Banff Film Festival 2010!

Ashlee and I were able to go to the Banff Film Festival this year and we saw some sweet flicks. If you don't know what the Banff Film Festival is, you ought to be ashamed of yourself because I'll bet you know what the Sundance Film Festival is and that is nowhere near as cool. Here, I'll prove it:

My favorite films this year were "Finding Farley" and "First Ascent: Alone on the Wall". The latter chronicles 24-year-old Alex Honnold's landmark free-solo (yup. I said free-solo) of Zion National Park's "Moonlight Buttress" (V, 5.12+, 9 pitches) as well as his free-solo (uh huh, said it again) of the "Regular Northwest Face" route (VI, 5.12a, 23 pitches) on Yosemite's Half Dome. The fact that he climbed Half Dome's 600+ meters in 2 hours and 15 minutes is a miracle in and of itself considering it takes most 2 days to scale the wall. But more impressive to me was his cool, relaxed candor while climbing Moonlight. He's 1200 feet up, not roped in, and CHIT CHATTING with the camera guy as he goes.

Now mom, I know you don't speak climber jargon so I'm going to translate that last paragraph for you. It reads; "Mum, you probably shouldn't watch these clips because you used to freak out about me bunny-hopping curbs AND if I remember right, you white knuckle the couch when you watch anything akin to this."

Let it be known that Alex Honnold has gained international climbing renown and I submit that he change his first name to CUHrazy! Seems more fitting to me... CUHrazy Honnold. I report. You decide.

Mom, breathe.

And let go of the couch.

Hey 2009... You Stink!

All hail 2010! ...and can I just clarify here and now that it's pronounced "twenty-ten" NOT "two-thousand and ten". You don't hear people referring to "one thousand nine hundred ninety nine" do you? No. They say "nineteen ninety nine".

Anyway, muchas gracias 2010 for pushing 2009 out the way. Can I ask you another favor? As long as we're getting rid of 2009, can you get rid of a few other things too?

Velour Sweatpants with stupid things written on the butt - Ladies, this ain't sassy. It ain't sexy. It's played out. And it was trashy as a tramp stamp tattoo before it got played out. If your hind quarters are worth looking at, trust me some schmuck will look. But don't compel his glance with this misleading, desperate commercial. "Juicy"? What is that supposed to mean anyway? "Pink"? Well that's just down right confusing. It ought to say, "I wish I was younger than I really am." I realize that's a pretty long slogan, but most of the women I see actually wearing these things in line at Cafe Rio have plenty of ad space to sell.

Lady Gaga - I have no idea how this lady is still somehow popular. Am I to understand that all I have to do is wear stupid hats and ridiculous makeup and I can be famous?









The Swine Flu Panic - For one, it really wasn't that bad after a quick dose of Tamiflu and two, it's gonna be a while before we see another photo like this one. Thanks a lot Babe.





Everyone freaking out about that danged Mayan curse that dooms us all to parish in 2012 when the Earth reverses it's rotation - the way I see it this: if the Mayans new anything about anything, there would still be Mayans.



Twitter - NOBODY CARES WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND WE REALLY DON'T NEED AN UPDATE EVERY 5 MINUTES! I don't think it's a coincidence that the application begins with "twit".

Glen Beck & Keith Olberman - seriously what is a reasonable non-hateful person to do?

The dirty Yankees - now how can the Yankees win the World Series!?

The dirty dirty Lakers - I realize that's a picture of Oklahoma Thunder's Kevin Durant rather than a filthy Laker but honestly I couldn't stomach the idea of posting a photo of a Laker on my blog, much less be happy for them for winning another NBA title. Kevin Durant on the other hand is the coolest.

And while we're on the subject, take a look at this abomination! It's a hybrid of all that is unholy. A Yankee hat in Laker's colors. It's as if Satan himself birthed this concentrated evil spawn strait out his very own fiery domain.






Nancy Pelosi's face - when a middle aged man has an obvious case of hair plugs, it's hard to take him seriously. Clearly it is a man who is so consumed with his own physical imperfections, that he subjected himself to a painful and futile effort to conceal something that isn't worth hiding in the first place. It is a man that lies to himself every time he looks in the mirror and that is a man I cannot trust. Similarly, when a woman has stretched and botoxed any natural expression away from her face forever, it destroys her credibility. Pelosi does not portray herself as a confident woman of authority. She comes off as an insecure divorcee trying get back in the dating game as she drives her Mazda Miada to the 50 and older singles bar. I don't care for her politics in general but she is so ineffective at persuading anybody to follow her, the more she's in the public light, the more damage she does to the far left political spectrum. That's just fine with me. So I don't necessarily want her to go away. I just want her face to go away. Be considerate Nancy. Most people have HD TV's now. This request also applies to Jerry Jones.

Kanye West's robot voice - I don't know Kanye's music. It isn't my taste so I don't care what he sounds like. And I don't really care if he makes an idiot out of himself at a make believe awards show. Nor do I care if he hates George Bush. But I seem to hear a lot of unsolicited music (commercials, at parties, basketball games) that feature that stupid robot voice effect. This one. Well guess what Kanye, Cher did that a decade ago. As did Kid Rock. So I guess I shouldn't blame it all on Kanye. But my issue with this lazy little device is that it makes it impossible for me to ignore mediocre music. And that's really all I want to do. Your music doesn't have to be good. Just uneventful but I can't tone that Optimus Prime thing out.

When the slogan of the show questions if the subject is legitimate history, maybe it should be broadcast on the Alien Bullcrap and Ghost Chasers Channel and not the HISTORY channel! Despite all the deeply relevant and fascinating historical subjects that could be the object of compelling and challenging programs, the freaking History Channel more often than not kills its time chasing Big Foot, validating these idiots and confusing Nostradamus with Alexis De Tocqueville. But every once in a while they do talk about actual history. A few weeks ago they did a week long focus on the Kennedy's. It was fascinating. I ate that stuff up. But too often they cop out. Look, I realize that the History Channel knows what it's doing. They're chasing ratings. It's what a TV station does. This means there's apparently an audience for "Haunted History" and "Monster Quest". I am not among that audience. I wouldn't mind this that much if the Discovery Channel didn't also kill all of its time with fishing, truck driving and logging reality shows. Is it too much to ask that I feel a false sense of productivity while I waste away time in front of the TV? Give me interesting infotainment that fools me into thinking I've actually learned something. Then I can repeat what I happen to remember in conversations providing me with the illusion that I am a well informed intellectual... all without touching a book. The History Channel is seriously letting me down.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

For the love you lousy ice-cream scoop! Whamysposedo* now?

*yes, "whamysposedo" is a real word... in Utah. In fact, it's not just a word, it's a complete sentence around here.