Monday, November 24, 2008
Just an observation
At the grocery store that I frequent on the way to work for food stuffs, I noticed that the condoms are placed beside Thank You cards and baby diapers/food/etc. Just found it funny.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Book Review: Tigerheart by Peter David
If you read comics through the 90’s you undoubtedly read something written by Peter David. For me I had been reading him for years before I realized it, going back to find that my favorite titles and stories were penned by him. He has the ability to make even the most far fetched worlds and characters relatable like no other. On top of that he is the Bart Star of the comic world in that no matter how good of a person you think you are, every time you hear a story about him, you feel like a jerk.
So one night as I was killing time in a book store (as the wife was shopping for clothes and mercifully left me off of my leash) I saw his name on the dust jacket above a beautiful illustration of a pirate ship sailing in the night. I grabbed it without hesitation, since to this day I have never been disappointed in anything Mr. David has written.
Tigerheart is my favorite form of story telling; pure. It is filled with a charming innocence that is needed every now and then these days where most stories have a cynical or dark edge. That’s not to say those kind of stories can’t be enjoyable, that’d just be silly coming from a man who’s favorite author is Richard Matheson. But no, Tigerheart is fun, full of humor, adventure, and most of all, adventure.
The story follows the adventure of Paul Dear, a young boy who’s father raised him with tales of the Boy, or as we know him, Peter Pan. But what everyone doesn’t know is that Paul has met the Boy several times and because of the Boy, Paul knows how to talk to animals and fairies, and play all the best games of the Anyplace (Neverneverland). See Paul’s mother is incredibly sad so he heads off to the Anyplace to find what his mother needs to smile again (I’m being purposefully vague there to not spoil anything).
The book is full of slight changes to names, Captain Hack instead of Captain Hook, Gwenny instead of Wendy, Vagabonds instead of the Lost Boys, all of which is explained at the end of the book along with a notation that all proceeds from the book were being donated to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, the same children’s hospital that was given the copyright for Peter Pan from J.M. Barrie. Note: Peter Pan is in many ways free of copyright laws so technically Mr. David had no legal obligation to do this. And just typing that made me feel like a jerk.
The only cautionary note I can place with this is that twice I had to stop reading because I started to choke up. And at the same time that is praise for the book’s ability to pull you in and make you feel for the characters. There were also several moments where I caught myself taking a gasp in shock only to realize how silly that must seem to any observing me. But the greatest praise I have for this book is that it may possibly now be my favorite book, replacing The Princess Bride which anyone who knows me has undoubtedly heard me go on at length over how amazing it is.
If you love pure story telling, read this. If you love being taken on an adventure, read this. If you love stories that make the child that still takes flight to the Anyplace as you sleep dance in excitement, then you should definitely read Peter David’s, Tigerheart.
So one night as I was killing time in a book store (as the wife was shopping for clothes and mercifully left me off of my leash) I saw his name on the dust jacket above a beautiful illustration of a pirate ship sailing in the night. I grabbed it without hesitation, since to this day I have never been disappointed in anything Mr. David has written.
Tigerheart is my favorite form of story telling; pure. It is filled with a charming innocence that is needed every now and then these days where most stories have a cynical or dark edge. That’s not to say those kind of stories can’t be enjoyable, that’d just be silly coming from a man who’s favorite author is Richard Matheson. But no, Tigerheart is fun, full of humor, adventure, and most of all, adventure.
The story follows the adventure of Paul Dear, a young boy who’s father raised him with tales of the Boy, or as we know him, Peter Pan. But what everyone doesn’t know is that Paul has met the Boy several times and because of the Boy, Paul knows how to talk to animals and fairies, and play all the best games of the Anyplace (Neverneverland). See Paul’s mother is incredibly sad so he heads off to the Anyplace to find what his mother needs to smile again (I’m being purposefully vague there to not spoil anything).
The book is full of slight changes to names, Captain Hack instead of Captain Hook, Gwenny instead of Wendy, Vagabonds instead of the Lost Boys, all of which is explained at the end of the book along with a notation that all proceeds from the book were being donated to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, the same children’s hospital that was given the copyright for Peter Pan from J.M. Barrie. Note: Peter Pan is in many ways free of copyright laws so technically Mr. David had no legal obligation to do this. And just typing that made me feel like a jerk.
