Angels, Demons and Princes of Darkness

I think I am going to make this a recurring thing, just comparing two movies in one post. :-D

So I finished seeing Angels and Demons last night, with Tom Hanks. After, you know, seeing half of it this past weekend and then missing the last hour to watch Wolverine. Yea, that was probably a mistake, but seemed like a good idea at the time, like so many bad ideas often do. Anyway, Angels and Demons was okay. I may reveal some spoilers here so if you haven't seen it, and want to, stop reading here. It was a pretty decent thriller for a while there, I like the whole, sherlock holmes aspect of it, and that tom hanks doesn't start picking up guns and shooting people was awesome, quite frankly. The guy's a professor, not an international spy, after all. Anyway, I didn't really have a problem believing that there was some subplot designed to put the "right" pope in office. I admit I was a little confused by who it was going to be, at least until near the end, but I knew it wasn't going to be any of the obvious choices. I was hoping for a change, that it would be the evil cardinal who's plans for world domination just got completely nixed by a random event, which I'd just totally love to see, because that NEVER happens in the movies. It's always the good guys fighting through hordes of evil, shotgun wielding zombies to stop the bad guy's plans, when really, all it would have taken would be one random charge going off at a bad time and blowing up the super-secret spy chip the master assassin needs to vaporize the world with a space laser and saving the good guy all the work. I mean, think about it, the evil villain has the awesome plot, well thought out, nothing can possibly go wrong, and then the hero has to work his ass off to get it taken down, while the villain just sits there and laughs maniacally or something. I want to see the villain work his ass off for a change, and destroy the GOOD GUY'S plans for world domination, or something. It'd just be cooler.

Anyway, Angels and Demons was entertaining to watch, at least. There's dead bodies, branding, shooting, sherlocky-holmesy shit, and a number of plot twists and turns. Only thing I didn't see were a lot of breasts, which makes sense, I mean, it's a movie about the pope and the catholic church, so I didn't expect to see a lot of hookers and blow. Note to Tom Hanks, Hookers and Blow can only make a movie BETTER. Never worse.

As an interesting followup, right after angels and demons ended, I saw Prince of Darkness starting on another channel. Now, this little gem from the 80's was produced by John Carpenter, if I am not mistaken, I think it's actually called John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness. It's even more exciting than Angels and Demons, there's more blood, more bodies, more evil, and ... wtf. still no breasts. Son of a bitch. Where the FUCK are all the goddamn BOOBIES?? Anyway, this movie was pretty awesome. It starts out where things are already fucked. I mean literally, at the beginning of the film, it's pretty much already too late. All the characters have to attend this meeting or whatever in this old abandoned church where all the bad shit is about to happen, and not only don't they know it, but they have to go ANYWAY, even if they did. They are so fucked. Then things just get worse form there. I mean, it can't be a good thing when the catholic church invites a bunch of physicists and scientists to examine a religious object... much like in Angels and Demons, come to think of it... but in this case, there's no Tom hanks to save the day. I don't think even tom hanks could have helped here. There was a bunch of stars from the 80's, including the asian guy from Big Trouble in Little China, who was sort of comedy relief in this movie. Alice Cooper was even in it. I mean the cast was definitely a bunch of established acharacters, i don't think any of them, well, there was this asian chick I haven't seen in anything else, she was quite adorable, in fact, there's this scene where this girl climbs onto her cot and slowly walks her way up the asian girl's body on all fours until their lips are almost touching, and I was like OH YEA BABY but unfortunately, the other girl had been possessed by an alien demon from beyond the universe and only wanted to vomit alien goo into the asian girl's mouth... which, i guess if you have a fetish for that kind of thing, was awesome, but I don't, sooooooooo.... yea.... anyway, after that, the asian girl just sort of hung around and stood motionless through much of the film. Yea, I was upset, usually when you get taken over by an alien demon from beyond space, there's at least some loss of clothes. At least, in the films I watch on Cinemax.

Anyway, this was an awesome horror film. i have heard some people complain that it wasn't scary but honestly, I started watching it before bed last night and I was sitting in a dark house watching it alone and I had to keep checking behind me to make sure the alien-demon chick wasn't waiting there for me. She had really creepy eyes, and I don't mean they used contact lenses and crap, this was all done just by the actress, who stared unblinking at the asian girl for like, hours before finally vomiting in her mouth. I mean, the asian girl was pretty hot, and I admit I'd have stared for hours, too, but without blinking? My eyes would burn after 5 or ten minutes, I am sure. And I'd certainly have been done thwacking after about 45 seconds. Uh. So. Yea, the movie starts out a little slow but the tension builds constantly right up until the end, so it's a good horror flick to watch, there's not really any relaxing parts to it. lol

I'd like to say it gave me nightmares, I mean, it was a good enough flick to do so, but I slept like a baby. Yea. I am kind of immune to horror flicks at this point. I watch them like fat kids eat candy bars. I could go for a candy bar right now, too.

So there you go, Angels and Demons compared to a movie made 25 years ago? Both fairly similar plots except angels and demons didn't actually have any angels and demons innit, and Prince of Darkness actually did have some pretty fuckin scary goddamn demonic entities involved. Hell, I pissed myself. No, not last night, just now. Why do I always do this at work? I gotta lay off the sauce. Fuckin hangovers are brutal.

Old Movie Review - Troll and Phantoms

Two completely unrelated movies that were made aaaaaaaages ago, but I want to review them both, so I shoved them into one post. Suck it up, I write the songs that make the whole world sing. Errr. The posts.. that.. make the two followers I have.. chuckle. Maybe.

First, to tie Liev Shreiber in from my last post about him putting some character into the part of sabretooth in Wolverine, I'd like to mention his part in Phantoms. Phantoms is an older movie based on a Dean Koontz book. Liev is in this movie too. Let me do a short synopsis of it because I don't want to ruin it for you, but it's a decently good horror flick you should check out.

So the movie starts as all horror movies do, showing the relaxing ride these two sisters are taking up to this mountain community to maybe do some fishing or skiing or reconnect with each other or run naked through the woods, eh whatever, they never get that far. They are driving into town and they notice... nobody's around. Sure, it's night and all, but they stop at a hotel and there is just nobody there. No bodies, no pets, no canaries, no sound at all. Then they get the shit scared out of them because a bunch of deputies burst into the hotel. Now at this point, I can't remember whether they were deputies of that particular town or had driven over from a neighboring town because they lost contact with the town the girls are in. Anyway, the situation and general creepiness freaks out Liev Shreiber, and I don't want to give anything else away so I will shut up now. Go watch it. Now. Shut up. Do it. Do it for the love of all that is horror-y.

The second movie I want to mention is Troll. Now this isn't exactly a grade-A movie here. I'd almost classify it as more of a kids horror movie, except it really isn't, or maybe it is, and it just skirts that line between being for kids and being for adults. Like stripper poles. Uh. Yea. So basically what happens in this movie is, a family moves into a first-floor apartment in an old apartment building. The dad's name is Mr. Potter, and his son's name is... Harry. HOLY SHIT IT'S HARRY POTTER!!!!!!!!!!! :-o And there's a witch in his building and he asks her to teahc him to be a WIZARD!!!!!!! :-o Yep, that whole series of Harry Potter movies was ripped off of this one. Because I just said it was, that's why, stop interrupting me, dammit. I don't need evidence, it's OBVIOUS. This movie was released in like 1986 or something and whatsername didn't wrote those books til after this. So there. :-P

Anyway, there's a lot of similarities between Troll and Phantoms. Basically, there's a Troll that takes possession of Harry's little sister, and proceeds to kidnap/enslave/transform the residents of each apartment, one by one, until he can complete his diabolical plan and the world of evil faeries and trolls will spill over into the real world and all humans will die of explosive diarrhea. Errr. Something like that. And don't give me that "Evil faeries?" shit. Way back in the day, Faeries were some evil fucks. We're not just talking little winged sparkly tinkerbell things here, we are talking baby-eating, soul-destroying monsters from beyond the veil of reality that tended to rip your heart out through your chest soon as look at you. Much like Demons. Come to think of it, I guess Demons are a form of Faeries. Both have wings, anyway. Eh. Close enough.

Some nice points about Troll, it has some great character actors in it. Anne Lockhart and her mother June (or maybe that's the other way around) are both in this, and Phil Fondacaro plays a short but erudite english professor with such style that he singlehandedly stopped me from my drunken midget tossing binges back in the 80's. I think the ending could have been better, but I think that about a lot of movies, so, eh. There was even a Troll 2 made but don't watch that. It's horrible. I can't even remember it, that's how bad it was. Troll, by comparison, flows nicely, has great music, and while it may or may not be geared more towards kids because of having a couple child actors in it, nevertheless deals with the serious issues of trollish ex-husbands, sibling rivalry, social ostracisizification (i just made that word up) and odd folk. I thoroughly enjoyed it, anyway.

