First!!

I don't have the luxury of time to put up an elaborate review of the past 2 movies I've seen this weekend/week but I did want to at least mention my seeing them.

Saw Chronicles of Narnia with The Spouse of Proteinstar Sat. Best literary film translation ever, hands down. It helps that the book is less than 200 pages long.

Superb acting, pacing and special effects, after this one and Kong there is no doubt what special effects company reigns supreme.


And speaking of Kong, King Kong is probably one of the greatest remakes ever made. I mean the original is good in that 1933 way. This one? I have never shouted out in a theatre from sheer fear, not ever. But there are 2 scenes that had me squirming in my seat, one with a log and another after a log. What was it with logs? The movie is insane, slow for 45 minutes then BANG! I was laughing from the complete insanity that Jackson bombarded by retinas with...and by insanity I mean pure celluloid gold. Action sequences that were just blow your mind awesome. Jurassic Park eat your heart out.

So there..this year has been amazing for movies...Star Wars III, Harry Potter 4, Chronicles of Narnia, King Kong. Just awesome. Here's something for you, all these movies rocked the box office, the all happen to be sci-fi or fantasy, most of Hollywood is tanking right now, guess what kind of movies we're going to see made in the near future? Oh yeah, sci-fi and fantasy. And they're going to run it into the ground. Gotta love those suits.

So run to your local theatre and feed my lust for all things science fiction/fantasy. Hollywood's finally going to make what I want.

Here's some introspection for ya

"If you made a charnel pit of all my varied dead, from the flickering pixel-men of that long-ago castle to the latest normal-mapped shrapnel victims, it might blot out the sun.


Such is the magnitude of my carnage."

A Revelation

I don't have a serious bone in my body. Well, I tend to be serious about games and movies, music, but a point could be made that those things aren't serious. And by serious I mean actually pertaining to life and imparting value to it. So in fact, I'm not serious. And I find this aspect of my character to be a serious flaw. Well there's something, the only thing serious about me are my faults.

The reason I bring this up is because I was going to orginally post about the glory and wonder of watching my nearly 3 year old when we do advent every night. We light up to 24 candles , one for each day till Christmas Eve, and open a window in the advent calendar. We read a verse out of Luke and sing a nice little Christmas song, usually off key. But man does she love it...claps and sings along and begs to do advent before dinner. Now I still haven't lost the wonder and joy of Christmas. I'm the first barreling down the stairs to open my stocking. But if I had she would pour it all back in. Wait, I just did post about it.

Well look, I did comment on something serious. Scratch that whole first self-reflective, introspective garbage in the beginning. Which is why I never reflect on my thoughts and feelings. They usually aren't worth a second thought.

I'm still collecting the pieces of my head from around my office

Mr.T once punched Chuck Norris at the exact moment he roundhouse kicked Mr.T in the chest.

The result was the 80's.

5 by 5

A list.

5 Places That I Want to Visit before I Can't:

1. Tortorici, Sicily

2. Trafalgar Square, London, England

3. Olympus Mons, Tharsis bulge, Mars (that volcano is the size of Missouri)

4. The Ziggurat of Ur or The Ishtar Gate of Babylon (same country so I think 2 is fine)

5. Rome, Italy


My 5 Favorite restaurants:

1. Taco Bell

2. Newport Creamery

3. Dave & Busters

4. Texas Roadhouse

5. Brian Kents (Just gotta lay off the Pinot Grigio)

5 Sporting Events I Have to Attend:

1. The Octagon

2. American Gladiators

3. Worlds Strongest Man Competition

4. Flugtag

5. The Most Dangerous Game


5 People That I Want to Share Spaghetti and Meatballs With:

1. Optimus Prime

2. Saint Peter

3. The chick Cain married after moving to Nod

4. Settimo Franchina (My Grandfather)

5. Gabriel the Archangel (want to see if he knows Moroni the angel)


5 Things I Don't Know:

1. How they heck did they figure our universe was shaped either like a torus or a saddle?

2. Why the heck is a face transplant considered an ethical dilemma by the media?

3. Why is Pennsylvania completely devoid of natural bodies of water?

4. Why am I having difficulty typing this section when it should easily be the easiest?

5. uhhhh....um...

so there are 26 dimensions? And the scalar tachyon is the lowest energy state and is one of the energy sources for the antisymmetric tensor field? OK, so I think I have this string theory thing down. When's the test?....not.


Ummm. Rover you're it.

Public Service Announcement

Just discovered a free video on demand service called Sputnik 7 .

