"IT'S ALRIGHT, IT'S OKAY, THERE'S SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR! JESUS TOLD ME SO!"

There's been a bunch of great stuff online over the past few weeks and it really got me thinking long and hard about movies again. It got me thinking about what makes a good movie and what it takes to make a great movie.

The Dissolve, a site started by a bunch of great writers, does this thing called "Movie of the Week" where they pick an older movie and write about it for a few days. A couple of weeks ago, they chose AMERICAN MOVIE.

This has always been one of my favorite documentaries for many, many reasons. The story of Mark Borchardt trying to get his great American movie, NORTHWESTERN, off the ground is nothing short of brilliant. Chris Smith spent two years following Borchardt and his friend Mike Schank as they go through their pretty boring lives in Milwaukee. Borchardt is in his mid-30's, lives at home with his parents, works at a funeral home and is pretty much the definition of a failure.

He's trying desperately to change that perception though, and he's convinced that if he can just get a little bit of money, he can finish COVEN, use the profits from that to finance NORTHWESTERN and ride off successfully into the sunset of his life. It doesn't quite work out that way.

AMERICAN MOVIE is really a brilliant documentary about life and about the process of making movies. It's a documentary that makes me think two different things.

1) You have to be pretty talented and incredibly lucky to start and finish a movie.

2) I'm more talented and way luckier than Mark Borchardt, right?

I'm pretty sure the answer to number two is a resounding "yes!" but I can't be sure. For one thing, making movies in the mid-to-late 90's was WAY harder than it is today. Before everything became digital, you had to know a lot about all the different equipment. Shooting on film was expensive and editing on a Steenbeck and splicing parts together by hand was incredibly difficult - far more so than shooting on an iPhone and importing everything into iMovie or Final Cut. Borchardt may be a hapless, bumbling, drunken fool, but when it comes to actually working film equipment, he knows his shit.

I don't know how to do any of that stuff. That's why I always second guess myself when those questions arise.

If you've seen AMERICAN MOVIE, head over to The Dissolve and read all the great stuff they compiled for it. There's the keynote essay, an interview with director Chris Smith 15 years later, and a round table discussion between all the writers.

If you've never seen AMERICAN MOVIE, what's wrong with you? Call me ASAP. I own it. I'll let you come over. I've got snacks, drinks, a comfortable couch... It's a hell of deal, really.

HAROLD RAMIS

There's not a whole lot to say that hasn't already been said here.

Harold Ramis was one of my comedy idols. He's not on the same level as Steve Martin or David Letterman, and probably wouldn't end up on my "Mount Rushmore" (since that's been the phrase of choice lately), but the man was definitely up there.

He had a gift and a voice that lent to some amazing work over the years. Not everything he touched was gold (I'll probably never watch YEAR ZERO), but a lot of it was great.

Look at the list of stuff he wrote:

SCTV - Second City TV was a Canadian sketch show where Ramis got his start along with John Candy, Eugene Levy, Rick Moranis, Catherine O'Hara and Martin Short. That's a hell of a team.

From there, his resume just includes one seminal comedy after another with ANIMAL HOUSE, MEATBALLS, CADDYSHACK, STRIPES, GHOSTBUSTERS and ANALYZE THIS. There were a few stinkers here and there, but Jesus. Those are the movies he wrote from scratch. 

Then we move on to his directing resume and, if you're not blown away by this, then I think you're in the wrong place.

CADDYSHACK, NATIONAL LAMPOON'S VACATION, GROUNDHOG DAY, MULTIPLICITY, ANALYZE THIS (and THAT), THE ICE HARVEST (a really, really underrated movie, by the way) and a bunch of episodes of THE OFFICE when it was in its prime. 

Sure, a few more clunkers in that category too, but come on!

As an actor, he appeared in a lot of those, but he also appeared in a bunch more where I'm sure he had a hand in some of the material, even if he didn't get the credit.

Harold Ramis, along with Bill Murray and John Hughes were responsible for my favorite movies from the time I was born through 1995. That's just a fact.

There aren't a whole lot of celebrities that I'll miss, but Harold Ramis is definitely one of them.

