The Return of Me

I realize I have been back for a few days now, but I was still on vacation mode and did not feel like posting anything.  I realize that today is Memorial Day and everyone is outside having cook outs and whatnot, but I am going to give you the highlights of the trip to North Carolina.

The Trip Down
We left Altoona on Saturday after I was done with work at 4:00, also we had to drop my car off to get inspected.  Our start time was sometime after 5:00.  We went for a few hours and then finally got so hungry that we had to stop outside of Winchester at the IHOP (I apologize Aunt Lori, I should have called, but it was pretty sudden when we decided to stop and eat). 

Lindsey drove the entire way down because I was so tired.  I managed to stay awake though and be the navigator.  I want to point out that Virginia feels like it never ends.  We finally made it to the house at about 3:30 a.m.  We went straight to bed because we were exhausted.

Beach Days
I forgot that I am no longer 18 and that because of The Place That Shall Not Be Named, and since I no longer see the sun, I need more than SPF 30.  I laid around reading and then playing bocci.  Needless to say, by the end of the day, I was pretty damn burnt.

My chest, knees, and feet were unbelievably burnt.  In fact, I am pretty sure my feet turned purple.  The next few days I had to wear a t-shirt on the beach and keep my feet covered up.

We went and purchased some SPF 75 after that, it definitely seemed to help.

The rest of the days on the beach were spent mainly reading or taking long walks.  Lindsey and I walked two miles south one day and then three miles north the next.  The beach there is not like Myrtle Beach or Ocean City.  There is not a boardwalk, plus since the beach is relatively small, there are not tons of things to do.  It is a very beautiful place and it would probably be a great place for a family vacation, or for a beach wedding (hey, that was why we were there).

Beach Nights
We went out to eat a few times at this place called Rick's.  It was pretty nice (it was supposedly a Steelers bar, but they also had other team stuff inside, especially a Ravens jersey), the food was really good.  I had this delicious Monte Cristo  with crab-meat.  Also, at this other place, Lindsey ordered scallops wrapped in bacon, which were slightly fried.  So damn good...everything should be wrapped in bacon.

Gather around children, it is time for a funny story.  I know you like funny stories.  On Tuesday night, we went out to this place called Lo-Rei-Lei's for karaoke.  Thad (the groom) and I played pool with these guys.  And this other dude started talking to us and buying us shots of Petron (I swear that stuff will be the death of me someday).  We head back to the house and I head to bed, very drunk (I honestly do not remember coming home or the last few moments at the bar). 

Apparently, I got up to piss and never came back to bed.  Lindsey looked for me, but I was nowhere to be found.  In the morning she hears people talking and goes up to find me on the pull out couch.  Unfortunately, another couple had been sleeping there.  I went up there and crawled in bed with them, but the funny thing is they did not know it.  The guy (Brett) put his arm around me and cuddled with me all night.  He woke up and kind of freaked out when he realized he was spooning a guy.  He yelled at me to get out of his bed and took the covers away, I guess I grabbed them back and rolled over to sleep.

Needless to say, I got made fun of pretty much the rest of the week for that one.  Oh well, I am pretty sure I have done that kind of thing before.  A couple of other nights, Lindsey and I went out on our own to have a few drinks.  And some of the others were spent at the house just relaxing.

The Wedding

Most of you know that I am not someone who thinks of weddings as beautiful or anything like that, but maybe it is me getting older (or maybe it has something to do with my beautiful girlfriend), but this wedding was very beautiful.  Also, I believe I have used the word beautiful in this post more times than all my other posts combined.  

I half expected Lindsey to trip coming down the steps, but she did a fantastic job.

The Return
We spent some more time at the beach on Friday, but I was starting to blister and getting lightheaded, so I went up to the house and took a cool shower.  I then packed up and after awhile, Lindsey came up and she got ready and we made our way back to Pennsylvania. 

