The Rude Morgue

Battle: Los Angeles

2011-12-05T22:12:00.001-08:00

Rating: Close Encounter of the 1/3 Kind

Dumb science fiction is sometimes fun. The first Transformers film was idiotic, but a real blast to watch. Hell, even Star Wars is pretty dumb, but it's one of my favorites.

And the science in a movie can be really terrible and still allow for a great time. The Matrix, for instance, makes no sense whatsoever, but I love it.

But even good science couldn't save a shitty movie, and Battle: Los Angeles is one of the shittiest I've sat through in quite some time. Laughable science is the least of its problems.

Taking its cue from a multitude of "bad idea" science fiction, the invading alien force eschews any sort of logical plan in their invasion of earth. In point of fact, they seem to have read the playbook of every poorly-planned invasion of our planet since the dawn of cinema. Two films in particular seem to have inspired them:

Independence Day: "Hey, let's rig up all our spaceships so they take energy and commands from one central hub, which the humans can't possibly destroy in a heroic third-act push."

Signs: "Sure we came light-years to attack this planet, and our technology is vastly beyond anything humans can even comprehend, but how about we run around on foot and kill them one by one?"

Why are the aliens here, you ask? Well, to save you the trouble of watching this ham-fisted, dull, and horribly unimaginative movie, I'll just tell you: They want to steal our water. Because, you see, Earth has it in liquid form.

Yes, you heard that right. These aliens are advanced enough to haul hundreds of thousands of tons of soldiers and equipment (at the very least) across the vast emptiness of space, and ruthless enough to obliterate an entire native intelligent species, because they apparently don't know how to melt ice.

Alright, so they need liquid water (a preposterous amount of it, as one idiotic "science-y" bit would have us believe that the ocean levels are dropping perceptibly in the few hours the aliens have been attacking). So, of course, the FIRST THING the aliens do when they have landed all their invasion forces in the ocean, is tromp out on land, attacking every major coastal city in the world (apparently --though only a dozen or so are actually mentioned, San Diego, San Francisco, and L.A. all get the treatment, so it has to be pretty widespread).

I know, I know, movies like this aren't about logic or interesting ideas -- they're about entertainment, right? Well, maybe movies like this, but not this one. This one commits every major sin a movie like it can possibly commit.

It is populated entirely by forgettable, one-dimensional soldier stereotypes (the rookie, the tough chick, the guy with a chip on his shoulder, the inexperienced officer, and, of course, the grizzled veteran -- in this case, Aaron Eckhart providing the grizzle). And alongside them are two children and two civilians, none of whom do we care about even a little. It wants to be like Aliens, where each soldier had a personality and, while we may not have become too attached to them, we at least knew their names, but instead it is like ... well, every bad attempt to copy Aliens of the last two decades.

Its true sin, however, is that it is booooring. The battle scenes are Blackhawk Down wannabe kinetic craziness, but it never manages to be even slightly convincing. The characters do a lot of talking that is clearly supposed to be "character building" but really just seems to lengthen the amount of time we wait for anything to happen.

One scene that seems to go on forever involves a field vivisection of a wounded alien in an attempt to find it's "weak spot." The intrepid soldiers divine that they should shoot the aliens "just to the right of where the heart would be," which one would assume would be sort of the default place you'd shoot anything that looked vaguely like a person. They proceed to tell the rest of the marines this important tip, and then everyone proceeds to ignore it for the idiotic time filler it is and run them over with trucks instead.

And the aliens are boring, too. We see a grand total of maybe five variations on the attacking forces: soldier, leader, "tank thing," aerial drone, and mothership. We never learn anything of any significance about the aliens, except that they are terrible at planning and carrying out invasions. They have no personality at all and they don't even look particularly good.

I've heard that the company that made the reputedly-terrible Skyline ripped this movie off somehow, but honestly I don't see anything at all worth ripping off.

Captain America: The First Avenger

2011-08-01T11:01:00.000-07:00

Rating: 34/50 Stars

Superhero movies are getting awfully tired, but Marvel Studios will be damned if it doesn't roll em out while the rolling is good. Thor and Iron Man 2 were ... less than great, but Captain America is, at least somewhat, a return to form. It's no Iron Man, and it's not quite the equal of X-Men: First Class, it's still one of the better Marvel comics adaptations.

Well, it's no Spider-Man, either. And no X-Men. And, really, it's no X-Men 2 ... hmm.

Anybody who isn't familiar with the titular Captain will probably enjoy this movie a lot less than Iron Man, even before you take into account the fact that Chris Evans is no Robert Downey, Jr. Still, it manages to avoid the Origin > Crisis > Climax ladder that most superhero movies are so fond of, giving Cap a fairly touching origin (thanks mainly to a fine performance by Stanley Tucci as the brains behind the experiment that turns 90-pound weakling Steve Rogers into Chris Evans) and then, instead of hurling him directly into the fight against evil, thrusting him awkwardly into the role of a USO poster boy and War Bond shill.

Eventually, however, duty does call, in the form of a friend caught behind the lines and imprisoned by the villainous Hydra, led by the sinister Red Skull (Hugo Weaving, who chews the scenery like crazy, but what's a brother gonna do? He's a crazy Nazi scientist!)

Of course the Red Skull was the first person to go through the super-soldier treatment that created Cap, but the movie nearly unforgivably has Weaving utter variations of the line, "We are not so different, you and I!" Seriously, Hollywood, there should be an ordinance against that appearing in any screenplay, along with, "You fool! You'll kill us all!" and "You don't understand what you're dealing with!" -- both of which occur in this film as well, in various forms. (Note to self, deduct a few more stars.)

Still and all, CA:TfA is a fairly fun ride, though it suffers from a weak ending that really only serves to set up next year's The Avengers, which also has a trailer attached after the credits of this film.

Kung Fu Panda 2

2011-05-31T10:48:00.000-07:00

Rating: A Furious 4 out of 5

It almost seems like there is a set amount of quality out there for Dreamworks Animation and Pixar to wrestle over, and Dreamworks is managing to tip the scale their way in fits and starts over the past couple of years. The first Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon can stand up with the better Pixar films, while Pixar itself seems to have gone off-track with sequel-itis.

If Pixar is determined to go full-throttle on sequels (as Toy Story 3 and the upcoming Cars 2 and Monsters University would seem to indicate), they could do a lot worse than Kung Fu Panda 2. It's a solid sequel to a great animated feature, and while I don't think it quite has the same emotional impact as the first film, it has the same great humor and fantastic character and action animation.

Now firmly ensconced as the Dragon Warrior and companion of the Furious Five, Po (Jack Black) is a Kung Fu superhero and champion of the Valley of Peace. After a beautiful intro sequence introduces us to the sinister peacock Shen (Gary Oldman), it's only a matter of time before Po and friends are tasked by Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) with stopping Shen's plan to use gunpowder to render kung fu irrelevant and conquer all of China.

Complicating this is the fact that Po recognizes the symbols on the armor of Shen's wolf minions as an enigmatic touchstone to memories of his childhood and the loss of his parents. When he asks his father, Mr. Ping (James Hong) about his origins, we are treated to a story of adoption both humorous and touching. The animation of the character of Mr. Ping is fantastic, especially considering he gets none of the flashy kung-fu sequences other characters shine in, and is entirely a character performance.

Those kung-fu sequences are as fantastic and thrilling as those in the first film were, particularly any moments in which Shen (Gary Oldman) is on screen. His movements are strange and beautiful, his deadliness as clear as his borderline madness.

The comedy is strong, with well-placed goofiness breaking up serious character moments. One of the best involves Po delivering pithy, dramatic lines from slightly too far away for anyone to hear him clearly.

If the sequel falls a little short of the original, it's due at least in part to the very diminished role of Hoffman's Master Shifu, who barely shows up after a beautiful sequence early on. I also missed the incredible performance of Ian McShane as Tai Lung, the unfortunately deceased villain of the original. Still, Oldman is very good, and the supporting voices of Angelina Jolie (Tigress), David Cross (Crane), Seth Rogan (Mantis), Lucy Liu (Viper), and Jackie Chan (Monkey) continue to please. Jean-Claude Van Damme is stunt cast as Master Croc, with no more than a handful of lines, but Victor Garber and Dennis Haysbert give excellent vocal performances as Master Thundering Rhino and Master Storming Ox, respectively.

Thor

2011-05-31T09:59:00.000-07:00

Rating: Meh.

As comic book adaptations go, Thor is fairly middle of the road. About as good as X-Men 3, I suppose. Faint praise for a faintly praiseworthy film. Director Kenneth Branagh has taken the nearly 40-year-old Marvel Comics version of the god of thunder and done ... fairly well with such a screwy premise.

To its credit, the scenes in the otherworldly realms of Asgard and Jotunheim are pretty interesting, and some of the action in these sequences are exciting. Unfortunately, they are bogged down by some pretty hard-to-swallow dialog and a few strange moments where actors almost seem to break character intentionally.

Thor (Chris Hemsworth), in particular, goes from an angry, somewhat thick bruiser personality to a witty charmer seemingly at random. This is even more jarring once he is exiled to earth, stripped of his powers for being an idiot. In one scene, he is a boorish barbarian, shattering his mug and demanding more coffee. In another, he's a smiling, somewhat condescending superior being, explaining how science and magic are one in the same. And in another, he marches into a pet store and demands a horse, or a dog or cat large enough to ride. It's a very mixed bag.

Thor also suffers by shying away from the ugly aspects of its main character via a complete character reversal that seems to take place over about 48 hours. If humility and decency are this easy to pick up, it's hard to understand why Odin (Anthony Hopkins) didn't send his son downtown a long time ago.

Hemsworth does give a creditable performance as Thor, though, and Hopkins is surprisingly good as Odin, overcoming some seriously silly costume choices and dialogue to give his character great dignity. Tom Hiddleston, as Thor's brother god Loki, is also good, though he does become more cartoonish and generic as the film rolls into its third act.

In contrast, Natalie Portman, as Thor's love interest Jane Foster, is pretty weak. Portman can't shoulder all the blame here, though, as her character is almost completely superfluous to the plot. We are clearly meant to believe there is much more of a connection between Foster and Thor than is ever shown on screen. They make eyes at each other and share a kiss, but the movie earns no real emotion in that relationship. Stellan Skarsgaard, as Foster's mentor Dr. Erik Selvig, is considerably more interesting than Portman, and the part is better written.

Thor's fellow Asgardian adventurers, particularly Ray Stevenson as Vostagg, are entertaining, and could have used more screen time. Clark Gregg reprises his role as Agent Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D., providing a touchstone with the other films in the Marvel franchise, having played the same character in Iron Man and its sequel. He's fine, in a somewhat unchallenging role.

We'll see Thor again, next year, in The Avengers, but it's hard to see how he will stand up next to the vastly more entertaining and nuanced character of Tony Stark/Ironman that Robert Downey, Jr. will be bringing to the table. Hemsworth may be fine, but the character of Thor is a bore.

Improv 101

2011-05-13T13:42:00.000-07:00

It's a little irritating when you go into something thinking you're going to be great at it and you're just so-so. That's what comes of taking a class with a bunch of talented people, I guess.

We had our fifth (of eight) session of Improv 101 with the Upright Citizens Brigade last night, and the above statement notwithstanding, I'm having a very good time. I'm also getting a serious appreciation for the people who get up there and do this in public several nights a week. It takes a hell of a lot of brainpower. It's one thing to toss out an unscripted line in a show every once in a while, but creating something entertaining out of nothing at all, on the fly, is a completely different animal.

I'm glad that taking the class also allows us to go to shows at the UCB Theatre for free. It's a good excuse to see some damn entertaining performances. So far, I've seen the comedy team "The Smokes" three times, and had a great time at every show.

Three more weeks (give or take) and then we get to put on our own "final exam" show and consider moving on to the next level of classes. I strongly suspect I'll be taking 201.

Blogger Hiccup

2011-05-13T12:11:00.000-07:00

Looks like my long-winded post about the decline of World of Warcraft was mercifully destroyed by Blogger. You lucky bastards.

EDIT: Nope, it's back.

Too Early to Call It?

2011-05-12T09:11:00.000-07:00

Warning: Contains talk about Warcraft, which may bore the hell out of you.

Activision Blizzard is apparently feeling a pinch on the order of about 600,000 fewer World of Warcraft subscribers since the launch of their most recent expansion, Cataclysm. That's people who have already tired of the new content, and reverses a pretty consistent trend with the game.

As a player, I'm starting to get the impression that this game may, finally, be on its way out. Not just for me -- I still play, after all -- but in terms of lifetime. It has, after all, been a pretty long life for a video game.

I'm not saying WoW will go off the air within a year, or three, but I don't think that there's much in the way of new life to the old girl, and the fact that a literal revamp of the entire world hasn't revitalized the game is pretty indicative that that is the case. I'm pretty sure that the current decline will speed up, rather than slow down, in the coming months.

So what, in retrospect, has Blizzard let slide (if anything)?

Art

Though most of the new zones in Cataclysm are pretty incredible looking, within the limits of the aging WoW graphics engine, they are largely populated by been-there, seen-that creatures. The same two earth elementals, over and over and over again, do not inspire. They bore. Monsters that were once interesting, such as the creepy tentacle guys from Northrend, now show up anywhere Blizzard needs a shorthand for "corrupt." And nagas. Jesus. More nagas than you can shake a stick at, this time around, and only three or four different models to choose from.

Yes, I'm aware that new art assets are time consuming to create, but expecting players to stare at the same shitty ghoul model that's been around since WoW first launched, or the same harpy, or the same dragonkin, just isn't terribly smart.

Not to mention the truly, truly awful character art. WoW's humans look like relics from 90s gaming. Their faces are painfully bad, and there is almost no variation in human males other than hair. Every one has Popeye arms and a harelip. You still can't customize anything about a character's body. Everyone of any given race/gender is the same height and build. Everyone has the same voice.

In the dubious name of PvP balance, Blizzard has never allowed any customization of gear, unlike virtually every other MMO out there. That means that every warrior who's hit the maximum level and done similar content looks exactly the same. It's ludicrous and archaic.

Options

Balance is an issue in a game that attempts the sort of Player-vs-Environment/Player-vs-Player mix that WoW has, but this has been dealt with by Blizzard in a very closed manner. Since the launch of the game, only one new character type has been added (Death Knights in Wrath of the Lich King), and anyone who's stuck with the game this long has probably played them all to some degree.

This has made the game very static. Even when existing classes get "major changes," as they did at the beginning of Cataclysm, there isn't the injection of vitality you might get with a new class or two. Since the difference between WoW races are mostly cosmetic, adding a new pair of races did little to help this problem.

Content

Five levels of expanded content have proved pretty slim. A determined player can easily move from the previous maximum level (80) to the new maximum (85) in two weeks. This doesn't compute when you're talking about a gap of at LEAST 18 months between expansions.

Once again, Blizzard has resorted to tedious reputation and gear grinds without considering some of the strengths that other (admittedly less popular) online games have introduced. The "public quest" system in Warhammer Online was an interesting mechanic, adopted by other games, such as Champions Online, and could easily have been brought into WoW in some form.

Rift has heavily emphasized semi-random world events, and Blizzard would do well to remember the frenzied popularity of the short-lived world events that preceded their own expansions, particularly those that introduced Wrath of the Lich King.

Instead of expanding their existing crafting system, Blizzard introduced what is essentially a novelty skill in Archaeology. Lots of toys for those folks who enjoy that kind of collecting, and completely worthless for those who do not.

Lore

Honestly, Blizzard kind of used up their store of nifty lore from the years of Warcraft games, and seemed not to have much left for Cataclysm. Illidan and Arthas were bigger-than-life characters in the Warcraft universe, the major players of Warcraft III, and each is now history. Most players had no idea who Deathwing was before he shook up the world, and he just doesn't carry the same pathos that surrounded the "final bosses" of previous expansions.

As a nearly-godlike dragon, Deathwing has no real "character" to speak of. No one expects him to have any kind of redemption story. He'll fall out of the sky in a big ball of fire at the end of a raid sometime toward the end of 2011 and that will be that. No souls will finally be laid to rest by his demise, no justice will be done. Deathwing was a bad choice, to be blunt. There were many figures that could have been dusted off and rung much more clearly to players: Sargeras, Gul'dan, Azshara, etc.

