Pirate Transmissions

Okay everyone knows that I am a huge movie buff and I will watch almost any movie. However, one of the movie categories that has been truly disappointing of late has been horror movies. I honestly can’t remember the last time I saw a good horror film. Now before you light the torches and grab the pitchforks hear me out. First movies like Saw, that focus on gore, mutilation, and blood are NOT horror films. They are Slasher films in the vain of Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Second, movies like Gothica, Hide and Seek, and Signs are also NOT horror films. They are Suspense movies and while they may be scary they are meant to keep you on the edge of your seat and startle you. Here is what a good Horror film has to have in my opinion/

1. An Element of the Supernatural: This is usually what separates the Horror films from the Suspense films. The best horror films always have an element of the supernatural because it is something that you as a person cannot identify with. It separates the horror from anything situation you can imagine yourself in so that the fear pushes past your ability to reason with it. No matter how crazy a psychopath is in a movie that psychopath is still mortal and can still be dealt with by moral means. The supernatural is something that you can call the police and have the FBI investigate to be taken down by a SWAT team. Part of horror comes from knowing that there is nothing you as a normal person can do against it. Sure you can put a bullet in a zombies brainpan to stop a single zombie, but that doesn’t do anything to stop more zombies from rising from the dead.

2. Some Gore: I know I just said that gore movies aren’t Horror films, but that doesn’t mean that horror films can’t or shouldn’t have some gore in them. Gore serves a few purposes in a horror film. First nothing says, “I’m the Big Nasty Evil Guy” like the mindless slaughter of a few innocent people, but the gore doesn’t have to appear on screen. If you give the human mind the right cue that something horrible is either going on off screen or about to go on off screen the mind can imagine something scarier than anything Hollywood can come up with. My friends know that I still consider the George Romaro “Night of the Living Dead” trilogy (Yes, trilogy I refuse to acknowledge that piece of crap remake and that god awful Land of the Dead as part of the series) as probably the best horror film series ever made. That is why I use it as an example. While there is gore in these films but that is not what makes the movie scary.

3. Some Background Theme: Background themes are sometimes where the horror in a movie comes from. Going back to Day of the Dead the scariest thing about the movie is the overwhelming feeling of hopelessness as you realize that the characters may actually be the last living humans on the planet. In this movie especially the horror of the zombies actually takes a back seat to the interaction between the characters as the stress of being the sole survivors of the human race starts to take its toll. Sometimes this background issue can even be thinly veiled social commentary just like in sci-fi. This really isn’t the most important aspect of what makes a horror film but a lot of good horror films have it.

Now on to the real meat of this post, I have not seen a horror film that looked really interesting or genuinely scary in a long time. In my opinion the genera has been killed by Slasher films pretending to be Horror films that cover weak plots with excessive gore. However, I just saw the preview for Silent Hill and this movie looks freaking sweet! A friend of mine was playing this game back when it first came out for the PS1 and it creeped me out and I haven’t even been brave enough to look at the PS2 versions of it. Now to think that they made a feature film out of this game has actually got me excited to see a horror film. This is something that I will definitely go out to see opening weekend so I hope to god I will not be disappointed.

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Current Location: Work
Current Mood: Oh man this movie looks good!
Current Music: Great Big Sea

As most of you know I am a fan of Cyberpunk literature. However, I am not a fan of living in a cyberpunk society. While cybernetic replacement limbs and direct neural interface computers may be a long ways off one cyberpunk theme that we are starting to see more and more of is that of the idea of your employer’s controlling aspects of their employees lives outside of the workplace. Now any company has the rights to regulate the activities and behavior of its employees within the confines of their office during their time at work, within the boundaries of legal ethics. Your employer can tell you how to dress, how you act, and how you spend your time, but that control ends the moment you punch your time card. What you do outside of the office, in your own home, is nobody’s business but your own. Now you are starting to see companies that are trying to extend that control. Just this year the Scotts Company, maker of Scotts Fertilizer and other lawn care products, enacted a sweeping company policy that completely forbids employees from smoking. Now they don’t mean just no smoking at the office the policy forbids employees from smoking period! If an employee is found to be a smoking it is cause for immediate dismissal. Now there is a Sheriff department in Florida that has adopted the same policy and has gone so far as to use random blood testing to ferret out smokers.

When the President of Scotts, a former smoker himself, was asked what was the reason for this policy he said that it was an attempt to cut health care costs and to promote good health in its employees. Healthy employees are happier and more productive for the company. He said that the employees are being given a choice in the matter: they can either quit smoking or quit working. After all who would want to continue a habit that was killing them. Now as a cigar smoker let me say that nothing would make me happier at the office than the ability to light up a cigar while I’m working. The sad truth is that these people are being given the choice between changing their personal lives or having to walk away from a career they may have spent the last twenty years working for. At what point did cutting healthcare costs give employers the right to dictate an employee’s living conditions?

