Reviews and More

When my husband went on a business trip to Texas last year, his associates took him to a professional rodeo in Mesquite. Jerry had never been to a rodeo before, and was at first a bit skeptical about how the event would turn out. But he ended up having an absolute blast there, so now he’s trying to convince me to go with him next time.

After checking around for more information, I agreed — but on one condition: that we attend the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas.

There are a couple of reasons that I’m choosing the NFR over other competitions. First of all, it’s the premier rodeo event in the country, routinely drawing around 170,000 fans during its 10-day run. Plus, all of the top cowboys and cowgirls show up to compete in the NFR, since there are eight world championship titles at stake in addition to a boatload of prize money.

The second reason I want to attend the NFR is that it’s in Vegas! I’ve never been to Vegas before, but have been dying to go ever since I played my first hand of blackjack on an Indian reservation casino 15 years ago. If we go to the NFR, we’d be killing two birds with one stone. Perfect!

Anyway, I know that National Finals Rodeo tickets are hard to come by, but since the event isn’t until December, I’m hoping we have a shot at getting good seats. If we’re able to pull this vacation off, I’m sure we’ll have an amazing time!

I just read that film director Anthony Minghella died early this morning in a London hospital at the age of 54. According to early reports, he apparently suffered a brain hemorrhage today, one week after having surgery for tonsil/throat cancer. The surgery was viewed as pretty routine, and one news source reported that Minghella appeared to have come out of it rather well, so the director’s death was definitely a shock.

Minghella’s film credits include Truly Madly Deeply, Cold Mountain, Breaking and Entering, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and The English Patient, for which he won an Oscar as Best Director in 1997.

He is survived by wife Carolyn Choa and one child.

Opening Day for Major League Baseball is just a week away, as the Boston Red Sox will take on the Oakland A’s in the Tokyo Dome on March 25. Daisuke Matsuzaka has already been named the Sox starter, so you can bet baseball fever will be raging at an all-time high for that matchup in Japan.

Even though I’m not a Boston or Oakland fan, I still have a stake in that game since Dice-K and Jacoby Ellsbury are on my fantasy baseball team. This will be my fifth year playing in a fantasy league, and I’m hoping to finish in the top-5 for the first time ever.

To me, fantasy baseball is much tougher than other fantasy sports leagues for a couple of reasons. For one thing, the season is so long that it’s hard to maintain an edge for all 162 games. Your players get injured, go through slumps, and get benched, which can make it difficult to keep a solid roster together. For another thing, it’s nearly impossible to stay motivated as a manager for the whole season — especially if you’re in the cellar after the first month or two. It’s just so frustrating when all of your moves backfire that quitting starts to look more and more attractive.

That’s why I think Fantasy Sports Prophet’s Fantasy Baseball Software would be a good buy. This software, which features web-based access, an advanced draft assistance tool, player rankings based on Predictive Modeling, and stats and injury updates, is designed to give fantasy baseball managers all the tools they need to put together a winning season.

Membership costs just $39.95 for the whole season, which I think is a fair price. In fact, when you consider that winning a fantasy baseball league can yield prize money of anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars, that membership fee seems like a very smart investment. Plus, if you sign up for Fantasy Sports Prophet’s Fantasy Baseball Software using the promo code BMC200, you can get $10 off, bringing the price down to $29.95 for the season. What a steal!

This really sounds like a product that can help me out with my roto league, so I’m seriously considering a membership here. I’ll let you know how it goes!

After more than three months of repeats, How I Met Your Mother was back with its first brand-new post-strike episode last night. It was called “No Tomorrow”, and served to push Ted’s character in a new direction. Although the ep itself wasn’t great, I am definitely excited that “nice Ted” will likely be coming back soon. Until then, here’s a closer look at what happened in episode 3×12.

Ted/Barney: Ted decides to go out with Barney to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day while Marshall and Lily opt to stay in and play board games. Barney soon convinces Ted that the universe is messed up that day, saying that they’ll actually get rewarded for doing bad things. Ted decides to test out Barney’s theory by: ditching their dates in line at the club to go in by themselves; ordering two bottles of Dom Perignon and putting it on someone else’s tab; and making out with a woman he knows is married. Each time Ted does one of these “bad” things, another “good” thing happens to him, so he believes Barney.

Of course, as with all of Barney’s theories, this one was full of crap. That was brought home to Ted when the guy whose bar tab he was running up punched him in the face.

The next day, Marshall replays the 17 voice messages that Ted left on his phone. Ted couldn’t believe how obnoxious he was, and Marshall tells him that it’s maybe time to grow up. Ted agrees.

Later, he realizes that he lost his phone at the bar. He goes back to try to find it, but it’s nowhere in sight. There’s a sudden downpour when Ted starts to leave, so he goes back inside, grabs a yellow umbrella, and walks home.

The yellow umbrella, of course, belongs to his future wife, which means this could be the start of their meeting/romance.

Marshall/Lily/Robin: These three go over to Marshall and Lily’s new place to check it out and hang some artwork. While there, they discover that the floor is slanted — so much so that they believe it will negatively impact their ability to live there. The only bright spot is that Robin invents a game called Apartment Luge, where the object is to ride a skateboard luge-style through the open front door.

At the end, Marshall and Lily decide to move back in with Ted until their floor gets fixed.

My Reaction: As I said above, this wasn’t a great episode, but I was definitely happy about a few things. First of all, I’m thrilled that jerk Ted will likely be a thing of the past. I haven’t liked him since the breakup with Robin, so hopefully Marshall’s much-needed wakeup call will work here. Season 1 and Season 2 Ted were great; Season 3 Ted has been all kinds of annoying.

Second, I’m glad the yellow umbrella has made yet another appearance. We probably won’t actually get a name or a face until the end of this season (or maybe not even until S4), but it’s nice to know that the writers are still throwing us a bone every once in a while.

Oh, and do you think the woman Ted literally bumped into at the bar will end up being the owner of the yellow umbrella? At first I did, so I even did a freeze-frame so I could get a good look at her face. For some reason, I don’t think she’s the one. That was probably just another fake-out.

And finally, it was good to see what was happening with Marshall and Lily’s apartment. I hated how that storyline was basically dropped almost as soon as it was brought up. The writers have to deal with it somehow, so I guess giving the apartment a slanted floor as an excuse to keep Marshall and Lily with Ted is better than nothing.

Overall, this was a decent ep. Not great, not bad. I’m just happy to have original episodes to look forward to for the next couple of months!