Well, my hope was wrong after all.

The crick I had turned in to a cervical spasm. I had to ask my wife to drive me to the ER in the middle of the night last Friday. After a week of unbelievable pain and suffering I'm back at work as of yesterday. I lost almost four days of work and with the pills and injections in my butt plus the ER fee it came to about $250. I suppose it could be worse. I was most sad over the loss of my last vacation time. I have to use all my saved up time for my upcoming trip to Sweden in two weeks. We , meaning my wife and I went to Atlanta and the SEC game. We had a great trip although my pain didn't go away completely until Sat evening, We stayed at the Hilton downtown and took the MARTA everywhere. We stopped twice at the always wonderful IKEA in Atlanta. The game was awesome. As much as I hate to say it, being from VOL country and all. The Georgia Dome is nicer in the fact that it has a ceiling and the seat is for you only not like at Neyland. You share the seat with five others.

I managed to finish up Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point", which was not nearly as interesting as Blink or Outliers, which is the best one of his in my opinion. I don't think I'm going to read "What the Dog Saw". I think I'm Gladwelled out. LOL.

I also watched John Sturge's "The Magnificent Seven" The movie is almost fifty years old now and in parts it shows. It is still however a must see for a western buff. With stars like Yul Brunner, Charles Bronson, James Coburn and Eli Wallach, who had a birthday the other day. I think he is 94 or something.

Anyway, I'm back and grateful for not having pain anymore.

Duck You Sucker and Miller's Crossing

I have always loved everything by Sergio Leone. The fantastic Italian director who died way too early. One of his most underrated movies are "Duck You Sucker" or as it is also called " A fistful of Dynamite. It is a somewhat comical tale of an IRA terrorist on the run who meets a local desperado in rural Mexico at the time of the revolution and Pancho Villa. It's done somewhat in the same realm as the spaghetti westerns Leone is famous for but it is not entirely the same as those. It has more humour and it's moving along at a somewhat faster pace. It's a great performance by James Coburn and Rod Steiger.

As for Millers Crossing, The Cohen brothers are movie geniuses. I am particularly fond of "Fargo" but Millers Crossing stands out as a gem on it's own. In this movie we deal with the classic example of gang wars and rivaling factions in the big city. This time it is between the Irish mobsters and the Italian ditto. This movie also shows some humour and with all its blood and gore it's typical Cohen fare. Not the top movie from them but definitely a must see. Marcia Gay Harden, and Gabriel Byrne both stand out in this movie.