Anything that Ticks off the French Tickles me Pink

I can't say I understand all the repercussions of this but boyI love seeing it!! The French are moaning about their leaders not being "European" enough. If anyone ever calls me European I'll sock them one.

Get Lost

I don't watch much TV. I'd much rather be rotting my eyes in front of my PC. But the 2 shows I do watch are pretty cool. A little show called Lost, which is in its first season, and Alias which is in like it's third or fourth.


Lost takes place on some South Pacific island after a 747 crash lands on the beach. There are 40 survivors. The island is, for lack of a better word or the time to think one up, bent. A huge um.."thing" stomps around the island up rooting trees and eating people. There is a polar bear and all sorts of hidden stuff. The plots, character development , effects, whatever are simply the best I've ever seen on a TV series.

The 2 hour season finale was last night and WOW! I'm definately buying that DVD set.

Now Alias pretty much sucked, although the ending was the obligatory shocker.

Lost is my new love now.

Ah the geeks attention span...approximately 2 months.

I'd Rather Pass a Test than Gas

Today at 9:00am I began a grueling, well, intense, well alright, leisurely exam that lasted till 11:00am. It was the infamous PPST, or Pennsylvania uh..hmm...I don't know what it stands for but I took it. Cost me 120 greenbacks. Worth every cent. I'm hoping.

Anyway it entails answering about 120+ questions in math and reading and doing some essay.

I passed. Thank God. And I can say that without saying His name vainly. Honestly what the heck does that mean? (slight pause as I flip through a great big red dictionary) Well Webster informs me that it comes from the Latin vanus and refers to a empty or hollow use. So by saying "Oh my God" (in valley girl speak) you are in fact calling on God for no apparent reason. It is an empty and futile gesture and thusly frowned upon since God isn't me. You could say "Oh my Proteinstar" all you want and there's not a whole lot us Proteinstar's can do about it, if we cared...

What am I yammering about?

I passed. Give me stuff, presents and honorifics to glorify me in my..umm... glory.

Why a Midnight Showing is Sublime

I love opening night midnight showings.

Part of it is the glory of being the first to see it. A reason my wife finds sadly pathetic.

But Friday evening I found a really pratical reason why midnight showings are simple the best possible time to see a movie.

When I saw Episode III Thursday morning around 12:01 am I was surrounded by like minded fanboys and girls. All ravenous for the final installment. The Fox fanfare rolls in and everyone cheers...and then shuts up. R2-D2 bleeps something funny and everyone laughs...and then shuts up. The fanboys slurp their soda quietly and much their popcorn with their mouths closed...why? So that they don't miss any of Lucas crap (ahem!) precious dialogue. People cheer when Grievous is done in, they cringe when Anakin is roasted.

The gestalt of the movie going experience is worth buying tickets 3 days in advance and waiting in line 2.5 hours. Why? I will only see this movie for the 1st time once. It must be perfect.

Now a buddy of mind literally missed this showing, his ticket still sitting in my wallet waiting for him to show up. How could this be you ask. A girl. That's subject for a whole other blog. But anyway we went and saw the Friday 6:50pm showing.

Great googlymoogly never again. Little kids by the scores! A 3 year old sitting in a booster seat next to us.

3 YEARS OLD!!! What father does that?

The kid only commented on the colors throughout the movie. "Daddy that man is blue"

and "Daddy that room is all white."


OK granted that shot is from Episode IV but you get the point.

Some dude was pulling one of those corrogated straws through it's plastic lid..you know the ones? RIIIIIIIIP!!! THRIIIIIIIPPPP! RIIIIIIPPPPP!! THRIIIPPPPP! Throughout the entire movie. I mean if he had done that at midnight his arms would have been torn off and fed to him.

It was insane. How can people tolerate such poor viewing conditions?

This has only made me more elitist. it's interesting that geeks are a segment of the population generally looked down upon and seen as subnormal. Yet the geek population sees themselves as greater than the masses.

An elite snobbery born out of cultural isolation brought upon by social misunderstanding.

Well...That was pretty good

It's not the battle of Endor but WOW!

Actually, that sums up this movie quite nicely. Episode III, attempts to but does not quite attain the lofty echelons of the 1st Trilogy. The gravitas is there but the movie doesn't focus on a given region long enough for you to care. Individuals suffer and die and the audience is just waiting to get back to a main character. Now the main characters you care about. Their events are meaningful and engaging, but the battles surrounding them are a bit hollow.

Unlike the original 3. Heck the battle of Hoth had only Luke and that entire seige was nailbiting. You care about the poor Hoth Troopers getting blasted to rebellious bits by those awesome, I hope my parents buy me one for Christmas, AT-ATs.

However, the movie was so awesome that I don't give a crap.

Plus it had severed limbs...in spades. I mean arms and legs flying all over the place. Everybody's losing limbs, your grandmother probably lost a extremity or two just because you watched this film.

LOVE IT.

Jar-Jar does not speak, unfortunately he isn't one of the limbless in this movie, but I'll take the no speaking for starters.

Romance dialogue is ridiculous as usual. Fortunately I've had 2 movies to stoicly prepare myself, so my eyes just glazed over until something exploded and woke me.

Great movie.

However, the nod to Frankenstein was not only stupid it completely disrupted one of the most important scenes in the entire 6 movie series!!!!!

It was tasteless, silly and a complete mistake. It truely shows how sophomoric Lucas's directing ability is. The very idea of cheapening his main character in such a manner is appalling. My brother and I groaned, there was no excuse no subtle explanation on our lips to make it go away.