So why stick with WoW at all?

Well, for a lot of people (myself included), WoW is still more or less the only game in town. I'm currently exclusively a Mac person, so most of the current crop of MMOs, including Rift, are really not options. The social aspect of WoW is also still pretty strong. Your friends play, so you play. But even that seems to be unraveling faster than Blizzard can patch it.

Sooner or later, a real WoW-killer will come along. I'm just not sure how much will be left to kill.

Game of Thrones - Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things

2011-05-09T10:30:00.000-07:00

Yeah ... this episode really had highs and lows. It was Exposition City, for starters, and a lot of the exposition was kind of awkward or even inexplicable.

First, the Bad:

An entire scene of Viserys talking about dragon skulls? To what purpose? And throwing in dragon names from other fictional sources is pretty lame, even if Vermithrax did make me chuckle.

I've pretty much given up on the Dothraki "horde" looking like much more than a couple dozen guys on horseback. The actors are all doing a fine job over in that subplot, but it feels absurdly low-budget compared to the rest of the show.

Littlefinger giving the Hound's backstory to Sansa? Seriously? Probably the worst thing the series has done. Totally screws the Hound's character, and contradicts the point of the story -- nobody is supposed to know it except the people who were there, and Sansa, after the Hound tells her. It's kind of pivotal to the Hound's character. I suspect this means the Hound isn't going to be much of a character in this series, and that is a terrible mistake given his importance later on down the line.

Now the Good:

Catelyn's arrest of Tyrion. Calling out each of the men by their lord's names. Very dramatic and well shot. I continue to love Dinklage in this part. His manner as Tyrion is arrogant but not off-putting.

Julian Glover, as Grand Maester Pycelle, is hiding a lot behind the tired old man facade. He's a great actor, and I'm just disappointed he's too old to have been cast as Tywin Lannister, because he would have been incredible.

The "you don't know cold" scene in the dining hall at Castle Black when Thorne gives Jon and Sam a very sobering dressing-down was probably the best scene in this episode. Owen Teale (Thorne) is kicking the ass of a fairly minor part.

Game of Thrones - The Cast

2011-05-04T19:34:00.000-07:00

So, three episodes in and things are starting to take shape, but what shape are they starting to take?

From pretty much every angle, this series is presenting a faithful, quality adaptation of the first book of George R. R. Martin's grim but great fantasy series, "A Song of Ice and Fire."

Predictably, the best performance by quite a gap is being given by Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister. As soon as he was cast, I was ready to pay for HBO. He is so goddamn good that I get irritated with how short some of his scenes seem to be. To be fair, though, Tyrion really doesn't get cooking until ... well, probably Sunday night at this rate.

I was a bit puzzled by the casting of Mark Addy as King Robert. Puzzled, that is, until his first scene in the first episode. He's doing a great job. His Robert is multi-layered in the best sense. He is sick of his wife and doesn't like his children. He still hurts over the loss of his true love. And, he's a mean drunk.

Sean Bean is tackling Eddard Stark with a grim stoicism that fits the character, but he's coming off a bit dull. I've always thought Eddard was a little thick -- he's clearly terminally stubborn -- but here he's often boring. I'm not sure what you could do with Eddard to make him more interesting, though. He's a stiff, hidebound guy surrounded by more colorful characters.

Likewise mired a bit is Kit Harrington as Jon Snow. Like Eddard, Jon is honorable to a fault (at least he starts out that way -- after that it depends who you ask), and like Bean's Eddard, Harrington's Snow is kind of overshadowed by the other characters who populate the series.

The other kids have all been aged up a touch, to no real detriment. Danerys (Emilia Clarke) is the most drastically changed, going from the book's scandalous 13 to ... oh, maybe 17-18 (Clarke was 22-23 at the time of filming, but she looks younger). It changes things, to be sure, but she's selling it, and it doesn't seem to hurt the story much. And, honestly, you really couldn't do anything else on TV. Even on HBO.

I will say that the kid they got to play Joffrey Baratheon (Jack Gleeson) hasn't done much for me so far. Yes, he's supposed to be a horrible person, but he's supposed to look like an angel, not a sneering Draco Malfoy clone. His best scene thus far has been one entirely fabricated for the series (though it doesn't jar), in which he tells his mother that he's ashamed of his beating and mauling at the hands of Arya Stark and her direwolf.

Lena Headey plays Joffrey's mother, Queen Cersei, and she is probably the character most altered by the transition to the screen. In the books, Cersei is pretty horrible even in chapters where she is the POV character. She's petty and cruel. The HBO series has softened her character a bit, and it isn't an unwelcome change. The Cersei of the books would probably wear out her welcome pretty quickly. This Cersei is still scheming, still cruel, but she is more obviously intelligent without seeming like a simple "evil queen."

Casting-wise, they have really done quite well. Tomorrow I'll go into other aspects of the show, and, yes, get a little critical. EDIT: Or not, really. I don't think I can make much hay of gripes with this show, to be honest, because I think it's really going to start rolling this Sunday.

9

2009-09-14T09:09:00.001-07:00

Rating: 7.5/9

9 doesn't exactly improve upon the amazing short film that it is based upon, but that's hardly surprising. Shorts extended to feature length rarely do (District 9 being a notable exception). The main shortcoming of the feature is that the haunting stillness of the short, which featured no voice acting at all, is replaced here by ... well, too many voices.

It's been said many times, but bears repeating: Please, Hollywood, for the love of God, we do not care if movie stars do the voices in animated features, just get someone who can do them well.

That's not to say that the voice cast of 9 is bad. Christopher Plummer is quite good, in fact. But Elijah Wood and John C. Reilly are just ... themselves. They have distinctive, easily-recognized voices, but they are not the voices of the characters, they are the voices of the actors. Jennifer Connelly, on the other hand, isn't even distinctive. She is serviceable, but why on earth would you pay to have Jennifer Connelly in a movie in which you don't actually get to see her? Even worse is Crispin Glover, not because he does a bad job, but because his character has, at most, six to ten lines, none of which were memorable or required a shaky-creepy psycho voice. It could have been anyone.

As to the rest of the film, it was beautifully animated and fun, if a bit light on plot. It was more of an extended couple of sequences, really, though that's pretty much par for the course in action movies. Lots of leaping away from explosions and dangling from high places, and smashing scenery and, "We can't just leave them to die!" and "Nooo!" etc.

It depicts a post-apocalyptic world in which the machines have revolted (again) and killed off all the humans. The only survivors are nine little burlap robot-things, the only purpose of which seems to be to be the protagonists of the film. It's pretty standard action movie stuff once you get past the unique style, but the style is gorgeous and interesting.

Note: The monsters that stalk these little sack people are pretty scary, and they shriek a lot, and about as loudly as the sound system will allow, so think twice before taking little kids to see it.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

2009-08-18T09:59:00.000-07:00

Rating: Better than you expect, if your expectations are very low.

There's a weird vicious circle going on with this movie. Many people have rightly said that, if your expectations aren't too high, this is an entertaining film. But that faint praise has a way of raising one's expectations of the movie, which is not a good thing.

To say that this is a stupid film is almost unnecessary -- if you've seen the trailer, you've heard Dennis Quaid solemnly intone: "This is General Hawk. The mission is a go!"

That said, it may be more instructive to mention that this movie is so stupid that it quite literally has characters in submarines fleeing from sinking ice after an explosion breaks up an ice pack.

As a frenetic popcorn movie made up of almost nothing but battle and chase scenes, it certainly isn't boring, but so much of the film is CGI -- and not very good CGI for the most part -- that it really feels like you're watching a cartoon.

This, of course, takes it back to its source material, which was pretty stupid in itself. The movie derives virtually none of its inspiration from the underrated Marvel Comics title of the 80s, rather paying what little respect it does to the silly cartoon series of the same era.

Even there, though, it is only a superficial nod. None of the character dynamics even from that shallow kids cartoon have survived into this film. Of the cartoon's three principal characters present here, only Duke has any substantial part to play. Scarlett is a sidekick and romantic interest for Ripcord (who, if he had any story outside of the toy line, I don't remember it, yet is here placed in a starring role).

Snake Eyes, the iconic mute ninja/commando of the franchise, is present, but story-less. Other than some flashbacks of his rivalry with evil ninja Storm Shadow, he is a complete cipher. He's not even mute in this version, merely having taken a vow of silence. Everything tragic and mysterious about his character has been completely excised, and that pretty much goes for every other aspect of the franchise as well.

Stephen Sommers clearly understands the G.I. Joe property about as well as he did the classic Universal monsters he co-opted for Van Helsing (i.e. not at all), but at least this time around he's managed to maintain a better momentum, with fewer groan-inducing moments. Some of the action sequences are quite spectacular, particularly one in which the bad guys attempt to dislodge Snake Eyes from atop their vehicle by ... well, you kinda have to see it.

And, honestly, if you don't see it on a big screen, it's almost certainly not worth seeing, because it's a BIG movie.

Blue Pencil #11: Empire of the BattleLord

2009-06-10T12:29:00.000-07:00

When looking for a subject for this installment of Blue Pencil, I stumbled across Empire of the BattleLord, by Bradley C Hawthorne -- a novel whose synopsis reads like bad resume.

The BattleLord would never truly understand the combination of genetics and cosmic circumstances that had thrust him through the Veil that separates the Light from the Dark Matter Universe.

If you must list a personal weakness, always make sure that it's one that either isn't really a weakness ("I just work to darn hard!") or is one that the potential employer must admit they share ("Well, who does have a comprehensive understanding of both genetics and random cosmic mischance as it relates to the bifurcated universes?") Score one for the BattleLord!

His biological being is subsumed by symbiotic infections, restoring his youth and vitality, repairing a lifetime of damage to his body, rendering him impervious to all but the most horrific of wounds.

I'm not sure that an infection that makes you nigh invulnerable qualifies as "overcoming adversity and personal tragedy," but Legal says we have to give these types of claims the benefit of the doubt.

Discovered by the Dough Boys, his physical makeup is further enhanced by the inclusion of shields, weapons, and data organization devices.

"Discovered?" Come on, does he think he's Marilyn Monroe or something? And this sounds like he's bragging that he has his own PDA.

By utilizing his unique capabilities, he lives entire lifetimes on varied worlds and places throughout the natural universe.

Ugh. Buzzwords. Can't he just say he has a wide body of experience or something? God.

With loving guidance from the peoples of these worlds, he acquires the moral convictions that have since guided his every action.

Oh man. He sounds like an abortion clinic bomber. Probably leaves leaflets on co-workers' desks inviting them to Tuesday night Bible Study and smiles with strained tolerance when people talk about their weekends.

Driven to know the why of it all, he confronts the Maker, a being, entity, or machine that has existed since the very beginning of time.

I knew it.

Agreeing to accept the Maker's unconditional offer of ultimate knowledge, the BattleLord becomes subjected to a total reformation. He is rebuilt, atom by atom, to form a being that is no longer truly a product of either the Light Matter or the Dark, but a unique combination of both.

Does this guy actually have any experience, or am I supposed to hire him based entirely on his spiritual growth? And who wouldn't agree to an unconditional offer of ultimate knowledge? I hope it included knowledge of PowerPoint, at least.

Armed with the boon of immortality, The BattleLord explores new worlds to ensure the continuation of sentient life throughout the cosmos.

That's a pretty vague objective. I mean, we're all very keen on the continuation of sentient life and all that, but it really makes it sound like he's too lazy to write a resume for this specific position.

Sorry, BattleLord, in this economy you're up against people with a lot more experience and less goofy New Age crap on their CVs. Best of luck in your future endeavors!

Buy it here at AuthorHouse.com!

Brick

2009-06-01T09:45:00.000-07:00

Rating: 9 out of 10. Not bad, shamus, but you forgot one thing...

I read a review in the Onion AV Club's "New Cult Classics" series praising this little-seen but much-praised 2005 movie, and I'm very glad I did.

Brick is nothing more or less than a film noir set in a high school. The dialogue is almost entirely done with a Chandler-esque sensibility, including some slang that will leave you puzzled if you're not familiar with the genre. Even if you are, the dialogue can be a bit hard to hear at times, so you may have to resort to subtitles now and then.

Brendan (Joseph Gordon Levitt) is a high school loner who we first see staring at the body of his ex-girlfriend Emily, lying face down in a storm drain. The movie then flashes back two days to give us a little background on the situation, including a tearful and mysterious phone call between the two in which Emily asks Brendan for help but then hangs up in fear of an approaching car.

After discovering Emily's body, Brendan makes the dubious choice of hiding it, in order to pursue his own investigation/vengeance before the police get in the way. His style of investigation is pure Phillip Marlowe -- he gets his ass kicked a lot, but never loses his wry sense of humor or smartass dialogue. He doesn't have all the answers, but he'll get them sooner or later.

Some great supporting performances are also featured, including Richard Roundtree as a tough vice principal and a fantastic Lukas Haas as a sinister underworld figure.

The standout, though, is Gordon-Levitt, who sells Brendan as a troubled high school loner and a flatfoot right out of a Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler story with amazing results. He's actually required to show a lot more range of emotion than the characters Brendan is inspired by, but does so without missing a beat.

Up

2009-06-01T09:05:00.000-07:00

Rating: 95/99 Luftbaloons

Bit of a Fargo experience here.

I mean, yeah, it was a very good movie, but my expectations were so high from the "Jesus has come again and lo! He is playing at a cineplex near you"-level of praise the movie received that I was only very pleased, rather than reduced to a slobbering mass of moviegoer.

On the other hand, I keep hearing that it's "almost as good as Wall-E," which is retarded because it's considerably better than Wall-E.

Wall-E had a fantastic first act followed by a merely okay second and third. Up has a fantastic first act followed by a hysterical second act and a spectacular third.

Tiny gripe:

To say a movie about a man who flies his house to South America using children's helium balloons stretches credibility may sound a bit stupid, but I did find myself pulled out of the film a few times by "unrealistic" bits. For the most part, these involved heroic and/or acrobatic actions on the part of the elderly protagonist who, despite the fact that he needs a cane to walk (slowly) can, when called to action, support the weight of a very fat kid and two large animals on the end of a length of garden hose, with nothing to brace himself on. He is also able to scale a nearly-horizontal ladder upside-down -- a feat that I seriously doubt I could duplicate, despite my lack of elderly-ness.

Huge gripe:

The theatre we saw it at, for some reason, did not show us the new Pixar short beforehand. What the hell, people?

Still, it's a great movie. Just don't sit in front of a kid whose parents don't give a fuck if he kicks your chair the entire time.

Rachel Getting Married

2009-05-12T09:05:00.001-07:00

Rating: 4 out of 12 Steps

Rachel Getting Married is one of those movies that's good because somebody smart said it was. It's not any fun to watch, and has almost no entertainment value, but it's artsy.

Everyone in this movie is fucking miserable, and damned if director Jonathan Demme isn't going to make sure the viewer is just as miserable every step of the way. If you need any proof of this fact, go ahead and run over to IMDB and take note of the fact that over half of the credited cast are playing parts that start with the phrase "12-Step."

Rachel's sister Kym (Anne Hathaway) just got out of rehab (yay!), and it wasn't her first time, by a long shot. She's got a miserable history of addiction and tragedy. Her family is broken by divorce and remarriage and has been driven to a near psychotic level of multiculturalism as a result.

Kym shows up, with her bitchiness turned up to about eight, guilts her sister into making her maid of honor (after she sleeps with the best man -- apparently minutes after arriving -- and he tells her she's not) instead of her friend who has actually helped plan the whole thing and actually, you know, not been a total bitch to Rachel and everyone else she can get her smoke-blowing, petulant face in front of.

So, there is a grand total of two likeable characters in this film, neither of which are Kym or Rachel, and one of which (Rachel's fiance) is something of a cypher, since he barely speaks. The other is the best man, but I get the feeling that, if you had a couple of days to get to know him, he'd turn out to be a jerk.

