Saturday, December 10, 2005

IT'S CHRISTMASTIME AT LEAGUE HQ


Welcome to Christmas Time at League HQ!!!! It's our annual tour of the same crap you saw last year. Only different! Hey, if you look closely, you can see my Wonder Woman ornament showing some gam in this picture. HOO-AHHH!!!

You can click on any picture for a slightly larger version to REALLY get the detail.


Jamie has decided we're doing Nutcrackers. Lookitem. All the cute little nutcrackers. It's Pirate, Soldier/ Drummer, Weird Uncle Nic, and Drunk Bavarian. Plus 4 little people nutcrackers.


Fleurs.


Our Rudolph toys. Huzzah!


Stockings! 6 this year. From left to right:
Jason, Jamie, Ryan, Melbotis, Jeff and Lucy


My ma sent this last year. It's the magic bell from Polar Express.


Our table awaiting Christmas Cards. Oh, look. It's a card from a certain Loyal Leaguer!


The Nativity set. This is an awful picture. Sorry.


Our tree. The new fake tree, all adorned and merry. You can see Jeff walking off frame.


Great Rao! A red star for Christmas?




See if you can see Superman anywhere on my tree.


Any luck yet?


Jamie and Jeffer.


Outside our house.


The yard in the dark.


Judy brought this all the way from Oklahoma. It's the highlight of our yard. So very festive.


Jeff and I wish you a Merry Christmas. And I need to go back to the gym. Jesus, look at that.


Jeff plans a long winter nap.
Richard Pryor RIP

Thursday, December 08, 2005

A trailer for an all new family movie that will teach us about life, laughter and the power of love...

A trailer for the feature film "Shining".

THanks to Nathan for the trailer.
Christmas music for Randy...

Check out Bit Shifter's Christmas songs here.
Phoenix Suns win their 8th in a row against the Golden State Warriors (suck on that, all of California!).

read more here

One of the interesting bits commentators Tom Leander mentioned two games ago (I think it was Tom) was that when we lost Joe Johnson to Atlanta this summer, we picked up some of our finest players for under $10 million combined. That was Boris Diaw, Raja Bell, House, and, I think, Grant. I can't exactly recall. But a big part of the Phoenix Suns current line-up were considered second string scrubs on their previous teams, and with the Suns, this group combined appears to be one of the contenders for this year's play-offs.

Yes, yes... It's only December and I'm being very premature. BUT, we don't have Amare back yet, and Leandro should be coming back soon, too. Not to mention Grant.

By the way, I now publicly apologize for saying, back in November "I'm not sure I think much of this House guy." I take all of that back. Forgive me, Mr. House.

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

New Superman Returns Photos...



Superman and Lois get snuggly. That chest emblem isn't as small as I think people were thinking. It looks pretty good. I think I'll get one.



Maybe it's the season, but he looks like a Christmas tree. I've decided I like the suit. I really like what Alex Ross does with his paintings of the suit best, but this is a pretty darn cool movie version. Still digging the belt.


And here's Lois. You know, Lady Leaguers... as I often tell Jamie, glasses are not a bad thing.
Suns beat Trailblazers 130-85

read more here

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

And as if by magic...


The X-Men 3 trailer is up.

Actually, it looks pretty good. Is that Juggernaut wandering around behind Magneto?

If this doesn't make Randy as giddy as a school girl, what will?

I'm glad to see Jean Grey is around. We finally get Colossus and Shadowcat. But it looks like we also get a funeral. Someone is getting whacked. Ah, well.

Monday, December 05, 2005

Man or Beast?

With Bryan Singer departing the X-Men movie franchise in order to work on Superman Returns, Fox pictures decided to move ahead with X-Men 3 utilizing Brett "I'm an Idiot" Ratner at the helm. If the name sounds familiar, it's because Ratner is the same Brett Ratner who WB fired from Superman as mentioned in last week's post.

In the upcoming film, Cheers and Frasier star Kelsey Grammer is not just the voice of Dr. Henry "Hank" McCoy (a.k.a. Beast), but he's also, ACTUALLY Beast. Good call. Paunchy 50-year old dudes always make the best superheroes. Especially superheroes whose primary powerset includes Spider-Man like agility.