Settlers 7, Wolverine, and Burgers

SETTLERS 7 is okay. Exceedingly complicated, I think. Plus the DRM (digital Rights Management sucks ass, every time I go into the game to try and play it tells me either it can't find my profile, or the servers are unavailable. If I was easily discouraged, I would have yet to the play the game, because as I said, it's EVERY TIME, at least, the first time I try. If I actually believed the error message, I would just quit and try back later, at which point it would probably tell me the servers were unavailable again. Luckily, I am stubborn, dense, and otherwise thick as a brick, so when it tells me the servers are unavailable, I tell it WELL FUCKIN TRY IT AGAIN, DUMBASS!!! I usually yell this at the monitor while reconnecting to the game. Maybe it's the yelling that actually does it, because after the second or third try, it usually lets me play the game.

Without a manual to refer to (because I bought the game via download), I have made a lot of starting mistakes that experienced players might not have made. Like for instance, in this one skirmish map, you start out with just a town, no arable land. So I built my city, and conquered the surrounding territories that had fertile ground so I could have some food for my peasants. They get all grumpy when they don't have food, you see. However, I separated my grain production into one territory, and my sheep and pig farming into another. unfortunately, pigs and sheep require grain, and without grain being handy in that territory, production is very slow on the whole meat and wool thing. This caused me to whine like a little girl, and I am suing Ubisoft for emotional distress for 17 billion dollars. But, while I am waiting for that big payoff, I decided to restart my game. But before I did that, I went into the nice castle editor. You can edit your WHOLE CASTLE there! It was AWESOME! So I spent about a day creating and editing various castle designs. Honestly, I think I should have been an architect, I had a lot of fun with it. I haven't yet got back to the skirmishing. I get sidetracked easily.

I have only played through part of the campaign, and it seems a bit... screwy. You get one or two additional bits of technology per map, and the lead in to where you finally get the chance to win by victory points doesn't really prepare you for the first map where you need to use them. Plus, and I may have mentioned this before but it bears repeating, you don't actually have to crush your enemy, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women to win. You can win by out-researching your opponent, out-trading him, or by building your city so prettily that he is just outclassed. Each of these alternate ways to succeed earn you a victory point, and sufficient points allows you to win without all out war. Which, is just plain boring in my opinion. Anyway, I would certainly have lost my first map with victory points enabled if I hadn't been cheating like a crack whore. So all in all, eh, Settlers 7 is an okay time-waster.

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE has been out for a while now, and I just saw it this weekend on cable. Because I don't go to the movies hardly ever, and I wouldn't have spent money on it at the theaters anyway. I guess the movie wasn't bad? I can't really say hugh jackman was that entertaining, to be honest. However, switching sabertooth to liev shreiber (or however you spell his name) was a wise move, I think. He brought some character to the part of an otherwise uninteresting villain. However, the jumping around sequences and saving the main supervillain's appearance til the last few moments of the movie seemed to kill any feeling of victory I might otherwise have felt. As a movie, it was disappointing, but I don't begrudge watching it once if you are a comic/superhero/wolverine fan. OR, just like monster movies, as this kind of qualifies.

It's supposed to be 75 degrees here like this whole weekend. I can't wait, I haven't seen 75 degrees since september of last year, that's almost 8 months. Horribly long winters here in western NY. I like snow and christmas and all, but man, the 8 months of winter is a real drain on anyone's energy levels. I saw this commercial for a type of charcoal recently where there's a backyard Barbecue going on and this furry fellow wanders in wearing a winter coat, boots and hat and the barbecuers rush over to him in shorts and t shirts, asking him where he's been, helping him to sit down next to a tree. He's like "I was inside... there was no yard, no grill... it was all white..." sounding like he's in shock. They griller says "That was winter." And then another man yells "GET THIS MAN A BURGER!!!!" Yea, that's just how I feel after 8 months stuck inside. Like I need a burger! :-D

Religion and Physics and Google

I just want to say a few words here about the latest theories in physics and a general view of religion.

Those of you that know me know that, when I saw a few words, I probably mean a dozen paragraphs or so. We'll see how it goes. :-)

I don't know about you guys (and I say this to the two people who are actually following me on here, lol), but I have been interested in Physics since high school, when I learned how things work in the real world. Because, you know, in my fantasy world, chick's shirts can never fully contain their breasts, and rip asunder every few seconds no matter what the material is. Something which almost never happens in the real world. Hey it was high school, what else would I have been thinking about? Physics? HAH!

Errr, so anyway, I have been following news in the physics world for some years now. Given that high school was some 25 years ago, now. There's this thoery. Basically, they were doing the math, and according to the calculations (I'm putting this is the most basic layman's terms here, because even I don't understand the calculations... Hey, I said I liked physics, not math), they are missing a lot of the universe's matter. Apparently, there should be tons more. And by tons, I don't mean a couple volkswagons' worth, I mean like 90% of the universe's matter. I think. Eh, anyway, they are missing buttloads of it. And by missing, I mean, what we can see of the visible universe, it just doesn't appear to be there.

Now, the calculations have been off for years, but nobody knew what to do about it. Unlike black holes, which also can't be seen directly, but behavior around stuff that DOES emit light can be directly observed (like for instance, there's most likely a black hole at the center of most galaxies, including the milky way, which we are a part of). Also, we can detect high-energy gamma rays (yes the stuff that transformed the hulk) and x rays that are shooting out of the "polar regions" of black holes. Yes, they spin on an axis like the earth does, and though no sunlight is actually shining on them (well, it is, it's just not being reflected back), they do emit these rays from their axis.

Anyway, so a few years back some guy went "Okay, there's got to be something we can't see making the calculations go all off, like... like... DARK MATTER... Yea, that's it, that's the ticket, DARK MATTER!" And the concept for Dark Energy followed shortly thereafter. And I'm sure the guy who came up with this is a well respected physicist and all, and I'm not saying he's wrong, but I have a few problems with this.

One, we can't seem to test or confirm this theory. Now that's not new to science, but it's completely true. We have no current way to even test for the existence of dark matter. Supposedly, there was some things we looked at at a very long distance away from us, and the only thing that could have bent the light the way the light was bent when it reached us (when I say it bent the light I don't mean like a melted pretzel, but like it bends when it hits glass or water) could only have been dark matter doing it. I don't know how they can possibly confirm that since it's, oh hundreds of billions of light years away. How can they be absolutely positive that nothing was in the way besides dark matter? It's not like it's a closed system, we are talking the length of the universe here. I'll tell you what, when these guys go and travel the entire length that the light traveled and made sure there were no bumps in the road the light took to get here, I'll believe them.

Two, a long long time ago in a country far far away, there were these cavemen. And they came out of the cave to gather... rocks.. or... something... and the sky rumbled with thunder. And and the stupid cavemen turned to the smart cavemen and asked him "What does that?" And the smart cavemen, who had no clue why the sky did that, hazarded a guess and said "the gods are fighting, maybe?" And the dumb cavemen went back into the cave and said "THE GODS ARE FIGHTING, THE GODS ARE FIGHTING!!!" And this is how rumors spread and become religions like Catholicism. Stupid people.

No, just shut your whore mouth. You can believe in Catholicism if you want. Shit, I was born a catholic myself. But I am also allowed to believe in something else if I want to. It's called freedom of religion. We have that here in the states. Well, we do until the government or the corporations get too powerful, take control of everything and tell us what to believe. But until then I am a die hard agnostic who is against all religions in general, and here's why... YOU CAN'T JUST MAKE SHIT UP TO EXPLAIN THINGS YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND. Now, I know people have been doing it for years. That doesn't make it right. People have been ass-raping sheep for years, that doesn't make that right either. Fun, but not right. Shut up, BAA means yes, we've discussed this before. Anyway, after I looked into the history of the catholic church, I realized they weren't any more holy than any of the other religions, and my faith/ignorance/brainwashing went "BUH BYE SEE YA!" and after that, I realized that not only were they as infallible as everyone else, they were a damn sight less tolerant of strangers, odd folk, and people who believed differently than they did. What? Turn the other cheek, you say? I say hundreds of years of Pope-inspired Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, and their current intolerance of gays and lesbians. Yea, turn the other cheek, my ass. And don't give me that whole, my scientific logic is disturbing your faith. I tried to talk a catholic out of his faith once. Can't be done. You either see the truth for yourself or you cling to your ignorance blindly. There is no in-between.