Did I mention that they are inexplicably having an Indian wedding? Well, they are. And it's inexplicable. And Rachel's husband-to-be is a black guy who sings Neil Young songs. I mean, it's like they're trying to confuse me just out of spite.

Rachel is getting married to a ... musician? Producer? I'm not entirely sure, except that he seems to know about four hundred other musicians who are played by real musicians, every one of whom plays at least one song at the wedding, and we get to listen. Wow, Robyn Hitchcock and Fab 5 Freddy are still alive? Awesome.

So what if the movie grinds to a halt every time somebody starts singing? You're supposed to be suffering, here, viewer!

This movie has more false endings than Return of the King. And, no, I'm not exaggerating. Every time the camera lingers on people as music plays and they all look at each other with a sad sort of reflection in their eyes ... Brazilian showgirls come running in!

Well, that only happens once, but it is not nearly as fun as it sounds.

There are some saving graces to the film, don't get me wrong. The acting is fine, the ... um ... well, the acting is good. The plot is manipulative button-pushing, but it's not boring, I guess. But if you don't like depressing stories featuring bitchy people with terrible family histories, filmed with a Cloverfield-esque lack of steadicam (barf!), I wouldn't recommend it.

Unless I didn't like you.

Star Trek

2009-05-11T09:00:00.000-07:00

Rating: Varies (see below)

It's hard to rate a Star Trek film. Do you rate it compared to other movies, or compared to other science fiction movies? Or do you rate it in comparison with the rest of the franchise?

Either way, this film is certainly above average. As a science fiction movie, it delivers somewhere in the top 10%. As a Star Trek movie, it's a solid #2, behind the classic Wrath of Khan. As a movie, it's fairly average, with a massively overwrought plot that doesn't really make a lot of sense, counterbalanced by some excellent performances and a lot of good popcorn fun.

Luckily for Trek fans, the best performances in the film are given by our favorite four characters. Chris Pine is a great Kirk, Zachary Quinto manages to divorce himself from Heroes' Sylar completely and give us a Spock that feels very genuine, and Simon Pegg is a fun, if silly Scotty. Far and away the best of the big four, however, is Karl Urban's McCoy. Every word that comes out of his mouth is pure McCoy and he nails the character without seeming at all like he's doing an impression of DeForest Kelley's original.

My main gripe with the movie has to be the weak, weak villain. Eric Bana plays "Nero," a Romulan from a future in which Romulus has been destroyed and who, for rather idiotic reasons, has come to the past for vengeance. He's got the ingredients for pathos, but the movie just doesn't give him much to do with them. On top of that, he's sort of a "working class" Romulan, and lacks the panache of a really good space opera villain. Basically, he's pissed off, has a plan for vengeance, and really isn't very clever at all. There are a couple of attempts to give him some Khan-style gravitas, but they fall almost completely flat.

The plot, as I mentioned above, is way more convoluted than it ought to be. I don't know why the writers feel that time travel has to feature so heavily, considering that the very best installments of the series (Khan and Undiscovered Country) left it out. It is necessary for the pseudo-reboot that Abrams is effecting here, though, I guess.

This is kind of pedantic, but the "science" in this science fiction film, is almost more Star Wars than Star Trek. Trek has never been particularly realistic, but there's always been an attempt, at least, to cover up the hand-waving with some believable technobabble. I guess any cinematic attempt to work black holes and time travel into a plot is going to get a little goofy, but they don't even bother to handwave much this time around.

As far as visuals go, the action scenes at the personal level are better than any previous installment's, and the space sequences are very slick. Turning the Enterprise into a fighter plane rather than a battleship, while making for much more kinetic battle sequences, does have its drawbacks, however. There is little sense of mass in these vessels, and a corresponding failure to evoke the gut-wrenching feeling of damage that was so powerful in Khan.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

2009-05-01T16:17:00.000-07:00

Rating: 20 minutes out of 107 I'll never get back.

The makers of X-Men Origins: Wolverine are ahead of their time. They really should have waited until the Academy Awards show added a trophy for "Best Example of How Not to Make a Comic Book Movie," because they would have had it in the bag.

It's really a pity, because you can tell they worked so hard to hit every note precisely:

Total disregard for the source? CHECK!
Shitty green screen? CHECK!
Shitty green screen in scenes that don't even need it? Like walking into some trees? CHECK!
Fights that are so obviously on wires that they might as well have left them in? CHECK!
Cornball dialogue? CHECK!
Inconsistent even with other movies in the same franchise? CHECK!
Good actors wasted by a shitty script? CHECK!
Villain whose plan makes no fucking sense at all? CHECK!
Way, way too many characters, "to make the fans happy?" CHECK!
Characters who have no business in the story, just because they're popular? CHECK!

How this movie passed the kindergartner test is beyond me.

Focus Group Schmuck: So, Billy, what did you think about that scene with the motorcycle? Cool, huh?

Kindergartner: But ... the man from Wanted --

FGS: He's not from Wanted, he's Agent Zero!

K: Really? Cause he is just like that guy ... except when he's stealing moves from Christian Bale's character in Equilibrium.

FGS: AGENT ZERO. NOT FROM WANTED. Thank you.

K: Okay, the man who shoots things super fast and never misses ... why doesn't he shoot the motorcycle wheels?

FGS: Um ...

K: And since they know the only way to stop Wolverine is with adamantite bullets, why don't they give the gun with those bullets in it to the man who never misses with a gun instead of just leaving them lying around for the first two acts?

FGS: Uh ... he can only shoot regular bullets. Yeah.

K: And why do they keep saying Wolverine did bad things? He whines about every bad thing his friends do and then leaves before they even do it.

FGS: Well, he's the hero. We can't show him doing anything actually bad, because that would be complicated.

K: And why is Cyclops in it? He didn't know Wolverine in the other movie that comes later.

FGS: Well, it is a long time ago, maybe he forgot.

K: That seems unlikely.

FGS: A very long time ago.

K: If it's so long ago, why are they driving around in Hummers and using modern computers?

FGS: They're mutants.

K: Did you guys make this suck this bad just to make Brett Ratner feel better about himself?

FGS: Well ... Wait. How old are you again? Security!

EXACTLY!

2009-04-24T08:45:00.000-07:00

If there is one good thing about Fox News, it is Shepard Smith.

How you doin?

2009-01-30T09:53:00.000-08:00

Ink Gorilla: How you doin?

Me:

Imagine a bunch of logs floating down a river, and I'm a beaver trying to build a dam.

And these logs are on fire.

And filled with (fireproof) termites.

And they're the wrong kind of wood for dam building.

And my dam is already built, and I'm trying to replace parts of it with these logs.

And there's also this huge factory.

And I have to build this other factory next door to it.

And this other factory has to produce the exact same product, using an entirely different process.

And in building this other factory, I am assisted by a mad scientist who speaks only in analogies, and who thinks that the old factory should never have been built in the first place. And I can't afford to keep the scientist around to finish the factory.

And in order to test the new factory, I have to get the same raw materials as the old factory, but the old factory is destroying those materials when it's done with them, so I have to replicate them before it starts using them.

And the only way to do that is to change the way the old factory processes its materials, which means I have to partially rebuild the old factory before I can build the new factory to emulate what the old factory did.

And we have four or five blueprints for what the old factory made, none of which resemble each other. And some sets are in imperial units and some are in metric.

And I'm not allowed to see some of them.

And a bunch of guys with wrecking balls are standing next to the old factory and continually asking me when they can start tearing it down.

All while my dam is burning and all the termites are wearing watches and saying, "When's lunch?"

That's pretty much it.

Royale with Cheese

2009-01-15T15:28:00.001-08:00

I Wish I Had Said This

2009-01-08T08:46:00.000-08:00

When both are asked which historical figure they'd like to be, in order to do something different, Al Franken deftly illustrates the stupidity of Ann Coulter.

from YesButNoButYes

Blue Pencil #10: Dead World

2008-12-11T12:29:00.000-08:00

Two posts in two days! You guys are so spoiled.

The cover of Dead World, by Benjamin W. Schenk, made me hope briefly for a World War Z rip-off or something. No such luck. Turns out to be a post-apocalyptic novel about bomb shelters and hot daughters written in an exciting, exclamation point-heavy style.

In Brief:

In the near future, a nuclear holocaust erupts, destroying 75% of the known world. Ward Sands thought it would happen and was prepared. He, his family, and friends get inside some bomb shelters built by him and a friend.

The story is about the life inside of the bomb shelters and what they awaken to. After weeks inside of the bomb shelter, they fall into a suspended state. What they awaken to, on the outside world, is a completely different world of both wonder and danger! The story follows this man, his family, and their friends as they fight for survival against innumerable odds!

About the Author:

My name is Benjamin Schenk and this is my fifth science-fiction/fantasy novel. My four previous novels are called Second World, Invasion of the Planet Gods, The Seven and the Seven: The Second Invasion.

I am a lover of science-fiction, fantasy and horror. My favorite authors are HG Wells, John Norman, JK Rowlings and numerous others in the field, both past and present.

Note #1: If someone is one of your favorite authors, you should be able to spell their name.

Note #2: If John Norman is one of your favorite authors, I do not want to know you. (If you don't know who John Norman is, do yourself a favor and don't look him up.

Note #3: If you're a fan of both J.K. Rowling and John Norman, I really shouldn't even be reading your work. That's just a little too creepy.

I also like comics, especially Superman, Batman, Green Arrow and the Justice League!

Wow, he likes those three superheroes and the team to which they all belong? Crazy!

Excerpt:

Chapter 4

Deep underground, in a bomb shelter; Ward, Samantha and the five girls are in a larg room. The six females sit on two large king-sized beds and Ward sits on a leather desk chair. They are intently listening to a radio as it broadcasts reports of the bombs falling all over the world! The bomb shelter is brightly lit with both battery-powered and propane-powered lanterns. Overhead lights are working on a gasoline generator.

I am consistently surprised by the seeming lack of care these authors apply to their excerpts and bios. These are supposed to give people an impression of what your book will be like!

From this paragraph, my impression will be that it is a sloppily-edited, poorly-puncutated story written in script-like present tense. If you're not a good enough writer to notice glaring errors in your excerpts, then you are certainly not good enough to write an entire story in present tense and not sound like an idiot.

Explosions go off from outside of their bomb shelter! Fressy and Brandy hurry from their bed to their father's side.

"Fressy and Brandy?" Death's too good for em.

He sympathetically hugs the two beautiful girls as they stare at the concrete ceiling above their heads!

Why is this exciting enough to warrant an exclamation point? "My God, the ceiling ... it's concrete! And it's above our heads!"

Ward looks over at where the beautiful, 22-year-old Jazmine is staring at the ceiling, as well.

"Are you all right, princess?" Ward asks.

I am solidly on the side of the bombs, now.

Jazmine nods her head, never uttering a word. The sound of a huge explosion goes off, causing the petite blonde to spring to her feet.

There is a very creepy vibe here, no? His beautiful, petite, blonde daughter is getting an awful lot of porn-prep description. I'm surprised he hasn't mentioned her cup size yet. (The fact that they installed two king-sized beds in a bomb shelter also gives me pause.)

Sierra stands, putting her arms around her younger sister. The two sistes are staring at the ceiling.

Which two? Isn't everybody staring at he ceiling at this point?

"We're safe in here, Jazmine." Samantha says, taking hold of Jazmine's small right hand.

(Her left hand, I'm assuming, is normal.)

"But how do we know that for sure?" Jazmine asks, her voice filled with fear. "How do we know that Ward and the others made these things strong enough that a nuclear bomb won't destroy them?"

"Princess, I wish I could be more positive but we did the best we could." Ward replies. "Truth is, there is no way to really test these shelters unless something like this happens and by then, it could be too late."

Way to go with the pep talk, Ward. I think we all feel a lot better now.

Jazmine nods her head. Sierra picks up a portable CD player and hands it to Jazmine. She is about to put the head-phones on when another huge explosion goes off! The radio broadcast ends, becoming nothing more than static.

Mr. Schenk's powers of description are truly mesmerizing. "Explosions going off" is so vivid, I almost feel like I'm in the bomb shelter with them, in the dim light of the flickering, low-watt flourescents, feeling each vibration of the earth pass through my body like a shudder as the bombs destroy the world I knew outside.

Chapter 37

The preachers step back from the two females. Sierra tearfully looks back at the tied and gagged Jazmine, as well as where Brandy and Fressy are tied up and standing beside of her.

"We know what we lose." Sierra says. "What does she have to lose?"

"Her life!" The preacher says. "And in the process, the Amazons lose their second queen within a month!"

Which preacher? You're going to have to be more specific.

Sierra walks back to Jazmine and tightly hugs her!

Oh my god! I expected her to tenderly hug her, maybe tearfully, but tightly? No way!

She kisses her younger sister on her gagged mouth. She kisses her cousins, as well. She looks into Jazmine's tear-filled blue eyes.

"Remember, shrimp, no matter what happens, I will always love you!?" Sierra says.

"Me, too." Jazmine says, through her gag. "Now kick her butt!"

Apparently they have a futuristic type of gag in the future through which one can talk clearly. I'm not sure that's an advancement in gag science.

Sierra turns back to the Amazon. The Amazon now holds a knife. Sierra looks over at the preachers, confused.

"Wait a minute!" Sierra frightfully says. "I'm unarmed."

"You may take a weapon if you like." The preacher says. "This is your home ground. Use whatever you can!"

"Actually, this is the first time I've ever been here." Sierra nervously says. "Our home ground is a long ways away from here!"

"Either find a weapon or fight her like you are!" The preacher demands.

Sierra grabs a large rock!

A rock! Yes! Of course! This is thrill-a-minute stuff here. Totally out of left field.

She looks back at Jazmine and then at the Amazon.

"My friends know me as this soft-hearted, caring person! My sister and my cousins look up to me as their role-model and their caretaker!" Sierra says, taking deep breaths as she talks.

Try saying that to yourself, with the exclamation points. She's a caring person, you sick bastards! Now do it with the deep breaths.

Don't pass out or anything, I just think it's a funny.

No doubt what follows is a battle royale that, to try to squeeze it into an excerpt, would spoil the entire book for us. I'm betting there's some girl-on-girl in there someplace, too, but he wants $18.30 for the paperback, which is kinda outrageous.

Blue Pencil #9: Mirror Image

2008-12-09T13:18:00.000-08:00

I know it's been a long time, but I thought I'd do another Blue Pencil, just for the hell of it. So here's an insulting, cursory look at Mirror Image, by Richard Flewelling.

It is often said: "Everyone has a "double" out there, somewhere."

I'm pretty sure my double knows how to use quotation marks.

What would happen if a persons "double" actually interfaced with the "Other Doubles Peer Group" and do it so perfectly, no one could tell the difference?

I'm not "sure."

Nick Bogart is about to find out.

On a chilly afternoon in 1962, Nick Bogart found little amusement in his favorite Saloon across the state line of Iowa/South Dakota in North Sioux City.

He's about to find out ... 46 years ago?

Bogie wandered across the street to see if the entertainment quotient was any better over there.

The "entertainment quotient" = (number of attractive women) / (number of dudes present who are better looking than you). Modified by alchohol consumption, of course.

Somewhere in the distance of 150 feet, "Bogey" stepped into the world of "Gary Luther".

Somewhere in the very precise distance, apparently. And not only can he not use quotation marks, he's also a little shaky on the spelling of his own nickname. This bodes poorly for "Bogey(ie)."

It may just as well have been a pathway to a corner of Hell. It did not seem that way at first. When Gary Luther’s drop-dead gorgeous girlfriend climbed on to Bogey’s lap in a burst of passionate familiarity, Bogey decided it might be OK to stay as "Gary" for "just a little while".

Bogie stayed "Gary" too long.

There was "baggage" with this relationship.

God knows, anytime a drop-dead gorgeous woman who is a complete stranger leaps on my lap in a burst of "passionate familiarity," the last thing I suspect is that she may have issues.

This woman was woefully underage, and had a lunatic estranged husband chasing around looking for her.

How underage is "woefully?" And she's already married, to boot? Baggage indeed.

Gary also had enemies, and a mysterious existence. No one knew where he came from, or what he did for a living. All anyone knew about him was that he had lots of "Charm."

