I have had this song stuck in my head all day with no relief.  When I went home, I downloaded, listened to it, and regained my sanity.

Don’t you think a balloon festival should have balloons?  Let me explain.

Last Sunday, we met up with my sister and BIL at the 2009 Quickchek Balloon Festival.  Officially, it was the 27th Annual Quick Chek New Jersey Festival of Ballooning, but I shall refer to it as “the balloon festival.” Maybe it was the 11-year-old in me, but I was imagining a big festival with 50 or more hot air balloons, festival attendees gawking, going up on rides, chocolate lamp posts, and rose-colored glasses and fried dough for everyone.  Not quite what I was expecting.

1. It was $25 per ticket for adults, and $10 for kids 4 and over.  That only included admission to the festival grounds at the Thor Solberg airport in Readington, NJ.  All the festival food and activities were at normal price-gouging levels.
2. There were so many people, we ended up parking on a grassy field that was extremely muddy.  Try pushing two strollers through the squishy mud.
3. It was hot.  It was so hot, the sun was beating down like it was the desert.  The sweat was dripping so much into our eyes, it burned.
4. There was no place to sit that wasn’t crowded.
5. Did I mention the price-gouging?
6. There were no balloons!  That’s right, no balloons.  They are only inflated at 6:30am and again at 6:30pm.

I had hoped to see some balloons, so we did what we could to pass the time. We waited on lines for freebies from PNC Bank and QuickChek. We took Josh on some kiddie rides.  Around 5pm, a heavy thunderstorm came into the area.  We’re talking rain, lots of lightning, and high winds.  I got separated from everyone, and then the wind and rain really hit.  Festival organizers recommended to folks to head to the safety of their cars around the same time a tent blew down.

A hot air balloon at the Quick Chek Balloon Festival

Somehow, we made it all back to our car, and the storm finally passed.  However, we were pretty beat, and weren’t waiting around any more hours for the balloons, so we hightailed it out of there.  We met up at a nearby diner for dinner and to decompress.

Would we do it again next year?  I have no clue.

USA TODAY has published eight images from Iron Man 2.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/l090722_ironman2/flash.htm?gid=1099

Just for something different, my wife made me a new profile pic / avatar using FaceYourManga.com.  I like it. I kinda look like I’m either a mad supervillain or that Ajay Naidu guy from Office Space but with glasses.

Manga Joel

Since we got the new FiOS DVR, we’ve created brand-new season passes, er, “series” to catch up on other shows we didn’t watch regularly.  I’ve recently been catching up on my Justice League and Justice League Unlimited episodes.  A few years ago, I somehow missed this whole epic Thanagar-invading-Earth storyline that preceded Justice League Unlimited.  I found the movie, Justice League – Starcrossed: The Movie, available on Netflix, so I queued it up.  BTW, (I love Netflix and lamp.

I’m not going to go into the entire plot.  If you are into the 1990’s animated Batman and Superman series, you were probably into the Justice League series as well.  You can read a good review on Toonzone.net. The movie was pretty good for JL and entertaining, though I was surprised to learn it was released back in 2001.  Gosh, that’s a long time ago. I’m just catching up now?

Justice League - Starcrossed the movie

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I was home sick today.  When I wasn’t sleeping and clutching my rebelling internal organs, I watched The Heartbreak Kid on one of those HBO channels that we’re enjoying during our 3-month trial. Man, who knew that bad chicken curry could kill you?

While The Heartbreak Kid came out in 2007, I didn’t know that it was a remake of a 1972 pic starring Charles Grodin and Cybill Shepherd. It’s a Farrelly Brothers movie, so it’s got all the gross-out humor you would expect.  During its initial release, I heard negative reviews, so I didn’t bother watching it.  Hostage to my innards, I watched it in the afternoon.  Basically, Ben Stiller’s character meets and marries Malin Ackerman’s character and they get married after a whirlwind romance.  During the honeymoon, she soon reveals herself to be a nutjob.  Oh, and he meets Michelle Monaghan’s character on the honeymoon, and she appears to be the real woman of his dreams. Hilarity ensues.

