Today, Katie and I saw Behind Enemy Lines at the Charlestowne Mall in St. Charles. We both enjoyed the flick very much save for the damned projectionist. During the trailers, the camera kept switching from the trailer projector to the widescreen projector meaning that we missed a ton of the previews. Not too big a deal, but it didn't bode well for the rest of the film. About 15 minutes into the movie, the same thing happened. The audio kept going but the picture went black for about ten seconds. Then, with ten minutes left in the film, the whole thing went dead. Screen black, sound off and the theatre lights came back up. We were pissed... it was the final damn scene of the flick... only what the whole movie had been building up to. So, we all bitched at the manager and got free tickets. I can handle that especially since the tickets to this movie were free as well (we got a coupon in the mail).

After another five-hour drive and two of Steve's basketball games out in DeKalb, Katie and I are finally back home in our own bed. You never really appreciate your own bed until you stay somewhere else in a foreign bed. Our bed feels absolutely incredible. I fell in it and just zonked out. It was nice. Only problem now is that I'm sick as a dog. Yay, joy.x

Merry Christmas all. Well, that's all I've got to say today.

If there's any one thing I know for sure, it's that I hate to travel for the Holidays. Today, Katie and I left with her parents and her brother Scott to go down to St. Louis for Christmas. I don't mind spending holidays with other people, I just hate having to drive in order to get there. Especially when the drive is anything over two hours. This drive happened to be well over that limit... five hours. Ick. The stay down there was nice. Good food, good company and the like.

Congratulations to my friend and co-worker Eric and his wife Michelle. About a month ago, Eric revealed that Michelle was pregnant with their second child. Yesterday, she went in for an ultrasound to have some things checked out. While there, they discovered that they are having twins. Probably floored Eric at the time. Funny thing about it was how he revealed it to us. When he got to work this morning, our project coordinator Stevie asked him how the ultrasound went. He said, "It went well... too well." I suppose, depending on how you interpret it, you could think that he said, "It went well... two well." Heh. Congrats buddy.

Why does this sort of crap happen in a society in which competition is supposed to be of such importance and monopolistic practices are supposedly illegal? Dick Clark filed a lawsuit against the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) who sponsor the Grammy Awards. Clark, who heads up the American Music Awards, says that NARAS is banning artists from appearing on the Grammys if they have already appeared on the AMA show previously. Or they are using their influence to talk artists out of appearing on the AMA show by threatening to not let them on the Grammys. That's the same sort of crap that Jay Leno's original producer was pulling when he first took over for Johnny Carson. After she was fired, his show went through the roof in terms of popularity. I think it's time to re-evaluate NARAS's board of directors. They shouldn't be allowed to pull this sort of garbage.

I need some opinions on this one, please. You all know how when you're interested in someone, your eyes tend to wander down to their ring finger to see if they have a wedding band on? Well, my question is, who does this more... men or women? I always thought men were more likely to check for rings. My co-worker Eric thought it was women. Katie's not sure either way. I am asking this because, yesterday and today, I've been in Chicago at a conference for people working in the higher education field. Today, Eric and I went to lunch at Subway in North Pier and, as we were walking out, there was a girl sitting at a table with another girl and some guy (I think they were all at the conference as well) and I saw this girl looking at me and then her eyes wandered down to my ring finger. I was caught a bit offguard as this has never happened to me before that I'm aware of. Kinda different if you ask me.

And Happy Anniversary to Katie... we've been together for three years now.

After only five months of marriage, Tom Green has filed for divorce from Drew Barrymore. I'm not sure what to think about this one. Is it for real? Is it a hoax? With the two of them you never can tell for sure simply due to the constant sleeve-pulling they put the media through regarding their engagement and marriage. Well, if it is true, I guess we won't be seeing Green in Charlie's Angels II, eh?

I guess it's possible that this may be the final winner of the "Darwinism Missed Me" award for the 2001 calendar year. However, 'tis the season... so it's quite possible we may have more coming soon. In other words, it's never too late.