And a penchant for air-quotes that underage married girls found irresistible.

It is also a time of discovery of the differing depths and heights of romantic realities for Bogey, as well as the existance of worlds he is not familiar.

I'm gonna have to just let that one stand.

Things are happening he cannot explain, and people around Gary were disappearing, and dying out there.

Gary's doctor: Take it easy, Gary ... you're two-tense!

Bogey finds himself captured in an ever-tightening spiral of confusion, danger, passion, violence, mystery, the supernatural, and heartbreak; trying to understand what is going on, and trying to get back some semblance of normalicy in his life.

Wow, that is one drama-packed spiral.

And now, an excerpt:

As I pulled into the large bare dirt parking area of the "overlook", I remarked to myself as I saw her standing a short distance from her car looking out over the tri-state vista and then turning to me as she heard me pull up, what a enchanting creature this young woman truly was.

Dayam, but that is one helluva run-on sentence.

Daylight can usually uncover a lot of facial "camouflage", but this gal didn't really need any of that. She was incredibly beautiful. What make-up she wore only added highlights to what features she already had, and hers was about as good as it got.

As a reader, I am already picturing Bogey(ie) doing air quotes in every sentence. He's probably the kind of person who uses cliches like, "Get the ball rolling," and "Get our ducks in a row." God I hate him.

It was a pretty, sunny, early spring day. It was still cold outside, but aside from a bit of patch ice in the shaded areas coming up the hill, most of the roadway was clear of snow and in relatively good condition, as was the Overlook parking area.

Thanks, Gary. We'll keep you folks up to date on WeatherWatch 2009 if conditions change. And now, sports.

As I pulled up a short distance from Jenni's car, it was funny how I mentally thought how the DeVille she drove seemed to be much too big a car for such a small woman.

It would have been funnier if you'd physically thought it.

The remote location was one that had to be a "destination" as the road here was not a common route, and in addition, was a poor one. It could be confusing to someone who did not know the way. It was a perfect "lovers lane".

That's it! The next person who says something with air quotes is going to get punched in the face and I will have a copy of this excerpt handy to justify my rage.

Well, that's about as much as I can handle. You'd think, with subject matter like the blurb describes, he'd have picked a more interesting excerpt. Then again, stumbling this badly when describing a parking lot doesn't exactly lead me to expect titillating love scenes or gripping action.

Quantum of Solace

2008-12-02T09:35:00.000-08:00

Rating: 2.4 Moores / 0.9 Connerys / 2.7 Daltons / 3.1 Lazenbys / 0.75 Craigs

It's okay. Not as good as Casino Royale and not a lot of fun, but fairly well made. The villain's plot is fairly lame, however, leading me to wonder how the guy can even show his face around some old-school Bond villains.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Fake environmentalist meanie DOMINIC GREENE enters ~~SPECTRE~~ Quantum HQ and spots a feeble and wheelchair-bound ERNST STAVRO BLOFELD. Greene approaches Blofeld with a creepy grin and big buggy eyes.

GREENE

Blofeld, good to see you out of traction! You're just in time to hear about our great new villainous scheme!

BLOFELD

Lay it on me, soul brother.

GREENE

We're going to ... overcharge Bolivians for their water! Muhahahahahah!!!

BLOFELD

Come again?

GREENE

... You know. Bolivians. We're stealing their water.

BLOFELD

Bolivians? Who gives a shit?

GREENE

Well, they're thirsty, see, and we stole the water--

BLOFELD

I get that, but is that your whole plan? Christ, son, in my day, we stole NASA Rockets and tried to start World War III! Jesus, even that pussy Hugo Drax tried to nerve gas the entire human race!

GREENE (confused)

Where's the profit in that?

BLOFELD

Profit? Fuck profit! We were in it for the evil, boy.

GREENE

Wait a minute! Our 007 is a lot harsher than yours, old man. He's a killing machine! If we did something really bad, he'd probably kill us and then go find our families. Fucking scary.

BLOFELD

Ah, he's a crybaby. I remember this one 007, we offed his wife right in front of him and he barely ever mentioned it again. Shit. This guy's obsessing over some double-crossing tramp for two movies! I made the mistake of screwing with another 007 when he was visiting his wife's grave and he threw me down an industrial smokestack with a helicopter! And I was in a goddamn wheelchair! Now go get me a cup of coffee before Oddjob drinks the whole goddamn pot.

No Country for Old Men (DVD)

2008-11-21T10:37:00.000-08:00

Rating: What the hell?

Okay, the lesson I am repeatedly failing to learn, it would seem, is, "ignore the hype."

While I'll admit there was some good acting on the part of Javier Bardem, Tommy Lee Jones, and Josh Brolin, and that the first two acts were very tense and interesting, I pretty much hate this movie.

I'll warn you now: If you haven't seen it, don't read any further.

Seriously. I'm spoiling shit in a minute.

You sure?

Okay.

I know that I'll inevitably hear that it's, "more about characters than plot," or that it "defies convention," but the fact of the matter is that it kills the ostensible protagonist off-screen without giving us any indication that that's what's happening. What?

I mean, seriously, we see Moss (Brolin) standing around a pool getting hit on by some woman and the next time we see him, he's been machinegunned by the drug dealers. That's it.

How is that dramatic? How is that anything but annoying?

"Oh, the tragedies of life! There are no clean getaways! Blah blah blah."

Fuck that. If you're gonna kill a major character, I want to see it happen.

Well, surely there must be something else that happens at the end of the movie, right?

Eh. Bardem shows up and caps Mrs. Moss, as we pretty much figured he would. Then he gets into a car wreck, breaks his arm, and limps away. As far as I can tell with my unsophisticated pedestrian tastes, this has fuck-all to do with anything else in the movie.

"He's a force of nature! He symbolizes destruction that can't be stopped!"

No, he's a talented psychopath with a high pain threshold.

Oh, and Tommy Lee Jones talks about a dream he had.

THE END

I love the Coens. I like dark movies with troubling endings. I like very black comedy.

This movie had all of those things, and yet it did nothing for me.

Bardem is good, but Anton Chigurh's basically just Hannibal Lecter with better table manners and a bad haircut. He's scary and he's badass, but that's it. And, honestly, most of his best scenes were in the various trailers and previews.

Woody Harrelson is either miscast or badly written. His character seems to know how dangerous Chigurh is, but is totally cocky and confident that he can out-do him. But, based on how clearly he knows he's fucked as soon as he sees Chigurh, he only reasonable response he could have had would have been to turn down any job involving coming into contact with him in the first place. For a guy who's supposed to be a sharp, keenly analytical thinker, he's pretty stupid.

Tommy Lee Jones never shares a scene with any of the other major characters, so he's kind of just a commentary on the story. The violent things he sees disturb him, but there isn't a lot of story to his story. When he visits a disabled former deputy who worked for his father, he's reminded that quitting, just because he can't change the world, is vanity, but he quits anyway. It's well-done, but where's the story in that?

Josh Brolin has the toughest part in the movie, I'd say, and he does very well, but of course he gets robbed of the one scene you're waiting to see: his death. Moss also never comes face-to-face with Chigurh at all, so their only real confrontations are shooting at each other from a distance and growling at each other on the phone.

I wanted to see Moss live or die. I wanted to see him kill Chigurh or fail to kill him. I wanted to see something, anything other than a long-distance shot of some drug dealers driving away after killing him while we were watching Tommy Lee Jones drive a truck.

I wanted a lot of things, and ended up at roll credits with very little.

Ratner to Direct Conan Remake

2008-11-11T14:16:00.000-08:00

So Brett Ratner has apparently entered final negotiations to direct the upcoming remake of Conan the Barbarian.

Let that sink in for a moment, if you know who Brett Ratner is.

If you don't, he's the genius behind "X-Men, The Last Stand" and "Rush Hour(s) 1-3" and "The Remake of Red Dragon that Sucked."

Basically, he's Hollywood's go-to guy if you want an intellectual property ruined and/or ground into joyless dust. He's a franchise-killer.

Despite the feeble protestations of a few Rush Hour 1 fans, Ratner has never done anything good that has appeared on screen. Nothing. He's a hack, and everyone, including Ratner himself, knows it.

He's currently developing Beverly Hills Cop 4. That is how shit Brett Ratner is.

So, when the slickly-edited trailers make it look like a new Conan is in the offing, and you start to get a little excited, just remember that it's all an illusion. Don't get your hopes up, because Ratner hates you as much as he loves money.

Olberman on Prop 8

2008-11-11T09:38:00.000-08:00

No comment necessary.

Fumbling

2008-11-07T10:23:00.000-08:00

Sorry in advance if my attempts to feed my blog through to Facebook is causing anybody problems. I can't even tell if it works or not.

Worth a Shot

2008-11-07T08:42:00.000-08:00

I don't find internet petitions particularly credible, but in this case, I'll sign.

Petition to Re-Open Proposition 8 for California

FOX News Aghast at Nader

2008-11-05T13:56:00.000-08:00

Not often do I find myself firmly on the side of FOX News, but here we have the end of Ralph Nader as a political figure and Shepard Smith can't believe what he's hearing.

America Wins, California Loses

2008-11-05T09:26:00.000-08:00

I'm kind of surprised at how mixed my reaction is to this election result.

Obama, obviously, I'm thrilled for. Unquestionably the most significant and positive political event since the fall of the Berlin Wall, if not before.

But California ... I'm just stunned and ashamed of my state for passing Proposition Hate.

Why, why, why would you do this?

We pass a law giving chickens more rights, but slap gay and lesbian humans in the face?

Make no mistake: If you voted "YES" for Proposition 8, you are either a bigot or an idiot.

Your choice. You're not a "conservative" -- true conservatives want less government mucking with our personal lives. You're not a "Christian" -- no one was going to force Christian churches to perform or endorse same-sex marriage. You're not "protecting children" or "families" -- same-sex couples have children and families just like everyone else, and your petty insistence on marriage being defined the way you think it should be doesn't make those families any less valid (thank God).

You have intentionally changed the constitution to limit the rights of a group you don't like.

Shame on you, California.

Vote

2008-11-03T15:04:00.000-08:00

Oh, and obviously I'm voting for Obama.

I mean, come on. McCain may have been a good candidate a couple of years ago, but he has blown his political capital and credibility in almost every possible way, the most egregious of which being his choice of Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate.

She symbolizes just how far he had to go to pander to the most extreme elements of the Republican right. She also shows how little he knows or cares about women's issues. Her relentless anti-intellectualism is frightening, and the divisive nature of her dialogue is sickening. "The Pro-America" parts of the nation should be rejecting her just as much as those of us who don't believe there is such a thing as an Anti-America part of America.

McCain might have been offended and hurt by the comparisons made between his Post-Palin campaign and the idiom of Joseph McCarthy or George Wallace, but that doesn't make those comparisons any less apt.

That doesn't even take into account the fact that Palin, who he touts as a very capable and ready leader, can't even name a periodical she reads when asked. "Gotcha question," indeed. How would she respond if there was actually a crisis?

I'm not in any hurry to find out. We've had eight years of "gutsy," "folksy" leadership that has been just about the worst eight yeas of leadership in our nation's history. Let's hope we've learned our lesson.

End of the Road

2008-11-03T14:25:00.001-08:00

This is it. Finally.

Tomorrow we get to resolve this election, after what seems like four years of campaigning.

In the spirit of being an independent voter, I've assembled my own list of California ballot initiatives, read the analysis and arguments on the state site and made decisions without consulting the Democrat or Republican parties.

Here's how it shakes out:

Prop 1A- Safe, Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act for the 21st Century
Me: YES Democrats: YES Republicans: NO

My Take: This sounds like Progress to me. Our local rail systems are modern, but our long-distance rail is incredibly outdated. We need a viable high-speed rail system.

Prop 2- Treatment of Farm Animals
Me: NO Democrats: YES Republicans: NO

My Take: The penalties are so minor that the only people likely to suffer are smaller producers. The examples are all about pigs and other large mammals, but it really only hits egg producers in California. I don't oppose making life better for chickens, but I'm not in a big hurry to spend money on it at this particular time.

Prop 3- Children’s Hospital Bond Acts
Me: NO Democrats: YES Republicans: NO

My Take: Since it has nothing specifically to do with "children's hospitals," rather than hospitals in general, I find the name crass and irritating in a "PATRIOT Act" sort of way.

Prop 4- Waiting Period and Parental Notification Before Termination of Minor’s Pregnancy
Me: NO Democrats: NO Republicans: YES

My Take: Who does this help? Kids who are already able to come to their parents in time of crisis and discuss abortion don't need this law, and kids who face real danger from their parents if they reveal a pregnancy can only be hurt by it.

Prop 5- Nonviolent Offenders. Sentencing, Parole and Rehabilitation
Me: YES Democrats: YES Republicans: NO

My Take: Jails are overcrowded and expensive. We imprison people far too often for things that I don't even think should be crimes. Nonviolent drug offenses get hugely disproportionate sentences and this chips away at that a little.

Prop 6- Criminal Penalties and Laws / Public Safety Funding
Me: NO Democrats: NO Republicans: YES

My Take: Throwing more money at crime brings diminishing returns. I think we're already seeing that, as our crime rate is relatively low, historically. "More Police" sounds good, but I just don't feel like we have too few.

Prop 7- Renewable Energy
Me: NO Democrats: NO Republicans: NO (not very popular, is it?)

My Take: Nobody likes this.

Prop 8- Same Sex Marriage Ban
Me: NO Democrats: NO Republicans: YES

My Take: If you vote YES for this, please don't tell me. I will think less of you.

Prop 9- Criminal Justice System. Victims’ Rights. Parole.
Me: NO Democrats: NO Republicans: YES

My Take: This overlaps a lot of existing California law, needlessly. It also is endorsed by PEOPLE WHO TYPE IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS, which leads me to believe it is not well thought-out.

Prop 10- Alternative Fuel Vehicles and Renewable Energy
Me: NO Democrats: NO Position Republicans: NO

My Take: Nobody likes this one, either.

Prop 11- Redistricting
Me: YES Democrats: NO Republicans: No Position

My Take: It has always seemed pretty dodgy to let the politicians who are currently in power draw voting districts.

Prop 12- Veterans’ Bond Act of 2008
Me: YES Democrats: YES Republicans: YES

My Take: Similar bond issues have been pretty much paid for by the recipients' mortgage payments, so I don't see any reason not to do it again. We owe the military an awful lot of late.

Knowing is Half the Battle

2008-10-31T14:14:00.000-07:00

Where do you get your information?

2008-10-01T11:20:00.001-07:00

Jesus, how hard is it to say, "I read X," or "I read Y," ... unless, of course, you don't read anything.

Brad Sucks - Out of It

2008-09-11T08:31:00.000-07:00

There aren't many things I like better than finding an artist or band I've never heard of whose music I totally dig. In the past two years or so I've been having that pleasure more and more often, thanks to the combination of iTunes sampling, Amazon's MP3 store, and the growing network of artists whose main sources of distribution are their own websites.

Jonathan Coulton is the model web phenomenon, of course, but I've also picked up on several other acts that appeal to my sensibilities, such as MC Frontalot and Brad Turcotte, AKA "Brad Sucks," a self-proclaimed "One-Man Band with No Fans," who is probably exaggerating on the latter part of that title. Or, at least, he should be, because his music is definitely worthy of fan attention.

I picked up his first album, "I Don't Know What I'm Doing," late last year, after hearing him in a collaboration with MC Frontalot called "Living at the Corner of Dude and Catastrophe" and following a link over to his site, where he has all of his music available for download and for self-priced purchase.

IDKWID is a fun album, with extremely consistent, high song quality, catchy beats, and a wry, self-deprecating humor that I found pretty appealing. Many of the songs, like "Overreacting" and "Fixing My Brain" manage to mix melancholy and black humor very adeptly. Brad has a voice that, along with his generally quirky style and penchant for throwing retro-sounding synthesizer tracks into his tunes, brings about an inevitable positive comparison to Beck. His Wikipedia entry lists his genre as "expermental pop," and I can't think of a label that's more apt.

