Monthly Archives: November 2006

Fletch Reflected

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Fletch Reflected

Fletch Reflected
by Gregory McDonald
RATING: 7 out of 10

Over 2 decades, Gregory McDonald wrote 11 novels featuring one of my favorite characters of all time – Irwin M. Fletcher, affectionately known as Fletch. The timeline of the books was actually really interesting, jumping around chronologically and weaving interesting characters in and out of his stories.

The last two books in the series (Son of Fletch, Fletch Reflected) are not considered a part of the Fletch series according to McDonald’s official site. The character of Fletch appears a lot in Son of Fletch (which was the last book I read), but I think that McDonald perhaps intended to create a new series of books around Fletch’s son, Jack, so he introduced him with a hybrid novel that was about half Fletch-driven and half about his son.

Fletch Reflected almost entirely focuses on Jack during the time immediately following the end of Son of Fletch. It is an interesting story in which he starts to investigate the attempted murder of an eccentric scientist who keeps all his family very close, despite their obvious loathe towards him.

It’s a pretty good book, a little better than Son of Fletch, but perhaps I’m just a little burnt on the whole series. It’s been really fun to read the whole series and see the full spectrum of what McDonald envisioned when he created the character of Fletch. It’s amazing that he was able to maintain the character and his attitude from 1974 to 1994. The only similar instances that I can think of are Ian Fleming’s James Bond (12 novels in 13 years, but the franchise has carried through to many more books) and Clive Cussler’s Dirk Pitt (that’s for you, Jake).

(I’m sure that there are other examples, but those are the only ones I could think of right now.)

I’m a little sad that the series slowed down and ended, but at the same time, I can’t imagine writing about the same character for that long. I don’t think I could recommend the book by itself without the rest of the series. However, it’s still a fun read, so if you like Fletch and haven’t read this book, I would definitely suggest it.

My Two Weeks Off

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My last day at Perceptive Software was November 10. I start my new job on November 27. I think my new employer would have liked for me to start on November 13, but I really needed this time off to decompress and prepare myself for my upcoming new position.

I’m thrilled to be starting this new job. I can’t wait to get in there, but for the last 2 weeks, I’ve been really enjoying not working.

Since Alli works for herself, she has been able to schedule herself available as well. We’ve had such a blast just hanging out the two of us in the house, getting Starbucks and muffins from our Price Chopper and so many other memories that I have to list some of them here:

  • Starbucks and muffins from Price Chopper every day
  • Chipotle almost every day
  • Our annual Shopping Day
  • Our Chiefs Excursion
  • Alli punching Clay Aiken at Sam’s
  • Seeing Casino Royale and Stranger than Fiction in a span of less than 24 hours
  • Our Netflix trial and seeing Roman Holiday for the first time
  • Watching Today, Regis & Kelly, The View, and The Megan Mullaly show. Seriously.
  • Talking ourselves out of spending $3,000 at Nebraska Furniture Mart
  • Seeing Tim Gunn and Angela Keslar from Season 3 of Project Runway at the Leawood, KS Macy’s
  • Meeting little Stella Anne less than 24 hours after she was born…you guys make good-looking kids, K&S
  • Naps
  • Interviewing a new member of my new team
  • Snuggling with the dog
  • Spending Thanksgiving (and Ashley and Tom’s birthdays) with Alli’s family
  • Late night text-messaging with Jake
  • SUGAR COOKIES
  • The onset of Christmas music, including our newest Christmas CD, Wintersong
  • Finishing 2 books (Review of Fletch Reflected coming soon)
  • The Chiefs beating Denver on Thanksgiving
  • Staying up late by myself to watch the KU-Florida game go into overtime and have KU win
  • Returning home
  • Relaxing
  • Spending 2 weeks with my best friend

Some of that might mean nothing to you readers, but it has meant the world to me. I’ll try to be a more prolific poster, but with the new job starting, we’ll see.

Shopping Day!

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Every year, Alli and I take one day and try to knock out all of our Christmas shopping for our friends and family. In the past, I’ve taken a day off of work early in December and we do all the shopping in that one day. Since I’ve been off the last week (and am off the next as well), we used today to get our shopping done.

It’s such a relief to have all that done. I can’t believe that we got through all of it, but it helps when you have a good game plan (like we did). We could have been even more efficient and we probably would have been done by 1 or 2 this afternoon. Even so, we got done by 4-ish, home in time to take a short nap (I did, while Alli wrapped presents…what a jerk), and I even got up our monstrous 9-foot, pre-lit, fake Christmas tree. It looks awesome.

In the past, we’ve always waited until after Thanksgiving to put our decorations up, but since we’ll be in Council Bluffs and we’re hosting Christmas this year, we got a head start on stuff while I can be home to help.

