morgan freeman…best ever?

I’ve always thought it would be great to have morgan freeman be the voice for my video biography, him or michael caine (but who could resist his british accent?). 

When watching se7en a few nights ago, i came to the realization that morgan freeman is in 3 of my top 5 movies. Those movies are as follows: The Dark Knight, Shawshank Redemption, and of course the aforementioned se7en. 

Is this because he a phenomenal actor that really carries a movie? Or is this because he has had the good fortune of being in so many movies that he was sure to hit a few homeruns among all of the flops of his career. I would like to submit my theory that a hybrid of both of those ideas is closer to the truth. Let’s look at his movie list, the man has been in 87 (87!) movies according to imdb.com. I mean really, he started his career apparently in 1964. Holy moly that’s a lot of movies, and he had some amazing flops such as kiss the girls, along came a spider and hard rain (not to mention a slew of other movies that didn’t do so hot). But on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, the man has been in some really good films such as batman begins, robin hood (did anyone notice that kevin costner completely abandoned his accent halfway through the film?) and bruce almighty. So it is safe to say that based on the law of averages that he was bound to be in some jewels of films.

So in one respect, i would say the movies are more of chance and less of his ability as an actor, but that does bring an interesting point. In Shawshank redemption and se7en, i would classify him in the lead spot. Some would argue that Tim Robbins was the actual lead in shawshank, and to that i would say yes you are correct but thats like saying you can only have one best friend. They were both very neccessary. In se7en however, there is no question he is the lead, and commands every scene he is in. There is a certain poise about him.

While harrison ford will undoubtedly go down as having the best filmography of any actor, i mean his top 8 films all grossed over 100 million (it really helps to have been in 2 of the most successful trilogies ever). But i submit the argument that morgan freeman’s top 3 are stronger then any other actors’ top 3. Including mr. ford.

losing my best friend.

There’s a saying that says a dog is “man’s best friend”. I have never really understood the gravity of that sentence until today. My cat of 15 years today died while i was driving home from dallas. I didn’t learn that information until i walked in the door, as my mom felt it better to not call me during the drive. I got lucky in that i drove home last night before immediately heading back up, because i got to see Shadow (my cat) for the last time and got to say goodbye. He had stopped eating about three days prior to my arrival last night, and had dropped in weight to under 5 lbs. Upon taking him to the vet the next day, it was learned that both of his kidneys had shut down, he had a cancerous mass growing between them, and he had two ulcers in his mouth. I believe it was at that point that my parents decided to euthanize him, which i’m still not sure because my mom was such a mess when i got home if they euthanized him or he died. Either way, he’s no longer with me and thats what i’m commenting on.

I learned today that i did lose the most important thing in my life (that statement assumes that the grace and salvation given to me by the Lord is the most important thing and that any time i say anything is the “most anything” that i’m saying other then what i just described). He was the most consistent thing in my life for 15 years, always greeting me with a cheerful meow every time i walked in the door. He would always come curl up next to me and fall asleep next to me, but i was always too much of a mover for his taste so he’d never stayed the whole night, but came back the next night every time. He never got upset with me, never complained to me except when he needed me to get him some food or he needed to be let out. 

Shadow, you were my best friend and i miss you.

Wednesday first cup

So Roger Clemens throws his wife under the bus in an effort to dodge the steroid allegations. I guess that really speaks of what kind of guy he really is. Also rumored he sold his bentley in an effort to pay the outrageous defense fees. The funny thing is, does anyone really believe him?

Here is a spike tv lineup starting at 3pm:

3- Star Trek: Voyager

4 – Star Trek: Voyager

5- CSI

6- CSI

7- CSI

8-CSI

9-CSI

10-CSI: New York

11-CSI

12-Star Trek: Voyager

ummmm guys really? Oh don’t worry, there are CSI marathon days (as oppose to the psuedo-marathons they have everyday).