Egon Spengler: There's something very important I forgot to tell you.
Peter Venkman: What?
Spengler: Don't cross the streams.
Venkman: Why?
Spengler: It would be bad.
Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad"?
Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal.
Venkman: Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.

"YOU'RE SO MONEY AND YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW IT."

I've decided that this whole week is dedicated to movies.

It's not lost on me that this blog is mostly about movies anyway, but this week we're getting specific. This is actually what I was going to do last week, kicking it off with the Oscar recap, but then I ended up having kind of a lot to do after work each day and couldn't get to it. So I pushed it back a week! Everyone's cool with that, right?

Doesn't matter. We're doing it anyway! Let's start here.

I went to college for a while. A couple of different times, actually. I enjoyed it, I learned a few things, and thought it was helpful - for the most part. I absolutely hated that they kept pressuring me to declare a major and start tailoring my class schedule around that one subject. I get why they do it. It makes sense because you can't have thousands of 18-22 year old kids wandering around a campus with no direction (although with how fucking expensive tuition is, I'm surprised they didn't encourage more students to take ultimately meaningless classes for longer period of time. College is kind of a sham like that.).

My biggest problem is that what you want to do when you're 18 isn't always what you end up doing. Most of the time you don't even get close. If you're a doctor, then sure, you're probably always going to work in the medical field, but aside from that, it's wide open. I know a guy with an anthropology degree that works in advertising. Another guy went to law school and works at Overstock.com now. I'd be genuinely shocked if "what you majored in" and "what you're doing now" is ANY better than 50/50.

It's a crap shoot, really. When I was 19, the guidance counselor (or whatever it's called in college) at the University of Utah kind of forced me to choose a major. I was wide-eyed and idealistic back then, so I chose Film. I wanted to make movies. Gradually it changed to Film Studies, because I didn't really see how you could make a living making movies, but I thought there might be a decent future in at least writing about movies. I tacked on a Creative Writing minor for good measure and went through the motions.

Then I got a job writing about movies for the U of U paper and guess what? I didn't really like doing it. I still love reading a few people that write about movies for a living, but the market is so saturated with them that you have to wade through 6 or 7 really bad, link-baiting bullshit pieces to get to the good ones. I have 4 or 5 film writers that I really enjoy reading, but don't trust them 100%. I can make up my own mind.

Maybe that's where I went wrong with my film reviews, though. I tried to write about film in a way that wasn't a straight review, but more of a conversation revolving around my opinion. That turned off a lot of people at the U and I got a lot of hate mail.

Apparently, anyway. No one actually told me how to do my job as A&E Editor, so I made it up as I went along. I didn't know there was an official email address that was collecting everything sent to me until halfway through the second semester. Then I got 6 months worth of emails in a single afternoon, and stopped reading after about 15 people were just complaining about how I sucked at reviewing movies.

That turned me off from writing about movies, but it never turned me off from writing movies or dreaming of making them.

The point of this long, rambling piece is that I'm okay with the path I've chosen, and I never really miss making movies until I read things like this Oral History of SWINGERS piece. This is the kind of thing that makes me want to just drop everything, write a movie, then figure out how to make it.

Since you've already spent time listening to me whine about the collegiate system, you may as well spend another half an hour reading this. It's a really, really great article with all the key players represented. Jon Favreau talks about how he was able to get it made, Doug Liman talks about the tricks he had to pull to get some of the shots (the part where they talk about filming the scene on the side of the road on the way back from Vegas is worth it alone), and Vince Vaughn talks about everything else.

It's movies like this that make me think I could do it. The market is so saturated now, and literally everyone thinks they're a filmmaker that it's impossible to stand out unless you end up with something transcending and brilliant. 95% of the time that won't happen, but it's nice to think about.

Maybe I'll get to it sooner or later. I didn't buy that screenwriting software for nothing.

MOSTLY RIGHT

I didn't plan on watching the Oscar's on Sunday night - it just kind of happened. The plan was to watch TRUE DETECTIVE in real time, hate-watch THE WALKING DEAD on my DVR, and then queue up GIRLS on HBO On Demand. By that time it would be 9:30 (Salt Lake time) and I'd be able to catch the last half and hour of the Oscar's and see the big winners.