This week, he released a new album, "Out of It," which I hardly managed to sample a few tracks from before buying for the suggested price of $10. It's an amazingly consistent and strong album, from the uber-catchy "Dropping out of School," to the glum but irresistable "Bad Sign" and "Total Breakdown." For an independent, self-distributed artist, both this album and its predecessor have great production values and an extremely consistent sound and quality. That consistency applies doubly to the quality of the songs themselves. I've listened to "Out of It" at least four times through and I'm still enjoying every song.

I strongly encourage anybody to take a minute or two and head over to Turcotte's site and, at the very least, listen to a few of the tracks. Download the free versions of the albums if you like them well enough, or, better, buy the higher-quality versions for whatever you think they're worth. To me, they were probably worth more than the suggested price that I did pay, and I'll be looking forward to his next release.

Double Standards

2008-09-04T14:59:00.000-07:00

There may be bigger hypocrites out there than these republican pundits, but I really can't think of any. This is almost surreal.

It's Smart Politics to be a Maverick

2008-09-04T10:15:00.000-07:00

Nice little reality check on the Republican VP nominee over at Time's website.

Sounds like she's a maverick because being a maverick is popular.

Oh, and she wanted to ban books and threatened to fire the head librarian of Wasilla when she wouldn't play ball.

Nice.

Vice Presidential Nominees

2008-08-29T09:11:00.000-07:00

Obama: We need to bring Change to Washington! And to help me do that, here's my running mate, six-term Senator Joe Biden!

McCain: We need experienced leaders in Washington! And, speaking of experience, here's my running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin! She's been leading the great state of Alaska since 2006! (Well, December 2006, but still!)

Somethin's goin' on, and it's probably not good.

2008-08-15T13:28:00.000-07:00

So the Russians are feeling a little nostalgic about the good old days and decided to roll on into Georgia. Why? Well, the Georgian military rolled into South Ossetia to take the fight to some rebels, and Russia had to come to the defense of the Russian citizens in the region, not to mention the poor Georgian citizens who were being attacked by their own country.

Of course, Russia pretty clearly premeditated this by issuing Russian Passports to Georgian citizens in the region so that they could then turn around and claim they were concerned about the safety of Russian citizens when Georgia moved in to try to contain the secessionist rebels that Russia had openly backed anyway.

(Apparently, Russia is very supportive of breakaway republics, provided they are not named Kosovo or Chechnya.)

The Kremlin is paranoid, because even former Soviet Republics are starting to look a lot better than the near-totalitarianism Russia has reverted to. Nationalization of industries, cronyism, and a deterioration of free speech and a free press have all shown that the guys in charge don't have anyone's interests in mind but their own. Let's just hope that nobody mistakes a Russia run by ex-KGB agents and mobsters for the democracy it claims to be and tells the U.S. to mind it's own business, because, for once, we shouldn't.

Wait a minute, though.

Do you think Russia's growing belligerence could have anything to do with the fact that NATO has expanded to a ludicrous degree all around its borders? Or that maybe they're feeling like they have to show the world they're still in business since the U.S. is planning to base "missile defense" systems (which are missiles, for those keen on irony) in Poland, to counter the imminent threat of ... what? Maybe Iran, if it ever builds some ICBMs?

(Honestly, I'm still not sure if Bush means to piss off the Russians with this missile defense bullshit, or if he's too stupid to understand why they're pissed, or what. I find it kind of hard to believe that anyone would truly be that stupid, however.)

Unfortunately, any demands or even threats that we might make in order to get the Russians to back down ring pretty hollow these days. Who out there in the world doesn't know that the U.S. is in no position to jump into another war? We've been ground down by a dispiriting war in Iraq for years and are now seeing disturbing resurgence by the Taliban (since we dedicated so much of our military power to the idiotic war in Iraq, rather than trying to stabilize and consolidate our successes in Afghanistan).

Well, if we couldn't threaten to send planes or troops, we could damn well send Condi! And look, we got ourselves a cease-fire!

Yeah, that agreement means exactly jack shit to Russia, since it contains this provision:

While awaiting an international mechanism, Russian peacekeeping forces will implement additional security measures.

What that means is that, until the UN moves troops in and establishes a peacekeeping force, Russia can do whatever the hell it wants.

And guess who can veto anything that the UN tries to do?

Russia has no plans to coexist peacefully with Georgia, and barely even bothers to pretend. Hell, Russian "diplomats" casually mention the imminent extinction of Georgia as a state. That's really not something you do if your goal is harmony.

Imagine if Bush said something like that about one of our neighbors!

Define "Socially Inept"

2008-08-10T13:25:00.000-07:00

Faking an important phone call to avoid awkwardly standing around and not socializing with the other parents at a kid's birthday party.

Well, at least it's not my kid's party.

Do You Expect Me to Talk?

2008-08-07T12:53:00.000-07:00

So I went to talk to a doctor today about a certain medical procedure that precludes my fathering any more kids, and got the full lecture (with illustrations) from the doctor, followed by this exchange:

Doctor: So basically we give you a local, and make an incision here and possibly here , depending.
Me: Uh huh.
Doctor: Are you a nervous person?

Now, he delivered that question in a purely matter-of-fact tone, but my brain proceeded to play it back for me in a sinister villain voice, like:

"Are you a gambling man, Mr. Bond?"

Which was accompanied by a visual of a giant laser aimed at Sean Connery's crotch.

Me: ... Could you be more specific?
Doctor: I mean, like, at the dentist?
Me: At the dentist? No.

But, then, the dentist generally keeps his needles above the waistline.

9/11 Conspiracy Theorists can Suck It.

2008-08-07T12:48:00.000-07:00

A rant about the 9/11 Conspiracy "Theorists" and how full of shit they are. The author makes some good points about just why these people do what they do, too, and it's not because they're stupid, or gullible, or crazy (though many of them fit all three of these labels) -- it's because they can sell DVDs and books and lecture tickets to stupid, gullible, and crazy people.

Here it is, in its magnificent pissed-offed-ness.

Disclaimer: I, myself have been known to be a bit gullible.

The Dark Knight

2008-07-21T10:10:00.000-07:00

Rating: 4 out of 5 Citizen Kanes

Seriously, people. Get a grip.

Yes, The Dark Knight is a very good (if overlong) movie. Yes, Heath Ledger does give a memorable and movie-stealing performance as the Joker. And, yes, everybody else does a fine job as well.

But the hype ...

I try very hard to avoid getting my expectations inflated to the point that a movie disappoints me (or at least fails to thrill me as much as I am counting on). This worked very well with Iron Man, which had a phenomenal trailer that made me dread that the movie wouldn't live up to it (luckily, it pretty much did). Tedwrd and I would constantly add the comment, "It's gonna suck," to the end of any discussion of Iron Man to keep ourselves grounded.

(It didn't work as well for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which, unfortunately, did kinda suck.)

I'm not going to go on and on about The Dark Knight, since you've probably heard all there is to hear about it already. I liked it, but it was impossible for me to like it as much as every reviewer out there seems to think I should. It does have flaws, including an excessive running time that still manages to feel like Harvey Dent's character arc is too compressed.

But the Joker is pretty fantastic. I've read several reviews that come off as a bit apologist in retrospect because they insist that everybody else is right up there with Ledger, performance-wise. That's just not the case. He's legitimately phenomenal, and Aaron Eckhart is pretty great as D.A. Harvey Dent. Christian Bale is great as Bruce Wayne, but his Batman growl sounds like he's doing a bad Clint Eastwood impression.

I like Maggie Gyllenhaal, but I don't share the disdain for Katie Holmes' performance in Batman Begins, and I didn't think Gyllenhaal was a huge improvement. She was adequate, in a part that was kind of hit-and-miss, writing wise. I'm not sure Holmes would have been any worse.

Morgan Freeman (as Lucius Fox) got more to do in this one, but Michael Caine (as Alfred) got less. Frankly, I'm a bigger Caine than Freeman fan, so this was not a plus for me.

Still and all, it's an excellent film. Just remember that it isn't the greatest thing since the introduction of the moving picture and you may enjoy it more.

Addendum: The soundtrack, by the way, is frigging fantastic.

Blue Pencil

2008-06-17T11:19:00.001-07:00

Criminy.

I tried to create a new blog site for Blue Pencil entries, but I was foiled by people who had grabbed the name first.

Entertainingly, one of them had an "About Me" entry that was Blue Pencil-worthy in and of itself:

About me

Arun Ram
A journalist. Worked in three states, with six newspapers and a magazine. Now with DNA. And learning.

Congratulations to you, Mr. Ram, and your newfound DNA. And learning.

McG

2008-06-05T13:19:00.000-07:00

I've always thought that the mono-named director "McG" sounded like a dick, based on his name alone. I just read an interview with him, and now I feel bad about that.

Also, I realize my name is ridiculous. I was born Joseph McGinty Nichol. McG is short for McGinty. I have been called this since the day I was born to create separation from my Uncle Joe and Grandpa Joe. I realize it sounds like some Hollywood nickname, hip-hop choice. But the truth is, this is simply my name - for every day of elementary school, every zit-filled day of high school. I have been taking shit for it ever since. I get it, I would think it's lame too. But it's just a name, and to change it now would seem fraudulent.

Okay, so maybe he's not a total douchebag after all (for this reason, at least).

Of course, he still makes crap movies and is basically scabbing an Americanized version of the Britcom Spaced without the consent or involvement of the original creators, so your mileage may vary.

A Change of Heart

2008-06-04T08:52:00.000-07:00

After 15 attempts to secure permission to deliver humanitarian supplies to victims of Cyclone Nagris, the U.S. has finally given up and ordered the USS Essex and its accompanying vessels to leave Myanmar's coastal waters. Short of violating the territory of a sovereign nation, there is little the U.S. can do absent what they refer to as "a change of heart" on the part of the military junta that runs the country.

That, of course, isn't going to happen, since you actually have to have a heart to change it, and the rulers of Myanmar quite clearly don't.

It's a little bit sad that, because Myanmar isn't technically in the Axis of Evil that we're probably just going to forget about it. I mean, they don't have any oil, so I suppose it may not be worth the bother.

True, they have been suffering under an oppressive military dictatorship since seventeen years before Saddam Hussein seized power in Iraq, but who can even find Burma/Myanmar on a map? Probably not an American kid, what with budget cuts to education and all -- gotta fund that Iraq war, right?

What motivation could we possibly have for making a fuss over Myanmar, other than those poor people we just can't give aid to?

Myanmar is currently building a nuclear power plant with Russia's help.

I'm sure that's entirely for the benefit of the people that the government cares so much about.

Myanmar has had several Saddam-style "99% turnout" sham elections since the 1962 military coup that ended democratic rule.

Sham elections are better than no elections at all, right?

Myanmar is rife with child labor, forced labor, human trafficking, and has effectively institutionalized sex slaves for the military.

Yeah ... okay, that's pretty evil.

It's probably too late now, but maybe the Bush Administration should have considered "Operation Drop Food on Burma" to show that we don't really care whether the evil motherfuckers in charge of the place want to let us help or not. At least we could have brought it up for a vote at the UN.

As it is, what little aid actually got to victims of the cyclone (estimates are that about 1 in 10 victims received some kind of aid) was actually repackaged by the government so it would look like it came from them.

Nice. I'm sure that change of heart is right around the corner.

The Golden Compass

2008-06-02T08:33:00.000-07:00

Rating: Crappy

When I saw the early trailer for The Golden Compass, I was intrigued by what looked like a steampunk-style adventure with high production values. I decided to read the book before seeing the movie, as I didn't want a bad Hollywood take to ruin an otherwise well-regarded fantasy novel for me. Unfortunately, while the first book in Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials series was fairly entertaining, I wasn't particularly moved to pick up the subsequent installments.

The novel seemed too eager to cram in a lot of elements that didn't fit particularly well with one another. The witches, in particular, did not seem to fit with the rest of the world they supposedly watched over, and their every appearance was, to me, sort of irritating.

Now that I've seen the movie, I have a somewhat renewed appreciation for the novel, which seems vastly sophisticated, subtle and mature in comparison to the "large type for early readers" version that Chris Weitz managed to bring to the screen.

Now, anyone who even bothered to read the Wikipedia page for the book (much less the book itself) would understand that "The Golden Compass" doesn't refer to the "Aleithiometer" that Lyra carries throughout the story (and which looks a lot more like a big pocket watch than a compass in any case). The book wasn't even originally called The Golden Compass -- outside the U.S., it's known as Northern Lights -- and Lyra, not the Aleithiometer, is not the focal point of the story.

Not in the movie. In the movie, we are constantly bombarded with references to the Aleithiometer as a "Golden Compass" as if we were going to forget the name of the movie. And that really strikes to the heart of the problem with this film: It HAMMERS you with everything. Every plot detail is exhaustively explained, and every nuance is crushed under the weight of these explanations. Virtually all of the tension and power of the novel is utterly absent.

While Mrs. Coulter is clearly a villain in the novel, she is hardly the vampish monster that Nicole Kidman portrays. While in the novel her character lures children away to be abducted by charm and the sheer wonder of her presence, the film has her daemon (an animal-like physical representation of the souls of characters in this world -- everybody has one) brutally grab kids off the street. Almost none of the complexity of her character is on the screen -- or even possible, given the script. She's just a thuggish villain disguised as a sexy member of high society.

The movie even violates the ideas that it does keep from the novel. It is established in both that harm to a person's daemon is felt equally by the person, and yet Kidman's character at one point belts hers across the face and apparently feels nothing. (Ironically, this idiotic scene was apparently suggested by Pullman himself, which removes any lingering interest I might have had in reading the subsequent books.) It is crystal clear in the book that no one would ever do this -- your daemon is you, and you are your daemon.

Apparently, the end of the book was cut from the movie because it isn't exactly "upbeat" and because the studio wanted it to be a more marketable length. That would probably be fine, if they had kept the chapters in order, but Weitz inexplicably reverses two key portions of the book, placing a climactic battle between two armored bears before what is basically a prison break scene. We are then left with what might as well be a "To be Continued" ending that isn't even a cliffhanger. It's just Lyra musing about how she's going to go find her father with her new band of friends.

"Lame" is the only fitting description of the final sequence. Watching it, I was glad to see the movie go, and less interested in a cinematic sequel than I was in a literary one. Thankfully, the film didn't really perform domestically, so a sequel is unlikely.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

2008-05-28T08:55:00.000-07:00

Rating: 28,345 out of 52,977 mysterious crates.

Indiana Jones is back, blah blah blah.

I have to admit, it was difficult to muster my enthusiasm for this latter-day installment in the "Indiana Jones and the ______" series. My love for Raiders of the Lost Ark and a reasonable fondness for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade were tempered by ambivalence toward Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

When rumors began to surface that this movie had Indy mucking about with Roswell aliens, alarm bells started to sound. More significantly, however, I have been burned by George Lucas before, when he managed to retroactively wreck Star Wars for me with a trilogy of nonsensical, craptacular prequels. I worried whether Steven Spielberg keep Lucas's legacy-defiling tendencies in check?

The answer is, "mostly, but we don't get away clean."

Surprisingly, the aliens aspect comes off as one of the more well-written aspects of the movie (at least early on). After an introductory sequence in the famed warehouse full of crates (one of which -- surprise! -- holds the Ark of the Covenant), we get a little background on what's been going on with Indy for the past couple of decades, as well as a reasonably plausible link between his character and the "Roswell Incident."

Lucas then uses a couple of quick scenes as shorthand to show us how the Red Scare made people act irrationally and caused bad things to happen to innocent people. The subtlety here is about on par with his anti-Bush allusions in the Star Wars prequels, but the fact that he's using a real historical phenomenon helps him avoid most of the groan-inducing obviousness he smacked audiences of those movies with. (Yes, George, we get it. Lying to start a war is bad. Palpatine is Bush. We GET it. Jesus!)

The introduction of Shia LaBeouf as "Mutt Williams," Indy's greaser-kid sidekick, is handled fairly well, if a bit obviously, and followed by a chase scene that is probably the high point of the movie, action-wise.

Aaannnd ... we're about 1/3 of the way through at this point.