Finally, I ate at Longhorn PO-Boys and that place is amazing. The funny thing is they don’t actually sell “po-boys”, but they do specialize in all sorts of sandwiches and gyros. In fact today i had the “super gyro” and it definitely hit the spot. Its sad that i discovered this place in the twilight of my austin career, when it was so close to where i’ve lived for the last 4 years.

first picture

 

Apparently the one major drawback of wordpress (the only one thus far) is that there is a limit to the number of images you can upload. So my plan of posting pictures has been temporarily de-railed until i pony up and by my own domain (pomdilly.com?).

Despite that, i felt compelled to upload this picture of the famous pups i described in an earlier post. The dog on my right is Tomo, and the dog sprawled across my lap is Ondo.

My list of favorite dogs in order:

1) Tomo – Choosing between Tomo and Ondo wasn’t the easiest thing to do. Whereas Ondo is possibly the smartest search and rescue dog ever, Tomo has the physical abilities to dance circles around Ondo. If you throw two balls in the water far apart so the dogs can each get one. Tomo will always get both of them. I also chose him because he was the pup from his litter that nobody wanted because he had an ear nipped by another pup. This dog that nobody wanted only became the first ever dual certified search and rescue / drug (drugs,bomb, etc) dog ever.

2) Ondo – Possibly the smartest search and rescue dog ever, and what he lacks in athletic ability he makes up for in sheer intensity. Whereas i can occasionally beat Tomo in a tug game (two hands, and he can’t be trying very hard) i will never beat Ondo. Not only will he rip the tug from my hand, if i were to somehow hold on he would just pull hard enough to take my arm out of socket.

3) Lola – my sisters bull mastiff that at 11 months has reached a modest weight of 102lbs. Lets just say Lola is bigger then either of the two dogs pictured with me. Lola has never met an enemy, she loves humans/ other dogs and will always welcome you with a sniff down and wagging tail. She also does funny things like doesn’t realize how big she actually is and sits on you.

4) Hurley – the 10 month year old lab belonging to Travis Sims. Hurley is always happy to see me whenever i drop by, and when we go on walks stays by my side without the restraint of a leash. I did however realize walking him without a leash was the most dangerous thing i’ve ever done especially when we would see squirrels, or even worse, stray cats. Yes Hurley is still a boy, and would break off into an amazingly fast sprint to torment the poor things, and i’m counting my lucky stars that i was able to corral him.

5) Brutus & Cassius – The two black labs that live at the pattillos. They were higher up the totem pole until they seemingly forgot who i was after a mere month break from seeing them. They are still a lot of fun.

Note: These rankings are subject to change when my sister and Jared get a full size english mastiff that they have been talking about. I would expect that dog to jump as high as 3rd on the list, i mean really there are youtube videos of mastiffs drinking from the fridge water dispenser. Amazing. 

 

I know more about dogs then Brett Wise.

blast from the past

3 things i did today that reminded me of my past.

1) Went to a 21st birthday party. I am currently 22 years of age (and closing in on 23 wayyy too fast), meaning i at one point was 21 myself, and had a 21 year old birthday party. I am using the term “birthday party” very loosely because my birthday is ALWAYS over the thanksgiving holiday, so all of my friends are out of town doing worthless things like “visiting family”. Needless to say my 21st birthday included my roommate at the time and myself going out for drinks, but our chosen place was closed (of course, it was the night of thanksgiving). Some memories of mine are just plain awesome.

