Tag / Vacation

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You Ought To Be In (10) Pictures

Movie_Reel_22Many years ago, using the weekly TV guide that came with the Sunday Chicago Tribune, I started keeping track of all of the movies I had seen over the course of my lifetime.  The guide would list the two main stars for each movie, and that is a tradition that I’ve carried on in my database ever since.  So, given those guidelines, it is time to look at all of the actors that have starred in at least 10 films that I have seen, as of May 30th.

Today, we start with the 14 actors that have starred in 10 movies that I have seen.

Amy Adams

I was first introduced to Amy Adams back in 2001 via the direct-to-video sequel to Cruel Intentions.  Things were quiet until 2008, when I saw her in Enchanted, which started a four year run with at least one film per year.  2010 was big Amy Adams year for me, where she starred in 4 different movies that I saw that year.  The last movie I saw featuring her was last year’s Man of Steel.

Jessica Alba

My first movie exposure to Jessica Alba was the 2000 indie thriller Paranoid.  2004 kicked off a 4 year run of at least one film per year.  2009 was my high water mark in Jessica Alba films, when I saw 3 of them.  Her run as Sue Storm in the Fantastic Four franchise accounted for 2 of the 10 films.  2010’s Valentine’s Day, which I saw in 2011, was the last film I saw starring Alba.

Dan Aykroyd

My first Dan Aykroyd film was likely 1984’s Ghostbusters.  My best Aykroyd years were 1988 and 1996, when I saw 2 of his films in each year.  2002 was the last year I saw an Aykroyd-starring vehicle, 200’s Stardom.

Chevy Chase Continue reading →

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Midseason Review – Tuesdays

Once again, we continue our look back at my expectations for the fall television season, and today we are focusing on Tuesdays.

CBS

Unforgettable – This may end up being utterly forgettable, but I’m going to give it a shot.  The main hook, that Poppy Montgomery’s character has total recall of her memories, was played off in the pilot where she was witness to a crime.  As she re-joins the police force, it may be interesting to see how they use this ability without her being personally involved in every case.

This is by no means a good show.  I really should stop watching it.

NBC

Parenthood – Nothing really new to say here.  It is what it is.  Never great, but usually good enough.

I think this show works better in bunches than in week to week doses.  I caught up on the latest 6 episodes during the December vacation and enjoyed it.  But, I hadn’t enjoyed it enough previously to not let the 6 episodes pile up.

FOX

New Girl – The one pilot I saw early, thanks to the magic of OnDemand.  I find Zooey Deschanel to be very charming, and would likely watch her reading the phone book for a hour.  Thankfully, this seems to be much more impressive than that.

Continue reading →

by jim

Global Fit Week 25

Last week of vacation starts off with a thud, as I didn’t use wear the tracker at all on Christmas.  The rest of the week is mostly decent, if nothing spectacular.  Friday was mostly spent doing family obligations, so no real chance to do anything active.  Saturday was a return to campus for my first trip to Mackey Arena since the December 8, 1996 victory over Long Beach State, so I got a little work in, but only about half as much as October’s trip for homecoming.  And, that is officially a wrap for 2011.  By my calculations, I logged 888,273 steps since I got the tracker on the afternoon of July 12th.

by jim

Global Fit Week 24

Week 2 of vacation was not as successful.  Again, we need to ignore the self reported steps for Sunday and Monday, as those were used strictly to get the real results to display.  Anyway, Sunday was a decent enough day for no special activity.  Monday, however, turned out to be both my best day and, because of that, kind of wrecked the rest of the week.  The weather was pretty good (for December, at least), so I decided that, rather than go to the gym and walk on the treadmill, I would walk to the post office to drop of my latest Netflix rental.  This seemed like a good plan, and a nearly 11,000 step day would appear to be a good result.  However, I started to feel lousy the rest of the week, with only an abbreviated trip to the gym on Wednesday.  The weekend, of course, brought us to the Christmas holiday, so there was little chance to do much then as well.  Overall, kind of a bust.

by jim

Global Fit Week 23

Week 1 of the 3 week, end of the year vacation started off slow but picked up steam as the week went on.  Tuesday, I headed back to the gym for the first time in a while, and made repeat appearances the rest of the week.  Thursday also had a little bowling burst which put me over 10,000 for the first time since early October.  For Friday and Saturday, we will need to ignore the green, self reported steps.  It seems that the tracker has a two-week limit, so when I checked in on Monday, I had no results for 4 days: Friday and Saturday of this week and Sunday and Monday of next week.  I tried to add some self reported steps for next Monday, and when I did, my actual results came up as well, so I tried to add a little something to each missing day just to get the real data.  Which was good, as Friday was close to 10,000 again and Saturday was pretty respectable considering it was mostly accomplished by shopping.  Overall, I would say it was a successful week.

by jim

Global Fit Week 9

Week 2 of vacation got off to a slow start, with a lazy Sunday and part of Labor Day Monday lounging around the house without the tracker.  Tuesday, though, once again pushes past the 10,000 step mark.  Outside of the hour on the treadmill, I don’t remember doing anything else out of the ordinary.  Thursday and Friday show that even wearing the tracker around the house doesn’t do much, as I didn’t leave the house or break 1000 steps either day.  Saturday bounced back with a nearly hour walk around the neighborhood and another trip to the Cell.

by jim

Global Fit Week 8

Vacation is over, which means this week I was back to work and able to register my steps for the past two weeks.  Monday marked my first (but not last) trip past the 10,000 step barrier.  It only took 2 months, an hour on the treadmill, and a trip to the Cell to do it.  Tuesday had a small experiment to see how riding a bike would show up.  Not well, as the barely 2000 “other activity” steps show us.  Thursday also pushed past the magical 10,000 mark, thanks to another hour on the treadmill and 3 games of bowling.  Exciting stuff.  The hard part will be keeping it up now that I am back to work and not reverting back to the old routine.