Remember how I said Virginia felt like it lasted forever?  Well on the way back, I felt like we were never going to make it out of North Carolina.  The directions from Google Maps said we only had to go up this one road for 21 miles to hit the interstate, BULLSHIT!  We drove for about an hour, through some very undesirable areas (Mt. Olive is a scary town).  At one point, there were two guys out of their car about to fist fight.  So weird.

We left around 2:30 and made it home by about 1:30 (we stopped for dinner for about an hour).  As much fun as I had, I was ready to be home and in my own bed.  I woke up the next day and saw that my chest, shoulders, and arms were peeling like crazy.

Yesterday was the actual wedding reception up here in Pennsylvania and it was a great time.  We drank, we danced, we ate good food...

Below are some of the other pictures from the trip that I thought were cool:

I took this on the way down and it was of Lindsey with my phone on negative mode.  She looks like a zombie ready to eat me.  Very scary.

The first day there, I took this picture and did not realize the camera was still in negative mode.  Looked pretty cool though.

This is what the beach actually looked like.

This was Lindsey on the last day as we prepared to leave.  Doesn't she look hot?

Again, this is her before we leave.

This is the girls at the bar, pretty hot and pretty drunk.

We were pretty drunk at this point.

How funny is it that Brett had to escort Lindsey?  At the reception, during the bridle dance, I went up and danced with Brett, everyone had a great laugh.

Lindsey and the bride.

A bunch of pictures of us together.  We are such a hot couple.



This is a video of two of the guys in our group trying to sing Ice, Ice Baby.  They were pretty bad, but also funny since they just kept cracking up because the words went so fast.

Uh Oh! Don't Let It End Like This!

The world comes to an end tomorrow (or at least that is what some morons believe) and to honor this, I figured I would share some pictures of what the world will be like when the shit hits the fan.

Zombies will run amok!  Biting and tearing at your flesh.  They will be led by their fearless leader:

We are so screwed...

Our only hope comes from the men and women of the cloth.  Those who know the secrets to controlling Zombie Jesus.

Without their magical powers (and giant boobs), we will never be able to see such marvelous sites as these wonderful ladies.

Can you imagine a world without boobs?  It would be horrible.  It would be a barren, desolate land.  There would be nothing to look forward to and nothing to love for.  I can only hope that this disaster can be averted before the world ends up looking like this.

Or more accurately, like this:

AHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Whoa, Vacation Time...

I have not taken a real vacation in a long time, actually since the cruise.  On Saturday we are heading to North Carolina for a wedding that Lindsey is one of the bridesmaids.  We are staying in a beach house for about a week.  Needless to say, I probably will not post too much.  I will have a GOTW up on Friday, but I do not foresee me getting too much down.

I will take my laptop with me because if I do not take it, then it will rain the entire time.  If I take it, boom:  great weather.  Hope everyone has a great few days without me!

Game of Thrones: The Wolf and the Lion

Holy shit what an awesome episode!  If someone turned this on and decided to start at just this episode, they would have probably had a heart attack.  Anyways, let me tell you about some of the crazy shit that happened:

-I wondered last week if they would show the end of the joust.  They did, and HBO did not disappoint.  After the Mountain is unseated by Ser Loras (he used a mare that was in heat, which sent the Mountain's stallion into a horny fit), he grabs his broadsword and hacks his horses head off.  He then proceeds to go after Ser Loras (so aptly nicknamed "The Knight of Flowers"), which causes the Hound to step in.  They have a pretty good fight until King Robert screams enough.

-Ned resigns as the Hand because Robert wants to kill Daenerys before she can give birth.  Ned wants no part of it.  As Ned prepares to leave King's Landing, Littlefinger offers to take him to the last person Jon Arryn met with.  They go to a whore house and we find another of Robert's bastards.  As they leave, Jaime shows up with a bunch of Lannister guards and demands they take Ned since his wife took his brother.  An awesome battle ensues.  Jory takes a dagger to the eye from Jaime and then the battle we have been waiting for finally comes:  Ned versus Jaime!  It is a pretty good fight, until one of the guards jabs a spear through Ned's leg.  Jaime knocks the dude out.

