I am writing this from my Mom’s computer in La Grange, Texas. We are at the ranch for Thanksgiving and things at home have been so crazy lately, I haven’t had time to post.

It seems to be a tradition for Tammy and I to have insanely busy holiday seasons. We have been rehearsing for our church’s Christmas musical three nights a week since the end of October. I still work with the middle school kids every Wednesday nights, and on our few remaining free evenings we’ve been packing up our apartment. We are moving (as I mentioned before) and our move in/out falls on Thanksgiving weekend.

So, we’re at the ranch for today and Thursday. Then Friday morning we hurry back home to sign the new lease and see if we can move all the boxes into the new apartment in one afternoon. Saturday morning, I pick up a rental truck and meet several friends (THANKS GANG!!!) to move the furniture. We hope to have the old apartment cleaned and get the keys turned in Saturday night. *Fingers firmly crossed*

Then we have musical rehearsal on Sunday afternoon. *Whew*

I just wanted you all to know that I’m not lying dead in a ditch. Much to the contrary. I hope to have pics of the new apartment up in a week or so. Until then, say a prayer for us.

My truck, BamBam (What? You don’t name your vehicles? Shame on you!), is famous for it’s many bumper stickers. Not just any bumper sticker has what it takes to make it onto my truck. They must say something important, poignant, or whacky enough to be a WBQotW. Such is the case with this week’s quip.

If you’re living like there is no God, you’d better be right!

photoshop - (fó´tó - shôp) v. To digitally manipulate an image.

I’m one of those geeks that turn cultural trends into verbs. I was one of the first people I know to use “google” as a verb. In the same manner, I have been “photoshopping” images for years and preaching that you can not believe your eyes anymore.

A couple of days ago I posted my first submission on Worth1000. If you have any doubt about the power of digital editing, spend some time over at Worth. You’ll be amazed. (The tutorial about artificial aging is my favorite.)

Now, it’s all well and good to photoshop for silly online contests. It’s another thing entirely to create images for the media that create a story where none exists (also known as lying). This is what you see on all those spurious tabloid covers and it’s called photo-chopping.

photo-chop - (fó´tó - chôp) v. To digitally manipulate an image for malicious or duplicitous purposes.

This is certainly not a new practice among the media’s dirtier dogs, but with the latest technology it’s that much easier and thus that much more tempting for journalists to make news rather than report it. I strongly encourage you to read this article about the history of image tampering. It will open your eyes to some of the things you may have seen but should not have believed.

I have seen so many movies in the last few months! Keep in mind that in the previous two years I had seen exactly five movies in theaters, all of which were part of trilogies. But in the last three months, I’ve seen “Batman Begins”, “March of the Penguins”, “Corpse Bride”, and “Wallace & Gromit” all in the theater. On top of that, we just rented “Herbie: Fully Loaded”, “Robots”, and “Shaun of the Dead” on DVD.

The problem is that I’ve seen so many movies in relatively rapid succession that I can’t remember enough about each movie to do a quality review. I do remember enough to rate them though, so here is my “lite” review of these shows.

I am a huge Batman fan, but I’m a pretty harsh critic when it comes to my favorites. This movie surpassed my expectations. Great show! Batman Begins earns five out of five grins.

Tim Burton is a freakish human being, but one of my favorite film makers. (I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Burton directed the first couple of Batman movies that made me fall in love with the character.) The Nightmare Before Christmas is one of my all time favorites and Corpse Bride had the exact same style. The plot line is not as strong as it could have been, but the art makes up for it. I give it four out of five grins.

I have a soft heart for English humor, from Monty Python to Mr. Bean. Wallace fits nicely in between. If you liked Chicken Run, you’ll love Wallace & Gromit. I give it four grins.

March of the Penguins, in all honesty, is not much more than a National Geographic special with a better script. But between the stunning visuals and beautiful musical score, it’s worth seeing. The narration is brilliant and makes even the steamy sex scene (honest!) kid safe. I was most grateful that the film makers managed to leave Darwin out of the script. I’d say three grins is more than respectable for a documentary.

I remember watching the old Herbie movies at my cousins’ house. They had a satellite dish (the old eight foot SETI style) and could pick up the Disney channel when my house only got four stations. (No, not Fox. PBS!) This new incarnation does fair justice to the 70’s movies. Herbie: Fully Loaded is good, clean fun, garnering three grins.

I’m a sucker for computer animation. As far as the art, Robots is top notch. However, I got the impression that the art was the impetus and the storyline was an after thought. (Watching the DVD extras confirmed it.) Still, it’s a fun show with a good moral. Robots gets three grins.

Even if you’re not big on English humor, Shaun of the Dead is flat out funny. I laughed out loud many times (much to the chagrin of my wife who was trying to sleep in the next room.) Still, this is one of those movies that put me in a hard spot. Much like Office Space, no matter how funny I found it, I have a hard time recommending it to my friends because the language is really bad. Not quite Tarantino bad, but almost. There are more F-bombs in Shaun than in Office Space, but if you can turn on your mental filters for the night, this one is a must see. Oh, and don’t feel bad if you don’t understand every line of dialog. There’s enough UK slang that this movie could well be considered a foreign language film. I would give it four grins, but it gets a one grin penalty for language.

This week’s WBQotW comes from an old bumper sticker I saw in the early 90’s (looong before anyone knew Dr. Atkins).

Eat Rice. Potatoes make your butt big.

Which prompts a quandry. Wouldn’t it make more sense to call it Potato Butt, than Cottage Cheese Thighs?