A few weeks back, Notre Dame fired its football coach. Early this week, they hired George O'Leary from Georgia Tech to take over. Five days later, O'Leary resigned. Didn't take long, did it? I thought maybe it was because he got fed up over ND's drive for excellence in athletics and he realized he had nothing to work with (not anymore, at least). Turns out, however, that O'Leary's bio was inaccurate. The media guide at Georgia Tech states that he earned three letters playing offensive line and fullback at New Hampshire. When ND officials looked into it, they discovered he was only at New Hampshire for two years and never played a single game. Despite this minor disagreement about playing time, Georgia Tech had been putting this "fact" about O'Leary on their media guides since 1987. Notre Dame didn't really appreciate being lied to and, as a result, O'Leary decided to resign. Wonder if he'll get a job anywhere now. I also wonder if ND will ever find a coach. O'Leary was #8 on their list because everyone else didn't want it. #9 pulled his name off the list when he heard ND was hiring O'Leary. Oopsy.

Stephen J. Cannell - the famed TV producer/writer/creator best known for such classics as "21 Jump Street," "Riptide," "The Rockford Files" and "Hunter" -- is now in the process of developing two of his classic shows to film. These two works in progress have even warranted real estate on Cannell's page of films in development (ideally, this means they're serious about it). Coming soon to a theatre near you are "The Greatest American Hero" and "The A-Team." Yep, you read me right. We gonna be seein' B.A., Hannibal, Face and Murdock on the big screen. I just can't wait for casting news. Many people believe that Mr. T should still play B.A. I mean the guy is still built like a solid-brick shithouse and he still wears the chains. I say "do it." And, if not, then go with Ving Rhames. Obviously, since George Peppard died in 1994, he could no longer play Hannibal, but there are many out there who could pull it off effectively (couldn't you just see Redford as Hannibal - he pulled off a semi-similar role in Sneakers). Others, according to upcomingmovies.com, have been pulling for Mel Gibson as Hannibal and Jim Carrey as Murdock. Not bad. Expensive... but not bad. I'm dying on this one. I need 411!

I'm sure many of you have heard of John Walker (no, not Johnnie Walker the whiskey baron). Walker is the 20-year-old American who decided to follow his Muslim religious calling all the way over to Afghanistan and wound up fighting for the Taliban and Al Q'aida in their Jihad against the whole of humanity (nice odds, eh?). He was captured and listed as a POW before we even realized that, under all his scruff, he is actually an American. The question now is what do we do with him? Do we bring him back to America and put him in a military prison camp like Leavenworth? Do we try him as a traitor a la Benedict Arnold? America can't decide. According to the rules of war (I'm guessing the Geneva Convention), there must be two witnesses to his act of sedition in order to try him as a traitor. Of course, we are not going to find those witnesses among the Taliban and nobody from our side actually saw him fight - we only discovered him after he was captured. What to do?

Here's my $.02. Bush changed some rules already. We now have military tribunals for citizens that are charged with terrorism. This rule was changed to expedite trials, eliminate appeals, allow the military to present evidence that they don't want getting out to the public (the media are not allowed inside military tribunals) and make for quicker executions. So, what I say we do is change the rules here. Walker has professed his dedication to the Taliban way of life (which has virtually assured that he will not get any sex from women back here in the States or anywhere in the free world). He admitted to fighting for the Taliban and training with Al Q'aida. In my book, this makes him a traitor and a terrorist. We solve our dilemma by revoking his U.S. citizenship. Therefore, he is no longer a traitor, per se, because he's not a U.S. citizen. Now we can just try him as you would anyone else via the War Crimes Court in Brussels. Hey, to all you out there crying over him, remember one thing... he chose his own way of life, nobody forced him into it. T.S. is all I got to say about that one.

There are some times when I just get really frustrated with web content providers. I typically get my top 20 movie listings from Excite and, typically, they are available late Monday night. Well, it's late afternoon Tuesday and they're still not out. I'm a bit pissed because I have a review for Ocean's Eleven that I'm holding out on posting because I'm waiting for the top 20 to get up there. I found the top 10 yesterday, but I want them all since all the links to that page of mine read "Top 20." I think I've gotta find a better way to list new movies whose rankings are not yet released. I'll get to work on that one so I don't have to deprive all of you of the most up-to-date reviews I can possibly provide. Oh, yeah, Katie and I also just saw Serendipity but that movie is no longer in the top 20 so go find the review in the alphabetical index, 'kay?

Update (actually on Wednesday): The top 20 listing is still not available through Excite, so I had to go to a backup source - The Movie Times Top 60. I would love to be able to go here all the time. However, since he rank orders the whole top 60 movies and gives really in-depth information and the ability to reorder the list based on different categories, his listing usually isn't out until today (Wednesday).