-Elsewhere, Tyrion's captors come under attack from the hill tribes.  Cat frees him and he thinks about leaving until he sees one of the crazy guys about to attack Lady Stark.  He ends up killing the man with a shield.  We also get to see Bronn in action, dude is pretty badass with a sword.

-The Eyrie was pretty amazing looking.  Also, the chick that plays Catelyn's sister Lysa, does a great job of being batshit crazy.  She is breastfeeding her son, who looks about eight years old.  They put Tyrion in his cell, which if I remember correctly from the book, is sloped and this scares Tyrion because he is afraid of rolling out in his sleep.  You can tell it is sloped slightly in the show because there is water running through the grooves.

-There was also a pretty good scene that was not in the book.  Renly and Loras are shirtless together, with Loras shaving Renly's chest.  Later Renly receives a blowjob from Loras.  In the book, it is hinted that they were together, but that is about it.  They also discuss in the scene the idea of Renly becoming the king with Loras' family's money backing him.  This serves as a great setup for things that will happen later down the road. Spoiler ahead I suppose.  It was always a shock when Renly announced he was one of the kings after Robert's death.

One of the things I loved about the books was all the cool false-foreshadowing.  If you thought something was going to happen, then usually something else would happen and it would be completely unexpected.

For example, I really thought there would be a moment where the Mountain would meet Hodor.  When describing Hodor's size, people would mention how the only person who was bigger was the Mountain.  I always figured the Lannister's would attack Winterfell and the Mountain would attack Bran, leading to a showdown between giants.  Sadly, this never happened, but what does happen is equally awesome.

Fantasy Baseball Week Six

The week of the trade.  I finally got some sucker to take Adam Dunn off my hands.  Actually, I traded Adam Dunn, Troy Tulowitzki, and Trevor Cahill for Ryan Braun and Wade Davis.  I realize that I probably lost something in the power department, but Braun brings me consistency.  He has been one of the most consistent hitters from week to week for a few seasons now.  I made another trade, Justin Masterson for Derek Jeter.  After the Braun trade, I picked up Erik Aybar who is killing it.  So now, I have two shortstops...hmm

Offord beat me this week 7-5.  It was a pretty good battle, we were tied 6-6 going into Sunday and he picked up a stolen base to break the tie.  I knew I should have started Jose Tabata...only a freakin' moron leaves a speedster off their lineup when all they need is a SB.  I deserved to lose.

My pitching was pretty unfantastic this week.  Allow me to rephrase that:  my starting pitching blew.  My relievers were excellent, but the play crappy teams so they picked up some wins for me, but only three saves.  Lester/Sabathia/Davis all had ERAs over 6.00 this week.  Not a recipe for success.

My player of the week was definitely the newly acquired Ryan Braun (who most Pirate fans loathe).  He hit .375/.474, 5 Runs, 2 HRs, 9 RBIs, and 2 SBs.  I will take that all week long.

This week I take on Pat, who is in 9th place.  I stayed in 7th place.  Everyone had pretty even series last week, so even though I did not win, there is still not a ton of ground to make up.  Just need a dominant week.

Matt Adams and the Future of Philipsburg

When I was a kid, well not so much a young kid, but in my teens, there was a guy from my hometown who was in the minor leagues.  His name was Robert Paulson...just kidding, it was Brian Pelka.  Since his minor league time was before the internet, we rarely got any information on how he was doing.  The local paper would sometimes run a small blurb updating his stats for the year.  After a few years, he was seemingly forgotten.  For some reason, I always thought he made it to the AAA club for the Pirates, but after looking at his Baseball-Reference page, I found out that he never made it past A ball.  Odd.

Another kid got drafted from my high school, who was only a two years older than me.  I was able to follow his career a little more, the local papers followed him more closely (he was drafted in the 10th round by the Detroit Tigers).  Justin Hazelton never really did anything though (I do not mean that in bad way, I always wanted him to do well, he played on my little league team), and eventually tried to switch to a pitcher.  Interesting, Eric Milton (he was from Bellefonte) was drafted in the first round of that draft.