The only cautionary note I can place with this is that twice I had to stop reading because I started to choke up. And at the same time that is praise for the book’s ability to pull you in and make you feel for the characters. There were also several moments where I caught myself taking a gasp in shock only to realize how silly that must seem to any observing me. But the greatest praise I have for this book is that it may possibly now be my favorite book, replacing The Princess Bride which anyone who knows me has undoubtedly heard me go on at length over how amazing it is.
If you love pure story telling, read this. If you love being taken on an adventure, read this. If you love stories that make the child that still takes flight to the Anyplace as you sleep dance in excitement, then you should definitely read Peter David’s, Tigerheart.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Music Review: All That Remains - Overcome
One of the worst things that can happen to a band is to put out multiple albums that get progressively better (I can listen to their last album, The Fall of Ideals, non-stop) only to drop a fourth that take ten steps back.
What All That Remains has going for them is that where this album falls short isn’t the lyrics or the music, but the production (note: they had a new producer for this album). I am a huge fan of metal with actual vocals mixed with great screaming like In Flames, Killswitch Engage, and Nothingface (who also suffered on their fourth release), but the clean vocals on the entire album are just too clean. While it’s clearly still Phil screaming, the clean portions sound generic and more suitable for modern pop-rock radio music, and while voice layering is nothing new here it’s over used and very distracting. Additionally there are many, many places where it’s obvious that instead of just letting Phil sing the entire song, he instead often recorded individual lines that were then laced together (as opposed to past albums where you can often hear him taking a breath which adds to the vocal passion).
But while the vocals are the most distracting disappointment the music suffers as well. From the beginning, even before I heard the first scream from Before the Damned I couldn’t help but notice that the drums sounded like they were synthesized, and once everything kicked in fully it felt like it was all synthesized. To make things worse the levels of all the instruments feel like they’re all being pushed to the limits all the time instead of balancing them out so it actually sounds like a band instead of a computer.
You can still tell that their music and song writing abilities are still there making this album all the more tragic. I’m sure that all of these songs will actually sound better live, but as of now the album sounds more like a band trying to sound like All That Remains. And if this indeed were a new band and this their first album I would have written them off before the end of the second track.
Added Note: I posted this review over on Amazon just for the hell of it. It's funny how almost all of the reviews are from people who claim to be metal fans but then go on to admit that the vocals are radio friendly and that's what they like about it. Well guess what people, you're not metal fans, you're hard rock fans.
What All That Remains has going for them is that where this album falls short isn’t the lyrics or the music, but the production (note: they had a new producer for this album). I am a huge fan of metal with actual vocals mixed with great screaming like In Flames, Killswitch Engage, and Nothingface (who also suffered on their fourth release), but the clean vocals on the entire album are just too clean. While it’s clearly still Phil screaming, the clean portions sound generic and more suitable for modern pop-rock radio music, and while voice layering is nothing new here it’s over used and very distracting. Additionally there are many, many places where it’s obvious that instead of just letting Phil sing the entire song, he instead often recorded individual lines that were then laced together (as opposed to past albums where you can often hear him taking a breath which adds to the vocal passion).
But while the vocals are the most distracting disappointment the music suffers as well. From the beginning, even before I heard the first scream from Before the Damned I couldn’t help but notice that the drums sounded like they were synthesized, and once everything kicked in fully it felt like it was all synthesized. To make things worse the levels of all the instruments feel like they’re all being pushed to the limits all the time instead of balancing them out so it actually sounds like a band instead of a computer.
You can still tell that their music and song writing abilities are still there making this album all the more tragic. I’m sure that all of these songs will actually sound better live, but as of now the album sounds more like a band trying to sound like All That Remains. And if this indeed were a new band and this their first album I would have written them off before the end of the second track.
Added Note: I posted this review over on Amazon just for the hell of it. It's funny how almost all of the reviews are from people who claim to be metal fans but then go on to admit that the vocals are radio friendly and that's what they like about it. Well guess what people, you're not metal fans, you're hard rock fans.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Not All Commercials Suck, But These Do
People hate commercials. That’s nothing new, but I would like to call attention to some recent ones that I find particularly infuriating. See I actually don’t mind good commercials, those being ones that are very entertaining (most Captain Morgan ones) and/or informative. But just like with movies and television shows, if they’re poorly written and/or make no sense, the people responsible should be canned. NOTE: Most if not all of these can be found on YouTube.
