Spooky

I was at the mall and discovered that a few stores are starting to put up Halloween decorations and products. This can only mean that the spookiest time of the year is almost upon us. Don't believe me? Check out this picture above that I took the other day during a paranormal investigation of an old mansion rumored to be haunted. It's a ghost. You can tell because he is transparent and lacking color. Also, he is dressed in old style clothing from a long ago era. You never see ghost wearing nikes. "Look, it's a ghost in a Florida Marlins baseball hat!" No, it's always old, gothic, or just some black or white sheet. Anyway, this ghost was not visible when I took this picture, nor was there any music. I was just taking a random picture for the fun of it during my ghost investigation of this mansion. However, ghostly organ music did pop up when I played back the tape I was recording at the time. Electronic voice phenom.

I expect these kind of results to happen with greater frequency as October 31 approaches. Remember, the 31 backwards reads 13.

Robbie is gearing up for Halloween and getting candy. He has decided to dress as a wasp for Halloween. I keep telling him good luck finding a wasp costume. He told me I'm going to dress up as a praying mantis, Mommy is going to be a bee, and grandpa is going to dress up as a beetle. he is a little obsessed with bugs at the moment. At least a wasp is better then his first costume choice. A cockroach.

WMF

Batman

Batman redefined the superhero movie yet again. After finally seeing it, I can say it's worth every dollar it earns at the box-office. Out of all the spider bites, and mutants, and green monsters, it's kind of funny that a superhero movie that features absolutely no superpowers has topped them all.

The Dark Knight starts up, and never stops. I found myself nervous and tense about characters in the film. Even those that should survive, according to the standard formula of superhero movie scripts, seemed to have uncertain fates. The Joker, the films villain, was given free reign by the writers to wreak havoc on Gotham City. Even Batman looked perplexed and strained by the Jokers actions. He had no idea how to stop this guy. And in the end, in a way, he didn't.

The Joker's second round in film is played up a few notches from Jack nicholsons 1989 performance. The hype about Ledgers performance is true. It's fantastic. This Joker, despite claiming to have no plans or goals, does have a motivation. He wants to see people that live in a neat orderly world turn into something like him when the orderly world gets turned upside down. He'd especially love for Batman to cross that line, even if it means that Batman kills him.

Batman is about standing up for what is right. It's about not giving in to those that attempt to tear it down. It's about what happens when you do let someone tear it down. It's about a hero who fights against evil, even if that fight is unpopular and scary. It's about a city, a society itself, that turns around and becomes the hero. It will be a long time before a "superhero movie" comes along and tops this one.

technical difficulties

A piece on watermelon festival is in the works, but i am having difficulties with the photos. Please stand by.

the Orioles in last place (and other updates)

but they are doing pretty good.

The Orioles are sitting at 54 - 59, and are in last place in the AL east. This team is supposed to be rebuilding, so they weren't fore casted to do nearly this well. Sure, they have been horrible over the last decade, but there was a lot of hype about the owner finally getting around to rebuilding the team. The roster was completely stripped down so that they could build from scratch. This team was meant to be the sacrificial lamb for the 2008 season.

Well, this lamb has been biting the ankles of baseballs elite all season, and they have stayed near the .500 mark in the win loss column. Sure, they're in last place, but they are not the worst in the league. They are a full 10 games ahead of the Washington Nationals and nine games out from the Seattle. Last year they went 69 and 73. They need only 15 wins to match that, and they have a little under 50 games to go. If they can win half of those games, The O's could get to near 80 games which would be fantastic.

What i don't get, is how a team like Tampa bay, which has been in last place for the several seasons, is all of the sudden in FIRST place. 68 and 46 and 3 games up on Boston. They didn't undergo years of painful rebuilding, and getting excited about the prospect of being "barely below .500" at this point of the season. What did they do? Why can't the O's do it?

Well at least the O's have given me some cheering room this year. That's my sports blog for now.

OTHER UPDATES
Originaly, my next blog was going to be a review of Batman, but plans to see it have routinley fallen through over the last couple of weeks. Hopefully next week I'll get that review up. Also coming up will be a review of watermelon festival!