What is even worse is that most people are just rolling over and excepting it! In interviews with Scotts employees many who smoked said they would quit just to keep their jobs. If a company told its employees that they had to keep to a certain Body Mass Index or they would loose their jobs people would scream to the highest courts of the unfairness and injustice of this policy. Lawyers would take it to the Supreme Court and the policy would never be allowed. For some reason nobody cares as long as the smokers are the only ones affected, not even the smokers. In Michigan last year the State Department of Education was in a few million-dollar deficit so what did they do to raise the money? They raised the tax on cigarettes $.50 a pack. Now you have a minority segment of the population supporting the burden of the entire states deficit. The majority of people are happy because it won’t raise their taxes so they don’t have to pay it. The Governor of the State of Michigan said that the tax increase was an effort to help people to quit smoking, the same excuse most politicians use to justify cigarette tax increases. In reality the tax increase is preying on the exact opposite. The politicians know that most smokers won’t quit. They will just keep on paying the higher prices for the cigarettes and filling the state coffers. If the higher prices actually caused people to quit smoking then where would the politicians get the money to balance the budget?

The Government is already trying to exert more control over a citizen’s personal life. Some states already want to make it illegal to smoke in your car. Other states have tried to pass legislature that if a parent smokes in a house with children it would be considered a form a child abuse giving Social Services the right to remove the children from their parents home. The worst part is that we as a society are actually inviting it upon ourselves in some ways. Parents want the schools to teach morals to students. Religious groups want the government to be able to tell people what they can and cannot do with their bodies. Criminals are no longer responsible for their crimes because music, TV, and video games made them do it. Then there are even the smokers who say that it’s the tobacco company’s fault that they are dying of cancer. They were lured in by seductive advertising and now they want compensation. Guess what, I’m pretty sure that Joe Camel and the Marlboro Man didn’t put a gun to your head and force you to smoke. When did we as a society lose personal accountability? When did everything become someone else’s responsibility?

The line has to be drawn now because otherwise it will just give the government and the employers the stepping-stone to go further. If the companies are allowed to fire smokers whose to say that ten years down the line they don’t try to target overweight people. When the outraged employees start to protest the company will just say, “Well you didn’t care when it we told you that you couldn’t smoke and now we have a precedence.” Everyone needs to realize that while it may not be your butt in the hot seat now eventually it will come around to you.

I know I don’t usually get this political but this is something that I’ve wanted to get off my chest for a while.

Current Mood: pissed off
Current Music: "We're not going to take it" Twisted Sister

Okay I apologize in advance for this post but this is something that has been driving me crazy for the past few weeks. I have nothing against Gay People, one of my best friends and one of my cousins are both gay and that’s their lifestyle. But for the love of God and everything decent why the hell did they have to make a gay cowboy movie. Ever since I heard about this movie I wanted nothing to do with it. Then after hearing that I wanted to nothing to do with it someone asked me if I was a gay basher and a homophobe since I refused to see this movie. I politely replied with:

A) If I wanted softcore gay porn I could get it off the internet for free.

B) The premise of the movie is weak and still would be weak even if it was a hetero couple or a lesbian couple.

C) If this movie was didn't have gay cowboys in it no one would probably see it or care.

I hate when moviemakers use a gimmick to generate acclaim for a movie. Essentially what the director is saying is that I can't make an interesting movie on just my writing talents but if I put (insert edgy political issue here) into the movie it will get acclaim and win awards. So to put the record straight I don't hate gays, gay cowboys, or movies about gay cowboys, I hate movies that suck!

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Current Mood: What the hell!

A friend of mine asked me if I would type this up and post in on my LJ. It is the Dungeons & Dragons Christmas Carol. I found it on the internet a long time ago and I have never seen it since. It lives on only because I have committed it to memory. If anyone knows the original author let me know so I can give credit where credit is due.

The D&D Christmas Carol (to the tune of Jingle Bells)

Slashing through the Orcs, with a good two-handed blade,
Over the corpses we go, and through the gore we wade.
Mace on helmet ring, making bodies fly,
What fun to sing our slaying song and watch these suckers DIE.

Chorus
Oh ring their bells with sword and spells, don’t let them get away,
We’re brave & bold for fame & gold, we’ll make a lot today, Hay
Ring their bells with swords and spells don’t let them get away,
We’ll hack & slash and blast & trash and drag our loot away.

Crashing through the door, into the dragon’s nose,
Our mage whips out a cone of cold, and out his fire goes.
Elven bowstrings sing, making balrogs fall,
Our thief finds us a secret door into the treasure hall.