But that plan fell through, and I ended up watching most of it.

The show started at 6:30 and TRUE DETECTIVE started at 7, so I watched the first half an hour, and I've got to say, I was really impressed with Ellen's opening monologue. Never been much of a fan of hers, but that nearly turned me. Then she ad-libbed the rest of the show, it got really boring and I lost interest again. In the hour that I was watching Marty Hart and Rust Cohle get into some dark, dark shit, nothing important happened during the awards. I didn't miss a single category that mattered (to me, anyway).

Most of the show was really, really boring. I put it on mute so much that you'd think the broadcast team was Matt Harpring and Craig Bolerjack. Ther only real surprise was that AMERICAN HUSTLE was shut out completely. I think that's a good thing. It was a fun movie that I really enjoyed, but it wasn't the best at anything.

Let's look at my six picks/predictions and see what I got right, shall we?

Best Actor
My Pick - McConaughey
Winner - McConaughey
This is what he's been up to the last three years: BERNIE, KILLER JOE, EASTBOUND AND DOWN, THE PAPERBOY, MUD, MAGIC MIKE, DALLAS BUYERS CLUB, THE WOLF OF WALL STREET and TRUE DETECTIVE. That's an astounding run. Good on him. MUD still might be my favorite movie of 2013, by the way.

Best Actress
My Pick - Blanchett
Winner - Blanchett
Of the nominated performances, I only saw Sandra Bullock and Amy Adams, but I still figured Blanchett would win. I don't have any facts to back up why.

Best Supporting Actor
My Pick - Leto
Winner - Leto
Maybe next time, Barkhad. Maybe next time.

Best Supporting Actress
My Pick - Nyong'o
Winner - Nyang'o
I've still only seen AMERICAN HUSTLE, but I knew Lawrence wouldn't win twice in a row.

Best Director
My Pick - David O. Russell
Winner - Alfonso Cuaron
I honestly didn't think Cuaron had a chance, but I was happy to be wrong.

Best Picture
My Pick - "AMERICAN HUSTLE. 12 YEARS A SLAVE might sneak in if it doesn't win the Best Director award."
Winner - 12 YEARS A SLAVE
I was half right.

Other notable wins that I didn't care to predict ahead of time:
Spike Jonze won best original screenplay for HER and I'm 100% okay with that, even though I haven't seen the movie. Spike Jonze is the best though, so I'm always happy for him.

John Ridley won Best Adapted Screenplay for 12 YEARS A SLAVE. I haven't seen it, so sure. His feud with Steve McQueen made that one a little bit awkward, but it was nice to see some animosity on a night usually filled with ass-kissing.

"Please Mr. Kennedy" didn't even get nominated (because it was ineligible, of course) and that's a fucking travesty. That song was brilliant in every possible way. That would have been the only musical number I watched.

Not a bad night for me, pick-wise and it was a really good year for movies, all things considered. Hopefully 2014 is just as good. Though it's already March and I've only seen two movies in the theaters this year. I've gotta change that.

SECRET HISTORY - PART 1: RONALDO & THE SMOOTHIES

Once upon a time I was in a band.

Well, once upon a time I was in several bands. All at once. I never had time for anything else and I basically spent all my free time in the cesspool that is Downtown Music. But that all came later.

While browsing through Spotify at work a few weeks back, I stumbled down a hole of mid-to-late 90's radio songs. These were songs that I loved when I was in my first band in 1995. I'd listen to the radio while doing homework and there was always a blank tape in the tape deck. If I heard a song that I loved, I'd immediately hit record. I didn't have the money to buy CD's all the time, so taping songs from the radio seemed like the best way to go.

The first band I was ever in happened that same year when I was 15. I had gotten an acoustic guitar for Christmas when I was 12 (my brother got an electric guitar the same year which was always weird to me, since he showed no interest in learning, but...) and slowly learned how to play. Eventually, I was good enough to sing and change between basic chords at the same time, so I got some friends together and we got a band going. I continually borrowed my brother's guitar, and my other friends had their parents get some equipment for them at one of those rent-to-own places.

