A Perfectly Cromulent Blog

Dear Red Sox Nation

We've had our differences, what with you guys trouncing my beloved Cardinals in the 2004 World Series after our dramatic win in that year's NLCS filled us with deceitful false hope. In spite of my comments at the time, I have a healthy amount of respect for Boston's organization and consider that fair city almost as great a baseball town as St. Louis itself.

And you guys are sitting pretty right now. What I wouldn't give for the Cards to be 16-8. Oy.

Now that we've both got 21st century titles, and in the spirit of burying the hatchet, I offer this picture that was e-mailed to me this weekend. I won't name the sender, because I know some Yankee fans read this blog, but it's from Game 3 of the 1999 ALCS between the Sox and the Yankees, played in Fenway. It's the only game of the series Boston won (New York went on to sweep the Knaves), but it brought a smile to my face nonetheless:

That's Hall of Fame Boston catcher Carlton Fisk. The vistor's dugout is on his right, in case you were confused.

"Since this is an emergency, all robots will now have their patriotism circuits activated."

Think about how much more entertaining World War II would've been if the nations involved had abandoned heavy water experimentation in favor of...mechs:

Created by Marco Spitoni with a handful of desktop studio programs and running only 13 minutes, it's still better than Pearl Harbor.

Courtesy of The Thing That Walks Like A Man, who knows that two of the greatest words in the English language, when paired, are "Nazi Robots."

Two thumbs up

The Warrior of Cinematic Wordsmithery, the Ayatollah of Aggravating Rob Schneider, Roger Ebert is on the mend:

My Ninth Annual Overlooked Film Festival opens Wednesday night at the University of Illinois at Urbana, and Chaz and I will be in attendance.

This year I won't be speaking, however, as I await another surgery.

I have received a lot of advice that I should not attend the festival. I'm told that paparazzi will take unflattering pictures, people will be unkind, etc.

Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. As a journalist I can take it as well as dish it out.

So let's talk turkey. What will I look like? To paraphrase a line from "Raging Bull," I ain't a pretty boy no more. (Not that I ever was. The original appeal of "Siskel & Ebert" was that we didn't look like we belonged on TV.)

What happened was, cancer of the salivary gland spread to my right lower jaw. A segment of the mandible was removed. Two operations to replace the missing segment were unsuccessful, both leading to unanticipated bleeding.

A tracheostomy was necessary so, for the time being, I cannot speak. I make do with written notes and a lot of hand waving and eye-rolling. The doctors now plan an approach that does not involve the risk of unplanned bleeding. If all goes well, my speech will be restored.

So when I turn up in Urbana, I will be wearing a gauze bandage around my neck, and my mouth will be seen to droop. So it goes.

I don't think anyone grows up wanting to be a movie critic. I know I didn't...hell, I still don't, but Sneak Previews was probably my first exposure to that as a particular career path. As the years passed, and the show became At the Movies and then Siskel and Ebert at the Movies, I enjoyed the often acerbic commentary and the fact that someone could apparently make a living at talking shit about shitty movies.

I've read I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie several times, and have Your Movie Sucks on my Amazon wishlist. I also had the privilege of meeting the man himself at Sundance in 2006. Whatever your opinion of critics - and I'm not one to say it's wholly unjustified - Ebert is a class act.

Get well, Rog.

"Come on people, this poetry isn't going to appreciate itself!"

I don't have much to add to the avalanche of coverage regarding the Virginia Tech shootings. Graduating from the University of Texas, and having the Whitman bullet holes pointed out to me by a far too enthusiastic sophomore during my campus orientation tour, I'm somewhat familiar with that sense of unease that comes from taking a daily trip over the site of a mass murder. However, I can't begin to imagine what the friends and families of the victims are going through, or how tough it'll be going back to class next week.

Anyway, big surprise, we found out the shooter was a bit of a loner. Even worse, he indulged in "twisted" writing:

A student who attended Virginia Tech last fall provided obscenity- and violence-laced screenplays that he said Cho wrote as part of a playwriting class they both took. One was about a fight between a stepson and his stepfather, and involved throwing of hammers and attacks with a chainsaw. Another was about students fantasizing about stalking and killing a teacher who sexually molested them.
[...]
Professor Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university's English department, said Cho's writing was so disturbing that he had been referred to the university's counseling service.

