top 3.
Shrek the Third	May 18	3 out of 5	Good
	The Shrek movies always make me laugh, I'll see this one just because.
Pirates of the Caribbean 3	May 25	3 out of 5	Suck
	The 2nd one was pretty sucky, but I'm still going to see the next one. Why? I'm a glutton for punishment!
Fantastic Four 2	June 15	4 out of 5	Good
	As I said before, this one might be good, but all comic books to movie have a chance to suck.
Evan Almighty	June 22	2 out of 5	Suck
	A sequel to Bruce Almighty... This could be funny, I'm going to see it just because I think Steve Carrel is hilarious.
Transformers: The Movie	July 4	5 out of 5	Good
	I'm hoping a new preview comes out soon for this movie... I really want this to be the last of top 3 movies for 07.
Harry Potter 5	July 13	5 out of 5	Good...
	I didn't really think they would do this many Harry Potters, but damn - are they going to finish them all before the actors are 30?
The Simpsons Movie	July 27	3 out of 5	???
	I've no clue if this movie will be any good, but I think I will go see it because my brother is such a huge Simpsons fan.
Rush Hour 3	Jan 26	2 out of 5	Suck
	I like Jackie Chan, so I'll go see his new movies even if they suck...
Resident Evil: Extinction	Aug 10	2 out of 5	Suck
	The 3rd installment in this series, I'll go see it simply because. It will probably suck, but I don't think I could ever get enough of Milla kicking ass.
The Mist	Sept 7	2 out of 5	Good
	A movie based on Stephen King... I listened to a book-on-tape version of this long ago.
Alien vs. Predator 2	Jan 26	3 out of 5	Suck
	The first AVP sucked so bad, it hurt. The only reason I'm going to see the 2nd one is in the hopes that they actually make a movie this time. I'd bet against that, but you never know!

Christmas Photos

The 5-day weekend is getting off to a good start. I got a decent run in today and also got out to see Eragon. I don't know why all the reviews said bad things about this movie, I really enjoyed it. Was it out of this world fantastic? No, but it had all the elements of a good fantasy movie, and that's really all you could ask for. I hope they end up making the next two in the series.

Speaking of new movies... I also got to see a few new trailers recently. If you haven't already checked them out, I highly recommend both the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles trailer and the new Fantastic Four trailer. Although I wasn't a HUGE fan of the first Fantastic Four, it was good enough that I am looking forward to the next one. TMNT on the other hand looks down right AWESOME. I can't WAIT to see that movie.

Anyway, on to the Christmas photos that this post title promises. Here they are, in chronological order!


Megan in a cute santa hat.


Papa B and Megan playing with bows.


My smoking hot wife in the santa hat!


Daddy feeding Megan some peppermint ice cream.


Megan looking stoned sitting with my cousins.


My other cousin who seems more interested in Megan's new toy then she is...


Megan and Great Grandma Ruby winding down...


Megan in her new Escalade. That's right, its a GENUINE GM product! (the box said so)

To PS3 or not to PS3, that is the question

I suppose I don't have much to complain about when the biggest dilemma in my life right now is whether or not to buy a PS3 ($600 dollars). The last 3 days went by like a blur as I knew they would. You know that they wore everyone out when at the end of it all, Megan goes to sleep at 7pm and sleeps straight through to 7:30am the next morning. She was possibly more exhausted then me!

Now I just have to survive one more day at work and I can really unwind with a long 5 day weekend, which will be just perfect. I'll get some more Christmas pictures up on Thursday after I have more time to pick out the good ones. In the meantime, I wanted to put up this picture from the Bieraugel farm, from Saturday morning. All the trees were covered in this fine layer of ice, it was quite a beautiful thing to see.



I got the one thing I really wanted for Christmas, Zelda: Twilight Princess for Game Cube. It finally came out on Dec 12th, despite possible rumors that it was never going to make it to the Game Cube. (there was talk it would end up being Wii only) So rather then waste anymore time blogging, I'm off to save Hyrule!

X-mas begins!

First off, thanks everyone for the kind words about my previous post. It's been a long time coming, and I just wanted to share the results with everyone. 3 crazy days of holiday plans coming up shortly. Tomorrow we head down to New Ulm for an early celebration with Andrea's family. Sunday night will be with the Andersons at a new location in Minneapolis, and finally Monday afternoon will be down in Cannon Falls with the McMorrows. Oh, and Monday morning we offered to make a Christmas morning breakfast for 6 people! Whewww... This "weekend" (if you can call it that?) will be over before it even begins.


Thought I'd just wrap up with some pictures. Megan visited Santa with the Mom's club again this year, only this time she was much to scared to sit in Santa's lap! I wish I could have been there, I think next year I will make an effort to.


The kids also frosted sugar cookies, I hear Megan just ate the frosting.


Step away from the cookie...


Thursday night, when I brought Megan down stairs after her bath, the classic Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer was on. You know, the old claymation show. Megan enjoyed it and settled down to watch it with Andi.

I never quite realized it before, but Santa is a jerk in this show. If you don't believe me, click that link and you can see for yourself just how mean he is.

