Tony Island Blog - Sane Thoughts for an Insane World

Welcome back! As you can tell from my entry title, I've hit a bit of a roadblock -- where do I go from here? Should I post yet another DVD review? Discuss some thoughts I've had about changing America for the better? Discuss Willie Harris' game ending "caught stealing" second base out? How about some football tidbits? I haven't posted anything about the New England Patriots - even after the NFL draft a few weekends ago. From everything I've read, they made some decent picks. I think the RB and WR they chose in the first two rounds look impressive. Now let's hope their college skills can be used professionally. Do you think NFL football is America's version of ancient Rome's gladiator games? They don't have the deaths, though they do have the injuries. Your thoughts? Do I keep posting even if I get no feedback? Do I ever stop complaining? Find out next time....on Tony Island blog! Feel free to post some ideas for future blog entries -- tell ...

Welcome back! So far, most of my DVD reviews have been rather ho-hum...the movies themselves have been good for the most part, but nothing to get overly excited about either. I would definitely recommend renting them at the least. Call Northside 777 ( James Stewart ) falls into the "wow - that was good!" category. Based on a true story , Call Northside 777 opens with a narrator explaining life in Chicago in 1932. Lots of underworld violence has resulted in many policemen being killed in the line of duty. We see one such murder of a policeman take place in a deli which was a front for a speakeasy. Fast forward 11 years -- the editor of a Chicago newspaper sees a small personal ad that catches his attention. It's offering a $5000 reward for any information regarding the murdered policeman from the film's opening scene. The editor assigns one of his reporters (James Stewart) to check out the story behind the ad. The ad leads to a middle-aged scrub woman, Tillie Wiecek, ...

Welcome back! I thought I'd share a little piece of fiction I wrote oh-so-many-years-ago for a high school assignment. It's still kind of fun to read.....let me know what you think! It's not Shakespeare, but what is these days? :) I'll be back to my regular postings next time! The Cycle Edenville was a typical American town. As a matter of fact, towns like it were spread all across the globe... ********************************************************************************** The meat clever floated effortlessly through the air to its destination. "No! Please, please, stop it!!" pleaded the officer. He moved backwards towards the wall, frantically waving his hands in front of him. "Nooooo......!!!!" The cleaver plunged into his chest. The lifeless mass slumped to the floor as blood spurted wildly, staining the surrounding furniture. Quint moved toward the body, laughing almost uncontrollably. He dipped his finger into the fresh blood ...

Welcome back! I recently viewed Roman Polsanski's Oliver Twist , Charles Dickens' story of an orphaned boy attempting to survive19th century London. I thought it was very well done - the acting was top-notch with the sets wonderfully re-creating 19th century London.The overall atmosphere was very Dickens-ian.. The story is condensed from the original source material - necessary since the original material is about 300 pages! So, some of the twists and turns of the original have been elminated or changed to fit the set of characters presented here (ie, they used the core set of characters from the book thus minor characters and their roles in the plot were eliminated or given to the characters used here). I didn't realize that Fagin was played by the wonderful Ben Kingsley ! That's how good he is and how good the makeup/atmosphere is. 9 year old Barney Clark did a fine job as Oliver while 14 year old Harry Eden makes a fine Artful Dodger. The DVD has several special feat...

Welcome back! OK - so this is a sign of desperation...but I really want to know if anyone is reading my blog! So, to promote my blog, I'm going to give away $1.00 to the FIRST (and only the first!) blog reader to leave a COMMENT! That's right, follow the simple rules below and earn $1.00! 1) Leave a coherent comment - full sentences, punctuation, etc - to any PREVIOUS entry (NOT THIS ONE!) 2) NO SPAM! 3) Have a PAYPAL account that accepts US dollars! 4) Leave a valid email address so I can contact you. That's it! I'll contact the first person to leave a comment to any previous entry in my blog (as of today, there have been no comments at all!) And get this -- you could earn another $1.00 by finding my OTHER Tony Island blog!! That's right - I have two Tony Island blogs on two different hosts - find the other one and earn another $1.00! Tags: paypal , 1.00 Powered by Qumana

Welcome back! I'm sitting here scratching at my eyes - they're itchy due to all the pollen in the air. We've had some rain here today and I had hoped that would help reduce the pollen floating around. It did during the day - I wasn't scratching my eyes and my nose wasn't as stuffy...but tonight is slightly different. While the nose is fairly dry, the eyes are making up for it! Yikes! It seems that the night is almost as bad as the day - I wonder if pollen is being sprayed at night? I dunno. According to Pollen.com and weather.com, the alergy alert for my immediate area is HIGH . Great! Itchy eyes galore. Pollen.com does say that Thursday - Saturday should be medium - whew! Speaking of Pollen.com, I was going to direct you to my home page and let you check the alergy alert for your area - but they declined my request to add their Alergy Alert script to my Web site. Why, you ask? Well, it's quite simple - they claim I don't have a Web site....hmmmmm...click t...

Welcome back! As I mentioned in my last post, I picked up a copy of Blogging for Dummies -- and am still slogging thru it. It's a really good read and most likely I'll read the whole thing cover-to-cover! Not to sound like a shill for the "Dummies" publisher, but I do enjoy their books - mind you, I haven't read a lot of them, but they are useful to get a good, quick grounding on a particular subject. I remember buying the HTML for Dummies book a few years ago - it was a good breezy read and got me up and running in no time. I do like the light hearted manner in which they are written - the interesting thing being that they are mostly written by different authors, so I assume maintaining that light-hearted approach takes some effort on the editor's part. The only problem I find with them is that they don't make great reference books after you have the material down pat (ie, when you're ready for the next level). But for going from novice to beginner, t...