I don't remember who came up with the name Ronaldo* and the Smoothies, but we thought it was hilarious and rolled with it. We were all 15 and a name that was "witty at first, but got less funny each time you heard it," was just the way to go.

*The original spelling was "Renaldo," but I brought it up on the soccer podcast that I do in which we were talking about Christiano Ronaldo. Just to piss off my friend Oz, I retroactively decided that we were named after the Portuguese soccer player who would have been 10 years old at the time.*

We had wildly different tastes in music and no one could really agree on what to do. We weren't good enough to write songs, so we started playing covers. We learned "Day Tripper" by The Beatles, "Polly" by Nirvana and "Wild Thing" by Every Band That Ever Existed and played a show on New Year's Eve 1995. After that, we got a bass player and started getting serious. Well, you know, as serious as 15-year-old kids with nothing else going on can get.

There was a lot of arguing about what songs to learn and I had no idea what to do. My mom suggested that we all come up with three songs that we wanted to play, and we all had to learn them. It sounded like a nice compromise, so I threw it out at practice one afternoon and gave everyone note cards to write down their choices.

It didn't go very well.

Nick, the other guitarist, only wanted to play Beatles songs and NOTHING by Oasis.

Jon, the drummer, only wanted to learn Oasis songs and NOTHING by The Beatles.

(This was the most frustrating to me, because they were essentially the same band just 30 years removed from each other.)

Dave, the bass player, wanted to learn a lot of Primus and Rage Against the Machine.

I wanted to learn stuff that was popular on the radio at the time. I lived on the East Side of Salt Lake City, didn't have cable or older brothers, so X96 and Q99 was what I depended on for music.

I wanted to learn another Nirvana song, "Shine" by Collective Soul and "In the Meantime" by Spacehog. No, really. I tried to find someone with a keyboard so we could do that last one properly. Unfortunately, all of my ideas were shot down. We did eventually learn "Breed" by Nirvana because it was the only other song I could play well enough to sing at the same time.

The four of us plugged away for a little while longer, but didn't really get anywhere. I was (and still am) a terrible singer, Nick had a girlfriend and didn't really like practicing as much as I wanted to (I was a little bit like Jimmy Mattingly only without the talent) and Jon had baseball practice all the time.

Eventually we parted ways with Nick and brought my friend Terrell on as a lead singer. After a few months of playing cover sets at barbecues, graduation parties and Jon's church block party we actually started writing our own songs. But that's a story for another time.

Someday, "The Secret History of Trevor Hale" will continue, but for now I'll leave you with the playlist that inspired this whole, way-too-long, why-the-fuck-did-I-read-that? post.

HOLY PANIC ATTACK, BATMAN!

I'm not afraid of heights, I'm just not comfortable with them.

That's what I've always told myself, anyway. I can safely say that's a lie. I'm terrified of heights.

I saw this video and had a minor panic attack at my desk. These two guys, Vadim Makharov and Ritaliy Raskalov, basically travel around the world, find the highest places they can get to and explore it.

Recently, they were in China and targeted the Shanghai Tower, which, when completed, will be the second tallest building in the world. During the Chinese New Year and armed with Go Pro cameras, they hopped over the fence, climbed 120 stories and slept until the morning. When they woke up, they went all the way to the top, then climbed out onto a crane overlooking the city.

It's the scariest thing I've ever seen. My hands started to sweat and I felt lightheaded just watching the video. I give these guys all the credit in the world, because there is no way in hell I would ever try this. I get uncomfortable when I'm too high at the climbing gym with ropes attached. There's no way I'd climb an unattended crane nearly half a mile above a city.

They each have their own LiveJournal (!) where they write about their adventures and a joint site called On The Roofs, which is basically just the video below.

TWO PEAS IN A POD

Remember that episode of THE SIMPSON'S where Lisa feels so bad that Ralph didn't get a Valentine at school? She took one out of her own box, erased the "To" and "From" and gave it to Ralph. He instantly fell in love with her and she ended up breaking his heart on national TV.

It was a quality episode in one of the show's best seasons (4th) and the "I Choo-Choo-Choose You" card is still a popular one to this day.