2) Played soccer. Little unknown fact about me, i used to play soccer (the beautiful game). I will never claim to have been any good, i mean how good can someone be who never ventures beyond the level of “recreational”. Also, to be good at soccer required way too much conditioning, and in my pre-athletics years (basically before my world was rocked during 7th grade running wise) i had no idea what conditioning meant, i just knew that i didn’t like running (i am still fighting off the weight gained in my 4th – 7th grade years). So i have a couple friends that of course played soccer their whole life have this team that plays 3 v 3 down at austin soccer zone, and that a few of their teammates were missing and if i’d like to join. I relayed my concerns of embarrassing myself, but they assured me they were good enough to make up for any of my shortcomings (they were). So i borrowed shorts, socks, shin guards, and cleats (obviously i was prepared) and walked onto the funnest soccer field i’ve ever played on. The field was maybe 20 yards long, if that, perfect i thought not as much running. The surface was not of grass, but of the advanced turf that has the ground up rubber beads in it, very cool indeed. The whole field was surrounded by walls and nets, preventing any errant kicks from leaving the field (a very good safety feature so the fans weren’t pummeled every time i touched the ball). My alias for the game was Kyle Jahnke, believable if you ask me, at least much more so then RJ (very hispanic) playing as Craig Lauck. We ended up smashing the other team (who didn’t speak much english, which when it comes to soccer isn’t necessarily a good thing for us) and hey i managed two goals and only felt like throwing up once. My body will not forgive me for my athletic brashness in the morning.

3) Driving a standard. Michael traded cars with his dad, and now is cruisin the streets in a stick shift jetta. We used to have a standard car in our family that i loved to drive, but unfortunately the Adams family don’t believe in putting any money at all into cars, so the car eventually fell apart and died in la grange on its way to houston. So for the past 4 years i have been without a stick shift in my life, a most unfortunate thing. When i found out michael had procured such a vehicle, my eyes lit up and i asked to drive it home (from the soccer game mentioned above). Like riding a bike, my skills with the stick were tight. Only one stall (and to be honest, the car was stopped and i thought it was in neutral, when it was actually in first so i took my foot off the clutch and bam, first stall within .5 seconds of having the car started), and lots of open highway to really enjoy what makes a manual car so much fun. It was so much fun, i am really considering getting a standard A4, though i don’t think houston will provide the expanse of open highways so i’m still on the fence (plus there are surprisingly few manuals for such a sport tuned car, so i might not have the choice to get one anyhow).

houston in a brief.

I always come up with great things to blog about while battling my insomnia, but unfortunately for you forget them when actually composing a post. I have a feeling as this blog continues to mold into the final product must read (this is currently the beta, albeit beta version 3.422343 or whatever) it’ll probably less posts, but better more calculated stories. So we’ll see.

 

My trip into houston this weekend served many purposes very well. The first being, seeing a certain william overton todd iv. It started in december when brett wise and tyler richards left us for their prospective career endeavors, but now the roommate diaspora is really starting to kick into full gear. So far matt perry has fled to sugarland, john hipp dallas, and now will todd to new york. I believe this means its down to me and smiley as the last two holding out of the working world. So we saw will (his name has shortened with each subsequent typing of it) off into oblivion (training for a certain investment bank, you couldn’t tell it when we go out to eat but he’s an investment banker (credit smiley for that last quote)).

The next reason for my trip into houston was to actually begin putting forth a slight effort to learn the city, and to actually begin analyzing it. I found that there is SOME method to houston’s madness, but was not impressed at all with the amount of traffic we encountered on a saturday. Coming to a stop on the major highway on a saturday makes me sick for what the weekday has in store for me. Houston comes up short in another area, zoning. Only in houston will you find no method to the madness when it comes to where buildings go and what type. A liquor store across the street from an elementary school, you betcha! This lack of control really helped houston grow to the size it currently boasts, but is also the key reason nice neighborhoods got run down quickly. Also, the general look of houston just isn’t as nice as say an austin or dallas. Despite having state of the art pro stadiums, the rest of the building design just isn’t as up to snuff. Granted they’re older, but still.

Houston does own dallas in lifestyle appeal. Dallas gives me the pretentious feel which i’m not really down with (i am however down with OPP, yea you know me), and houston doesn’t have that feel. Not saying there aren’t areas ( i hear mid-town, rice village, and galleria are supported by the yuppie lifestyle (i think i just named what could be my 3 favorite areas, crap)) that aren’t, but its a whole city kind of thing. 