Here is The Beast as depicted in X-Men comics:



Here is Kelsey Grammer as Beast:



Here is Kelsey Grammer as Beast:



Oh, sorry... That's Kelsey Grammer as Scrooge in 2004's "A Christmas Carol". Still, you know... If blue mutton chops are all you need to be an X-Man, I need to inform some key folks from Guadalupe Street in Austin that they're laying down on the job as the foremost superheroes of our day.

And here's Grammer displaying his amazing agility which earned him the part of the super-agile Hank McCoy.

Discuss...

Sunday, December 04, 2005

Friday I was leading some visitors from Shanghai across campus (Robin, Kevin, and my man Pinocchio). We have a semi-annual art fair outside my office and I had to walk them through the art fair to get to campus.

"Uh..." said Robin.
"Yes?" I said.
"What is that?" He was pointing at someone dressed in a full-body Grinch costume.
"That's the Grinch. He, uh... he tries to steal Christmas."
There was some blinking going on. "He's from a children's story."
"Ohhhhhhh..." and they all ran off to take pictures of the Grinch.
"Uhhhhmmm..." they said as we walked along a little further.
"Yes?"
"Does nobody here work on Friday?"
"Uh..." I looked around. Who the heck ARE these people who aren't working on Friday afternoon? Sure, I saw a lot of retirees, but I also saw a lot of people who should have been at work. "I suppose maybe they... I'll be honest... I have no idea."
"What is...?"
"What is this for?"
"Yes."
"It's sort of an art fair. For Christmas."
They sort of stared at me.
"Christmas is a Holiday. It's, uhmm..." I looked at the 3-foot carved wooden rabbit statues for sale and tried to figure out how to tie the kernel corn, crappy street magic show and guy playing steel drums in a tent nearby to the birth of Christ.
"People exchange a lot of presents. It's a family holiday."
"Ah...."
"And, you know, the Grinch tries to steal all of that."
Anyway, I sort of miss Kevin, Robin and my man, Pinocchio. They were going to Vegas for the weekend, and all i could do to forewarn them was tell them to preset a spending limit. Hope they had fun.

Huzzah!

The Phoenix Suns are looking like they're going to be a lot of fun again this season. It's taken me a bit, but I feel like I know who the current roster is (only to be scrubbed during trades later in the season), and I think Mike D'Antoni has put together a pretty darn good squad.

Consider: Amare and Leandro haven't been able to play and we were still up by as much as 32 points during tonight's contest with the insanely bad Atlanta Hawks (for Atlanta Leaguers, you have my synpathies). Also, Grant is out for a bit. Your Phoenix Suns are as strong off the bench as they were off the bench last season, if not more so.

I was sad for Joe Johnson and the Hawks who seem like they need a great deal of team counseling. Good GOD, man, is that a team in disarray. Joe was one of our starters here last year, and he's still got a place in my heart. Sadly, the $70 million the Hawks offered Joe had a big place in HIS heart, so we lost him.

Anyhoo, Go SUNS.

Further, anyone watch the Big 12 Championship Game?

I'll be honest, The League is a bit of a "glass is half-empty" sort of guy. I dropped Judy off at the airport on Saturday and went shopping for Christmas decorations rather than watching the first half of the game. I just couldn't take it. I just want for UT to get to the Rose Bowl, but if we were going to blow the Big 12 Championship, I couldn't stand to bear witness.

Luckily, not so much a problem. What was the score? 70 to 3?

I don't care if you don't care about sports. 70 TO 3. And that was with NO points in the 4th quarter from UT.

Wow.

We did go and get some decorations and League HQ is now a Holiday Wonderland! Our tree is lovely and red. We have red glass ornaments, red bead garland and a big red star atop the tree (Jamie is a devout Maoist). Superman, Spidey and the gang have all found spots among the branches, and, heck, Leaguers, it's all pretty festive. And let me tell you, Jamie deserves some festiveness right now.

I think I'll take a few photos and see what ya'll think.