Sweet little site, all the music videos you can shake a fist at. I highly recommend Basement Jaxx and their Where's Your Head At, video. Simian. And if you want a good scare, the most frightening freakest video ever is still Who's Your Daddy by Aphex Twin. I have that video on VHS still in the shrinkwrap. Ain't no way I'm opening that in my house!

proteinstar out

MONSTERS!

According to a report in The SUNday Times UK,

50 babies a year are born after the result of a botched abortion. A fact I'm glad the agencies are becoming aware of.

"If a baby is born alive following a failed abortion and then dies (because of lack of care), you could potentially be charged with murder",” said Shantala Vadeyar, a consultant obstetrician at South Manchester University Hospitals NHS Trust, who led the study.

Yet if you don't screw up and it does die in utero its ok? Absolutely monstrous!

I would have no problem if God decided to smash us with a big rock.

There, it's been awhile since I've made a social ill/bane of society type comment. Except that one about Thanksgiving...I hope I'm not seeing a trend.

Thanksgiving

A time to gorge ourselves on poultry and tubers and crush old women to the floor
in a mad rush to purchase tons of electronics we never needed in the first place.

I love this country.

I'd like to go for a walk...

ah...I'm not fooling anyone.

I'll be stone dead in a moment.

Just a little note to let you know, I'm still here.

2 Girls +
Thanksgiving with both sides coming and I'm cooking +
Grad School =
________________
No time for anything


But I should leave you a nugget of something.

There's this program/website called Mercora.com.
it works like IM, except you stream music in the format of proprietary files that they made. What it means is that you can stream music from other peoples PC's. It also means you can record those streams. And it's legal, due to the same law that allows you to record music off the radio or shows off the TV. Nice huh? You can't burn them, at least I haven't figure a way around it using Audacity and a stream recorder yet. But for listening on your PC it's fine, plus you can get a mobile version for your PDA or whatever. So now I can listen to the latest albums of whoever before plunking down $15.00 for it.

hits on Proteinstar's PC right now:

X&Y by Coldplay (yeah I'm strapped to that bandwagon)
Demon Days by Gorillaz (the track Dare has me completely obsessed with them)
Transatlanticism by Deathcab for cutie (dragged to my death behind this indie wagon)
Give Up by The Postal Service (Since one of the leads are from Deathcab it's a given)
Aphex Twin (Got over his nightmarish face and have fallen completely in love)
Sigur Ros (so what if it's not English? So what if it's not actually Icelandic either?)

Man I love that Dare song, just gets me bopping.


"You've got to press it on you

You just think it

That's what you do, baby

Hold it down, DARE"

No idea what they mean but the beat jams. Seriously Whole Crap jams.

Sounds like a novelty indie jelly company. Seriously Whole Crap Jams. Only the freshest Whole Crap is good enough for our Jams.

The BIG ONE is on its way

Did you feel that?

Boston just had a bit of an earthquake. Yup, that faults acting up again, gonna send that urban sprawl from Boston to Providence right into the drink.

Yup all I have time for, can't wait for school to be done.

I should feel real bad but it's hard

Watching France burn is a bad thing, yet satisfying. I know...People read this blog, you can't say things like that anymore. But it's true. The government of France is one of the most egotistical meglomanicial in Europe and it's nice to see them get their cumuppance.

Every single major city is having major riots, 4700 vehicles have been torched. Schools, businesses, warehouses, all aflame. What's Chirac and his guys doing? Nothing. It's been 12 days and they are finally thinking about curfew. CURFEW! That nation is nuts. Can you imagine riots in every major city in the US? Completely unimaginable, it would be civil war. The National Guard would be all over the place.

I think it's interesting that the Muslim extremists are attacking their biggest ally. We'll see what Frances view on Muslim immigrants will be after this, they do have 5 million after all. Europe looks at the US with such disgust but we can at least manage our population. Someone compared Frances riots with the LA riots in '92. Come on, they aren't even close! If the riots extented 2500 miles across the country maybe then it could be.

I sure hope we don't need to cross the Pond to bail them out again.

If I could channel one man into my forebrain

"Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion. In practice it means that hardly anybody is allowed to mention it."

It would be Chesterton. That beautiful and most rare amalgamation of literary genius and commonsense.

Reinforcing Previously Held Beliefs

The result is always good, only the process can be uncomfortable at times. Case in point.

Hitchhikers.

I don't pick them up, unless they are incredibly old and feeble or female and pregnant.

Yet last night I broke my vows and did the unthinkable.

I let a strange man in my van. gasp!

