Some friends of ours recently made a short film (they're officially in IMDb) that got into the Sarasota Film Festival, so Kelly and I had to check it out. It screened with eight other short family-friendly films on a Saturday morning, and there was good turnout for the two locally-made titles in the set. I enjoyed our friends' comedy and laughed along with everyone else, and I was impressed by several of the other movies too. Short films don't get much respect, but there's often so much more originality and experimentation in them. We ran into some other old friends in the audience and shared a long lunch afterwards catching up about old times and mutual friends. What a great start to the weekend. I need to get out to this annual film festival more often.


Logical Operator

The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »

Tom's Ball Smells Like Apple Pie

For the last four months, I've spent Tuesdays at a bowling alley playing in a just-for-fun league. Score was kept, but the mood was friendly and non-competitive, except for one of my teammates who kept competing with us instead of the other teams. :-) I struggled with it at first, partly because I thought I was signing up for a six-week league and it turned out to be a sixTEEN-week league, and partly because my skills had somehow diminished even though I'm in better shape now. Go »

Milwaukee's Best

Today I learned a valuable lesson: Don't quote that line from Wayne's World about "mill-you-wock-AY" to a native of that city. It's like asking them to bring you a cheese wheel when they visit: You deserve a kick in the balls for it. I learned this while planning my visit to the city this weekend for beer, brats, Packers, and oh yeah, Matthew Preston. Go »

Jeffrey Katzenberg is a Crazy Person

I'm no fan of 3-D. I have lazy eye, which makes my right eye blurry and my left eye sharp. During a normal movie, I usually sit up front to be absorbed in the picture so that it doesn't matter, or if I sit in the back, I can concentrate to correct my vision. Go »

Gothic Conclusion

Gothic Earth was played for the last time on April 14, finally completing a long campaign that I was worried at times would wind up abandoned before we could finish it. You can read the entire storyline now. I'll leave the website online through August 31. Go »

Heart Burn

The recurring pericarditis that I mentioned elsewhere is now believed by my primary-care doctor to be heartburn or possibly an ulcer. The latter explanation is possible I suppose, but I'm skeptical about the former since it feels less like an acidic burning than like a sharp localized lower-chest pain such as a knife wound or bullet wound. Either way, it still keeps occurring every few weeks, it still hurts like a son of a bitch and keeps me awake all night, and I'm way beyond sick of it happening. Go »

Over and Out

"How's the week treating you?" "Like I slept with its wife." I've had better weeks. Go »