Things begin to fall apart pretty quickly from this point out. Indy and Mutt do some decent bonding for a while, but there is a huge, glaring, stupid problem: Despite the fact that Mutt tells Indy that his mother's name is Marion, that she knows Indy and specifically told Mutt to seek him out for help, Indy spends what has to be several days with the kid and never even asks him his mother's maiden name. It is just idiotic. I mean, yes, it's been many years since he saw Marion Ravenwood, but we learn later that she is actually still very significant to him and it is totally inconceivable to me that he wouldn't associate the name "Marion" with her by default. When Marion eventually does show up, it is a surprise to no one except Indy himself.

I'm not going to go into any detail on the plot, because the movie has precious little else to keep the viewer's interest. The acting is stiff -- even Cate Blanchett is fairly boring as a psychic KGB Nazi stand-in, and Karen Allen, though still amiable, is kind of glassy-eyed -- and there is very little tension at any point. Indy & Co. face raging waterfalls, quicksand-like quagmires, killer ants, and ruins that are apparently designed specifically to kill anyone who actually knows how to get into them, but there isn't a single moment where the survival of any character feels remotely threatened.

To paraphrase my wife's reaction to the movie: I didn't hate it, really, but I didn't like it either. I just didn't give a shit.

Minor Spoiler Alert

For some reason, Lucas felt it necessary to insert a second "sidekick" character into the film, early on, only to have him betray Indy almost immediately. This character and his actions have no bearing whatsoever on the plot, and we never have even a scrap of interest in him as a person. I don't remember the last time I saw a character this utterly superfluous in a movie -- and that includes Jar Jar Binks -- yet this guy is in scene after scene, and we're obviously supposed to care about him one way or another. He repeatedly "switches sides" and you never, even for a moment, give a rat's ass.

Age of Conan

2008-05-28T08:37:00.001-07:00

My brother has recently purchased the new Age of Conan online game and sent me an email of unprecedented length discussing it. I was pretty impressed by the thoroughness of the rundown and am reproducing it here (slightly edited for length) with his permission:

Ok, first let me start this by saying the game is not finished and there are still some nagging bugs and lack of content. I think all MMOs start this way (even WoW) with the exception of Lord of the Rings, but then again that game bores me to tears no matter how hard I try. The system requirements are quite hefty, but it plays on my Gateway P-6831FX with close to maxed out settings quite well (lags to about 15fps in the big cities). This is a good thing though because the environment and animations are absolutely incredible.

Onto the game itself. Absolutely fucking brilliant in many respects. Once the problems are worked out in the next couple of months, this will be the game to beat. The first actual WoW competitor. The combat alone is riveting. PVP and PVE are very similar play styles and hard to get used to for the first few hours because (aside from 2 of the mage classes) it's very different from anything else out there. And by different I mean fun and engaging.

Unfortunately, I probably won't be able to play this game drunk (probably a good thing anyway) because even the most minor fights require your full attention . Every class fights and tanks, heals or buffs in some fashion if they want. Every area has both a normal (read solo or duo) version and an epic (group version) which is nice although from what I can tell the loot tables are the same at the moment (they are fixing balance issues on the epic loot tables right now).

Everything is instanced, sort of. Most areas have multiple shards that you can switch between if one is too crowded for your taste or, on PvP servers, if you are getting constantly ganked by some asshole you can just switch instantly. There is very little punishment for dying (no corpse run or XP penalty) except a stacking negative attack and defense modifier that can be removed by clicking on the tombstone at the site of your death. Some of the instances are completely solo or completely group- specific like in other MMOs as well.

Aside from all that, the first 20-level block can be played completely solo (a totally different night time version of the game) and is a damn good game in its own right. It can be skipped at a certain point if you want or not played at all if you would rather do daytime solo or group quests. Overall, the game is better than many single player games you'd pay $50 for, so you wouldn't really feel that guilty if you buy it then never even play the $15 monthly version.

Speaking of feeling guilty, there is another aspect that is truly awesome about this game. You can't grind. Well, you can but it would take you forever to level just doing that because the Mob XP becomes fairly insignificant after about level 10. The vast majority of XP (like 95%) comes from from quest turn-ins. To be fair, many of these quests are "grindy" in their own right (kill X amount of prostitutes, gather Y amount of whale penis bones on the cannibal island beach, or deliver Z to the flaming Pict bat god) but it doesnt feel so pointless for some reason. In other words, you can't just go out into a field and kill a billion rat-monkeys and skin them while gathering flowers or minerals because it will take you friggin forever to level. I hope they don't change that aspect because somehow it makes it seem more engaging. It also makes it exhausting ... you really want to play but your REALLY don't want to play for more than like 2-3 hours at a time.

Supposedly, this quest-grinding aspect along with things they are doing with gathering/crafting and the auction house mechanics are going to make it virtually impossible to gold farm or something. Sounds good, but I'll believe it when I see it -- the Chinese are very innovative.

In closing, the game has a lot to fix, improve upon, and implement, but I think they will be doing just that in the following months because they have to prove they are a viable alternative to WoW. Competition will probably make both games better in time, but just by what they have shown right out of the starting gate, I don't think I'll ever go back to WoW.

Also, "apprenticing" will be implemented next week according to the developers. This will allow any level toons to group with each other so that both get properly scaled XP. Not sure if that means a level 10 toon can apprentice to a level 50 and go to those zones to quest or vice versa, but it sounds promising. I'll let you know when I get my buddy key ... but be prepared for a ginormous download -- 32gb uncompressed client with a 20g download at the moment. Today's patch (the second one this week) is supposed to be about 1gb by itself. I think they must have just run out of room on the two 8.6 gb DVDs in the game box and didn't want the expense of a third.

From this description, and his enthusiasm for the game when I talked to him on the phone, my interest in the game has definitely increased. I like the solo-ability, the reduced emphasis on grinding, and what I've seen of the graphics and combat. My main sticking points in WoW's favor at the moment are the friends I have there, my investment in time in the game, and a general preference for WoW's more cartoony flavor over a gritty, bloody, Robert E. Howard-inspired Conan world. I'll probably be giving Conan a shot, but I'll wait until they've stabilized a bit and, hopefully, offer some kind of incentive for new players, like bonus time for an existing player if you list them as having recruited you.

This Says it All

2008-05-20T10:49:00.000-07:00

From Deus Ex Malcontent, a concise lambasting of G.W. Bush and a suggested remedy.

Nine Inch Nails - The Slip

2008-05-08T09:51:00.000-07:00

Trent Reznor is stickin' it to the man. Now that he's a label-free artist, he's been giving stuff away (or selling it very cheap if you don't make it to his site during the free period). His new album, The Slip, is currently available as a free download.

The question is: Do you get what you pay for?

Thankfully, no. In fact, I prefer The Slip to its predecessor (2007's Year Zero) by a fairly wide margin. That may not be saying much, considering my rather "meh" response to Year Zero, but I paid for that album.

That's not to say that The Slip is a great album throughout. It isn't. Like every Nine Inch Nails album except Broken, it's very hit-or-miss, and filled with several tracks that sound suspiciously like Reznor was just messing around with a drum machine and a mixer. This kind of noodling may have fans somewhere, but it bugs the crap out of me.

The first single from the album, "Discipline," which Reznor released for free a short time before the whole album, is also the best track. I'd compare it favorably to "Only" and "The Hand That Feeds" -- the two best tracks from 2006's With Teeth.

"Echoplex" doesn't have the same kind of drive that powers "Discipline." Rather, it's a moodier song in the mode of The Downward Spiral. It still has a good beat and is pretty decent in its own right, however.

"Head Down" and "Demon Seed" are noisy tracks with weird time signatures (to my uneducated ear). They're more industrial-sounding than the stronger tracks on the album, and probably won't make single, but "Head Down" has a good chorus. The tweaky noise overlaying a lot of the track will likely turn non-fans of the genre off pretty quickly, though. "Demon Seed" keeps promising to break out into a bigger sound, but fails to deliver.

"Lights in the Sky" is a breathy piano-noodling song reminiscent of the classic, "Hurt." It doesn't soar nearly as high as that song, however, and is rather short for this kind of track.

The rest is mostly noise.

It's interesting (and maybe a little disappointing -- I'm not sure) that the newly-awakened political voice Reznor surprised everyone with on Year Zero has virtually disappeared. It seems strange to me that he could be so strident on an album last year and then drop it so completely, and I wonder if there wasn't a fan backlash of some sort that Reznor's responding to.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

2008-04-25T10:36:00.000-07:00

Rating: 2 out of 5 Meat Pies

Tim Burton on Sweeney Todd:

Okay, at first I thought, Sweeney Todd kinda sucks, doesn't it? I mean Sondheim has certainly done better. Who wants to take a musical with kind of lame music but a few decent numbers and make a movie of it? But then I thought, whoa, wait! It's so quirky! I have to make it, don't I? I mean, shit, I'm Tim Burton. And I'll be damned if I'm gonna let f--king Terry Gilliam do this one.

It doesn't matter that everyone knows the plot, or that it's entirely set inside of two rooms -- we can fix that by showing shots of the London skyline during every song!

And why bother getting anyone who can actually sing? It's not like Americans know the difference, anyway. Johnny Depp is always great, right? RIGHT? Thank you. I'm sure he can do a cheap accent and sing at the same time. (It worked for Dick van Dyke.) Hell, if you asked Johnny to play a one-legged German horse trainer with a lisp, he could pull it off.

And if I'm gonna have two leads in clownish goth makeup, the other one's gotta be my girl Helena, right? I mean, seriously, who else am I supposed to get?

Now for a creepy villain, we just gotta have Alan Rickman. Sure, he can't sing for shit, but neither can anybody else in this cast, and he's just sooo good. Remember Die Hard? And Harry Potter? Everybody loves to hate ol' Alan. Yes, I know Walken can sing and dance, but Rickman's got more cache.

Henchman, henchman ... Oh, I know! That guy who plays nothing but henchmen in every movie! You know, the guy who was Wormtail in Harry Potter, and the henchman in Enchanted? Yeah, Timothy Spall. He'll be great as a henchman. Can he sing? I don't know. Who the hell cares?

Eccentric guy faking a ridiculous ethnic accent ... hmm. That's a tough one. Let's do something really off-beat. I know! Sacha Baron Cohen! Yeah, the Borat guy! I've never seen him do a crazy ethnic stereotype! Holy crap, he can actually sing better than Johnny ... well, let's make sure we cast him in a part with only one song. We don't want to make Johnny look bad.

Now, if I make it really violent -- I mean, blood spurting out of every throat in the goddamn film violent -- that will be way more effective than just suggesting the violence. In fact, screw it, I'm going to spray blood right on the camera lens to let people know how much blood is in this movie. No, it's not gratuitous, you cretin, it's "exuberant!"

Oh, and let's cover everything with soot, so we get a kinda Les Miserables vibe going.

So, let's see:

Johnny Depp? Check.
Quirky? I f--king invented quirky. Check.
British actors as villains? Check.
Non-singers singing? Check.
Artistic gore, so that people who don't like it will come off as squeamish? Check.

Now look at the reviews and tell me that this movie wasn't great. I'm just pissed I didn't get a goddamn Oscar.

Blue Pencil #8: The Horrors of Love

2008-04-21T09:23:00.000-07:00

Technical Note: Xlibris having successfully thrown me off by clever website shittiness, I have moved on to authorhouse.com -- a website much more friendly to this endeavor than Xlibris, technically speaking. Unfortunately for us, authorHouse is a bit higher-profile as well, meaning that a smaller percentage of the content is laughably bad. Luckily, that percentage is still in the high 90s.

For our first foray into authorHouse's library, I have chosen The Horrors of Love, by Jeanne E. McComsey, summarized thus:

Gravesend Castle; six hundred and sixty-six times more beautiful than Westminster Abby, stood openly in Romania’s countryside with an imperceptible cemetery-like quietness; soft breezes ruffled the trees around the lake; Wolves were sporting in the water and a cougar was nuzzling his yellow fur below a weeping-willow tree, Victor, the Vampire, was talking to the animals; "Tis nice in the early evening; is it not, boys?"

That; my friends; is a lot of semicolons.

I had to double-check here, but this is not listed as humor, so I can't help but imagine the thought process that would go into building Gravesend Castle.

"We're going to build a castle here, and it will be beautiful."
"More beautiful than Westminster, Victor?"
"Yes, Abby, six hundred and sixty-six times more beautiful!"
"I see what you did there."
"We'll plant weeping willows and import cougars from the New World!"
"Cougars? Seriously?"
"Yes, they will love it here. And a lake for the wolves."
"Oh, how they will sport! Ravish me, creature of the night!"

The sky was darkening so fast it bruised itself. Love promises us a world made beautiful, then struggles to transform each ugly thing, and in its struggle it grows neurotic, always dreaming of better things, like betrayal or a handsome fanged raucous deceiver of death.

Um. Okay. Miss McComsey is making it very difficult for me to write anything funnier than her prose. Now I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be comedy after all. But is the grammar supposed to be comical in and of itself, or did she get her commas and semicolons at a clearance sale?

Horsemen cantered around the castle’s five-block perimeter, chasing away tourists, bug-infested beggars and homeless tramp-children wearing burlap sacks.

Now I'm totally confused, but I have to say that "homeless tramp-children wearing burlap sacks" is a phrase that I am determined to find daily use for.

"Lift up your throat to my lips and welcome the treasured kiss of an infamous amorous lover, there’s no pain; the Horrors of Love permit me to drain your blood!" Victor went into his basement, preparing to jump into his coffin and keep the Blonde Assassin’s daylight faraway.

Nice segues: Homeless tramp children, Horrors of Love, shitty metaphor for the sun. I don't even know who Victor is talking to, by the way.

He slumbered unbreathing wrapped in luxury ... Victor; the ancient one; slept the hot days away like a dead thing. He kills not for sport or profit, but to live. He finds his wives in New York City and wow’s them deeply with bitter divine passion; then takes them home to live a rich life they never dreamed of, but, with his inborn obsession to hurt and maim, he’ll forever be a night creature; a walking nightmare who frightens souls, wives, heroes and the Gods with the unleashed mayhem he alone knows; it was secretly said he wrote poetry, traveled, and aimed for the stars ... he’d be a tad more human if it wasn’t for the fact he’s related to the most dangerous beast ever; CERBERUS: the three-headed dog that guards the Gates of Hell!

Holy shit. It's ... it's the longest, worst-punctuated run-on sentence I have ever read. It hurts! Make it stop!

So I guess this is modern day, based on the pesky tourists and periodic wife-shopping in the Big Apple. Maybe an "About the Author" section will reveal that this is an intentional farce, with bad grammar used to wink at the reader slyly, letting one know that Miss McComsey is in on the joke. Ah yes:

Throughout my three year love affair with Victor the Vampire; and him, disappearing into the pleasures-unto-death, all I recall is the madness of the moonlight! He’s now orbiting through centuries in long deep sleeps ... is it permanent or am I nightmaring? Victor and I cared nothing about savoring memories, and now my hand is writing the real thing; He loved his life but I saw it as THE HORRORS OF LOVE. I loved more the terrible deaths and births occurring in his life; I even treasured the red spittle on his sharp teeth, it was the foam of love; he told me! But this can’t be true ... because I was never loved.

So much for that theory. I note here that this is McComsey's fifth book, so the idea that practice makes perfect clearly doesn't apply to punctuation. Browsing some of her other selections, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them appear here at some point.

Note to self: Remember to use the phrase "Foam of Love" when conversation gets dull.

Blue Pencil #7: Adios, Xlibris

2008-04-15T13:49:00.000-07:00

This was a pretty frustrating column to cobble together, considering how many 404s and timeouts the Xlibris site seems to be giving me. If I didn't know better, I'd think they had started blocking me or something. Unfortunately, I do know better, and I rather doubt they know I exist. Their site just sucks. I'll be looking for a different source for these articles in the future. So, here, straight from Hell's Heart, is my last stab at Xlibris:

In the past, I have been guilty of cherry-picking truly goofy works from the obscure corners of Xlibris.com's bookstore. I have steadfastly ignored the link to the top ten royalty earning books of the quarter, since I figured they'd either be books about Jesus or cat calendars, and thus, need no effort to make them seem ludicrous.