Trojan Condoms
The scene is inside of a restaurant/bar and all men are being portrayed as pigs. That part I can deal with because most guys who go to bars to pick up a chick are pigs, but one of the pigs is hitting on a girl who’s clearly not interested, he gets up, goes to the bathroom and gets a condom, comes back and suddenly she sees him as an attractive man even though he looks like a gay Enrique Inglesias with an Emo hair cut. So we’re supposed to believe that 1) She somehow magically knows that he bought a condom. Given her expression as he left one can assume that he did not tell her that’s what he was leaving to do, and 2) Buying a condom somehow makes him less of a douche bag suddenly.
Levi Jeans
This one’s very new. Two kids staring into each other’s eyes nervously, the girl asking the guy if it’s his first time as they slowly undress only for it to be revealed that they’re jumping off a high pier into water. Now to me it’s obvious from the get go that we’re being given a red herring because for starters it’s a commercial and the kids are out doors. But while both kids could be 18 and just looking young, they both look like their 15 at most and the way the commercial is filmed is like porn for a pedophile. It’s so uncomfortable to watch that I have to change the channel whenever it’s on.
Twix
Whoever writes these commercials hates women or at the very least thinks they’re all morons. I’m all for sexist jokes, aimed at men or women, but only when they’re so over the top that it’s obviously a joke. These are just painful. The newest is a guy talking to a woman at a party. The woman is going off on some pretentious rant and at a pause the guy asks her back to his place (showing that he also is an idiot), she gets offended and he crams a Twix down his maw to give him time to think of something to get him out of trouble. He then creates some equally pretentious, and obviously made up story about wanting to be alone to continue their retarded conversation back at his place, she smiles, feeling like an idiot for jumping to what was actually an accurate conclusion and leaves with him. So to recap, in the Twix universe, all women are gullible and stupid.
Scion
Hundreds of various cars and SUV’s drive across the country for obviously days, coming to a perfectly carved out auditorium style crater and park with all their lights on as a guy in a hooded sweat shirt steps up to a microphone and gives an embarrassingly unimpressive 15 second speech (yes I timed it) about how, “It’s what makes us different that brings us together.” I already don’t like Scions. Their first two models were boxes with wheels and I’m baffled how they made any money to survive longer as a company. But this commercial, clearly designed to be inspiring, is just painfully lame from the actual words used to the weak voice of the guy giving the speech. I picture the writer sitting in a room with his friends and family, showing them a DVD with his first commercial ever, and from there on it plays out like that scene from the Poochie episode of the Simpsons.
Paintball Dave’s
Ok, this is a local radio commercial that drives me crazy. It opens with a guy talking about being the best man at eight weddings in six years, but it’s not because all those guys are his best friends, it’s because he plans “the most amazing bachelor parties,” involving going to Paintball Dave’s. I can not put into words how enraged I am by the shear stupidity of the idea of someone being picked to be a best man at a wedding based solely on their ability to plan a great bachelor party.
Trojan Condoms
The scene is inside of a restaurant/bar and all men are being portrayed as pigs. That part I can deal with because most guys who go to bars to pick up a chick are pigs, but one of the pigs is hitting on a girl who’s clearly not interested, he gets up, goes to the bathroom and gets a condom, comes back and suddenly she sees him as an attractive man even though he looks like a gay Enrique Inglesias with an Emo hair cut. So we’re supposed to believe that 1) She somehow magically knows that he bought a condom. Given her expression as he left one can assume that he did not tell her that’s what he was leaving to do, and 2) Buying a condom somehow makes him less of a douche bag suddenly.
Levi Jeans
This one’s very new. Two kids staring into each other’s eyes nervously, the girl asking the guy if it’s his first time as they slowly undress only for it to be revealed that they’re jumping off a high pier into water. Now to me it’s obvious from the get go that we’re being given a red herring because for starters it’s a commercial and the kids are out doors. But while both kids could be 18 and just looking young, they both look like their 15 at most and the way the commercial is filmed is like porn for a pedophile. It’s so uncomfortable to watch that I have to change the channel whenever it’s on.
Twix
Whoever writes these commercials hates women or at the very least thinks they’re all morons. I’m all for sexist jokes, aimed at men or women, but only when they’re so over the top that it’s obviously a joke. These are just painful. The newest is a guy talking to a woman at a party. The woman is going off on some pretentious rant and at a pause the guy asks her back to his place (showing that he also is an idiot), she gets offended and he crams a Twix down his maw to give him time to think of something to get him out of trouble. He then creates some equally pretentious, and obviously made up story about wanting to be alone to continue their retarded conversation back at his place, she smiles, feeling like an idiot for jumping to what was actually an accurate conclusion and leaves with him. So to recap, in the Twix universe, all women are gullible and stupid.
