5 Movies with Jennifer Aniston

It’s been a while since I’ve written a post for the Name 5 series. If you are new to the blog, I got the idea from the board game called Name 5. The premise is pretty simple – players advance on a by naming 5 items on a list from a card they draw. In this particular case, one of the cards says, “5 Movies with Jennifer Aniston.”

In my opinion, Aniston has been in a couple of great movies as well as a number of duds. Now that I look of my list of her five best movies, I would only watch two of them over and over – the first two I’ve listed below.

1. Marley & Me. By far my favorite Aniston movie. Loved her role as Jennifer Grogan. I particularly loved the scene where she thumbs through her husband’s (John) former columns near the end of the movie and suggests he put them in book. She reminisces about the role Marley played in their lives and you can feel the passage of time as she flips through the columns John wrote about the bad and funny deeds the dog committed over the years.
2. Management. I wrote quite a bit about this movie last July. Aniston plays a woman named Sue, a traveling art saleswoman who is trying to cut ties with a motel manager named Mike. Sue is aloof, unsure of what she wants, and going through the motions in life. She needs Mike, but she just doesn’t know it. Mike is immature, unsettled, and a bit of a wreck. But he’s in love with Sue and it makes him want to be a better man. What’s not to love about that?
3. Bounty Hunter. This is more of a comedy than anything, which is fine, but usually not my thing. Aniston plays a reporter named Nicole. I thought the chemistry between Nicole and her ex-husband Milo (played by Gerard Butler) was believable. I saw this one twice at the movie theater, but I doubt if I’ll watch it again.
4. Rock Star. The music reminded me of the 80s – when my hair was long and my socks were too. Aniston plays the girlfriend of a guy, Chris, who gets a shot to sing for his favorite band. They get caught up in a crazy lifestyle and it takes a toll on their relationship. You really feel for Aniston’s character, Emily, as their relationship dies.
5. The Good Girl. Aniston plays a store clerk named Justine in a small Texas town and she feels stuck. I’m a total sucker for a story like this one. But this one never quite did it for me.

5 Favorite Comic Strip Characters

This Luann comic strip comes from May 23, 2003. I love the give and take between Luann and
her brother Brad here. She is trying to give Brad advice about a woman named Toni. I clipped
this out and put it on my refrigerator, where it has yellowed with age.

It's not easy coming up with a list of favorite comic strip characters. I find it easier to make a list of favorite comic strips in general, but having to come up with characters made me think a little and that's never a bad thing.

Here are my 5:

1. Charlie Brown. Snoopy seems to be the star of the Peanuts strip, and I like him, but not as much as Charlie Brown. Charlie should have a complex given the number of times Lucy has pulled the football away from him every time he tries to kick it and the way he gets his clothes knocked off every time he takes the pitcher’s mound. His friends even chide him for picking the sickly looking Christmas tree. But he stays true to what he believes and he never gives up.

2. Garfield. He takes laziness to a new level – even for cats. Be he’s not always consistent in his laziness or eating habits. He befriends mice rather than eats them, but if a spider gets anywhere near him, he smacks it dead with a newspaper. Garfield acts like a human. He walks on his hind legs, he eats people food (pizza and lasagna seem to be his favorites) and he even gives his owner a hard time about his lack of dating success. He’s a caricature of the way we treat our pets – like humans, and I say that without any judgment.

3. Jeremy from Zits. His big shoes crack me up. So do his friends – one of whom is named Pierce (presumably because he has his eyebrows, ears, nose and lip pierced). Jeremy is a typical teenage boy – he’s in a band, he speaks a different language than his parents, he’s wrapped up in technology and he complains about everything. But he’s likable and he’s funny.

4. Brad from Luann. I like Brad for a number of reasons. First, I love his banter with his sister, Luann (see the strip above). Second, he became a firefighter because of the events of 911 and it changed him from a guy who was a slouch to a hardworking professional. Third, I enjoyed the way he fumbled for words after he met Toni, a female firefighter, and attempted to make her his girlfriend. I think every guy can relate to that.

5. Cathy. I haven’t seen this strip in a while. I’m not even sure if my local paper still carries it, but the way she stresses over every relational aspect of her life makes her relatable.

Who are your 5 favorite comic strip characters?

5 Famous Kevins

Kevin Appier

The best part of doing a Name 5 series on my blog is that I’m not subject to the suspect judging I normally have to encounter when my answers get a little creative.

I'm still holding a grudge over one of my answers being disallowed a couple of years ago when playing Scattergories. The card said to list something you’d find in a souvenir shop that starts with the letter “p.” That’s easy: pickles. The judges didn’t allow it. Since then I have found several places online that prove I was right.