But anyway, I felt a little bit like Ralph Wiggum when I got to work on Friday and the HR department passed out Valentine's for everyone. He and I are like two peas in a pod.

And if there's ever a Valentine's Day card that so perfectly sums up my social life, this is it.

WOLVES & MARTYRS: THE ORIGIN OF VALENTINE'S DAY

*Ed. Note -- I post this every Valentine's Day because I had fun writing it and think it's fun for people to read.*

I miss the days when I had to come up with an awesome Valentine's Day box for school. I was pretty good at it and it was fun. Now it's just a day where I read girls complaining about it on the Internet.

But where did it come from? How did it start?

Oh, please, allow me.

In the spirit of the comic books that I've always been fond of, I kind of refer to this as a "Valentine's Day: Year One" story.

In 3rd or 4th century BC, The Parentalia and Feralia Festivals of Purification were celebrated from February 13-18 to coincide with the Fertility Festival. The latter was a ritual not unlike the "Casual Encounters" section of CraigsList. All of the willing females would enter their names into a box and one by one, eligible men would step up for their turn. With a name in hand, the two would go off and what happened next was reffered to as a "rite of passage." You can use your imagination for what that entails.

Before that began however, there was the LUPERCALIA (from the Latin lupus, meaning "wolf"). During this day, priests—known as Luperci—from two colleges (Quintillii and Fabii) would meet at the Cave of Lupercal in the Palatine Hill, where a she-wolf was said to have nursed Romulus and Remus, the twin founders of Rome. There, Vestal Virgins would offer holy salt cakes and the priests would sacrifice a dog and a goat, smearing the animal blood onto the foreheads of youths of noble birth. Clad only in a goatskin thong, those same youths would later lead a band of revelers known as the luperci in the performance of such antics as whipping fields of crops and bystanders with a goatskin strip (known as the februa). Women gently lashed in such a fashion were thought to become fertile—even those known to be barren. The act of such lashings or whippings was known as februatio. Both this word and the word februa come from the Latin meaning "to purify." The naming of the month, February, is believed to have originated from these meanings.

Basically, February means "to purify by beating with a goatskin strip."

No flowers, chocolate or candy hearts yet.

When Christianity was eventually formed, it was attempted to replace the rituals with something a little bit more uplifting. Pope Gelasius outlawed the Lupercian Festival, but kept the name drawing part—just slightly tweaked. Instead of available women, the names of Saints were written on the papers and it was believed that the recipient (boys and girls participated in the drawing) would emulate the life of whichever Saint was chosen. This new system, while much more noble, was a lot less fun. Eventually, it was abandoned and the old "rite of passage" returned.

Those are the ones you don't hear too much about. This one however, is the most widely known part of the origin.

In Rome, 270 AD, Claudius II passed an edict that abolished marriage. He felt that married men made poor soldiers because they were loath to leave their loves ones for battle. The emperor craved a strong army far more than he cared about popularity and banned the act of marriage all together.

Valentine, a bishop of Interamna, disagreed with the Emperor and invited young lovers to come to him in secret to be joined in the sacrament of matrimony. Claudius soon learned of this "friend of lovers" and had the bishop brought to the palace. The Emperor, impressed with the young priest's dignity and conviction, attempted to convert him to the Roman gods to save him from otherwise certain execution. Valentine refused to renounce Christianity and imprudently attempted to convert the Emperor. It didn't work and he was sentenced to death. While Valentine was in prison awaiting execution, he fell in love with the blind daughter of the jailer, Asterius. Through his unswerving faith, he miraculously restored her sight—which bothers me because I still have to basically wait out a god damn cold. He signed a farewell message to her "From Your Valentine."

Soon after he left the note, actually on February 14th (or so history claims), Valentine was clubbed, stoned and then beheaded.

To recap, in case you got bored: Valentine's Day is essentially the celebration of torture, blood, sacrifice, random sex, wolves and martyrs.

I want a card with that on it.

(*Note - I wrote this after reading a few different histories relating to Valentine's Day on the Internet and put it together after reading something Warren Ellis posted way back in the day, so this is all his fault. Also, it's entirely possible that none of this is true or historically accurate at all. But it's far more entertaining. Originally I started throwing it out on LiveJournal, then MySpace and now I re-post it on trevorhale.com every year on Feb. 14.)