Scion
Hundreds of various cars and SUV’s drive across the country for obviously days, coming to a perfectly carved out auditorium style crater and park with all their lights on as a guy in a hooded sweat shirt steps up to a microphone and gives an embarrassingly unimpressive 15 second speech (yes I timed it) about how, “It’s what makes us different that brings us together.” I already don’t like Scions. Their first two models were boxes with wheels and I’m baffled how they made any money to survive longer as a company. But this commercial, clearly designed to be inspiring, is just painfully lame from the actual words used to the weak voice of the guy giving the speech. I picture the writer sitting in a room with his friends and family, showing them a DVD with his first commercial ever, and from there on it plays out like that scene from the Poochie episode of the Simpsons.
Paintball Dave’s
Ok, this is a local radio commercial that drives me crazy. It opens with a guy talking about being the best man at eight weddings in six years, but it’s not because all those guys are his best friends, it’s because he plans “the most amazing bachelor parties,” involving going to Paintball Dave’s. I can not put into words how enraged I am by the shear stupidity of the idea of someone being picked to be a best man at a wedding based solely on their ability to plan a great bachelor party.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Hot off the heals of the mega-successful and first cohesive Marvel Movie-verse film Iron Man, came The Incredible Hulk. Unlike Iron Man however, the early production news of Hulk was painful and depressing. First was the decision to pretend the first movie never happened, which while understandable it did not give a sense of comfort. Secondly was announcing the Zak Penn, the hack who wrote X-Men 3, would be writing it. And then lastly was announcing that Louis Leterrier, director of The Transporter 2 which featured some astoundingly ridiculous action scenes, would helm it. But then a funny thing happened, Ed Norton was cast as Bruce Banner and all of my fears vanished. A little known fact is that Ed Norton has a clause in his contracts that allows him to re-write scripts as he sees fit and while that may sound like a d*ck move all writers who’ve worked with him have said that typically he works very respectfully with the writers and actually brings added reality to the characters. And according to many interviews and other blurbs, Norton and Leterrier rewrote the pretty much entire script.
(SIDE NOTE: Why do I think Zak Penn is a hack, aside from the entirety of X-Men 3 that is? In an interview about the movie he stated that the character of Emil Blonsky would not be called Abomination because it’s a silly name. Yeah, because casual movie goers are going to be turned off by a silly name like Abomination. Because Magneto, Professor X, Doctor Octopus, The Thing, Doctor Doom, Silver Surfer, Punisher, Spider-Man, Sandman, Mr. Fantastic, and even Batman, Superman are in no way silly. Actually Abomination is less silly then every single one of those. Again, Zak Penn is a hack.)
But did it work?
Hell yes!
I still enjoy the original, the way they addressed the inner demons idea to the Hulk and what not, but this movie was THE perfect Hulk movie. A fantastic move in that the origin is told via images and small clips played during the opening credits therefore allowing the story to pick up with Banner already on the run. Plenty of action, incredibly well laid out characters, a couple great cameos, many references to the original TV series, and some actions that are now considered classic Hulk staples such as the Hulk Clap (not an STD). Everything about it felt pure and true to the comic while at the same time telling a pretty original story.
All the actors brought their A game which to me helped to further eliminate the pretentious idea of, “it’s just a comic book movie.” Tim “Mr. Orange” Roth is absolutely polarizing as Emil Blonsky every time he’s on screen, even in scenes where he’s just sitting and waiting for something to happen you can just feel this urgency inside of his character. William Hurt does a phenomenal job of making General Ross a complete @$$hole who honestly believes that what he’s doing is the right thing, something completely lacking from the very likable portrayal by Sam Elliot in the first one. Liv Tyler, though not on the same level as Roth or Hurt, did bring an added human feel to the character of Betty Ross that I just can’t put my finger on how to describe, it just felt natural and real. On that same note Ed Norton was of course awesome taking over the roll of Bruce Banner.
There are plenty of geek out moments such as the introduction of Dr. Leonard Sampson (though this can be missed) and Samuel Sterns (if you don’t know who that is and you haven’t seen the movie, I won’t spoil it for you). Also they reference a few Marvel-verse things such as certain World War II points of interest as well as another S.H.I.E.L.D. reference (which is impossible to miss), and of course a line that were horribly lacking from the first movie. I’ll leave you to guess what it was.
