Back when Good Will Hunting was blowing up for Matty Damon and the elder Fleck, I was bouncing up a Harvard Square bar with some friends.  There will never be another “Crime Zone” now that it’s been replaced by a trendy Euro-dance club.  Anyway, so we’re at this bar (no, not to go mess with smart kids) and there’s this guy hiding in the corner playing Ms. Pacman all night long.  So, obviously it falls on me to start making fun of the guy.

But you couldn’t here me over the rolling rush of whispering girls about this table of really hot guys.  And pretty soon it’s turning into the sounds of squaking flamingos because Ben Affleck is in the bar with Cole Hauser and some other dudes, including at the time relatively unknown brother Casey… who happened to spend his entire night playing Ms. Pacman.

Say what you want about Ben Affleck, but the guy at the height of his celebrity spent his entire evening signing autographs, taking pictures and smiling.  Believe me when I tell you that The Crime Zone, er, The Crimson as it was actually called, was not a bar you went to to be noticed.  For that alone, I will always defend the guy even when he makes some questionable career choices.

Lately though, he’s been laying low, raising kids with Jennifer Gardner and he’s about to make his directorial debut with Gone, Baby, Gone starring young brother Casey.  It’s based on a superb novel by Dennis Lehane.  It’s been getting great advanced buzz and we couldn’t be happier for the Brothers Affleck.

We’re just keeping our fingers crossed that they get the accents right.  Anyway Collider has five new clips from the movie to stoke the flames of excitement.   (via)

Gone, Baby, Gone hits a theater near you on Oct. 19 courtesy of Miramax Pictures.

JJ Grey & Mofro - “Country Ghetto” (M4a) I spent about a month and half of my life living in Fort Myers, FL, building houses for Habitat for Humanity.  It was all part of Americorps.  Despite being November, most days were hot as balls gliding around tresses, putting up facia, banging plywood roofs.  There isn’t much to do in Fort Myers except cruise around with the windows down.  Streets end in waterways or trailer parks and alligators often times come right up to the property lines.  Country ghetto indeed.  About a year later, no lie, Erik Estrada was pimping the affordable houses I built on a late night television commercial.  Mofro’s weird swamp rock meets Sly and the Family Stone grooves make me want to wear a wife beater and kick the crap out of Ponch.

Genre favorite David Goyer has signed on with New Regency Studio to tackle another vampire based property. Instead of Marvel’s Blade franchise he’ll be adapting the Mike Mignola graphic novel Baltimore, or the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire.

Hopefully, they’ll be able to come up with a better name for the movie, but so long as the story is dope who cares what it’s called. Mignola has a history of delivering. He’s about to see his most-famous creation appear on the big screen for a second time, when Guillermo del Torro drops Hellboy 2.

This story sounds kind of cool and I guess when it comes to vampire stories these days, originality counts for very little and it’s all about how you spin the same old tale.

Just-published by Bantam, the graphic novel tells the story of the awakening of supreme evil on Earth. Lord Henry Baltimore is bitten by a demonic vampire bat on a WWI battlefield. The plague destroys his family, and Baltimore creates a team to hunt and fight the Red King, the embodiment of all evil.

Nothing new, but sounds cool nonetheless. And a David Goyer and Mike Mignola team up can only be a good thing for Fanboys.

Hard to believe that punk is turning 30 this year. But it is! And in celebration Spin is devoting the entire October issue to all things punk. You know, cause nothing says punk more than some big corporate magazine going balls in.

No stone was left unturned as they’ve got comprehensive lists of “30 best punk albums of 1977″ and “20 best singles from bands who hadn’t released an album yet” and they’ve got punk reunions and Johnny Rotten and so forth.

Besides it doesn’t get more punk then Mr. Rotten proclaiming Journey is one of his favorite bands.

Raise a clenched fist in the air to punk rock. As always, Something Awful takes the time to explain the difference between a real punk and fake punk. What are you?

Just so you know, there’s nothing more punk than being called a “pop” group by The Daily Mirror, unless of course Journey is your favorite band.

