We finished reading Tolkien’s The Hobbit this week – the first full-length book I’ve read to the kids.  It was a the obvious choice, as this was also the first book my Mom read to me.  It’s been a while since I’ve read that book and several things stand out after so many years.  Tolkien wrote in  long, descriptive, balanced sentences.  Very nice to read aloud.  The sense of place and history, the sheer amount of description is palpable in The Hobbit.  Of course this has become one of the prevailing themes of fantasy fiction, so no surprise there.  Finally, Bilbo is just a great character.  And now onto the girls’ thoughts as recorded be me with a few questions here and there…

One favorite part is when Bilbo went to talk to Smaug.  He saw the weak spot by getting Smaug to roll over by telling riddles.  Bilbo was pretty brave there.  I was afraid Bilbo might be found by Smaug, and he’d attack him and eat him.  I thought this was the scariest part.  Instead he just got a little burnt.

One favorite part is when Bilbo gets the Ring from Gollum.  He made Gollum yell and hiss by not telling him what’s in his pocket when they were telling riddles. He escaped by putting on the Ring and running down the hall and jumping over Gollum. I thought he’d be safe after that but the goblins and wargs came right after them.

Another favorite part is the Battle of Five Armies.  I liked when Thorin came out of the mountain to help the other dwarves get the goblins.  I was also glad when Beorn showed up to help and the eagles came down to save them.

I thought it was funny when Bilbo finally gets home and his cousins are trying to take all his stuff.  They thought he was dead he’d been gone so long.  I don’t know why cousins would do that.

It was pretty scary when the trolls were about to roast Bilbo and the dwarves.  Gandalf made their voices and tricked them to stay up until morning and the trolls turned to stone.

At the beginning, Bilbo was curious and nervous.  Later he we scared, but he tried to brave.  He got out of those bad places with the spiders and the elves by being sneaky and brave.  Bilbo was one of my favorite characters because he was brave when his friends needed him even though he’s very little.  Also, he found Smaug’s weak spot.

I liked Thorin because he was the leader and King Under the Mountain.  I liked Gandalf because he always knew what to do.  Also, he tricked the trolls and he told Bilbo, “Well done” when he gave the Arkenstone to Bard and the elves.

The boy had less to say and had a tough time paying attention the entire time.  Nonetheless, he too listened and remembers and so he adds these comments:

My  favorite part was when Bard the Bowman shot Smaug in his weak spot.  The scariest part was when Smaug blew his fire.  My favorite characters were Bilbo and Thorin Oakenshield. 

Somehow, Beemsville ally Grubb neglected to properly promote his participation in the annual Robert Goulet Moustached American of the Year Awards Ceremony that took place in St. Louis over the weekend.  Nominees included Attorney General Eric Holder, Sully Sullenberger (a decent pilot), some baseball pitchers, and University of Illinois alum and CBS Sunday Morning humorist Bill Geist.

Geist filed a report in his trademark hardhitting style here.  Watch the clip and marvel at Grubb sporting the Hacksaw Jim Dugan-style stache on CBS.

In Beemsville, the power of the moustache has always been tempered by the preference of the missuz.  She’s not a fan of bristly kisses.  It probably doesn’t help that any attempts at facial hair by me end up looking more like a high school kid than Thomas Magnum.

At any rate, we’re glad the moustache is making a comeback and that Grubb has his support group down there, even if he can’t find the time to blog about so momentus an ocassion as ‘Stache Bash 2009.

It was one of those days, as a co-worker of mine would say, with the fun-meter pegged.  Start with the last soccer game of the year for the Sidekicks, which comes as something of a relief with the weather turning worse and several of my players losing interest.  The two little Beems had fun though, and that’s what matters.

Then we were off to Champaign for our only family football game against Michigan.  And what do you know – the Zooker’s boys showed up to play.  A great hustle play by Terry Hawthorne led to an old-style four-down goal-line stand, after which the Illini went on to dominate the third quarter and pull away from the Wolverines.  We could scarcely believe it.  The Orange and Blue looked like the team we thought they could be, at least for one day.

