The Sopranos Finale....

Now I have been watching the Sopranos for a while now, I think I started watching it "Live" in the third season, after watching the first two on DVD. When Band of Brothers was on Sopranos was on right before it, that got me hooked. Well with the last few seasons it has been shite. A few good hits here and there, but mostly shite. Granted the worse tragedy was to come with the final episode. The second to last episode brought us back to the beginning with the violence and drama balance. The last episode was terrible, well not the whole thing, just the way that it was ended. Fade to black, are you kidding me? I called a few people and everyone thought the same thing "did my cable box break?". Shite absolute shite, David Chase you should be ashamed.

Son of a bitch.

Smokin Aces Fresh or Stale? *May Contain Spoilers*

Click the pic for an IMDB synopsis or go HERE for the official site.

[The Freshness]

I have been waiting for this movie for some time now. Brought to us from the director of Narc I was expecting good things, I was not let down. I personally liked the way the characters were introduced and developed. A fast paced story with many characters intertwined with seamless precision.

The movie revolves around a mob hit put out against Buddy "Aces" Israel, who has turned witness against the mob. A one million dollar bounty is put out against him and it is a race against the clock for the F.B.I. to get to Israel before the hit men do.

[Verdict]

The Freshness-As I stated I give this movie a Fresh verdict. Good story, good violence, I suppose the one thing it was missing was gratuitous nudity, but hey we can't win them all.

*Well it looks like the Stale one may NEVER post and I am sick of waiting*

We're Back B*tches

[The Freshness]

You can all relax, we are bringing this back. Trying to anyways. Fell behind last year and we apologize. Not only movies but also Video Games are going to be discussed. As you can tell both Eric and I have been playing quite a bit of 360, which has been taking quite a bit away from my movie going. It is also the NFL playoffs currently, more time away. Last year I finished the year with 125, off to a strong start this year with six so far. As I said we will try to stay on top of this. Pan's Labyrinth may or may not be up soon.

Feel free to friend request on Xboxlive.

We are also on Myspace.

Email us at FreshVsStale@gmail.com

United 93

[Nick]

So where to begin? A difficult movie to review the way I look at it. Others may feel they are capable and don't get me wrong they have done a good job (Amber and Draven). I myself am not going to go down that route. I personally will have the same post on both here and at the other Fresh Vs. Stale.

I myself can remember where I was on 9/11 like most people older than me can recount where they were when Kennedy got shot. I was working at Bj's and we had the TV's on in the front of the store. I was standing there slack jawed as the second tower got hit. I was on the phone off and on throughout the day with Jose keeping him updated as he was at work and could not see anything about it. Rumors were flying everywhere about other places being hit. I sat there and watched the Towers fall on CNN completely stunned.

It saddens me to think that I have not actually thought too much about the events on that day in some time. All the people who lost loved ones must be reminded of it every single day, innocent people just trying to pay the mortgage.

[Eric]

I guess we are dropping kayfabe on this one and going with real names, as well as not giving it a Fresh or Stale verdict, which is understandable since this isn’t really the type of film for that.

I was at my previous office job when this all started to unfurl, and the receptionist got a call from a friend who heard about the first plane on the radio, and we stood stunned in the break room watching CNN on the TV in a state of disbelief. It all seemed like a movie, not something that could really happen. I remember looking up at the sky while driving home, and though the chances of seeing a plane at any given moment aren’t all that high to begin with, I was especially aware of the emptiness of the sky. I stopped at the mall on the way home to pick up a new release DVD and the mall had shut down for the day. That for some reason drove home the surreal feeling of the entire day.

My only concern with this film, is that even though it was painstakingly pieced together with all the known evidence and events, including some actual recordings, we still don’t really know exactly what happened on flight United 93. While the general consensus is that this is how it went down, and it likely was, it is just something that was gnawing at me a bit while thinking back on the film.

[Final Thoughts]

[Nick] No matter how ready you think you are for this movie, you are not ready. It is a very moving film. That actually means a lot coming from me, as I am pretty Jaded and desensitized. It will affect you in some way. There were many tearful people leaving the theater. A few from my group even. Me it affected different, I was more angry than anything else. What a waste.

[Eric] As has been mentioned on other reviews, this really is a film that’s tough to watch, even knowing what’s going to happen. I won’t suggest that this is a film that everyone needs to see, some people probably aren’t ready, and may never be. But we should certainly never forget.

Arena Football Fresh Or Stale?

[The Freshness]

So this is going to be Part II, though it takes place first. The "first part" will be at the other FvS site, Here. So the original plan was to head up to New Hampshire at about 10:30 AM to spend the day at my boss Russ' house. Cooking out, playing video games and drinking, you know the usual. Well it turned out that it was more like 11 or so before we got on the road. On out way up we dropped of Amber, now why she is with that Stale MF who knows. She is waay fresher than him, granted I guess the same could be said about my wife. Once we got up there it was off to Market Basket to buy the food. Most of us were hungry so the plan was to grab a quick bite at Quizzno's, Frank, Rook and myself had to find a liqour store, so we met the Stale One and Jose there.

We had quite the group. There was a total of eight people going to the game itself. We had more like ten possibly eleven there during the day. For the most part it was The Stale One, Rook and myself playing Guitar Hero for the PS2. By that of course I mean we were standing in a very Stale shadow, as he owns us all in this game. That is of course until "Nap Time" when Jose, Staleness and Rook all decided to fall asleep, leaving me to play Guitar Hero solo. So between game playing and eating time flew by. Next thing you knew it was time to boot to Manchester.


Score by Quarters 1 2 3 4
Albany Conquest 7 7 10 21 -45 Record: (2-1)
Manchester Wolves 12 12 14 21 -59 Record: (1-1)

[The Staleness]

Well I am not a big fan of pregame business, whether for NFL games or AFL2 games. I hate tailgating, I guess I don't really see the point. So while the cookout and Guitar Hero was fresh, I would have just a soon slept in and gone straight to the game. But then I would have had to drive up myself, so I got up earlier than I would have on a Saturday when I wasn't working, and took the free ride to NH.

I was not too familiar with AFL rules compared to NFL, having only seen a few bits of AFL games on TV. One that we got reminded of about 20 times was that in the last minute of every half, all time outs are 30 second time out. Which they will keep remind you of. Over. And over. Ok, I get it, 30 seconds.

We had pretty fresh seats, 4th row from the "field" which was pretty damn close. We weren't quite close enough to the corner to have a lot of errantly thrown passes come into our section of the crowd, which is a high point of the evening when it happens. The one that was thrown near us, I probably would have had were I one row further up. But instead, I leap up, and come down junk first onto Frank's head. Walk it off son, walk it off...

I was a big fan of the numerous times we got the "Steeeeeeeve Perry!" psyche-out going. Too bad it only affected the Manchester kicker, as he missed his first 4 kicks, and blew 2 kickoffs, one by kicking too high and nailing the hanging jumbotron!

[The Verdict]

[The Freshness] Overall I would say that our Pregame sheenanigans were pretty Fresh. As far as I know everyone had a good time, so that is all that matters.

[The Staleness] A good time was had by all, Manchester won, and it was a pretty Fresh and entertaining game at that. I even took the semi-fresh camera phone pic of the game you see up top.