Stupid Lucas.

Lovely Lucas.

I mean the dude gives with one hand and takes with the other. But honestly if Episode III is crap I'll have some more.

Seriously, this movie misses the original 3's greatness by a hairs breath. It's that good.

Is it Speilberg weeping good? ummm...no.

Is it, I'll see it again this weekend good? ummm...yes.

On a side note, Lucas mentioned his desire and motions to make a TV series based on peripheral characters. Could be amazing or it could be Droids.


Go see Starwars...It brings warm feelings to my heart.

Lucas give me back my Kershner!

My good old buddy Hal just went and saw Episode III. It's Sunday, the 15th. Yeah. A tad early.

Stupid Hasbro had an advanced screening and he managed to snooker tickets.

Actually I'm really happy for him. According to Gumbo it's not as good as the original 3 but lightyears beyond the last 2 piles of steaming (insert your prefered noun).

The NYT's apparently liked it as well. Although since Lucas has the directing ability of a decaying Rhesus monkey I can't understand for the life of me why he bothers. He should have gotten Irvin Kershner, if he's still alive. I mean Irvin was amazing with what he did with Empire. It was dark, heavy and sepulcher in tone. Perfect.

Now I know the last two were supposed to display innocence lost and childhood's end but that kid was dreadful. I mean dreadful in adjective's used to describe excrement dreadful.

I just watched Episode I recently and winced through two thirds of the movie.



Although those Tusken raiders shooting at the pod racers was sheer brilliance and most likely concocted by an animator or artist on Skywalker Ranch.



Last chance G.L.

Beatification...Deification...what's the difference?

Now that Pope John Paul II is dead there is quite a furor about his upcoming sainthood. The new Pope, Benedict the XVI, seems likely, along with the remaining cardinals of the Vatican to see this through. I'm curious to see what two miracles they will attribute him.

Although not an exact analogy it sure resembles the events of ancient Rome and it's forebears. I mean you have Augustus, working through the senate, and declaring his great-uncle Julius Caesar a god with the intention that upon his death this tradition would continue. And continue it did when Tiberius, Augustus's adopted son now Caesar, made him a god.

OK, so godhood and sainthood aren't quite the same thing. Also, these newly canonized saints didn't exactly request this honor and those venerable lords of Rome made it a life's pursuit at the end.

But still, doesn't it just kind of cheapen the whole concept of saint? Pope John Paul II beautified 1,340 people during his reign as Pope. That's a lot.

There are over 10,000 saints. I mean the patron saint of janitors is a guy called Theobald, Bartholomew is the patron saint of plasterers.

I mean come on! Can you imagine his disappointment when after he dies, after all his work, he gets to be the patron of dudes in big baggy outfits stuccoing some suburban residence. No he could of been the patron of anything! Heck, even Saint Lucy got eye diseases. But he's stuck with plasterers.

Formula Doh!

I love Formula 1. Specifically refering to the boardgame. Don't get me wrong I love the actual race but they keep changing the rules. Heck just throw out the rules! Let those engineers build monsters! Now that would be a race.

But back to the boardgame. My brother-in-law stopped by last night, carrying a load of laundry and Formula De. The game is the best approximation of racing every made for a boardgame.

blah blah blah racing and cornering and then...



ah. Takuma Sato. The man never fails to impress.

The next race was at Hockenheim.

I'm back in the rear. Struggling to reach the front pack...2 corners left...

I roll the massive 6 gear die and...



Matt wasn't too pleased about crashing out of the race because I slammed into him on the 2nd to last corner.

I took the final corner too slow and was past and took 3rd. Nuts.

I still love that game though.

Sato's my homeboy.

If it wasn't for video games...

I could accomplish so much more. Instead, I spend 3 hours slaughtering mercenaries on some digital atoll and have nothing to show for it.

Still I love them. The wife...she hates 'em.

I've been working on a ton of various board/card game designs over the past few months and I might just get one finished. But that means not wasting my time on videogames.

pity

it would be nice to complete one thing that I start. Like fixing my dining room chairs. Lousy pieces of junk. You spend $600 on a table and chairs and they should at least last 3 years. Bah! I'll buy all my furniture at Ikea from now on.

Man, I feel like I'm playing the Sims 2 when I'm on that website.

woah. methinks I do play to much.

wioll haven be

It's been one crazy week. And my faithful readership of none have probably all left.

30 Hour Famine is done. We raised over $2,000.00 for the children. With government assistance we will septuple that number and feed about 42 kids for a year. Good job youth! Not to self, and nobody who reads this blog...do not attempt a punch drinking contest after fasting for 26 hours, unless you enjoy copious amounts of crimson vomit.

Saw the movie Primer last week. About two guys who make a living developing patents on various things in the one guys garage. Turns out they make a time machine and all that entails. Fortunately there was no Van Damn action, Timecop, what a lousy film. Anyway, if you are familiar with a Mr. Douglas Adams, and with the movie I'm sure you are, he has quoted a certain Dr Dan Streetmentioner's literary work called Time Traveller's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. and I quote...

"It will tell you for instance how to describe something that was to happen to you in the past before you avoided it by time-jumping forward two days in order to avoid it."

My favorite instance is the proper use of Future Semi-Conditionally Modified Subinverted Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional.

Why all this? Well if you actually want to hear it spoken, go watch Primer.

If that's not a ringing endorsement then I don't know what is.

Well that's enough for now. At least I got on the web. Check with me tomorrow or tonight or something, I'll tell you about all the cool games I just bought. Ya I know whoopee.