We’re planning on taking most of the day tomorrow to get the rest of our stuff up, but we both have appointments tomorrow (I have an interview at my new company and Alli has to go meet with a client), so we’ll work when we can. On Wednesday, it’s off to Iowa for the holiday weekend. I can’t believe that my time off is coming to a close. It’s going to suck next Monday having to go to work. But I’m excited to start my new job. I’ll just have to relish in these last few days off.

Squeaking By

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Alli and I (thanks to the generous nature of one of my former co-workers – thanks Teresa!) got to go to the Chiefs-Raiders game today. Now, I will go to any game, any day, any weather, and today was no exception. However, the fact that it was a Chiefs-Raiders game made it that much more fun.

Chiefs-Raiders is one of the great rivalries in the NFL. It’s over 40 years old and there is a serious nature to it…it goes all the way to the owners on this one (rumor has it that Lamar Hunt and Al Davis once got into a bar brawl that left both with multiple wounds…and that was only 2 years ago!).

Today also marked the return of Trent Green to the lineup. Let’s be honest…Damon Huard, you did a nice enough job, but after your godawful performance in Miami, you deserve to be benched, ESPECIALLY for Trent Green (the second-best statistical passer in the NFL over the last 4 years only to some dude from Indianapolis named Archie or something like that).

The first drive, the Chiefs marched down the field behind the strong running of Larry Johnson, but let’s be honest…Trent didn’t even have the OPPORTUNITY to contribute to the drive because Mike “Herm Edwards” Solari just took the ball out of Trent’s hands, only allowing him one throw on the drive, a crappy wide receiver screen to the most worthless of all Chiefs – Dante Hall. It looked as though the Chiefs would be in good shape as they held Oakland to field goals on their first two drives (although the defense had some struggles tackling people and letting Aaron Brooks look like Michael Vick instead of…well…Aaron Brooks. (After the game I heard Herm Edwards say, “yeah, we heard that Brooks would be getting the start and that concerned us a bit.” Um, really? We’re talking about Aaron Brooks, the human turnover machine. That dude sucked so bad that THE SAINTS let him go.)

Anyway, the Chiefs defense stalled because Herm Edwards couldn’t gameplan his way out of a paper bag. To be honest, the Chiefs offense has a better chance of being more explosive if they go to a no-huddle Colts-style offense and just let Trent call the game from the field. He knows more about offensive play-calling than Solari (and certainly Herm Edwards) ever will. Fortunately, the defense played pretty well and we went into the locker room at halftime only down 13-7.

After halftime, it looked like more of the same. We drove the field and got a field goal, but again, the un-brilliance of Edwards’ staff kept the offense from blowing the game open. It’s almost like Edwards and Johnson have a behind-doors deal that guarantees Larry Johnson (who is a great back, mind you, but is going to get hurt if we don’t stop leaning on him so hard) 30 touches and 150+ yards per game. Our offense is so boringly predictable that Michael Bay might as well be directing the games.

Still, even with Lawrence Tynes (who has also been money this season) missing a field goal to tie the game at 13, we found ourselves up 17-13 with 1 minute and 32 seconds to go in the game as Johnson pounded it into the end zone for his 2nd touchdown of the game to cap off a brilliant Trent Green-led drive.

BUT

That didn’t stop the defense from trying to give up the game. We of course went into a prevent against a team with receivers that are ALL faster than us and Oakland drove to the 8 before ROOKIE Jerrod Page saved the game by intercepting a pass intended for Randy Moss in the end zone. Game over. Chiefs win.

Phew.

The win brings us to 6-4, still 2 games behind the division leading winner of the San Diego-Denver game tonight. Hopefully San Diego wins so we can pull even with Denver on Thanksgiving at home. But I am not real confident about that game. We BARELY got by Oakland. How will we do against the BEST DEFENSE IN THE LEAGUE. With Edwards and Solari calling the shots…probably not very well.

But here’s hoping…

New Glasses

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New Glasses

I got new glasses.

They are Oakleys.
They have red in them.
They are totally sweet.
They rock much harder than my last pair of glasses (which were almost 5 years old).

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

Two Out of Three Aint Bad

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In the last 48 hours, Alli and I have checked out 3 different movies:

  1. Casino Royale – The latest addition to the James Bond series starring Daniel Craig
  2. Stranger than Fiction – A quirky story starring Will Ferrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, and Emma Thompson
  3. Art School Confidential – The newest in our Netflix trial…an independent flick with John Malkovich

#1 and #2 were great. #3…not so much. Not terrible, just weird.

Casino Royale

I went into this movie with a lot of apprehension. I didn’t know enough about Daniel “James Blond” Craig to know whether or not he could fill Pierce Brosnan’s shoes. In my opinion, up to this point, Brosnan was a very close second to Sean Connery as the best Bond ever. Even so, I grew up with James Bond. He was like my Superman growing up. My dad loved all the Bond movies, so I loved all the Bond movies.