Let’s see how creative my answers would be if I were to pull the “5 famous Kevins” card in the Name 5 game:

1. Kevin Costner. He’s been in a ton of baseball movies and chick flicks, so he has to be at or near the top of my famous Kevins list. Loved his roles in Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, Tin Cup, Message in a Bottle, For Love of the Game and The Upside of Anger.

2. Kevin Appier. I might get a few arguments on this one, but the former pitcher for the Kansas City Royals is the Royals’ all-time strikeout leader (1,458), won more than 100 games, finished third in the 1993 Cy Young Award vote with an 18-8 record and a 2.56 ERA. More than anything, he was one of the few bright spots on my favorite team that did nothing but lose during the 1990s. By the way, you can vote for him to make it into the Royals Hall of Fame this week.

3. Kevin Eubanks. I don't think the Tonight Show has been the same since he left. He was funny and he’s a great guitar player. I loved his work on this version of Leno theme song in 2009.

4. Kevin James. He was hilarious on The King of Queens, and I liked his roles in 50 First Dates, Hitch and Paul Blart: Mall Cop.

5. Kevin Seitzer. Here’s where I would get the argument from the board game police. “Kevin Seitzer was never famous,” they would say. “He was famous in my household,” would be my response, “and he should have been famous in yours.” The former Royals’ third baseman was the ninth AL player with 200 or more hits in his rookie season. He was on the 1987 All-Star team. And he was a career .294 hitter. Oh, and he’s on the Royals Hall of Fame ballot too.

How about you? Can you name 5 famous Kevins.

5 Characteristics of Someone Who is Wise

Photo: Jo Jakeman

I take on this topic in the spirit in which it was intended in the Name 5 game, for which this series is based. The question assumes everybody should be able to name 5 characteristics of someone who is wise – it doesn’t automatically assume the person answering the question is wise.

My answers come from observations of people like my grandfather and one of my former teachers, whom I perceive to be wise.

What exactly is wisdom?

To possess wisdom, you must have knowledge, but possessing knowledge does not necessarily lead to wisdom. Wisdom is knowing how to apply knowledge to a specific situation. Wisdom is knowledge plus experience plus intuition (not in a mystical sort of way, but in a practical sort of way – like a wise grandfather who offers to match every dollar his grandson saves toward a car, knowing his grandson will learn the value of saving). 

On to the 5 characteristics of someone who is wise ...

1. Well rounded. He isn’t dependent on one source or one point of view because he knows human nature is to shade the truth when it doesn’t line up with an agenda. After hearing all sides, he lives out what he has learned and is able to make corrections and adjustments as he goes.

2. Slow to speak, quick to listen. A wise person doesn't care about looking wise. He just wants to help. I once had a Sunday school teacher listen to all of my theological concerns while sitting on his living room couch before he gave me any input. When I finished speaking, his input was short, it spoke specifically to my situation and it changed everything for me.

3. Patience. A wise person is not in a rush unless a true crisis warrants him to be in one, and even then, he usually makes the right choice because has practiced enough patience in the past to know what to do when the pressure is on.

4. Mindful of his tone. My grandfather rarely raised his voice with people who needed his advice whether they knew it or not. Instead, he sat down at a table with them and listened. He asked questions. Not accusatory questions, but gentle questions that disarmed people. In so doing, he gently led people to the right answer for their exact predicament.

5. Humility. A wise person doesn’t talk down to people because he understands the bent of human nature and that bent includes him. Instead, he puts his arm around someone and says, “I’ve been there. Here’s what finally worked for me.”

Add to the list in the comment section ...

5 Items Found in My Junk Drawer

A few years ago, I wrote about junk drawers and it turned out to be a pretty popular post. What I didn’t tell you at the time was – I have three junk drawers. One in the kitchen, one in the living room and one in my office.

In the spirit of the Name 5 series, here are 5 items found in my office junk drawer:

1. My old Blackberry Curve 8330. I upgraded to a Blackberry Curve 8530 last summer and haven’t gotten around to selling my old one. If you are looking for one, drop me an e-mail and I’ll sell it to you for a good price.

2. A small pill box. It’s way too small to hold the medicine I take. It didn’t start out that way, but as the number of my prescriptions grew, I had to move on.

3. Uneaten candy – mostly red licorice. Being diabetic, I try to stay away from candy as often as possible, but licorice doesn’t harm my blood sugar. Problem is – I don’t really like licorice. So it just sits in my junk drawer. But one of these days ...

4. Various cables. Every piece of technology comes with cables it seems, but often other gadgets will run on the same cable so why clutter my desk any further with duplicate cables?

5. Batteries. No matter how many batteries I have in my junk drawer, I never have the size I need. Maybe that’s just poor planning on my part.