"Sometimes, in creative writing, people reveal things and you never know if it's creative or if they're describing things, if they're imagining things or just how real it might be," Rude said. "But we're all alert to not ignore things like this."

So, he wrote screenplays that aped the plots of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Sleepers?

I've lost track of the number of times I've been thankful for being born long enough ago so that this kind of thing didn't really raise a lot of hackles when I was young (or if it did, I wasn't aware of it). There were several of us in high school who wrote things that could charitably be described as "excessively murderous," though we tried to temper it with humor. Even so, I doubt we could do the same thing today without getting hauled in front of an army of therapists and fed hefty doses of chlorpromazine.

Can't say if it would've helped Cho.

EDIT: Having just read Richard McBeef, one of the plays in question, I have two things to add:

1. If this is the quality of writing coming out of our upper level university English courses, America is truly doomed.

2. Everything we wrote in high school had a higher body count than that, though our stuff usually included elements like invisible super soldiers and sentient flying doughnuts.

And they just kept a chainsaw lying around the kitchen?

Hitting the deck

What did you do this weekend? Me, I built a deck.

Okay, really I assisted in the building of my deck. My good friend Sir Not Appearing on This Blog has vast experience in such projects, and had been railroaded/sweet-talked by The Wife into helping my comparatively non-handy ass with the project. Still, I dug many holes, poured gallons of concrete, and drove a lot of screws.

The first order of business - after obtaining the dimensions (8' x 12') and buying the lumber and concrete, was setting the posts. We wanted to dig the holes on Friday, but typical Houston spring weather conspired against us. So, 8:00 Saturday morning, My friend brings over his auger and we commence to perforate my back yard. Several hours later, we have posts:

If they look a little off center in the middle there, it's because the house's previous owner illegally ran pipe off the main water line to the backyard (long since shut off by the City), and we kept hitting it. If it wasn't that, it was 3" thick roots. Love those old neighborhoods.

Anyway, setting the posts took pretty much all of Saturday. Sunday morning, we finally got to put the joists in:

That pail is the mastic we used to seal the bases of the posts. There's still some on my leg, as I'm irrationally afraid of breaking out the steel wool and getting it off.

Still, once the supports were down, laying down the deck boards took almost no time. Hence, the semi-finished product:

I say "semi-finished" because the 2x6"s turned out to be 2x5.5"s. So I need another board or two. And there's still the roof to build, but for now it'll be nice to have a perch to watch She Who Shall Not Be Named as she nosedives down our slide.

"Harpoon to the groin wins every time."

No reviews this week. And since today's Friday the 13th, here's a blast from the past: my brief runthrough of the ten Friday the 13th movies I've seen, just in case you're in the mood for some timely entertainment.

The fun begins after the bump.

Friday the 13th - Dismissed as schlock when first released (in 1980 - I still remember the commercials), the original...is still schlock, though it has gained recognition in some circles as the film that spawned a new genre. Grisly cinematic murders were nothing new in 1980, but Ft13 introduced the horny teenager element that would be imitated/pardodied for the next twenty years. The twist? Of course, it isn't Jason offing all the pot-smoking degenerates, it's his mom, herself killed by spunky counselor Alice.
Rating: B
Best Death: Is there even a question? Kevin Bacon. In the throat. With an arrow.

Friday the 13th, Part 2 - Alice, the plucky heroine from the first film, inexplicably returns to Camp Crystal Lake and is promptly icepicked (bet you didn't see that coming). By Jason, this time, who obivously holds a grudge against the chick who did his mother in. No hockey mask yet, and the pillowcase over the head is an obvious homage to the killer in The Town that Dreaded Sundown. Tom Savini didn't return for Part 2, and the film sacrifices gore for increased suspense, with mixed results.
Rating: B-
Best Death: The double-impalement of Jeff and Sandra is the ultimate example of coitus interruptus.

Friday the 13th, Part 3: 3-D - I confess, I saw Jaws 3-D, Amityville 3-D, and the 3rd Ft13 movie in the theater, goofy ineffective glasses and all. I wasn't around in the 1950's, so I can't speak for it's appeal at inception, but why the resurgence in popularity 30 years later? No matter, this second sequel is unremarkable not because of week F/X or the sheer goofiness of 3-D (how many times can Jason point a knife at us?), but thanks to uninspired death scenes and rehashing an already formulaic plot. Could the series possibly recover?
That would be telling.
Rating: C-
Best Death: Tie - Rick getting his head squeezed like an overripe melon (with similar results) or Andy sliced in half with a machete, while walking on his hands.

