I came across two pretty interesting stories on the Chicago Tribune website in the past week that I think are worth sharing. The first one is about a promotion from Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, Illinois, and the second is about a movie theater in Hoopeston.

It seems that Great America is running a promotion in which park patrons can get four free season passes for 2007 as well as Fast Passes to popular attractions if they eat a live cockroach during the park’s Fright Fest festivities.

Beginning Oct. 7, Six Flags Great America’s annual Halloween event will pull a page from the popular NBC gross-out reality show and dare visitors to swallow a live Madagascar hissing cockroach in return for amusement park perks.

Although the Tribune mentions only a t-shirt and fast passes as prizes, the official Great America website’s info page states that four season passes are available as well. While those sound like a pretty good deal (season passes currently run about $80, so those alone would make the stunt worth at least $320), I just don’t think I would ever be able to scarf down one of those babies. Great America will be using lab-grown bugs, but that hardly cuts down on the ick factor for me. It’ll be interesting to see how many patrons actualy go through with this!

The second interesting article was posted today, and is about the Lorraine Theater in Hoopeston. According to the Tribune story, the owner of the two-screen theater decided to close down for two weeks rather than show poor Hollywood offerings such as Jackass 2 or Beerfest. I don’t know how accurate the story is, however, since the theater’s website indicates that Invincible is now showing. Still, I applaud the theater owner’s decision and wish that more businesses would be like him. Of course, that’s not likely to happen, especially with the huge movie theater chains that currently dominate the market. (Photo from LT website)

I’m enjoying blogging so much that I’ve already started a second blog. It’s called Reviews and More and will contain short reviews of movies, books, television shows, products, websites, and things like that. I watch so many movies and read so many books that I thought other people might benefit from my opinion on these things. Anyway, the URL is http://www.reviewsandmore.net so be sure to bookmark it and keep checking back!

I spend a lot of time in Japan so I’ve seen firsthand a great deal of the whole “Engrish” phenomenon. I personally have a broader view of what Engrish is than most foreigners perhaps would. For example, some people feel that the term Engrish applies only to t-shirts and signs that contain a garbled blend of English words that make no sense the way the manufacturer has strung them together. This website has fantastic examples of what I’m talking about here.

But I happen to think that the term Engrish can be applied anytime some random English word is used on a product, either as a name or as a description. Take this dog food brand, for example. It’s simply called “Smack,” which probably wouldn’t be considered Engrish by most people because it’s a legitimate word and it’s spelled properly. But I think it’s Engrish because it’s a totally random name for a dog food and doesn’t make much sense. Sure, I guess you can argue that the name “Alpo” makes no sense, but that’s different and doesn’t suit my purposes :). (Photo by JE)

Anyway, I just crack up whenever I see this dog food in the stores. I start thinking of potential commercials or print ads that the company could run, and of course they all depend on the slang meaning of smack. Unfortunately, none of my Japanese friends think this is even remotely funny, even when I explain to them what smack means. Oh, well…

I didn’t start watching FOX’s Prison Break until recently. I caught the first two episodes of Season One about two weeks ago, and liked what I saw. I am a 24 fan, so the fast-paced action and suspense really appealed to me. But I didn’t make an effort to follow up with more episodes. Then a friend of mine loaned me the entire DVD box set, so I sat down to watch a couple more episodes. That turned into a Prison Break marathon in which I reeled off 12 episodes in a 24-hour span!

The plot of the show should be pretty evident from the title. It’s about a group of inmates that are trying to break out of the Fox River Penitentiary in Joliet, Illinois. I have passed by that Joliet pen plenty of times during my travels on I-55 (or is that 355 in that area?), but haven’t been back to that area in years. In fact, I didn’t even know that the place was shut down in 2002. At any rate, that’s the principal filming location for the series, which kind of makes me wish I was back home so I could go check it out once in a while.

The only thing I’m concerned about with this show is how long the writers will be able to drag this plotline out. I mean, the prisoners will either escape or they won’t, and I don’t think as a viewer I’ll have much patience for their plans getting thwarted at the last second every single time just to keep them in their cells for another episode. There better be some pretty good plot twists in the work or else this could get boring very quickly.

At any rate, I’ve read that there are already plans for a third season, so let’s see how the writers keep Prison Break going for that long.