How about you – what’s in your junk drawer?

5 Favorite TV Show Theme Songs

Even though I rarely watch my favorite shows live, I rarely fast forward through theme songs. TV show theme songs set the tone for next 30 or 60 minutes. They are like an old friend who comes and sits down with you to watch the show. That’s why it bothers me when the producers of a show tinker with the theme song or change it completely.

I love the original theme song for One Tree Hill, “I Don’t Want to Be” by Gavin DeGraw, but this season they are using different singers every week and each performer is trying to make the song their own. It’s like having a stranger sit down next to me to watch the show. break my rule and fast forward through that particular theme song now.

Here are my 5 favorite TV show theme songs – and, as always, I hope you’ll leave your favorites in the comment section:

1. Gilligan’s Island. The show was on at 3:30 pm when I was in school, which was perfect since school got out at 3:00. Who among us didn’t bob our heads back and forth and sing along, “Just sit right back / And you’ll hear a tale / A tale of a fateful trip / That started from this tropic port / Aboard this tiny ship.” Great song.

2. The Brady Bunch. All you have to say is, “Here’s a story, of a lovely lady ...” and everybody who is 40 or over can sing right along with you. I don’t think it was very cool for guys to watch this when I was in school, unless of course you were talking about Marsha. She was a fox. If you have to ask when that means, then this list probably won’t mean much to you.

3. The Greatest American Hero. This was one of my favorite shows back in the day. The video that went along with the song was classic. If I were in danger in real life, I’d want a perfect super hero to show up and save the day, but if I’m going to watch a super hero on TV, I want him to be flawed – unable to fly straight or understand all his super powers, like the Greatest American Hero. By the way, it looks like all of the episodes are now available on YouTube.

4. The Jefferson’s. Loved the simplicity of this one – the moving van, the camera scaling the high rise, the taxi ride showing George and “Weezy” Jefferson heading for their new digs. Even if you can’t sing, you sing to this theme song when you hear it.

5. Friends. I didn’t watch this show when it first aired, but I watched all of the episodes on DVD several years after it went off the air. The opening lines of the song talk about how hard life is, but that reality is followed with reassurance from a friend who says, “I’ll be there for you ...” The video bits they play with the song are funny, but it still supports the premise that they aren’t going it alone.

Honorable mentions:

• Sanford and Son
• All in the Family
• The Flintstones

5 Elvis Songs that Mean Something to Me

I used a photo similar
to this for my drawing.

Continuing with the Name 5 series ...

My grandmother used to have a picture I drew of Elvis hanging on one of her walls. During a short drawing phase I went through, I used colored pencils, trying to re-create a side-profile headshot of Elvis singing onstage during his concern in Hawaii in 1973. The drawing turned out well – better than anything I drew before or since. I wish I knew where that drawing was now.

At night, I would often slip one of Elvis’ albums out of its cover, place it on the turntable in my room and lie on my back with the speakers scooted up to both ears, getting lost in his music. His sincere delivery coupled with his back story always made me feel a connection with his music. I was only a kid, but I was shy, overweight and my parents were divorced, so I knew pain when I heard it.

Here are 5 Elvis songs that mean something to me:

1. Kentucky Rain. A lonely song about a guy who can’t understand why his girl left him so he goes after her, in a non-creepy sort of way. You can hear the desperation in the chorus: “Kentucky rain keeps pouring down / And up ahead’s another town that I’ll go walking through / With the rain in my shoes, searchin for you / In the cold Kentucky rain, in the cold Kentucky rain.”

2. Suspicious Minds. I listened to the All Things Considered podcast earlier this week that featured an interview with Over the Rhine. During the interview, singer Karin Bergquist made this comment, “Some people write love songs about what happens in the beginning of a relationship. We’ve sort of moved on to what happens during the bulk of that relationship – the work, the investment, the commitment, you know? And some of it doesn’t really sound all that sexy.” I hear all of that when I hear Elvis sing Suspicious Minds.

3. In the Ghetto. I wasn’t born into poverty like the young man who is the subject of this song, but when I heard Elvis sing, “People, don’t you understand / the child needs a helping hand / or he’ll grow to be an angry young man someday / Take a look at you and me, / are we too blind to see, / do we simply turn our heads / and look the other way” I related to the boy’s loneliness and vulnerability.

4. Are You Lonesome Tonight? Loneliness, emptiness, a fractured relationship, doubt, lies – all wrapped up in one song. When Elvis sang, “Is your heart filled with pain, shall I come back again? Tell me dear, are you lonesome tonight?” it gave me a better understanding about love. Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it misunderstands. And sometimes it’s broken. But it always remembers the needs of the other person.

