Caption Contest Winner!

Thanks, everyone, for posting your captions. All of them were hilarious (Jenny, especially that picture manipulation of Brad, even though it wasn't really a caption). After much deliberation, I've chosen a winner. But first, I'd like to give honorable mentions to the following captions:

"Sure he looks the part, but can he fly?" -- by luke the good

"It's a bird, it's a plane, it's... the world's biggest skeeter!" -- by baconlover

"Duh duh duh duh. duh duh duh-duh duh-duh duh. Sanford and Son." -- by jen

And now... the moment you've been waiting for... the winner of my first caption contest...

Jonathan! Here's his winning caption:

"You have to put on your 3-D glasses for this picture to work."

And there you have it. Check back often for my next caption contest!

Caption Contest!!!

I stumbled across this picture on another blog and thought it was hilarious, so I've decided to hold a caption contest. Submit your caption, and I'll pick the one I think is best.

The Hi-larious Comedy of Mitch Hedberg

Sadly, comedian Mitch Hedberg passed away earlier this year (March 30). He was only thirty-seven years old. But during his short life he was able to give the world some of the funniest one-liners ever. And his delivery was like no other - dry and almost monotone, with a hint of a stoner/hip-hop accent. He has been called "an American stand-up comedian known for his odd subject matter, subdued delivery and memorable routines that often consisted of a string of one-line non sequiturs." Many of you have probably heard at least part of one of his routines before and didn't even know it.

A couple of my favorite jokes of his:

"An escalator can never break. It can only become stairs. You would never see an 'Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order' sign, just 'Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for the convenience.'"

"Alcoholism is a disease, but it's the only one you can get yelled at for having. Damn it, Otto, you're an alcoholic. Damn it, Otto, you have lupus... one of those two doesn't sound right."

"Rice is great when you're hungry and want 2000 of something."

"Wearing a turtleneck is like being strangled by a really weak guy... all damn day! In fact, if you wear a backpack and a turtle-neck, it's like a weak midget trying to bring you down."

"The depressing thing about tennis is that no matter how good I get, I'll never be as good as a wall."

You might be wondering why I'm posting about someone who died several months ago. Well, I happened to stumble across a website that has a nice collection of videos of Hedberg's routines. Check them out. It's guaranteed to give you a laugh.

Deer Dash!!!

Sara and I ran in a 5K race this Saturday in my grandparents' town - Monticello, GA (also the home of country music star and my long-ago babysitter - no joke - Trisha Yearwood). My mom and sister also ran, and the four of us had to get up at six in the morning to get to the town square in time to register. The race didn't start until eight AM. They gave us t-shirts that had a deer tail shaped into the Nike swoosh logo and below this it said "Just doe it." They could so get sued.

A 5K is just over three miles (3.107 to be exact). However, in Monticello it feels more like ten miles because of all the hills. The race starts in the town square, right in front of the courthouse, then moves on through a graveyard (creepy!), through someone's backyard (odd...), through several neighborhoods, and back to the square. Around the two mile point is where you hit all the hills, and there's one on Persons St. that is steep as hell and almost half a mile long. That's where most people stopped running and started walking.

I actually did pretty well. Out of about 200 people I came in 81st, and 5th in my age/gender group, with a total time of 29:23. Sara came in at 33:53 (6th in her age/gender group), and my mom and sister (Jan and Carra Hughes) came in with her. My mom actually won third place in her age/gender group and received a coffee mug proclaiming so. If you'd care to see the standings - I don't see why you would - just follow this link. The dude who won wins every year - he finished in about fifteen and a half minutes.

The Deer Dash is part of an annual Monticello festival called... wait for it... the Deer Festival. For those of you from a Southern small town, it's like any other annual small town festival, such as the Rattlesnake Roundup or the Watermelon Festival. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, watch the movie Waiting for Guffman and pay particular attention to their sesquicentennial festivities - the Deer Festival is exactly like that. Barefoot kids, old men with pot bellies and long beards, plump women looking at quilts, smells of BBQ and boiled peanuts - the Deer Festival has it all. It also had an old guy singing songs on a stage set up by the courthouse, and at one point he was doing a warbling rendition of "From a Distance." I think he hit the brown note a few times in there, too.

After we ran, Sara and I pigged out on boiled peanuts, turkey legs, and grilled corn on the cob, and we ate these under a tree in the town square. We've never felt more Southern.

May the Force be with George Lucas

Today marks the DVD release of the final installment of the Star Wars movie franchise, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. However, this definitely does not mean the end of the franchise in general. Anyone who knows anything about George Lucas knows that he'll milk this cash cow until... well, until those cash cows come home.

While the prequels were mostly disappointing (although I would argue that Episode III was by far the best of the prequels and better than Return of the Jedi), I don't think that Star Wars is circling the drain by any means. The franchise simply needs to be saved from its own creator, Mr. Lucas himself. While his first trilogy redefined sci-fi cinema (and popular cinema as a whole), his second trilogy suffered under his CGI-over-story mentality. Evidence of this could be seen on certain web documentaries of the Episode III (which will be part of the special features on the DVD), when Lucas can be seen approving designs for General Grievous. At one point, he remarks, "Wow, I better get started on the script." Instead of working on the story, Lucas was more focused on the visual aspect and the special effects. The main complaint I had with the prequel trilogy was that its story (if it even had one) was not as engrossing as the original trilogy's.

But do not fret: even though Lucas has said there will be no more Star Wars movies, two outlets remain for the franchise, and I think these outlets will leave fans more satisfied - mainly because George Lucas has minimal involvment. First, there are Star Wars videogames. For years, these games were as crappy (and in some cases, crappier) as any other videogame based on a movie. However, in recent years the Star Wars games (the Galaxies series, Knights of the Old Republic series, and Battlefront series) have become some of the best games out there for both PC and console gamers. If you're a gamer and/or Star Wars fan, check out these games.

The other avenue is television. Cartoon Network has already been home to the series of animated Clone Wars shorts, which earned an Emmy, and now two - count 'em, two - new Star Wars shows are on the horizon. One is another animated series slated for 2006, which I believe will also deal with the Clone Wars. The other, slated for 2007, is a live-action series. Not much is known about it at this time, but since Lucas has said that he won't be involved much in the creation of the series, in order to pursue other projects, my Jedi senses are tingling with anticipation.
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*** 11.07.05 - Update - Star Wars producer Rick McCallum recently gave an interview and discussed the TV show and Episodes VII, VIII, and IX.