It’s done! We’re going to the Superbowl!  Thanks Arvind and the rest of our friends who made this possible.  I’m not even sure it’s really sunk in yet.  Bears!!!!!  By the way, for some reason, the Bears are 7 point underdogs.  What an upset this is going to be!

Well things have been kind of crazy and I’ve had more than a few items of note to post here, but it just hasn’t happened. 

Last weekend we went to Vegas to get together with a bunch of our friends who do or at one time lived in Chicago.  We went to watch the Chicago Bears in the divisional playoffs.  Of course the Bears won which is now only less exciting because we just won the NFC Championship game yesterday against the New Orleans Saints.  Now we’re Superbowl bound!  BEARS!!

I could go on and on about what a great time I had in Vegas with the spectacular meals etc., but I have to move on to my Superbowl discussion.  .here’s where our best friends come in.  . .

Two of our friends, Arvind and John, had bought 4 Superbowl tickets a few months back when it really started looking like we could go all the way.  They got great seats on the lower level between the 30s for the whopping price of over $4000/ticket.  Everyone knew that they had these 2 extra tickets but it wasn’t clear what they were going to do with them . . .and of course the Bears hadn’t made it yet.  If they didn’t, they might have sold all 4. 

Anyway, it also turns out that Arvind and John are two of the several friends that were waiting for the perfect idea for a wedding gift for Scott and I.  So the day we were going to leave Vegas, they gave us our wedding gift: we had the first option to buy the remaining 2 Superbowl tickets for a deeply discounted rate. .all of our friends had gotten together to pay for a big chunk of the ticket cost.  Also, Arvind gave us some belated birthday and Christmas gifts of a very substantial bet on the Bears to win against the Saints.  If the Bears beat the Saints and went to the superbowl, we would also have another chunk of these tickets paid for.

Can you believe what great friends we have?  Despite their extremely generous offer, it was still a lot of money to talk about spending.  With heavy hearts (but confident we had done the right thing), we turned them down. 

And then ..

 The Bears won.

And earned their way to the Superbowl. . .

Now we’re reconsidering.  Stay tuned to find out what the final decision is going to be.

Here is a list of my top 8 along with some honorable mentions.  Some of the movies made the list because of pure clap-your-hands entertainment value and some made the list by being just really pretty. 

Honorable Mentions (in no particular order):

X-Men:III-The Last Stand; Mission:Impossible III; Wordplay; The Devil Wears Prada; Scoop

Casino Royale

7) Lucky Number Slevin

6) A Prairie Home Companion

5) The Omen

4) The Illusionist

3) The Prestige

2) The Departed

1) Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

I got a lot of great books for Christmas but my gift to myself was the second installment in the Joe Pitt books by Charlie Huston, No Dominion.  As with everything else he’s written, I loved it.  This one took me about 2 sittings to read (but probably only because I forced myself to go to sleep early last night so I wouldn’t crash at work today).  I can’t say it was my favorite of his and I’ll reserve some more specific thoughts until I have confirmation that my sister has finished reading it (we both had pre-ordered it before it’s Dec 26th release date).  I can’t even decide which I liked better, this one, or the previous book, Already Dead.  Hopefully I won’t have to wait until next December for him to release the final book. 

For my sister. . .Charlie Huston is making a series of appearances on the west coast to promote his new book in the next month.  He’ll be in San Francisco on Wednesday, January 17th @ 7pm at a place called “M is for Mystery.”

The Nintendo Wii is unbelievably fun to play.  My brother-in-law Alex, got one for Christmas and we spent many hours over the holidays getting in games of tennis, bowling etc.  Usually, my attention span for video games is non-existent.  It’s not that I don’t like them or get into them.  I’m totally engrossed for a total of 3 minutes.  Then I experience a violent loss of interest in which I can’t even be in the same room as the other people who are still playing.  The Wii is the first exception to this rule for me.  We must have played hours before I even thought to look at a clock.  It’s so intuitive.  There’s no hand cramping that’s usually associated with the conventional controllers. 

As Alex pointed out however, it’s no fun unless you’ve got multiple players.  Playing the computer just isn’t as good.  In my mind, playing the computer is like video poker or video slots; you never quite get rid of the feeling that you’re getting screwed and you have no control over the outcome whatsoever.  But the more players, the more fun.  The smack talking takes over and sometimes you end up laughing too hard to be any good at the game.  This has a lot to do with the absurd and hilarious movements of the “Miis” that are representing the players on the screen. 

If you get a chance to check one of these out, I highly recommend it.