Chorus

Then appears the Lich, with his demon guard,
Our Mage just yawns and wishes, we’d run into something hard.
He begins to cast, his nineteenth level spell,
But that damn Lich threw a gate at us, and dropped us into Hell.

Chorus

We appear in Hell, in front of Satan’s throne,
Our cleric waves us out the door, and takes him on alone.
Satan’s legions don’t, want to let us go,
So our techno pulls his Bazooka out, and nukes them till they glow!

Oh ring their bells with prayers and spells, don’t let them get away,
We’re brave & bold and crazed were told, to think we’ll live today, Hay
Ring their bells with swords and shells don’t let them get away,
We’ll hack & slash and blast & trash and blow these dudes away.

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Current Mood: Oh ya I had that memorized.

Well I wanted to make this post on the 9th for the official one year anniversary of my LiveJournal but life kinda got in the way like it usually does. Anyway whoopee for one full year of LiveJournal. Right now I am doing a little happy dance all by myself J.

Well Thanksgiving flew right by and now here we are less than two weeks till Christmas already. I am really looking forward to Christmas this year because A). I just have been overly jolly this year and I don’t have to look forward to a work transfer ruining it and B). I sill have a week of paid vacation left so I won’t be poor over the Christmas doldrums. My wife and I are already making plans to spend a few days up north in Houghton Lake visiting my Uncle Robert. This will be great because it will give me some time to actually game together and me time to get some writing done. Since I have been unusually busy at work the past few months my free time for writing has been all but non-existent, which you may have notice since my LJ hasn’t been updated in almost two months. What really stinks is that my brain has been in creative overdrive during this time and I have been struggling to get as much stuff to paper as I can.

Well that takes care of some of the major stuff now here are a few other tidbits.

Serenity, saw the movie and it was freaking awesome. If you are a fan of science fiction films than you have to see it. If you missed it in theaters, and a lot of people did, than fear not because the official DVD release is December 20th just in time for Christmas. The movie literally picks up right where the TV show Firefly left off, but does a good job bringing you up to speed if you have never seen the show. The dialogue is great in true Joss Whedon style and has just the right blend of old west action and sci-fi themes. If you have any sci-fi geeks on your list than it make the perfect stocking stuffer.

I also managed to catch Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. It was also really good. Despite the fact that most critics are calling it “Lord of the Rings Lite” it does manage to stay pretty faithful to the book.

A few weeks ago my wife and I were having dinner at a local Chinese Buffet and I got the greatest fortune cookie fortune ever! Now for those of you who have never done this if you really want to have fun with your fortune all you have to do is add the words “in bed” to the end of it. So here goes: Comfort zones are usually expanded through Discomfort (in bed). Pretty kinky, I almost fell out of my chair laughing at that one.

Really haven’t had time to do much reading but I am looking forward to “His Last Command” the next book in the Guant’s Ghost series for Warhammer 40k and there are talks that the Serenity Universe may continue in novels the same way Star Wars did all those years ago.

Comic books have also fallen by the wayside. After countless years and over 90 issues in my personal collection I was finally forced to cancel Knight of the Dinner Table from my pull list. This was a really hard decision since I love this title and have been a faithful reader for as long as I have been Role Playing but with the announcement that the cover price was going up to $4.99 an issue there was just no way I could justify keeping it when it cost as much as any other two titles I collected. On a brighter note Kevin Smith is finally going to finish his long lost Spider-man/Black Cat mini-series he started and never finished. Its only two years late but hey I waited longer than that for the ending of Rising Stars and there is no way Kevin Smith’s work could be as big a disappointment as that crappy ending.

Also Speaking of Kevin Smith there is a teaser scene of Clerks 2: The Passion of the Clerks entitled “Flying Cars” available for download off of IMDB.com and the view askew site. If you are looking forward to the upcoming movie check it out.

The teaser trailer for X3 is also available now and oh by does it look sweet.

That’s all the news that’s fit to print at the moment.

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Current Mood: I Gotta Start Posting More
Current Music: My Christmas Mix

More than once I have made referance Scott Kurtz wonderful web comic Player vs. Player.  It's one of the best webcomics out there and thats not just my opinion, but ALOT of other peoples as well.  While the strip is best known for its comentaries on the world of video games and pop culture recently Scott did a very personal story arc that was probably some of the best writing I've seen in any comic strip.  The story ran almost two weeks and while I wanted to write about it sooner I was so hanging on the story that I just had to wait and see how it ended.  One of the reasons I was so drawn to it was becuase it mirrored alot of what I felt when I found myself in a similar situation so anyway read it and enjoy.