So here's my problem number two with this dark matter and energy theory. It makes shit up to explain why things happen. Now I am fine with saying the Flying spaghetti monster is pulling galaxies to his noodly embrace theory... because that is actually happening, entire fucking GALAXIES are being pulled at a constant rate towards some area of the universe beyond what we can see... the current estimate is at 2.2 million miles an hour or something. Yea, even faster than you'd go in a ferrari. Fast, innit? And they are all traveling at the same speed and in the same direction, at least, according to our observations... BUT... You can't then use that flying spaghetti monster theory to explain everything else as well. Until you've proven that shit, you can't just say it's causing EVERYTHING. What? Why can't you say that? because it's retarded, that's why. Let's say I get pulled over by a cop and I'm drunk and speeding. I'm behind the steering wheel. And I tell the cop that aliens made the car speed with their fancy tractor beam thing and only by slamming the car into reverse and jamming on the gas was I able to break their hold. No, i've never been drunk enough to say that, nor have I ever been that drunk behind the wheel of a car, but let's say I am convincing enough that he asks me to get out of the car and point which way the aliens went, and I get out and I don't have pants on. Am I to then say "The aliens took my pants, too!?!" Sure, why not, right?

So here's what physicists are doing. One, they are fucking up hypothetical equations and doing the math wrong. Don't give me that shit, I took physics, I know there's math wrong somewhere. When you make up numbers for half the values, you are damn sure going to have bad math. Two, they are making up flying spaghetti monsters to explain what they can see happening and what they can't see. Three, they are using this explanation for everything, and four, they are asking the general public to buy this line of BS and to give them money to research it.

Hmmmm. Aside from the math part, that sounds a lot like the catholic church. oh, and every other religion out there that I have heard of. I don't mean to single out catholicism here. I am pretty convinced every religion is just looking to screw up your head enough that you'll give them your money. I mean, it's not a joke when they say they are selling religion, they give you something to believe in and you hand them your money in return. Whether it's scientology, catholicism, islam or whatever, it's all the same. "Give us your money and we'll give you something to believe in... it may not be the right thing, but if you pay for it, it'll be YOUR thing." lol And don't give me that whole "who'd fall for that?" crap. It's one thing when Joe down at the bar tries to get you to give him your money to buy beer because he worships the beer god, it's another thing when it's an established church like catholicism... shit, they have IN GOD WE TRUST on the US dollar. That's some serious goddamn influence, there. But it's still the same hook. Find someone in need, sell your schtick, and make some money. Con artistry, pure and simple, taken to a massive scale.

So, not only have scientists betrayed my personal religion of honesty and logic by espousing dark matter and energy without any basis in fact and using it to explain everything, but geeks have now done the same by saying that Google is god. Yea, apparently there's some stupid rumor (that's how it starts) floating around the internet that google is god. Now, it's only a joke right now, but that's how these things start, and it was probably started by Google. It basically compares praying to god for porn, and not getting it, with going to google, searching for it, and getting it. Yea, hookers aren't god either but they give great blowjobs. Google, by comparison, has never given me a good blowjob. AND WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH THAT, GOOGLE? WHERE'S MY GODDAMN BLOWJOB? Here I am sittin here with Mr Tiny hangin out, waiting patiently, and there's google sitting up on the old internet there, NOT HELPING MY SITUATION. Yea, that sounds like god to me all right. useless.

So why do I think google started the joke? Think about it. The joke makes the internet. Then it becomes a rumor. Then it becomes a religion. Then Google makes EVEN MORE MONEY. Sure. How else can they make more money? They are just a search engine. Sure, every advertiser in the known world might be paying them to move their websites up in the list a little bit, but they are greedy sons of bitches. Getting a bunch of idiots to hand you their cash would be cheaper than, you know, actually doing something. What? You think google does something? It's a search engine. It doesn't do anything anything significantly better than yahoo, lycos, ask mr jeeves, or any other search engine has ever done, they just have better public relations. Don't give me that google chrome shit, they aren't charging for that. Yet. It's not making them money, they've got to have another cash cow somehow. And that's what a company is all about, isn't it? Pulling the wool over your eyes to make money?

So catholicism, islam and dark matter is just a bad con with good PR. Let's hope scientologists don't read my blog and hire a good PR guy. I don't even like Xenu, the scientology god. He never buys me beer, the cheap prick.

It's NOT ME!!! :-)

I'm not the celebrity death!

I am currently at work and I just heard about Robert Culp dying. He was 79, hit his head on the sidewalk and died, I guess. It WASN'T ME THIS TIME, BABY!! WOOHOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

On a sad note, I liked Robert Culp. He was famous for I Spy back in the 60's, but that was before my time. I knew him from Greatest American Hero back in the 70's or 80's, where he played FBI agent to alien-suited superhero ... i forget the actor's name, anyway, it was some guy who donned an alien suit and couldn't figure out how to use it properly. He still tried, and Robert Culp cleaned up the mess it left the bad guys in afterwards and took credit for it, because come on, who's going to believe a a schoolteacher wearing an alien super-suit beat up the bad guys? EXACTLY. That would have been my first thought, too.

Also, they are working on a new movie, Gladiators vs Werewolves. I don't think I need to say anything more than that.

But I am SO glad I am not the cause of any more celebrity deaths. My take a day off and a celeb dies string is OVER! :-D

Gaming Update

heh, I almost typed the title of this post as gsming update.

Like you people need updates on how much I orgasm. It's ALL THE TIME. I have splooge in my shorts right this very second, and I'm still at work.

Erm, right, so back to games. I only have Supreme Commander 2 on my computer at the moment. It's okay. It's going to have to do until I try Settlers 7 later today. I mean, I hate to give money to the DRM (Digital Rights Management, or copyright protection, for those who don't know) whores, but what can you do? At least I didn't buy Assassin's Creed 2. It's like $60. I mean, where the fuck do they get off charging me extra so they can pay for their crappy DRM servers? What? You didn't hear about this? Well let me farkin edjumacate you!

Those dickwads at Ubisoft, in their infinite stupidity (again with the stupidity, it's taking over the world, oi vey), decided that all their games, from now on, would need to contact ubisoft's own servers every few seconds just to keep playing them. This was their "anti-pirating" measure. Now, I have never pirated a game in my entire life, NO, NEVER, NOW SHUT YOUR WHORE MOUTH AND LET ME FINISH, but this seems ridiculous even to me. I mean, what happens if my internet connection goes down? What happens if Ubisoft's servers go down? Come to think of it, the last I heard of Ubisoft's DRM servers is that they were down, and had been for several days. Smooth, Ubisoft. Smoooooooth. Fucktards.

I mean, Assassin's Creed (1) wasn't even that good. First off, it was like you weren't actually even doing anything, because basically you're just a normal guy who gets imprisoned and experimented on in this creepy lab and these missions you go on are just HALLUCINATIONS. Yea, apparently they are making you remember your past lives, or some such bullshit. Now, I am down with the whole having past lives thing, but wtf guys, why am I in a goddamn lab? And you can't even DO anything in the lab portions. just, you know, mope around in your little prison uniform and piss in a glass for the lab guys or whatever. There's not even hot lab chicks to show your balls to. Fuck that shit. Ridiculous goddamn game. And that minaret mission, I really hated that goddamn thing. You got to climb up to the highest minaret (tower) in this medieval arabic city and look out from there to spot someone. Well, just climbing the thing was a chore, I kept falling off at the lowest levels, having to climb back up until i got the hang of jumping to every outcropping or ledge, working my way around to the next one, and the jumping to that. So I make it almost all the way to the top of the tower, one last jump, and due to the stupid way the jumping system worked, instead of making a tiny little hop up to grip a ledge, I LAUNCHED MYSELF OUT FROM THE SIDE OF THE TOWER ABOUT 30 FEET. Yea, it was all downhill, errr, straight down from there. Splat. And I'm scared of heights.

Okay, I started this post yesterday, it's tomorrow (er, today, I mean), I'm back at work (because that's where I have the time to do all my blogging, what, you think I have time from home? I'm a busy guy) and I got settlers 7 yesterday. The DRM is pretty sucky, first it takes like a full minute of trying to connect to ubisoft's servers to go ahead and let you know whether they are working or not. It's told me twice that they weren't working, only to let me back in immediately when I tried to reconnect. Theorhetically, since I use Steam (an online service) to buy and download all my gaming titles, then there's no actual need for the DRM that ubisoft has. I an thoroughly tempted to track down the pirated executable for this game so I don't have to deal with ubisoft's idiotic method of trying to keep piracy to a minimum. What's that you say? Only the users who have legitimately purchased the game have to deal with the long load and wait times, the frequent closings to desktop and the need to stay connected at all times while playing? Why yes, that is correct, they like punishing their legitimate users. I don't think downloading the cracked version would even be a crime for me at that point, since I already purchased the product? Eh, I don't know, I am sure I am making too big a deal out of it.

