::Saturday, July 27, 2002::

BO DEREK YOU AIN'T THE ONLY ONE - Is my Blog HOT or NOT? [>]
:: Posted by Citizen Ryan | 1:27:08 PM| Link This ::

STARBUCKS EVERYWHERE - If there's one creation of man I love in this world it is Starbucks coffee. Now living in Ithaca, NY I don't have access to Starbucks coffee very often. The small coffee pub on the Ithaca College Campus "serves" Starbucks but it certainly doesn't taste like any starbucks I've ever had. They also don't serve any of the compaines famous and spectacular tasting Frappacino's. What I think is that the people in the Ithaca College Dining Servies brew up their own coffee and slap a Starbucks label on it hoping some of the trendy yuppy students will buy it (Hey this is Ithaca College, don't put it past them). So all this combines to extremely limit by Starbucks drinking habits.

Whenever a trip is made to Syracause or New York City I'm sure to pick up a Mocha or Expresso Frappacino and so Arabian Mocha Java. But what I really would like to do is drive around the country and visit all the Starbucks stores there are. You think I'm nuts? Well this guy is actually doing it. Yep, this certain male individual has made it his life work to drive around the country and visit as many Starbucks as possible. Why, you ask? From his official site (www.starbuckseverywhere.net): "I don't remember the exact train of thought or conversation that gave birth to the idea, but it had to do with discussions, at my local Starbucks, of of course, of how quickly Starbucks was growing and how they hoped to have 2000 locals by the year 2000. At some point I, or somebody there, wondered out look how neat it might be to try to visit them all."

Now neat is not exactly the word some might use to describe this quest of sorts. Certainly though this fellow is determined. His site features a map of all the stores he's visited across the county, a link to donote to his rather expensive journey and the current numbers of his present road trip (which as of this writing is taking him through Florida and Louisiana). Man this guy has a nice life. All that free Starbucks coffee...all that notority...who knows maybe when he's done Starbucks will give him a lifetime supply of coffee for his...er...ah...enthusiasim?
:: Posted by Citizen Ryan | 1:18:53 PM| Link This ::

WHERE'S JOHN? - Okay I went out today and bought Liberty because one of the smartest people and finest friends I've ever made, John Tabin, is now working for them (Heck the magazine was only four bucks!). But John is MIA. He's not posted to his blog in over and week and his last post was a single line about stressing out because Liberty went to press. Well I picked up the issue and I want to rip and applaud him for what I'm reading but he's no where to be found. I'm about half way through the issue now but John is not to be found. So if you see a short, brown haired man likely dressed in a tee-shirt and jeans, perpahs with a copy of the Clerks DVD in hand, laughing about the Beer Bunny and probably not drunk off his butt (anymore) but maybe smoking a fine cigar...let me know. His readers and friends miss him.
:: Posted by Citizen Ryan | 7:54:25 PM| Link This ::

MUST SEE MOVIE OF THE YEAR - The Grey Zone has become my must see movie of the year. I talked about it plenty in a previous post, so I won't go into anymore detail here. That is except to say that the trailer for the film is no available. The trailer is even more haunting then the simple plot summary I was entitled to before. This movie is going to be amazing. I wish Hollywood had the guts to handle difficult issues like this. I wish they had the soul to tell true stories that are real, tragic and engaging. There are so many of them out there.
:: Posted by Citizen Ryan | 9:40:57 AM| Link This ::

YEAH AUSTIN, YEAH - Just got home for watching AP3: Goldmember...too tired to write a review it's 4:30 in the morning...it's going to have to wait till tomorrow morning (actually probably tomorrow afternoon considering sleep and all).

