JJ and Dave's Wedding Reception

This afternoon Team Slap was happy to attend the wedding reception of JJ and Dave, held at Maggiano's at Mayfair Mall. As you can see from the tabletop menu, it was a heck of a meal (not to mention an open bar for soda/wine/beer). 

Frankly, there were soooo many good appetizers in such abundant quantities that I was well past full by the time the main course was served - not that that stopped me!

Note that Lisa and I didn't look too shabby! 

Neither LuLu nor Smiley could attend because of work obligations (although Lu did JJ's hair early in the afternoon). But Lisa's Mom was there

As was Junie and YaYa

and YaYa's long time beau, Alex

An elderly couple (friends of the bride's Mother) were seated along at a nearby table and Lisa invited them to join us, and they did!

This "butter cake" - whatever that means - was to die for. My word!!

Here's wishing the newlywed couple decades of love and happiness!

On Combined No-Hitters

I know there's been 20 combined no hitters in MLB history, one of which belongs to the Brew Crew, with the latest of them being thrown by the Tigers today. 

Huzzah. I'm happy for them.

But . . .

Why the heck does that even count? 

For one guy to go out there and thrown a complete game, getting 27 outs without surrendering a hit, that's impressive. 

It takes skill, control, luck, and perhaps most importantly of all, stamina. Folks don't pitch complete games in the modern game, they just don't. So come the 8th inning, when their  arm is aching and they're running on fumes, and the opposing batters can sense blood in the water, it's just plain grit and skill that enables them to power though. 

Where exactly does that last bit come into play in a combined no-hitter? 

Oh, you're tiring out in the 6th. Boo hoo. Let's yank you out for a fresh arm. Oy, your replacement isn't very good against lefties and the 8th is full of them? No matter, new guy on the mound. 

To me, celebrating a combined no-hitter is like bragging about getting a perfect score on a test, when you subbed in another guy to do the algebra bit, and then had the math wiz step in to solve the big calculus problem at the end. 

Some things just shouldn't be a group effort. Period. 

License Plates

This post isn't really for public consumption. I just thought it would be neat to track how fast it'll take me to see a license plate from all 50 states (and DC I suppose). Just the first appearance, not subsequent ones. I hope to update this over time. Anyhow, feel free to ignore.

Alabama (9-2-23)

Alaska  (7-18-24)

Arizona (7-16-23)

Arkansas (7-20-23)

California (7-14-23)

Colorado  (7-17-23)

Conneticut  (6-24-24)

Delaware (12-26-23)

District of Columbia (9-16-23)

Florida (7-14-23)

Georgia (7-16-23)

Idaho (2-17-24)

Illinois (7-6-23)

Indiana (7-13-23)

Iowa (7-13-23)

Kansas (7-15-23)

Kentucky (7-8-23)

Louisiana (7-16-23)

Maine (7-16-23)

Maryland (7-16-23)

Massachusetts (7-20-23)

Michigan (7-8-23)

Minnesota (7-11-23)

Mississippi (7-16-23)

Missouri   (7-24-23)

Montana (7-13-23)

Nebraska (7-21-23) *semi-truck

Nevada (7-13-24)

New Jersey (8-8-23)

New Mexico (9-18-23)

New York (7-16-23)

North Carolina (7-13-23)

North Dakota (7-21-23)

Ohio (7-20-23)

Oklahoma (7-13-23)

Ontario (8-2-23) I know, not a state, but still. . . 

Oregon (7-6-23)

Pennsylvania (7-15-23)

Puerto Rico (7-19-23)

South Carolina (7-16-23)

South Dakota (7-16-23) * sorta. I helped a SD driver with directions but because of traffic didn't specifically see the plate UPDATE: full sighting of one on 7-18-23

Tennessee (7-13-23)

Texas (7-16-23)

Utah (7-6-23)

Virginia (7-22-23)

Washington (7-16-23)

Wisconsin (daily, duh)

Wyoming (8-19-23)

***

Still to find, as of 9/19/23   6-25-24  7/18/24

Alabama

Alaska

Connecticut

Delaware

District of Columbia

Hawaii

Idaho

Massachusetts

Nevada

New Hampshire

New Jersey

New Mexico

Vermont

West Virginia

Wyoming 

Shazam: Fury of the Gods

 

This movie doesn’t work, and there’s a bunch of reasons for that.  A complete lack of any real character development along the way, the idea that a thousands-year old goddess is cool being coupled with a high school boy (eww) , a formulaic superhero plot, and so on. but let’s focus on two things:

 

One, and I’ll try not to spoil things here, but if Hollywood learned anything from the Star Wars sequels, I had hoped it was that death means your dead; if you can die and just come back it robs a character's actions of any weight and significance.

