Bus Tour, Bracket Update & Rocky Marathon

From the beginning of the planning for the San Francisco trip, I’ve had certain concerns about the double decker bus tour and I’ve never been able to really pinpoint the problem. Last week, I had everything booked that needs reservations except for the bus tour. There were four choices to choose from, three of them had pictures of the same bus, making me think that at least two, maybe all three were third parties for another company.

Going through a third party, though apparently cheaper, made me nervous. So I settled on what I thought was the main one of the three and the fourth one, which went around downtown and also stopped at both the north and south vista points of the Golden Gate Bridge. I decided that since this would give me an extra view of the Bridge, I would go with it, even though it was more expensive and took up an extra block of time.

However, when I read the terms of agreement, I began to get a little wary. It was made worse when I was getting ready to enter in my credit card information and the site wasn’t encrypted. I looked up the company on the Better Business Bureau’s website and they had given the company an F. It turns out that the company not only wasn’t based in California but it was in Cobb County, Georgia. They had numerous complaints filed against them and in many cases, the company never bothered to respond to BBB.

So I checked the other company, and while it wasn’t as many complaints, they too had an F rating and had trouble responding to BBB. In addition, their site didn’t offer encryption for credit card information.

I decided that it was better to get rid of the bus tour. On the one hand I’m disappointed but it will save a lot of time and a little bit of money as well. And if I’d gone on the tour and been forced to sit on the bottom level, I would’ve really been upset. I hope not going on the tour turns out to be a good thing.

Giant News

I got the tickets to the San Francisco Giants’ ballpark tour this week. I don’t know why they wouldn’t let me print them out but at least I got them in the mail without any problem.

Randy Johnson’s having a really good Spring, which is good news for him but bad news for me. The depth chart’s now listing him as the second starter, meaning I’ll see Matt Cain against the Brewers’ Jeff Suppan. Baseball’s baseball regardless but it would’ve been cool to see Johnson again (or even Barry Zito, currently listed as the team’s fourth starter).

On Opening Day, the Giants are giving away a calendar. On game two, they’re giving away collectable pins. And on the third game? Nothing. So I don’t get anything and I’m forced to see Cain, whose brother Abel was quite the shepherd from what I hear.

Rocky Marathon

My girlfriend and I watched 11 hours worth of movies this weekend, including Rocky I, II, III, IV and Rocky Balboa. Instead of watching the fifth one, I just explained the major details of the plot, though you can pretty much pretend it didn’t happen and move from part four to part six. She’d never seen any of the Rocky movies.

A couple things I was struck by about the series is that the little details hold up fairly well from beginning to end. Well, it was kinda odd that Mickey was 76 in the first one and he died in the third one, which was set five years later, at the age of 76.

The first two are similar in style to each other but the third and (especially) the fourth one seemed sillier, going for laughs in many places. And what was the deal with that robot in the fourth one.

Rocky Balboa, the sixth movie, is a successful return to franchise’s roots. I’ve seen the movie a few times but I appreciated it more having watched all the others back to back. In my original review, I wrote that it was the best one since the original and that I wasn’t sure if it might not be better than the first one. I still don’t.

Angelina

The other movie we watched was ‘Changeling,’ starring Angelina Jolie in the role in which she was nominated for an Oscar. It was a well-made movie and I certainly was interested from beginning to end. The plot was so unbelievable that I went to the Internet to find out how close this kept to the true story and it was relatively close, considering how movies go. I object to the starting of the story featuring the phrase: ‘A True Story’ when any details are changed. Enough was changed for it to be labeled ‘Based on a true story.’

Did Jolie deserve an Oscar? Here’s my problem with Angelina…I’ve never seen her in a movie where I was able to get past who she is. Is that her fault or mine? Sometimes it doesn’t matter but in this one, I found her presence to be distracting and I think someone else playing the part might’ve been more effective.

My Brackets

Okay, so my brackets aren’t super great. I already know I don’t know anything about college basketball.

I’m not going into the few upsets that I nearly picked because that’s pointless. It also wastes time to list the games I got right. You can look at the last entry and the scores for that. The bottom line regarding the Sweet Sixteen: I had three of four right in the Midwest, three of four in the West, three of four in the East and all four right in the South. And all my Elite Eight teams are still alive right now.

Final Thoughts

So much for the possible resurgence of ‘Scrubs.’ After a decently positive start, ‘Scrubs’ has sucked so bad as of late. This past week’s episode ranks up there as one of the worst of the series’ history.

Speaking of television, another week has gone by and I didn’t tape ‘The Simpsons.’ Am I missing it? No.

Want to know the greatest opening line to an article? James Mason had known his wife since she was a little boy.