The game itself, well, it's not that exciting. It deals with victory points now instead of actually making a huge army and smashing your opponents into the earth, which is how I like to do things. It adds a tech tree and prestige points, and you can't even build certain structures until you are allowed certain prestige points, and I have NO IDEA how to generate prestige points, so I am sort of stuck with farms and houses at this point. Makes it rather hard to work on the tech tree, forge units or the like. Which, is pretty damn boring. Also, your city is now penned into a small circular enclosure, you can't free-form build anymore, and I have no idea how to make a road. I tried building a woodcutter's near a forest, only to be unable to connect a road to it and have it lay unbuilt there for the rest of my time. I can't even build walls, so I am sure it'd only be a matter of time before my enemies came and crushed me like the sad sad panda that I am. Also, because I have purchased it through Steam, i do not have the luxury of a 100-page manual telling me how to do these things, so telling me to RTFM (Read The Fucking Manual) does not help me one bit. So, not only am I at a loss for why the hell I bothered to waste money on this POS game, but there's no way to return the damn thing and get my money back.

I hate you, Ubisoft. I hate you and my two broken toes hate you. May your company flounder, your stocks plummet, and your employees abandon you for greener pastures so we can be rid of your stupidity and bad game design. May EA buy you and close you down. If they haven't already.

Well now, I think that about sums it up. I am going to find a trainer for Settlers 7 later so I can at least get some buildings working. It won't help me figure out how to build a road, but maybe it'll give me enough prestige points to unlock one, so I can at least slap a few houses into my penned-in city before i get fed up with the game and fart in Ubisoft's general direction. And they took archers out of the game and replaced them with musketeers. Wtf. I LIKE ARCHERS. Dicks.

WheeeeeeYOWWIE

So I was walking through my home the other day.

And I've lived in this place for almost 30 years now, so I should have some idea of the layout of the walls by now, right? Well, that's EXACTLY WHAT THEY EXPECT YOU TO THINK!!! Because I apparently don't, and while staring up at the ceiling looking for spiders, those creepy , pesky, crawly, disgusting evil vile little... and I'm not even talking about garden spiders, wolf spiders, jumping spiders or shit, even tarantulas (which I have no problems with and have touched on occasion), I'm talking about those goddamn creepy fucking HOUSE SPIDERS. yea, I don't even know if that's what they are called or if they are their own species but you never find them outside because real outdoors spiders would fuck them and eat them in about 3 seconds, but these goddamn sneaky bastards pick on us good hearted, friendly humans, who open our houses to these little pests and are subsequently PREYED ON BY THE EVER-PRESENT LITTLE PARASITES. Gaaaaaahh they creep me out. Shit I'm not even home right now and I am checking the ceiling. (shudders) Anyway, so I am checking my ceiling while walking the other day, and I step forward and promptly slam the two outer toes of my right foot against the wall. And unfortunately, that bastard wall didn't move out of the way. Fuckin wall, it never did like me, I can hear it, hear it whispering, fuckin wall, FUCK YOU WALL I HATE YOU NOW TOO YOU BASTARD YOU BROKE TWO OF MY TOES!!!! If I had a sledgehammer I would beat the shit out of you til you fell down! That'd leave a gaping hole in my bedroom wall, but FUCK IT!!! That shit hurt. You are a mean, mean wall.

So as I am stumbling around yelping "OWWIE OW OW OW OW OWWW SHIT OW DAMN OW OWWWWWIEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!" my concerned mother, bless her heart, calls from the other room, "Mike? Mike, are you okay? Mike?" And by then I've gone into my room to cry and didn't hear anything she had said over my own yelps of agony. Mom told me later she just shrugged and went back to what she was doing. So concerned, she is. There's a loud SMASH, i scream in pain, then she hears nothing and assumes I am fine. Good thinking there Mom. Glad I didn't fall down the stairs or something.

So a couple days after that, when I am starting to think that maybe, just MAYBE i hadn't actually broken two of my toes, I am playing cards, and I get up from the table and SLAM my foot against the table leg. Those same two goddamn toes. THE SAME EXACT TWO. Yes, the same exact two, why do you keep asking that? THE SAME TWO TOES. Yea, everyone got a good goddamn giggle out of that, didn't they? Fuckin arseholes, here I am with my balls up around my ears because of how hard I hit my toes on the table legs, and they're all laughing it up, giggling hysterically, while I am lying on the floor WHIMPERING IN PAIN. Yea, thanks a lot, fuckers. Wait til you stub the same two toes twice in one week and see if I don't laugh my fat ass off. Thanks for the goddamn memories of PAIN AND AGONY. And FUCK YOU KITCHEN TABLE, YOU WHORE!!!! You never liked me either, and DON'T THINK I DON'T KNOW IT!!!!!!

What? Yes, goddammit, you CAN hit your toes hard enough to knock your balls up around your ears. What, I just TOLD you it did. Fuck you, you think I can't tell when my balls are up around my ears? I had BIG HAIRY GODDAMN EARRINGS, man. It looked like the wax in my ears had grown fungus and fallen out, that's how fucked up my shit was. Don't give me that wikipedia shit, I'm a BIOLOGIST, MAN!!! I'm telling you, my balls were thrown clear up to my ears by the force of the impact!!!!! Fuck you and your google. I was around before the internet, I take precedence.

So, they could be brokeded. Maybe not. I was going to limp to the hospital, but the smell of my feet would kill the nurses, and i'd be put in jail for murder or some shit. What are they going to do, put my foot in a cast? Fuck that, I look goofy enough already. I'll just stagger around for a few years until they heal, or I bump them AGAIN. Bastard walls. And the table, it's a GODDAMN CONSPIRACY TO MAKE ME BREAK MY TOES!!!!

I mean, why the HELL do they have to make them so goddamn HARD?? Can't they cover the walls and table legs in foam rubber, or something? Shit, use like 14 layers of bubble wrap, that'd work too. Talk to Nerf, I bet you could work something out. FOAM RUBBER FURNITURE. Come on, think about it. Never hurt yourself while walking through the house again. I'd make billions, I'm telling you. That shit is GENIUS. I R Smrt.

Just, you know, a little clumsy.

Celebrity Death Effect

I want to talk about my frightening effect on celebrity deaths.

Now, let me explain, I ain't no doctor, I'm no hairdresser to the stars, I just work tech support in a relatively obscure little internet provider. I'm not in any way directly related to the celebrity deaths I am about to mention, and yet... IT'S JUST FREAKY.

I first noticed it when I took a week off to go camping either last year, or maybe the year previous. Whenever George Carlin died. I was a big fan of George, in fact, i had just seen his last comedy special on HBO like the month before I went camping. But while I was away, of course, there was no internet connection, no news, no TV. So, I get back, and I'm getting back in the swing of things, and by this time, the news media have stopped covering his death, so it was like, weeks before I found out. I was sad, of course, george was funny, a bit political, but still funny.

Then came, oh, I think it was bernie mac, somewhere around christmas. I'd taken a week off to enjoy my new games. When I came back, he was dead. The pattern continued. I think i had a cold the day farrah fawcett and Michael jackson died. Last week, I missed wednesday due to a bad cold. Corey Haim died. Sundays, I don't work. Peter graves died. Now I can't think of anyone who's died recently when I haven't been off of work. I almost began to wonder if I had a secret personality that was a celebrity assassin, and my memories of being ill were just a psychotropically induced cover for my assassination trips to hollywood, but, that's just crazy. One, I'm not that evil, two, I'm not that skilled, and three, I don't even know how to book a plane. Flying scareses me.

So, i miss work, and some celebrity dies. I'm almost scared to take off. Screw not getting paid for the day, I'm KILLING SOME POOR SCHLEP WHO'S JUST TRYING TO MAKE A MOVIE. I almost feel bad, just for missing a day. I wonder, WHO WILL BE NEXT?!?!?!? :-o So I am either indirectly the cause of celebs dying... OR, I just take too many days off work. Could be the latter. Eh, forget I mentioned it, I think I'm just freakin insane.

