Self-awareness.

Whenever I’m about to do something, I think, “would an idiot do that?” And if they would, I do not do that thing.

-Dwight Schrute

Okay, so I’ll admit that Dwight isn’t self-aware in general, but those are sage words that a lot more people should follow.

We all experience the following scenario: we’re driving along, and come to a crosswalk with an able-bodied young pedestrian waiting to cross. You slow to a stop and yield to them so that they can go ahead and cross. The able-bodied young pedestrian proceeds to saunter across about as slowly as a person can go from point A to point B. They’ve got the legal right of way, after all, and they really don’t care about how long they make you, and other cars behind you, wait.

Is this a big deal? Well, I’m an awfully impatient person in general, but I will still concede that it really isn’t that big of a deal, it costs me an extra 15-20 seconds and it’s over. It’s mostly just an irritation, a microcosm of the complete lack of respect that people today (particularly young people) pay to courtesy and selflessness. They’re going to take their time crossing the street, they’re going to talk too loudly on their cell phone in a quiet public place, they’re going to let their kid misbehave and raise a ruckus in a restaurant and not do a thing about it. Is this an inconvenience to others? They don’t care. Most of them probably don’t even think about it.

Accountability.

Money is the root of all evil. Cigarettes kill you. McDonald’s is causing America’s obesity problem. The woman was asking for it, dressing in clothes like that. It wasn’t my fault that I missed the deadline at work, other people made mistakes that slowed me down. “That’s just the way I am.” “He started it.” “The devil made me do it.”

This type of nonsense is infuriating. People give in to greed, to gluttony, to lust, to pride, to any and all sins…and they’re quick to place the blame on anything but their own shortcomings. In the court of public opinion, inanimate objects actually seem to often get more scorn than the people who abuse them.

In the movie Changing Lanes (a decent movie, worth a watch), there’s a scene where Samuel L. Jackson’s character, an alcoholic who is trying to improve but runs into problems at every turn, gets chewed out by his AA sponsor. This sponsor hits the nail on the head…

You know, booze isn’t really your drug of choice anyway. You’re addicted to chaos. For some of us, it’s coke. For some of us, it’s bourbon. But you? You got hooked on disaster.

Movie Review: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

After going out on such a high note with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, putting out a fourth installment in the Indiana Jones series almost two full decades later was a risk to the legacy of a great 1980’s trilogy. While it doesn’t hold up to The Last Crusade, and certainly not up to Raiders of the Lost Ark, it’s better than The Temple of Doom, and stands up well as an entertaining summer blockbuster.

Movie Review: Miller’s Crossing (1990)

On the heels of No Country for Old Men, the most recent great movie by the Coen brothers (I also love The Big Lebowski, Fargo and O Brother Where Art Thou), I thought it’d be a good idea to delve into their archives a bit and watch some other stuff that I hadn’t bothered with when I didn’t know who they were. Happily, I can tell you that Miller’s Crossing is one gem that I’m very glad that I dug up.

2008 ACM Awards recap

The 2008 ACM Awards have come and gone, and it was a good show.

Here was the highlight performance, in my view…Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood singing “Make the World Go Away” in tribute to the late Eddy Arnold.

Some other thoughts on the show…

Movie Review: Prince Caspian (2008)

I had read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe when I was young, so I had a decent clue about that story before watching the movie (which I enjoyed). For Prince Caspian, I was mostly a blank slate who didn’t know what to expect going in…but, just having gotten back from the theater, I’m ready to give it my full recommendation.

The Office season finale: “Goodbye, Toby”

Well, it certainly didn’t leave us with that warm and fuzzy feeling that last year’s final episode did, with Pam restraining her jubilation and asking, “could you repeat the question?” The Jim/Pam proposal didn’t go down, Ryan might be heading to prison and has certainly lost his job, Michael seemed to find the perfect woman but ultimately agreed to go back to being under Jan’s thumb, Angela reluctantly accepted Andy’s proposal but then quickly got caught cheating on him with Dwight…aside from Ryan getting his comeuppance, none of it was particularly pleasing. At times, it was pretty sad.

From a pure comedy standpoint, it was a hilarious episode, one of the funniest of the season…but after a cliffhanger to end season two, and a happy Jim/Pam ending to season three, we got some darker elements this time around. Pretty consistent with season four in general, I think.