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Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: Serenity the motion Picture Soundtrack

Yar, in hounor of this being the very first National Talk Like a Pirate Day, I've gone looking for something distinctly swarthy to place on me journal. Low and behold the crafty "Pirate Name Genorator". For you land lubers that never got ye sea legs this little device will give ya a pirate name that would make old Davy Jones proud. So hoist the Jolly Roger and sharpen your cutlass, today we be villains!

My pirate name is:

Bloody John Roberts

Every pirate lives for something different. For some, it's the open sea. For others (the masochists), it's the food. For you, it's definitely the fighting. Two things complete your pirate persona: style and swagger. Maybe a little too much swagger sometimes -- but who really cares? Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

Current Mood: A Drunken Sailor I Be!
Current Music: Any Fine Shanty

Well due to some comments I made on a friends LiveJournal various parties have taken to posting responses on my LiveJournal since they are banned from posting comments on the appropriate parties LiveJournal. Because of this I feel I need to take just a second to make my policy clear. I will not ban anyone from posting a comment on my Live Journal, provided said comment is relevant to the post you are commenting on. I use my LiveJournal as a personal forum for writing about things that I wish to write about. If you want to write that I am a “Big Dooty Head” do it on your LiveJoural and then feel massively superior that you can prevent me from saying anything to the contrary. As for the posts that were made, they have been deleted and any such comments in the future will suffer the same fate. I personally feel a little disgusted that I even had to post something like this.

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Current Mood: Grow up people

As I said in my last post I just got back from about two and a half weeks of vacation. One of the things that I discovered once I got back was that while I was gone some of the delinquents who hang out at the park across the street from my house decided it would be funny to rip off my radio antenna while I was away. Oddly enough I didn’t even realize this until a week after I had returned and I unplugged my CD player so I could hear my favorite weekly radio show. While I was upset at first I got to thinking about how much I actually listen to the radio. Other than my weekly radio show the only time I listen is when I forget my CD player and most of the time I usually turn it off in disgust. I have always been a strong advocate that movies are a powerful medium for storytelling but movies are in their infancy compared to music.

The cliché is that “Music defines the Generation” but I have always felt it is the opposite, that the generation defines the music. The hippies didn’t become hippies because they listened to Hippy music. They became fed up with the establishment and decided to free themselves from the rigid mold that society was forcing them into. Then they went and wrote songs that were reflections of what they saw and what they felt. The classic example is that rap, heavy metal, or insert other type of music makes kids become violent. Maybe instead these people are violent themselves and listen to such music because it is a reflection of how they feel already. When I say that music is a powerful medium I do not mean that it has the power to influence peoples minds, but instead that it has the power to reach people on an emotional level. We live in violent times where many people have devalued human life to something cheap. So artists make songs that convey their feelings of rage, anger and frustration towards society and people who have those same feelings inside them identify with the music.

That is why music tends to have a short shelf life. As people’s attitude changes they look for music that speaks to their new feelings while the music they used to listen to doesn’t hold their interest any more. That is not to say that there isn’t some music that people may like their whole lives loving, but I’m sure we all have a CD in our collection that was our personal anthem in high school and now is collecting dust at the bottom of your CD rack. When I was in high school I went through a huge Dave Mathews Band phase. I had all their albums and that was one of the only things I ever listened too. After a while I started playing them less and less frequently until now when I can barely even stand to listen to them. Why did I stop? Because my attitude changed and I didn’t feel the music appealed to me anymore. If you look at the bands that stood the test of time, like the Beatles, most of them achieved it by changing with the times. If you listen to “Hard Days Night” and then listen to “Magical Mystery Tour” it almost sounds like two completely different bands.

Now a lot of people are always going on about who the Beethoven’s and Mozart’s of our time will be. While its hard to know what music will fade away to be forgotten by the ages and what will stay the course I have always believed that our classical music is the movie score. While some of you may not realize it most of the music you hear in the background of movies is composed and performed by talented people who are very much like the composers of old. I have a fairly extensive collection of movie scores, some of my friends have collections that rival music stores, and I love them. John Williams, Howard Shore, and Hans Zimmer just to name a few create the music that enhances the experience of the movie. Think of how boring some of your favorite movies would be without the suspenseful music building in the background as the character prepares to confront the villain. Some of these have become recognizable themes in pop culture such as the theme from Jaws or the mandolin from the Godfather and as movies become more and more complicated affairs so too are the scores. Another medium that is discovering the power of full orchestral scores are video games. Last month a friend of mine went to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra to see them perform music exclusively from the Final Fantasy series of video games. This was a single performance sold out show that has been touring select cities across the world. Five years ago soundtracks for video games were unheard of but now it is becoming as common as soundtracks for movies.

Oh well that is just something I have been thinking about lately.