I'm part Irish and it's st patty's day, wheeeeee! I would go home and watch Darby O'Gill and the Little People, if I could. Disney usually plays it around this time of year, but I haven't seen it in a while, so I don't know. Either that, or watch the Leprechaun series of horror movies with warwick davis, I believe it was? I like to watch holiday-themed movies around the holidays that inspire them. Like on Friday the 13th, I'll watch the friday the 13th movies, and if I could ever find it on DVD, I'd watch saturday the 14th the day after (It's a bit of a comedy, but still a decent monster flick). This coming halloween I plan to watch Trick r' Treat, with anna paquin in it, a little known, apparently direct to dvd release of 4 interrelated halloween tales, but it's a good one that people missed, I guess. Shit anything with anna paquin in it is good. Except The Piano. I tried to watch that shit and it was unbearable except for the nude scenes with holly hunter. NO MONSTERS AT ALL. Wtf.

Darby O Gill, now, just to let you know, is a favorite of when I was like, 4 years old, and my 3 older sisters persuaded me to watch musicals all the time. I expect it was some attempt on their part to make me gay, but THEY FAILED. I suspect it was like A Clockwork Orange, or whatever that movie was where they take the rapist and make him watch violent films while drugging him so he is nauseated at the very idea of violence, but only with musicals, and to this day I can't watch the sound of music without throwing up, so I pretty much just avoid watching the sound of music, and my life has turned out pretty well. Darby O Gill is a bit of a musical, but the musical numbers are few and far between, and hell, it has Sean Connery in it for crying out loud, and there's brawling, and leprechauns, and banshees, so I can forgive the few musical numbers. Plus the chick that is Sean connery's romance interest is pretty hot, too. Yes, I was a perv even when I was 4. It probably came out years after I was 4, so don't quote me on that, but still, I like to watch it every so often for the local scenery the movie uses as a backdrop for the film. Very pretty location. And did I mention there's a banshee? So don't hold the relative gayness of the movie against me, nor infer that my manhood is not large and swingin. Well, it's not swinging free right now, I mean, I'm at work, not that I'd care, but there's like, rules against that sort of thing. I think. I mean, I could check with HR, but I am pretty sure they'd at least frown at my swinging dick. Be aroused and amazed too, no doubt. Yea. But frown, yea.

Well, that's all for this edition of St Patrick's Day with meandering scribe. I need to go find me some green beer to swill. CORNED BEEF AND CABBAGE!!! OH YEA!!!!! FLATULENCE HERE I COME!!!!!!!

Howard The Duck

I spent a lot of time recovering from the Black Plague over the weekend, which gave me a lot of time to watch movies.

I managed to catch the entire Howard the Duck movie, something I haven't done since the 80's! It was on at like 1 am saturday night, and due to daylight savings time kicking in, it lasted until 3:30 am! That's like three and a half hours of Howard! I was in Duck Heaven.

For those few uncool people that haven't seen this movie, I feel pity for your passionless souls. Howard the Duck is about this poor, hapless humanoid duck who is living the good life in an alternate earth populated by intelligent ducks (instead of humans) when a spectroscopic laser beam whisks him out of his living room, easy chair and all, and deposits his feathery ass in a back alley here on EARTH. What follows is the most hilarious, most rock and roll, most intimate romantic love scenes between a woman and a duck ever seen on the big screen! Spoilers to follow. You know, just in case you haven't seen the movie since it was released back in 1986. What rock have YOU been living under? Maggot.

So after howard gets tossed into some dingy back alley in the middle of the night, he gets tossed into a trash can (he's not a big duck, mind you) by a bunch of thugs who think he's a kid in a duck costume. This theme continues throughout the movie, obviously, who expects to see a walking talking duck running around in a sweater vest and a tie? In a back alley on earth? In the middle of the night? So, Howard, who is having a very bad day at this point, decides to take a little duck nap in the trash can until Lea Thompson (who looked so hot back then) tries to exit a bar after her band finished it's gig there and gets tossed against a trash can by a couple of thugs who want to molest her. I'm not sure what it is about back alleys that attract these kinds of thugs. I spent a lot of time in back alleys myself and I never had a thug molest me. I mean, what the fuck is wrong with me that I can't even get a goddamn drunken belligerent thug to molest me? Is my ass too fat? Are my moobs not large enough? I mean, shit, I'm just as hot as the next guy in the dark! What the FUCK is your problem? FUCK YOU BACK ALLEY THUGS! FUCK YOU AND YOUR 80'S HAIRDOS!

Howard, being awakened by Lea falling onto his trash can, becomes angered by the mistreatment of the poor helpless Lea Thompson, otherwise known as Beverly in this movie. I mean, you can only push a duck so far, right? Well, not a two dollar duck, you can push them to the edge and over and they just keep taking it like a good little... errr... uh. Howard, a self proclaimed Master of Quack-Fu, reacts in sheer martial arts poetry, no doubt inspiring later spin offs like Flying Tiger, Hidden Dragon. That's right, I just called Flying Tiger, Hidden Dragon a martial arts spin off of Howard the Duck. Blow me. Howard destroys the thugs with his Quack-fu-ery, and Beverly takes pity on the poor duck since it's raining now and he doesn't have an umbrella. I personally thought ducks were fond of water, but hey, what the fuck do I know, right? So bev takes Howard home, after establishing the fact that he's not actually a kid in a duck costume but an actual, honest to god alien who just looks like a duck (because why the hell would you take some crazy whacked out kid in a duck costume home at 3 am, and not a nice, well mannered alien duck?), and Howard promptly falls asleep on her windowsill. Hey, he's had a bad day, adding human-duck intercourse to the mix would just be over the top, no matter how good Bev looks in her 80's mini skirt and big hair. Still, I woulda done it. But I'm odd.

So anyway, there's a little subplot about the relationship between Howard and Bev developing, and he takes over as the manager of the band she's in, the Cherry bombs, because the one they had was a bona-fide dick, and I guess that one letter makes all the difference, because once the duck takes over the band does lots better. The patrons of a bar threaten to accost howard, but since proving to them he is an actual alien Duck, for goddamn sakes, he tells them he has Space Rabies and if he bites them, they will die horribly in less than 15 seconds. Hey, I'd believe it, I had Space Rabies once, and believe me, it was no picnic. What? I got better. I had Space Herpes, too, but that's a whole other movie (Ice Pirates with Robert Urich). Also, Bev spends some time sharing a bed with howard, but there's no duck-human Boom Boom going on, at least not yet, despite Bev wandering around in panties and bending over on all 4's in front of howard. Shit, if she had done that in front of me, I'd a ducked her. I'd have DUCKED THE SHIT OUT OF HER. Space Herpes or no space herpes.

The main plot is, basically, Bev has a scientist friend played by Tim Robbins, of all people, yes the academy award winning Tim Robbins plays a geeky scientist in Howard the Duck. Actually, he plays a geeky janitor who KNOWS geeky scientists, which turns out to be just as well, since he knows Jeffrey Jones! Jeffrey Jones, hero of Mom and Dad Save the Earth, which was probably the only movie ever to have Kathy Ireland in it that did reasonably well. But anyway, Jeffrey Jones plays Dr Jennings, an astrophysicist who was testing an intergalactic spectrometric laser ray type thingy (don't get all sciencey here with me folks, this is 80's science fiction based on a comic book here) on the night when Howard was brought to earth, and they figure out that it was Dr Jennings space laser (as I will refer to it from now on) that accidentally sucked howard through the wormhole to earth. Good old Dr Jennings rapidly becomes accustomed to Howard being a walking talking alien duck, and they become fast friends. Dr jennings happily decides to send howard back to his own planet, and whoosh, off he goes, end of movie.

HAH! If only things were that easy. Dumbass. Getting aliens home is NEVER that easy, didn't you ever see ET? Men in Black? Starman? Fucktard. Go watch a goddamn movie.

So while Bev and Howard are on the way to the lab to get howard home, Dr Jennings goes on ahead to get the space laser ready to send howard home. However, the space laser has ANOTHER mishap (damn space lasers, goddamn things never work right) and Dr Jennings is blown through a wall or something just before howard arrives. The resulting fire and damage slightly delay howard's departure, just long enough for the police to show up (doubtless being called to put out the fires from the mishap) and discover and arrest howard on suspicion of... being an illegal alien. heh, This movie kills me. Bev frees Howard, Howard and Bev get lost in the bowels of the lab while trying to avoid the police, and run into Dr Jennings, who is wandering around in a daze from the explosion. Dr Jennings helps them escape the lab in his car, and the police put out an all points bulletin, shoot to kill order on the escaped duck. Because that's what you do with ducks, you SHOOT THEM. Just like in Duck Hunt, I guess.

