Body of Lies Review

It's been years since I've seen a movie the same day that it opened but I got to go see Body of Lies yesterday.

The plot is a CIA agent named Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio) trying to bust an Islamic terrorist ring responsible for several bombings in Europe. To get inside the terrorist organization he has to rely on his boss and mentor, Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe), back in Langley and Hani Salaam (Mark Strong), the head of Jordan's intelligence agency. Since they're all in the spy business, none of the three really know who they can trust.

The movie has lots of action and intrigue that keeps the plot moving at a good pace. Mixed in with the violence and seriousness of the situation is a surprising bit of humor. The sarcastic exchanges between Ferris and Hoffman define the relationship of the field agent trying to accomplish the mission (and stay alive) with his bureaucratic boss who may have other ideas. There's also something ironically funny about a CIA director discussing top secret life and death decisions over his cell phone while helping his toddler go potty in the morning or dropping the kids off at school.

Crowe, best known for his action roles, plays an out of shape, CIA bureaucrat only concerned about stopping the terrorists now. He leads operations remotely either in a command center in DC watching satellite feeds or from his kids' soccer games via cell phone.

DiCaprio's character is the one whose life is on the line. Before meeting an informant, Ferris and his partner agree to shoot each other if either is captured so that they don't get their heads cut off in a terrorist propaganda video. Unlike his boss, Ferris shows concern for his informants and views them as more than expendable resources.

The acting is pretty good and mostly believable. You assume the characters are using encrypted communications but it's hard to believe that spies would talk so freely on cell phones in public places about their missions. Other than that, the movie kept my interest and was worth watching in the theater. Some of the shots from the UAVs and satellites are pretty cool to watch on the big screen.

Squidoo Rocks! Record Payout and a Giant Squid

The global economy is in a rut and the US presidential campaign has devolved into an ugly unproductive mess but at least I'm having a good week on Squidoo.

Every quarter, Squidoo promotes a new batch of lensmasters to Giant Squid status. To qualify, you need a minimum of 50 good high quality lenses. I ended the quarter with 55 lenses and apparently they were deemed worthy because I got word late Monday that I'm now a Giant Squid!

So, what are the benefits of being a Giant Squid? First looks at cool new features, an extra lensrank boost for your lenses, an official badge (see above) on all your lenses and a bunch of other stuff that is probably interesting only to fellow lensmasters.

Monday was also when the August payouts were posted and I finally earned over $100 in a single month! On top of that, Squidoo HQ found an error in their payment calculations that caused lensmasters to be underpaid in prior months. They corrected that by issuing a one time adjustment to square everybody up. My share of that payment was nearly $80 which gave me a total of just over $200 for the month.

Granted, I should have been getting that $80 in bits over the last 2 years but I'm glad Squidoo owned up to the mistake and set things right. They're a good operation that works hard to do the right thing and I'm glad to be part of the community there.

I guess my next Squidoo goal will be 100 lenses. That's a ways off yet...it took me over 2 years to get 55.

One Hundred Push Ups - Week 3 Update

I'm now into week 3 of my one hundred push up workout and seeing progress. The week 1 and week 2 workouts weren't easy but I could finish them. After completing week 2 I did the next max push ups test and cranked out 32. That's a 28% improvement over my initial test when I started the program.

The first week 3 work out was tougher...set one was 25 push ups which tired my arms enough that they gave out before I finished a couple of the later sets. I visited the workout website again and found that they had updated the workouts since I printed them out. Looks like they distributed the number of push ups across the sets more evenly so you don't burn out on the first set.

I did better with the "easier" week 3 work out, but my arms still hit muscle failure before completing the 3rd and 5th sets. So I'll keep repeating that workout until I finish it. Minor set back but the third time should do it.