Feeling a bit guilty (and having failed to find much humor in a book about UFOs that was merely stupid rather than breathtakingly idiotic as I'd hoped), I decided to at least take a look at the top ten this time. If you think something here is worth a review, let me know, but I kinda doubt it.

1 Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse, by James Wesley, Rawles

I'm not sure why there's a comma after Wesley, but I'm not fucking with a survivalist screed. Anyway, the excerpt is dull as dishwater.

2 I/T Architecture in Action, by Richard J. Reese

This was far too boring to read an excerpt of, though what I did manage to read told me that Mr. Reese isn't very good at math. He seems to think that 20 percent of 500 million is 10 million, which does not bode well for his treatise on managing costs.

3 Quilt Stories from Stadel Mountain, by Gloria Driscoll and Carol Gendle

These women don't screw around about quilts. Not only do they use the word "quilt" in every single sentence, but they also apparently lecture on quilts, are featured in quilt magazines, and, one would assume, quilt in their spare time. I couldn't get the excerpt to load, as it is a huge PDF file, which I have a funny feeling includes pictures of quilts in it.

4 The Legend of Fireball Fleming, by Pete Gagan

No synopsis, just a black and white picture of a guy on a motorcycle wearing a leather pilot's cap and goggles. It cannot possibly live up to that name/picture combo.

5 Healing the Harm Done, by Jennifer Y. Levy

A manual for helping parents of children who have been sexually abused. You try to make a joke. I can't think of one. Particularly when I can't even look up the author's page without a site failure.

6 Here Shall I Die Ashore, by Caleb Johnson

A biography of an actual historical figure (Stephen Hopkins).

By the time he turned forty, he had already survived a hurricane, been shipwrecked in the Bermuda Triangle, been written into a Shakespearean play, witnessed the famine and abandonment of Jamestown Colony, and participated in the marriage of Pocahontas.

Despite how unlikely it sounds, this is apparently an accurate description of his life. Those wacky non-Puritan Mayflower passengers!

7 Technology and Watch Design

No synopsis again. Damn the luck. This could be a comedy goldmine.

8 Norte ... Siempre Norte Novela, by Carlos Angulo Rivas

I'm assuming that this is a novel whose title is North ... Always North, which is a decent title, I guess. Since I don't speak Spanish beyond asking for my yellow pencil, I had to use Babelfish to translate the synopsis:

North... always to the north the uncertainty to reach profits common in the daily life - familiar well-being is narrated in episodes worthy to be analyzed and commented. The main personages of this suggestive story, one, sergeant major of the Peruvian army and, the other, Guatemalan farmer of high plateaus, converge in his I journey by Canada and the United States of outlandish and humorous, improbable and docile way, where the looked for happiness is hallucinating. The text describes of simple way the human soul, the greed and the loosening, in the vortex of integration to societies.

Goddamn you, Babelfish.

9 Stop Crying and Listen to the Music, by Gary Tannus Nassif

The first line of this autobiography speaks for itself:

This is the story of a wonderful, talented, normal American-Lebanese boy who became a flawed and dysfunctional individual who thought nothing of himself.

If only he had the courage to write about his experiences, maybe we, the readers, could become wonderful and talented, too.

10 Cuban Bread Crumbs, by Jack Espinosa

A memoir of growing up as a son of Spanish immigrants in Florida during World War II. No serious grammar errors and no obvious signs of insanity in the synopsis, so it's really a no-win scenario.

Blue Pencil #6: Into the Dragon's Maw

2008-03-24T12:00:00.000-07:00

Sorry if I've left you jonesing for the comedy fix that only vanity publishing can provide.

By way of apology, I offer you Into the Dragon's Maw, by Timothy S. Robinson.

The saga begins ...

A warrior-monk is chosen for a final test, one that will propel him into a series of life-threatening situations time and time again.

While there may not be anything technically wrong with this sentence, I have to wonder why one would need to be propelled multiple times into multiple series of situations. Aren't you just propelled once, into a series of situations?

Along the way, the pacific martial artist develops some curious friendships with a little gnome thief you love to hate, and a stubborn old dwarf that has a way with words.

At the same time, a Herculean elf is searching for his roots and for the creature that slaughtered his friends and family. His perilous quest will unknowingly unite him with a beautiful half-elven druid and a host of magical creatures that help guide him along his dangerous journey.

Gnome thief ... check. Dwarf ... check. Elf ... check. Half-elf druid ... check. Hmm, no Half-Orcs or Halflings? What kind of D&D campaign is this?

Inevitably, these two parties unite and join forces to face a common threat -- one that will unlock the past for the monk, and unlock the secrets of the giant elf’s origins.

I'd be interested to learn about the origins of a giant elf. It's only a hair less oxymoronic than a giant dwarf or jumbo shimp.

By the way, if I gave these books ratings, I would give this one high marks for one thing: the excerpt is cut-and-pasteable. You wouldn't believe how much retyping I've had to do in these posts, and how traumatic it is for me to replicate the unique grammar, punctuation, and spelling they are so very fond of.

The ancient monastery sat atop the highest precipice of a cloud-cutting mountain in the remote northern region of Di Jow, an Asiatic peninsula acquired long ago in the Old War.

Acquired by who? And I think we can safely assume that the Old War didn't happen last week.

It took a minimum of ten days on horseback to reach the derelict mountain from the nearest village -- assuming the horse maintained its footing throughout the journey, and avoided any predators along the way.

Yes, assuming the horse didn't fall down and break a leg or get eaten by hyenas. That might cause delays. Your mileage may vary.

A cursory view of this foreboding place imparted the name of Dansu to the fleeing adventurer, or "death" in the Asian dialect.

Ah, to hear again the dulcet tones of the Asian dialect. Those Asians have a beautiful language. How I wish I'd learned to speak Asian! I am a bit confused as to how a cursory view of a place can impart a name, though, unless the name is on a big sign.

Throughout the ages, the mountain lived up to its name. Drawn by the prospect of untold riches and magic, many assailed it and disappeared without a trace.

How can you be drawn by the prospect of something untold? And if people are disappearing without a trace, who's telling the untold stories?

The ethereal monastery, even more mysterious than the mountain, was rumored at one time to house a handful of monks who possessed extraordinary powers. Legends were passed down from generation to generation on the abilities of these monks -- abilities that hinged on the supernatural. These legends had died off though, mainly due to the missing element of actually bearing witness to one of these monks. No one had actually seen such a monk . . . ever. The latest rumor was that the monastery never existed to begin with.

So ... at one time the legendary monastery that no one ever saw was rumored to house monks that no one ever saw, and those legends have since died off, but the non-existence of the monastery is now the most popular rumor? That is mysterious!

Isn't a rumor that a legend isn't true more of a lack of a rumor?

"You know what I hear? That Loch Ness Monster that nobody can prove exists? I hear that it doesn't exist!"

Xin was just a young boy when he had first heard the rumors about Dansu.

Wait, which rumors? That it doesn't exist, or that it does exist but no one's ever seen it?

Seeking to put an end to them, he had set out haphazardly to climb the mountain and discover the truth. The mountain had never faced an adversary quite like Xin before. The Asian youth hadn't come for magic or riches.

Oh, those plucky Asians!

He was there to conquer its heights and dispel the growing myths it hid.

If it actually hides something, isn't that something the thing that you're trying to dispel myths about? This is getting pretty goddamn convoluted.

Surprisingly, Xin finds out that the rumors are true! (Not the ones about there not being a legendary monastery, though -- those turn out to be false.)

We rejoin him twenty years later, as he is being sent away from the Monastery that May or May Not Exist for his "Final Test." This test mainly seems to involve finding a way out of the monastery that he took so much trouble to find.

The long corridor was like any other in the monastery: rough-hewn walls chiseled out of stone encompassing a smooth, gray marble floor. There was nothing in particular about the corridor, but Xin knew better.

How can there be "nothing in particular" about the corridor, when we've just been given the particulars of its construction, finish, and length?

He took an inexhaustible amount of time examining the floor, walls and ceiling, moving perhaps a foot every ten minutes.

If it was an inexhaustible amount of time, wouldn't that indicate that he was still looking today? Wait, how can you "exhaust" an amount of time?

In any case, he soon finds a magical door with a rather complex description:

The bolts were equidistant and equilateral to each other. The Master had said that when faced with a system in which forward and reverse reactions occur at equal rates, so that the concentration of the reactants do not change with time, whatever action that was chosen would change the balanced system and cause failure.

Wait a moment! The sum of the square roots of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root of the remaining side! Wait, no, that only applies in Ozian geometry, and doesn't take into account things like formulas and ... and compositions ... and ... uh ... things your primitive mind wouldn't understand!

Eventually, Xin comes to a strange room ...

The walls were not of ordinary stone - but of precious stone. Two walls came together and were made of obsidian, and in stark contrast, the opposite walls were made of pearl.

I don't know much about mineralogy, but I'm pretty sure that obsidian isn't precious and pearl isn't a stone.

Upon them were millions of sigils, glyphs, writings and drawings carved into each wall with infinite precision.

Millions? They must be pretty damn small. Hence the infinite precision, I guess.

I'm skipping a lot here, and becoming progressively more convinced that this is not so much an "excerpt" as a "free book."

Eventually, Xin comes upon a dragon who is black on the left side and white on the right side (Which, as all Star Trek fans will be happy to explain to you, is inferior to one which is white on the left side and black on the right side.)

Man, I can actually feel myself getting geekier for having made that joke.

This dragon tests Xin, tells him about his destiny, fetches him drinks, et cetera, while Xin spends his ample free time trying to read the indecipherable runes on the chamber walls.

I'm pretty sure other things happened here, but my eyes are starting to cross.

In Bruges

2008-03-18T11:34:00.002-07:00

Rating: 2.5/5

Boy, the trailer for this hitmen-out-of-water flick sure looked hysterical. And don't get me wrong, all of the funny bits from the trailer are in the movie, and most of them are pretty funny. Unfortunately, the movie isn't a comedy, really, just a tragedy with jokes that often seem thrown in as an afterthought.

Ray (Colin Ferrell) has recently performed (and botched) his first job as a hitman. Ken (Brendon Gleeson) has been ordered by their boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes) to take Ray to Bruges, Belgium, to await further instructions.

Ken quite enjoys the sights of Bruges, which is a lovely tourist town full of old churches, canals, swans, and so on. Ray couldn't be more miserable -- he's bored beyond belief and has no interest in any institutions that don't serve alchohol.

Eventually, the "further instructions" come via phone from Harry, in one of the film's better scenes. I won't elaborate, because it's a major plot point, but I will say that it didn't take much deductive reasoning to figure out what those instructions were going to be.

And that's basically the movie's problem: it thinks it's much more clever than it really is.

Well, that's one problem. Another problem is that all three of the major roles are, to varying degrees, miscast. While Gleeson is very good in his role, it seems incongruous for him to make a very sincere speech about respecting Fiennes character as if he was some kind of role model, considering Fiennes is several years younger than Gleeson (and appears much younger in the film). It just seemed that Fiennes and Gleeson should have had each other's roles.

Age is also problematic in the case of Farrell, whose character seems intended to be very young. Colin Farrell isn't exactly old, but he has limited believability as a fresh young punk who just performed his first hit.

It seemed to me that the movie had no idea what it was trying to be. It's funny in parts and sad in others, but it never strikes much of a balance between the two. The botched hit that so haunts Ray is truly awful and tragic, and the ends to which certain characters come are likewise tragic, but it's peppered with jokes that don't so much defuse the grimness as deflate it.

Certain scenes, including virtually all scenes featuring Gleeson and Fiennes together, are quite good. Farrell has trouble with some of the mournful moments his character goes through, though he is generally very good in the lighter bits.

It is important to note, however, that the film commits a heinous crime by only featuring Ciarán Hinds in a one minute cameo. What the hell, man?

Bauhaus: Go Away White

2008-03-06T10:34:00.000-08:00

"Wait, there's a new Bauhaus album?"

That's right, kids.

Twenty-two years or so after their last studio album, Peter Murphy, Daniel Ash, David J, and Kevin Haskins have managed to record one "last" album as Bauhaus. Some sort of bickering seems to have quashed any hopes we might have had for a supporting tour, but the album itself is a nice surprise (if you're clueless, like me, that is -- I'm sure their core fans knew this was coming out a long time ago).

Go Away White is a strange, but mostly positive entry in the Bauhaus catalogue. The music has a considerably more produced sound to it, which is probably inevitable. There's also a distinct tone to the music that is less raw than old school Bauhaus, with more than a hint of the music created in the interim by Ash and Haskins (as Tones on Tail), by the whole crew sans Murphy (as Love and Rockets), and by Murphy on his own solo albums.

The most remarkable and welcome aspect of the album is the fact that Peter Murphy's voice hasn't lost any of its power or character. The music is decent, but his voice stands out more than ever as the signature element of the band's sound.

The opening track, "Too Much 21st Century" is a kind of bluesy rock song with a simple but catchy bass line. "Adrenalin" is closer to traditional Bauhaus, with some trademark screechy guitar going on in the background. The drums on "Endless Summer of the Damned" are very evocative of early 80s goth punk, though they remind me more of Joy Division than Bauhaus for some reason. "Saved" is a sort of wailing novelty track that I'm not really crazy about, though it does build to a decently atmospheric creepiness. "Mirror Remains" is a sort of unsettling dirge condemning the kind of vanity that leads to self-destructive behavior (mainly anorexia and the like) parts of it are fairly funny, in a very, very black way. "Black Stone Heart" is another "produced" but recognizably Bauhaus tune, though it drifts into Love and Rockets territory a bit with some odd sound effects and synth. "The Dog's A Vapour" is another dirge, but it suddenly kicks into a more rock mode around the four-minute mark.

If you buy this album, I recommend the iTunes Plus version, which comes with two videos from Coachella 2005 -- most notably their unforgettable performance of "Bela Lugosi's Dead," wherein Peter Murphy was lowered upside-down to the stage from up in the rafters someplace like a bat and sang the whole song in that position. Both this one and "Dark Entries" which closed the set, are well-shot and surprisingly well-recorded.

I was lucky enough to be there for that show, and it was pretty amazing. Unfortunately, I can't quite find myself in the crowd shots.

A Blog that Speaks to Me

2008-02-19T13:12:00.000-08:00

"It's funny, because it's true!"

Stuff White People Like

Blue Pencil #5: The Anger of Modbyedelig

2008-02-07T09:03:00.000-08:00

When one peruses Xlibris's fine bookstore, it is not unheard of to encounter "creative" spelling, and the title of this novel initially struck me as one of these. I'm not even sure how to pronounce "Modbyedelig," but at first glance I thought it was supposed to be "Molybdenum" and, as I am a huge fan of transition metals with an electronegativity of 1.8 on the Pauling scale and an atomic mass of 95.9 g/mole, I just had to check it out.

To my dismay, it turned out that this was not a treatise on the emotional state of the element with the sixth-highest melting point at all, but rather a fantasy tale by Margie L. Lauritzen-Hussey about ... well, I'm not entirely sure, but here's the synopsis:

Intrigue! Terror! Modbyedelig, the evil one, will use any means to achieve it’s dominance of OtherWorld. It is the disruptive influence in an otherwise peaceful land. A young Lace, sent Cosmos to protect OtherWorld and its inhabitants, is unprepared for the demonic force waged against her.

Yikes! Intrigue! Terror! Molybdenum!

Without reading further, I'm guessing that Cosmos is the hero? Sent by someone named Lace? OtherWorld is clearly the land of the Noun people. Judging from the cover, Molybdenum is some kind of tree (or possibly it's just angry at trees -- I'm not sure).

Lynn, William and Sara, her young friends from Human-land join in the conflict. They, along with the Centaurs, Wonkies and the indomitable Elves, encounter the wickedness of Modbyedelig.

Wonkies? Centaurs and Elves (particularly the indomitable ones) I can get behind, but I'm not sure if an alliance with the Wonkies is in the best interests of OtherWorld. Thank god the coalition is strengthened by three human children, as any Narnia fan will tell you that children are dynamite on the battlefields of fantasyland.

Destruction of OtherWorld is imminent. A story of friendship, courage, and loyalty.