Well, it’s official: there will be a new World Series Champion crowned in 2006. The Chicago White Sox, my hometown team, were officially eliminated from the playoff hunt yesterday, thanks to a 14-1 loss to the Cleveland Indians as well as a Minnesota Twins victory over the Kansas City Royals. The elimination might have only become official yesterday, but Sox fans have known this was going to happen since mid-August. (Photo credit: AP/Ron Schwane)

Immediately following the All-Star break, the White Sox seemed to be in a good position. They were still trailing the Detroit Tigers in the AL Central, but of course had plenty of time to catch up. They also had a lead on the Minnesota Twins and the Boston Red Sox in the Wild Card standings, so fans were confident that the Sox would make it to the playoffs, even if they had to do so via the wild card.

But things never really got going for the Sox in the second half of the season. While the Tigers and Twins were able to string together wins, the White Sox never could. They would win one or two games here and there, then lose a couple in a row. The net result, of course, was that they remained static while the Twins moved up and the Tigers extended their lead. When the Tigers started to falter in late August and early September, the Twins were able to take advantage and close the gap, but the White Sox couldn’t. They were still stuck in that one win-two loss cycle. Eventually, you just knew that they wouldn’t make it to the playoffs.

I am pretty disappointed with how the second half of the season played out. The Sox seemed to have an even stronger team this year than last, but they simply weren’t able to get the job done when it counted. They had a powerful lineup this year that included the best middle hitters in all of baseball in Jermaine Dye, Jim Thome, Paul Konerko, and Joe Crede. This meant they could get away from the “small ball” that they played last year and rely on some good old-fashioned slugging to drive in runs. (Photo credit: MLB)

But the pitching — starters and middle relievers — was far too inconsistent to carry the team through the pennant race. You can’t have great pitching and great hitting in every single game, so the hope is that one side picks the other up when needed. But it didn’t work out that way for the Sox. It seemed that both the pitching and hitting would tank at the same time or be on at the same time. They either destroyed other teams 12-2 or got destroyed by a similar score. They were winning and losing very few one-run ballgames, unlike last year, which shows that the hitting and pitching were running hot and cold at the same time.

Anyway, I guess things could be worse: I could be a Cubs fan! As for the White Sox, here’s to next season.

I usually like to keep things light on this blog, but today I just have to rant about the way some businesses are handling their customer service duties. I had two separate dealings with separate companies today, and both were less than stellar. Here’s how they went down.

The first instance of bad customer service came via my college’s bookstore. I had placed an online order for some merchandise over the weekend (a t-shirt, pair of warm-up pants, etc.) and was calling in with my credit card number to pay for the order since the bookstore doesn’t have an online payment form in place. I waited until about 3 p.m. to do this, as I figured things might be busy earlier in the day.

When I called, I stated my purpose and asked to speak to the person that handled Internet orders. When she came on the phone, she said that she hadn’t even checked her emails yet that day (in other words, she hadn’t seen my order yet). Wait… what? Come again? It’s 3:00 p.m. on a Monday afternoon, you run a business that accepts Internet orders, and you haven’t even checked your emails yet to see if any orders had come in over the weekend?? Are there actually people out there that don’t check their emails first thing when they arrive at work? Apparently so. (Cartoon credit: Randy Glasbergen)

Anyway, she glanced at the order I sent in, and then (clearly trying to get me off the phone as quickly as possible) said everything looked ok and they would ship the items out within a day or two. She said “Thanks for calling,” which is when I broke in and said, “Could you take down my credit card number now?” That was the whole reason I called in the first place. Duh. So I gave here the credit card number, but who knows if they’ll get this order right.

The second incident involved a motorcycle accessories company that produces customized products. A friend of mine owns a small dealership in Japan, and he was interested in distributing some of this company’s custom merchandise. My friend doesn’t speak English, so he asked me to serve as go-between.

The first thing I did was email the sales department and ask about international distribution. I sent a link to my friend’s dealership and provided other pertinent information. After 10 days and not hearing a thing from that company, I decided to call in. I explained the situation to the person that answered the phone, and she told me to, wait for it, EMAIL THE SALES DEPARTMENT! She then proceeded to give me the exact same sales@xxxxxx.com address that I sent my initial inquiry to.

I would have thought that a small company like that would jump at the chance to start distributing overseas and get at least a $10,000 order from a new customer. But I guess not.

While these two instances were pretty appalling to me today, several of my friends kind of shrugged their shoulders after I told them, as if to say that they fully expected something like this. If this kind of customer service is to be expected, then I just can’t imagine how businesses like these survive in the long run.