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Current Mood: In the Groove
Current Music: Trans-Siberian Orchestra Beethoven's Last Night

Well it has been almost three months since I posted anything and I’m afraid if I don’t say something soon they will cancel my livejournal. First off I need to apologize to my friends who read this journal since I have not spoken to some of you almost as long as I haven’t posted. My life got hectic and is just now starting to resume normalcy. More importantly I miss you guys. Here is just a quick update of what I have been doing.

Most of July was spent moving out of my apartment. Let me tell you this was something I was woefully unprepared for. I figured I could get it done in a week and still have breathing room. In reality I had to pay my landlord for an extra week just to get it all done. I had no idea what an effort it would be. First everything had to be packed up but I had no idea where to get the boxes from. Thankfully one of my friends had just moved and was able to help us out with that. Then came the throwing stuff away. Since we were moving in with my wife’s family we didn’t really need any of the food we had in the cupboards and most of it was bad anyways. Then there was the stuff that we didn’t want anymore and we couldn’t give away. Final count was over thirty trash bags plus a couple of large items. (On a side note, gods bless the trash collectors. They do a job I never could and they made sure that all of the stuff disappeared. If you have never done it, thank your garbage collector because they deserve it.) Last but not least was the cleaning. I never dreamed how much work that was going to be! Carpets had to be cleaned, walls had to be washed, and floors had to be scrubbed. So the moral of the story is I was an idiot and as usual my wife was right. Now since this was my first move there were also countless other little things that I didn’t know about that needed to be done like canceling the utilities, changing my address and most importantly getting the mail forwarded. So this was a real eye opening experience.

August was a little better for me. Since we moved in July I pushed my annual camping trip back to the second week of August. This turned out to be a great thing since it allowed a couple of people who couldn’t make it in July to attend, the campground was less crowded and the weather was milder. My Uncle Robert was able to come up and spend two days at the campsite and a great time was had by all. This week of relaxation is what allows me to stay sane for the rest of the year and I am already looking forward to next year. My Uncle Robert bought a pop-up camper that he just finished remodeling and he is talking about taking us to a different campsite somewhere else in the state. Personally I’m not sure if I want to go someplace else. I like Houghton Lake and I know the area. I know where I can go to get firewood and other essential items and I have been going there so long I am almost considered a local. So we’ll have to see what happens next year. The most important part about this trip is that it re-sparked my creativity. The move caused me to put all of my projects on hold and then pack them neatly into boxes either marked for the storage unit or our new home. Even before we started moving I was in a kind of slump with my writing. The creativity well had dried up and all of my projects had stalled. Part of the reason I make these annual camping trips is to keep my creativity going and clear out my head. Now I feel the urge to write again and if I could find the box with my blasted stick drive in it I would be golden.

Once I got home from camping I had one day to unpack all that stuff and then pack up again for a business trip to Chicago the next day. My company sent me to the corporate office for some training. I flew in on Monday and was able to spend some time walking around the city of Schaumburg before the training started Tuesday morning. Before I get into the detail I must mention that this was only the second time I have ever been on an airplane and my first time really traveling alone. Still I was rather proud of myself I walked to the nearby mall and found tons of neat shops including a fairly well stocked gaming store. I picked up some stuff for me and a present for my wife and still made it back to the hotel at a reasonable hour. I met some really great folks from around the country at the training session and learned some important stuff. The second night we hung out in one of the guys rooms talking about music and politics till about two in the morning. Despite the fact that it was for work it was almost like a second vacation.

Now it is September and I am renewed, refreshed and looking forward to getting back to posting on a semi-regular basis. I already have few ideas of thing I want to write but I don’t want to post them all at one time so check back in the next couple of days and I promise there will be new stuff.

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Current Mood: artistic

Well by now I’m sure all three of the people who read this are familiar with my infamous Academy Award Rant and my all-consuming hatred for most movie awards shows. However last week was the one awards show that I do care about: the MTV Movie Awards. Strange enough this year I find myself disagreeing with over half of the winners. Here is my take on some of the Awards.

Best Movie

Might as well start with the big one, here are the nominees: the Incredibles, Kill Bill Vol. 2, Napoleon Dynamite, Ray and Spiderman 2.

And the winner is Napoleon Dynamite.

What the hell! I have only seen parts of this movie and what I have seen was enough to tell me that I don’t like this movie. There is nothing really outstanding about it. It isn’t really that funny, it isn’t dramatic and it sure as heck doesn’t have a whole lot of action so what makes this movie so great? All I can say is that it is one of those movies that you either immediately hate or you immediately love. I have talked to some people who thing it is the greatest movie ever and others, like me, can’t stand it. My pick would have been either Kill Bill Vol. 2 or Ray. Both of these were great movies that easily deserved more credit than they got. Heck I still think Ray was the best contender for the Oscar for best picture.

Best Male Performance: Leonardo DeCaprio, the Aviator.

