One Fantasy Short of a Great Summer

Its mid-August. Our always short summer was super short this year because it rained all of June. Baseball season is already approaching the playoff race, the Jazz have done their annual bonehead signings, and football is starting its preseason. What does this mean you ask? It means I should be researching my fantasy team...but I am not. I was challenged by Rebecca to skip fantasy sports for one year. I have made it so far, but I have to admit it is extremely hard to skip fantasy football. Something is definitely missing from my summer, not just laying on the beach that Utah doesn’t have, something more.

Normally, by now, I would have done a couple of mock drafts, read up on the progress of some players over the offseason, and watched a million fantasy break down videos on Yahoo. It is a definite obsession. Yet, I gave it all up because someone said I couldn’t. So far so good, I hope I am right.

I am hoping my fantasy sabbatical will help me get back to true fan-man-ship again. The downside to fantasy sports is that it makes me cheer for players versus teams. I have cheered against “my teams” in the past just because I wanted a fantasy teammate to do well when playing them. Purely selfish reasons, but winning the fantasy game became more important than “my team” making the playoffs. I am hoping this year allows me to just watch a game and appreciate the event.

I wrote about being a fan a few months ago. Asking the hard questions like “how does someone choose a team?” My goal in this no-fantasy football season is to put those questions to the test. Ask me when all is said and done if I still cheer for the New York Jets and the Green Bay Packers. Or better yet, ask me first if I really made it without covertly managing a fantasy league unbeknownst to my fellow fantasy-ers.

Karate Kid 1984 Versus Karate Kid 2010

I saw Karate Kid 2010 (from now on referred to as KK10) today. Warning, moderate spoiler potential throughout (though not much more than if you have seen the original!). I am liking the list format, so what follows is a list of reasons KK10 will never be the classic the first one was. I was hesitant to even see this movie, but I broke down and did it.

#1- No Elisabeth Shue. No elaboration needed on this one. She had to be the main crush of every boy in the 80’s. She is the only reason I watched Adventures in Babysitting 86 times. She was even hotter than Kelly Kapowski. Top 5 crushes for me in those days (in no specific order): Elisabeth Shue (Karate Kid, et al), Tiffany-Amber Theissan (Saved By The Bell), Maureen Flannigan (Out Of This World), Nicole Eggert (Charles in Charge), and Markie Post (Night Court). This may negate the argument to number 5 below, but this list is from the 80's in whole, so I was almost 15 as the 80's closed out. Which one of these surprised you the most?

#2- I like Jackie Chan, and appreciate him as an actor, but he is not Pat Morita. I understand and realize that they did not intend him to be, but you can’t help but make the comparison. Since Mr. Chan is named Mr. Han, there is no more Miagi-Go Karate either, which I considered a classic line from the first one. Jackie Chan also speaks English too well. One of the better parts of the original was that Mr. Miagi spoke fragmented English and reminded all of us of Yoda in both wisdom and sentence structure.

#3- I was really hoping for at least a Ralph Macchio cameo. Most remade movies give some type of cameo to the original actors. What were they thinking? They could have easily sneaked him in. I would have wagered a large amount of money that he was going to show up as one of the match referees. Are they called referee’s in Kung-Fu?

#4- The KK10 kid is named Dre Parker. Mr. Han calls him Shao Dre. Shao apparently means “little” in Chinese. That doesn’t even hold a candle to Daniel Laruso, Daniel-San. Shao-Dre? There is no ring to it. It was too forced, like the Friends episode when Ross tries to be like Joey.

#5- The main characters in KK10 were 12 years old. I have several problems with this... first the romance side of the story. 12-year-old boys and girls are not that into each other, at least in my world. (If they are, heaven help me! I know I didn’t care much about girls that young.) Also, they don’t fight to that extent. It worked so much better when they were high school age. Plus, they weren’t even fighting over the girl in this one. There was just a side love-story. I can’t even remember what they fought over.

#6- After watching the original, I felt like I had actually learned some Karate. I could easily mimic “wax-on wax-off,” “sand de deck”, and “paint de fence.” I practiced for months after seeing the show. I blocked many slaps from girls on dates using the very “wax-on wax-off” technique taught so many years earlier. KK10 used no such techniques. The method used to teach Shao-Dre is confusing and not easily learned by the movie-goer. “Jacket-on jacket-off?” WTF?

#7- Seriously, Elisabeth Shue was nowhere to be found. Nothing against the new girl, except that she is not Elisabeth Shue.