The funniest stuff…

Lofa Tatupu drives drunk (and at twice the speed limit).

Well, this was certainly an unfortunate piece of bad news from the Seahawks’ offseason. Lofa Tatupu was pulled over in Kirkland on Friday night/Saturday morning with a blood alcohol content of .15, going 60 in a 30. That’s very drunk (and very stupid to drive so fast while obviously being hammered…being at .15 is well beyond any point where you can convince yourself that you’re sober).

Obviously it’s disappointing that he made this mistake, and thank God nobody was hurt. I don’t think this suddenly makes Lofa a bad guy, it doesn’t strike me the way the violent crimes of other NFL players do…it’s certainly more a crime of stupidity than a crime of malice, just a kid with a feeling of invincibility doing something irresponsible and dumb, endangering himself and others. Let’s all hope that the public embarrassment and the threat of a possible suspension for a second offense (both deserved) are enough to deter him from stepping out of line again.

I won’t be shrugging in this manner if he joins the Warren Moon club and starts doing this on a repeat basis, but for now I’ll simply hope that he has learned his lesson and won’t do anything like this again.

NFL Power Rankings (Post-Draft Edition)

Well, since the Mariners decided not to participate in the 2008 baseball season, I guess it’s time to move my sports talk mostly toward football. Now that the majority of the roster moves have been made for the offseason, the 2008 season begins to take shape.

The top of my list isn’t particularly exciting, the top 8 were all playoff teams in 2007. All of these teams kept most of their roster intact, and none give me very good reason to believe that they’ll be much worse in ‘08. It just wasn’t a particularly splashy offseason, for the most part…in a game of Risk, most of the traditional powers of the last five years or so just took a territory or two, fortified, then passed the dice.

My next power ranking will come in September, right before the regular season kicks off.

The Office: “Job Fair”

A lot of people have complained about the dark tone the episodes of The Office have taken since the strike. At least tonight, they don’t really have that to complain about…aside from Jim desperately clinging to his job, which is apparently endangered due to the new vindictive Ryan, this was mostly a pretty upbeat episode. With that said, it wasn’t great, but it was decent.

I definitely got a few really big laughs in during the half hour, though…

I hate courtesy laughs.

When you tell your tone-deaf friend that they sing really well and should perform in public, you’re doing them a disservice.

When you tell your friend that their ugly yellow shirt looks good, you’re doing them a disservice.

And when you laugh at someone’s joke when you don’t even think it’s funny, you’re doing everybody a disservice. I’m quite serious about this.

Time for Coach Wulff to set the tone.

PULLMAN — Pullman Police submitted documents to the Whitman County prosecutor Monday requesting that Washington State football player Andy Roof be charged with one count of second-degree felony assault and five counts of fourth-degree gross misdemeanor assault.

Police Sgt. Daniel Dornes said an investigation determined that Roof punched or shoved six people April 26 on the WSU campus. One of the alleged victims suffered facial fractures that resulted in the felony charge.

Dornes said the prosecutor’s office could make a decision on filing charges within two weeks. A summer trial is possible, Dornes said, depending on court schedules.

Police allege Roof was under the influence of alcohol, although no blood-alcohol test was administered before or during the several hours Roof spent in jail.

Roof, who would be a fifth-year senior this fall, sat out last season after being suspended from school for three incidents involving alcohol. A former starting offensive lineman, Roof was listed as a second-string defensive tackle this spring.

Link

McCain hits Clinton, Obama on judicial philosophy.

I’m still learning the arbitrary John McCain rules of engagement. Questioning Senator Obama on his connection to an anti-American loon like Jeremiah Wright, and by extension questioning Obama’s personal core ideology, is out of bounds…at least according to the future GOP nominee, it is. Apparently, though, hitting him on being an ideologue is fair play. Well, that’s good. I’m glad Senator McCain is “allowing” that. Setting my misgivings about McCain’s consistency aside, the following statement is spot on…

Senators Obama and Clinton have very different ideas from my own. They are both lawyers themselves, and don’t seem to mind at all when fundamental questions of social policy are preemptively decided by judges instead of by the people and their elected representatives. Nor have they raised objections to the unfair treatment of judicial nominees.

More on Engram.

More from Farnsworth on the PI blog…

WORD OF THE DAY
Bobby. As in, Engram – the team’s leading receiver who is skipping this voluntary camp because he wants a new contract.