On the way out of there, Dr Jennings begins to complain of bad gas. But it's not bad gas. Oh, noes. It's a DARK OVERLORD OF THE UNIVERSE that has been sucked out of the Nexus of Sominus, just like howard was sucked out of his living room, only instead of the DARK OVERLORD OF THE UNIVERSE ending up in a back alley like Howard did, the DARK OVERLORD OF THE UNIVERSE ended up in Dr Jennings bowels. Probably not the cleanest of places to hang out after being sucked out of your own pocket dimension, so obviously the DARK OVERLORD OF THE UNIVERSE began taking over poor Dr Jennings. Much like in the movie Alien. Only BETTER. So the trio (or quartet at this point) pulls over to a diner so that Doc Jennings can get some food so he feels better. I know a nice greasy breakfast at 3 am always makes me feel better after a night out testing space lasers and avoiding police, so I can't fault them here, it's exactly what I would have done. EXACTLY.

So while waiting for breakfast, which Howard freaks out at because, you know, it's EGGS! lol Howard and Bev discover that Dr Jennings, well, he just isn't good old Jeffrey Jones anymore. He's become a PEDOPHILE! :-o Wait... no. That's what happens to the ACTOR, not the character he plays in this film. Sorry, I got confused. Yea, according to IMDB.com, Jeffrey Jones was brought up on kiddie porn charges and hasn't worked in movies since 2007. I guess he took to chasing Ferris Bueller on his day off a bit too often.

But yes, at this point in the movie, the DARK OVERLORD OF THE UNIVERSE has taken over Dr Jennings, and begins to display psychic alien death ray powers. You know, like what shoots out of your ass after a burrito special at taco bell. So Howard gets in a brawl with the patrons of this diner over the egg situation (I guess him and patrons of public places just aren't going to get along for the duration of this movie), and Bev manages to convince the pedo- , I mean, DARK OVERLORD OF THE UNIVERSE that if he doesn't save Howard, he's going to lose the Code Key that the DARK OVERLORD OF THE UNIVERSE needs to unlock the lab and the space laser so he can bring down his other DARK OVERLORD OF THE UNIVERSE buddies and they can have a big DARK OVERLORD OF THE UNIVERSE party on planet earth and make it their bitch. Which, is totally what the DARK OVERLORD OF THE UNIVERSE wants to do, so he wrecks the diner, saves Howard, gets the code key, and takes Bev off in a stolen semi back to the lab, stopping off at a nuclear reactor along the way to refuel... his bowels. I guess radioactive waste wasn't on the menu at the diner, which is SO odd because i thought that's what the three star breakfast at Denny's WAS. I could be wrong.

The police track howard to the diner, but Howard frees Tim Robbins, the lab janitor/geek, from a squad car, and they escape the police in a powered glider which just happens to be sitting in the vacant lot next door. Hey, don't ask me what it was doing there. Alien duck luck. So tim robbins and howard make it back to the lab well in advance of the police, only to find Bev tied up underneath the space ray... ahhhhh, Lea Thompson tied up, that brings back SO many memories of the fantasies I... HEY. I was 16 when this movie came out and Lea Thompson was a HOTTIE back then. Bite me. If I want to tie up Lea Thompson in my 16 year old fetish fantasies, I am goddamn well going to do so and she's going to LIKE IT. At least, in my head she does. All the time. Oh baby. I need a minute.

So, uh, where was i. OH right. Bev. Tied up. Under the space ray. Sigh. So, Tim Robbins takes howard into another part of the lab, where they keep the experimental death ray weapons. Oh come on, Dr Jennings in a mad scientist, OF COURSE he has a locked room with hidden death ray lasers. DUH. So Howard grabs a space ray, zaps Dr Jennings, and Tim Robbins unties Bev, even without having sex with her first. Goddamn lab geeks need to get their priorities straight, you NEVER untie Lea Thompson without having sex with her first, that's my motto. But The zap Howard gave Dr Jennings didn't kill the DARK OVERLORD OF THE UNIVERSE. Oh no. It only freed him from Dr jennings, who is now fine, and Dr Jennings helps howard escape from the true form of the DARK OVERLORD OF THE UNIVERSE, which, kind of looks like a cranky space-crab-snake-scorpion who is having a very bad hair day. So now that the DARK OVERLORD OF THE UNIVERSE is out in the open, howard gives it a good zapping with Dr Jennings death ray laser, and then has to make a choice between saving the earth, and going home. So he destroys the space laser with the death ray laser, and the movie ends with Howard, managing bev's band Cherry Bomb, onstage, doing a duet with Bev, singing the movie's title theme song, Howard The Duck. I mean, DUH. Go back home to my worthless Duck-job in my apartment, alone, OR, rock out with Lea Thompson? FUCK YEA!!!!!! I know which one I am picking.

Right, so I loved this movie. It reminds me so much of the 80's, and as everyone knows, the 80's were AWESOME. They were, don't you even say they weren't, SHUT YOUR WHORE MOUTH. I mean, if you can watch this movie and not laugh when Bev opens Howard's wallet and finds a credit card to Bloomingduck's, and a duck-sized condom, or not be thrilled when Dr Jennings tells the diner patrons to "Release the small waterfowl," and not cry when Howard gets Bev in her end, uh, I mean, at the end of the movie, then you are more of a heartless alien monster than a DARK OVERLORD OF THE UNIVERSE. This movie not only restores my faith in women, it also restores my faith in ducks. Shit, when they were rocking Howard the Duck at the end of the movie, I quacked out with my rack out, jumping all over the room playing air guitar, hairy moobs flapping like... like the WINGS OF A DUCK! lol Hey. It was 3 am when i was watching it, who the hell has clothes on at 3 am on a saturday night? No one I want to know, that's for sure. plus it made it SO much more enjoyable to watch Lea Thompson tied up. :-D

But the movie did not restore my faith in all waterfowl, of course. Geese are still the spawn of hell. I mean come on, they are PURE WHITE and their bills are BRIGHT YELLOW. If those aren't warning colors in the animal kingdom, I don't know what is. I mean, look at cows. White and black in random patterns to warn you to STAY THE HELL AWAY. What? Cows aren't dangerous? Oh, you naive, innocent FOOL. Cows are the most dangerous, terrifying things on the planet. Fuck venomous snakes, toothy sharks or marauding lions, try a STAMPEDING HERD OF COWS and see if you don't run for your goddamn life. I was in one when i was in my teens, and I ran for my life. I mean, you encounter a venomous snake, and you can usually shoo it away with a stick. Sharks, you punch in the nose (i've never been attacked by a shark to actually confirm if that works or not), or if they aren't too big you can just shove them away, or hell use a bang stick. Masai warriors hunt lions with spears as a way to pass their teen years. But a fucking stampeding horde of COWS? You best fuckin run, cuz there ain't no bang stick or spear that's going to save your sorry ass. RUN YOU GOODAMN FORREST GUMP SONOFABITCH, RUUUUNNNNN LIIIIKE HELLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!

They tell you that vengeance is best served cold, but don't tell me that when I am EATING A HAMBURGER! Oh yea, baby, SIZZLING HOT ALL BEEF PATTY!!!!!! Take THAT you BLACK AND WHITE MONSTERS FROM HELL!!!!! I AM GOING TO GO TO WENDY'S LATER AND ORDER A GODDAMN DOUBLE HAMBURGER!!!!! WITH CHEESE!!!!!! MUA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

Chuck Norris

Yes, I can review an entire person, who said I can't review an entire person? NOBODY, that's who!

And I'm not going to review many parts of his life, quite frankly, all I am interested in is his otherwise excellent movie career. His TV series are probably well known to many, the whole walker texas ranger thing has been referenced in other movies ("These are my sons, Walker, and Texas Ranger." Talladega Nights) and the Chuck Norris fact thing was an internet phenomenon for a while, probably still is. I heard he turned 70 years old on March 10th of this year, but he kicked alzheimer's so hard that EVERYBODY got better from it.

Before I get into the whole movie aspect of his career, there's a personal one I'd like to disagree with. Chuck's a conservative christian, and involved in politics, and if you glance at his wikipedia page, it shows he even has his own school of martial arts. Apparently, several of the ten main rules to follow in his school are tolerance for others, and a desire to seek the betterment of others as well as yourself. However, as I understand it and perhaps I am wrong, Chuck does not believe gays and lesbians have equal rights, and has campaigned against letting them marry in the past. I suppose those rules in his martial arts school are a do-as-i-say-and-not-as-i-do thing. Which is good, I guess, he recognizes the flaws in his own character and doesn't want to pass them along to others. lol

Now I know he's got some movie series, that whole Missing in action, and delta force thing, they are okay and all, but I am more concerned with his one-offs, those movies he did where he didn't have a sequel, and he didn't have a huge following at the time. Movies like A Force of One, Code of Silence, And Silent Rage, for instance, demonstrate his admitted love of playing soldiers and law officers and his admitted respect for these guys. As I understand it, he was in fact a soldier early in his career, which is where he got into martial arts.