Marvel Movie Score: 9.5
Why This?: It is impossible to make a fun Hulk movie. Well it is possible but that’s not what the Hulk is about. Since it’s about inner demons and what not it’s going to have to be a little dark and therefore not as fun as Iron Man, and therefore it’s the only reason I can’t give it a 10. But obviously I believe it to be a great movie and I’m sad to hear that there may not be a sequel because they really set one up, though depending on how they do the Avengers movie that could easily work as the sequel. Additionally Ed Norton had a little bit of a disagreement with Marvel Studios as he wanted the final cut of the movie to be a little more story driven and a little less action. Hopefully he now understands that they were really gun shy about doing this after the fallout of the first movie.
(SIDE NOTE: Why do I think Zak Penn is a hack, aside from the entirety of X-Men 3 that is? In an interview about the movie he stated that the character of Emil Blonsky would not be called Abomination because it’s a silly name. Yeah, because casual movie goers are going to be turned off by a silly name like Abomination. Because Magneto, Professor X, Doctor Octopus, The Thing, Doctor Doom, Silver Surfer, Punisher, Spider-Man, Sandman, Mr. Fantastic, and even Batman, Superman are in no way silly. Actually Abomination is less silly then every single one of those. Again, Zak Penn is a hack.)
But did it work?
Hell yes!
I still enjoy the original, the way they addressed the inner demons idea to the Hulk and what not, but this movie was THE perfect Hulk movie. A fantastic move in that the origin is told via images and small clips played during the opening credits therefore allowing the story to pick up with Banner already on the run. Plenty of action, incredibly well laid out characters, a couple great cameos, many references to the original TV series, and some actions that are now considered classic Hulk staples such as the Hulk Clap (not an STD). Everything about it felt pure and true to the comic while at the same time telling a pretty original story.
All the actors brought their A game which to me helped to further eliminate the pretentious idea of, “it’s just a comic book movie.” Tim “Mr. Orange” Roth is absolutely polarizing as Emil Blonsky every time he’s on screen, even in scenes where he’s just sitting and waiting for something to happen you can just feel this urgency inside of his character. William Hurt does a phenomenal job of making General Ross a complete @$$hole who honestly believes that what he’s doing is the right thing, something completely lacking from the very likable portrayal by Sam Elliot in the first one. Liv Tyler, though not on the same level as Roth or Hurt, did bring an added human feel to the character of Betty Ross that I just can’t put my finger on how to describe, it just felt natural and real. On that same note Ed Norton was of course awesome taking over the roll of Bruce Banner.
There are plenty of geek out moments such as the introduction of Dr. Leonard Sampson (though this can be missed) and Samuel Sterns (if you don’t know who that is and you haven’t seen the movie, I won’t spoil it for you). Also they reference a few Marvel-verse things such as certain World War II points of interest as well as another S.H.I.E.L.D. reference (which is impossible to miss), and of course a line that were horribly lacking from the first movie. I’ll leave you to guess what it was.
Marvel Movie Score: 9.5
Why This?: It is impossible to make a fun Hulk movie. Well it is possible but that’s not what the Hulk is about. Since it’s about inner demons and what not it’s going to have to be a little dark and therefore not as fun as Iron Man, and therefore it’s the only reason I can’t give it a 10. But obviously I believe it to be a great movie and I’m sad to hear that there may not be a sequel because they really set one up, though depending on how they do the Avengers movie that could easily work as the sequel. Additionally Ed Norton had a little bit of a disagreement with Marvel Studios as he wanted the final cut of the movie to be a little more story driven and a little less action. Hopefully he now understands that they were really gun shy about doing this after the fallout of the first movie.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
It's Finally Over!
So Favre is a NY Jet now, and I couldn’t be happier. Well I could be because he could be playing for a better team, but still.
Don’t get me wrong I am a Packer fan and originally Favre’s retirement was part of my New Old Stuff article, but now his legacy has been tarnished in my mind and it’s his own fault. He retired, changed his mind, and then played the victim when the Packer organization didn’t welcome him back with open arms after they gave him every chance in the world to consider and re-consider his decision before announcing it to the world. And the theory that he may have done this on purpose to get to another team just further tarnishes his legacy if it’s true.