I will never forget the first time that I used the word VOLUPTUOUS, to describe a wine. It was the 2002 Domaine Serene ‘Yamhill Cuvee’ Pinot Noir from the Willamette Valley in Oregon.

The story goes something like this…Once upon a time in a land far far away, one of my more wine savvy couples came in and wanted something different, not on the wine list. I looked through to see what I had tasted lately that had given me chills. (That’s one of the ways I know I have a killer bottle on my hands!)

I saw the Domaine Serene bottle and immediately described it to them: a sexy, voluptuous Pinot with plenty of red cherry hinting at black cherry fruit, cola, spices of cinnamon & nutmeg, aromas of evergreen or “forest floor” with a wonderfully pleasant and full finish.

I probably didn’t have to go any further than saying the word “voluptuous” because as soon as I finished my verbose wine description they inquired, “Voluptuous, huh?” They nodded their head in agreement with each other.

They fell in love with the wine and winery just as I had. Unfortunately for some, this winery has spared no cost in producing what they and many people believe to be the best Pinot Noir in Oregon and perhaps the world. They advertise a lot, as you may have seen the full-page ads in Wine Spectator stating that they have ousted some of the best French Burgundies in blind tastings.

They recently built a state of the art gravity flow winery. This allows the wine to flow naturally through the wine making process without the use of pumps. They have very low yielding vines and they only use the best new oak barrels. Ultimately they use the best of everything.

This translates to a higher cost for us, about $30-35 for the Yamhill Cuvee. This is just their entry-level Pinot Noir too! They also make about five others:

• Evenstad Reserve $52
• Jerusalem Hill $75
• Mark Bradford $90
• Grace (pdf) $90
• Monogram (pdf) $200

They have also begun producing a Coeur Blanc (a white Pinot Noir!), the only domestic one to date! There is no doubt in my mind that this is a Pinot Noir worth splurging on. If I could pick one Pinot Noir to drink for the rest of my life, under $50, I would definitely imbibe Yamhill Cuvee without any qualms.

Wine Tip: Every so often us wine geeks find a word to describe a wine that really entices someone’s palate. Using masculine and feminine designate words are a great way for consumers to procure an idea about how the wine will taste.

Why am I just hearing about this now? How is it that the arguably the most delicious and un-nutritious thing to hit state fairs in 2006 is just making its way into my knowledge? It’s a shame, really, but what can you do about it. This summer was perhaps the first time I didn’t make it to a state fair, given the moving preperations and what not.

With that said, this really gives me something to look forward to in 2008.

Fried Pepsi

The tasty treat seems to have burst onto the mainstream scene this year, being served in both Pepsi and Mountain Dew flavors at minor league baseball team The West Michigan Whitecaps. Kids love it, adults apparantly not so much.

Trying to ascertain the history of this treat turns up very little. It’s been around for several years and supposedly invented in NY, but it seems to have made a splash at the Texas State Fair in 2006 and spread out to other state fairs. The Candy Addict swears it was invented by Abel Gonzales Jr. and this WESH Channel 2 in Dallas story seems to confirm that notion.

Harump. Well we’d love to track down Mr. Gonazales to talk about his fried confections and the art of the fried food. Until then, our taste buds will only dream of the day when they are smacked around by fried Pepsi goodness.

So what is it you may be asking yourself? How about this:

“A batter mix made with Pepsi syrup, a drizzle of strawberry syrup, and some strawberries.

Balls of the batter are then deep-fried, ending up like ping-pong ball sized doughnuts which are then served in a cup, topped with Pepsi syrup, whipped cream, cinnamon sugar and a cherry on the top.”

Next year he’s going to roll out fried Sprite and fried Diet-Pepsi… you know for the health conscious fair goer.

EA has been rolling out some pretty clever marketing ads for the upcoming Simpson’s videogame. This time around they are spoofing the popular Everquest. It’s spot on, just like the one they did for GTA.

Just hearing “my ears are pointy” (can you guess which character says that?) delights me to no end.