Over the years I have followed the various kids who have been drafted from my high-school and none of them have ever made it past the A level.  I have no clue if anyone from my school ever made it higher than that.

The last kid I saw drafted was Matt Adams.  I have no clue who he is, but apparently he was good at baseball and went to Slippery Rock.  The Cardinals took him in the 23rd round and I figured there would never be anything about him.

I was wrong, the bar in Philipsburg would post his stats in the bathroom (do not act so surprised, many bars hang the newspaper up in the bathroom) and I noticed that the kid could hit.  Since being drafted he has went from the low minors and is now up to AA.  Unfortunately, I kept checking the different minor league prospect rankings and his name never came up when discussing the Cardinals.

This season he is one of the top hitters in the Cardinals organization and a few of the Cardinals minor league blogs actually believe he could make it to the majors (albeit as maybe a DH).  I wish him the best of luck.  It would be cool to see a major league player from my area.  Hell, the closest we have is Joe Beimel and he is from St. Marys (or maybe Milton, but he is no longer in the league).

If you want to read some of the stuff about him from Cardinals writers, check out Future Redbirds, he has his own label, must mean that people are noticing...

Also, here is another article from Rumbunter (apparently the writer is from Philipsburg as well).  The picture is from that site.

Girlfriend of the Week

Now that blogger is somewhat working again, I will post my GOTW.  This week it is Bianca Smith.  I discovered her through a link on Jason and Nick's new site CBCBS.  Needles to say, she is pretty hot and looks very sexy in a Batman shirt...

My Golf Career

Here is something most of you who are not close friends or family members know:  I golf.  Well, I used to anyways.  I did a quick search of all my posts and I have never once mentioned golf in any post.  How weird is that?  Allow me to give you a quick background into my golf history.

The Beginning
I started golfing when I was probably 17 years old.  It started by going out with my dad and uncle one weekend and giving it a try.  I was absolutely terrible.  I went out a more weekends and was still pretty crappy.  Then I started hitting a pitching wedge up in our field (our field is just a little over 100 yards long) and set up an old hose and made it my goal to get the balls into that circle.

During that summer my dad discovered that over at Penn State, there was a practice course between the Blue Course and White Course.  It was six holes and you paid like $12 and could play as many holes as you like.  We played there a few Sundays and it was fun.  My dad realized I enjoyed golfing and bought me a set of cheap clubs.

I soon convinced my uncle Shawn to come with me.  After that, it seemed like my entire family was hooked.  We went out all the time.  My grandfather started playing as well.  At this point in my life I was shooting around 105-110. 

Senior Year
This new found addiction caused me to go out for the golf team my senior year.  Lots of fun.  Learned a good bit, but also it hurt me in a lot of ways.  I kept taking advice from anyone I could and it was also the point where I learned to really get frustrated over golf.  Everyday after school we golfed 9 holes at the Philipsburg Country Club.  I started shooting 48/49 on a consistent basis.  My best round was a 41.

Then we played at Treasure Lake and golf went from fun to a miserable experience.  I somehow took all those little tidbits of advice and instead of being to hit a decent shot, I could now only hit everything straight up in the air.  It was horrible, I could not seem to remember how to do what I did before.  I shot a 66 on the front nine and was so annoyed that I refused to play the back nine.

From then on, my scores went up to the high 50s and I was ready for it to start snowing.  I honestly do not think I have ever said that in my entire life.  The next spring came and I went back out with my family and seemed to enjoy it again.  I also went a few times with my friends, but my scores were still around 100-105.

College Years
I went to Gannon University my freshman year and when I came home, I lived at my mom's place.  That summer I had no job and basically had a ton of free time.  My stepdad and I would go up to the PCC everyday and play nine in the morning and then come home and watch soap operas (yeah, it was a pretty exciting time).