Believe it or not, Chuck started his movie career as a bad guy. Yes, that's right, I am talking about the Return of the Dragon, as the movie was called here in the USA. Chuck starred in this movie as a mercenary martial artist hired to kick bruce lee's ass. He failed miserably, of course, Bruce was huge at the time (I think that was bruce lee's last movie, too) and this was chuck's first movie, and according to his wikipedia page, had just finished a winning career as a professional kickboxer, which no doubt led to his career in movies. Also, according to IMDB, he actually trained often with bruce lee, which would explain how he got the role, I would guess?

The first real movie he stars in and the first one showing off his typical style came in A Force Of one, released in 1979. This would have been about ten years after the peak of his professional kickboxing career, and a good six years after his appearance with bruce lee. I am not sure what he was doing in that time, because this movie is almost a glimpse of his kickboxing career with a few liberties. He plays a kickboxer, amazingly enough, who is tapped to teach the police some martial arts moves, and while doing so, they invite him to assist in a drug investigation within the kickboxing community since they keep losing cops to a brutal killer. There's no particular stretch as far as acting goes for old chuck here, or a young chuck at this point in his life, but there's a little acting talent thrown in to support him, and the flick is a good old fashioned action film, ending in your typical mano-a-mano brawl with the bad guy, which will become a staple of chuck norris films for years to come.

The next 3 years after this would become the high point of his professional movie career, in my opinion. In 1980, he did The Octagon, a typical Ninja movie at the time, but still a good watch, then Silent Rage in 1982 and of course, Lone Wolf Mcquade in 1983. Lone Wolf Mcquade was, of course, the prototype for Walker Texas Ranger, and after this, Chuck got into the Braddock, Missing in Action series of movies, which were okay but ultimately forgettable, and not as good as the First Blood series by Sylvester Stallone.

Now, what I think was the best movie Chuck Norris ever did, during the high point of this time, is the little-remembered Silent Rage. And yes, the last few paragraphs were simply a lead-in to describing what an awesome movie this was. Chuck plays his typical role here, an ass kicking southern sherriff, but what makes this movie different is a number of things. The first of which is an awesome, and I wouldn't even say supporting cast, though I suppose chuck norris is one of the few surviving characters in the film. Also starring in it are Ron Silver and Stephen Furst who typically steal the scene when they do share one with Chuck do to their acting talents.

The movie starts with the villain, who is apparently boarding with a typical family in a suburban location. When I say typical, I mean the household from hell with 82 screaming children, a mother who doesn't care and why the HELL a suburban mom would choose to take in an obviously psychopathic boarder is totally unknown to me, but there it is. This guy, who has the remarkably non-descript name of John Kirby (played by an awesome but relatively unknown character actor Brian Libby), is going about his daily routine, which apparently involves taking mutiple doses of anti-psychotics and chopping wood, when the screaming kids begin to wear down his already fragile grip on reality. Also, I greatly enjoy the fact that they take the time out to show how this man sought help, when he felt himself cracking up, he called his psychiatrist (Ron Silver) in an attempt to get some help as quickly as possible. In a characteristically memorable scene, John Kirby repeatedly says (to a suitably muted Ron Silver over the phone) "I'm losing it... I'm looosing it... I'm loooooooosiiiing iiiiit..." before going completely apeshit and hacking up whoever in the house makes a single peep of noise. Which, as far as I remember, turns out to be just the Mom, the kids having run off to a neighbor's house to drive THAT person into an insane killing rage. I guess that was a whole other movie they could have done right there, and I'm sorry the kids escaped, but there it is. Chuck Norris, The Sherriff, then arrives with about 10000 deputies and they proceed to empty their six-guns at John Kirby, which makes about 60000 bullets fired and John Kirby manages to catch 6 of them in the chest. Where the other 59,994 bullets went is anyone's guess. Maybe they got the kids after all? Hmmmm. In any case, this makes this movie the odd one where the main villain is gunned down and arrested (no, the 6 bullets in his chest did NOT kill him, only served to knock him down long enough for Chuck to get some handcuffs on him) in the first 20 minutes of the movie.

What follows after this is probably the closest Chuck Norris ever gets to sci-fi or monster movies, and that is probably why this is my favorite movie of his career.

John Kirby is taken away in an ambulance, and we see Ron Silver come up, obviously having called the police after John called him, and says to Chuck "I'm sorry sherriff, obviously if he had given any indication of this, he wouldn't have been out on the street." Which I find hilariously funny given the rest of the movie. I think Ron Silver plays an excellent part here, as he did through much of his career, as a psychiatrist who does his best but makes a lot of mistakes despite that. John Kirby is later pronounced deceased at the hospital, and The Sherriff goes on about his business, busting up a gang of bikers in a bar with Stephun Furst, who, in what may be the most macho character of his career, wonderfully plays a scared, overweight newbie deputy. Chuck checks back at the hospital several times, mostly following up on John Kirby, but also because Ron Silver's little sister is a little hottie who chuck has dated in the past, and apparently wants to get back into her panties pretty bad. I can't blame him, I would have as well.

So while the sherriff is distracted by little sister's panties, Ron Silver's buddy doctor has injected the still-living or mostly dead John Kirby with an experimental serum designed to regenerate living tissue. I guess Ron had some weirdo college buddies in the hospital with him, because why a psychiatrist and his buddy are allowed to keep a body to experiment on, I have no idea. I mean, technically they were both doctors, but medical or psychiatric? I don't remember. Chuck finds this odd as well, eventually, since he visits the hospital several times throughout the movie to both hit on Ron Silver's little sister and to try and reclaim the corpse of john kirby. Spoilers to follow, so if you want to watch the movie, stop reading here and go rent it.

Unfortunately for Chuck, and pretty much the entire cast of the movie, John Kirby is not, in fact, dead. The experimental serum has not only given his body the ability to recover from any injury in seconds, but has warped his already warped mind beyond all recognition, turning John Kirby into an unstoppable killing machine. Ron silver realizes this, and despite the success of their mutually-developed serum and the possibility of making millions and gaining untold fame from it, Ron tries to convince his buddy to end the life of John Kirby. Ron Silver then leaves to go home, and John begins the real killing spree, taking out half the hospital staff on his way to go get Ron Silver, eventually surprising and killing Ron Silver, his wife, and almost his little sister before Chuck manages to save her.

The search for and fight with John Kirby eventually brings Chuck back to the hospital, where John Kirby has killed Ron Silver's buddy, and Stephen Furst buys it in a particularly touching romantic scene between chuck and his over-sized deputy. I mean seriously, I think there was real love between these guys the way they carry on. Maybe chuck just likes the larger guys, who knows? Anyway, in typical Chuck Norris style, he and the bad guy have it out in a particauly brutal hand to hand combat scene that ends not in the death of John Kirby, but in an excellent set up for a sequel, as John Kirby is only imprisoned alive where hopefully no one will ever find him, trapped at the bottom of a very deep well that would be almost impossible to climb out of. Since John Kirby can't actually die, except perhaps of starvation, I suspect he's still there, mutely trying to climb his way up the slippery, moss covered walls of that well, deep in the forest near that old hospital.

Chuck, meanwhile, saves the girl, Ron Silver's little sister and the only remaining member of the cast. In an unusual epilogue for a movie of this type, Chuck and the little sister are shown living happily ever after, or at least, surviving the incident to hook back up. I think an excellent idea for a sequel would be to get Chuck Norris, at the age of 70, to play his retired old sherriff character, long since married with multiple grandchildren, living on the property where the well is, checking it every day to make sure John is still down there, when one of his grandchildren drops a rope down and accidentally frees John Kirby, still young and lethal and even more insane after spending the last 40 years trapped in a well, letting him free to slaughter and kill...

But hey, that's just an idea. Chuck's last movie appearance, according to IMDB.com, was 5 years ago, and i don't see him making anything again anytime soon, so I guess my BRILLIANT idea about him reprising one of his best roles won't get off the ground. Ah, well. Pick up Silent Rage if you want a good action/horror movie, and mourn the decline of Chuck Norris's acting career.

Post-Oscars

Now, before you get all excited, this post isn't about the Oscars.

I didn't really watch the academy awards last night. I played cards. I did see sandra bullock win something but I only watched her because she is kind of cute, and I stared at my screen with longing while drooling on myself while demi moore presented some award or other. I'm not even sure she presented an award. She could have just stood onstage for a few moments and I don't think I'd have noticed what she was doing other than looking pretty damn good in that dress. In fact, if networks want a show that will sell, just put a camera on demi moore for 20 minutes. I don't care what she's doing, I don't even need sound, although hearing her voice would help me fap. Errm. But I digress.