As for why I’m glad he’s not coming back as a Packer, aside from being incredibly irritated at his drama-queen like personality of the past few years; Brett Favre is destined to have one of the worst seasons in his career not just because he has to learn and adapt to a whole new offensive game and a new team, but he will suffer the full brunt of the Madden Curse. If you don’t know what that is, it’s the theory, supported by a lot of convenient circumstances, that when a player appears on the cover of a John Madden football game they will then have either a bad season or suffer an injury that keeps them out for most of the season. Favre in Packer jersey is set to appear on the cover of Madden ’09.
I hope within a decent amount of time I’ll be able to again look back at how great Favre was, but as of now that’s difficult to imagine. But right now he does get some of my sympathies because Favre is showing a lot of classic signs of a form of serious depression, and I’m not the only one who’s noticed. Hopefully someone close to him takes note of all the people saying it and convinces him to get help.
Don’t get me wrong I am a Packer fan and originally Favre’s retirement was part of my New Old Stuff article, but now his legacy has been tarnished in my mind and it’s his own fault. He retired, changed his mind, and then played the victim when the Packer organization didn’t welcome him back with open arms after they gave him every chance in the world to consider and re-consider his decision before announcing it to the world. And the theory that he may have done this on purpose to get to another team just further tarnishes his legacy if it’s true.
As for why I’m glad he’s not coming back as a Packer, aside from being incredibly irritated at his drama-queen like personality of the past few years; Brett Favre is destined to have one of the worst seasons in his career not just because he has to learn and adapt to a whole new offensive game and a new team, but he will suffer the full brunt of the Madden Curse. If you don’t know what that is, it’s the theory, supported by a lot of convenient circumstances, that when a player appears on the cover of a John Madden football game they will then have either a bad season or suffer an injury that keeps them out for most of the season. Favre in Packer jersey is set to appear on the cover of Madden ’09.
I hope within a decent amount of time I’ll be able to again look back at how great Favre was, but as of now that’s difficult to imagine. But right now he does get some of my sympathies because Favre is showing a lot of classic signs of a form of serious depression, and I’m not the only one who’s noticed. Hopefully someone close to him takes note of all the people saying it and convinces him to get help.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
I Have Returned!!!
I know that all of my readers (that’s right, all three of you) have been wondering where I’ve been and why no updates in months. Well coincidentally shortly after my Iron Man review work became incredibly busy to the point where I was regularly working 50+ hours a week leaving me tired and stressed regularly and therefore uncomfortable trying to write anything remotely creative.
So now that my project is pretty much wrapped up and a regular 40 hour work week seems like it’s par for the course again and my stress vanished quicker than the theatrical release of Postal (yes it was released in theaters, look it up if you don’t believe me), I can get back to doing what I love, writing. Now a few things of note have occurred in the months of Marvel Movie reviews and my absence due to work, but I have kept notes of things I want to touch on, most of which is stuff I’m sure no one even remembers. So I present you with…
New Old Stuff
Sharper Image Self Destructs
Like many people, I really detest Sharper Image. They regularly took mediocre-to-cruddy merchandise like a $40 CD player, put their name on it and then charged $250 for it, and then rich assholes would buy it thinking it’s top of the line shit. Now if they were just doing this to sucker rich people, that would’ve been fine, then I’d just be upset that I wasn’t in on the scam, but clearly they thought of themselves as legitimate. Another great example to this fact is that a few years ago an independent study was done on home air filters. This study found a few inexpensive, “no name” brand models to be incredibly effective, and that the Sharper Image ones were absolutely terrible. Sharper Image then sued the study group. Fortunately nothing actually came of it since they had no grounds, but the papers actually were drawn up and delivered.
Patrick Swayze Diagnosed With Pancreatic Cancer
Now I’m not a Swayze fan per say. His being in movies I’ve watched has been coincidental, but I’ve always found him to be entertaining. On top of that he has always seemed like an easy going and fun guy. A fun note is that the story was broke by the National Inquirer who had one hell of a scoop on their hands but instead of just reporting it as is, they over embellished/lied about it, further insuring that they will never have any credibility as a legitimate news source. For any one reading this who doesn’t know, the National Inquirer reported that he was diagnosed and projected with only 2 weeks to live. Several people close to Mr. Swayze, including his doctor, his agent, and his mother, immediately came to the media to say that it’s no where near that bad and that at this point the cancer is minor, was caught early and is responding well to treatment. In any case, at some point in the near future I will be toasting the man’s life with a double feature viewing of Steel Dawn/Red Dawn. Wolverines, indeed.
