For this movie review of “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer,” The Dude on the Right couldn’t get over how Jessica Alba looked, but sadly not in a good way. He also thinks the film folks are trying to gear this series for the kids, and wonders how much Dodge paid for their product placement. None of these things are good things.
Author: Andy Labis
What’s New? A Podcast of: Jessica Alba – I Volunteer, Cicada Sounds, Go Cavs, and Go Away McGreevey’s.
For this podcast The Dude on the Right really, really, really, wants to be put on Jessica Alba’s list for a one night stand, or even a one evening stand. He also found some annoying cicada sounds thanks to Steve Dahl and The Chicago Tribune. The Dude hopes the Cleveland Cavs can win a basketball game, at least with the help of the Michael Stanley Band, and wishes the McGreevey’s would just go away. Gosh he has a lot to talk about in 15 or so minutes.
Jessica Alba – I Volunteer, Cicada Sounds, Go Cavs, and Go Away McGreevey’s.
By:
The Dude on the Right
Jessica Alba has announced that she is looking for one night stands, and
I’m more than happy to announce my services, which might not even make it to a
one evening stand. In any case I will give her my guarantee I won’t be
there to snuggle in the morning. Also
in this podcast, here in Chicagoland, it is time for the return of the 17
year cicada, and happily they are nowhere near my neighborhood, but the
sound I found on the internet (thanks to radio dude
Steve Dahl and
The Chicago Tribune) can give you a listen as to what you might be missing.
The site with the sound also has ambient sound from around the world, but so
far I haven’t heard any juicy conversations, just birds and badly miked house
music from Oslo, Norway. Back in my college days I could have been the
King of Ambient Sound by hanging a microphone outside my fraternity bedroom
window, especially on weekend nights, but that’s a story for another day.
I’m
hoping my hometown Cleveland Cavaliers can at least win one game in the
NBA finals, but I don’t even think the
Michael
Stanley Band song can help. Who knows, maybe the Cavs can be the
first team in history to come behind from a 0 and 3 deficit to win the
championship, but that is almost as likely as New Jersey’s gay ex-Governor
McGreevey liking his wife’s book.
Thanks for listening!
That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!
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The “Tony Soprano Was Whacked Here, Or Maybe Not” Booth, and Bon Jovi Better Not Tour in 2010.
By:
The Dude on the Right
Well at least I had one thing right about my prediction for "The Sopranos"
ending – it would take place in an ice cream shop in New Jersey. What
surprised me was that most people giving predictions, from fans to critics,
seemed to forget the story of how there was this ice cream shop in New Jersey
that the show’s people wanted to shoot the final scene at but the town wouldn’t
give them a permit. Then the town thought better of it and gave them a
permit. Low and behold the final scene was at a place called "Holsten’s,"
which whether you liked the ending of the show or not, if you are/were a fan of
the "The Sopranos," and if you are anywhere near Bloomfield, NJ, you will
probably try to make a trip there. With all of their publicity, though,
you would think they might update their web site. Going to
holstons.com you see the
most simplistic of designed web sites, and more importantly, if you click on the
"Luncheon Menu"
link, there is something missing from the menu, namely onion rings. There
is another website with a photo of a current menu, and it does show onion rings
are available, but if the Holston’s folks want some help redesigning their
website, I’m offering my
services, if only because it would give me a real excuse to visit New Jersey
again, other than just vacationing on Long Beach Island.
But now that "The
Sopranos" are done, or is it "is done," I always get that confused, and so far I
haven’t gotten sucked into any summer TV yet, I’m looking to revive doing
concert reviews during this summer season, setting a consistent schedule for CD
and DVD reviews, finishing the re-design of entertainmentavenue.com, and in the
middle of all of these things, digitize my entire photo collection, starting
with my concert photos, mostly so I can update the lousy looking concert shots
on the web site because, in reality, they aren’t that lousy (some of those were
digitized with an old, hand-held scanner, bought back in like 1996). The
nice thing about the digitizing is I can do it in the middle of typing and
posting things – simply slide another negative into my old HP Photosmart
scanner, and since it’s pretty slow, well, I don’t lose that much stream of
consciousness in my writing. The bad thing is that since it is kinda slow,
I might be at this digitizing things for years.