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter - The good news: Tom Savini returns (reportedly only because he wanted to kill Jason), and the deaths in his chapter are much more brutal than the two previous films; plus Kimberly Beck goes against convention and puts up a hell of a fight at the end. The bad news: Corey Feldman, though he's not that bad as Tommy Jarvis. Ft13:TFC is also where Jason's immortal revenant qualities really kick into high gear, to the point where you begin to suspect he can't be killed by anything less than a thermonuclear device. And even then...
There's also an arid 30 minute stretch right after the warm-up murders where no one dies. Faux pas for a slasher film.
Rating: C+
Best Death: Paul - harpoon to the groin wins every time.

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning - So much for "The Final Chapter," you dirty Hollywood bastards. ANB is widely regarded as the nadir of the Ft13 series. Worse, it isn't even Jason killing the teens, but some dude named Roy who's using Jason's MO to get revenge on the punk kids who caused the death of his son. Little Tommy Jarvis, confined to an asylum thanks to the traumatic events of TFC, is forced to kill Roy, which can't be good for his convalescence.
Rating: D
Best Death: Tina's post-coital garden shears cataract surgery.

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives - Wisely ignoring the reference to Jason's cremation in ANB, Jason Lives sees Tommy seek revenge on Jason the only way he can: by digging up his corpse and setting it on fire. Unfortunately, he inadvertantly reanimates Jason (never exhume a body during a thunderstorm), spurring him on to yet another quest to rid the world of sexed-up adolescents. Jason returns to Camp Forest Green (renamed for PR reasons) and sets about tallying up the highest body count of the Ft13 series to date (18). Jason Lives is also one of the funniest entries in the franchise, which offers a welcome change for audiences desensitized by five movies' worth of disembowements.
Rating: A-
Best Death: I'll have to go with the triple decapitation of Stan, Katie, and Larry, though ripping the sheriff in half is a close second.

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood - Uneven entry pitting Jason against a teenage psychic who accidentally raised Jason from Crystal Lake (no, I don't know when they changed the name back), where he'd been drowned by Tommy Jarvis in Jason Lives. She was trying to resurrect another corpse (that of her father), if that helps explain things...though why the body was left at the bottom of the lake for four years is anyone's guess. Deaths ensue (though most are almost blood-free, thanks MPAA), and Tina eventually sends Jason back into the depths, which I'm willing to bet he's getting pretty tired of.
ANB marks Kane Hodder's first appearance as Jason. Hodder is a fan favorite, and the only Jason to don the hockey mask in more than one film, but I'm not sure why everyone reveres him so much. He's a big bastard, but that's about it, and Ted White TFC did just as well, and actually took a beating. Hodder plays a great hulking monster, but how hard is that for a guy who's 6' 3" and probably pushing 3 bills?
Rating: C+
Best Death: In what might be the best death of the entire series, Jason picks up camper Judy, sleeping bag and all, and bashes her brains out against a tree. Now that's acting.

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan - Blah blah blah - kills chick with electric guitar - blah blah blah - gets on a boat, kills crew - blah blah blah - finally get to Vancouver Manhattan for final ten minutes of the movie. I know when I first saw previews for JTM I had high hopes that the movie would be a dizzying cavalcade of carnage in the streets of New York. Little did I know they could've just as easily called this Jason Takes a Cruise. Weak even by the slasher standards of the late '80s, JTM has bad F/X, bad acting, and almost no redeeming qualities.
Rating: D-
Best Death: Aspiring boxer Julius gets his block knocked off with one punch. Damn.