That summer I started to get pretty decent again, and I finally ended up breaking 100 during a full round.  I shot a 43 on the front nine and a 46 on the back nine (you may ask how I remember all these scores, well I will get to that in a moment).

After that I went back to college and eventually transferred to Penn State.  I went out golfing with family members a few more times over the next few years, but nothing on a regular basis.  I ended up taking golf as a gym class.  After that I only went out golfing one time.

Life in Pittsburgh
When I moved to Pittsburgh, I did not even take my clubs with me.  My friend Mike convinced me to sign up for a charity golf tournament for work.  We figured we would be in a group together and we would just drink beer and have some fun.  He is a good golfer, but had no desire to go out and prove anything to The Place That Shall Not Be Named.  Unfortunately we did not get we wanted. 

I was put into a group of three other guys who seriously thought we had a chance of winning the event.  The one guy was pretty good (I think he was a six handicap or something like that), the other two were about my level, or a little better.  Granted this was a best ball tournament, but some of the other foursomes had some pretty unfair groupings (three scratch golfers and a smokin' hot girl, makes sense).

We had this pink ball that we were supposed to use on each hole.  If you lost the pink ball, the team was penalized two strokes.  My team wanted to just tap the ball off tee and pick it up each hole.  That seemed pretty lame to me (plus I thought they were kidding) and I hit it into the woods on the second hole and we could not find it.  I did not mean to hit it into the woods, but my teammates were so upset.  They would not talk to me for about 10 holes (it was not until I chipped one in that they actually spoke to me).  I ruined our chances of winning!  Oh, we lost the tournament by 10 strokes...

That was three years ago.  I have not been golfing since, until Saturday.  I went out with my friend Jason and we played a course that I had played many times when I first started out:  Appledale.  We used to go there sometimes because it was cheap and you could golf as many holes as you wanted (my pap, uncle, and I would go over on a Sunday morning and try to get in 54 holes).

I had a lot of fun, even though I did not do that well.  I lost the scorecard on the 9th hole and we started another one after that.  I would not be shocked if my score was around 108.  The thing that made me happy though, was that I did not seem to mind.  I had one hole where I started to get frustrated, but I just laughed it off and reminded myself that it is only golf.

I think I will keep going out, but I will not let it become an addiction or something that upsets me if I do not do well.  I will just have fun.

I bet you are wondering what the hell this picture has to do with anything.  That is me on the left when I was 18 years old.  We were at Ocean City and the guy in the center is Ed.  We met him that night and just decided to get drunk with him and his friend.  What does that have to do with golf?  Well he decided that I looked like Sergio Garcia...

The Week That Was In Television

Justified
This was the season finale and allow me to say that it did not disappoint.  Raylan finds out that he is going to be a father, but then he finds out that Loretta left the foster home and he thinks she is going after Mags Bennett.  Raylan goes after her, much to the protests of Winona.

Unfortunately, Raylan walks into a trap and gets knocked out by Dickie.  Dickie hangs him upside down from a tree and starts hitting him with a baseball bat.  Fortunately, Boyd is also looking for Dickie since he shot Ava (oh, did I fail to mention that?  Boyd meets with Mags, but she was planning on killing some of his men while they were meeting, Boyd was a step ahead of her, although Ava took a bullet from Dickie).

Boyd cuts Raylan down and is about to shoot Dickie, who does his typical cry like a girl and beg for mercy.  He asks Raylan if he is going to let Boyd shoot him, and Raylan says something about he may not be able to kill Dickie, but he will not lose any sleep over Boyd killing him.  Then Dickie says that he can take Raylan to Loretta.  Raylan convinces Boyd to let Dickie go and there is a moment where it seems that Raylan will have to shoot Boyd.

Dickie and Raylan head to the Bennett house, where Loretta is inside holding Mags at gunpoint.  Loretta shoots Mags in the leg and this causes the Bennett forces to start shooting.  Raylan takes a bullet to the side and while he is lying on the ground Doyle stands over him and is about to shoot him when a bullet hits Doyle in the head.  The U.S. Marshall service shows up just in the nick of time (yeah, it was a pretty convenient save, but it worked).  They were involved because Winona begged Art to help Raylan.