#8- The whole sequence of the Sensai telling the quarter-final opponent to take out the leg, disqualifying himself and putting the Karate Kid out of the contest(referring to both movies here). In KK10 all suspense is lost because it is in Chinese with subtitles. This also ruins the command to “Sweep the leg” when The Karate Kid returns to fight the final match. In the original this is such a huge moment in the contest, and so far-reaching that it really should have been done better in the newbie. Also the KK10 Sensai is not anywhere near as evil looking/acting/glaring/smelling? as John Kreese was in the original. The whole sequence lost all of its luster for me, almost like finding out that Luke and Leia were brother and sister after they nearly made out.

#9- Some of the classic lines that fed the drama and the plot were completely left out. One of my all time favorites: “You’re going out in a body bag!” yelled from the sidelines by a fellow Cobra Kai fighter. Another one spoken by Mr. Miagi when Daniel-san is training in a boat while Miagi is fishing. Daniel-san is working on balance and form standing on the edges of a row boat when he asks Mr. Miagi when he is going to learn to punch. Miagi has already told him to have patience and learn other things first, but Daniel-san persists. Finally, in this scene Miagi says, “Learn how punch when learn how stay dry!” as he rocks the boat throwing Daniel-san into the water. He then has a classic Miagi laugh and says, “you all wet Daniel-san!” Classic.

#10- That reminds me, the Cobra-Kai equivalents are called the Dragon-Slayers. Lame, nay, double lame.

#11- Did I mention no Elisabeth Shue? It hurts to think about it now.

#12- The Crane Kick. The hallmark move of the first movie takes a backseat to some Cobra-tamer thing. The drama, once again, is lost. No building excitement like with the original. I remember as the feeble, broken Daniel-san set up for the Crane-kick at the end of the first one, you hoped he could pull it off. After all, Mr Miagi said it was “indefensible” if done correctly. Then wham! He kicks Johnny Lawrence right in the temple for the third point and the win. The newbie does this weird Cobra stare down that they barely address earlier in the movie, and for it to become a finishing move was more anti-climatic than the closing scene of Beaches. (No I never watched Beaches to the end, but I can imagine after seeing the first 15 minutes.)

Overall, I think the movie was good, but they should have called it Karate Kid: The Next Generation.

Mix Tapes

Itunes (and similar programs) are the coolest. I love that I can just get online and pay 99 cents when a song gets stuck in my head. I love that my "eye" pod can hold 42.6 million songs. I love that I can add songs to playlists at the click of a button. I was making a playlist the other day and my mind was taken back to junior high days. Back when I made mix tapes out of my favorite one hit wonders and favorites because I was too poor to buy the whole album. Remember the days of sitting in front of the boombox ( I innocently called mine a ghetto-blaster) for hours waiting to hear the song you were dying to have a copy of? Hoping you pushed record fast enough when it did come on and then hoping the DJ would not talk over the end of it? Remember also making a voodoo doll of the DJ when he did talk over the song? It was so nice to finally get the ghetto blaster with two tape decks so I could record from one cassette to the blank without having to sit by the radio all day saturday.

I remember making the fisrt mix tape for a girl I liked too. I think she appreciated it more because she knew I had to sit by the radio for hours finding just the right songs. I also remember a hate tape. Me and an unnamed friend made a hate tape for an unnamed girl that liked someone else instead of me. We had CD"s by then and spent hours finding just the right mix of songs to insult this girl. The girl's brother was an office aide and got a hold of the tape. He was so mad at me that he shredded the tape, put it into a brown lunch bag and had it delivered to my classroom as if I had forgotten my lunch. I feel so bad thinking back to this day because it was such an awful thing to do, plus I really had forgotten my lunch so the temporary excitement of thinking my mom had saved the day by bringing my lunch was shattered when I learned it was just the cassette tape. Good thing I peeked before lunch, I would have really been hungry.

Yep, the kids of today have it easy. I remember the first cassette I purchased. I still have it. Endless Summer by the Beach Boys. (I could not find a picture of the cassette cover, so the CD has to do) I also remember buying INXS kick and Poison by Bell Biv Devoe. Anyway, I digress.

My mind then fast forwarded to prom. I spent hours before prom making a U2 compilation from all my CD's so we could all listen to it. It was such a good mix of U2 and in such a perfect order that I was quite pleased with myself. I remember the limo driver was quite pleased with the tape also because at the end of the night he bought the mix tape off of me for 15 bucks. Of course, he got the upper hand because he charged us a grundle for the limo ride.

So even though I love the Itunes world and the new way we find music, I think it should be a right of passage. We should graduate into music technology. I think the jr high kids should have to earn their right to use ITunes by spending hours waiting for their song to come across the radio and hope the DJ doesn't talk over it. They should have to spend hours searching through CD's to find the right mix and order of songs to put on a mix tape for that high school crush.