This was the performance I picked to win the Oscar for Best Actor when I was still predicting a sweep for Aviator. I was pretty happy that Jamie Foxx won it for Ray but I still admit that Leo did give a good performance. Of course it is also because most of the other nominees for this category sucked.

Best Villain: Ben Stiller, Dodgeball

Okay people when are you going to get it thorough your head that comedic villains aren’t really good villains. First off, Ben Stiller isn’t that funny. Second off, he really isn’t that great as a villain. As Far as I am concerned this award belongs to Tom Cruise for his role in Collateral. Beyond that I think Tom Cruise and Alford Molina (Doctor Octopus Spiderman 2) are the only two nominees that belong in this category. Now, if I could give the award to anyone it would have to go to David Carridine for Kill Bill Vol. 2.

Best Kiss

The only reason I am going to mention this award is because this year is the first year ever that a Girl on Girl kiss did not win. The winning kiss was from the Notebook, which I have not seen so I can’t comment on it, but it beat Jennifer Garner and some other chick for Elektra. Of coarse this could just go to show exactly how much Elektra sucked.

Well that’s all for now. Wow two posts in one day, I’m on a roll.

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Current Mood: apathetic

Okay I haven’t posted in a while, but after hearing about the Michael Jackson verdict I have to get a few things off my chest. First off I am not surprised that he got off. In fact I think I would have been more surprised if he was convicted. I don’t think it was because of his fame, but more because the prosecution had a weak case to begin with and were hopping that Jackson would take the stand so they could tear him to shreds. Unfortunately they never got that opportunity and the jury was not swayed by the circumstantial evidence. Do I think he did it? Well all I can say is that where there is smoke there is usually fire and there sure is one hell of a smoke screen over the goings on at Neverland Ranch. The guy is just weird and if he is forced to sell Neverland and move to Europe all I can say is good riddance. Feel free to move to France with all the other weirdoes.

Now that being said the thing that disturbs me the most is how self-righteous Mr. Jackson is acting about the whole thing. On his website he put up a short victory video in which he compared the day the verdict came in to the day Martin Luther King Jr. was born and the day Nelson Mandella was freed. Whatever delusions of grandeur this guy has, he is just a pop star and has no business associating himself with the same historical significance as these two men. Fifty years from now history books will still talk of the contributions that Martin Luther King Jr. & Nelson Mandella made to society, but Michael Jackson will just be another singer on the “Golden Oldies” stations. History will remember him as a footnote, an oddity, about the eccentricities of fame. The fact is that if you don’t want people to persicute you as a child molester than don’t engage in activities that could be associated with child molesting. If you act like a drug dealer, start hanging around with drug dealers and have drug paraphernalia in your home the police are going to suspect that you are a drug dealer. Even if you have never touched a controlled substance in your life they will still make the assumption. So don’t be surprised when they come to your house and serve you with a warrant.

Now as bad as his attitude was some of the people who were around the courthouse were even worse. There were people releasing doves, chanting “Innocent”, and even thanking God that he was found not guilty. Listen folks there is no grand conspiracy against this man. The Police and the Prosecutors do not go around inventing charges and planting evidence to harass celebrities. These people received a complaint, investigated, and presented what they had found to a DA to obtain a warrant. The DA then had to present the evidence to a Judge who had to issue the search warrants for Neverland Ranch. The police searched Jackson’s residence and came back with more evidence to present to the DA in order to obtain an arrest warrant for Mr. Jackson. The DA then goes back to a Judge presents the new evidence and obtains an arrest warrant. The case is then presented to a grand jury who then goes over the entire case so and determinds if there is enough evidence to merit an indictment. So add all that up and you have The police, the DA, at least two judges, and the twelve members of the Grand Jury who were all convinced that there was enough cause to proceed with the case. This was not some epic struggle against tyranny it was a trial just like takes place in courtrooms all over the United States. There is no need to release doves as some grand spectacle of freedom and there is no need to thank God. If you want to thank someone thank our fore fathers who created our legal system. We are one of only a handful on countries on earth where defendants are innocent until proven guilty and not the other way around.

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Current Mood: aggravated

Well everyone it cost me a good nights sleep buy I made it to the midnight show of Star Wars Episode III. I have to admit it Revenge of the Sith more than made up for the crap that was Phantom Menace. I don’t want to go too much into details as to give anything away but there is a definite reason that this is the only Star Wars movie that didn’t receive a PG rating. I know I said I would give a full report but I don’t want to spoil anything for those of you who have not seen it. I’ll let it sit and maybe even watch it again and then give it my full review.