BIRTHDAY BOYS

A couple of dudes that I really admire share the same birthday and that just happens to be today.

In honor of the great Henry Rollins and the great Dan Christofferson, here are a few of my favorite pieces by each of them.

BEST OF UTAH

Last week ended on a bit of down note, so let's have some fun this week, shall we?

I'm getting things in order for the Top 5 of 2013 videos, so hopefully those will be up and running before the end of the month, but first, let's talk about the City Weekly Best of Utah awards.

City Weekly is a local weekly newspaper that I occasionally write for. I started out writing comic book reviews back in 2004 and I've done a little bit of everything over the last 10 years. Every year they open a readers poll for some of the best things in Utah and there are a few categories that I'd like to throw my hat in the ring for. I probably won't actually win, but if you want to help boost my ego a little bit, feel free.

Best Local Blog - Why, http://www.trevorhale.com of course.
Best Local on Twitter - @trevorhale, even though I'm only really firing on all cylinders a few times a week.
Best Local Podcast - The Fucking Reserves! Show us some love.
Best Utahn - I don't deserve it at all, but go ahead and throw me in there.
Best Mixologist - I want to be thrown in this category just to fuck with all the bartenders that take it incredibly seriously.

Head over to the City Weekly site, create an account (so people can't vote a thousand times from a single computer) and vote for me for some things. Let's have some fun here.

Also, I've got a bunch of posts half-finished and sitting in the draft folder that I hope to get to this week and next. Keep checking back and I'll make sure there's something here for you worth checking out.

Thanks!

MUCH BIGGER SOCHI PROBLEMS

Yesterday, I poked fun at all the funny things going on in Russia ahead of the Olympic games, but I left out the biggest travesty of the entire thing.

The Russian government has partnered with an extermination company and is paying them to round up all the stray dogs and cats throughout the city and kill them. They're shooting them with poison darts and leaving poisoned meat for them to eat. The poison causes the animals to suffocate and it takes up to 90 minutes for them to die.

These dogs aren't strays, not really. Most of them are pets that were abandoned by families whose homes were demolished to make way for the building of Olympic venues. There are some people that have been trying to get dog sanctuaries up and running, but construction crews are in short supply, because most of them are still trying to finish building the hotels that athletes, journalists and other visitors are staying in.

The company hired by the Russian government, Basia Services, refers to the animals as "biological garbage" and feel they're doing the right thing.

Here's Keith Olbermann talking about it on his show recently. I hadn't planned on watching anything related to the Olympics because I don't care about winter sports, but now I'm in full on "Fuck This" mode.

Welcome to the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia. Gay people aren't welcome, you can be arrested for swearing, and now they're killing dogs in the streets by the hundreds.

It's horrible.

SOCHI PROBLEMS

The 2014 Winter Olympics start tomorrow in Sochi, Russia. Things aren't going so well over there.

Construction on most of the arenas and stadiums is finished and the Olympic Park looks glorious apparently, but the Russians seem to have forgotten one minor detail: there are A LOT of people coming, too.

From everything I've read, all the facilities that will be featured on TV look fantastic - because they'll be featured prominently on TV. Everything else is a different story. I've been reading up on a bunch of things this morning and it sounds like everything from where the athletes are staying to the press hotels to the visitors hotels are a mess.

These are a few of my favorites.

From Stacy St. Clair of the Chicago Tribune

My hotel has no water. If restored, the front desk says, "do not use on your face because it contains something very dangerous." #Sochi2014
— Stacy St. Clair (@StacyStClair) February 4, 2014

Then later...

Water restored, sorta. On the bright side, I now know what very dangerous face water looks like. #Sochi #unfiltered pic.twitter.com/sQWM0vYtyz
— Stacy St. Clair (@StacyStClair) February 4, 2014

From Dan Wetzel of Yahoo!