Some stores will do anything to get you in there buying stuff. Not just this season... any season. Take, for example, Meijer's. I was there with Katie tonight shopping for something else (a few kitchen-related things). Well, I went walking by the video game department and checked out what was there. On a side note, I have recently taken an interest in obtaining a PlayStation 2 because they have some pretty cool games out for it. So I was checking out their PS2 game selection and I saw some sale tags up. A select few of their games were on sale for $49.89. This didn't seem like all that much of a savings since most stores carry PS2 games for right around $50. So I glanced at the original price tag... $49.96. I asked the clerk if this was some kind of joke. I mean, seriously, a savings of seven cents?!? Gimme a break. He said that it was right and the store does this so they can legitimately feature PS2 games in their sale ads. That is pathetic to say the very least.

Beware... this entry is rated R. Children must have adult supervision to read further. You've been warned.

In Britain, they actually have a literary prize known as the "Bad Sex in Fiction Award." It is quite obvious who receives this "honor" -- someone with such a horrible description of sex in his/her novel, that you know they ain't getting any anytime soon. Let's just say that this year's winner definitely deserved it -- Christopher Hart for his novel "Rescue Me." Here is an excerpt...

"Her hand is moving away from my knee and heading north. Heading unnervingly and with a steely will toward the pole... Ever northward moves her hand, while she smiles languorously at my right ear. And when she reaches the north pole, I think in wonder and terror -- she will surely want to pitch her tent."

Well-deserved? I would think so. I wonder if this guy has ever had sex and, if so, was this his reaction? Now, I'm no novelist, but daaammmnn.

Since I've been on such a music kick lately, here's yet more news... Neil Young (he of Crazy Horse and CSN&Y fame) is recording a new song dedicated to the heroes of Flight 93. That's the one where the passengers took matters into their own hands and, it is believed, took the plane down into a field in Pennsylvania instead of... oh... say... the White House. The song will be entitled "Let's Roll" after the final words spoken by passenger Todd Beamer (who, I'm told, graduated from nearby Elmhurst College) to his wife on the phone. "Let's Roll" should be released next month and will be featured on Young's forthcoming CD. This should be pretty cool. Hey, it's Neil, how bad can it be?

P.S. The Life in HTML Archives are complete. And there was much rejoicing...

P.S.S. Happy 27th birthday to me.

I will have to say that I am happy about this news. It seems that George Harrison recorded one final album before he died last Thursday. Not just any old album either. He knew it was his last so he made a 25-song homage to his career in music. I'm looking forward to this one. One of the songs is all about living life with cancer. Another song was performed by him and his son Danhi (I assume it's pronounced like "Danny"). The only thing that I'm kinda worried about is whether critics are going to be overly nice to it because this is his last album or will they go all out and criticize it because he's not around to defend it? I'm not sure how it's gonna go. It just doesn't seem like the sort of situation where critics will treat this just like any old album they would review. Think about it, this is an album by a former Beatle. But, I'll buy it regardless. How often do I listen to critics anyway? The only critic that truly affects my decision is... well... me. After all, aren't each of us the best person to say what it is we like and dislike? Professional critics can bite me. We should all be paid what they earn to watch movies and listen to albums. Ahhh, to live life like Roger Ebert (sans the outward appearance, of course).

Hey all, and welcome to the new-look kapgar.com. Please take some time and surf around and let me know what you think about it. A few notes, though, this page is optimized for use on 800x600 resolution screens, but it will work on any other res as well. If, when you first view this window, it seems like this text is overlapping the blue bar to the left, then maximize your browser window. That means, for those of you using Windows, click the button on the top right of your browser window that looks like a box (between the little bar button and the 'x'); in Mac, click the 'box within a box' button on the top-right of the browser, just to the left of the button that looks like an equal sign. After you've done this, all should be peachy.

And here's a glossary of the links to the left. "I am me" is a bit of a bio page. "The Wedding Pages"... well, if you can't figure that one out (ed. note - pages have since been removed)... Same goes for the "Movie Critique." "Fun With Dead Trees" is my book review section. "Kicker Zero" is an area dedicated to Katie's brother Steve. "Life in HTML Archives" is the backlog of old information from this page - goes all the way back to 1998 (eventually). "Any Life Out There?" is a list of some of my favorite links. "E-Mail Me" goes without saying - or I should hope.