Credit Where It's Due

I'm pretty hard on the entertainment industry sometimes, and let's face it -- they deserve it -- their products are generally uninspired, uninteresting, and unwatchable (no text message required, Jim). But in the interest of fair play and honest recognition, I've been pleasantly surprised at a couple different films this summer already, and so I offer my open praise and admiration where it's deserved:

1) Iron Man. I know it's old news now, but this is the best movie I've seen in a LONG time, and the first I've seen twice in a theater since. . . the first Lord of the Rings maybe? Fun, funny, and dare I say "cool"? Seriously, it finished and my WIFE said, "Well that was super cool!" THAT doesn't happen often.

2) Get Smart. It's no Dumb and Dumber, but it was pretty funny. Of course, seeing movies with Jamey isn't always a good litmus test to tell if a movie's actually funny on it's own merits or not, but regardless, I went, I laughed, I left. And that's pretty much exactly what I was looking for.

3) Hancock. Not on Iron Man level, but another that wins with both the wife and myself, and that's no easy task. Plus, I was just starting to get bored at about an hour and a half, so I glanced at the time -- oh no! There's TOTALLY another 40 minutes left to wade through -- why do they always do that? But nope -- then it ended, right when it should have! It's sad when a movie gets bonus points for ending, but that's what the industry has come to, and so there it is.

4) Sort of unrelated as Bombworks Records isn't exactly "the industry", but I finally picked up Common Yet Forbidden's album, and my good golly-gosh that thing blasts and thrashes and flat-picks and just slays generally and to an exponential degree. Best record I've heard in a long time, and just wholly satisfying on every level possible.

Finally -- and completely unrelated, but it's a landmark day in my life and bears mentioning -- on Saturday my Championship t-shirt arrived. DVD ships later this month. Has life EVER been this good?