If you enjoy extended fight scenes and shots up the backs of girls’ legs — in other words, if you’re a boy — you’d probably give this movie 4 to 5 stars. If you prefer rom-coms, you’d probably give this a 1 or a 2, with a sympathy point thrown in just because Josh Duhamel and McDreamy from “Grey’s Anatomy” are in it. I am neither of these.

I confess, I have never been one to follow battle scenes very well. I can’t tell who’s who once the guns and swords start flying, even if they’re wearing different uniforms, and I usually have to ask the person next to me which side came out victorious — I’m not stupid, I just get lost. Take this confusion and multiply it by about a hundred when robots — not humans — are the combatants. I recognize all of two Transformers from my childhood: Optimus Prime and Bumblebee (it really helps that Shia LaBeouf keeps yelling, “BEE! BEE!” at one of them), but I think I did pretty well this time, even though the fight scenes are waaaaaay long. Then again, maybe this gave me time put two and two together.

The romantic subplot in this film is never played up to be more than it is, and thankfully, Shia LaBeouf does not even try to move his character anywhere past cocky. Patrick Dempsey, in a pretty largely unpublicized role, is flirty, smirky and condescending as a corporate version of “Grey’s” Derek Shepherd. Josh Duhamel . . . honestly, no acting involved, but I’m not about to complain about the eye candy, just like you boys aren’t going to whine about Euro-accented newcomer Rosie Huntington-Whiteley.

The big star in this movie, though, is the city of Chicago. Seriously, it’s gorgeous. I have to hand it to the location scouts for making excellent use of everything from the macro skyline shots to the stairs that lead to/from the River Walk: Everything looked amazing, even as it was all being destroyed by the Deceptacons (oh, come on, that wasn’t a spoiler, we’ve all seen the trailer). I never really liked the Marina Towers, anyway.

You’ll have to watch the movie yourself if you want to find out why the movie is called “Dark of the Moon” — it makes me laugh too much to think about it, and I have a migraine right now, so that’s not going to work out real well; plus, I’m a firm believer in the idea that calling it “Transformers 3″ would have worked out just as well. But despite the awkwardness that comes with certain parts of the plot and my inability to pick Megatron out of a lineup, I enjoyed the couple of hours I spent following this little adventure, and I think you will, too.

Thanks to Pedro, Liana and Todd for jumping along – mostly to Pedro for coming up with the idea! =)

In case you’re wondering: SUPER fun, but also VERY loud. I think my ears just stopped hurting! But it was definitely a worthwhile way to spend a Sunday.

“A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request”: Yes, I actually want this song played at my funeral. This is my biggest request. The lyrics are totally morbid, but they’re also funny, and this is one of my favorite songs in the whole world. Here’s the artist, Steve Goodman, performing it a while ago. I’d say use the video, but it really doesn’t get any better than this. They can’t update it because he died of cancer when he was 36. So skip the video for the service itself, there’s plenty of good audio of it. The mp3 is on my hard drive and my iPhone and will surely be available on whatever audio device and computer I own at the time of my passing.

Note: This song is to be played regardless of whether it is still true that, as the lyrics state, “the last time the Cubs won the National League penant/was the year we dropped the bomb on Japan.” Don’t worry, it will probably still be true anyway, regardless of when I die, seeing as how ownership refuses to fire Jim Hendry EVER. He will run the club into the ground from his grave. Thus, I will still rant about it from mine.

Other music (i.e., during visitation): Billy Joel is preferable, The Beatles are OK. Yes, the instrumental Billy Joel CD we used during seating at my wedding will work just fine. But please, no classical music. I hate that stuff. Gershwin is OK, but only “Rhapsody in Blue” and “An American in Paris.” I have a CD . . . somewhere. It’s also on my iPhone. I’d say show tunes would be all right, but you people always think I like the weirdest things, and your selections may not be good. Some things are best not left to chance.

Funeral food: Please don’t order from Ige’s or Marian’s or anything like that. I hate that stuff, especially the greasy noodles and fried chicken. But do get chi chi dango mochi from Nisshodo’s or whoever does that kind of thing when I go. We need to bring that particular tradition back. Nothin’ like paper-wrapped rice treats at a funeral.

Ashes: Yes, I want to be cremated. Please. There is only so much space on this planet for burials, and goodness knows I don’t want the discovery of my bones somewhere bringing a halt to some massive Whole Foods construction project decades from now. I want some of my ashes scattered at Wrigley Field. I am not kidding. It’s technically not allowed, of course, but it can be done. Don’t be stupid and try to scatter them all, as that would be a bit obvious. I’m just talking about a little bit. I don’t even care how much. It’s just something I want done. Is that selfish? Sure. But what the heck. It’s Chicago, it’s windy, I won’t be there for long. Then do whatever the heck you want with the rest of my ashes. Inter them if you wish, scatter them wherever if not. But if you’re gonna scatter ‘em, don’t get caught and blame me for your problems.

I think that’s about it. I’ve really thought these things through over the past few years, and I will try to keep this list updated if my tastes change or I come across something else I’d like to add. But I think I’ve been pretty reasonable and set enough of a tone where if a migraine makes my brain explode tomorrow, nobody will be left floundering and wondering what the heck I “would have wanted.” It’s all right there. My mother will probably say that I am a sick person for having posted this, but she has really heard all of it before (OK, maybe not the part about the ashes at Wrigley, but you had to know that was coming). And now, so have you.

OK, I promise to get back to a lighter subject after the Stanley Cup quarterfinals. I miss my friends every day, but I am pretty sure they wouldn’t want me to be unhappy during baseball season. ;o)

Some people get sick or injured and get better. Some people even get really, really sick or suffer from terrible injuries of some sort – shootings, even – and they get better. It’s amazing. It’s a miracle. You know it happens, I know it happens. And it’s not that I don’t want people to get better; in fact, the reasonable side of me would like nothing more than for cancer to become a set of diseases from which no one ever dies ever again. It’s just, people with cancer get better every day. Why couldn’t Troy, Courtney and Ty get better? Why did MY COUSIN and MY FRIENDS have to die? And why did it have to suck so much for them and for their families? They weren’t even in the “high risk” group for cancer: Anyone who works in the cancer field will tell you that the number one risk factor for a cancer diagnosis (never mind death) is age, but none of these people lived to be a day over 34.

I’m just putting it out there because it just nags at me every single time I hear about somebody getting better. It’s not that I want people not to get better. It’s not that I don’t want to hear about it when they get better, either. It’s just, really, every time I hear a story about somebody going into remission or responding well to treatment, I feel physically sick and the tears sting in my eyes, and I’m angry with God and medical science and the whole world all over again that my friends couldn’t be saved. And it’s just all compounded by the guilt I feel for feeling that way. It’s unreasonable, I know, but I can’t make the feeling go away.

Most of the time, I am OK, if not more than OK. When the Blackhawks are winning, I am crazy happy. When the Cubs are winning, well, I know it can turn around on a dime, so I try not to get too happy about it, but I have been known to do a fist pump or two when they can at least manage to get the small ball right. Plus, I am pretty easily entertained in general. But all it takes is somebody’s happy story about overcoming cancer, and I’m mad all over again. And I know it’s ridiculous. I know. But I don’t know what to do about it. So please, if you have any ideas . . .

I thought I’d tackle salads first. Here are my favorite salads from this trip:

Pea shoot & fennel salad, Terzo Piano. Isn’t this one pretty? I can’t say I’d ever had pea shoots in my life up until this point, and I was slightly intimidated by the thought, but I was ordering off the Restaurant Week menu, and I believe all they had otherwise was soup. Even though it was completely vegetarian, I really liked this salad. The goat cheese provided a nice contrast with the earthiness of the greens, and the tarragon dressing wasn’t overwhelming.

Braised rabbit salad, The Gage. OK, so you can’t see the rabbit – but believe me, it’s there, and there’s a lot of it underneath all those greens. Apparently, the green stuff was arugula, which I usually can’t stand, but it was pretty tolerable here. Sorry, vegans, this one is not for you at all, though (in case you didn’t get the hint from the name of the salad): The Langhe Robiola and crisped rice were nice, to be sure, but the rabbit was truly the marquee item. Had I known it would be so plentiful and savory, I would have stuck gotten this as my meal instead of as a starter. It was better than the pork chop I didn’t end up finishing anyway. The meat was pulled, tender and smoky, like kalua pig. Mmmm. Definitely going back for this one.

Macho salad, Bandera. I’m not sure how it is that I’ve passed Bandera by so many times over the years and not gone in. Maybe I was wary of it because it sits perched above Michigan Avenue with its name in that really tacky font . . . but anyway, then I heard a couple nice things about it and thought I should give it a shot. This salad made the 15-minute wait for seating (alongside the whiniest middle-aged metrosexual wannabe ever, by the way) totally worthwhile. Look at this salad. LOOK AT IT! That’s chicken, tomatoes, dates, avocado, goat cheese, corn . . . I don’t know what more you could put in there before your head exploded. (OK, maybe rabbit. But then you wouldn’t need the chicken, and the chicken is actually pretty good.) It’s pretty much a chopped salad on steroids. And now that I know it exists, I am pretty sure I can order it to go in the future, thus circumventing waiting among the whiny and dining in an that relatively uncomfortable booth.

So that’s it for salads. Maybe next time I’ll write about deep dish. ;o)

While we were in Chicago, I had the pleasure of seeing the new, revamped, 25th anniversary version of “Les Misérables,” which is currently touring the U.S. OK, let’s not lie: I totally planned to be there for this production. I have not seen a union production of “Les Mis” in 15 years, and when I found out the tour of the revised production was going to be in Chicago, I pretty much stalked the Broadway in Chicago box office so I could get my hands on tickets. The good news is, it was TOTALLY worth it.

For the 25th anniversary of the “Les Mis,” producer Cameron Mackintosh decided to completely revisit the show. He hired new directors and told them to go wild, and they did. They designed new sets based on sketches by Victor Hugo, they redid some of the blocking, they touched up some of the lyrics. If you’ve seen the 25th anniversary concert at the O2 in U.K., you’ve seen some of these changes, but it’s not until you see the full production that it all really hits you.

For the most part, these changes really, really work. The use of projectors to show depth and distance was phenomenal and highly effective, especially in the sewer scenes. The building side structures provided an effective substitute for set pieces that no longer exist and made for really interesting blocking. The new orchestrations were great, but also seamlessly integrated, so unless you were completely obsessed with the show, you probably wouldn’t even notice them (I am, so I did, haha). The show is much more gritty and racy (you now have more to explain to your kids if they see “Lovely Ladies”). I understand why the changes were made, and I was a lot more open to them than I thought I would be. It’s hard to explain how the new stuff works, but it’s really best to be surprised and amazed by how it does when you actually see it, so I’ll just leave it at that.

BUT . . . I really, really miss two things: the turntable and the original barricade. Set designer John Napier used to say that people would be amazed when they saw the massive barricade come together as two pieces and lock together as one impressive structure, and he was totally right. And the only reason I miss the turntable so much is because of the barricade. Spoiler alert: You don’t get to see Gavroche die in the new production – it’s all done by sound and by the reaction of the students (especially Grantaire). We used to get to see this in the original production because of the turntable. You also don’t get to see Enjolras hanging from the Army side of the barricade after the final attack. The directors try to make up for this by having the police bring a wheelbarrow with their bodies on it for Javert to inspect, but while that is poignant, it just doesn’t pack that emotional punch.

One more thing about the new sets and direction before I move on: Why, after 25 years, have they still not figured out how to make Javert’s suicide not cringe-worthy?! Yes, it still kinda sucks. Whoever fixes it may be eligible for some kind of award.

About the cast . . . When I heard that Simon Bowman (the original Chris from “Miss Saigon”) was playing Valjean in the current U.K. production, I was super sad to hear that he wouldn’t be joining the American touring cast. But I was pleasantly surprised by Lawrence Clayton, who turned out to be the best Valjean I’ve ever seen – very emotional, really giving the performance his all. Most of the cast was really great, including Michael Kostroff and Shawna M. Hamic, who put a lot of energy into the Thénardiers, even though they totally could have rested on the hilarity of the material itself. Jeremy Hays was a strong and super handsome Enjolras (Why are the guys who play Enjolras always so cute?), looking like a long-haired version of Simon Baker from “The Mentalist.” The only performance I was disappointed with was that of Chasten Harmon, who made Eponine completely unsympathetic – I didn’t believe for a second that she even liked Marius, let alone loved him.

Like the changes or not, this is how it’s going to be from now on. From what I understand (though I could be wrong), school and community theater productions are forbidden from using a turntable in their licensed productions of the show, so I guess we just won’t be seeing it anymore, unless Cam Mac decides to revive it for a future anniversary production. And I can live with that. Like I said, most of the changes really clicked. See it for yourself and let me know what you think!

At about 7:45 last night Hawai‘i time, Japan – our neighbors to the northwest – suffered their strongest earthquake in recorded history. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) measured it as a magnitude 8.9, although I have heard TV reports upgrading it as a high as a 9.1.

If you recall, when Todd and I were on Honshu a few months ago, we experienced an earthquake there in the magnitude 6 range. That’s pretty strong, but we tourists were the only ones who seemed to react to it at the time, as Japan natives are pretty used to seismic activity: In fact, their buildings are constructed to “go with the flow” and sway with the earth. It’s pretty neat: Even though we could feel the building moving, nothing in the restaurant fell.

But, alas, this recent tremor was significantly bigger, and if you have a TV, you have no doubt seen the footage from NHK-TV of oil refineries on fire, the nuclear power plant having trouble and the devastation of the tsunami hitting the Sendai region. Miraculously, all my friends in Japan seem to be doing OK: They still have electricity and are able to communicate via Facebook, etc., that they are all right, albeit communicating from under tables and such as aftershock after powerful aftershock continues to strike. The senior pastor of our church was getting ready to return from Tokyo when the earthquake hit. Fortunately, he is doing OK, too, and is scheduled to leave Japan within the next few hours.

Thanks to the awesomeness of science and the brainiacs at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, we in Hawai‘i knew hours and hours ahead of time that we would most definitely be affected, water wise, by the quakes. The tsunami warning sirens started sounding at 10 p.m., letting people know they needed to turn on their TVs and radios – and, if necessary, get to higher ground before 3 a.m., which was when the first ripples were expected to arrive. Of course, the sirens going off every hour did not really lend well to getting any sleep during the night, nor did watching the disturbing footage of what was going on in the motherland, so I wasn’t really in any mood to go to work today and was glad we got the OK to stay home this morning. (Todd is at work, though, since the hospital is obviously still open.)

Fortunately, while significant damage was done to some harbor areas and businesses, especially on the Big Island, where some of the roads and restaurants are right along the coastline at sea level, Hawai‘i really dodged a big bullet once again. We had a lot of time to prepare, and law enforcement did a good job of getting most people away from the inundation zones. Mostly, we were just very, very lucky. The amount of water that receded from our coastal areas was pretty scary, and if you’ve ever witnessed a tsunami before, you know that’s a very bad sign, but somehow, the threat was mostly just that in most areas.

Bottom line: We are all right. If you don’t hear from me over the next day or so, please don’t freak out. I would like to catch up on sleep eventually, and then tomorrow night, we’re going to UH men’s volleyball. Thank you to everyone who has expressed concern and kept us in their prayers. Please pray for the people of Japan, as they definitely have some tough times ahead.

Ice skating at Wrigley Field.

Will write more when I get home. IF I get home. Ha!

Of course, intensive medical care doesn’t come cheap, and Ty and his family, which includes three young girls, are struggling to pay all the bills. Recently, his friends threw a fundraiser dinner in the family’s honor, and one of Ty’s friends made this amazing video for the event. Take a look:

I was really touched by the video and super proud to be a part of it in one of the photos, so I asked our friend Marcia to put it up on YouTube so I could share it with you and so you could see how great Ty is and how loved he is by his family, friends and community.

You’ll notice the presence of lots of comic books and comic-like characters. In addition to drawing editorial cartoons for the local paper, Ty applied his artistic talents to create Captain Cure comics. If you know anyone who’s really into comic books and who just so happens to be dealing with cancer, this is the perfect gift. Ty is a great guy, and it’s so awesome of him to share his experiences with everyone in such a creative way, in a way that will hopefully inspire others to keep up the fight, even if he can’t.

If you’re interested in making a donation to help Ty and his family through this difficult time – which, unfortunately, seems to also be the final days of Ty’s life, as he has really not been doing well for a few months – you can donate via PayPal to CaptainCure@live.com.