The Luckiest Kid EVER!!!!

Here's a quick picture of a friend or mine named Matt. As you can tell, he recently had a pretty good experience at the Red Sox game. He was lucky enough to have tickets to the game where the Red Sox officially clinched their playoff berth. Apparently after the game he made his way down to the field for the party and was fortunate enough to receive a gift from one Jonathan Pappelbon. The gift was the first base bag that was used in the game. As you can tell, he was pretty excited.

I was really happy to hear that this happened to Matt. He's had a long year fraught with serious health challenges. It's a long story, but at one point we were worried that he might be on his death bed...literally. So I'm glad to see he got to experience this. I also found this picture of Matt sitting outside Munro residence hall at school- a women's dormitory- and I can only assume he is using it to pick up girls. I imagine it's a pretty nice prop to have- although he doesn't need it as he's a terrific kid.

Congratulations Matt!

As far as I know, it won't be going on ebay!

Jesus of Montreal

I don't usually write movie reviews that are longer than a couple of sentences. Usually it's something like, "I liked this movie. It was good. I recommend it." I'm not really good at writing reviews. But I recently was surprised by an old, French-Canadian movie called Jesus of Montreal. In recent years I've become really interested in the historical Jesus, not just the spiritual guru and savior and stuff. I find that the more I know about Jesus the Jewish man that lived in Israel 2000+ years ago, the more I grow to admire him. This is why I enjoyed this movie. I recently wrote a review of it for Naznet. And I figured I'd post it here too. Why not? Here it is:

Jesus of Montreal was filmed in 1989 and won multiple Genie awards- the Canadian version of the Oscar. It is French-Canadian, spoken in French with English subtitles. The movie was controversial at the time, and many would still consider it to be so. It is Rated “R”. I didn’t think the acting in the movie was all that great and the effects were very dated, but the plot was fascinating for me. As such this will be a rather lengthy review, probably longer than I’ll ever spend reviewing a movie again.

The story goes like this:

A Catholic Priest approaches an actor about bringing something “new” to his parish’s annual Passion play. The script has been the same for the past 30 years and it has lost its luster somewhat. The priest desires to have it changed so that it is not so dated. The young actor takes on the assignment and begins to study who Jesus was. We are not told of the status of the actors faith prior to the movie. He begins to look at some of the recent archeological discoveries and the evidence for the life of Jesus. Using the new information, he re-writes the Passion play in what he believes to be a more historically accurate light, not just relying on the Bible or church tradition. The public loves the new play, the church however, is not pleased. Thus ensues the conflict in the movie.

As I mentioned before, this movie is rated “R”. It should be, even by today’s standards for the following scenes. In one of the early scenes the main character goes to a studio where some people are serving as voices for a pornographic movie. There is a brief shot where we see the movie and it is obvious from the sound what kind of movie it is, but I don’t recall that we are able to see any, well, sex. The camera pans to three actors who are reading the script for the movie and we watch them all read their parts. I think this was supposed to be humorous, and I guess it kind of was, but it was totally unnecessary except for the symbolism which I will explain later. There is also partial male nudity because the main character, who plays Jesus in the Passion play, is nude when he is crucified. There is no frontal nudity, but there is a rather revealing shot of him being swung over the shoulder of the roman guard. Also, there is a quick topless shot of one of the actresses. It is not a sexual situation. In fact, it is anything but.

Lothaire Bluteau plays Daniel, the young actor responsible for re-creating the Passion play for the church. He has a shocking resemblance to the modern, stereotypical, non-historically accurate (as far as we know) appearance of Jesus with flowing shoulder length hair and a five o’clock shadow. It's got everything but the well-pressed robe and purple sash. As soon as he agrees to take on the project, things in his life begin to parallel the life of the Jesus in the gospels. For instance, he begins to look for people to help him with his project and finds three of his actors at a porn stage. Consider the reputation of those involved in the porn industry. They are not highly regarded either in the world of acting, or in the world in general. Compare this with where Jesus found his disciples. Fisherman and tax collectors…

What I didn’t really “like,” so to speak:

The “historical accuracy” of the new Passion play that is created in this film doesn’t seem all that accurate in some ways. I don’t just say that to defend the accuracy of the gospels in the Bible. I love looking at the historical Jesus and don’t mind when people challenge our traditional stories about what happened during Jesus’ life. However, I think some of the historical stuff presented in this movie was a bit off. For instance, they seem to want to make Pilate seem more compassionate than he actually was. Pilate didn’t care about Jesus at all. His only care was for Rome and his place in the gov’t. He used Jesus to further gain a foothold over the Jews. This movie missed that point. Some people will find the other historical commentary on Jesus in this movie to be offensive. I didn’t really find it offensive, I just didn’t find it convincing. But all of this was kind of secondary to what I believe was the point of the movie.

