Merry Christmas!

That's Kevin Jr. finishing decorating our house on Christmas Eve while Brian Cougar practices his funky Christmas chicken dance.

Well we had a very good Christmas Eve & day and are having a relaxing week off from work. We are mostly catching up on the holiday movies as we saw King Kong yesterday & the Chronicles of Narnia today. Kong started slow but the special effects were good especially the T-Rex fight & the final scene on top of the Empire State building. The only real problem with the movie were the three moronic teenage girls sitting in front of us at the Kings Plaza movie theater. They spent most of the movie yakking away and playing with their cell phones and then unbelievably stood up and left during the movie's final scenes. They heard a few non-holiday cheer choice words from me on their way out. I don't understand why jerks like these idiots even bother going to the movies and it makes me even less likely to attend in the future.

Narnia was OK and my wife thought it was good and followed the books pretty well. One scene was very heavy on the Christian religious symbolism which should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the works & life of C. S. Lewis. Since I haven’t read the books yet I found all the various creatures kind of confusing but that’s my problem not the movie’s.

I’m really a big time LOTR fan-boy so I was glad to discover that Lewis & J. R.R. Tolkien were real close homies back in the day.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

I can't believe how low Mike Tyson's career has come since he apparently, as seen in the lower right of this photo, has to moonlight as a Macy's parade worker and peek up the skirts of cheerleaders!

Say it ain't so Iron Mike!

The holiday went very well otherwise as we had lots of food and good company here in wonderful Brooklyn, NY, USA.

We even survived sitting through my brother-in-law's thinly disquised vacation video tape of their April trip to Puerto Rico. He tried to claim that it was actually a film about the search for a Ron Rico guy, but no one was buying what he was trying to sell.

Roland as a Wannabe?

My #1 son is a big time comic reviewer so he sent me a link detailing the big news that Stephen King has agreed to write a prequel to his Dark Tower series. It has some preliminary artwork for the upcoming Marvel comic series .

For all you non-DT fanboys, Roland Deschain is the central character of King's Dark Tower series. King wrote the first book when he was 19 years old and still an undergrad. He rewrote the first book in 2003 so, per SK, it woud better fit the style of the later six books in the series. He got part of the idea for the DT series from a poem from Robert Browning entitled "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came".

Anyway even though "...the series will be illustrated by Eisner-award winning artist Jae Lee.", he (Lee) apparently has a much different idea of how Roland looks than I do as my mental picture of Roland is of a taller & leaner version of Clint Eastwood as the Man with No Name, in Leone's classic spaghetti western series. Jae Lee makes him out to look like a wannabe mafiosi on 'roids, IMHO.

Why the %#@!$~ is "Yes, Dear" Still on the Air?

Way, way overdue for a new entry but I can't let this go.

Why, oh why is this idiotic, dumb, stupid, moronic, situation, so called, comedy still on the air on CBS? They have cancelled a very good show such as Joan of Arcadia and left this drivel in its Fall schedule! I think the programmers are all drunk over there at CBS or someone in the cast of that show is really really good in bed or something.

While I'm in my ranting mood have you seen that GEICO commerical where their spokesperson disses a caveman:

...And I like to laugh my butt off every time the thing plays. I have no idea who the actors playing the disgruntled cavemen are, but these guys are just fabulous, acting through heavy makeup, terrible wigs and bad teeth to evoke glacial effeminate indignation on an Oscar-worthy scale. Some of the best acting on television, “I’ll take the roast duck,” Caveman One says, while glaring menacingly at the GEICO guy, “with mango Salsa.” Followed by Caveman Two handing the waiter the menu back, “I don’t have much of an appetite,” and then settling into an icy glare at GEICO guy.
That caveman who is giving the icy glare is so friggin' obnoxious that I feel like jumping into the TV and slapping him silly every time that commerical airs on my TV.

Brooklyn Cyclones Opening Day in Coney Island

The view from Section 17 at KeySpan Park at the Brooklyn Cyclone Season Opener

That's a shot of the parachute jump flanked by the stadium light towers taken from our new seats in section 17, row C along the left field line at KeySpan Park. KeySpan is the home of the Brooklyn Cyclones a division A minor league affiliate of the New York Mets baseball club.

The Cyclones defeated their arch-rivals, the Staten Island Yankees, in their 2005 season home opener. A record crowd of 9,303 was on hand to witness former New York Met player Mookie Wilson make his managerial debut.

B Done Good!

Brian Christopher McGrath, BA

That's the Beemer in his Scranton University graduation togs with the hills of Scranton, PA in the distance. It was a nice graduation affair that was held at the Wachovia Arena in Wilkes-Barre, PA. The Scranton U band did a real nice job with the music at the ceremony. The keynote speaker, Jay Parini, was kind of a stiff, but he's a writer so I guess the spoken word is not his forte.

Mazel Tov, Brian!

Scranton Skinhead

The Beemer's New Graduation 'do!

Brian gets a retro crew cut in preparation for his graduation from Scranton University this coming Sunday. Congrats to the Beemer as he worked really hard this semester with baseball and some difficult classes. No seniorits for B!

Now get a job, Dude!

USAF T-birds over Brooklyn

USAF T-birds over Brooklyn
Originally uploaded by bluemagoo.

Taken on 5/26/05 with my cell phone camera while taking my lunchtime walk. They were in NYC as part Fleet Week 2005 activities. The Thunderbirds will be at Jones Beach in Long Island over the Memorial Day weekend.

Summer is finally here! Yabba-Dabba-Doo!

The Beemer Stands In at FDU

Brian looking very dangerous at the plate

That's #2 son, Brian Christopher, up at the plate against FDU Florham, this past Saturday out in Florham Park, NJ. His team, the University of Scranton Royals, lost both games of a DH, but Brian saw his first action of the season behind the plate as catcher in the last two innings of the second game. He also got one AB in the top of the 7th and he hit a sharp grounder to second base to be retired 4-3 for the next to last out of the game.

Brian only tried out for the team this season as a senior and I was gladly surprised that he made the final roster. He had played lots of baseball in our parish league and for his high school, but he wasn't interested about playing again until this year.

Go get 'em B!

Tim & Bob's Birthday Bash

Tim & Bob's Birthday Party Banner

We went to my brother Tim and his good friend Bob Ganley's combined 50th birthday party last night. The affair was held in the large catering hall at Buckley's bar & restaurant located at Nostrand Ave & Ave S in Brooklyn, NY.

I was overserved by the end of the night: