by A.J. Wood

My Identity Only Cost Me $75K

Well, I discovered yesterday that somehow my corporate Amex card had been used to purchase almost $75K worth of crap. The scary part is I don’t know how my card number got stolen as the credit card is still in my possession. Fortunately, fraud protection at American Express is second to none. I expect all charges will be removed, but I still went through the hassle of cancelling ALL my other credit cards.

SIDE NOTE – If you use an American Express card do yourself a favor and sign up for their Credit Secure program. By far the smartest $8/monthly you could ever spend. Not only do you receive quarterly reports from all three credit reporting agencies, but Amex notifies you about any inquiries made on your credit or unusual expenditures.

I wouldn’t have found out about this theft without this program.

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 by A.J. Wood

Late Night In San Antonio

Well, my baby & I rolled in from San Antonio about 4am this morning. It was a good night, even with the rain and stupid drivers on the road. Yesterday, we made a quick day trip from Dallas to SA to see Toby Keith live at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater. (on a side note, I almost wish for commercial companies to go bankrupt when I see their names on public venues).

The drive down wasn’t uneventful as we saw two accidents on the road coming out of Dallas. A small fender-bender on south I-35 delayed us momentarily with gawker traffic, but I felt bad for the poor souls on north I-35 where two semis had jackknifed. Traffic was backed up for at least 5 miles. We made pretty good time and killed about an hour at Borders bookstore before heading to the amphitheater.

WOW. I have to say that this is one of the nicest outdoor venues I have been to. Not only was it very clean (damn, even the bathrooms), but there’s special box seating setup with tables. Michelle & I had seats in section 205 and they couldn’t have been better. There was some worry about rain, but even with the weather being overcast folks were given a mild break until the end of the night.

First up on the card was Paul Thorn. He strolled out onto the stage, just him and an acoustic guitar. He won the crowd over immediately with some quips about who he was and how he got on tour with Toby Keith. His songs were even better. With titles like “Joanie The Jehovah Witness Stripper” and “I Have To Get Viagra (Before It Falls)”, Paul had the audience laughing and ready to participate when he sang his tribute to the one-night stand “Two Dogs In Heat”. I enjoyed his performance, it was a pleasant surprise and his musicianship & vocals were solid. After Paul’s set Michelle & I scooted over to the concession booth to grab ourselves a CD. It was a quickly formed line of people, but we managed to shake the man’s hand, compliment him for the entertainment and I snagged a picture of Paul & Michelle.

Next up was Rascal Flatts (Amazing website btw). The band gave an energetic performance, but I wasn’t drawn in like I was with Paul Thorn’s set. The highlight of their show was the breakout solo by the fiddle player (who I understand is not an actual band member, but a road guy). Still they got the crowd going in anticipation of the main act.

I should point out that I don’t own any Toby Keith CDs. Michelle’s more familiar with country music artists than I am so I was unaware of the controversy that surrounded Toby’s single “Courtesy of the Red White & Blue (Angry American)”. I find it silly that such a big deal would be made over the lines “And you’ll be sorry that you messed with/The U.S. of A./’Cause we’ll put a boot in your ass/It’s the American way”. Anyways, Toby Keith’s performance was outstanding! The band was tight, complete with a horn section (something I’m not used to seeing with a country music act) and Michelle screamed & hollered as Toby sang all her favorite songs (none of which I knew).

All-in-all it was a great evening. Michelle’s still sleeping it off, but I’ve edited the pics from last night and posted them in the Photo Album for you. (Now for some football).

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 by A.J. Wood

Movie Review – The Truth About Charlie

Mich3lle & I went to see “The Truth About Charlie” last night. I should’ve paid attention to the gut check I got when Mich3lle said “I really don’t expect this to be good”, but I had already clicked on the “BUY THIS NOW” button on Cinemark’s website. What an absolute waste of time. Now I don’t mean this in the torturous sense, I wasn’t screaming at the movie characters like I did when I watched “Battlefield Earth” over at Geoff’s place, it’s just the movie dragged on like a Sunday morning sermon about abstinence.

There wasn’t any action, just a lot of threatening looks, a couple of dark alleys and Mark Walberg as the guy who’s “conveniently” everywhere you’d expect him to be. Oh and all the bad people star dying off once you’ve passed the 2/3 mark in the movie. As slow as the pace was I hoped for spectacular deaths (anything to keep me from snoring), but at best there was a car collision (shot off camera with sound effects), a man dying of a heart attack (oooh, make me see the pain) and another guy who was beaten, but that happened off camera as well and you only see him for a second.

For our movie twist the writer threw in a crazy parent who had nothing to do with the plot, but then that was a surprise wasn’t it? I can’t really say the acting was all that bad because I don’t believe there was anything for the actors to work with. Mark Walberg was two steps ahead of the poor loser in “The Musketeer” although I did find it refreshing that Thandie Newton (from Mission Impossible 2) had a very plain jane look throughout the film. In fact that’s probably the only thing I did like. Newton’s character wasn’t overly glamorous, although Meg Ryan does a better job of pulling off the girl-next-door-sex-kitten look.

No DVD sale on this one.

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