5. How Great Thou Art. Growing up, I never really knew what this song meant, but I always got the sense that the message was bigger than me. As I got older, Elvis’ version of the song became an anthem in my family. It was my grandmother’s favorite song – the same grandmother who hung the picture I drew of Elvis in her home. She used to tell her grandchildren she wanted this song performed at her funeral. We granted her wish.

A couple of months before Elvis died, he performed the song live and it is available on YouTube. Watch the video if you have a few minutes. Look for eternity is his eyes. And when you get to the 1:44 mark, look for it in the eyes of the woman in the crowd who is on the verge of tears.

5 Bands with Strange Names

Continuing with the Name 5 series ...

You’ll have to forgive me for sticking to one era of music when it comes to naming 5 bands with strange names, but the 80s was my decade – musically speaking. So all 5 of these strange band names come from that era:

1. Killer Dwarfs. Each of the band members changed their last names to Dwarf. I remember a Russ Dwarf (the singer) and a Mike Dwarf (guitar). I don’t remember the others. Musically speaking, they had a CD called Dirty Weapons that wasn’t bad, but strangely it’s not available on iTunes.

2. Lillian Axe. I have no idea what their name means but they were a great group. They mastered the pop metal sound of their era. I think they were mostly a hit in the Midwest though. A different version of the band is still around but they have a different lead singer and they just aren’t the same in my opinion.

3. Blue Murder. You might be sensing a death theme at this point and I wouldn’t blame you, but you have to admit, the death theme does make for some strange band names. I don’t know why they called themselves Blue Murder, but they had a bluesy rock sound I really enjoyed and their moment in the sun lasted about, well, a moment.

4. Love Over Universal Destruction (L.O.U.D.). Their name always cracked me up because it seemed like they used any words possible to come up with the LOUD acronym. But later in the careers they became Christians, or, at the very least, they became more vocal about their faith, so the name seemed to work quite well. The lead singer was also quite the Excitebike arcade game fan. Whenever I saw the band play live, I often met the singer at the Excitebike game between sets to test our skills.

5. Sweet F.A. Again, I have no idea where this name came from or what it means. I had one of their CDs, but I can’t recall any of their music. 

There you have it – 5 strange band names that came to mind without looking at my iPod. How about you? Can you name 5 strange band names?

5 Good Things About Getting Older

Photo: Dimitar Nikolov

Knowing my friends were planning a couple of board game nights a while back, I picked up a new (to me) game called Name 5. The premise is pretty simple – players advance on a game board by naming 5 items on a list from a card they draw.

A timer is involved, so that pretty much kills my chances of doing well because my brain just can’t recall specifics when a timer is ticking, but the game is a lot of fun.

We’ve played it a couple of times since I got it and both times I heard several topics that would be good blogging fodder, especially since I wouldn't be on the timer. Over the weekend I jotted down quite few of those topics and plan to blog about them.

The first one is – name 5 good things about getting older.

1. The lows aren’t as low as they used to be. I’ve never been an overly emotional person, outwardly, but internally, when I was younger, nearly every bump in the road felt like a crisis and when a genuine crisis occurred, I didn't think I would survive it. I'm just talking about the typical teenage angst – girls, popularity, sports. With age came perspective though. By surviving previous trials, I know that somehow I'll survive new ones too.

2. Having a core set of people you can trust. More than half of my closest friends are the result of friendships formed in high school. I know they are going to be present when I need them to be and I think they can same the same about me. We’ve seen the best of worst in each other, but still, the friendships remain. That’s not often the case younger in life – when so many relationships are based on performance.

3. Entertainment is more about the people you are with than the activity. The question that never changes is – what do you want to do? In high school, we went cruising, attended dances, went to football games and listened to music together. The event was necessary. Now, I go to coffee shops, go to movies, go to sporting events and a few other things, but mostly, the events are just the backdrop.

4. Having the ability to look backward and forward. I had a conversation with one of my niece’s the other day. She’s 20 and trying to figure out her place in the world. I told her about the hardships the previous generations in our family endured so my generation and hers would have more opportunities. I wanted her to know that her generation doesn’t exist in a void.

5. Digging deeper instead of wider. When I was a boy, I wanted to become a football player, a tennis player or a rock star when I grew up. I was also into stamp collecting, rock collecting (for about two hours), coin collecting, baseball card collecting, and lots of other things. My passions aren’t spread as thin anymore. Today, I read every book a favorite author writes. I listen to entire albums, not just the hit songs. I put my feet up and turn everything off sometimes, just to think. Depth is more satisfying.

How about you? Can you name 5 good things about getting older? Take all the time you need. I won't even start the timer.