Numb3rs & New Glasses

My blood test results are in! They arrived Tuesday, so now it is time to compare. Thankfully, my wonderful wife keeps all our important things in very safe places. She was able to pull out my 2004 test results with no problem! So on to the numbers:

2004-2006	Old	New	Ideal
Total Cholesterol	182	148	Under 200
HDL(good) Choles.	31	39	40-96
LDL(bad) Choles.	119	94	0-130
VLDL(bad) Choles.	32	12	5-40
Triglycerides	158	60	30-200
LDL/HDL Ratio	3.85	2.4
Choles./HDL Ratio	5.87	3.8
Cardio CRP	9.6	.4	Under 1.0

Whoa! I know, lots of numbers. There are a couple of key ones, obviously my Total Cholesterol being the first one. Lowering my total Cholesterol by 34 points is just awesome. My risk for heart disease is very low right now, and I can only imagine it will continue to improve. My HDL (good stuff) is still low, but at least it went up a little bit. Perhaps that will just take longer to get up over time. The doc's note on the results were "Low good cholesterol but excellent bad cholesterol".

The last thing to note is the CRP, or C-reactive protein. I have no clue what this number really means, but the important thing is that it's a very important number when it comes to gauging cardiovascular risk. The scale basically says, 3.1-10 is "high cardiovascular risk", and that anything over 10 could be very bad. Dropping that number from 9.6 to 0.4 is HUGE. Anything under 1.0 is considered "low cardiovascular risk".

In other words, GO ME! I probably just saved/prolonged my life by who knows how many years. How's that for motivation to keep going? Bring on the New Year baby, I'm ready.

Also, I picked up my new glasses today. I think they look okay, but it's going to take awhile to get used to them. They keep slipping down a little, I might have to go back in and get the nose section adjusted a tad tighter. Here is what they look like, figured I could squeeze in Megan as well.



Ideally, I will get one more post up pre-Christmas, but we'll see how that goes. In case I don't, everyone have a very Merry Christmas!

Pointless Post

It's been awhile since I've had a pointless post, so I figured it was time for one. The only reason I'm posting tonight is that if I don't, it will be longer then a week between posts. And I can't have that!

Had an AD&D session this weekend. That's pretty much all I can say about that. The longer I run sessions, the greater my desire is to be a player for awhile. I actually starting making a character today. Why? I don't know... no one I know has the time or commitment to run a campaign I would actually enjoy playing in. AD&D is the strangest past time ever... Where else can you find 6 adult males, staying up until 4 in the morning, arguing incessantly about things that aren't even real? What's even more strange, is that we keep coming back for more...

Health wise, I hit some all time low weights this weekend. (as low as 184!) I need to keep up the intensity because I can already see how hard the holidays are really going to be. My Mom is talking about bringing over her chocolate fountain for Christmas morning. I'm still waiting to get the final results from my blood tests, I'll be sure to post those up when they arrive. I won't be able to post again until after Wed night, and hopefully I will also have my new glasses by then. So check back for pictures!

Bad Hair Day

Long post tonight, so I thought I'd just get the picture Andrea snapped this morning out of the way. Just precious!



Work has got me slightly stressed out lately. Luckily I got a few days off I have to use before the end of the year, and with Christmas and New Years right around the corner, that will help. I've only been there 6 months now and I feel like I'm being asked to do things that would be asked of a 2+ year veteran. It just doesn't feel right, like the ship is strangely missing it's captain. Let's just hope there aren't any icebergs around.

My doctors visit yesterday was pretty uneventful. The doc was pretty shocked at my weight loss, he literally said to me "You're my hero!" (direct quote) He said that these days, achieving the amount of weight loss that I did without surgery, pills, or anything else was virtually unheard of. According to my previous physical on November 16th, 2004, I weighed in at 308 pounds. Yesterday, my weight came in at 191. 38% of my weight, gone. I think hearing this doctor of who knows how many years tell me he had only ever seen one other person that "did it all on there own" really made me start to realize the level of my accomplishment. But at the same time, there is still a part of me that says, "Well, you wouldn't have had anything to accomplish if you hadn't fucked up your body in the first place."

The other thing he said to me was that how sometimes in order to get someone to make the level of changes I've made you basically have to "take out their brain and replace it with a new one." (another direct quote) That comment really stuck with me, because lately I've really been thinking about the New Shawn vs Old Shawn. It's really hard to explain how distinct the two personalities are in my mind. But for someone who is as introspective as me, they are as different as night and day. Although I'm sure a lot of my recent musings stem from the whole "OMG I'm 30 now, what do I want out of life?" (that I think a lot people my age are going through), another big part of it has to do with the fact that I'm still trying to figure out who this New Shawn is. Shitty part is, I have no one to help me figure him out except for me! (If you're still with me at this point, I'm impressed!)