Quick Recap though:
- Best AP yet.
- Opening sequence will have audiences in stitches...probably highlight of the movie.
- I wanted more Mike Caine!
- Austin looks so much older, is it Myers or the character?
- The ending is very anti-climatic.
- This Goldmember character is sooooo boring.
- Most of the movie is a repeat of previous gags from the earlier films.
- These gags are pulled off very well.
- Mike Myer's enthusiasim makes me smile.
:: Posted by Citizen Ryan | 4:35:02 AM| Link This ::

FAREWELL MR. TRAFICANT - My favorite Congressman was expeled from the United States House of Representatives today. The two decades of service provided by Ohio Democratic Congressman James Traficant came to an end. During his final floor statement Traficant stood defient:

"I'm prepared to lose everything. I'm prepared to go to jail. You go ahead and expel me."

The very ironic thing when you think about it is that the only member of the 435 member house to vote no to Traficant's explesion was Gary Condit. Good grief. Traficant was more of what we need in Congress, without the law breaking of course. He was fiercly indepedent, with his allegience rooted in his home district. He always looked first to the people in his Youngstown, OH district. He was flashy and bold. He fought against government corruption and government waste. He was a radical in a time of party liners. And in the end it destroyed him.

He went too far over the edge. His final speech to the House was full of bizzare accusations and layered with curses thrown at all who would listen. This is a man whose passion overtook him. Like Ahab determined to get that whale, Traficant's determination for feirceness and independence got the best of him. My the end he saw everyone as his enemy. You can't get 420 members of the House to vote toghether on anything, but that's how many voted to get rid of Mr. Traficant. In the 200 plus years of the House only four other members have ever been expeled and three of them were for treason during The Civil War.

I'm going to miss my favorite Democrat. Like all great man, Traficant was flawed. It's as simple as that.
:: Posted by Citizen Ryan | 3:31:02 AM| Link This ::

THE BLOG HITS THE CLASSROOM - This fall at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism professors will be teaching a class on blogging (I'd be happy to visit the class for show and tell). This information comes to me from a link from Gaby's 407 and refers the followingarticle. The article is actually a great breakdown of the blogging universe. The news concerning the teaching of the blogging course is just an introduction. The meat of the article deals with the rapid growth of blogs, it's counter-culture statis and it's eventually meeting with the masses. There is also some interesting anaylsis of why blogs have been so success. This is a must read for all bloggers.
:: Posted by Citizen Ryan | 2:29:07 AM| Link This ::

BASEBALL IS WORTHLESS - I just picked this up from Jim Caple's new article and knew I had to share it.

"Four tickets for your family to the 2002 All-Star Game: $700
Required additional tickets to the Home Run Derby, Futures Game, Celebrity Game and FanFest that must be purchased in order to buy All-Star Game tickets: $520
Annual credit card interest on those amounts at 19.8 percent: $241
A midsummer classic that ends in a 7-7 tie: Worthless

There are some things money can't buy. But baseball is working on that."

The above article from which this is is quoted is also a humorous look at Major League Baseball's rather ridicilous attempt to name the Top 30 Memorable Moments. What is a moment anyway? I mean number 30 on the list is Ichiro wins MVP, Rookie of the Year and leads All Star Voting. How is that a moment? It sounds more like a strech of considerable time (we're talking months here). Are the people running baseball really that dumb? Answer: Did you see the All-Star Game? As Rob Neyer said, "If MLB can can screw up history and if they can screw up an All-Star Game, then can we really expect them to get the important stuff right?" Can you say strike.
:: Posted by Citizen Ryan | 12:46:32 PM| Link This ::

SNEAK PEAK MOVIE OF THE DAY

28 Days Later

The Plot - A virus that locks those infected into a permanent state of killing rage, is accidentally released from a British research facility. Carried by animals and humans, the virus is impossible to contain, and spreads across the entire planet. Twenty-eight days later, a small group of survivors are trapped in London, caught in a desperate struggle to protect themselves from the infected. As they attempt to salvage a future from the apocalypse, they find that their most deadly enemy is not the virus, but other survivors."
The Cast - Christopher Eccleston; Brendan Gleeson; Megan Burns; Naomi Harris; Cillian Murphy Noah Huntley, Bindu De Stoppani, Jukka Hiltunen, Luke Mably, Cillian Murphy, Ray Panthaki
The Director - Danny Boyle
The Writer - Alex Garland
Release Date - October 11th, 2002

Veiw the trailer.