In a pay-for-play world, Engram deserves more than the $1.7 million he’s scheduled to make. He did, after all, set a franchise record with 94 receptions last season.

But the club says it isn’t going to budge. Engram signed a two-year, $3.4 million deal last year, and the team will not revisit his contract situation until after this season. It also has been pointed out that when Engram missed nine games in 2006 with a thyroid condition, the club didn’t ask for a refund on his $820,000 salary.

It’s a tit-for-tat situation, at best.

Pretty disgraceful for the Seahawks to treat one of their longstanding loyal players this way. For as much as there is to be proud of with this team, this stance toward Bobby Engram is disheartening.

If this remains a holdout situation that disrupts the actual training camp, or, God forbid, the regular season…I will hold the club much more accountable than the player. The owners hold all the leverage over the players, and for the most part I’m under the impression that fans are fine with that. I, for one, am not. I still hope Bobby gets a raise.

Bobby Engram skips mini-camp, unhappy with contract.

The reliable Clare Farnsworth reports:

Bobby Engram’s absence from Monday’s first practice in the Seahawks’ veteran’s camp is related to him being unhappy with his contract.

I got word of this Monday, but couldn’t nail it down from more than one source so I didn’t go with it. But the news already has been reported, so …

Engram is scheduled to make a base salary of $1.7 million this season, as part of the two-year, $3.4 million contract he signed in 2007.

I’m assuming this will put me in the minority among Seahawk fans, but I’m absolutely on Engram’s side here. More after the jump…

Well that was a nice little release.

That sweep at the hands of the stupid Yankees this weekend really deflated most of the hope I had been holding onto for this season. Granted, 6.5 games isn’t some huge margin that can’t be made up over the course of 130 more to play, but the good writers at USSMariner.com put up some pretty sobering numbers when it comes to what we have to hope for to overtake a very good Angels team. We have to outperform them by a pretty good clip the rest of the way, and let’s face it, there’s nothing to really indicate that we have a better team than them.

With all of that said, dominant performances like tonight are a real pleasure to watch.

Album Review: “Good Time,” Alan Jackson

In 2002, Alan Jackson released his last great album with Drive. The title track, “Drive,” along with “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning),” dominated the charts…”Work in Progress” was the other great song on this album. He followed that album with one of the best songs of his career, “Remember When.” After that, though, the well seemed to dry up. For almost five years, he didn’t score another #1 single, and the only song I would speak particularly well of from that period is 2004’s “Monday Morning Church.”

I’m happy to report that with his latest release, Good Time…Jackson is very much back, and has shown that he’s still got it. This is his best album in five years, and one of the best of his career. To make it even better, this is the first album that he has penned each and every song on.

Two more games…two more runs.

There just isn’t anything to say about the Mariners right now that I haven’t said already. Most games they’re not scoring more than three runs, and they’re playing in the offense-heavy American League, where the rest of the teams are averaging almost five runs a game.

We’re expecting you to throw shutouts every five days, Felix. Anything less won’t be enough.

Movie Review: Waitress (2007)

“I’ll never get away from Earl now.” That is what diner waitress Jenna (played capably by the beautiful Keri Russell) says in the opening scene of the movie, upon discovering that she’s pregnant. As you might surmise from the quote, Jenna is unhappy to be stuck in her marriage and now unhappy to be pregnant. She thankfully never considers abortion, but does immediately start trying to figure out a way to escape her abusive marriage.

The often comedic dialog, particularly in the opening sequences, is clever and enjoyable. Jenna’s doctor, Dr. Pomatter, is played very well by Nathan Fillion. Andy Griffith, who I admit I didn’t even know was still alive, is hilarious as the curmudgeon who owns the diner Jenna works in. I could do without the poor attempt at southern twang put on as Cheryl Hines (Curb Your Enthusiasm), who plays one of the other waitresses in the diner. Hines, who I do like in Curb, mostly irritates me in this movie.

11 innings, 2 runs.

The Mariners are trying hard to kill my will to write about them. Make no mistake about it, they had no business winning last night’s game…they were gift-wrapped a lucky run in the 9th just to keep it going, between a wild pitch and an error by the 3rd baseman when Ichiro was certainly going to be caught stealing. The whole thing should’ve ended earlier than it did, but once they caught that break, they really had a chance to steal one…and still found a way to give it right back.

Yes, I’m concerned.