SO in the days before the oscars, which, I did not know were coming up this weekend... Again, that whole, I'm a geek and you're not, so I have more exciting things to do with my time than watch TV thing I got goin on, and frankly, I am still damn proud of it... my friend asks me a question. "Scribey," he says to me, and I use the name scribey because I don't like using my real name online, the internet is all about anonymity dammit, and if I want to search for bestiality in the privacy of my own home, I shouldn't have my name tagged to every request for those pages. Anyway, he says to me, "Scribey me boyo (anbd suddenly he's irish, don't know what happened there, he's not even irish in real life), I have a little problem, ya see. I have this, shall we call it a theoretical question for ye. Let's say I have this friend, and me friend, he has in his possession, a, what do you call those there things, a nar-cot-ic, as they say. And this friend, he was a-wondering, if YOU had a narcotic, would ye take it immediately because you were bored, take it on saturday night to ease the pain of not goin out to meet a lovely lass, or save it til the oscars night so you could watch alec baldwin while under it's heavenly effects?"

Now of course, I replied "oh, the oscars are on this weekend?" And after he finished calling me a heathen and damning me to hell for all eternity, I told him I'd take the narcotics immediately. If it was me. Because I was bored, and there's nothing like spicing up an ordinary night with narcotics. Not that I have ever had any (except perhaps painkillers, and then only to kill pain, never to.. uh.. narco-tize my evening), or would ever do such a thing, you see, but it was a hypothetical question. I don't judge. I just answer.

He didn't like that answer. So apparently, he spent last night giggling insanely at alec baldwin. I, on the contrary, spent the entire friggin weekend hacking up a lung. Yea, the whole works, sore throat, hacking cough, lung congestion, head congestion, and I'm thinking, you know, this seems to happen to me a lot. A lot of you are facepalming right now. Okay, a lot of you meaning, those few who actually read this blog and those few of you who know I get sick a lot. I heard some actor on the oscars last night describe writers as sickly little mole-people, and I am definitely a sickly mole person. Little, well, not so much. But my point being, I think what's been happening is, the first few colds of the cold and flu season will instigate what I believe to be some sort of sinus cavity infection. There's no actual infection going on that I can tell, just those nagging cold symptoms we are all familiar with. it's just, once the cold and flu season gets a grip on my sinuses, it just won't let go. And cold weather only makes it worse. So it doesn't really clear up til, where I live, usually May when the weather warms up. Lovely, innit? I need to move to mexico, where it's warmer.

Then again, mexico is probably next on the list for those damn earthquakes. What's up with the earthquakes lately, eh? The Indian equivalent of the national enquirer ran a story about the USA testing it's earthquake generator on lesser countries, but I think they use the USA like we use Russia, to pretend they aren't real human beings over there, just vicious fearsome beings that think of us good americans like a nest of ants they have to exterminate. Just good old fashioned fearmongering to sell newspapers and win votes. OR, we do in fact have an earthquake generator and we're fine tuning it.

OR, a more disturbing option, I had heard, way back when they were first building the LHC (large hadron collider) over in europe, that the LHC was NOT going to make miniature black holes. This was from the physicists building it. At least, they HOPED it wasn't going to make miniature black holes, even though that would be AWESOME. To the physicists, who forget they are living on the ball of rock they are making black holes on. But the chances of making black holes was VERY REMOTE. And even if the black holes DID get made, they would shoot off into outer space. Or they would be so small that they'd have absolutely no effect. And even if they did, they'd wink out of existance immediately after being made. But, on the off chance they didn't do any of those things, one of two things would happen. ONE, it'd make a whole new universe that would explode at my times the speed of light which would obliterate us in an instant (so don't worry!), OR, the black holes would conglomerate in the earth's core and slowly gain mass until sucking the earth in and eventually our solar system. Early signs of this last impossibility would be... a.. series... of.. earthquakes... :-o

OH. SHIT.

PS: I am sure the recent spate of earthquakes is in no way related to the wonderful work those mad scientist, earth-destroying bastards over at the LHC are doing. Unless of course, the earthquakes get worse and worse over time and then we all fall into the black hole at the center of our planet. THEN, I'll be sure. There won't be anything I can do about it at that point, but dammit, I'll KNOW.

Unifying Theory of Ignorance

There's a bunch of physicists getting together right now, somewhere, and pondering how to predict everything that ever happens in the universe, from infinitesimally small scale occurrences to immense, universe-wide behavior, extending beyond our universe into multiple dimensions. They think they have a way to unite all the various laws, theories and problems with predicting the behavior of space time into a single theory that predicts everything, everywhere, and any time, past, or future, to infinity. Apparently, their latest big breakthrough is the idea that you can only measure the universe that you, yourself, can see. Which, if you extrapolate that, basically means the universe is different for everyone, all the time.

I'm not really sure whether that's brilliant, or the most obvious bit of dumbness I have ever heard in my life.

I say we need to get these guys together and get them to try and predict the weather, because goddammit, the weather on my own planet means a shitload more to me than the average temperature in a blank area of someone else's universe. I mean come on guys, we're talking a simple relatively closed system here. Not THE UNIVERSE. And we can't even predict that with any accuracy. Sure, the weatherman gets lucky every so often and nails the weather on the nose, but just as often, it's snowing when it should be sunny, and sunny when it should be raining, and they still have NO idea why. What the hell makes these guys think they can predict some universal theory for the universe when the weather on our planet eludes any possible attempt at prediction?

I'm not trying to say they shouldn't try. I mean, by all means, ponder the nature of the universe. Make bets on which way a quork will jump when you zap it with gamma rays and turn it into the incredible hulk. Because hey, if I could get away with wandering around a lab all day smokin ganja and zapping things with subatomic particles while sucking down about 150 grand a year of the government's money, hey, I sure as shit would be doing the same thing. Just, pass whatever shit you are smoking around, because it's the good stuff, okay? DAMMIT MAN!! YOU'RE A SCIENTIST!!! RELEASE THE GANJA FOR PEER REVIEW!!!!

I am so cold right now it's ridiculous. Did I mention I am at work, where there's SUPPOSED to be a controlled environment? Yea, i think they are so cheap they are saving money by turning off the heat in my cubicle. I have a sweatshirt on, the hood up, and my winter coat on and I am still frozen. Wait. Do I have pants on? :-o I don't know how these fruit flies can stand the cold. And that's another thing, there have been fruit flies circulating around the call center for MONTHS. How the hell can fruit flies survive when it's at most, 22 degrees in here? I swear my nipples just froze off, fell to the floor and shattered like they'd been treated with liquid nitrogen. That's right. I AM NIPPLELESS NOW. Is that even a workman's comp case? They would probably say I can still do my job without nipples, so it doesn't affect my ability to work, and not pay. Well goddammit, I LIKE RUBBING MY NIPPLES WHEN I WORK. Who doesn't? Sure, it disturbs people sometimes, but I think that blonde across the aisle from me is diggin it. Yeeeaaaah, baby. You know you want some o daddy's furry nipples. Ohhhh yeeeaaaaaahhhhhh. I mean, how the hell can I flirt with her without nipples? I can't even pull my moobs up to my chest now and lick the pencil-eraser-sized little buds because they are GONE NOW. I guess I'll just have to lick my areolas instead. I hope I don't get chest hair stuck in my teeth, that's so embarrassing.

Wow what a day. I don't know what's wrong with people this week, but we seem to be getting the stupidest possible people calling into tech support. I don't know whether it's just a failure of communication between me and the customer, but they seem dumber than usual this week. I've had people call in who not only don't know their email address with us, which is fairly common with our customers, but they DON'T KNOW THEIR OWN PHONE NUMBER. Crazy, isn't it? What possible reason could they have for not knowing their own phone number, you ask? They said they NEVER CALL THEMSELVES! :-o Of course not. And you must never give out the number to anyone either, because no sane person would want to talk to you, apparently. Sigh. And that's not even the dumbest. That's an old dumbest. This week has risen to a new level of general stupidity on all incoming calls. I think my brain leaked out of my ears entirely. Now I don't have anything against dumb people. They are generally likeable enough people, and I'd happily down a few beers with them if I worked with them or something, but if you are dumb, don't blame me for it. I didn't make you dumb. Your momma did. Probably when she hit you too many times in the head when you were a baby. With a shovel. While trying to kill you. But it's NOT MY FAULT.

Oops! Meant to send this post out days ago. Ran into a vicious cranial infarction that sidelined me. Still dealing with it. No, my head did not have a heart attack, I simply have a recurring sinus infection that I am dealing with. OR, a persistent cold. It's hard to tell when you don't actually go to a doctor to get these things checked out.