This one was one of my favorites.

It’s different than others. The insane actions scenes are all still there (the first scene is UN-REAL), but gone is the cheekiness that Connery, Roger Moore, and even to some extent Pierce Brosnan brought to the table. Even so, you totally buy Craig as Bond. You can see how he could charm the pants off countless women around the globe.

Curiously missing from Casino Royale, however…

  • Moneypenny – the banter between Bond and Moneypenny while he waits for M was a large part of that cheekiness
  • Q – The gadgets were there, but the gadget guy was not. Perhaps he’ll make a comeback in the future. John Cleese was a good replacement Q in the last movie.
  • The aforementioned double-entendre and jokes, save one, but I won’t ruin it.

Stranger than Fiction

Awesome, smart, poignant, well-acted, good message.

There’s not much else I could say about this movie without ruining much of it. It was a great movie. Everyone should see it. Seriously.

Art School Confidential

Funny at some points, but just kind of bizarre. Probably could have been better if it were less rough around the edges. There were some funny jokes about art school students, but a lot were pretty cliched. Still, it could have been worse. It could have been better too.

Not a bad percentage. I would watch Art School Confidential again if I got to see the other two movies as well. They made the third totally worth it.

Son of Fletch

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Son of Fletch

Son of Fletch
by Gregory McDonald
RATING: 7 out of 10

When I received all 11 Fletch books from Tom and Carol (my in-laws) for my birthday a while back, I imagined myself reading all 11 books in succession in the order that they were published. (McDonald actually jumped around in Fletch’s life timeline in the order of stories he told. Fletch Won and Fletch, Too – the books that chronicle Fletch’s first and second adventures – actually were written much later in the series, coming out over a decade after the original book – the one made famous by Chevy Chase’s film portrayal – was written.

Now, it’s true, I rocked through the first 9 books in the series in rapid succession, devouring McDonald’s quick wit and dialogue like I would a Chipotle burrito. However, as I reached the end and I learned more about the final two novels in the series, Son of Fletch and Fletch Reflected, I found two things:

  1. There was about a 7-year gap between Fletch, Too (Book 9) and Son of Fletch (Book 10)
  2. You could say that the books “jumped the shark” by making Fletch a father through a previous engagement in one of the earlier stories.

That’s not to say that McDonald shouldn’t have done these things; I imagine that there was much clamoring for another Fletch novel, but after writing 9 books about the same character, you have to imagine that things might get a little stale.

As for the book, it was only OK by the rest of the series’ standards. It contained the same witty dialogue, but I found it hard to follow at some stages and I certainly entered it a bit departed from the series. Since there is a lot of reference to events that occur in other books, I had to rack my brain at times to remember things. But still, it’s a good, fast-paced novel and I enjoyed it.

I’m planning on finishing the series by reading Fletch Reflected next. It, too, is about Fletch’s son, Jack. Toward the end, McDonald received an immense amount of pressure from his publisher to use the Fletch name in the book titles, even though he wanted to make reference to Jack in the last two. (Read more about it here.)

Finishing the book made me think more about the upcoming film version of Fletch Won that is being developed. Originally it was meant to be a Kevin Smith project under the new Weinstein company, but the Weinsteins wouldn’t let Smith make the movie he wanted to, so he backed out to do other things. Now, Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence is attached to write and direct with Scrubs star Zach Braff attached to play the role of Fletch. I’m not sure this is a good or bad choice yet. I think Ryan Reynolds might have been more true to the character McDonald created so many years ago…Braff just isn’t suave enough.

That’s not to say I won’t go see it, because I will…just with some reservation.

NASCAR: Not a sport.

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I don’t care what anyone says…

NASCAR IS NOT A SPORT.

Sure, it’s tough to drive a car 200+ miles per hour around in a circle, but that is some BORING driving. I realize that it is like the NUMBER ONE spectator sport in the United States, but MAN, I just don’t get it.

Now, animated movies about NECKCAR featuring famous people’s voices from Pixar Studios…THAT IS SOME SWEET ACTION.

Alli and I are testing out Netflix while I’m on vacation between jobs and Cars was at the top of our list. (We also have checked out Roman Holiday and A Prairie Home Companion and we have Art School Confidential arriving tomorrow.)

Cars (Widescreen Edition)

I am always amazed by Pixar’s innovation and creativity. In Cars, they have a great homage to the old American roadways (Route 66 and all that), but a great message about responsibility, friendship, and…well…cars. I really enjoyed the movie, although I could have done without Owen Wilson as the main character. Bonnie Hunt wasn’t great either as Owen’s love interest. (Sidenote: this is not a criticism of them as actors, although neither is great, but more a comment on my disenchantment with their voice skills.) Larry the Cable Guy was awesome, though.

Anyway, I would recommend Cars to just about anyone. In fact, you should buy it for me at Amazon. Thanks!