I should really consider never going to the movies by myself. It seems that every time I do, the movie I see is a complete disaster. I give you The Omen (remake) and Timeline as two examples. That's not to say that every thing I see with my wife or family is good, but the solo endeavors rarely turn out well. I'll leave it to you to guess what happened when I saw Rush Hour 3 alone last weekend. The review is posted above.

I apologize to my fans (all 2 of you not counting my wife) for not posting a new Mouthing Off last Friday. Unfortunately I was swamped at work last week. This week and the next don't look any better with school starting. I alone have to try to get the entire College of Education's faculty on board with LiveText. I have had no fewer than two meetings every weekday for the past week. Because of the work expected of me for the next few weeks, it's very unlikely I'll get my latest movie reviews written or even write blogs.

I could work on my web site, but the last thing I want to do after working all day is to come home and work on something else. If I felt like I was sitting at my desk more than an hour a day for lunch (if that long), maybe I would be more inclined to do some web work. I've decided (at least for Mouthing Off) to take some time off until after Labor Day. This will give me some time to celebrate my wedding anniversary, engagement anniversary and the trips we have planned to go to Biloxi and Memphis (Cowboy Mouth concert on the roof of the Peabody) respectively. Now I'm off to try to enjoy the rest of my evening before the cycle starts again tomorrow.

It's hard to believe that I haven't been to a movie in a month. As surprising as it sounds, I haven't climbed aboard the Harry Potter bandwagon. I've never been a Simpsons fan and the last Bourne movie was so terrible, I had no interest in seeing the third (much like the Matrix trilogy). So along comes a movie that has seen very little press which is odd for a major release. Being a movie by Neil Gaiman, who has comic book ties, I only found out about Stardust through my comic sources on the net. It's a quirky movie, but quite entertaining. If you've never heard of Stardust or you aren't sure what the movie is even about, check out my review.

As I sat in my office today working, blood curdling screams came from down the hall in place of the rather loud chatter that had been filling the air seconds before. I paused, wondering what had happened, and cursed under my breath about the rather loud mouth of the wench screaming. Almost every day she comes in, I get to listen to her phone conversations because she is the loudest human being on Earth. It's not like we have neighboring cubicles. We each have actual offices and her office is two down from mine. Anyway, I digress. After a few seconds, she loudly pleaded for me to come down to her office. When I stepped into the doorway of her office, she was sitting on her knees in her chair quivering in fright at a bug on the floor. Granted, this bug was a pretty big cockroach that obviously wanted a little A/C, but she was acting like it was a mouse ready to run up her pants. The bug was alive but barely moving while she sat about 8 feet away cringing. I scooped the bug up on some cardboard and took him outside where he probably melted in the heat. I've never seen anyone react like that to a bug. You'd think a serial killer just stepped out from behind the door the way she screamed. Had that been a mouse, I wonder if she'd be in the hospital now with a heart attack.

This week's Mouthin' Off is Maggie Don't Two-Step from Cowboy Mouth's Word of Mouth CD. This version is sung by Paul although Rob used to sing it when he was with the band. Nothing against Sonia, Mary or Regina, but I miss Rob. He has always had a friendly demeanor and had a funny ants in his pants dance. Anyway, enjoy and have a good weekend.

On the Nintendo Wii, there exists a channel called Everybody Votes Channel. Several times a week, they post a question for people to answer and predict what the overall response will be. The concept is simple and mildly addictive, but stupidly entertaining for some reason. The questions asked are typically random posturings that come out of nowhere such as "Can you name 10 presidents?" or "Do you sleep with the window open or closed?" Thousands of people participate in these surveys and provide some rather interesting facts. The following were compiled and listed in the latest Nintendo Power magazine (September 2007).

• Puerto Ricans will probably ask for health over money from a genie if given the choice.
  
• North Carolinians couldn't care less about Bigfoot. (I'm assuming Bigfoot refers to the hairy creature and not the monster truck)
  
• Alaskans and Mainers (is that a word) would rather teach their dog to read instead of speaking.
  
• Alabama women are skeptical of life on other planets
  
• Women in Utah are much more likely to give you a kidney.
  

One thing I hate about video games is the need for the game to "cheat" for the sake of difficulty. It's one thing for programmers to develop a game with quality AI. But, when programmers resort to cheap tricks to "increase the difficulty", it really ticks me off. Last night, Erika and I played Cars for 5 hours. I spent most of that time trying to get through two near impossible races. Since these races are in the latter part of the game, the programmers tried to make them more difficult. Here is their idea of making a race difficult:

• Make the player's car wreck for absolutely no reason near the end of the race.
  
  Near the end of a road race that takes about 10 minutes, my car would suddenly shift over and hit a wall. It was as if the game calculated that I had a good chance of winning, slammed my car into the wall and let all the other cars pass me with about half a lap remaining.
  
  
• Make the slightest bump cause the player's car to create exaggerated crashes with lots of flipping and skidding.
  
  This happened too many times to count again typically in the last half of the last lap. During the rest of the race, a little tap wouldn't do much other than slow me down and make me re-adjust my car on the track. However, toward the end of the race the same little taps I received previously in the race caused me to flip over and slam into a boundary.
  
  
• Ram the player's car into a wall and hold it there.
  
  This happened more on the NASCAR type races found in the game and made my blood boil to the point that I had to step away and cool off for a few minutes before the remote went through the TV. What made it even worse was that the lead cars weren't blocking my progress, it was the cars at the back of the pack that had been lapped. They never bothered any of the other cars that had lapped them, just me.
  

So to all of you aspiring game designers, make sure you learn how to develop games that "think" instead of resorting to cheap tricks to make a game more difficult.

It's Friday again and time for another dip into the Cowboy Mouth library. We just received word this week that Cowboy Mouth will be singing some of their new songs off of their upcoming CD at the New Orleans show at the end of September. While we had originally planned on skipping the show due to logistics with work and driving, the decision on whether or not to go has resurfaced. As much as I want to go, I hate the drive to New Orleans especially after a day of work. But, I certainly don't mind seeing a Cowboy Mouth show. On that note, here's this week's Mouthin' Off selection: Can't Stay Here featuring John Thomas Griffith from the album Uh-Oh.

It's nice to see Victoria's Secret branching out into men's clothing. I got a coupon the other day for a free panty and $10 off a bra. I think their promotions department made a little mistake though. It should be manty, not panty. I don't think many men will buy something called a panty for themselves. While I realize that men are large creatures, isn't it a bit insulting for VS to make bras for men? In either case, I'm glad they thought about me. Even though I've never bought anything from them nor subscribed to their catalog, I apparently fit their profile of men who enjoy wearing underwear that only covers their butt crack. Thank you Victoria's Secret for your thoughtfulness of my manly needs.