In the spirit of embracing New Shawn, I went ahead and got some new glasses ordered yesterday as well. I'm really excited and nervous at the same time. They are unlike any style of glasses I've ever worn before, and I honestly believe the only reason they might even look good on me is because of the fact that my face shape has changed so dramatically. For whatever reason, it's almost like they've become a symbolic representation of the change in my personality. Okay so that sounds pretty hugely far fetched, but oh well. This blog is my craziness after all.

Sunday Blog is On

Another 3-day weekend, as I have a doctors appointment (physical) and eye exam scheduled for tomorrow. I haven't had my vision checked since we got back to Minnesota, so just over 3 years. Hopefully it won't be too bad... I'm thinking about getting a new style of glasses, but we'll see how that goes. Change can be hard for me. I figured that perhaps with a thinner face now, thinner style glasses might look better on me then the typical round shape I have stuck with for many years. I'll of course post some pictures with the results.

I'm scrambling to get everything ready for the next Dungeons & Dragons session. That's coming up this Saturday, and once again I think it is going to be a lot of fun for everyone. I've recently acquired a large amount of source material (books describing the world) which will make for some very richly detailed adventures.

Megan is doing well lately, trying to walk a lot more then before. She is definitely getting braver with taking steps away from things, and not having to always be holding onto something. Our latest fun thing to do is yell "WEEEEEEE!" anytime she falls or looks like she might have hurt herself. It makes her totally forget about what happened and just smile all big.





The eye patch is going well, I'm trying to keep it on as long as possible still. Might have kept it on a bit too long today, because after taking it off there was a big red mark on her cheek. It's somewhat gone away now, but still there a little bit...



Of course, snapping that picture woke her up from her nap, so now I must end this post! It's just me and her this afternoon, Andrea is out to lunch with a friend.

My Back Hurts

Guess I've been pushing a little too hard lately. 35 miles running in the last 8 days... I got a little pinch in my lower back tonight. I'm sure it's probably just a small muscle pull, I'll have to take it easy for awhile. Maybe just do some elliptical for a bit. Once again, that same lesson keeps smacking me in the face: moderation in all things!

Today I was reading about the guy from Lakeville that won $47 million in the Powerball, and once again started thinking about what I would do if that were me. Can you believe this guy has a new child named Lucky? That's like a whole new definition of irony.

Sure, it would be great to never have to work again. But it's not so much the fact that I'd never have to work again, it's the fact that I would have so much time to do OTHER things. Honestly, I don't hate work all that much. In fact, I honestly do like my new job, and really hope it pans out in the long term. But damn would it be great to spend all day with Andrea and Megan instead.

So to totally change topics here, I just got some news from my brother. Someone decided to kick the trunk of his car, and put a huge dent in it. He could tell because of the boot print. How messed up is that? And what's really stupid? This kind of stuff happens to him all the time. Sometimes I wish I could just give him some of my good karma, because it really seems like he just never has any. Maybe he should name his first kid Lucky?

Sick Day

I feel like crap! It seems like every time I'm just getting over a cold, I get another one. It just doesn't seem fair... You'd think with all the healthy foods and exercise, the amount of colds I get would go down. Oh well, at least I get a sick day out of it. I guess I should be thankful it fell on a Monday. And being actually sick, I don't feel guilty for staying home. Woohoo!

Dungeons & Dragons on Saturday was awesome! It was damn near perfect in my opinion. I know that not every player felt 100% as I did, but I think that's to be expected. You can't make everyone happy every session. The only complaint I had was that I screwed up and didn't fit any combat into the session. Which is odd, considering D&D is all about the hack & slash! But I think everyone had fun with this type of game play, and the entire session setup the next sessions which will be much more combat intensive. The cool part is that this session proved to me that with enough planning, you can get your players to move quickly from one thing to the next to keep the session flowing.

Anyway, I made the mistake of asking if Andrea would make peanut butter cookies today... Now she is dead set on doing it, so I'm gonna have to do my best not to eat half a dozen cookies. When your sick, nothing makes you feel better then eating bad food that tastes ohhh so good.

I'm actually thinking about heading to Best Buy to spend some money... I know I shouldn't, but there is actually something I need. I might have mentioned before that Andrea and I are wanting to cancel cable. The key to that is if we can get local channels at all decently with an antenna. I think today is the perfect day to give it a try!

The Pirate

The only reason I'm posting today is simply because I had wanted to post yesterday but never got around to it, as I ended up getting too caught up in preparing for Dungeons & Dragons. People should be over here within the next 30 minutes, so I thought I'd get a quick post in, since my next post will most likely be all about Dungeons & Dragons.

Here are some pictures of Megan with her eye patch on:





It's turn out to be not so bad - she only picks at it a little bit, but it's easy to distract her with other things so she forgets that she has it on. We are trying to do even a little bit longer then an hour when she seems able to handle it. Taking it off is a bit tricky, because they are a really strong adhesive. But Andrea discovered a thing today that seems to work. She takes Megan into the bathroom by the mirror, and takes a small part of the patch off. Then she lets Megan take the rest off herself, which for some reason doesn't seem to bother her as much as when someone else does it?

Finally, I thought I'd end with an artists rendition of Megan with the eye patch. ARRRRGGGHH!