I kid you not: this is a real sign in front of a real church on the outskirts of Mesa:

And the Pope says America is “soulless.” Bah.

(Explanation here, for the uninitiated. More here.)

NHS ‘99 grad Joe Serfass and the Eastern Connecticut State University Warriors lost to George Fox 9-8 today — pitcher Serfass’s first loss of the season — but recovered in the nightcap to defeat hometown favorite Wisconsin-Whitewater 2-1 on a two-run, ninth-inning home run, to stay alive in the double-elimination NCAA Division III baseball tournament.

(Side note: a bunch of relatives on my mom’s side of the family are from Whitewater, or the Whitewater area. It’s quite something to have a kid from my high school playing the flagship college of my mom’s family’s hometown. Heh.)

ECSU must win two games tomorrow in order to capture the national championship. If I’ve got this right, they’ll first play the winner of the George Fox/Aurora game (which was scheduled to be played tonight, but no results have been reported yet). Then, if the Warriors win, they’ll play George Fox for the title.

Yes, that means they could end up playing George Fox twice in a row on the same day, needing to win both, a day after losing to them. Double-elimination tournaments are weird.

The first game is scheduled for 1:00 PM Central time, the second game (if necessary) for 4:30 PM.

If the Warriors win both games, they will capture their second straight national championship.

Having seen The Day After Tomorrow the day before yesterday (heh) and Shrek 2 yesterday, I saw Tomorrow again today (hehe… ah, the wordplay).

Taking into account matinee vs. evening prices, my contribution to the weekend box-office war is as follows:

Tomorrow: $15.00
Shrek 2: $6.50

Alas, despite my best efforts, it appears that Shrek 2 will take the day, finishing #1 at the box office from Friday to Monday, $92.2 million to $86.0 million over Tomorrow, according to studio estimates.

Of course, Shrek 2 is a better movie. But man, the special effects in Tomorrow are cool. :) Casey and I decided, though, that it would have been better if its title had been Attack of the Killer Troposphere.

On a side note, I really need to start a “TV & Movies” blog category so I can stop filing all these movie-related posts (not to mention American Idol updates) in my “News: Miscellaneous” category. Maybe I’ll do that during one of my lunch breaks this week…

UPDATE/CORRECTION: Originally, the title of this post read exactly as it does now — “When Tropospheres Attack” — and the above reference was exactly what it currently is, “Attack of the Killer Troposphere.” But then I looked up troposphere in the dictionary, just to check its spelling, and lo and behold, I was reminded that the troposphere is the lower atmosphere, not the cold upper atmosphere that would seem the most likely to cause flash-freezing. So, I changed it to “When Stratospheres Attack” and “Attack of the Killer Stratosphere.” But the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced they never mentioned the stratosphere in the movie — I think what they said was, the superstorms were sucking down super-cold air from the “upper troposphere.” Alas, “When Upper Tropospheres Attack” and “Attack of Killer Upper Troposhere” just don’t quite roll off the tongue. So I’m changing the references back to their original form, and the weather nerds will just have to deal. (Oh, wait… I’m the only weather nerd here. Never mind. :)