 

AND

 

It was fun watching Zachary Levi play a 14-year-old Billy Batson in the first film, and I bought into his childhood wonder. But this isn’t a comic book. Time passes in the real-world, and because of that Levi is now playing a near 18-year-old on the brink of adulthood, not to mention an adult who has spent four years as a superhero. Putting the same immaturity and naivety in Billy’s words and actions paints Billy as an idiot this time around.

 

I loved the first Shazam, and I’m sad that this flub will probably end the series. But if this was the direction it was going, that’s probably a good thing.     

A Pair of Unwilling Bathers LOL

That's a Lousy Rationale for Explotation

I have never understood this argument from the Left - so slave labor (or at least labor conducted under fear of police action) absent a legal wage/benefits/safety protections is GOOD, so long as the price of your avocado or cheese doesn't go up a quarter? THAT'S your version of right and wrong? 

Heavens, in a past life you must have been aghast at the thought of cotton prices rising if slavery were ever abolished.

Unexpected (but great) to Hear!

Well hot dog! Sound of Freedom was the #1 movie in America on the 4th of July! The marketing tactic worked! 

source: BoxOfficeMojo by IMDB Pro

Sound of Freedom

 

On a jam packed Fourth of July, Lisa and I took the time to stop and  go see Sound of Freedom at the theater. 

It's a movie that was filmed five years ago but only now been released, and only because Angel Studios (a faith and donor based studio) secured the rights. Hollywood has certainly rolled out worse films by the score over those five years, and the unspoken accusation as to why it was shelved is that the subject matter - child trafficking - hit too close to home for some people in power in Hollywood.  

It is a dark film, about a young Honduran brother and sister who fall prey to a woman - a literal beauty queen no less - that sells them into slavery. Months later, a Homeland Security agent recovers the boy during an unrelated arrest and learns of his missing sister. The news is the final straw for a career spent arresting child predators while largely ignoring the fate of the victims, and he embarks on a quest to recover the girl and reunite the family. 

 You are warned, going in, that the film is dark and troublesome, and I must admit that these warnings almost had me skip the film. Yet rest assured, there is nothing performative here and no child is shown being harmed; after all, if you cannot fill in the blanks as to the horrors the children experience, then you are new to humanity. 

You can’t say you “enjoyed” a movie like this, because I doubt anyone leaves the theater feeling “just swell.” But yes, it’s a solid film, you do care about the plight of the girl at the center of the search, and I guarantee that if you see a half dozen movies this year, this will NOT be the least entertaining or emotional of the bunch.

 

But if I judge this as a suspense/thriller alone, I rate the movie as average. Rare is the sense that the lead character is in any legitimate danger, even when there is a gun pressed to his head. The script reserves those moments of fear for the scenes that involve only the children. That drives home the anti-slavery message, but it does a disservice to the audience because it leaves you less invested in the main character, who of course has the most screen time.

I should mention that the movie, despite being led by Jim Caviezel, is a predominantly Latin American effort, both in front of the camera and behind the scenes, from the producer and screenwriter on down to costume design. I mention this because I can anticipate some critique that the film “unfairly” depicts most of the villains as Latin, a charge that can be dismissed because a) it’s based on a true story and b) they mention that both the US and Europe are heavily involved in this traffic.

 

Let me also stress: there is no political or religious ideology being pushed by the movie. No faith is identified by name, no political party vilified or praised. If the religious background of the releasing studio, or the political beliefs of the actors prevents you from seeing this, just know that you are making a mistake.

BTW, the inra-credit “special message” is powerful, and hit me right in the gut.

 While Sound of Freedom is in theaters, donors are buying tickets and making them available to others, free of charge. Lisa and I paid our way rather than take one of these tickets from someone that needed it. Here’s the link.

If the only way you’ll see this is if you don’t have to spend a dime, then so be it.

 

Just see it.  

My Birds

Well, not mine per se, just some random pictures I've taken this year of the birds that frequent either my yard or the feeder I maintain outside my window at work. 

I'm Huntin' Wabbits

This boi killed two rabbits today in our yard, hours apart. That's three this week.  I'm not sure why they keep risking our yard, but I'm running out of bare soil patches to bury them.  

Not that Huckleberry hasn't done his share of regulating wildlife. He killed a squirrel and a rabbit himself before Sawyer came along last year.  But like Lisa says, Huckleberry is slow: if he can catch you, that's just Darwinism at work.

