News Archive
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7-27-2007
Server Crash
My web site host had a server crash yesterday that left us down for about 20 hours. No email, no site, nothing. Bastards.
Anyway, things should be mostly back up at this point but I'll be checking things over the weekend and republishing any pages that may be messed up. Maybe even take this opportunity to do some new design work on the site.
Till then, enjoy some Aneta Keys.
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7-21-2007
Newsflash
Good news, George Bush is getting his ass reamed.
Bad news, Dick Cheney is in charge while it's happening.
But, here's the question; can, while Cheney is in charge, the Senate subpoena his records since he then can't deny that he's part of the Executive Branch of government?
Someone should look into that.
7-19-2007
I'm late!
Somehow I totally missed the fact that yesterday was Kristen Bell's 27th birthday. OMG, how could I forget such a thing? Anyway, a belated Happy Birthday to Kristen, one of the hottest damn broads around. And to prove it, here's some photos!
Kristen | Kristen | Kristen | Kristen | Kristen | Kristen | Kristen | Kristen | Kristen | Kristen
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Advertising
Goddamn it. Fucking ads on web pages are seriously pissing me off. If it's not some crappy ad that pops over the page and forces you to close it it's this new IntelliTXT shit. And that's the worst one. Now you don't get a pop-up you can close, or block with your browser, now it's some random text on a page that if you mouse over it an ad pops up and takes forever to close.
To make matters worse, these fuckin' things don't work half the time which can render a page unusable. I fear it's only going to get worse now that these companies are going to be held hostage by Verizon and their ilk over bandwidth prices. Sites are going to have to add more of this for the revenue to stay in business.
Crap.
While We're on the Topic...
...of things I hate. I hate the TV industry. Yeah, it's an old and busted tirade I go on about this but the latest tragedy is a summer show called "Traveler." It was a thriller about two college buddies framed for a bombing at a NYC art gallery. Their supposed friend, Will Traveler, set them up and as they work to find out why a huge conspiracy is unveiled.
The original order was for 13 episodes by ABC but they cut that down to 8, the final aired last night and, at this point, the contracts for the actors have lapsed. Basically, it's a dead show now I guess. Too bad. They had a good thing going with plenty of action and mystery and characters that were likable.
F'n TV execs. What can you really expect from the people that cancel "Veronica Mars" yet pick up a fall order for a reality show like "The Singing Bee?"
7-12-2007
Badger, Badger, Badger
If you need proof of the fact that we can not win a war in the Middle East, look no further than this article from The Daily Telegraph about the giant, man-eating badgers that the British military has unleashed in Iraq.
Wait, badgers? What?
Yes. The Iraqi population around Basra believe that the Brits released honey badgers that are stalking the streets eating humans and, apparently, their livestock. Now, honey badgers are notoriously dangerous and mean spirited creatures, as captured in this photo, but when you can drop bombs on people from 5 miles up why would you resort to this type of attack?
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I guess maybe we should just admit that, yes, the British military has turned to animal means for winning the war. The secret is out. Now maybe the US can finally acknowledge it's tsunami, earthquake and tornado weather control device.
7-4-2007
Happy Birthday
Happy B-day, America. You're 231 years old and look every bit of it.
Fuck Regal Cinemas
As I'm writing this it's still early Tuesday night but I'm going to see Transformers in a couple hours (review should be in this update). I stopped on the way home to pick up a ticket for a later showing and the fuckers at the ticket desk raped me for $9. Nine dollars.
I guess I hadn't been to a non-matinee in a while because the last two ticket stubs I have are for $7 each. But the last time I paid the full load it was $8 and change. My guess, they're upping the price a quarter a month in preparation for the new theater opening sometime this year. That way when they hit us for $12 at the door we'll be used to it.
In reality, if the new theater is over the current $9 then I'll pretty much skip all movies at the box office and wait for the DVD. The exception to that would only come if there's a digital protection screen in the new theater...but I'm not holding my breath.
Roll Out!
I have two words for you on the new Transformers movie; HOLY SHIT!
Oh, I have one more word for you; Spoilers. You've been warned.
Now, I'll admit upfront that I was not a fan of the Transformers cartoon in the 80's. Although I remember it being on and had friends that had the toys, I was more of a G.I. Joe and Star Wars fan. You don't, however, need to be a fan of the cartoon to enjoy this film.
It's directed by Michael Bay and, while I've given him his fair ration of shit over the years, you don't have to worry this time around, Steven Spielberg was an executive producer and ILM handled the visual effects. In other words, this movie totally kicks your ass.