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday - Promises, promises.
JGTH pissed off a number of hardcore fans because, for almost the entire movie, we don't see Jason killinng his victims. Oh, it's still Jason, only now he can take over other peoples' bodies and use them to do his licentious bidding.
The beginning is interesting enough: SWAT troops have staked out Camp Crystal Lake after Jason's disappearance from Manhattan, and they lure Jason into a murderous crossfire. At this point, you'd be better just popping the DVD out of its player, otherwise you'll be forced to hear how Jason is some sort of parasite who hops from body to body (a la The Hidden) in an attempt to kill the last of the Voorhees women, Voorhees women being the only people who can kill Jason.
Kudos to New Line for trying something different, but combining an almost complete lack of Jason with the utter obliteration of existing continuity alientated more people than it intrigued.
Rating: D
Best Death: The rude interruption of Deborah's tryst with Luke via tent spike in the back, and the subsequent (and familiar) tearing in half.

Jason X - Sue me, I liked it. Freeing Jason from the present day and the its continuous reliance on farm implements helps amp up the body count in new and occasionally interesting ways. Yeah, it's an Alien rip-off. True, the effects could use some work, but come on..."Uber-Jason" is pretty fricking cool.
And don't fool yourself, Ft13 stopped being horror around the 7th installment. Jason was no longer a villain by then, but had become the familiar anti-hero we root for to kill the stupefyingly idiotic teens (there's even a VR flashback to the original movie here). I won't lie and say the comedy is great, or that the myriad of cinema references (Blade Runner, Solaris) can forgive the obvious flaws (horny counselors, horny astronauts...who cares, right?), you'll either like this one or absolutely loathe it. Watch at your own risk.
Rating: B
Best Death: Jason dipping Adrienne's hot blonde face in liquid nitrogen, then shattering it on a countertop.

Freddy vs. Jason: not seen at press time

If you'd like to learn more about Jason Voorhees or the Friday the 13 films, please go to your local library and check out these sites:

Friday the 13th: The Website
Camp Blood
Camp Crystal Lake Online

Is it too early to call this a phase?

Before she goes to bed, She Who Shall Not Be Named likes to unwind in her playroom in the back of the house, where she has puzzles, books, a piano, drums, a kitchen set, and a hundred other things to toss indiscriminately onto the floor.

The general rule regarding television in our house is that nothing too unpleasant for little eyes and ears should be on display while the nipper is up. This usually means that the thing doesn't even get turned on until she hits the sack, but yesterday was a long one, and I found myself unwisely resorting to one of my comfort movies about 15 minutes before SWSNBN's normal bedtime.

I make no secret of my love for Penelope Spheeris' The Decline of Western Civilization Pt. 2: The Metal Years. Hell, I wrote a column about it a few years back. However I never suspected by particular musical sickness was genetically transferable. It was therefore with a large measure of surprise that I watched my darling little girl rush into the living room and dance to the opening strains of Faster Pussycat's "Bathroom Wall."

Maybe she just made a mistake. I mean, she loves female singers, so she was probably just walking by, saw the suspiciously effeminate Taime Downe and - thinking he was Laurie Berkner's sleazier sister - understandably came in to enjoy what she assumed were more children's folk stylings and...

I really am screwed, aren't I?

I call it the Reign of Fire rationale

Saw Disturbia last night. All told, a pretty entertaining - if wholly predictable - suspense flick. The script isn't bad, while Shia LaBoeuf and David Morse are mostly watchable. I also like seeing Carrie-Anne "Trinity" Moss playing the mom.

But make no mistake, it may not be an "official" remake of Hitchcock's Rear Window (only because neither Salton Sea and The Shield director DJ Caruso nor youthful writers Chris Landon and Carl Ellsworth have bothered to admit it), but...it is. Just substitute "ankle bracelet" for "wheelchair" and replace Raymond Burr with David Morse.

What the hell, if you're going to rip someone off, might as well rip off the best.

"This city is headed for a disaster of Biblical proportions."

"Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies. Rivers and seas boiling.
Forty years of darkness. Earthquakes, volcanoes...
The dead rising from the grave.
Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria!"

Oh, and Pittsburgh and Cincinatti are leading the NL Central. At least the first week of the season ended on a high note:

Had it not been for the terrific pitching of Roy Oswalt on Saturday, the first week of the Astros' season would have been a disaster. As it stands, it was still pretty close.

Trying to build on their first win of the season following an 0-4 start, the Astros were humiliated by the defending World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals 10-1 on Sunday afternoon at Minute Maid Park.

The Astros finished the homestand with a 1-5 record -- matching their worst start since 1990 -- and enter a grueling stretch where they will play 14 of 16 games on the road beginning today at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

[...]

