Yo Adriaaaaaaan!

It's here. My Rocky five disc box set arrived in today's mail, just in time. SPC Fleck went on a trip to Baghdad recently and returned with a copy of the new Rocky Balboa movie on DVD. So now I've got to knock out the first 5 flicks and prepare myself for the 6th. Good times.

Two days away from Cotton Bowl kickoff. I plan on posting thoughts on the big game some time tomorrow, if everything falls into place. We're planning another watch party in the Colonel's office, although this time with an added twist. Should be a good time. Stay tuned.

Christmas time

Today is Christmas day, although being over here in Iraq it pretty much feels like every other day. Now that we've crossed the threshold into our 10th month of duty here in the desert, the routine day to day schedule has turned into a groundhog day type situation: it's the same darn thing, day after day after day. On special occasions (like Christmas) you need to throw a wrench into things in order to make it feel different, more important. Our unit's favorite wrench is a good bar-b-que party. On the evening of 24 December our unit had a Christmas grill out to celebrate the holiday. Here are the pictures to prove it.

Grillzila, breathing fire, ready to devour whatever cut of meat we throw it's way. Awesome.

Soldiers mingling about during the Christmas party. We even had a tree set up, with lights and candy canes and everything. Aren't we festive?
Everyone gathered around the plasma to enjoy holiday classics. Currently playing in the above picture is the outstanding Christmas Vacation. Right after this we watched It's a Wonderful Life. Good times.
Here is my choice cut of meat for the night, a thick and juicy 1.9 pound t-bone beauty just before it's tossed onto Grillzila. Delicious.
Grillzilla brought her A game for the festive event. My steak was cooked to perfection.
SSG Johnson, SFC Kerchal, SGT Kane, SFC Washington and myself, gathered around the table enjoying our food and taking in a holiday classic on the screen.

Close-up shot of your favorite Army man, getting ready to devour half a cow.

The remains of my fierce battle with the t-bone. Notice the high quality fork, sans one blade. The t-bone may have won the battle, but I sure as heck won the war. Terrific.

Random musings

Quick movie update:

• Turistas I won't go into this one too much, simply because it really isn't worth my time. SGT Kane has already done a nice little job on this movie over on his site (read about it here). I think Turistas might end the year as the worst movie I've seen. I've seen a decent amount of flicks, so that's saying something. Don't waste your $8 - don't even waste your $2 at the late run theater. I would recommend visiting the dentist over seeing Turistas. Seriously.
• The Pursuit of Happyness An unexpected winner. I have always like Will Smith's work, but this is definitely different than your usual flashy, showy, Smith blockbuster (Independence Day, Men In Black, etc.). This movie is stripped down, and doesn't feature a star-studded supporting cast or expensive special effects. This film is all about Smith, and he delivers in spades. His co-star is his real life son, who makes a nice film debut. The movie is "based on real events", although I'm not really sure what that means these days in Hollywood. Happyness (the misspelling is explained, don't worry) is a nice uplifting holiday movie - something you could take the family to on Christmas night, for example. I highly recommend. And kudos to Smith for taking a chance on role that he obviously cares about, instead of mailing it in with a big-budget blockbuster. Mad props.
• Jackass Number Two I went into this leery of the sequel money grab. Shame on me for my lack of faith. Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera and crew deliver with another laugh out loud, slap your thigh funny film. If you liked the first, you will love the second. I promise. One of the 2 or 3 funniest movies I've seen all year - possibly the funniest. Highly recommended.
• The War Tapes I bought this DVD at the bazaar. I had heard good things about this film last summer when it made the indie theater circuit and was hoping I could get my hands on the DVD. Nice little independent film following a couple National Guard soldiers like myself throughout their year long deployment to Iraq. This film won best documentary of 2006 at Tribeca Film Festival. Go on down to your local Blockbuster and pick this up for a quality rental and an authentic look at what Iraq is like from a soldiers point of view.
• Casino Royale SFC Kerchal bought this DVD at the bazaar and the quality was superb. I loved this movie, which is saying something since I don't consider my fan much of a Bond fan, historically speaking (I know, I know - I'm disgrace of a man for saying so). I thought Daniel Craig was an awesome choice for Bond. Much better than ol Brosnan. The action was fast and exciting, the girls were gorgeous, and I thought the plot and storyline held up well. A guy can't ask for much more than that. I believe this film is coming to our theater soon, and I'm already looking forward to seeing it again, in all of its big screen glory.
• Rocky Balboa I haven't seen this one yet, but I'm including it on the list simply to let you all know that I'm really looking forward to it. I've read enough good reviews to warrant getting my hopes up, and after reading this article from the Sports Guy I went right on over to my favorite store and ordered the Rocky Anthology on DVD. I hope to time it just right so I can receive the boxed set, watch all 5 movies on DVD and then have Rocky Balboa show up in the theater. Wish me luck.

Well that's all for now. Merry Christmas to everyone and I will check in after the holidays with some thoughts on the big Husker bowl game match up.

Grandma knows best!

Wanted to take an opportunity to say thanks to my Grandparents for the awesome Christmas care package they sent my way a few days ago. Grandma put together some peanut butter cookies, some peanut brittle, and a batch of snicker doodles to boot (my favorite). All were delivered in decorative Christmas tins. To top it all off, she even threw in a bright red stocking packed full with Salted Nut Rolls! Well done Grandpa and Grandma - I appreciate it very much!
Me with the prize - a Christmas stocking overflowing with Salted Nut Rolls. Terrific.