To anyone in Sochi: I am now in possession of three light bulbs. Will trade for a door handle. This offer is real: pic.twitter.com/7AeesqDi8Y
— Dan Wetzel (@DanWetzel) February 4, 2014

From pro snowboarder Sebastien Toutant

Well that's interesting... Sochi rules in the bathrooms!! #haha #olympics pic.twitter.com/xacSVimwXY
— Sebastien Toutant (@SebToots) February 1, 2014

From Euro News:

#Sochiproblems: baffled Olympic journalists tweet surprising, gross finds http://t.co/ZILTaJfPxJ pic.twitter.com/7f7z2upNLK
— euronews (@euronews) February 5, 2014

From Ilya Yashin, who finds the dual toilets just as ridiculous as everyone else:

Прибывающие на олимпийские игры иностранные спортсмены с удовольствием позируют в диковинных туалетах города Сочи pic.twitter.com/NFzUmybHar
— Илья Яшин (@IlyaYashin) February 3, 2014

From Stephen Whyno on the men's Canadian Hockey team rooms:

Crosby could have to sleep in one of these beds. No frills for Canada men's hockey: http://t.co/ismTHD9s6h pic.twitter.com/5e7sWrYSSK
— Stephen Whyno (@SWhyno) February 4, 2014

From Jo-Ann Barnas of the Detroit Free Press

Watch your step @Sochi2014 -- I've noticed on walkway and on sidewalks that not all man holes are always covered. pic.twitter.com/a5Nv4wu5iA
— Jo-Ann Barnas (@JoAnnBarnas) February 1, 2014

I'm sure there will be more to come. After all, the games haven't even started yet.

"I'M ALWAYS HOME. I'M UNCOOL!"

"Jim Morrison? He's a drunken buffoon posing as a poet."

The world lost a great actor yesterday and it's a true bummer. Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead in his Manhattan apartment, most likely of a drug overdose.

I don't have anything profound to say about addiction and my "It's all in the game" attitude towards drugs and their consequences is probably a little on the insensitive side. That's only because I've never had problems with addiction and neither has anyone in my family. The worst thing I've ever had to deal with is male-pattern baldness and poor hearing. Those two things are a walk in the park compared to addiction - and I can get some great jokes out of them, too.

Sad to see Hoffman go out that way and that early in life because he was one of the greats. I remember a few years ago, I was visiting some friends in New York City. My friend Dan took us to his office on the Lower East Side near the Hudson River. As we wandered around the neighborhood, we stopped at a coffee shop. Dan went inside and I leaned back against a railing outside. There was an old, battered road bike locked up right next to me, and I pulled out my phone to check Twitter.

I heard a guy say "Excuse me," and I realized it was his bike and I was blocking the way. I said "sorry" and moved aside, still mostly paying attention to my phone. Gardner nudged me, I looked at him and he nodded towards the guy. It was Philip Seymour Hoffman whose bike I was standing next to. He unlocked it, put on his bag and rode off as Gardner tried to pull out his phone to take a photo. He just blended right in to the rest of the people wandering around NYC, and I suspect that's how he liked it.

My favorite performance (and one of his best, arguably) was as Lester Bangs in Cameron Crowe's best movie (no argument there) ALMOST FAMOUS. Crowe took a few minutes to write about the genius of Hoffman this morning on his blog (The Uncool). It's one of the highlights in a film filled with them, but I'll never forget some of the things that Hoffman as Bangs said, because they rang true then and still do (to an extent) today.

He was a great actor and he'll be missed. As Sean O'Neal from The AV Club said last night:

Philip Seymour Hoffman made everything he was in automatically more interesting. Life without him is automatically less interesting.
— Sean O'Neal (@seanoneal) February 2, 2014

Hoffman even made Along Came Polly intermittently entertaining. ALONG CAME POLLY.
— Sean O'Neal (@seanoneal) February 2, 2014

Here's what Crowe had to say. If you've never seen ALMOST FAMOUS or if it's been a while since you have, I'd say it's time to change that. You can even borrow my copy if you want. Just not today. I'll be watching it myself later on.