Raylan goes inside and convinces Loretta to give him the gun, but not before Mags admits to killing her father.  Raylan and Mags sit down and she offers him a glass of moonshine.  I am pretty sure that everyone watching screamed at Raylan not to drink from the glass!  They have a toast and she says that this feud will end the way it should have and all of a sudden she tenses up and says that the poison was in the glass (a throw-back to the way Loretta's dad died).

I honestly thought that Raylan would have called the Dixie Mafia (his buddy Wyn Duffy) and they would have showed up (instead of the Marshalls).  I am sure they would be interested in taking over the Bennett's territory before Boyd could take it over.  I would guess that season three will see the Dixie boys becoming a major player.  I also figure that Raylan will stay in Lexington and not head to the shooting range.

Game of Thrones
"Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things", that was the name of the episode.  It was a line that Tyrion says to Robb at Winterfell when asked why he brought Bran a design for a saddle that Bran could ride.  Tyrion responds that he has a soft spot for cripples, bastards, and broken things.  I loved Tyrion in the books, but Peter Kinklage is so great that he makes the character even better.

It was also great to see Bran smile, poor kid has been so depressed.  He also had a very strange dream, about a three-eyed crow.  I like that the show is making it more ominous than how the book just jumped in with the crow talking.

Ned's investigation is starting to get somewhere, he found the book that Jon Arryn was reading and he found the boy that Jon was visiting.  Turns out the boy is the bastard son of Robert.  I wish they would have either had a flashback or did the sound over of a battle so Ned's reaction to seeing the boy would be a little more effective.

I also loved the exchange between Jaime and Jory about how they had met during the rebellion of the Greyjoys and also Jaime being upset about the king having an orgy while he stands outside.  I love how after their bonding moment, Jaime gets annoyed when Jory asks if he could leave a message with Jaime to give to the king.

Up on the Wall, we finally meet Samwell Tarly.  He is a fat kid who is also a coward.  In the books, I always figured he would become a good fighter or something.  That is not the case and I highly doubt things will be different from this coward.  I loved the line when they are by the fire and he says that he will not get any better having to fight and Jon responds that he cannot get any worse.  Best part was of Jon and his friends holding down the bully and letting Ghost jump on his chest and growl at him.

Across the Narrow Sea, Daenerys finally realizes her brother is a loser.  She asks Jorah if Viserys could conquer Westeros and she says that he would not be a very good king.  Viserys takes a bath with Daenerys slave girl and he tells her about dragons, they are having a good time, but then she says something about it being sad they are all gone and Viserys gets angry.  He says that it is her job to please him, not make him sad.

Daenerys finally has enough when she invites Viserys to dinner and he snaps because he does not take orders from her.  He hits her and she fights back, hitting him with a belt, cutting his face.  She tells him if he ever touches her again, she will have his hands cut off.  Very badass.

During the jousting tournament, Ser Hugh (who may have important information for Ned, since he was Jon's squire) is killed by Ser Gregor Clegane (The Mountain Who Rides).  He is the Hounds brother and we learn that he was the reason that the Hound has a burnt face.  The Mountain is such a scary character, and I only hope that they make him big enough.  Also, I wonder if they will do the joust match between him and Ser Loras and the final results?  That might be too graphic, even for HBO.

The best part of the episode came at the end though, Lady Stark is at an inn when Tyrion shows up.  He recognizes her and she then stands up and starts calling out different men at the bar, asking if they are still loyal to her father.  You can see the fear in Tyrion's eyes as he realizes that something very bad is about to happen.  She then demands they arrest him in the name of the king.

Things are about to get crazy. 

Fantasy Baseball Week Five

This week I took on Sean (from Sean's Ramblings) and we had a pretty good battle.  Well it was a good battle if you consider one team having .193/.271 batting average/OBP.  I beat Sean 6-5-1, which brought me back to .500 (I am just like the Pirates!) and proved to me yet again that I can remain competitive even with crappy hitting.  Just look at these hitting stats.