[/rant]

I just can’t say this enough: ESPN’s new GamePlan service is awesome! I was able to catch the Notre Dame-Michigan State game today thanks to my GamePlan subscription; there’s no way I would have been able to see the action without it.

And what a game it was! This is just the second Notre Dame game that I’ve been able to watch this season (the first one being the opener against Georgia Tech). I can’t believe how bad the Irish looked in the first quarter of this game. Brady Quinn looked absolutely horrible. He was missing wide open receivers and overthrowing his targets in that first period, and it was easy to see how frustrated he was. His body language (frequent head shakes, throwing his arms up in the air) said it all. Watching that first quarter, I could hardly believe that this kid was not only projected to be a strong Heisman Trophy candidate, but also is considered by many to be the number one overall selection in the 2007 NFL entry draft. Quinn finished with 319 yards and 5 touchdowns, but he really didn’t look that good out there.

Anyway, after falling behind by a score of 37-21 in the fourth quarter, the Irish managed to ovcercome all their mistakes and put 19 unanswered points on the board in that final period. It was just amazing to see Notre Dame not give up (it would have been so easy to just call it a night in that miserable weather in East Lansing). Terrail Lambert came up with a huge interception on MSU’s QB Drew Stanton late in the fourth, and returned the ball 27 yards for a TD. That play sealed the victory for the Irish and probably ended up saving their season too. If Notre Dame had lost to Michigan State, it would have been their second loss in four games, and we all know that no college team wins the national championship with two losses. (Photo credit AP/Bob Brodbeck)

So, yeah, Notre Dame definitely hasn’t been living up to all the preseason hype they generated this year (entering Week One with a #3 rank and moving up to #2 after the Penn State win), but at least they’re winning. No matter how ugly that game was last night, I know Coach Weis and the Irish would much rather be 3-1 than 2-2. Next up is Purdue on September 30.

Ok, I know the last thing I needed to do was add yet another television show to my regular weekly lineup, but that’s exactly what I just did. I started watching Justice a couple days ago, and am pretty much hooked on it already. I think four episodes have aired already this season, but I’ve only watched the first three so far (thanks to TiVo).

Justice stars Victor Garber, Kerr Smith, Rebecca Mader, and Eamon Walker as four high-powered attorneys that take on the biggest cases in L.A. County. I really started watching this show because of Garber, whom I just loved as Jack Bristow on Alias. I sort of recognized Smith, but couldn’t really place him. Then I looked him up and saw that he used to be on Dawson’s Creek. I never watched that show regularly, but have caught a few episodes in syndication here and there over the years. I had never seen Mader or Walker before.

Anyway, I used to love legal dramas (I was a huge L.A. Law fan back in the ’80s and liked The Practice in the late ’90s) but hadn’t watched one regularly in years. I have to say that things have come a long way since those days! The TNT&G law firm featured on Justice is probably the most high-tech office I’ve ever seen. They have countless computer screens, monitors, software programs, and who-knows-what-else to help them mount defenses for their clients. It’s really pretty interesting to see all that stuff at work.

In addition, the show is broken down into segments, with a title card to announce each. In the opening scene, we get a hazy view of the murder and/or dead body. Then we get the Client Interview, followed by various Preparation scenes, Trial scenes, the Closing Arguments, and Jury Deliberations. That’s all pretty standard stuff and isn’t anything special. But what I really like about Justice is that at the very end, we get a scene about how the murder victim actually died. Now this is good stuff, and has become the part of the show that I most look forward to. This final scene gives the viewer a chance to see whether the client was innocent or not despite the verdict handed down by the jury.

Speaking of the verdict, so far TNT&G have scored three “not guilty” verdicts in a row to open the season. I truly hope that they don’t win every single case. How realistic would that be? If I had to bet, I’d say that the next show delivers a Guilty!

I’ve got to say, with 24, Prison Break, and now Justice, I’m really starting to like FOX shows. Let’s hope Justice carries this early momentum throughout the rest of the season.

I read this article a couple days ago about Yale University offering free video courses on the Internet to anyone that wants to access them. Personally, I think this is a fantastic idea and I hope that more schools follow suit. I know the article mentions that both Princeton and MIT have been doing pretty much the same thing for a couple of years now, but Yale is the first to offer video lectures. (Photo credit: Encarta)

The MSNBC article wasn’t very detailed, but in part says

The 18-month pilot project will provide videos, syllabi and transcripts for seven courses beginning in the 2007 academic year. They include “Introduction to the Old Testament,”“Fundamentals of Physics” and “Introduction to Political Philosophy.