Anotherdarkhole.com Officially Laid to Rest
The site is completely down, stripped away to an error page. I’m partially interested to see if someone else picks up the domain name years down the line. On the plus side I still have all the articles and what not saved on my hard drive for reflection. It’s only in retrospect now I realize that in paying for the domain service I was technically a self published writer for a time. Thanks to Caleb, the Rubicon, SNM, Pimp, everyone who’s ever visited even by accident, and everyone who in any way influenced anything we did. My only regret was that we never got to do a Random Celebrity Random Showdown featuring the Wall from American Gladiators, which was included in our list of events for the sole purpose of making a joke about the original Siren, who was deaf.
Rick Flair Retires
When it comes to wrestling, he truly is The Man! Yes greats have come before and will yet keep coming, but no one, absolutely no one will match the legacy that is Rick Flair. And on a personal note, my introduction to him was through absolutely amazing feuds with one of my personal childhood favorites, Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat. Wrestlers today can only hope that their best matches can be as good as Flair and Steamboat’s worst ones. Thank you, Space Mountain for giving 100% every time you stepped in that ring. Wooooooooooo!!!
So now that my project is pretty much wrapped up and a regular 40 hour work week seems like it’s par for the course again and my stress vanished quicker than the theatrical release of Postal (yes it was released in theaters, look it up if you don’t believe me), I can get back to doing what I love, writing. Now a few things of note have occurred in the months of Marvel Movie reviews and my absence due to work, but I have kept notes of things I want to touch on, most of which is stuff I’m sure no one even remembers. So I present you with…
New Old Stuff
Sharper Image Self Destructs
Like many people, I really detest Sharper Image. They regularly took mediocre-to-cruddy merchandise like a $40 CD player, put their name on it and then charged $250 for it, and then rich assholes would buy it thinking it’s top of the line shit. Now if they were just doing this to sucker rich people, that would’ve been fine, then I’d just be upset that I wasn’t in on the scam, but clearly they thought of themselves as legitimate. Another great example to this fact is that a few years ago an independent study was done on home air filters. This study found a few inexpensive, “no name” brand models to be incredibly effective, and that the Sharper Image ones were absolutely terrible. Sharper Image then sued the study group. Fortunately nothing actually came of it since they had no grounds, but the papers actually were drawn up and delivered.
Patrick Swayze Diagnosed With Pancreatic Cancer
Now I’m not a Swayze fan per say. His being in movies I’ve watched has been coincidental, but I’ve always found him to be entertaining. On top of that he has always seemed like an easy going and fun guy. A fun note is that the story was broke by the National Inquirer who had one hell of a scoop on their hands but instead of just reporting it as is, they over embellished/lied about it, further insuring that they will never have any credibility as a legitimate news source. For any one reading this who doesn’t know, the National Inquirer reported that he was diagnosed and projected with only 2 weeks to live. Several people close to Mr. Swayze, including his doctor, his agent, and his mother, immediately came to the media to say that it’s no where near that bad and that at this point the cancer is minor, was caught early and is responding well to treatment. In any case, at some point in the near future I will be toasting the man’s life with a double feature viewing of Steel Dawn/Red Dawn. Wolverines, indeed.
Anotherdarkhole.com Officially Laid to Rest
The site is completely down, stripped away to an error page. I’m partially interested to see if someone else picks up the domain name years down the line. On the plus side I still have all the articles and what not saved on my hard drive for reflection. It’s only in retrospect now I realize that in paying for the domain service I was technically a self published writer for a time. Thanks to Caleb, the Rubicon, SNM, Pimp, everyone who’s ever visited even by accident, and everyone who in any way influenced anything we did. My only regret was that we never got to do a Random Celebrity Random Showdown featuring the Wall from American Gladiators, which was included in our list of events for the sole purpose of making a joke about the original Siren, who was deaf.
Rick Flair Retires
When it comes to wrestling, he truly is The Man! Yes greats have come before and will yet keep coming, but no one, absolutely no one will match the legacy that is Rick Flair. And on a personal note, my introduction to him was through absolutely amazing feuds with one of my personal childhood favorites, Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat. Wrestlers today can only hope that their best matches can be as good as Flair and Steamboat’s worst ones. Thank you, Space Mountain for giving 100% every time you stepped in that ring. Wooooooooooo!!!
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