What I liked:

The symbolism throughout the movie was brilliant and hard to miss. There were many different things that happened in the life of the main character Daniel that paralleled the life of Jesus. The church establishment becomes upset with what he says about Jesus, just as the Jews of Jesus’ were upset with him for what he was preaching. Daniel calls out the Catholic Church in much the same way Jesus called out the Pharisees and Sadducees. Daniel comes to the aid of a young actress who is being used for her body, much like Jesus comes to the rescue of, well, all women. Daniel is temped to use his new found fame for wealth much like Jesus was tempted in the desert. Daniel gets upset and throws some tables around, much like, well, you know…Daniel’s message ends up in the subway, Christians are forced underground.

There is even a great parallel of how the gospel stories evolve. As the new play gains popularity, people begin to become enthralled with this young, formerly unknown actor and begin to tell Daniel’s story on the radio and on TV. As I recall, there are three different people explaining “who” Daniel is, where he came from, and his academic background, etc…Each one of them is telling a similar story with similar facts, although some of the facts totally contradict each other.

In the midst of all that is going on in the characters’ lives, Daniel really begins to take on the persona of Jesus. That is, he begins to live his life in what you might refer to as “the way, the Truth, and the life” that Jesus talks about. He becomes a very gentle spirit, truly caring for his friends and others around him. He also develops a strong conflict with the established church. He becomes very concerned for the future of the world, even to the point of depression.

This movie is too old to rate on a scale in reference to quality of film, acting, etc…It did win a lot of awards during its day. But all of that is secondary to the message that I took from it. Even with all the controversy surrounding who Jesus was historically speaking, the message that Jesus brought is still relevant and still largely ignored.

I saw this movie by using Netflix’s online viewing option. You may have a difficult time finding it elsewhere, but it is worth the search. I highly recommend it. I also recommend watching it with adults, as there are scenes that are inappropriate for children.

Good Weekends Rock!

I must say, Joy and I have never been the best at having a routine. It seems like we're always running around somewhere for something. I'm not entirely sure how this came to be, but we've been spending time in the recent months to make some changes and adjustments in our life. In some ways it is hard to believe that 10, almost 11 years have gone by since we were married. A lot has changed in our lives and it seems that this was the appropriate time for a reality check. Where are we now? Where did we think we would be? Where are we going from here? Yada, yada, yada... Two of the areas that we wanted to improve were to set a routine as best we can, and and spend more time together alone as a couple.

We're still working on the routine. It seems like as soon as we get into a routine that is working really well, something comes up that kind of sets us off the routine for a while. They are not necessarily bad interruptions, just interruptions that take us off of the routine. A vacation would be one example of an interruption. It appears that it takes about 1.5 to 2 weeks or so to re-group. It's important for many reasons, among them are financial reasons. It seems that when we don't have a routine, we eat out a lot more and spend money we don't really need to spend. Then we get to bed late, and, well I'm sure I don't have to explain this too much. So we're working on it.

Part of setting the routine is setting aside time for date nights. I've got to say, we're doing a pretty good job of this and we're LOVING IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We go out each (OK, well, most) Tuesday evenings. Every other Tuesday we visit what has become one of our favorite restaurants, The Melting Pot. It's a restaurant that specialized in fondue. Actually, everything is fondue. At first I was concerned that my manhood would suffer from eating at a fondue place. As it turns out, my manhood is just fine, and I might just sacrifice it to eat there anyways! It CAN be a bit pricey if you go for the whole meal. I would suggest that you don't do that. Go for a cheese appetizer (we recommend the cheddar) and a dessert. You'll have MORE than enough food to fill you up, and it will cost you around $30 or so, depending on what you drink. We only got the big meal once (I think it's called The Big Night Out), and didn't really like it. I think we've decided that God made fondue pots for cheese and chocolate, and that meat stuff doesn't work too well. We've actually developed a kind of relationship with the restaurant and they've told us to ask them for a special dish next time we're there...which is tomorrow! Woo-hoo!!!!!

