I think birthday cards are the best place to be equally witty and honest. They are where I do my most satisfying writing. But why should I wait until people have birthdays to share my outlook?
According to this week's Sports Illustrated, the following song was inspired by the singer/songwriter's wife's devotion to Roger Federer. And I am also devoted to Roger Federer, so I watched the video. Big surprise, I really like the song. I hope you do, too.
Several of the lyrics are very applicable to the idolatry of sports stars in general and Mr. Federer specifically.
"He never gives attention, but you still yearn." Fact.
And the line about the "broken record" could refer to the fact that Roger is considered by many to be the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) in the world of tennis and holds the record for the most Grand Slam wins.
(And on an unrelated note, I am in love with the lettering on the building behind the musician. It looks just like a scene out of That Thing You Do!)
And just to be random, I'll tell you that I once heard on The Today Show that the first big hit of The Plain White T's was inspired by the name of an aspiring Olympian. And this article (from a fairly sketchy website, I admit) confirms my remembrance. Which is to say that every time I hear this song I think of the Olympics instead of long-distance, unrequited love.
Unless of course that unrequited love swims the 100m freestyle in under 48 seconds and hangs out at Berkeley...
Ten days and counting, people. Ten days and I will be living the pre-Olympic dream, attending a full day of Team USA Olympic Swimming Trials.
Revel with me.
From Phelps's Facebook page: Trying out some Harrod's fashions.
This time around, London will add medals to Phelps's wardrobe.
From Lochte's upcoming supermodel career: Sporting a classic Ralph Lauren polo.
Vogue, Ryan. Vogue.
My recent (and related) post is actually bringing lots of lookers to the blog, but you may be surprised to hear that Lochte is lapping Phelps thanks to two keywords: grill and girlfriend.
In related news, nine days from now London will have an Olympic trial run . . . er, will continue it's tradition of making good-looking athletes look better. Prep yourself for the Wimbledon whites. Even Phelps knows to bow to the All England Club.
From watching my stats lately, I've discovered that most visitors to my blog come to see this picture:
Around thirty people (women, I'm assuming) come to my blog every day, just for that. They find my blog through Google images, usually looking for the key words "Matthew Goode Leap Year." Try it right now. You will find that the good old Birthday Card Philosopher makes it to the first page of image results.
Which is pretty good, considering that I have only ten followers.
So basically I'm saying this blog post is entirely self-promoting. Keep 'em coming, Matthew Goode.
But seriously, let's talk about Matthew Goode for a second.
Don't judge him by his IMDb profile picture, because his hair makes him look like the child of Pee-Wee Herman and Crispin Glover in Back to the Future.
The first movie I remember him from is Chasing Liberty, one of those my-life-is-so-hard-because-my-dad-is-the-leader-of-the-free-world movies. This time the role of the president's daughter is played by Mandy Moore, with Mark Harmon as Mr. President. (Which gives you a whole new perspective on Summer School.)
For some never-explained reason Matthew Goode, a vocally and legally British man, is also a Secret Service agent. But not just any Secret Service agent--the Secret Service agent who gets assigned to accompany the President's daughter on her trek across Europe, get this, IN SECRET.
She's wild, he's uptight, they fall in love, Venice, blah, blah, blah. And basically, I was in love with him. This movie also features Jeremy Piven and is easily the most watchable film in this category.
I luckily remember nothing of the awful variation featuring Katie Holmes as the President's daughter and Michael Keaton as the President. Oddly enough, Katie's IMDb profile lists First Daughter directly under Batman Begins, a role originally played by Michael Keaton. She went from playing Batman's daughter to playing his love interest? No wonder that bat is messed up.
But seriously. Just say no. 8 percent critic approval reported on Rotten Tomatoes. You can count that on your hands.
In between these two I would place the third and final film, the dead-give-away titled My Date with the President's Daughter, featuring Will Friedle of Boy Meets World and Dabney Coleman as the President. They played this movie a lot on the Disney Channel in the early 2000s, so I've definitely seen it more than enough. What saves it is that it actually focuses more on Friedle's character than the actual President's daughter. But my only interest in it now is that Evan R. Lawson, CFO of Hankmed, was in it. (Watch for him below at 6:51.)
And back to Matthew Goode. (Remember him from Leap Year?) IMDb is telling me that I actually saw him in a movie before Chasing Liberty, the forgettable made-for-TV Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister. This movie is based on a novel by Wicked author Gregory Maguire, which I think I tried to read once, but as I remember it neither the book nor the movie made sense or held my attention for any length of time.
Someone, please give me a "So-and-so called; he wants his hair back" joke for this picture.
I'm super tempted to see him in Match Point because it's Matthew Goode and tennis and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers. And I could have sworn that it was him in that trailer I saw for I Capture the Castle with another one of my favorites, Romola Garai, but it's actually Henry Cavill, looking like a young Gilbert Blythe.
But the one Matthew Goode role no one should ever see makes me think of a classic Gilmore Girls line. Remember when Lorelai and Rory tried to select a movie for the town film festival, but Taylor gave them a list of weird movies to choose from and they ended up choosing The Yearling again? Lorelai's reaction to the list was "Now I know how Snow Dogs got made." My thoughts exactly when I read the plot description for Bounty Hamster: "True Grit in outer space with a tough-talking, eye patch-wearing...hamster." 'Nuff said.
But also in that episode was the best Kirk moment of all time. This:
