Straight Away

I want take my mini cooper for a spin

Baltimore Grand Prix is in town again. This is the view from the finishing straight. I walked this after yesterday’s Orioles-ChiSox game. I drove this earlier this month after an Orioles-Royals game. I drove it in my Cooper S. I shot the gap along the left fence between cars as I raced to Presidents Street and I-83. I think it would be really fun to take the Cooper S around the entire course. Let’s do that next year!

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

69-57

Ballgirl 2012

Last year the Orioles finished the season with 69 wins. Here we are with a month left in the season, and the Orioles have tied last season’s win total. It’s starting to feel good to be an Orioles fan. We’re still in this thing. No more #podpeople just good ball players grinding out the wins. There’s still plenty of time left in the season, but for once a game in late August means something in terms of the playoffs.

Playoffs! And the team had sent out the playoff ticket request package. With my season ticket plan, I get 3 games one in the Division Series, one in the Championship Series, and one in the World Series. They cost as much as my 13 game plan. Ridiculous prices and due soon. Decisions. Decisions. Welp, if you’re driving the bandwagon, you’re gonna have to fill up the tank.

Who’s with me? Come on Baltimore! Come out and support your team.

Link of the Day [8.25.12]

I’m currently on a Yasujiro Ozu kick, because, in reality, I’m on a Setsuko Hara kick. I’ve finished up his and her collaboration in the Noriko “trilogy,” Late Spring, Early Summer, and Tokyo Story. I find that Late Spring is the best of the three, and that Early Summer is a comedy.

I’m slowly tracking down Ozu’s films from Criterion looking for that Eclipse box set with late Ozu and a mature Hara. She’s also in a couple of Kurosawa films also in an Eclipse box set.

Hara is especially fascinating. She’s still alive and was the model for the Satoshi Kon’s Millenium Actress. I need to catch more of her films.

http://www.criterion.com/people/2737-setsuko-hara

The Expendables 2

I never saw the first one, because I believe that with a movie like The Expendables 2 you don’t need the first to know what’ll happen with the second. Of course, with big bangs and explosions, that’s all you really need to know about The Expendables 2.

The plot was also expendable. It had something to do with stolen Russian radioactive material. These terrorists need to be stopped. They will be stopped by Stallone and company. Van Damme was the baddy. There was a cameo by Chuck Norris. Schwarzenegger and Willis reprise their roles from the first one (at least that’s what I got from watching the first movie’s trailer on YouTube).

I turned off my mind and watched the pretty explosions. Although, there was a lot of CGI blood spurts and bad CGI head asplosions. It was all so funny. So very, very funny.

2 of 5 stars.

Cuba de Ayer

Just got back from an early dinner at Cuba de Ayer in Laurel. Cuban food takes me back to my days at the U. I also wore my new University of Miami cap with the old style ‘M’ script. I was like a young kid again.

I had the bistec with black beans and rice and friend plantains. Yum. I miss black beans and rice. Theirs made me smile it was good.

What’s weird about Cuban food is that some of it really is like Filippino food. The bistec I had? Just like my mom’s bistec! There was picadillo on the menu. It’s like my mom’s except that it comes with raisins and olives. There’s pork chops and there’s lechon just like my mom’s. I guess that’s why I like Cuban food; it’s Filippino style!

The Bourne Legacy

You never knew that there were so many secret super soldier programs in the US military industrial complex until you see The Bourne Legacy. Every branch of the service has their own not to mention the 3 letter agencies. Jason Bourne was just a tip of the iceberg; there’s plenty more where he came from. Just go down the block. You’ll find another.

The Bourne Legacy is all about Jason Bourne, and what he means to all the super soldier programs that have not been revealed. It takes place alongside the final two films of the previous trilogy as the secret of Treadstone/Black Briar is revealed. It means that Jeremy Renner’s super soldier program is compromised, and it’s showrunners, Ed Norton and Stacy Keach, have to shut it down before it, too, is brought before a Senate committee. They’ll shut it down by killing everything associated with it, as if you didn’t know. Never work on a secret super soldier program or be a secret super soldier, because they’ll terminate your contract with extreme prejudice.

Renner, in my opinion, is the perfect next Bourne. Every time I see him, I expect something drastic to happen, something bad. He’s always on edge. You know something bad was coming. Something like a heat seeking missile! Boom! There goes the super soldiers!

And they also had to eliminate the other workers, too. What a job. So Rachel Weisz had to run like Lola; and her story arc was similar. Is there a chance that she’ll make it through the next Bourne movie alive? Repeat. At least we know that they’ll have a decent life in the PI.

3 of 5 stars.