I guess I never realized how
many pictures I took back in those old days of using film, and concerts alone
I’m looking at, by rough count, some 720 rolls of film to digitize. If I
can get two rolls done a day I guess I might be done with the concert photos
sometime next year. Then there are all of the negatives from college and
high school, and if I’m on track for this, we’re looking at, well, maybe 2010 by
the time my entire film collection is safely stored away on CD-R’s (that by then
will probably be useless), and I might be able to put together a nice high school
retrospective for my high school classmates at our 25th year reunion, that is,
of course, if Bon Jovi doesn’t have a concert on the same day as our reunion in
2010 like they did
back in 1995, and 2005.
It looks to be a fun summer for this dude, as long
as I can keep my TV turned off in the evening hours. If not, expect a lot
more blogs about crappy, summer TV shows that I have gotten sucked into
watching. Maybe I’ll even try to squeeze in a trip to New Jersey for some
ice cream, and sit in the "Tony Soprano Got Whacked Here, Or Maybe He Didn’t"
booth. I just wonder if the onion rings at Holston’s are that good.
That’s it for this one!
I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!
What’s New? Stu & The Dude’s Weekend Wrap-Up Podcast! Soprano Analysis, Stu Gets Exercise, The Dude’s Cable Woes, and Big & Rich do AC/DC.
For this podcast of “Stu & The Dude’s Weekend Wrap-Up!,” well, Stu Gotz and The Dude on the Right give their discussion about the finale of “The Sopranos.” Stu got in some exercising thanks to a Nintendo Wii (which he can’t believe he camped out for, sort of), and The Dude saw “Ocean’s Thirteen.” There’s also some other TV talk, The Dude finally got TV back, and did you know Big & Rich cover the AC/DC classic “You Shook Me All Night Long?” Now you do.
Stu & The Dude’s Weekend Wrap-Up!: Soprano Analysis, Stu Gets Exercise, The Dude’s Cable Woes, and Big & Rich do AC/DC.
By:
The Dude on the Right
Nothing like the most talked about "Sopranos" episode ever to bring Stu Gotz and
I together to talk about our weekend during
this podcast. Of course we do our analysis of the series finale of
"The Sopranos," because, well, who hasn’t, and it’s complete with the changing
of our opening theme music. Stu, also, was quite the athlete this weekend,
doing some bowling, tennis, golf, baseball, and boxing all in the span of a
couple of days. You know what that means? Yup, he bought a Nintendo
Wii, but it’s the way he bought it that is the story. At least he hasn’t
thrown the remote, yet, like my sister did.
We also discuss my seeing
"Ocean’s Thirteen," Mama Gotz’s not really seeing "Surf’s Up," my life
without TV for a couple of days, and I introduce Stu to a new version of AC/DC’s
"You Shook Me All Night Long," covered by Big & Rich. Stu can’t wait to
buy it, but me, not so much.
Thanks for listening!
That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!
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What’s New? A Movie Review of “Ocean’s Thirteen.”
For this movie review of “Ocean’s Thirteen” The Dude on the Right thought it was on par with “Ocean’s Eleven,” so pretty much you can gauge it by that if you want to see it or not. He even liked the Oprah scenes in the movie, and didn’t miss Julia Roberts nor Catherine Zeta-Jones at all.
How Did I Live Without TV for So Long?