All in all i think the move to houston is a good thing, and i’m definitely ready. I’ll be going against traffic to and from work, which again is a very good thing. The whole “everyone is leaving austin thing” is also making it very easy to make the move. Now if i could just convince smiley to move to houston we’d be set.

Take the money.

So elton brand screws goes back on his word with the clippers and signs for 82 million over 5 years with the 76ers. Here is my problem with people talking about “loyalty”, he was offered roughly 10 million more and took the money. If any of us had a rival company come offer us 10,000 much less 10,000,000 more, we’d jump in a second. Who are we to call professional athletes who have a very limited time to earn their income (based on the fact that once you hit your mid 30’s you’re essentially done) out on taking the money. Add that to the fact about the study that came out saying within 5 years of retirement, some astronomical number (i forget the exact %, but > 50%) go bankrupt, so there’s even more incentive for him to take the money.

My namesake (matthew) just got voted off shear genius and the character i was really pulling for, so i believe i have watched my last shear genius. Which is interesting, because normally i’ve written off all of these shows, but have become strangely addicted to these things, i think it started when i watched a certain episode of hells kitchen. This episode (my first ever) was actually part 1 of the finale, but to kick things off they showed highlights of EVERY preceding show, essentially catching me up on an entire seasons worth of missed shows. Gold.

CD’s ordered from Amazon:

Coldplay – Viva La Vida – duh. Whenever coldplay speaks, people listen. The problem with coldplay, is they’ve already reached the stadium cult status. Meaning i’ll never be able to see them live and really enjoy it, because i’ll be sitting on some lawn roughly 3 football fields away.

Colbie Caillat – Coco – Yes i finally walked the walk and bought the cd. Listened to the rest of the cd via youtube and actually enjoyed it. Still upset that i didn’t go see her when she came to town for not that much money.

 

And now as an added bonus i will post my workout log in the bottom of each post (which i will try to post daily)

Week 1:

Weight 180lbs (i’m only going to weigh myself once a week)

Day 3: Ran 1.5 miles on the treadmill, didn’t make the 2 but i’m supposed to be honest (and my pace was way too fast) completed the pushups/ pullups/ dips/ situps, swam for 15 minutes.

Felt a lot better after today then i did monday, though me and Jared made a joint decision to limit our t/th work (throttling back to just core work and swimming) because even superior athletes such as ourselves need time to let their bodies recoup.

behind the woodshed

Jared (brother in law) and myself have decided to kill ourselves with the remaining 9 weeks before we both lose ourselves and join the ranks of the working world. By “kill ourselves” i actually meant “get in the best shape of our lives”, but surely you can see how those two phrases are actually synonyms. Why we have done this is beyond me? Well i guess i know my reasoning, but i’m thinking his reasons are out of pure boredom. My reason is because ExxonMobil (yes i am working for that small oil company in houston. Every time i am asked that question and give them that answer, they look at me with such disdain i might as well have told them that i drown puppies, or work for the IRS. Both of those are apparently more respectable then working for an oil company. I politely disagree.) has its very own intramural leagues, and I plan to be an integral part of those (namely basketball). I’m not sure merrillynch has intramural leagues, or free time for that matter (part of the price you pay for being an investment banker is the knowledge that you’ll be in the office more often then not and here’s my proof. 24 hours a day x 7 days a week = 168 hours in the week. An analyst on average will work 90+ hours, sometimes during the heavy heavy times breaking well into the triple digits at about 110 hours. 168 hours – 100 hours leaves one with just 68 hours of free time during the week. Hours to sleep, take care of any non work related errands, be with your family etc. Yea its insane.)

Another factor is, i just watched both casino royale and all 3 of the bourne series. Those are the type of movies that motivate you to get in shape, in fact i might watch one of those 4 movies everynight during this 9 week extravaganza just as a little pick me up and to “keep my eye on the prize”.