28 Days Later looks like it could be a simply chilling film. Danny Boyle you may remember is the director of the much beloved Trainspotting and the Leo Dicaprio clunker The Beach. 28 Days looks like a completely different film. That cast is a mix of relative unknowns (Burns & De Stoppani) and remarkable talent (Eccleston & Gleeson). The multi-layered theme that appears in the plot is very intruging. But this could be a film that goes wrong very fast. It's exactly easy (or plausible) to create a situation where the world is just about dead from a "mad" virus. The film maybe end up like a ineffective Reign of Fire or a suble thriller about people in an impossible situation.

Fox Searchlight Pictures presents 28 Days Later on October 11th, 2002.
:: Posted by Citizen Ryan | 12:14:55 PM| Link This ::

A NEW VISITOR'S RECORD - The counter you see at the bottom of the page, provided by Bravenet, indicates that this site recieved a record 111 hits yesterday. I'm overwhelmed. I don't know how it happened or who you are that's reading this but thank you. Thank you all very much. I hope you enjoy what you reading. Fire off an email to me if you wish. Let me know about your site, your thoughts and your impression of my site and it's content. You can also IM me using the link at the top of the page. I'm not often there but leave a message and say hi. Trust me I'm a nice guy and love meeting fellow bloggers out there and reading their writings on the world that is.
:: Posted by Citizen Ryan | 1:59:57 AM| Link This ::

THE BRITISH POTTER GOES MEXICAN - While the second installment of the Harry Potter movie series is still 4 months away there is considerable news concerning the third installment. Instead of just having to wait a year for number three, as we did between one and two, Warner Bros. has announced that the third installment, The Prisoner of Azkaban is slated for a release in the summer of 2004. This makes sense considering that the main audience for Harry Potter is children/young teenagers and the summer is the time of year when they are free of the bands of school.

The surprise is the relative no name that has been given the director's chair for Azkaban. Alfonso Cuaron the venerable director of such "classics" as Great Expectations and A Little Princess will be taking the helm of the most successful movie franchise not taking place in a galaxy far, far away. Cuaron's last film, Y tu mama tambien was not exactly an awe-inspiring children's tale. It involved two young men and a desperate lonely older woman on a cross-Mexican road trip. The film featured plenty of sex (threesome!), seduction and social/political commentary. Now none of this is wrong at all, in fact it makes for a rather strong film, but is such a vision really desired for Harry Potter?

Cuaron does have the credit the afore-mentioned A Little Princess to fall back on. Princess was a children's film based on the novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett which saw release 7 years ago. The film was well done but grossed only 10 million at the summer BO.

So one wonders, how in the world did Alfonso Cuaron get to direct the next Harry Potter movie? Chris Columbus has done a fine job so far, but he wants to move into a strictly Producing role. That's okay but does he really want to leave the franchises behind the camera responsibility to Cuaron? There is a long list of fine director's who would be better suited for the job. Strangest of all is that fact that Cuaron is not British.

Much was made of the fact that the entire production staff, cast and crew of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was British. The lone exception was director Chris Columbus. It's strange that now Producer Columbus would continue to leave his former position as the lone exception (and Cuaron is certainly no Columbus). Columbus is a talented director and was able to keep the first Potter very true to its British origins, but can a Mexican born and raised director do the same? None of this is to say that Alfonso Cuaron is a bad director or a bad person. He may very well do a wonderful job with the 3rd Harry Potter; I'm more interested in how he got the job and how the likes of Kenneth Branagh and others were passed over. In the end the fans will come out to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban no matter who the director is (which maybe the reason for Cuaron's pick all along). Filming begins in March of 2003.
:: Posted by Citizen Ryan | 4:11:43 AM| Link This ::

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