The Bro of Proteinstar and myself had just finished a rollicking good adventure in Faerun. Rykon our resident Sorceror took the noggin off a goblin archer from 40 feet. Gotta love that magic missile, now I just have to wait for the flames to die down before bursting through...oh hitchhikers.

Anyway, game done Bro walks me to the van and this dude comes up to us...

"Got jumper cables?" "Yup" I say and offer him a jump.
"Thanks man, you don't know how bad I need it, I'm not from here, but Pottsville (or something)"

I grab the cables and he's like, "oh, my car isn't here, it's at the Grayhound station."
I was like, "how the heck did you get over here? This is nowhere near the station."

"oh I was at a bar with my bud and...(he smelled it too)...well I have to take care of my ma..."
blah blah

Well, I stepped in it now. How can I retract my offer of help beacuse it got a litttle more involved? My bro gave me a fierce look but came along. So the guy was here for the first time and was "scared of the city". please. He knew how to get to the bus station easily enough, which had me wondering.

Well we chat about Alma Maters and such and turns out he's a college boy from somewhere but isn't going currently, we feign interest.

We arrive at the bus station and I'm in the middle of my, "I saw a huge crane fall from this very spot" story and he gasps, well I thought he was totally into my description so I keep going. yeah, turns out he wasn't and was actually gasping about his missing car. Which he parked right in front of 2 dozen DO NOT PARK signs and another half dozen TOW ZONE placards. Idiot.

I was thinking, were you drunk before you parked?

This is where the story gets interesting.

The guy goes nuts, like is he carrying a knife? nuts. He gets desperate and angry and pleading and nearly violent. Sitting in the back of my Voyager raving.

Mike and I look at each other and brace ourselves for the worst.

"YOU GUYS GOTTA GIVE ME TEN BUCKS!!!"

Unfortunately neither of us had any money. Then he's begging, "please man, hit an ATM or something I just need a taxi out of here! Just a taxi to Reading, 10 bucks man that's all I ask!"

I inform him, none to softly, that a taxi to Reading will cost 3 times that.

We both refuse to give him any money and then he EXPLODES.

Fists clenched and shaking he demands we give him money.

And then it happened...Mike later said I sounded like a real adult...

the spirit of the father of Proteinstar erupted from deep within me and I bellowed, nay roared at this man.

Not sure what I said initially but the man didn't back down at first but retorted with a

"you think I'm scared of you?"

I increased my furor and was getting nearly to the point of contemplating violence when he changed 180 degrees.

"Wait man wait, I'm sorry. No Man I'm really sorry."

We took him to talk with a securitty guard and it looked like he was trying to bum more money. And finally I drove him down to 2nd street to find his friend. At this point I knew this guy only wanted money for more beers. There was no car, no Pottsville, no ma.

I waited 2 minutes outside the bar in case I was wrong and drove off.

I will never pick up a stranger again, and if I do you better be 80 years old and 8 months pregnant with triplets.

Star Trek we have arrived

When scientists can develop stuff that sounds like something Gene Roddenberry cooked up in a fever dream I get all sorts of excited.

photonic silicon waveguide

The man is such a genius I have to give you another

"The whole curse of the last century has been what is called the Swing of the Pendulum; that is, the idea that Man must go alternately from one extreme to the other. It is a shameful and even shocking fancy; it is the denial of the whole dignity of the mankind. When Man is alive he stands still. It is only when he is dead that he swings."

-G.K. Chesterton

Chesterton is the man

"When people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing; they believe in anything."

-G.K. Chesterton

I have become my father

A particularly poignant moment in my household was the weekly watching of Nova on WGBH Boston, the local PBS channel. During the late 80’s and early 90’s, Nova, it seemed, was running endless shows on evolution, the Piltdown man, or Lucy our long lost cousin. Listening to a paleontologist describe the life history of an entire race of beings after discovering it’s patella, which turned out to be a pigs, had my father in such a furious clamor that he was completely unable to sit on the sofa. He would lean forward towards the television, just waiting in anticipation for the narrators next line of complete inanity, upon which he would gesticulate wildly (being Italian) and declare the statement to be utter lunacy.

The day has come when I have taken up the mantle of my beloved progenitor.

I spent the evening watching "The Question of God" on PBS. It was a show comparing the world views of Sigmund Freud and CS Lewis. The quotations of both these men were impressive and intriquing, of course I am biased towards Lewis's way of thinking having adopted several of his mental concepts of God for myself. Yet the frustating part was the roundtable discussion between "highly educated and intelligent thinkers". Good Lord! It was insane. The things that would come out of these peoples mouths were laughable. Intelligent! Bah! They understand stocks, and how many atriums we have in our heart but when it comes to viewing and discussing our state of existence they are woefully inept. "Professing to be wise they became fools."