Shia LaBeouf as Sam Witwicky and Megan Fox as Mikaela Banes are our stars while Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson back them up as part of the military unit that first encounters the Decepticons. Jon Voight guests as Defense Secretary Keller and John Turturro is an over-the-top-hilarious Agent Simmons. The biggest stars, though, are Optimus Prime and his band of Autobots. Peter Cullen who voiced Prime in the cartoon gets the same duty for the film while one of the best villains in the business, Hugo Weaving, gives voice to Megatron.
The premise of the film is that the Decepticons are looking for an artifact that fell to Earth thousands of years ago while the Autobots are intent on keeping it away from them. Sam is the grandson (several times removed) of an explorer who found Megatron trapped in the ice at the pole while on an expedition. The location of the artifact was imprinted on his glasses by Megatron and they were eventually passed down to Sam.
The Autobot Bumblebee is sent to protect Sam once it's learned that he has the glasses with the location. Although he doesn't speak till late in the film, Bumblebee communicates via his radio early on in the film and it leads to some fun scenes between Sam and Mikaela.
Along with Optimus and Bumblebee we also get to see Autobots Ratchett, Jazz and Ironhide. The Decepticons bring the big guns, literally, with Megatron, Starscream, Bonecrusher, Blackout, Barricade, Scorponok and Brawl. However, probably the coolest of the bunch is Frenzy who is just an evil little Decepticon.
I have to say that this was one of the most fun movies I've seen in quite a while. Although there was a ton of action and explosions, there was also a lot more humor in the film than I had expected going in. That humor just put the movie over the top in my opinion. LaBeouf is a really good comedic actor and he totally sold the scenes where he was interacting with the robots.
Voight is always on as is Turturro, but Duhamel and Gibson were kind of tacked on and, while they played an important roll, they were a little wasted. There were also a couple odd additions in Anthony Anderson as a hacker and Rachael Taylor as a scientist or...something. They were basically thrown into the mix for comedy relief and another hot piece of tail.
Speaking of hot pieces of tail, did I mention Megan Fox? Yeah, I think I did. To be honest, though, she was probably the weak link in the acting chain of the film. Most of her scenes were pretty good but towards the end it felt like they threw in some stuff just so she'd have more to do to impact the film. As much as I like a hot broad, it wasn't needed.
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One other odd piece of the film was during the final battle of the film. While the robots and military were knocking the hell out of downtown Los Angeles there were literally dozens of people just running about the streets. Now, I don't know about you, but if a Peterbilt just turned into a 60' tall robot and started knocking buildings down, the last place I'm going to be is hanging out in the street!
That oddity aside, the action in the film was very well done. The visuals on the robots was incredible, ILM at its finest. You could believe that these robots were hanging out in Sam's back yard or demolishing a military base in the Middle East. The film moved pretty quickly all the way through but you never felt like you were missing out on the plot and character development, except for one or two things thrown in for Mikaela.
As I said, the entire film was fun. Great action, a ton of humor, incredible visual effects, awesome sound (including some bytes you cartoon fans will appreciate), a decent plot and solid acting for the most part. The shortcomings, as I mentioned, were a couple things that seemed to be thrown in for Megan Fox to do, her acting and those damn people running around in the streets at the end! But all that only adds up to a half a wheel of cheddar leaving four and a half wheels, out of five, for this film.
If you like fun summer movies get in your car and head for the theater now. Buy the DVD when it comes out and hope Michael Bay finds his way to a sequel for this film. Oh, and if you do go see it, hang around for the first 5 minutes of the credits, there's a couple bonus shots in there for you.
7-3-2007
Global IQ?
Newsweek and MSNBC have 130 question test to gauge your Global IQ. I
took it last night and scored a 49% which is shitty, I should have done much
better than that but I have to
admit, when they started asking questions about things like poetry, art and
literature I couldn't really care less.
In the grand scheme of things to worry about, knowing which of four poets was NOT part of some school or organization, is not high on my list. That 49%, however, got me into the "That's a lot better than it sounds" category and about 48% of the test takers fell into that range. Take it for yourself and see What's Your Global IQ?
Get Out of Jail Free
Scooter Libby is not going to jail. Bush didn't pardon him but he did give him a pass on the jail time. Blah. Suddenly Hilton's 23 days in the pokey seems brutally harsh. Bush and his cronies can not leave office fast enough...what a fucking wreck the last 6 years have been.
350
That's the number of wins Roger Clemens has after last night's win over the Minnesota Twins. He pitched 8 innings and the Yankees pulled off a 5-1 win. It's nice to see him put another line in the record books while wearing the pinstripes.