Nothing to do on a rainy Monday....

Since my wife and I were off from work thanks to our italian bretheren, we looked forward to a lazy day of nothingness. Of course it freakin rained all day so to alleviate the boredom I was sent to grab a move. Upon entering the mega movie behemoth I quickly surmised that any good movie would be gone having been upstaged by earlier movie grabbers. Rummaging through the "new" comedy section I came across Eulogy. A quick read of the back cover gave little plot but the cast looked great so I said "what the hell" and grabbed it. I laughed out loud through most of it and thought this needs to get out so others with similar taste in movies could enjoy. So, on to the review.

It takes a much more dire occasion than a holiday to force the Collins family together. The death of Grandpa Collins (Rip Torn) finally brings the embittered family members under the same roof. Kate (Zooey Deschanel) and her has-been actor father (Hank Azaria) find themselves stuck with Uncle Skip (Ray Romano), a sleazy lawyer who has raised two sons so equally vulgar that their own mother has abandoned them. His sister Lucy (Kelly Preston) arrives with her lesbian lover Judy (Famke Janssen), announcing they're to wed; this sets off uptight Aunt Alice (Debra Winger) on a rampage (although later in the movie she too has a flashback of lesbian lust with Samantha played by Glenne Headly). The family's bickering turns into an all-out brawl, with every possible insult and betrayal coming out of the wood work. And as if the constant feuding weren't enough, Grandma Collins (Piper Laurie) seems bent on offing herself with increasingly creative methods. By the time the funeral rolls around the plot has taken dozens of bizarre twists.

If you enjoyed The Big Chill, you will like this romp on the dark side of families growing up and apart. I give it two ass cheeks up!

3Q Earnings Season Begins - Investors Beware of the Blame Game!

With the third-quarter earnings season kicking into gear next week, the blame-it-on-the-rain excuses are starting to pile up across corporate America. It's a challenge for investors to sort out fact from fiction in those reasons. When Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, women across the country crimped their cosmetics spending. Or at least that's what companies like Avon Products Inc. and Estee Lauder Co. want investors to think. Katrina also caused mattress sales to slide, according to Tempur-Pedic International Inc. The same goes for business at Books-A-Million Inc. stores and Diebold Inc.'s automatic teller machines. There is no doubt that many companies were hard hit by Hurricane Katrina, and in some cases, Rita, too. Given the size of those storms and the paralysis of business along the Gulf Coast, there will certainly be some legitimate costs for business there.
Insurance companies are getting clobbered, as is any business that used New Orleans as a major port. Many retailers with large operations along that coast have also seen significant damage to their stores.
But many excuses lately seem murky, and more are expected as companies report their quarterly results in the coming weeks. Are the storms really hurting business or are they being used to divert attention from more serious problems?
Investors need to be on the lookout for excuses that might seem a little too far-fetched for comfort.

Shopping

Okay, so as some of you may have guessed, I will be a father come January. Never in my wildest dreams did I believe I would be in this position. But, I find myself excited and nervous at the same time. So as part of the preparations, my wife and I went and registered at one of those baby warehouse establishments. Upon arriving there, I noticed several soon to be fathers accompanied their wives so I felt somewhat at ease knowing that I was not the only male forced out of a Sunday afternoon filled with beer, pizza, football and belching.

The first thing that happens is the registration where all manner of information is extracted by a woman who is well past her prime and on the verge of the eternal sleep. I half expected her to take our fingerprints...Luckily she did not. After that process, we were given a shopping gun to zap all items that expectant mothers need. I looked at this list of requirements and began to laugh at the sheer simplicity of their scheme. This list was definitely targeted at first time mothers and included well over 100 items. Now, I am no expert, but given the first 6 months of an infants life is spent sleeping, eating, pooping, etc., do we really need all this material? Nonetheless, we ambled on through the maze of breast pumps, diapers, cribs, strollers...then arriving at the dreaded diaper aisle. As I made my way to that aisle I noticed another young couple looking at the various diaper pails. The father to be looked at me briefly and we exchanged the look of all men who are shopping with their wives (yes ladies, even though we go begrudgingly we would rather be somewhere else doing anything else but shopping). I made a comment about trying to intelligently select the most appropriate diaper pail and the father to be smiled knowing exactly what I meant. His wife gave me a brief smile probably recognizing our dismay at being there and the led him down another aisle.

After two hours we were done. Tired and hungry we made our way to the nearest eatery and then home. Upon our arrival home, my wife went online to review the registry and began adding more items to the already monstrous list. After that she stated we should have selected some clothing. I sighed knowing this was not going to be my day. Turns out she used the power of technology and began shopping at light speed at one of the popular apparel stores. Within ten minutes she cranked out an impressive $300 tally. What on earth could a newborn possibly need to wear other than diapers I wondered. I made the mistake of saying this out loud and even though my wife was on a different floor, she heard every word and then summoned me to the computer so she could show me everything she purchased.

Ah well, I never did get to see the games....