Had to miss the 4th Quarter (which was painful) to get the kiddos back to their Uncle’s house in time for Trick-or-Treating.  We let the kids choose their outfits this year, and in a decision that warmed my heart they both decided to be super-heroes.  After that, the Missuz and me donned our costumes and hung with my sis and pals in downtown C-U.  Dubstep on the prairie - who knew?  This year our ensemble was Mermaid-and-Shark, the beats were massive, and the beer was plenty cold.  The best costume seen at Cowboy Monkey, and the winner of their impromptu contest:  some dude dressed as the Monarch of Venture Brothers fame.

Check out the brief photo-album (follow link and click on ’slideshow’), and drop us a line with your own Halloween news and stories.

Major League Soccer has survived the contraction of the early aughts to emerge as a league with 15 teams.  This goes to 16 teams next year with two more expansion teams waiting in the wings.  In the bad old days, 75% of the teams made the playoffs, but nowadays a playoff berth is actually an achievement so the final 8 are pretty solid teams.  And the fact that going into the last two weekend’s of league play only two teams were eliminated from playoff contention made for a highly competitive and exciting finish.  While the Eurosnobs would like to mimic the Old Country and do away with the playoffs, let me add to the chorus and assure everyone that our way is better.

Your matchups are:

• L.A. Galaxy v. Chivas USA.  The Cali Classico.  Underestimate Preki and the Goats at your peril.  Still, we’ll take the Galaxy.
• Seattle Sounders v. Houston Dynamo.  Expansion team vs. Proven winner.  While it wouldn’t surprise anyone if Houston won it all, I like the graybeard in goal (the American one) for Seattle as the X-factor, so I’ll pick the Sounders.
• Columbus Crew v. Real Salt Lake.  I like watching Real, and Clintino had the goal of the year (by a mile).  But the Crew were your overall #1, and they’re too tough to lose this one.
• Chicago Fire v. New England Revolution. The classic trap game for the Fire.  The Revs have ended their season so many times it seems, but this year they’re too banged up.  The Fire have too much here.

Even though I have little faith in the Fire (Columbus does have some injuries), I’ll take them in the next round, to match up with the Galaxy. For MLS Cup,  Bruce Arena will be the last man smirking.  Hey, you have to pick someone…  Tune in later to see how the picks pan out.

Any month is a good month for the fiction of horror master H.P. Lovecraft, but October provides an added aura of foreboding.  Not that many of Lovecraft’s stories are particularly Halloweenish, and he was more apt to include ageless alien demi-gods in his fiction than ghosts or witches or the like, but there’s something about a gray stormy evening with a cold autumn wind blowing that makes passages of nameless horror especially tasty.  For this reason I’ve been re-reading at least one classic Lovecraft story each October the last few years.  (Having read virtually all of them the first time back in college.)

This year it’s been the short novel, At the Mountains of Madness. A couple of great aspects of AtMoM, which is one of H.P.’s later works and draws on many of the fictional tropes and techniques he was known for:

• Fully developed Cthulhu Mythos – the story draws on the weird alien cosmology of earlier stories, and you can just tell that he had many of the world-building details worked out and realized here.
• Lovecraftian reaction to the Other – critics have noted the latent xenophobia of many of Lovecraft’s narrators/protagonists and it’s certainly apparent as each new revelation brings about additional levels of revulsion.  It’s a far cry from the sense of wonder and relief that has become the hallmark of so much contemporary fiction, in which the heroes or society espouse relief and hope when they finally meet the aliens or supernatural beings.  I blame Speilberg.  An yet, in AtMOM, the protagonist develops some sense of sympathy for the Old Ones, and his scholarly curiosity gets the better of his dread and terror.
• Baroque, scholarly narration – You could state that Lovecraft’s narrators tend to be uppity New England professor-types, and you’d be right.  A bit snobbish, a bit high-minded.  And yet the narration works.  The language of such a narrator can convey the right amount of horror mixed with scientific theory and explanation and academic curiosity.  H.P. will write some long descriptive (and sometimes over-the-top) paragraphs and passages, and they’re short on dialogue, but the overall effect is still quite frightening in this era of splatter and gore.  One wonders what old H.P. would’ve thought of zombie movies and X-Box…

If you consider yourself a fan of horror and weird fantasy, consider a dose of  Lovecraft this Halloween season.  He’s not considered one of the modern masters of the genre for nothing…

Mark V. checked in with a heads-up on a new website featuring some of his youtube sketch comedy goodness.  It is Sad On Vacation (sadonvacation.com).   They have three clips up so far and are ambitiously laying claim to a weekly update schedule.  That’s good enough for us.  We’ve been to a couple of shows written by and or featuring Mark, George and Co. up in Chi-town and their brand of comedy gets the official stamp of approval.  The clips include Developmentally Disabled James Bond, Hey Look at Me (much respect), and Brownie Gun.