By:
The Dude on the Right
If you’ve been reading my blog the last couple of days you know that I was
without my cable TV and good internet access for, it turned out, two entire
days. The operative word there is "was" because about an hour ago the
cable technician rang my doorbell, I told him I have nothing, he went outside,
and low and behold everything was working again. He came back in, I asked
him what was the problem, and he said that in the box outside my cable line was
marked "Disconnected," and was, well, disconnected. He asked if there was
a billing problem, to which I told him there wasn’t, and the best guess we both
could come up with was because there have been a rash of old people moving and
new people moving in at my townhouse area, maybe the technician who came to
disconnect someone who had moved out, well, he disconnected me instead.
That means some lucky bastard neighbor is getting cable TV for free, while I had
to endure two days of nothing, probably could have won the BINGO game on Friday
night, and was getting panic attacks worried I was going to miss the final
episode of "The Sopranos" (I’m thinking Tony finds himself making a deal with
the feds at an ice cream shop in Jersey at the end of the show, but that’s only
because there was all the hubba-baloo about a town not issuing a permit for
filming at an ice cream shop in New Jersey, which was going to be the final
scene, and then they issued the permit, unless, of course, that was just a
diversion for the real ending where Carmella runs off to Italy with Furio).
In
any case, I am back in the land of technology, so now I really have no excuses
as to not posting new stuff, although I was sort of getting used to not having
watching TV as a diversion. Maybe after "The Sopranos" I should just
cancel my cable TV altogether? What the hell am I saying? I’m sure,
after tonight, I’ll be back in the land of TV glory, just not brilliant TV glory
yet because I haven’t broken down into the HDTV world.
In any case, it’s back
to my normally scheduled programs, although, so far this summer, there aren’t
any.
That’s it for this one!
I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!
I Think I’m in the Middle of a Seinfeld Episode.
By:
The Dude on the Right
For the last couple of days, and it is approaching a couple of days, I don’t
have TV. Some of my goals this summer included limiting my TV watching, but for
over 24 hours I haven’t had a choice. For whatever reason my cable, and only my
townhouse’s cable, went out yesterday (okay, my internet is affected too, but I
have figured out a backup way to post stuff, so I can still sort of post things
– my "Ocean’s 13" review will be posted tomorrow come hell or high water). It’s
been over 24 hours now with no TV, and the only thing I can really say, right
now, the only reason I miss TV is because I am paying for it (the cable folks
say I will get a credit for my downtime), and missing watching some baseball
games and playing BINGO on Friday, and wondering about the future.
I do know a
way to get my local TV, and pretty simply it would only include a trip to my
local Radio Shack, to buy an antenna (and it wouldn’t even have to be a roof-top
one), and then I would have my local stations, but, and I can’t believe I am
saying this, I am almost liking life without TV, except for one last bit of
closure, or more specifically, HBO, tomorrow, because at the end of my Spring TV
viewing there is only one show left I care about, one show I need to see, and
that show is the last episode of "The Sopranos," and right now, I have no HBO.
If my cable company doesn’t fix my TV tomorrow, on a Sunday, I will miss the one
show, for the last bunch of years, that I really, really, really, really, don’t
want to miss, and that is the finale of "The Sopranos." I will also miss
seeing the NBA Basketball Finals where my Cavs are playing some other team, and
as much as I am sort of liking not having TV right now, tomorrow is the day I
need it back.
I would like to say that I have confidence in getting my TV
viewing fixed by the time "The Sopranos" comes on tomorrow night, but in talking
with the folks at my cable supplier (except for the dude I talked with tonight),
I have many reservations about technology giving me a chance to have things
fixed in a timely manner, or at least tomorrow. The shitty part is that
supposedly I had an appointment to get things fixed today, and that conversation
is another, total, clusterfuck. I think I am finding myself in the middle
of a "Seinfeld" episode.
I guess, in the end, we just have to see what life
gives us tomorrow. Hopefully, for me, it’s at least “The Sopranos.”
That’s it for this one!
I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!
Why I Don’t Do Weddings.
By:
The Dude on the Right
Look, I know that in the grand scheme of life today didn’t suck that bad, but,
well, it hasn’t been the most unchallenging day either.