Just of the three they listed here, I would definitely be interested in sitting through the Political Philosophy and Physics courses. I didn’t really take any time to try to find out what the other courses are, but will certainly keep checking back to see what else becomes available.

I know I posted earlier that I was glad to be finishing up my last class for my undergraduate degree, but I’m one of those people that will be a lifelong learner. I really can’t imagine what I’d do if I didn’t have a class of some sort to look forward to…

When I was in junior high school, Tuesday was by far my favorite television night. That’s because ABC’s lineup back then consisted of Who’s The Boss, followed by Growing Pains and then Moonlighting, which was my favorite. Now, I’m not saying these were the best shows on the air or anything like that, but to my JH mind, they were very cool.

Even though I didn’t understand all the sexual innuendoes that passed between Bruce Willis as David Addison and Cybill Shepherd as Maddie Hayes, I did know that their relationship as depicted on the show was unlike anything else I had ever seen on television. I loved the show for their banter, and found my 13-year-old self looking up to Maddie Hayes as a role model. She was strong, beautiful, and successful, which were all the things I wanted to be.

So you can imagine my surprise when I opened up my newly purchased Moonlighting Box Set and saw Cybill in one of the “extras”. Wow. She has not aged well, in my opinion. Granted, 20 years have gone by since her heyday in Moonlighting, and we’d all probably look worse after two decades. But I mean, she looked rough. Kind of puffy and bloated, and, well, old. (And just to be fair, Bruce Willis looks like he’s seen better days, too.)

God, I know it must sound like I’m just bashing Cybill here, but that’s not really my intent. I guess I’m just really shocked at how different she looks, mostly because of the way it reflects on how much I’ve aged as well. I’m actually glad that she’s not all plastic like most aging Hollywood types… but, man, what a difference!

I didn’t follow Cybill’s career after Moonlighting, so I’m not sure what has become of her really. I know she did that sitcom for a while, but I never watched it. At any rate, I hope she’s doing well. She’s still the beautiful Maddie Hayes to me.

Why does this always happen to me? Just when I save up enough money to buy the latest little gadget, a new generation comes out a few months later. I bought my iPod Nano back in June, and at that time I had no idea that the second generation Nano was already in the works. If I had known, I simply would have kept using my old iPod Mini for a couple more months.

As it is, the second generation iPod Nano comes in five different colors (mostly reminiscent of the old Mini colors) and can now hold up to 8GB worth of songs. I have no problem with the capacity, since I don’t even have enough music or audiobooks to fill up my 4GB model. But damn, those colors are nice! I have a black Nano, and like it well enough. However, I would definitely have had a hard time choosing between the blue, silver, and black models of the second generation.

And by the way, while I was on the Apple site, I noticed that they have an all-new Shuffle model as well. Take a look at this thing and tell me that’s not a pretty cool little device! I personally wouldn’t use a shuffle because I need a display screen for my MP3 players, but if I didn’t have enough money to buy anything else, I’d definitely get this thing. At $79 for 1GB, you can’t go wrong!

I just got done watching the much-anticipated (by me, anyway) pilot episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, the new Aaron Sorkin television drama. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve really enjoyed Sorkin’s past work in both film and TV, so I was definitely looking forward to this one.

I wasn’t at all disappointed by the Studio 60 pilot. I thought the storyline was compelling and it definitely has Sorkin’s trademark pacing and snappy dialogue. Matthew Perry is fantastic as writer Matt Albie, and I think his work on this show will eventually help him lose the “Chandler Bing” moniker for good. I had a lot of trouble seeing Brad Whitford as anyone other than Josh Lyman, though. Josh was such a strong character on The West Wing… I just can’t forget him (although I must admit that when Whitford’s character on Studio 60 said something about testing positive for cocaine, it brought me out of my Josh daze!). (Photo credit: NBC studio still)

It’s kind of strange for me to see TV actors in different roles. When I was growing up, television actors basically had one trademark show and generally didn’t bounce around a lot. For example, when Bruce Willis left Moonlighting, he didn’t go to another TV show, he went into movies, so I never had to try to forget David Addison. This is the first time I can remember such strong leading characters (Chandler, Josh) trying to move on with other shows so soon after their previous shows ended. Don’t get me wrong: I’m sure there are prime examples of actors doing this. It’s just that it hasn’t happened with shows that I watch or with characters I’ve come to love.