I wanted to take a picture of the tins full of homemade cookies, but before I could get that done my co-workers and I had polished them all off. So I had to settle with a picture of an empty tin - take that as a compliment Grandma!

3 years? Holy cow...

My how the time flies. As of today, I've been courting Nicki for exactly 3 years. I can't believe it's been that long. Craziness. To celebrate, I am posting a couple pictures of my better half and I for your viewing pleasure. Love you Nicki! The first picture on record of the stunning couple. This was taken at Nicki's mom's house during Christmas 2003.
Chillin at the welcome home bash my Grandparents threw for me when I was home on leave in July.
We look good, right? I think so.

It's Christmas time

Christmas is in the air, even here in Iraq. Our dining facility has had Christmas decorations up for weeks, and we've actually had a run of cold weather over the last few days, which makes it feel like winter (kinda). As we all know, Christmas just isn't Christmas without a tree. Well, evergreens aren't very common out in the desert, so any plans of putting up a tree to celebrate the holiday season rests on family and friends back home. Fortunately for me, my girlfriend Nicki's family has come through and delivered a little slice of holiday goodness to my roommate and I. The Blazek's sent a box of holiday snacks and goodies, highlighted by the pre-light Christmas tree they thoughtfully included. I wanted to put this post together as a thank-you to the Blazek's for their kindness. Here is the tree, in all it's splendor.

Close up of the tree. Gorgeous, no?

The tree is just so festive - it really sets off the room!

Carrie Underwood

American Idol winner and country music star Carrie Underwood made the trip across the big blue sea to come visit some troops in Iraq. She made a stop at Anaconda yesterday and SGT Kane and I were lucky enough to see her perform. Her show took place inside our movie theater, which seats less than 800 people. Due to the small size of the venue, the powers that be decided to distruibuite tickets to the event. Only those servicemembers who were fortuante enough to get their hands on a ticket would be able to see Carrie perform. Our base is home to over 20,000 people, so our odds of grabbing a ticket were slim. SGT Kane and I were optimistic we would somehow score one of the tickets, but I don't think either one of us figured we would both be lucky enough to snatch a ducket. A few things fell into place (thank you SPC Fleck and SPC Benes) that made the whole thing possible. Unfortuantley, the theater lighting is not very condusive to concerts and picture taking and what not, so most of my pictures didn't turn out all that well. I have another source for pictures though, and if that comes through I'll post some more later today. Here is a picture taken after the concert with Carrie, Kane and I and a couple other servicemembers.

November Movie Wrap-up

Nothing too new to report on this end (other than that crushing defeat at the hand of the Sooners last night in the Big XII Championship Game, which I would rather forget) so I'm gonna mail it in with a new movie post. Enjoy.

• Deja Vu This movie stars Denzel Washington. Denzel is usually a pretty reliable bet to act in quality movies. His body of work (Glory, Malcom X, Philadelphia, The Hurricane, Training Day, Man on Fire) supports this theory, from my vantage point. So when a new Denzel flick comes to the local cinema, I usually consider it worthy of my hard earned dollar. Factor in that my current local cinema is free, and that makes any Denzel show a must-see. I went into Deja Vu with zero knowledge of the premise, story or cast (other than the star). I must say that I wasn't overly impressed with this movie, nor was I overly disappointed. I would have to say I'm fairly neutral on it overall. I think Denzel does a fine job, and the set-up is decent, but the movie suffers from a few flaws that pretty much kills everything for me. About half way into Deja Vu the audience is basically asked to suspend reality, accept that what we're being told is true (even though everyone is scratching their heads and muttering about how impossible this is) and then the rest of the way out we must continue to just enjoy the movie for the entertainment, and not for any real substance or meaning. After leave the theater, SGT Kane and I discussed a few alternative endings that could have made the movie more interesting or might have made you think a little more, but the folks in charge instead decided to stick with a fairly Hollywood ending. I can understand what they were thinking - they didn't want to leave the audience upset, and wanted to stick with the safe play. This may bring the movie a few more dollars at the box office, but if they really wanted to please me the audience, I think Deja Vu should have ditched some of the physics lessons and worked harder on a meatier plot with a less contrived ending. I think the risk would have paid off. All in all, Deja Vu is a decent flick and Denzel doesn't disappoint, but nothing here is worth remembering.
• The Black Dahlia On paper, The Black Dahlia packs quite a punch. The director is a proven winner, as he was at the helm for gems like Scarface, The Untouchables, Carrie - heck he directed the first Mission Impossible, which was alright. The cast (Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank) is loaded with big names. Throw all of this goodness into one melting pot and you should come out with a sure-fire gem, right? In the case of The Black Dahlia - wrong. Poor execution, shoddy acting, a confusing plot and a slow pace kill whatever high hopes this movie may have had. I'm not familiar with the story of The Black Dahilia (if you want to know, go here) and I'm not sure if that may have helped or not, but I'm guessing I'm not the only one who waltzed into the theater with no prior knowledge of the story. The movie is put together well, with 1940s era clothing, cars, and everything else. The problem for me was that the story just didn't flow right, and the ending left much to be desired. A little too long and weird for my tastes, and a good example of a well known director and good cast not always being able to deliver solid results. I can't even recommend this for a rental. If you really want to see De Palma run a quality show, go rent this or this. You will thank me.