Mark’s current show at the Annoyance Theater is Salem! the Musical (he’s directing).  Read this review of the show, then drop Mark a line and give him some schtick for his hilariously inane and self-important rationale for avoiding background research!  Not watching/reading The Crucible – what a tool…  But seriously.    Go see it next weekend if you’re in Chicago.

So check out our newest addition to the blogroll and bookmark it for the future.  Sad On Vacation.

FIFA 10 dropped earlier this week, which partially explains the extended absence of posts.  That and some minor flu issues… 

Yes, this game is really, really fun.  After (ahem) only a few hours of dedicated play-testing, I can report a number of improvements over last year’s edition.  Team America is tougher for one thing (finally garnering some respect), and the game physics and passing seem more realistic.  Basically, everything mentioned in my demo preview still stands.

Soccer bloggers across the nation are watching their productivity decline.  It’s all reminiscent of the summer several years ago when GTA San Andreas came out, and suddenly a number of popular comic books were inexplicable delayed as the freelance community suddenly had something else to do.

Hit me up on PS3 for a match: MacShark_72.  But don’t bring the weak stuff.  I’m like the Cobra-Kai dojo – No mercy and I will sweep the leg…

Mike D in the House

A quick look at the official website schedule tells us we only have 12 days until the first televised Fighting Illini Basketball exhibition game.  Two weeks after that we have the season opener against SIU-Edwardsville.  For Illini fans, hoops can’t get here soon enough.  We can officially turn our attention to the four heralded freshmen and the talented junior trio of Mike, Mike, and D-Mac.

The Illini are a top 20 kind of team but may not start the season in the polls as it has become fashionable to stock a lot of mid-majors there (a trend Beemsville wholly endorses BTW).  But win against the cupcakes and come into December with one or fewer losses, and the Orange & Blue will get some attention.  If the freshmen can produce and no major injuries befall us, the Illini should contend for the Big 10 – and the conference will be as tough as it’s been in many years.  For a detailed scrimmage report from earlier this year, check out the Rube’s analysis.  More preseason coverage of Coach Weber’s team will be forthcoming.  Turning briefly to…

…the football team: the less said/written the better.  They are not only victims of their own ineptitude, but of expectations and their own slick marketing team.  We were all led to believe the Zooker had these guys poised for a top tier conference season and a definite bowl game.  It’s not like the end of the Turner years, when everyone knew we barely had enough talent to win in I-AA.  This was going to be Juice’s swan-song, a fearsome offensive juggernaut with multiple weapons and HA HA HA OH GOD THE COMEDY…

If Illinois should manage to run the table (and you know what we mean) the Zooker is gone.  Even if he manages to win one or two more games, he should be gone.  But do we really want Ron Guenther making another football coach hire?  Anybody else wondering if Tim Brewster’s Illinois Loyalty is true Orange and Blue?

An eventful week for the US Men’s National Team saw qualification for next year’s World Cup overshadowed by the terrible news of a deadly car wreck that left promising forward Charlie Davies severely injured and a young woman dead.  Much has been written about this, so I won’t add to it; suffice to say that our thoughts go out to the affected families.

So Team America battled to a 2-2 tie against Costa Rica in D.C. Wednesday.  It was an emotional and error-plagued performance that really means nothing in the grand scheme other than putting the more-deserving Honduras in the World Cup instead of the Ticos.  The U.S. wins the hexagonal for the second straight cycle, which is the rough equivalent of winning your low-major conference tournament by 20 in March: you still know you’re going to get a crappy seed.  Also the U.S. lost defender Oguchi Onyewu to a knee injury that will keep him out for several months and puts his Milan career in doubt. 

But we’re qualified for real!  So let the prognostications begin.  It’s The 23 aka the players Beemsville believes should form the US team’s roster for next summer’s World Cup.  Note that this is not who I think Coach Bob Bradley will bring along; this is strictly my own opinion, based on exhaustive armchair midfielding, a fair amount of soccer watching, and a decent amount of interwebs research.