Soda Flop

Many of you have written about your soda pop addictions. Endless stories about your daily need for a Diet Coke, Dr Pepper, or Tab. Soda pop has also been a previous topic for me, written about at least as a couple paragraphs about how I successfully quit drinking all things carbonated and caffeinated.

Well, throw that right out the window. I blame the flavor. Or perhaps my overwhelming need for flavored drinks? Whatever the excuse, I am back on the wagon, or is it off the wagon? (Seinfeld?) I was doing so good for over 2 years. Not a drop of a caffeinated or carbonated beverage. Then a rootbeer float slipped in. I made excuses that it was okay because, c’mon! Rootbeer Float! So one rootbeer float progressed to several rootbeer floats a month. That progressed to 2 or 3 in one sitting. Later came an upset stomach-which I haven’t had for years by the way. Everyone knows the best treatment for a bad belly is Sprite or 7Up. So I caved in a had a Sprite. And then more rootbeer floats. Now its pretty much game on. I lost the battle. I drink Sprite, Rootbeer, or Canada Dry whenever I feel the need. I can blame others to some extent, every hospital has a refreshment fridge for us when we bring patients in by ambulance. There is always a Sprite or a Rootbeer staring me in the face. Its hard to say no to free stuff.

So soda days are back on. I am still doing good on caffeinated drinks, still haven’t had one for nearly 3 years now. But, oh how I crave me a Cherry Pepsi. Maybe addictions never go away?

Sluff With Me?

It is late, once again, and due to the Hurricane force winds blowing right outside the fire station window, I am unable to sleep. If I can't sleep, why not blog right?

Well, hop into your Delorians and come back in time with me. Back to my first ever sluffing experience in Junior High School. So there we are, hanging out at Brockbank Junior High School. Home of the Braves. I was such a good student. Tried real hard to get good grades, and got them. Also tried hard to not be the awkward nerd of the class. Yeah. Well, one day I decided it was time to see what this sluffing stuff was all about. It took me three weeks to build up the courage to go through with it. My only experience missing school when I was suppose to be in class, up to this point of my life, was for ski club (not counting illnesses and other things that keep you at home.) Alas, the day came for me to play hookie. I am sure I was scared to death. Knowing me, I probably ran through every "what-if" scenario there ever was. Somehow I still convinced myself that it was a good idea. I also talked a few friends into joining me. (This began a motto that I only recently realized I have followed much of my life: " Don't be famous alone." In other words, if you are going to get in trouble, make sure you get in trouble as a group!)

Our group of newly made sluffers hightail it away from Brockbank up to 3100 South to catch the good old UTA number 37. I, or we, had decided to go see a movie. The 37 bus went to Valley Fair Mall and then 1 simple transfer to another bus stopped at the movie theater by the Arbys on 5400 South. I am not positive, but I think it was called Mann Movies 6. (Not sure what it's called now, but it is still there.) There was a new movie about surfing that we all wanted to see. Safely on the bus, riding to the upper east side of Taylorsville was such a rush. Sluffing was so easy. We didn't even get chased and the bus driver let us on for our 35 cents in change (scrounged earlier that day by begging everyone for their nickels at the vending machine.) If the bus driver didn't say anything, surely we were 'scott-free.' I don't remember much about the bus ride. I am sure I was nervous about making the right transfer. I am sure we all had stories about how cool it was gonna be and how cool and grown up and brave we were for pulling this off. The movie was surely going to be a good one as well. Movies were probably way better when watched during school hours.

So we make our transfer and get to the movie place. Jazey Drecksel and I saw Terminator 2 opening day at that movie house. We thought we were cool on that day also because Jazey's older sister gave us a ride and bought us the tickets because it was rated 'R'. We were only 15 and she was 18.

Back to sluffing...once at the movie house we went up to the ticket window after searching over the movies and proudly bought our tickets for.......BEACHES. We knew there was a new surfing movie playing, so a movie named Beaches had to be the one, right? Once inside, we loaded up with huge popcorn buckets, drinks and candy and carefully chose our seats. You remember how you were in Jr High, thinking you knew the exact best seat to choose at the movies. Well, that's how we were.

My memory after that is even more shady than it has been to this point. I remember lasting about 10-15 minutes through the first part of Beaches (which seemed much longer than waiting for U2 to release something after Joshua Tree) and then getting out of there faster than we had ran from Brockbank. Surely we were cursed. Suddenly sluffing was not that cool. Our future manhood not only challenged but quite possibly irreparably scarred. I am positive it temporarily stunted our growth. We thought for sure we were being punished for skipping school. I really don't remember going home, or back to school-the rest of the day is forever purged from memory. I do remember not sluffing for quite a while after that. I still have not seen past the first 15 minutes of Beaches either.