Today was day 1, and its safe to say our workout took me out to the woodshed (who even has a woodshed even more?) and gave me quite a whoopin’. We’re trying the navy seal thing, which actually involves no weights, just a lot of cardio (like swim 5x a week a lot), and then pushups,pullups, and dips. Sounds easy in theory, but as i learned today just because navy seals can do it doesn’t mean i can. And that’s a lesson i think everyone should learn.

 

on a side note:

I just made an order on amazon using a gift card and 15 dollar off amazon coupon. The gift card was in the amount of 25$ one of those pre-paid visa gift cards. My order total after the discount was 31. I pushed submit thinking amazon was going to ask me to enter another card to handle the 6 dollars extra, but they did not. I just got a confirmation email saying my order went through and am now highly confused. Perhaps visa will send me a bill for 6 dollars?

The Legend of Ondo & Tomo

I’ve returned from the deep south (amazingly i had to travel south to “return from the south”). Virginia, at least for the Adams family (hey thats me!) always means 2 things, 1) Ondo and Tomo and 2) J Crew. I’ll explain the latter first, just to add to the confusion of traveling heading north to go back to the south. 

One random fact about lynchburg, the largest jcrew outlet resides there. My aunt said everyone in lynchburg has a second job at this shopping mecca, not to mention every student at liberty university (soon to be james hipp!) outfits their wardrobe from there. On top of already drastically marked down prices, they give a student AND teacher discount. Yowzas. Needless to say, the Adams make a visit to this randomly placed outlet store (unfortunately for me, the selection was a little thin).

The second non negotiable of lynchburg involves Ondo and Tomo, the famous search and rescue dogs that my uncle owns. Both are FEMA certified, and were flown down to save lives after katrina hit, and are the greatest dogs you have ever met. I know, i know, everyone says this about dogs that are close to them, but let me give you an example. When uncle Ron came down to austin last year, we went to a quiet sandwich shop for a bite to eat. While eating we were accosted by a random person, “you’re ondo’s owner!” was all he said. We were all taken aback. He had no idea who Ron was, but he had every idea who Ondo was. (Turns out he was the pilot of the plane that they flew down on, which if you were wondering yes Ondo is good enough to ride in the main cabin despite weighing roughly 65 lbs, far exceeding FAA’s limit). Whereas Ondo is the michael jordan of search and rescue dogs ( even going to Iran to help during the earthquakes years ago), Tomo is the LeBron James of search and rescue dogs, as he is the first ever to be dual certified search and rescue and drug/bomb detection. How bout them apples?

Pictures of them to come later.

On a side note:

I set my new wii bowling high with 259. My goal of a perfect 300 still aludes me and haunts my dreams.

Easterly.

I’m currently residing in the hidden community or morrisville, nc. Don’t get any ideas that this is some hidden community tucked into some quiet beach and i’m writing this as the waves of the atlantic come crashing into the beach. Saying i’m in morrisville would be much like someone telling you that they are staying in Round Rock (always a good thing) as oppose to Austin. Morrisville’s “Austin” is Raliegh, so in the most round about way ever, i am telling you that i’m in Raleigh, NC.

From here, my next stop will be the town of lynchburg, VA. Its weird that you can be in a state, drive northward and actually get more southern. Let me explain. I’m not saying north carolina doesn’t have culture, its just that i can’t find it. North Carolina is bordered by south carolina (duh) and Virginia. Those two states are so rich in culture it leaves NC seemingly bland. The drive into VA is one of my favorites (i’ve made this drive many times in my life) because life in VA just seems different. Gone are the cookie-cutter one size fits all housing developments that are taking over Texas, enter colonial and plantation style homes covering sprawling green hills surrounded by tall trees.

http://www.presidenthomes.com/QualityAndStyle/Styles/View.aspx?id=109

Plantation style homes are quite possibly my favorite, and if i ever custom build a home will hopefully be able to create something like this. Nothing screams seersucker and lemonade quite like this kind of home. How fitting would it be if i lived in one these houses while working for exxon? I feel i would be forced to come into work with a cowboy hat and bolo proclaiming the fact that i ”sell awl (oil)”.