My original take on this scene was a loud, late night pronouncement from Lester Bangs. A call to arms. In Phil’s hands it became something different. A scene about quiet truths shared between two guys, both at the crossroads, both hurting, and both up too late. It became the soul of the movie. In between takes, Hoffman spoke to no one. He listened only to his headset, only to the words of Lester himself. (His Walkman was filled with rare Lester interviews.) When the scene was over, I realized that Hoffman had pulled off a magic trick. He’d leapt over the words and the script, and gone hunting for the soul and compassion of the private Lester, the one only a few of us had ever met. Suddenly the portrait was complete. The crew and I will always be grateful for that front row seat to his genius.

JERRY SLOAN DAY!

Long. Live. Sloan.

January 31 shall from this moment on be known as "Jerry Sloan Day," according to our own Governor Herbert, who may be just trying to save face from some of his more despicable actions over the past few months. You know, like being really, incredibly, super anti-gay but being totally cool with the air in the state deteriorate at a rapid pace because it lines the pockets of his friends.

Sloan abruptly retired after a game against the Chicago Bulls (a game that I was at and still have the ticket stub for) in February 2011. Lots of rumors swirled about it being due to Deron Williams, Greg Miller and Kevin O'Connor but no one knows exactly what happened. Sloan said he was exhausted and just didn't have it in him anymore and that it was time to go.

He was given a role of "consultant" or something last summer, but it's more just a legacy thing. The Jazz organization doesn't want one of the longest tenured coaches in history leaving in a huff to be a black mark, so they're trying to fix it.

The Jazz will be retiring the number 1223, which represents the number of regular season and playoff victories under his belt. he coached the team for 23 years, which is a lifetime in professional sports. There were 245 head coaching changes around the NBA during his tenure with the Jazz.

I've always been a fan of Sloan and to celebrate, I made these shirts that I still have for sale. If you're interested in one, visit my shop and pick one up. I can't have it shipped to you in time for the game tonight, but at least you'll have it.

Long. Live. Sloan.

ALL MY EXES LIVE IN TEXTS

I hate this article.

Well, let me rephrase that. I hate this article because of how accurate it is.

Remember the good old days when you stopped hanging out with or broke up with someone and it was fairly easy to avoid them? Those days are long gone, my friend.

It's especially hard when you're as good at the Internet as I am. The social media generation never really breaks up, they just sit on the opposite side of one big room. Even if you're not trying to see them, you still see them. Maureen O'Connor dives in and wades through all the things that go along with "dating" in the 2000's. It's a good article that's also kind of depressing.

I've posted the first little bit below, but you should really follow the link and read the whole thing.

NY Mag -- All My Exes Live In Texts -- I have 700 friends on Facebook, 36 of whom I consider exes. Not all are ex-boyfriends—in the eleven years that “boyfriend” has been a name for men in my life, I have referred to nine as “boyfriends.” The rest are men I dated casually, guys I dated disastrously, make-out buddies, one-night stands, vacation flings, and a few boys I never touched but flirted with so heavily they can no longer be categorized as “just friends.” These people aren’t ex-boyfriends but they’re ex-something, weighted with enough personal history to make my stomach drop when they message me or pop up in social-media feeds. Which is pretty often.

There was a time, I am told, when exes lived in Texas and you could avoid them by moving to Tennessee. Cutting ties is no longer so easy—nor, I guess, do we really want it to be. We gorge ourselves on information about the lives of our exes. We can’t help ourselves. There’s the ex who “likes” everything you post. The ex who appears in automated birthday reminders. The ex who appears in your OkCupid matches. The ex whose musical taste you heed on Spotify. The ex whose new girlfriend sent a friend request. The ex you follow so you know how to win him back. The ex you follow so you know how to avoid her in person. The ex you watched deteriorate after the breakup. (Are you guilty or proud?) The ex who finally took your advice, after the breakup. (Are you frustrated or proud?) The ex whose new partner is exactly like you. (Are you flattered or creeped out?) The ex whose name appears as an autocorrection in your phone. (Are you sure you don’t talk about him incessantly? Word recognition suggests otherwise.) The ex whose new partner blogs about their sex life. The ex who still has your naked pictures. The ex who untagged every picture from your relationship. The ex you suspect is reading your e-mail. The ex you watch lead the life you’d dreamed of having together, but seeing it now, you’re so glad you didn't.

Read the rest of the article here.