Cardinals starter Kip Wells, a product of Elkins High School and Baylor, held the Astros to one hit and struck out seven batters in seven innings, retiring the final 16 batters he faced.

The Cards' bats finally came alive a little. Pujols got his first HR, and Rolen got off the schnide a bit. They still look horrible, but so does Houston.

Both teams eked out wins tonight, however.

And then there's this guy:

Brad Lidge was tagged for five runs (two earned) in the ninth on a three-run double by Rolen and a two-run double by Molina.

"I didn't feel good about what I did out there," said Lidge, whose ERA ballooned to 16.20. "Obviously, when a team smells blood like that and you're making bad pitches, you're going to continue to go after them. I didn't want to walk guys. I was making bad pitches in the strike zone.

16.20? Enjoy middle relief. Or Round Rock.

"Yippee-ki-yay, motherf..."

Nice,

I love Die Hard, and Die Hard 2. Not as big a fan of the third one, but that wasn't originally a John McClane story.

Truly, this is a magical era in which we live, when our favorite elderly actors like Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone are returning to the roles that made them famous. And I note with some amusement that Willis finally bit the bullet and gave us a totally shorn McLane. I wonder if he was consciously affecting the Vic Mackey look.

     

"Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice"

Pull down your pants and slide on the ice (courtesy of Jax):

It's not drunken driving in New Jersey if it involves a Zamboni.

A judge ruled the four-ton ice rink-grooming machines aren't motor vehicles because they aren't useable on highways and can't carry passengers.

Zamboni operator John Peragallo had been charged with drunken driving in 2005 after a fellow employee at the Mennen Sports Arena in Morristown told police the machine was speeding and nearly crashed into the boards.

Police said Peragallo's blood alcohol level was 0.12 percent. A level of 0.08 is considered legally drunk in New Jersey.

Peragallo appealed, and Superior Court Judge Joseph Falcone on Monday overturned his license revocation and penalties.

Zambonis are also rarely on the ice with actual human beings, unlike drunk drivers. Peragallo's still probably out of luck, as I'm sure the folks in charge of the Mennen Sports Arena won't cotton to dudes blowing a 0.12 while on the clock.

Peragallo, 64, testified at his trial that he did drink beer and vodka, but not until after he had groomed the ice. However, he told police he had a shot of Sambuca with his breakfast coffee and two Valium-pills before work.

A shot of Sambuca and two Valium? And you undersea rig welders thought you had stressful jobs.

"I just want to watch Honk If You're Horny in peace!"

Part of the problem in suffering from long-term memory issues while writing a blog for (*sigh*) almost four years is that I sometimes...okay, most of the time...get myself all motivated to write about something, only to realize I've written about it already. On several occasions.

Case in point, there was yet another toddler at yet another horror movie (The Reaping) last night. The mother-of-the-year candidate this time chose to lurk around the corner in that little hallway leading to the exit so she could continue watching while her child assumedly couldn't see the disturbing images of chldren strung up in a tomb or Idris Elba stooping to play the loyal black sidekick after a great run as Stringer Bell in The Wire. Problem was, the kid continued doing things kid's tend to do, like cry, babble, cry, and screech at nothing in particular. And everyone in the theater could hear him.

I've already beaten this subject to death. Twice. So I decided I'm going to join the fun. Wednesday night is the Grindhouse screening here. The Wife has a meeting, so she won't be able to pick She Who Shall Not Be Named up until right before the movie starts. In the meantime, I'm going to bring my daughter into the theater, possibly wrapped in an oversized Reservoir Dogs t-shirt. I'll loudly proclaim to anyone listening that she loves Takashi Miike and how much she's looking forward to Eli Roth's "Thanksgiving" trailer.

Of course, nobody will care. More to the point, no one will say anything, so used are they to assholes bringing their spawn to inappropriate movies. In the face of this depressing realization and apropos of nothing, here's a flowchart from Mrs. Basshole, inspired by that stupid German "Hammerzeit" image I posted and forgotten lo these many months:

What a fabulous decade it was.

"I skate, you skate...we skate."