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Current Mood: ecstatic

Well thanks to those fine folks over at Live 97.1 not only am I the proud owner of all 5 Star Wars movies on DVD but I will also be attending the midnight show on Wednesday night. My wife spent over half an hour auto dialing for me and I was the last person to make it on the air to play the game. I’m really geeked because not only did I win an awesome prize but also this is the first time I ever won anything off the radio. Now to decided which of my friends I will take with me you may enter into armed combat to the death and the survivor will accompany me. Just kidding, or am I J! Anyway be sure that I will post a review first thing Thursday morning telling everyone weather or not it sucked.

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Well everyone I know it has been a while since I posted but I have been working my proverbial ass off. I feel horrible I had to put my weekly CyberGeneration post on hold because I just don’t have time to write. Usually the busy spell lasts until the end of May and then I’ll have more free time, but I didn’t want to stay silent until then. Here are just a few of things that I wanted to chime off on.

First off I did manage to see two of the films I really want to see, Kung Fu Hustle and Sahara. Both of them were great movies and I got to see them with friends and that was even better. I still haven’t caught Sin City or Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and with more good movies coming out each week I don’t know if I’ll ever manage to catch up. I can’t remember the last time there were this many movies coming out that I wanted to see. There has literally been a movie I wanted to see released every weekend going back to early April when Sin City came out and with Kingdom of Heaven opening today and Star Wars Episode III opening just over a week I don’t know what I am going to do. Which reminds me that I still have to rent Star Wars Episode II and watch it.

Still to come this year I just saw the trailers for Serenity and Dukes of Hazard and they both look awesome. Let me just say that I never really got into any of the 70’s and 80’s TV shows remade into movie fad so I was really skeptical when I heard that they were doing a Duke of Hazard movie. That was one of the show that I grew up with it and I still remember it fondly. The idea of them remaking it, especially with Stiffler (Sean Willson), Johnny Knoxville and Jessica Simpson playing Bo, Luke and Daisy Duke sent a chill down my spine. But after watching the trailer it looks pretty good. Plus Willy Nelson is playing Uncle Jesse, what could be better than that. As for Serenity, if anyone managed to catch Joss Whedons spectacular show Firefly for the 15 minutes it was on the air the movie looks much better than the series. I’m not sure what the exact plot of the movie is but I know it picks up shortly after the show. One can only hope that if the movie generates enough buzz Fox will have the balls to bring the show back. They already swallowed their pride once and admitted that they canceled a show early (Hence new episodes of Family Guy) so maybe new episodes of Firefly could be not far off.

Speaking of new episodes of family guy it was funny as hell! Also Revelations is my new favorite addictive TV show after Lost. I know it takes HUGE liberties with some of the prophecies but it is still a good show.

Also I managed to catch up with a friend I hadn’t talked to in a while. We parted on pretty rough terms and hadn’t spoke to each other in over two years but out of the blue we both decided to try and get in touch with each other. It is refreshing to know that no matter what happens some friends will always be with you no matter how mad you are with each other at one point.

If all goes according to plan I will be moving into my very own home in late June or early July and hopefully I will be able to afford high-speed Internet access. That way I will be able to keep in touch with everyone and download porn at lightning speed. I can’t wait to have my own place and more importantly my own washer and dryer. I have to say that of everything I had at my parents house the ability to do laundry is the one thing I miss the most. Of course there will also be the obligatory house warming party too!

Well everyone I’ll leave you all with this nugget of wisdom and see you all later.

“The trick to learning how to fly is to throw yourself at the ground… and miss.”

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Current Mood: Maxin and Relaxin
Current Music: Frank Sinatra

Okay I like taking the odd quiz on the internet but something has to be pretty damn funny or good in order for me to post it. This one is pretty funny. Take it for a spin and waste a few minutes of your life that you will never get back. (I'm still scared from the two hours of my life and eight bucks I lost to watching Battlefield Earth, and if I ever see John Travolta in person I am going to kick him square in the nuts for it!)

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

Current Mood: amused

Well it isn’t very often that I find a website that I just have to talk about but this one truly reaffirms my faith that the internet can be used for something other than pornography. The website is called Project Gutenburg and it is an online repository of public domain books. That little title doesn’t really do it justice so let me ram it home, OVER 15,000 BOOKS and they are all FREE! By law a published text can only remain copyrighted for fifty years after the authors death so think of how many books that covers. I spent most of yesterday reading Sun Tzu’s the Art of War a magnificent book that is still affecting the strategies of today’s militaries over 2000 years later. The books usually come in either text files or html so it is pretty no frills but it is better than going to a book store and shelling out $5-$8 for a paperback. Just think how much money you college people could save by not having to buy books for your literature classes, come on its at least enough to buy a few beers. They have everything on this website from Jules Vern to Don Quixote even going back to Confucius. DID I MENTION IT’S FREE! Here’s the link enjoy.

http://www.gutenberg.org/

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Current Mood: ecstatic

Well it’s been over a week since I posted last and with all that has gone on in the world since then even I feel ashamed of myself for not saying something sooner. The biggest thing is probably the death of Pope John Paul II and the election of Pope Benedict XVI. This was truly sad since it happened while I was on vacation and I even wrote a post about my vacation but I did not mention that fact. All I can really say was that John Paul II was a great man who saw the church through turbulent times and made a true effort to make peace not just between the faiths but all over the world. He was a humble man that was truly a Pope of the people. I just thought I should say something about a man who did so much.