It started out pretty
nicely. I slept in a bit, caught an early showing of "Ocean’s 13," and
then was off on some errands for a company I do consulting for. With my
day being pretty well structured, I was hoping to get the errands done quickly,
be back in time to get my review of "Ocean’s 13" posted, then head to help my
buddy Stu with some photos he wanted taken. But as plans would have it,
things didn’t go that smoothly. Well, they did up until leaving the movie.
First there was a larger amount of traffic in my cruising the Chicagoland area.
This was a slight bummer as I knew it meant I probably wouldn’t have time to get
the movie review written and posted in the afternoon. No biggie, I would
just take care of it after my photo assignment for Stu. So I get back to
the Dude-Pad and notice my internet and cable TV are down. With the high
winds that have been buffeting us in the past couple of days I figured there
might just be a cable down, and since I really only had time for a shit, shower,
and shave before I rounded up my spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch, and,
well, camera, before I had to leave, I figured the internet and TV would be back
up by the time I got back.
And now is the reason why I am not a wedding
photographer. You see, my buddy, and our staff member, Stu, is an ordained
minister, and has actually married people, but he was lacking some photos he
could use for publicity purposes. With that he asked if I could come to a
wedding he was officiating over and snap some photos. The bride and groom
had no problem with it, I had some free time, the weather was nice (it was an
outdoor ceremony at a local golf course), so I told him I’d be there. I
got there early, took some test shots before the wedding guests showed up to
check on lighting and stuff, and things looked great. Then the big moment
came, Stu was up there giving the "Do you take…", and "Do you take…"’s, and
for whatever reason, my fancy, digital, SLR, wouldn’t snap a picture to save its
life. I frantically tried turning the camera off and on, popped out the
memory card and re-inserted it, thought it might be a lens issue so snapped a
different lens on, put the camera in full manual mode, but as Stu was going
through the entire ceremony the camera would focus, would say everything was
fine, but wouldn’t snap a picture. As bummed as I was I didn’t get a
picture of Stu performing the ceremony, I almost had a self-induced panic attack
picturing if I was actually the photographer the couple hired and didn’t get any
photos of their big day.
I told Stu what happened and that this was why I
didn’t do weddings, then walked back to my car. For the hell of it I
pointed the camera at a building across the street, pushed the shutter button,
and the damn camera snapped the picture, snapped the next picture, and snapped
every other picture I shot before I climbed into the dude-mobile just wondering
"What the hell went wrong?"
So then I get home figuring I could at least write
my movie review, get it posted, and play BINGO during America’s BINGO Night, or
whatever the show on ABC is called. I open my door, look at my cable
modem, and realized my cable TV and internet are still broken, down,
unfunctional, don’t work, screwed up, messed up, or all of the listed.
Before
eating, before peeing, and before feeding my kids I jump on the phone to the
cable TV folks. There aren’t any reported outages in my area, they
transfer me to the internet support folks where, according to the girl who
transferred me, internet takes priority, but in my brief conversations with them
I’m pretty sure none of the support staff really has a clue what a cable modem
is. The dude sets me up with a "technician’s appointment" for Saturday,
between 1PM and 4PM. Then I call back because it seems the internet side
might be different from the TV side, stressing to the girl my cable TV is out,
and the best she can do is get a technician out on Sunday between 1PM and 5PM.
I guess the internet side is a little quicker.
So here I am, flustered,
because I have no TV (guess I should buy a nice set of rabbit ears for just such
an occasion), I’m on dial-up internet (it sure takes a hell of a lot longer to
get things posted this way), and sure, maybe I could read a book, do some
cleaning, or enjoy nature, but how the hell am I going to post about Paris
Hilton going back to jail, or getting out again, in a timely manner on dial-up?
I suppose it could be worse, it could be raining, but right now I wouldn’t mind
a little rain.
That’s it for this one!
I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!