We’ve seen some small, incremental changes since the aftermath of 9/11, now accelerating as the unpopularity of the war increases, nevertheless the media continues to drink the Bush Kool-Aid. Even here, in “super liberal” Portland. The Gorgonian, an organ of the News Corporation, recently fulminated on last weekend’s speech by Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at Columbia University.

Conservative columnist David Reinhard, who believes in the free market, is, evidently, not so sanguine about the marketplace of ideas. On Thursday, he said, “History will not be kind to the morally confused Columbia leaders who gave evil a forum in the name of free speech.”

Apparently, Reinhard believes all that is needed for naive American students to begin blindly following “petty dictators,” is to hear their evil policies elucidated in a speech. Then again, given the speeches in the last six years from Bush and Cheney, he may have a point. But seriously, folks, does he really think that the students who heard Ahmadinejad speak suddenly became Holocaust deniers? That they will now be committed to the destruction of Israel? They clearly were not quite so credulous. The entire audience laughed in derision when Ahmadinejad claimed that there were no homosexuals in Iran.

Although, not everything he said was equally ridiculous. The editorial printed on Sept. 26 was fascinating. “What’s breathtaking is [Ahmadinejad's] presumption to speak for the rest of the world while ignoring the irrationality of his own government’s policies.” Isn’t this precisely the way the rest of the world (and, frankly, most of the U.S.) feels about Bush? “Ahmadinejad had harsh words about America’s arrogance, disrespect for other cultures and heavy-handed foreign policy.” Are you sure he isn’t running in the Democratic primary?

What’s funny is how alike he and Bush are. They live on the same planet. The “If You Say Something Didn’t Happen, It Didn’t, and Facts Be Damned Planet”. Bush says tax cuts for the rich actually help the poor, there is no such thing as global warming, and things are improving in Iraq. Ahmadinejad says the Holocaust never happened, he has no interest in acquiring nuclear bombs, and there is no homosexuality in Iran.

OMG! Sounds to me like M ought to be W’s new BFF. Take the jump for Ahmadinejad’s Columbia University speech. MORE »

Caption Contest: Throw up a caption in the comments and you’ll win our admiration forever.  Best one wins a coke.

I’ve got better things to do than play Goldeneye bitches. 

 (Via)

Holy moly.  Last night’s episode of The Office was surely one of the funniest things they’ve ever done.  I don’t remember laughing as hard or as long as I did last night.  Some great touching moments as well between Pam and Jim, not that it was surprising the two were together.

Anyway so fat to chew on as you get your coffee or prepare to head out to lunch.

- Transformers 2 is moving to forward for a June 26, 2009 release date.  Michael Bay is back on board and so is Stephen Spielberg as executive produce, despite their differences with studio heads at Paramount and an impending writers strike in Hollywood.

- Get ready for a showdown in Congress as many GOPers backed the child health care bill, which the President in his infinite wisdom vows to veto.  Cause you know, war is good, children’s health…not so much.

- Let the Bruce Springsteen publicity push begin!  He was on the Today show this morning.

- In maybe a nod to The Karate Kid, Summit Entertainment has optioned the rights to a screenplay about an overweight karate champ who agrees to a rematch with his former nemesis.  Their showdown took place in 1984, the same year The Karate Kid was released.  Bonzai!

- Well, the climactic Phil Spector trial has been declared a mistrial.  Wall of sound fans everywhere rejoice.

- Marty Scorcese is paying tribute with a rock-doc about the late Beatle George Harrison.  Sounds like the silent Beatle is finally gonna get some props.

Ace Frehley - “Back in a New York Groove” (Mp3) This song is pure stoop.  Sitting on the front steps outside a brownstone, baking from the sun above and concrete below.  Playing stick ball, drinking tallboys, crashing a shopping cart into telephone poles.  Some people are just wired for the mania of a city — noise, congestion, ambling nowhere, getting into trouble, making the most with what you’ve got.  I wasn’t around in the 70’s, but this song makes me wish I had been.