How Wendy's Tries To Rip You Off At The Drive Thru

Guard your wallet when ordering at the Wendy's drive thru. I went through the drive-thru at Wendy's for lunch today and placed my order for a #6 combo with Dr. Pepper. The cashier asked, "medium or large?" I don't eat at Wendy's very often so I assumed they must not offer a small size and replied, "medium". Then I took a quick look at the menu board and saw that they do have small and the medium size is an extra 59 cents!

After changing my order to the small size I pulled around and paid for my order. I could hear the cashier inside asking the next customer the same "medium or large" question. Drive-thru cashiers typically follow a script so I suspect this is Wendy's standard tactic to get people to spend more without realizing it.

Why do I say they're trying to rip us off? Because they asked if I wanted "medium or large"...that implies there are only two choices. They're not being honest about the choices. They could've asked if I wanted to upgrade to a larger size or simply asked if I wanted a small, medium or large combo. Instead they're trying to get customers to spend more by subtly removing the lower cost option from consideration.

To top it off, I got back to work and found that they didn't even give me any ketchup for my fries. It's doubtful I'll be eating at Wendy's again any time soon.

One Hundred Push Ups Or Bust

One hundred push ups. That's my new fitness goal. The other day my wife sent me a site with a training program to help you get to one hundred consecutive push ups in 6 weeks and I figured "why not?".

Like a lot of people, I've let myself get out of shape as I've gotten older. Even when playing sports in high school and college I don't remember ever doing one hundred push ups straight. 50 or 60 maybe, but not 100. So this will help me get working out again plus I'll be better at doing push ups than I was in my prime. Cool.

The program looks good, it's similar to a pyramid type work out and starts with an initial test of how many push ups you can do now. Then you follow one of 3 workout plans based on your initial number. The plan tells you how many push ups to do in each set and how much rest to take between sets. You do three work outs a week and each work out should only take 5-10 minutes total.

Last night was my initial test...25 push ups. Not too shabby. I'll do my first workout tomorrow. There's another push up test every two weeks to measure progress and adjust the plan as needed.

Will I be able to do one hundred push ups? We'll know in 6 weeks...hopefully less.

Finally Saw Pirates of the Caribbean III

We missed Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End when it was in the theater last year and finally got around to renting it Saturday. It was disappointing.

I've been a big fan of the original "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride at Disney World since I was a kid and loved The Curse of the Black Pearl. Dead Man's Chest was good but not as good as the first movie. This one had lots of action and was well produced like the first two but the story just got stupid.

It was a chore to watch in parts and I kept thinking "c'mon, c'mon get to some good stuff". Especially during the scenes in Davy Jones' locker and in the brig with the multiple Jack Sparrows. Those were boring and too artsy.

The first movie was a fun swashbuckler...At World's End wasn't. The plot was convoluted and it relied too much on the supernatural elements. Movies also get annoying when there's an unrealistic behavior like the pirate and East India Co. fleets doing nothing while the Black Pearl, Flying Dutchman and Endeavor fight it out at close range. The East India Co. fleet should have been protecting its flag ship at least.

On the plus side, I got to watch another film from my list of tall ship movies and did enjoy the ship battles. Those would've been even better on the big screen. And they left the door open for a fourth movie, hopefully that one will have a better story.

Drink up, me hearties. Yo ho!

Cramming For My Fantasy Football Drafts

Uh-oh, both of my fantasy football drafts are later this week and I've done zero prep work (unless you count 5 minutes watching the Redskins pre-season fiasco against Carolina). No cheat sheet, no draft strategy, no mock draft, nothing.

Time to start hitting the fantasy sites and cramming. Cramming is a bad thing for fantasy drafts...especially in a 14 team league where 210 players are drafted. There will always be last minute updates and adjustments to your rankings right up to draft day. But you have to be familiar with the players and their teams in order to make those tough middle round picks.

Can't do that all in a cram session. It needs to be started weeks in advance, even earlier for best results. That's something I didn't make time for this summer.

Fortunately both are online drafts this year. Might help if I'm able to do a quick search online before pulling the trigger on a pick. Yeah, I'll keep telling myself that.