Occasional commenter "Jax" is a law school compadre of The Wife's, and a member of the Houston Harpies women's hockey team. It was my past involvement as a sometime tackling dummy scrimmage partner of the Harpies that led her to ask me about how she get involved several years back, and it's because of this that I feel certain she subjected me to the torture I experienced yesterday.

Backing up a bit...she sends me an e-mail Friday morning saying that a bunch of players dropped out of the Harpies' scheduled scrimmage on Saturday and would I be interested in participating? Jax is well aware that it's been, oh, at least four years since I was on the ice. And before that, I wasn't exactly known for my mad skillz. I played defense, mostly because I could be relied upon to sacrifice my body in comical ways to stop a goal. And because I couldn't shoot to save my life.

She also mentioned we'd be playing at the Toyota Center, and not in front of an actual audience. That pretty much sealed the deal for me, as I've never been in the Toyota Center and have no interest in embarrassing myself in front of strangers, unless it's in written form.

So I said "sure."

The first order of business was assembling my scattered gear, which had been unceremoniously deposited in the garage when we first moved in to our current house. A good chunk of my equipment was donated by another infrequent commenter, MacinFla, (who actually won't be in Fla much longer, but I digress). It was all intact, if a litle dusty/covered in dead spiders. Guess I need to fumigate.

Got to the Toyota Center around 1:25 where, after a bag search (the female guard balked at examining my cup too closely) I was escorted to the lower level. They crammed about 15 guys into a 10'x10' room (actually the officials' locker room) to get ready. The dudes were pretty friendly, until Tom (Jax's SO) declared a contest to see who could knock me over the most times. Ah, the good-natured camaraderie of beer league sports enthusiasts.

Hockey players wear a crapload of...crap, I guess. You've got your knee/shin guards, socks (running ankle to upper thigh), an honest-to-Gordie garter belt to keep the socks on, hockey pants (mine are at least one size to big, which is always comforting when you haven't worn them in a very long time), skates (CCM Tacks 352s here), elbow pads, jersey, and gloves. Chest pads are optional, and I don't wear them. They're too damn hot (practice sessions are rarely air-conditioned, and even on the ice it can get pretty sweltering), for one thing. Besides, my chest is plenty big already, and I'm not generally in the company of players capable of hitting a slap shot with the potential to stop my heart.

Finally, there's the helmet. I've included a couple pictures of mine, simply because it's impossible to use mere words to describe its awesomeness.

Tom asked if who I had to kill to get such a vintage model with the plexiglas visor (everybody is into that wire mesh these days). I said, "A Swede, but it wasn't that tough."

See, 'cause Jofa's a Swedish company, and...never mind.

I like the dichotomy offered by Ginger Spice + the Misfits. And I think it (Ginger Spice) creeps out some of the younger females.

The sticker also effectively carbon dates my last significant hockey activity to 1998.

Stepping onto the ice that first time was one of those character defining moments where you realize your constant and abject humiliation is at hand, and yet you continue anyway. I managed a few feet without falling, then a few more feet, remembered to keep my knees bent - this is important - then made a few circuits sans incident. Cool. I wasn't going to make anyone forget Sidney Crosby, but It was a start.

The game itself was fine. I'm not the most graceful skater, or the fastest, or necessarily able to pass the puck accurately, but I am still willing to swan dive in the way of a shot. There were three 15-minute periods, and I felt myself getting a bit more relaxed as time passed. The feet stopped hurting, I got my second wind, and by the end of regulation I felt pretty good. I mean, normal workouts don't take the place of competitive sports, but my regular cardio sessions at the gym helped a lot. I'd definitely be willing to do this ag...

The announcer cuts in, "Attention, since we've still got 45 minutes of ice time, we're adding 40 minutes to the game clock and we're just going to play it out."

Mother pusbucket.

I didn't have to skip a shift, but...woof. Few things will make you feel old like trying to chase down some punkass right wing half your age on a fast break. And few things will make you feel young like hooking your stick around the little bastard's ankle and yanking him onto his face. We didn't have time for a zamboni break, so the ice got pretty sloppy towards the end. We did have full use of the Toyota Center's sound effects and music, though whoever was in charge seemed to have a fondness for late 70s-early 80s TV shows, and nothing says "hockey" like MC Hammer and Hanson.

Even so, I'd be happy to do this again. I'll just need to wait until I'm able to walk at more than an arthritic crawl.