Anyway, I can’t wait for September 25th and the next showing of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. I wish I would have known that the pilot has been available on Netflix since, like, August or something. That might have been enough to make me join up!

I wasn’t able to watch any college football over the weekend because I was extremely busy, but I heard a lot about the wild finish to the Oregon-Oklahoma game. So I fired up my ESPN GamePlan archives and tuned into the fourth quarter (because that’s where all the action was). Wow, as much as I like to see the underdogs come through (Oregon was ranked #18 at the time and OU was #15), I never like to see the refs have such a big impact on the outcome.

In case you somehow missed the game or SportsCenter in that time, there were two specific calls that the officials blew. The first one came on the onside kick attempt after Oregon scored a touchdown to make it 33-27. The ball was clearly touched by Oregon’s Brian Paysinger before it went the required 10 yards. It looked like Paysinger made contact after the ball went 8 or 9 yards. Oregon recovered, the play was reviewed, and the officials somehow thought the call should stand. So Oregon begins its drive with great field position.

The second controversial call came just two plays later when OU’s Darien Williams was flagged for pass interference. It did look like he was all over the back of the Oregon receiver, but the replay also showed that the ball appeared to be tipped by an OU lineman at the line of scrimmage. That would of course make pass interference a moot point as the ball would be up for grabs. The refs reviewed the play again, and again failed to overturn the call on the field. Oregon scored on the very next play as Paysinger caught his first career touchdown pass from quarterback Dennis Dixon.

It wasn’t over yet as Oklahoma ran the ensuing kickoff all the way back to the Oregon 27. Kicker Garrick Hartley had a chance to win the game on a 44-yard field goal attempt, but it was blocked.

That was definitely an exciting finish to the game, but like I said before, I hate to see games hinge on the calls of refs. So I was glad to read that OU president David Boren is asking the Big 12 to nullify the results of the game and erase the loss from Oklahoma’s record. When I first read about this request (without having seen the plays in question), I thought Boren and OU were just being sore losers. But after watching it — man, do they have a point. I hope the Big 12 rules in their favor!!

I’ve been playing fantasy football for a few years now, but still can’t manage to do any damage in my league. I know it’s only the second week of the season and anything can happen still, but things are already unfolding in the usual pattern. First of all, I missed the league draft, which meant that I got stuck with a strange roster. It was completely loaded with second-rate running backs, while having just one player at each of the other positions. Then, after I fixed things up as best I could by dropping all my bad picks and picking up some decent free agents, I’ve made a couple mistakes in the starting lineups.

For example, I now have two quarterbacks on my roster. I had one guy in as the starter all week, then suddenly changed my mind right before game time and put in the other QB as the starter. And wouldn’t you know it: the QB on my bench threw for four touchdowns in his team’s win, while the other guy racked up a bunch of passing yards but no TDs.

Personally, I don’t know why people like fantasy football so much. I think it ruins the otherwise enjoyable experience of kicking back with some beers on a Sunday afternoon to watch all the action. Then again, the people that like fantasy football are probably pretty good at it, unlike me! (Photo credit: AP/Joshua Lott)

Jennifer Aniston was recently named as the best-dressed celeb by People Magazine. I don’t usually pay attention to these kinds of lists, but since I actually agree with this choice, I’m blogging about it.
(Photo credit: People Magazine)

Anyway, I’ve always liked Aniston’s style ever since the first time I saw her on Friends. Well, maybe not the very first time, because, if you remember, in the pilot her first appearance is in a wedding dress (she had just run away from the altar). But even as Rachel, she always had a conservative, classy, yet modern and trendy style. Heck, her character worked at Ralph Lauren, which is one of my favorite brands (I just love his fragrances)!

The People lists kind of remind me of the lists that we did in high school and junior high school for the yearbooks or whatever. You know how certain kids were voted “Most Likely to…,” “Smartest,” “Best-Looking,” etc. We even had our very own “Best-Dressed” category back then. One boy and one girl were voted for each category. The winner never got anything, of course, but the survey served as a sort of popularity contest. Kind of funny how these best-dressed and best-looking lists are used for full-grown adults, don’t you think?