Alan Arkin

Talented Oscar and Tony winning actor Alan Arkin has died at 89.

RIP

Lunch at Egg & Flour

Yesterday Lisa, the two youngest, and her Mom ate a late lunch/early dinner at Egg & Flour, the restaurant of hometown Hells Kitchen contestant Adam Pawlak.

The food looked great. Carbonera and bolognese, meatballs, bread, salad ... it figures, since I wasn't invited! Lol

The Air Quality is Nasty

For days now, my daily afternoon call to my Mom would include her asking about "the smoke" and telling me how bad it was that morning.  Given that my Mom rarely leaves her apartment and I hadn't noticed any such thing, I chalked it up to the TV news inspiring panic. 

Whoopsie.

My Mom might have jumped the gun by a week, but today proved her right. 

The air is acrid, like you just walked past the a burn pit, and the odor lingers in your nostrils.  The sky is overcast and grim, and a gray haze rests over everything like a vast fog.  It is legitimately more difficult to breathe. These pictures were taken at the height of the afternoon:

What's going on you ask, Future Reader?

Smoke from wildfires in Canada are enveloping the Midwestern US. A week or so ago they did the same to the East coast.

Smoke is better than being in the midst of dense wildfires, no argument there, and I hope for the safety of the people directly affected up there.

 But man, how rude of our northern neighbor ;)

No Hard Feelings

On Sunday, after a day spent thrift shopping, delivering books to Little Libraries,

 getting ice cream at Tastee-Twist, napping, and having dinner at Classic Slice, Lisa and I went to see No Hard Feelings at the Ridge Cinema. YaYa and her boyfriend joined us both for dinner and the flick.

No Hard Feelings is a comedy about an Uber driver, played by Jennifer Lawrence, who loses her car just as she is facing foreclosure for back property taxes. To get back on the road, and save her home, she answers a personal ad from a rich couple who want her to “date” their son, played by Andrew Barth Feldman, in exchange for a free car. That’s “date” in quotes, as in take his virginity. Unfortunately for her the socially awkward 18-year-old is no easy catch, and time is running out.

I liked the film, and there were parts where I laughed my butt off. But when you release multiple trailers (just a cursory Google search showed me 5 minutes of “official” material) you’re showing your audience 10% of your final 90 minute  product, and presumably some of the best of it. There were parts of the film that would have been hysterical, had I not seen it six or seven times before.

That’s not the film’s fault, but it definitely impacts your viewing.

A negative that was the fault of the filmmakers, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, because it’s so counterintuitive: the characters were too 3-dimensional.

This was a raunchy , laugh out loud, don’t-worry-about-the plot-holes kind of flick and what did they do? They developed rich, emotional backstories and complex motivations for the two lead characters. That’s super swell as an assignment in a screenwriting class, but was it needed here, with this material?  I think this a case where keeping the characters firmly in their lane would have better served the comedy.

Don’t mind me though, I’m a grouch. I still rate this a solid B. Go see it.

John Drilling

 

John Drilling, a legendary television anchor/reporter at WITI 6 (first a CBS, then Fox affiliate), has passed away. He was 86. 

For 30 years Drilling was a staple on the Milwaukee airwaves, anchoring the noon news for WITI from 1975 until his retirement in 1998. A man with the reputation of a no-nonsense, just the facts reporter, he did this city proud.

RIP sir. 

Renfield

In the original novel by Bram Stoker, Renfield was an institutionalized madman who happened to be Dracula's Familiar - the assistant who helps the vampire find his prey.  The version of Renfield in this film treats him a little kinder, with the only nod to psychiatry being his habitual attendance at support group meetings. 

The plot of the movie is simple: Renfield is filled with misgivings about the life he's chosen, given that he's got the blood of tens of thousands on his hands, and after intervening to save a female cop on the outs with the mob, he seeks to break with his Master. Alas, dear Dracula doesn't do breakups very well, and launches a plan to not only punish his errant Familiar, but achieve world domination too.

I had no intention of seeing this movie, as I thought the trailer seems ridiculous, but once I saw it was streaming for free on Peacock I gave it a go. The verdict?

I humbly retract my former stance. It is a fun, entertaining popcorn flick worthy of watching. There's little worth remembering here, as it is For Entertainment Purposes Only, but it does that well. And Nicholas Cage plays a wickedly good (bad?) version of the world's most popular vampire. 

It's worth a watch if you have Peacock. If you need to pay to stream it . . eh. There's probably better ways to spend your money.