Casino Royale (2006)

Daniel Craig takes over the James Bond reigns in the latest Bond flick, Casino Royale. Craig is brilliant as 007... rugged, handsome, muscular, tough and ruthless. Gone are the light quips from Roger Moore and the ultra suave of Pierce Brosnan. Craig hearkens back to the original Sean Connery version of Bond, but the new Bond is even better, stronger and more menacing.

The story involves the introduction of James Bond to his 007 role, starting out in Uganda and including an amazing opening chase scene involving "free running" where people can jump from sides of buildings to other floors or structures, through holes slightly larger than the human body, etc., all done without nets, wires or special effects. It's amazing stuff.

Bond follows terrorist money from Uganda to the Bahamas to Montenegro where he battles wits and cards against a terrorist banker named Le Chiffre, played with an appropriate amount of sadistic smugness by Mads Mikkelsen. The Bond girls include Eva Green, as Bond associate Vesper Lynd, Ivana Milicevic as Le Chiffre's main squeeze and Caterina Murino as a Solange. Missing in this film are some of the standard expected moments, such as "shaken, not stirred" and the typical Bond girl with a name referencing female genitalia. The perks, however, far outweigh these changes.

Craig actually feels dangerous and is probably the best Bond in the series. When he plans to kill someone it is driven by an inner rage that is unleashed for King and Country. The film is over two hours long, but moves at a quick pace. The action scenes are excellent, the acting on target and the story weaves and intricate and satisfying story. With Casino Royale it's a good bet that Bond is back in the best way possible.

Rays Alternate Slogans

My poor hapless Tampa Bay Devil Rays (soon to be just 'Rays') are just so very, very bad.

• You know it's bad when you're one of the cheapest teams in the league last year and your payroll actually decreases this year.
• You know it's bad when management says they're shooting for 2008... and it's 2007.
• You know it's bad when your team is 1-12... in Spring Training!

So, in accordance with the team's expectations, I'm offering, free of charge, slogans which better signify their low expectations.

Here's the current team slogan:

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Here are a couple of suggestions:

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Here's my personal favorite:

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I've gone to at least one DRays game a year since their inception and it hasn't been easy. I've watched better games at the little league field. Oh well, there's always 2008.

T-Shirts, Bumper Stickers and Coffee Mugs

Whenever my family and I discuss areas of concern regarding our faith, often times, if possible, I will turn that thought or idea into a visual image that I put on a t-shirt via Cafe Press and then order a few for us to wear from my Sonlight Pics Cafe Press store.


Here are some of the ones I've created (click for larger images).

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I decided years ago that there are very few t-shirts that I'll wear that will be free advertisement for other people. Granted, I have a couple of sports shirts/jerseys from local teams, but I don't advertise for Nike or anyone else any more on my t-shirts. They're either blank or show something I want to express or make people aware of, such as the ideas above or the projects I've worked on below...



If we're going to advertise for something, it mine as well be something we believe in... don't ya think?

Cafe Press is free to use, so if you want to create shirts for you and/or your family and friends, simple go to CafePress.com, setup a store and upload whatever images you create.

Little League in High Def

I've been learning my HVX200 HD camera by shooting the Little League games of my son's team. Below is a still of my son pitching from a high def screen capture.

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You can also watch the slo-mo high definition video by clicking HERE (broadband connection required, the file is big).

Life seems to look nicer in slow motion, doesn't it?