Minister Singh

Mallrats: The other day I was at the Dallas mall, Northpark Mall for the first time in about 5 years or so (I was killing time waiting for my comic book shop to open). You can't walk into the place without feeling like money is just being sucked right out of your wallet. It doesn't have security guards inside, they have Dallas police officers there. I did like the idea of getting my car washed while doing some shopping if I so desired, I didn't desire. Sometimes they have a piano player there. It isn't the biggest mall around, but it has to have the highest ratio of jewelery stores of the Metroplex. I counted 13 myself.

The shop that actually got me to go inside? The toy store that had both a Batman and Superman plastic statue. It was a neat place that even had some of the old original Star Wars in a glass case along the back wall.

I also saw an Original Soup Man stand there. This sign made me chuckle: "The Soup ThatMmade Seinfeld Famous" Sure thing buddy.

Father's Day: This year I think I finally got a winning present for my dad. It was a scanner that has a special tray to scan slides and film from a 35mm camera. My dad was pretty excited to get, even if he has "about 1000 slides" to scan now. I set it up for him, and scanned in the first two batches, and it looked really good. I figure it is a project he can work on and avoid the 100 degree heat.

A Movie: Monday I was flipping around and found a movie called The Night of the White Pants. I first turned it on to see Selma Blair, who is the quintessential girl next door type. I was watching it and my ears perked up when I heard one character say his band was playing at a club called the Double Wide. I thought, "Does this take place in Dallas?" Once they showed the place I knew it was. We get a decent amount of films and television filmed here, but unless it is a JFK movie very little actually has taken place in Dallas since the old TV show. It was a neat little movie, and I really like movies that take place over the course of about a 24 hour period. IE Dazed and Confused, American Graffiti, and Suburbia.

Sports: A local sports radio guy has decided to give soccer a full seasons chance to capture his attention. He is a better than than me. He blog post is here.

Blaze of Glory

One of my favorite westerns is the movie, Once Upon A Time In The West. This was Sergio Leone’s epic masterpiece. Whereas The Good, The Bad and the Ugly is several stories held together by a longer arc, Once is a long narrative. I put them as 1A and 1B as far as how I rate them greatness.

One of the greatest build-ups of tension and suspense is the opening scene with three outlaws waiting for a train. The scene seems drawn out, but is perfectly paced. When the train arrives you hear a lone harmonica playing. As the train pulls away, Charles Bronson is standing there playing the harmonica. There is a brief, but humorous, exchange between Bronson and the creepy Jack Elam. Then Bronson guns the outlaws down.

An interesting story I read is that Leone wanted Lee Van Cleef, Eli Wallach, and Clint Eastwood as the outlaws in the opening sequence. This would have been his final story about “The Man with No Name”. Man, that would have been so cool. What better way to end that story, than to show him in the beginning and having him gunned down before the opening credits roll? Also it is a perfect noir element to introduce to a western. It would have been great. My understanding is that Van Cleef, and Wallach were on board to do it, but Eastwood was still early in his movie career and didn’t want to be tied too closely with one director or genre and declined to do it.

Oh what could have been.