The movie wasn’t so bad, but it turned predictable near the end.  It certainly had its moments of comedy, so I’d recommend it, but don’t expect some thought-provoking horror movie.  Frankly, why would you? You knew it was a comedy going in.  Dumbass.

The Heartbreak Kid (2007)

Futurama recast? Say it ain't so!

The news this week has it that salary negotiations for the voice actors on Futurama have broken down, and Comedy Central / Fox are recasting all the main actors.  Listen, I like Futurama a lot, but I’m not watching it without Billy West, Katey Sagal, John DiMaggio, Maurice LaMarche, or Tress MacNeil?  It’s not the same. Would you watch The Simpsons with different voices? No.

The network suits can bite my shiny metal ass.

I wish somebody would be my friend.

So my new thing is to avoid doing any work on my weekends and free time.  I have this guilt that I should always try to do more, but it’s not good for me long-term.  The weekends are there for a reason, you know?

On Saturday, my parents came over to help with the landscaping and general garden work at our house.  We had BBQ for lunch where I grilled….. chicken and hot dogs! I have to get better at this grilling thing, because the hot dogs burned a bit.

In the evening, we went to wholesale club shopping, because we were out of stuff like diapers.  I’m always amazed and saddened to find lots of families shopping on Saturday nights at the wholesale club.  Amazed that people are shopping at the wholesale club on a beautiful Saturday night.  Saddened to find myself shopping there as well, when we should be out doing something spectacular.

On Sunday, we had church, some minor errands to run, picked up new sandals for Lily, lunch, and then the pool.  After the kids went to bed, my wife and I watched about half of that 2008 Definitely, Maybe movie with Ryan Reynolds and Abigail Breslin.  Barf. Who writes this stuff?

Man, great weather this weekend, and I’m glad we got to enjoy it.

I hate to say I’m enjoying our free 3-month trial of HBO and Cinemax, but I am.  We are not going to keep them, but I will miss them when they are gone. I’ll miss such easily ready access to movies, especially the ones I wouldn’t even put on my Netflix queue, such as Baby Mama.

Baby Mama is one of those movies that I’m not against, but it doesn’t pass that threshold of interest to get me to put a lot of effort into watching it. Even though I like Tina Fey a lot, sadly, the effort we’re talking about is adding it to a virtual queue with a few clicks, opening the mailer a few days later, and putting it in the DVD player.  Sad, isn’t it?  26 years ago, did we not have to have to get up to change the TV channel?

Tina Fey’s character suffers from the dreaded ticking biological clock, and wants a baby.  She has difficulty conceiving in-vitro, so she hires a surrogate service, and that’s how Amy Poehler’s character comes into the picture.  Amy Poehler and her “common-law” husband, played by Dax Shepard, are the white trash types to add the comedy, resultin the ensueing hilarity.  Other supporting cast members are Greg Kinnear, Sigourney Weaver (who was actually funny in her scenes), Steve Martin, and Maura Tierney (total waste of her time.)  Oh, and the requisite slew of SNL former cast mates.

It wasn’t a bad movie.  It was okay.  It’s more chick flick than anything.  It had its funny moments, but not as wity as maybe Mean Girls, Tina Fey’s previous outing.  You could probably assess it right up there with the rest of the chick-flick comedies. There were certainly a number of times where Tina and Amy are just riffing against each other, and some of them were humorous.

Kate Holbrook: So… How long have you two been together?
Angie Ostrowiski: We met the summer after I discontinued high school, and we’ve been together ever since.
Angie Ostrowiski: He never officially asked me to be his wife but he never asked me to not be his wife either so, things are going pretty good.

This is a movie that is worth watching if it’s already on, your butt was already glued to the couch, and you caught it at the beginning. Sorry, Tina.

Baby Mama (2008)