Another way we're doing this is by swapping date-nights with my brother Jeremy and his wife Meghan. We baby-sit their kids every two weeks while they go on a date, and they baby-sit ours every two weeks while we go out. It's been working out really well so far. I will say that I was a bit intimidated watching 5 kids at once. Joy enjoyed just watching me look stressed out. It doesn't happen much. Meghan says Jeremy is the same way. Hey, contagious crying isn't fun.

This weekend was our date night weekend. Joy likes to get coupons from a site called restaurant.com. If you'd like to visit that site, think really hard about where you might find the site. I highly recommend it. They have some pretty good deals. Our coupon this week was "Buy two entrees, Get $25 off." Others are something like "Spend $35, get $25 off." So you could, technically eat for $10. They're good deals. Check it out. We went to the North End of Boston. It was a BEAUTIFUL night. We drove around the North End for a few minutes while we located the restaurant and were unable to find parking on the street. Not that we expected to be able to. So we parked in the State Street garage for $13 and walked over to the restaurant. It wasn't too far.

I couldn't believe how packed the North End was. I mean it's always busy, but it was really busy last night. I was amazed. It looked like everyone was just out having a good time, which is how I believe God meant for it to be- enjoying life with those you love. After we ate our meal at a restaurant called Davide, Joy just had to visit Mike's Pastry shop. Not that I minded. I got some chocolate chip Gelato and Joy got her Canolli and two chocolate dipped strawberries. Mmmm. I saw something there that I hadn't seen before. There were these two guys walking around playing the accordion and violin. It was pretty cool and reminded me of our trip to France when we saw somebody doing the same thing there. I emptied all of the change out of my pocket, about $1.50, and gave it to them. Then, across the street I heard what I thought was an Opera CD. Nope, it was a guy singing opera music. I have to say, he was pretty good. I hadn't seen that before either! I've seen a lot of street performers in Boston, but these two were new to me.

We headed back to the car and had to cross the new Rose Kennedy Greenway. This is the new park where the old highway used to be. It's absolutely beautiful! We stopped to talk for a little while and I snapped a couple of pictures with my cell phone. Sorry about the quality. But the night was unbelievable. If and when we move away from Boston, we're going to miss the city. But we're still here right now!

Finally, we had a pretty busy Sunday too. We went to church as always and then headed back to Quincy for a birthday party for one of Josh's friends. We left there at about 3:30 and headed to New Hampshire to spend time at my parents house to spend time with my family while the Patriots, led by Matt Cassel, beat the J-E-T-S, JETS, JETS, JETS...again. Same story different year. While we were there, Jordan got to spend some real quality time with her Great-Grandpa Scott. It was precious and I think they both enjoyed it equally. We were home by 9PM. I grabbed about 2 hours of sleep and went off to work.

We had a great weekend, and our routine starts tomorrow! I'll be making tacos for dinner!!! Mmmm....!

Millions and Millions of Cats

I remember a book from when I was a kid. I think the name of it was Millions and Millions of Cats. I don't remember much about the book except that I think it had a red, white, and black cover. (After a quick Amazon search, it turns out it's yellow, not whitem and it was only 'Millions'. So I embellished a bit.)The story was about, well, a ton of cats. I bring this up because this is what we might title the 2008 summer at the Scott house.

I had noticed, as had my wife, that we had a couple of cats in our yard this spring. No biggie; they didn't really bother us or any of our stuff. A couple of times I scared them out from under our back porch. They had also been in our garage, entering through one of the broken windows and through the base of the garage which had rotted away (another post for another day). I didn't really mind them all that much. I wasn't really sure if they were strays or if they belonged to one of my neighbors. At any rate, I let them stay because they weren't really bothering me.

Here's the thing though. I hate cats. I've always said that. I'm not sure why or where that opinion began. I think I'll blame it on my aunt Melissa. She hated cats passionately. Well, I really liked my aunt Melissa and as kid wanted to be like her in many ways if I could. So as far as I know, this was my first reason for hating cats. Thanks Melissa! Secondly, I'm very allergic to cats. Anyone with a cat allergy knows what I'm talking about. It's debilitating. With these things in mind, you would have thought that I'd have done anything I could to get rid of these cats. But I didn't. Oops.

