The Bull Pen #23

Have you ever had a song that makes you get all teary-eyed? Sure, we all will admit to socks we enjoy rocking out to but what about songs that move us to get all watery under the eyelids. I will say that there is such a song that gets me every time: The Rainbow Connection. It is not a sad song by any stretch of the imagination and is actually a warm uplifting tune but the song always reminds me of one thing, the fact that Jim Henson died way before his time. Every time I hear it, it makes think back to news clips of his funeral and of all his friends and colleagues singing the song in his honor. I do not believe any other song gets me teary eyed in such a sentimental way like that although I am sure there are a few songs that have driven me to tears because they are so bad.

I am now happy to say that my collection of The Simpsons DVD’s is complete after I finally purchased Season 2 over the past week. I have been buying them in an unusual order as I was financially unwilling to buy them in the order in which they were released. At one point, I had owned Season 1, 3, 4, and 6. I have now managed to rectify that situation with season 5, season 7 (Marge head case), and season 2. The stores have been most willing to help by marking the seasons down to $24.99 or, in Best Buy’s case, down to $19.99. Ironically enough, the season 8 DVD will be released halfway through August and the collection will be incomplete again, or at least until I decide to get it. Just think, this will be the 8th DVD set and there will still be 9+ more to go!

It is never too early to discuss the next summer movie season, especially since the 2006 summer movie season seems to be grinding to a halt with nothing much interesting opening in the next couple of weeks. If you like to play roulette, I would advise betting on the number 3 as the 2007 summer movie season will feature both Spider Man 3 and the 3rd Pirates of the Caribbean. In fact, both of these blockbusters will open up in May so any movies opening up in June and July will have their work cut out for them. To make an incredible meat inside this sandwich will be Shrek the Third and you can plainly see that May is shaping up to be a record breaking month at the box office. These three movies alone would be enough to drive the box office for the entire summer but wait, there’s more. Look at July and suddenly you get the releases of Transformers (please don’t f*** this up Michael Bay), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and to top it all off, The Simpsons Movie. Are you kidding me? I have not even mentioned Ocean’s 13 (which I will see despite being disappointed in Ocean’s 12), Ratatouille (Pixar’s next), or Rush Hour 3 (my wife likes these and so do I). I would ask you to tell me a summer lineup that will produce as well and/or had as much potential. I would call 2007 the equivalent of facing the 1927 Yankees or the 1975 Reds, a lineup that is strong from top to bottom. Oh, why must we wait so long?

Custom Game of the Week: You might be wondering what took so long to list this game considering it is one of my favorites but I am finally featuring Nucking Futs this week. The game’s name usually gets a chuckle but it is the gameplay that makes the game so crazy. I take one King of the Hill game, make the hill move every 30 seconds, turn team multiplier off and contest hill on so that only one person in the hill can earn time. Throw in a random starting weapon and play on a smaller map with lots of hill spots, such as Sanctuary, Beaver Creek, or Ascension. Finally, get as many people as possible to create as much chaos as possible and make the time to win 3:00 minutes so that the hill will have to relocate at a bare minimum 6 times (likely at least 12). Voila! You have a game that causes people to reverse the N and F in order to get the true intention behind creating this custom variant. In my experience, this game seems to rate high on the popularity scale when you want to unwind after a hard fought or tense battle. It also seems to do a good job of frustrating people when they kill 3 guys to get to the hill only to see it move.