Movies and Stuff: After a drought of stuff to watch, television and movie season is starting to come into high gear ... right as baseball and football have their own stories to tell. "Lost in Translation" was the best movie I saw this summer and probably will be around come Oscar Time. "Underworld" was a fun vampire/werewolf flick and other good movies are due to come soon. Now, John Sayles, a director I usually enjoy, did not do a good job with "Casa de Los Babys," which was well acted, but felt like half a movie. The story of Americans going out of the country to try to adopt babies had potential, but was underwritten, and had no true momentum.

On the other hand, there will be many season premieres (and premieres in general) on tv this week, and I'm looking forward to several of them. What will happen on "West Wing" and "Gilmore Girls?" Will "Miss Match," [Cher of "Clueless" apparently did grow up to be a lawyer and her matchmaking ways continued] "Joan of Arcadia," (annoyingly on at the same time) and a few other shows be worth watching? How about "Coupling?" I fear this show ... the advertisements and hype make it sound too oversexed and overblown, while the British original (often hiliarious, intelligent, and touching) is partly so good because it is more restrained. I will give one example ... the nutty Jane (one article said she was less nutty here -- why?) says she is a bisexual, but thus far it seems it is just hype. The American Jane in one article was labeled bisexual, as if she actually is. Time will tell.

Ah, to have to deal with NY sports teams. The Nets, a NJ team that actually admits to the fact, is the current Knicks of the near past ... good, but not good enough to go all the way. The Yankees are the Yankees. The rest have brought their separate degrees of aggravation the last couple years. The Mets are now 1 out of 16 ... they had to work at it Saturday with bad baserunning decisions (one by the third base coach) key in their 10th inning defeat. Sunday was just another typical example of great pitching nullified by lack of hitting ... Trachsel, Leiter, and now Seo all gave up one or two runs, and all got nil out of it. Seo at least didn't get the indignity of a loss, helped out by the bullpen getting out of an eighth inning mess. Lost in the ninth, helped out by inferior outfielder defense.

The Jets lost again ... mediocrity mixed with missed chances, while the Giants almost blew another one (21-3 at the Half, they hung on to win 24-21 in OT). I saw the previously noted inferior Sayles film instead of biting my fingernails watching that game ... I had my full screaming and agonizing during the first one. I picked up some Chinese on the way ... somewhat inferior General Tao Shrimp. Let it never be said that all Chinese food is alike or fast food joints either. I have my regulars in which I order certain things, even though the one on the corner of my block is underused. Why? Well, when it takes a few minutes of me standing there before they take my order, is this that surprising?