This past June I opened the doors to my garage and found the cats there to greet me...with 6 kittens and one other adult cat. Yep, 9 cats sitting in my garage. Check that, living in my garage. Awe, ain't that cute. I actually thought it was cute! I mean seriously, even though I "hated" cats, I still found it difficult to ignore the cuteness of the lil' kitties. Josh was thrilled! Mom-mom and Pop-pop had taken in a stray in Maryland and that stray had kittens that loved him. So Josh thought that could happen here too. I'm a sucker for pretty much anything my son wants, and Joy had always kind of wanted a cat. So I figured, hey they're in the garage, what can it hurt? Stop laughing. We went out that weekend and got one of those big fluffy pillows, an auto-feeder and auto-water bowl, some food, a litter box, and some kitty litter. I figured they'd warm up to us when we were feeding them. Nope.

It was a bit frustrating. Apparently these cats had never heard the phrase, "Don't bite the hand that feeds you." They never had the opportunity to bite my hand. They made it quite clear that if I put my hand anywhere near them, I'd regret it much like the poor little torn apart birds that were strewn around my garage floor. I quickly learned the difference between "stray" cats and "ferrel" cats. One may warm up to you, the other certainly won't. Google it. All nine of these cats, including the kittens, wanted nothing to do with any of us. Even though we were feeding them. Ungrateful little balls of stink. And they did stink.

Do you know what kind or work it takes to care for 9 cats? Well, they would all fill the litter box in one day. It stunk and I didn't empty it every day. When I didn't, they then pooped on the plush pillow we bought for them. I know when I'm appreciated. We stopped feeding them. I thought maybe they'd eat each other and we'd be back where we began. Well, sometime after we stopped feeding them they left. I'm not sure that it mattered if we were feeding them, I think they would have moved on anyways. Oh, well, I thought. It was just as well, I could hardly breath in the garage now. It took about 5 breaths for my throat to close up from an allergic reaction.

About a month or so went by until one day, I opened my garage doors to find 6 more kittens. This wasn't the same bunch. New kittens- 6 of them. They too, were entering under the rotted portion of the garage. They were living between the wall and my wood pile. "This is progress," I thought. I thought maybe they'd be friendly since there didn't seem to be any "adult" cat to teach them bad manners. I took two steps towards them and found out that they were under strict orders to rip my hand apart if it came anywhere near them. I had learned my lesson the first time. No food for them! And you know what? This seemed like the perfect time to fix the garage. It was leaning to the right and the sill plates were already rotted when we bought the house. During the process of fixing the garage, I threw the wood from the wood pile into the yard so I could get to the sill plates I needed to fix. I was feeling bad as they looked at me like "What are you doing to our home?" And then, as I reached down one last time to try and pet one of them, it hissed and made that face like the posessed cat in Pet Semitary. That was that.

This past Friday my wife woke me up saying "Jeff, the kittens are back and they're letting us pet them!" I didn't believe it. "Come look!" I drug myself out of bed to see more of the cats that I now had good reason to hate. Sure enough, I got downstairs and there was Josh playing with three of the cutest little kittens you've ever seen. (You can see where this is going can't you?) these were 3 more, new kittens, and they were considerably younger than any of the others. Too new to have been taught to eat me. In fact, I think these cats were abandoned by their "parents". I don't know if they were dropped intentionally at our door, but there they were squeeking and crawling around our feet. I'm not sure they had been weaned yet, so I tried to feed them with a dropper. Only one of them took to it. I got a box from the pile of stuff I had taken out of the now empty garage, placed some old towels in it with a small bowl of milk. Then I shut them in our back porch so no evil adult cats could get to them to ruin our precious little angels. BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!!!!!!

So now we have three kittens. I think one is already claimed from somebody else and I'm pretty sure I have an idea who might like another. So, now I, a cat hater, have a cat. Rush out and buy stock in Claritin-D! It's my allergy medicine of choice. We haven't named them yet. We need your help on that point. So if you have any suggestions, leave it in the comment section.

So, as Bob Barker would say, "Help control the pet population. Have your dog or cat spayed or neutered!"