Look at how ugly some of those numbers are.  At least My Savior decided to make a good start.  Adam Dunn actually had a good game the day I put him on the bench.  My big hitter for the week was David Ortiz.  I won stolen bases and we tied in home runs.

Over on the pitching side, well I dominated.  The only category he won was WHIP and that was because of an amazing pitching line on Sunday:  19.2 IP/2 Wins/21 Ks/1.37 ERA/1.22 WHIP.  That brought his down enough (and mine went up just enough) to win the category.

My best player was probably Brian Wilson (and his disgusting beard):  2 Wins/3 Saves/7 Ks/0.00 ERA/0.80 WHIP.  He had more saves than Sean's entire team and almost as many wins.

This week I take on Offord, who is a half game ahead of me.  I could use a big win, but I will settle for another close one.

Thor

Lindsey and I met at the Carmike Cinemas 4 in Indiana for the midnight showing of Thor.  Why Indiana?  Well it was closest place for both of us since she was at work.  Unfortunately, it was in 3-D, which I had not seen a movie in yet, and was not all that excited about the idea. 

Before I get into the movie, I want to say that the theater sucked.  It was a tiny screen, the sound quality was terrible, and the bathrooms were disgusting.  I am pretty sure the sound system was a set of 50-watt car speakers from Wal-Mart, seriously that bad.  I do not even want to explain the restroom, it will make you vomit.  Anyways, on to the movie.

I definitely enjoyed the movie, more so than I thought I would.  I never really thought Thor was the type of character that could sustain a solo film.  I figured he would be someone that was in the Avengers movie and it would just be assumed that everyone knows he is the God of Thunder.  I was skeptical of this movie from the moment it was announced.

They did a great job of making this a story about sibling rivalry and their relationship with their father.  I loved how they did not make Loki into this evil shithead who all along was working with the Frost Giants. 

I thought for sure the "god without powers" trying to adjust to Earth would just come off as stupid, but it was actually pretty funny.  The only complaint I have about the movie is that the story should have started with Thor on Earth and giving us the idea that he has been stuck in this realm for years.  Unfortunately, if you do that, you lose those funny scenes of him throwing coffee cups on the ground or demanding a horse at a pet store.

A little something for the ladies...

I think if you do it my way though, it would seem more believable that his sacrifice would mean he was finally worthy to wield Mjolnir.  Whatever, such a small thing to complain about.  Speaking of the hammer, when he kicks the crap out of the SHIELD agents and puts his hands on the hammer and nothing happens, that was such a cool scene, especially since Jeremy Renner was there as Hawkeye.

I think Marvel learned their lesson from Iron Man 2 about not overly promoting their next movie by taking away from the current movie's plot.  The fanboys know who he is and get excited and the casual movie-goer probably said something like "hey, was that the guy from The Town (or The Hurt Locker)?"  Then when they see the Avengers movie, they will be like "hey, I remember that guy being in Thor!"

One last thing I really liked about the movie:  Natalie Portman.  Aside from the fact that she is hot (I refuse to believe there is even one astrophysicist who looks 1/5th as good as her), she is also a good actress (or female actor as they are known today).  I loved that when she was around Thor she would sometimes have that giddy/cutesy girly-ness that she had in Garden State. 

Did everyone else stick around to see the after-credits scene?  It involves Nick Fury and Stellan Skarsgard and what appears to be the Cosmic Cube.  I guess it will play a role in the Captain America movie and most likely in the Avengers movie as well.

Comic Book Movie Grade:  A

GOTW

Last night I went to see Thor (more on that later), and I decided that Kat Dennings deserved to be the GOTW.  Actually, it was the picture of her I saw on Filmdrunk that made up my mind.  Look at her boobs, they are enormous.

She was good in Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, which was an okay movie.  Although, after seeing these pictures, I will watch pretty much any movie she is in!