Goalkeepers – 3:  Tim Howard (Everton, England), Brad Guzan (Aston Villa, England), and Troy Perkins (Valerenga, Norway)

Defenders – 7:   Oguchi Onyewu (AC Milan, Italy), Carlos Bocanegra (Rennes, France), Jay DeMerit (Watford, England), Steve Cherundolo (Hannover 96, Germany), Jonathan Spector (West Ham, England), Jonathan Bornstein (Chivas USA, MLS), Edgar Castillo (Pumas, Mexico)

Midfielders -9 : Landon Donovan (L.A. Galaxy, MLS), Clint Dempsey (Fulham, England) Michael Bradley (Borussia Moenchengladbach, Germany), Jose Francisco Torres (Pachuca, Mexico), Benny Feilhaber (Aarhus, Denmark),  Maurcie Edu (Glasgow Rangers, Scotland), Jermaine Jones (Schalke 04, Germany), Stuart Holden (Houston Dynamo, MLS), Robbie Rogers (Columbus Crew, MLS)

Forwards – 4:  Jozy Altidore (Hull City, England), Conor Casey (Colorado Rapids, MLS), Kenny Cooper (1860 Munich, Germany), Jeff Cunningham (FC Dallas, MLS)

And seriously, anybody could hold down that last forward spot, which firmly belonged to Davies before the accident.  I’ll go with Jeff for now because he’s speedy, he’s old, and he’s a little bit insane.  It’s also probably a little soon to be knocking Rico Clark off the roster, but I feel that Jones, Edu, and Bradley are the superior options at that position.

A few other guys on the cusp include Clark, Jimmy Conrad, Frankie Hejduk, DaMarcus Beasley, Freddy Adu, Brian Ching, Sasha Kljestan, Chad Marshall, Jon Busch, and lord help me, Eddie the Playa Johnson. 

Tune in later as the countdown to Cape Town continues…

…directed by Ruben Fleischer, written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, starring Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin.  Zombieland is a light-hearted buddy comedy about the eventual Zombie apocalypse that will consume us all.  It begins with the standard zombie premise with which we’ve grown accustomed – a horrible viral infection turns people into ravening beasts and all hell breaks loose.  We learn from our narrator Columbus (Eisenberg) the rules to surviving in Zombieland, including 1) cardio, 2) the double-tab, and 3) seatbelts.

Columbus, it turns out, is the kind of young guy with a lengthy list of phobias and a penchant for World of Warcraft.  This actually serves him well, because he’s so cautious and paranoid he’s managed to avoid most of the mistakes that seem to have befallen the rest of the populace.  When he meets up with Tallahassee (Harrelson), he find a complete opposite in nearly every trait.  Tallahassee is fearless, somewhat careless, and an absolute zombie-crushing machine.  It’s your standard end-of-days odd couple, and fortunately for the viewer, the two actors have a good sense of timing and chemistry.

The two men soon meet up with a young woman called Witchita (Stone) and her twelve-year-old sister, Little Rock (Breslin).  These ladies eventually convince  the crew to head for L.A. (why anyone would want to go to an urban area in a true zombie infestation is beyond me).  

It’s a fairly standard zombie-flick plot.  Survivors looking for someplace safe and trying to retain some humanity.  But Zombieland shies away from any of the more serious themes of post-apocalyptic fiction at every turn.  It’s mostly a set-up for gross-out gags, gleeful violence, and jokes.  And that’s just fine with me.  The timing is good, the writing incorporates just enough geek reference and general  zombie knowledge (the writers and director are obviously big fans of the sub-genre), and the horror action is just over-the-top gross enough to keep you wincing.  You don’t need a lot of soul-searching or judgement-day ruminations if you can remain true to the core value of horror/comedy – especially if your two stars have the kind of  rapport and timing of Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg.  The movie even has a hilarious special guest star.

One day they’ll make the serious zombie movie the hardcore fans have been clamoring for.  That movie will take place months or even years after the initial zombie outbreak and focus on the survivors – how they’ve survived, retained a measure of humanity, and dealt with the guilt of losing loved ones and society in general.  This movie will sort of resemble Max Brooks’ World War Z or Robert Kirkman’s Walking Dead with more focus and narrative direction.  Until that day, at least we have a good comedy like Zombieland. Highly recommended for people who are down with the flesh-eating hijinks.  If you’re not down, well, read the poster…