These agnostics, just another name for the philosophically lazy, and athiests/humanists, if they take their view to it's fullest extent it always results in nihilism and fatalism. If Nietzsche had it right, and God is Dead. With Him dead the standard of moral obligation is gone, we need to replace it, with what? Supermen, the concept of mankinds gradual upward development. As the ape is an embarassment to man so shall man be in comparison to the supermen that come after.

Sounds like...

Nazi propaganda.

Well looks like that's a great world view to replace God with. Germany and central Europe were at the height of Naturalistic thought. Looks like they picked a doozy to replace God with. Why do atheists and humanists think they'll do any better today? Why would they care? They won't be held to account afterwards.

Who cares? Ah my gradmother died..well at least I have her memory. What's that? How long will that last? One good blow to my head will knock grandma out of eternity for good. What kind of comfort is that? At least I can live through my kids. WHAT? Yeah uh that doesn't even mean anything. The good I do will live on. Live on in what? If you're really amazing it last a generation after you, maybe two. The truely great get in text books that no one cares about.

Those who dismiss God have nothing but oblivion to look forward too. Well, why suffer through this life for that? Why slog through another 50 years of mediocrity and lameness, oh yeah you'll have kids, run up debt, get old and busted and then NOTHING. ANd the thing is everyone who knew you will also be NOTHING. Eventually our sun in about 4 billion years will run out of hydrogen and swell, turning this planet into NOTHING. If we escaped the confines of the Solar System then the eventual Heat death of the universe will close the book on whatever good you did or your Grandmas memory or whatever lameness you're relying on to get by.

The thing is the surgeon/Harvard professor, who was also a Christian, should have had the conversation sewn up. I was spewing out defenses and agruements that would have had that athiest scratching his head, instead the Christian says he cannot answer the problem of evil! What?!! What good is our faith if you cannot answer the most basic of questions?! You can't understand why there is evil in the world and an all powerful/all good God? Sad. Very sad.

Well there I was shouting at the TV. "Come on!!!!", I'd shout. "You can't answer that?!" "Some one shut that Jungian Analyst up!" "If she says one more think about God's shadow I'm going to puke!" yeah...Papa Proteinstar here I am.

Well I didn't get any of my Saturday homework done. I have a presentation due Sat and I'll be doing it Friday night. Love that procrastination. Speaking of which I had a report due to the church this week. yikes. I'll have that in Boss.

In Response

BROADBAND THANK GOD!!!

I'm back I'm back I'm back I'm back I'm back I'm back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DSL is finally up and running and I can finally finally stream music and surf at the same time.

I swear my music soul was shriveling up into a little knotted hunk of tissue, a little longer and I would have been to far gone to enjoy Death Cab for Cutie.

And Shoop...kudos for listening to F.F. I didn't know you had it in you. Specially with a song like Micheal...a little light in the loafers it always sounded to me.

On the UrbanDead front, my zombie has killed 2 people in one night and received his 1st skill. Vigour Mortis. Now I can kill with ease, well shambling decomposing ease.

The Fam is here this weekend...dedicating the youngest member of the Brood. The Proteinstar clan continues it's expansion.

Hey Shoop, HOMM V looks like it will have a DVD and CD version so pick wisely this Feb.

Tomorrow's youth group lesson will be based off of the conversation between Motti and Vader in Episode IV. Gotta love talks about faith involving the Dark Lord.

"don't try to fool us with your sorcerors ways Lord Vader!"

Paraphrasing Herbert

Heroes of Might and Magic is the little Time killer.

You could not believe the amount of time at night I've spent trying to coach my blundering army of undead to capture 3 nearby castles. It's been horrible. But I have only 1 to go.

Between grad school, 2 girls, youth group, my wife, Heroes, and Urban Dead, I've had zero time for blogging.

A travesty I know. And it will be soon rectified.

The 3rd wave of heroscape figures came out. I haven't bought a single figure from wave 2. sniff. This wave rocks. A bunch of Scottish highlanders, some futury agent dudes, a cowboy and some crazy robot thing. I am way behind. Hopefully they'll be around for Christmas.

My bro and I are finally starting up a D&D campaign. The Spouse of Proteinstar is less than pleased. But at least it's free!

I will hereby be know as Gregory Thurmaturgus, Paladin, and all-a-round good guy.

5 pts for the 1st person to comment on who and when Greg was about.

Ah yes, mounted combat and religious zealotry in all it's glory.

OUT OF THE WAY PECK!