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Current Mood: sad

Well everyone after a long dry spell I once again have Internet at my house. No more having to wait until I am at work to check my email or having to go over my mothers house just to look up an Ebay auction, I am connected. God this is a good feeling since now I can update my livejournal on a more regular basis. Now it is only 56k so I am still in the dark ages but at least I have access. Now on to more important things…

I went to my comic book shop last week and I emptied my pull box. Low and behold I held in my hands the mythical Rising Stars #24! Yes after a more than two-year hiatus J. Stracynski has published the final issue of his epic tale. For those of you who are not Rising Stars fans I’ll summarize the situation. Way back when, shortly after Babylon 5 finished it’s five year JMS decided to try his hand at writing comic books. His first series was planned to be a 24-issue story about 113 children from a small town that were gifted with super powers. The series was magnificent and quickly became a fan favorite. Once Blade and Spiderman showed the movie industry that audiences were once again ready for comic book movies Rising Stars was one of the first titles that came up for production. But just as the fledgling superheroes of Pederson faced hardship so did the writer of this story. After some heated debates the studio that published the comic book tried to lock JMS out of the movie so in retaliation JMS withheld the last three issues from the studio. The title sat in limbo for years until last fall when the two sides finally settled their differences and agreed to publish the final issues. Sadly the years had taken their toll and interest for the title has faded to just the hardcore fans who have held onto the hope that they would eventually see the ending. Now we have our ending but it is doubtful if the movie will ever see production.

Anyway I would recommend this story to almost anyone. The story and the characters are great and it appeals to more than just people who like superheroes. Right now you can get the first two eight issue story arcs in graphic novels and the final story arc will soon be available. The story really take a look at how normal people would handle having powers and how it would affect their lives. It also has great conspiracy elements as the US government and even some of the other “Specials” plot against the heroes. I don’t want to give away too much of the story so go out and pick it up already.

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Current Mood: happy

Well everyone I just got back from a rather enjoyable weekend up north and I have to say there is nothing better for working out stress. Before I go any further I would like to say a few things about Houghton Lake. I have been spending time in Houghton Lake since I was about ten. My mother has dear friends who live up there and we would always go up and visit. Shirley and Buck Mitchell became my mother’s guardians when my grandmother Eleanor passed away. My mother was eighteen at the time and determined to keep her family together. Later on Mrs. Mitchell’s son Robert married my Aunt Ruth and they officially became part of the family, but they divorced shortly after having three kids and one day my Aunt Ruth left with the two youngest and disappeared for nine years. In my aunt Ruth’s absence we still remained close with my uncle Robert and my cousin Ryan. When I was about sixteen Robert moved to Mississippi with his job and only moved back to Michigan within the last year. Now he lives in the house next door to his parents with Ryan and my other cousin Kyle.

Now a few words about my Uncle Robert. Uncle Robert is about my favorite person in my family on both of my parents’ sides. I have as much in common with him as I do with many of my closest friends. Whenever we would visit he would always spend time with us and he loved just being with us kids. He would always take us out to the lake or out mini-golfing and he never made us feel unwelcomed. That’s not to say that he spoiled us because we always knew that we were expected to behave and to clean up after ourselves and the fun always came after that. As I grew up and it went from my whole family coming up to just myself and my mom he stopped treating me like a child and started treating me like a man. He taught me how to shoot a gun, how to build a fire from scratch and how to camp. Just a few years ago I found out that we both shared another hobby, Role Playing Games. I had never known it but he had been playing Dungeons and Dragons since the seventies and the next time I saw him we spent hours swapping gaming stories.

This trip I brought my wife and instantly he wanted to know everything about her. Both my wife and uncle are half Mexican an instantly took a liking to each other. I also got to meet my cousin Kyle for the first time and we all just sat around the living room until 10:00pm talking about music, movies and other things and then we went out to the bar with my cousin Ryan and his girlfriend. I don’t want to get into details but lets just say we drank a lot and a good time was had by all. Saturday night we stayed home and smoked cigars, another shared intrest, and I mean everyone even my wife had one listening to Sinatra. We talked until 3:30am and then dragged ourselves to sleep. My wife and I already planning on taking a long weekend in May and coming up to visit again.

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Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Sinatra baby, All the way!