I thought Molybdenum wanted to achieve dominion over OtherWorld? Perhaps these Pixie-fairies, Wookies, and assorted fae riffraff would prefer annihilation over obedience to a silvery-white metal. (To be fair, Molybdenum is very hard, though it is somewhat more ductile than tungsten.)

Well, on to the excerpt! Let's see ...

An illustrated excerpt! Very classy.

I can only assume that these are the aforementioned Wonkies. Clearly the double-line of Wonkies is headed off to war against Molybdenum and the two in the lower-right corner are either deserters or conscientious objectors.

Probably deserters. I mean, I'd chicken out, too, if my unit was sent to fight a dragon on a stick, as these guys apparently are.

War is hell.

The Wonkies marched two by two past the gate. The A's came first: Alfred, Amy, Albert, Alfonso; then the B's: Bernard, Bobby, Barbara.

"Bernard?" "Amy?" These aren't exactly names I'd expect to see attached to exotic creatures like Wonkies.

Quickly, without giving notice, three groups of two scattered off to the underbrush, hardly breathing, as the others passed them.

Ah, so they're prisoners, I guess? It would make sense, then, that they didn't give notice to the guards before fleeing (Though that would have been the courteous thing to do, they are Wonkies, and thus can't really be held accountable for their manners).

The C's were driven past. Charles, Chester, Carl; not one escaped.

Come on, Cs! Half the As and Bs just took off and you're still too chicken to make a break for it? Grow a pair!

The D's, less organized, stumbled down the path. Dagmar, Don, and Doris crept to the side of the road, scooting through the brush into the dark forest. Dave paused, raised his hand to wave good-bye to his friends. The guard was on him in an instant.

"You wanna escape? Fine! But if I see you wave to anybody, your ass is grass!"

The author continues to regale us with the struggles of Frank, Gina, Harold, Irwin, June, Liz, Montgomery, Nathan, Oswald, Patricia, Quentin, Randall, Steve, Theresa, Uriah, Vincent, Walther, Xavier, Yancy, and Zebediah Wonkie, but sadly runs out of excerpt before she can completely bore me to death.

I did learn a thing or two about Wonkies -- they are short, have stubby little legs, and are covered in fur which provides them with no protection from brambles or stray twigs.

I bet Molybdenum quakes in fear at the thought of an army of ~~Ewoks~~ Wonkies marching in and kicking the ever living shit out of it, despite its low density and stable market price or its ability to withstand extreme temperatures without significantly expanding or softening.

Actually, I rather envision Cosmos (who gets surprisingly little attention in the synopsis or excerpt despite apparently being the main character) as being about as impressed with the Wonkies as I am.

"I've just received word that the Wonkies are with us, sir!"

"Oh? Er ... excellent. Well, uh ... any word from the Elves or Centaurs yet?"

Blue Pencil #4: The Last One Standing

2008-02-05T08:21:00.000-08:00

At Xlibris, science fiction is almost as big as self-help books and collections of poems about cats. It is from this deep well of imagination that I draw the latest subject for my snarky dissection: The Last One Standing, by Anthony L. McLaughlin.

In the year 2085: the moon has been colonized and renamed Gaia and a conglomerate known as the Kage Ninja Tenkai has become known worldwide both on Gaia and on Earth.

Who but the sly and wily ninja would rename the moon after the goddess of the earth?

Within the same year a young man named Mac Karasagi joins the group and is immediately accepted in among its elite. However, one year later, Mac finds himself knee deep in the Kage Ninja Tenkai's dirty secrets and a large plot that is much deeper than anything he has ever been involved with. Now it is up to this young man to bring down the larges organization the world has ever seen, and it seems as if he must do it alone.

Wait, our fate is in the hands of Mac, who is involved in a plot which, while it is much deeper than anything he has ever been involved with, is nonetheless only knee deep?

Who checked this guy's references?

I suppose I'd better hit the excerpt and find out if this story is as riveting as its brief synopsis would suggest...

The Kage Ninja Tenkai Headquarters was a rather large building that stuck from the surrounding structures. The entrance hall, however, made up the bulk of the headquarters, about sixty five percent of it...

What? Oh, sorry. I must have fallen asleep. Where was I?

It was grandeur and perhaps the most memorable thing of the building.

More memorable than the fact that it's full of ninjas? That must be one hell of an entrance hall!

The floor was made of many large tiles, each cut out in measurements of three feet by three feet, all made of a very expensive granite-marble mixture. The texture was also very distinct, a large mass of dark swirls with the occasional calligraphy-like swoosh of white.

Ninja HQ also sports four bathrooms, spacious walk-in closets, and an attached garage.

Mac made his way across the large floor and up the grandeur staircase.

I'm beginning to suspect that Mr. McLaughlin doesn't know what "grandeur" means. He sure is fond of it, though.

Skipping a bit, as the author has established the impeccable eye for interior decoration that is the hallmark of the ninja, we find Marc approaching the receptionist:

She looked up behind her crescent spectacles, she wasn't an elderly lady but the glasses she wore made her seem a bit more elderly then she really was.

Wait, she's not elderly, but her glasses make her seem more elderly than she actually is? How does that even ... oh, wait. Ninja.

"Are there any more missions lined up for me?"

The receptionist looked back down at the monitor and clicked on a few things with the wireless mouse.

A wireless mouse? The future is even more awesome than I had imagined!

"Hmm, it doesn't seem so. We'll call on you when you're needed." Mac smiled and nodded to show thanks as he turned away and quickly headed out of the headquarters.

What the hell? A treatise on the aesthetics of ninja decor, a building full of ninjas, and we're leaving already?

Mac's house wasn't too far from here, he could easily make it from this distance.

Don't strain yourself, warrior of the future.

Mac waited for a red light to come up on one of the busy intersections and ran across the street so he could continue on to his house. Mac made a few more turns and crossed over one more street before he came to the street on which his home was.

I don't know about you, but in my imagination, ninjas frigging jaywalk. Any cop on the street will tell you that if you try to give a ninja a ticket, the ninja will kill you with it.

Despite the close distance his home was in a neighborhood that seemed like a suburban far away from any city. Neon City was well built like that, though, there were several neighborhoods that seemed like suburban areas which were blocked off by large concrete walls to reduce the sounds of the city.

Jesus. I wonder how the schools are.

Mac's house wasn't too large only one story but it seemed to make up for it with length.

Hehe.

As he approached it he could see that his wife wasn't at home, her car wasn't in the driveway.

A married ninja who lives in a nice suburban subdivision? They really don't make em like they used to. In the future, I mean. They don't, in the future, make them like they used to ... forget it.

And that's pretty much it for the excerpt. An exciting sampling of a science fiction ninja adventure, featuring neither ninjas nor anything resembling science fiction. It's right up there with the L.A. Times' home buyers supplement.

Blue Pencil #3: The Jihad:Islams[sic] War In The West

2008-01-29T09:08:00.000-08:00

For the third installment of Blue Pencil, I have chosen to move away from science fiction/fantasy for a bit, and bring you the inimitable The Jihad:Islams[sic] War In The West, by Wylie Burnett and Alodi Annis:

FOR DECADES, GREAT SECRECY CLOAKED THE ACTIVITIES OF THE RADICAL FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC MUSLIMS AFTER THEIR 20TH AND 21ST CENTURY ARMED CAMPAIGNS AGAINST WESTERN SOCIETIES. RELIGIOUS ZEALOTS FROM THE MIDDLE-EAST AND WORLD WIDE MIGRATED LEGALLY AND ILLEGALLY TO THE INDUSTRIAL NATIONS OF THE WORLD TO FORM COALITIONS WITH TERRORIST GROUPS THROUGH RELIGIOUS AND FRATERNAL ORGANIZATIONS. IN THE UNITED STATES THESE DIVERSE GROUPS BUILT CHURCHES., MOSQUES AND FAMILY ORIENTED ASSOCIATIONS THAT SERVED AS CONTACT POINTS AND PROVIDED FINANCIAL SUPPORT FOR DISGRUNTLED MINORITEIS AND ENEMIES OF THE CHRISTIAN MAJORITIES. THROUGH CAREFUL COORDINATION THE SHUR COUNCIL BROUGHT THE GROUPS TOGETHER WITH A PLAN TO SEIZE THREE WESTERN STATES. INTIMIDATION WAS BACKED BY MASSIVE WELL TRAINED GUERILLAS TO FORCE NEGOTIATION UPON A SADLY DIVIDED GOVERNMENT. THE STORY IS ABOUT THE FIVE ISLAMIC GENERALS AND MILLIONS OF FOLLOWERS WHO THROUGH YEARS OF PLANNING ARE NOW CAPTURING AND ISOLATING LOS ANGELES AND ORANGE COUNTIES IN SOUTHERR CALIFONRIA., TO FORCE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT INTO A NEGOTIATED SETTLEMENT FOR THE FREE ISLAM NATION.

Whoa, there, you don't have to shout! .

Judging from this blurb, I suspect that Xlibris charges extra for paragraph breaks and lowercase letters in the ad copy. Spell-checking seems a likely candidate for extra charges as well.

An intriguing aspect of this no-holds-barred assault on reality is the notion that the goal of radical Islam is not, as you might expect, the fiery destruction of infidel society, but rather a "NEGOTIATED SETTLEMENT FOR THE FREE ISLAM NATION."

"Now that we have toppled the godless Americans from their position as a world power and seized key sites in Glendale, Irvine, and Norwalk, we will force the imperialist swine to NEGOTIATE! Yes, brothers, soon we will have brokered an amicable arrangement with the great Satan!"

I was surprised and alarmed to see this book classified as "Political Science," rather than "Fiction." If the forces of radical Islam are on the brink of seizing control of Los Angeles County, I really ought to buy my wife a Hijab.

Here's an excerpt:

The four Generals, three with bronze to deep brown skin and a black, sat silently absorbing the last words of a long and heated debate.

Amazingly, for non-fiction, the authors can actually describe in detail the proceedings of top-secret meetings of the radicals planning to overthrow America.

Then a concerned voice interrupted, "But the city is so vast, so spread out, it will take thousands of soldiers to be effective."

Considering that they apparently have "millions" of followers in Southern California, I don't see this as a big obstacle.

He studied each of the men's faces intently looking for support and acceptance but never doubting their commitment.

Whoa! They can even tell you what these people are thinking!

Thank God they're on our side.

Blue Pencil Addendum: Cringeworthy Titles

2008-01-20T13:12:00.001-08:00

Just skimming Xlibris's bookstore, some of the titles are truly fascinating*:

Downfall of America and Europe by Illegal Immigrants and Fanatic Religious
The Superior Brain of Women and Calculus
The Greatest Secrets Ever Revealed to Be Younger Every Day
The Last and Only Solution to Overweight
Forgotten Heartbeat of the Living Ancient
Jasperado, Outlaw Cat of the West
Was Achilles a Jew?
God's Touchdowns!
God's Holy Plan to Save Earth
Vampires of the Future and the Planet of Bondage

Okay, that last one is pretty hard to top, so I'll just leave the list at 10.

*I should point out that the first four books on this list are all by the same author, who must be admired for publishing, unedited, in what can't possibly be her first language.

Blue Pencil #2: A Deerhunter meets T-Rex

2008-01-20T12:42:00.000-08:00

After the nail-biting intensity of G.E.E.N.I.E in a Bottle, I felt I needed something a bit lighter from the world of vanity publication. Hmm ... How about A Deerhunter meets T-Rex, by Rex Downie, Jr.? Sounds pretty good to me:

The Piper Comanche bored along at 160 knots over the Canadian bush, over the Little Current River, it’s destination Okogi up toward James Bay. But it hit instead a cosmic flight plan that changed it landing point to a sandy beach on a lake that existed ten thousand years before. The pilot was slain by the tusk of a Mammoth, and the passenger Harry Spragg then slew the Mammoth.

Well, this synopsis certainly is specific. Most synopses would leave the reader wondering, "exactly how fast was that plane going?" or "yes, the pilot was killed, but which part of the mammoth killed him?" None of that here.

Spragg then endured the great wrenching force of paradox and lived with people native to the lake area for two years, entering into combat with Sabre Toothed Tigers, Mammoths, the vorple T-Rex and a few Velociraptors thrown in to boot.

I'm not sure whether this is an introduction to the story or a description of what happens in it. I am interested in whether a vorple T-Rex goes "snicker-snack," however.

What is the Achilles heel of the T-Rex? How are Velociraptors like deer? The answers to these questions lie within, and, moreover, if you wish to escape these times for a new world in a primeval wilderness, with some excitement thrown in to boot, this book is for you.

How is a velociraptor like a deer? Neither one can whistle!

I don't know about you, but I'd find escaping these times for a new world in a primeval wilderness pretty exciting, but this book throws even more excitement in! What kind of excitement, I wonder?

I know, let's look at an excerpt!

CHAPTER SIX
The last battle; our Hero fights hand to hand.

Wow, Chapter Six and he's already on the last battle? These are truly savage times!

Harry sensed as the months passed after the Trex hunt that Yarthu had something on his mind, but his pre-occupation with Bluebird engaged him wholly, for she wanted to know his language and they spent hours exchanging word and ideas, that often left him exhausted.

I don't know about you, but talking rarely leaves me exhausted. I'm pretty sure there's more going on here with "Bluebird."

Harry's not much of a friend if he knows his friend has had something on his mind for months but he can't separate himself from some babe for five minutes to talk it over. Bros before hos, man!

He had scrawled out an alphabet with charcoal on hide and thought she'd grasped the huge chasm that lay between spoken and written word. They went together to the village nightly fires and feasts, and gradually Harry regained enough strength to go on hunts, but he couldn't pull a heavy bow and felt for awhile that his shoulder was so damaged that he was permanently injured.

Now, don't get me wrong: There's nothing I like better than time travel stories involving prehistoric times that somehow place humans and dinosaurs in the same era, but where's the battle we were promised?

Oh, here we go:

They moved on, crouching, waiting, moving, crouching, butting the spears in, as the soft grunts drew closer on either hand.

(If I was there, I'd have done more crouching. Crouching is key.)

After the third move, soft coughs came from front and rear, and Yarthu said "They charge now".

"Ahem. Ahem!" The sabre-tooth cleared its throat, informing the humans that it was about to attack. It hated Yarthu for his poor punctuation.

This warning gave Harry the eye to see a shift of color and shadow not ten feet distant in the bush to his right, and he swung the spear point right just as the massive head and outstretched paws loomed above him, and he raised the spear point into the throat just below the gaping maw, released his grip and rolled away from the beast as it flew over him, its' left paw tearing into his left shoulder.

Holy run-on sentence, Batman!

Wait, the warning gave him the eye to see? Clearly there is a supernatural aspect to the story that I'm not picking up on from this excerpt.

Blue Pencil #1: G.E.E.N.I.E In A Bottle

2008-01-18T14:41:00.000-08:00

After the admittedly weakly-sourced fun-poking I did on Wednesday, I decided to poke around and see what self-publishing was all about (note that ParaWorld Zero, by Matthew Peterson, is NOT self-published).

I came upon a site called Xlibris, publisher of To Live Without Warning, by Timothy LaBadie, and, for as little as $300, publisher of just about anything else you care to send them.

Rather than get into the nitty-gritty details of how self-publication works, I thought I'd take a look at some of the offerings in Xlibris's bookstore. I think this is now one of my favorite sites.

I'd like to share some of these wonderful tales with you, the reader. I do this partially because of the immense entertainment value this site holds, but mostly because it's easy pickins. In honor of the editors these works clearly lack, I'm going to call this series, "Blue Pencil."

For my first foray, I have chosen the intriguingly-named G.E.E.N.E.E. In A Bottle, by Theodore Ransburg and Patrick Codden, the (really, really long) synopsis of which reads as follows (my comments in blue):

Professor Jonothon Richardson is a brilliant scientist, haunted by the biggest mistake of his career: years ago, while in government employ, his research led to an accidental explosion that claimed the life of his wife and child.

Leaving aside the question of which of Richardson's lesser mistakes might have haunted him, I'm wondering how a guy who we learn is a computer researcher managed to blow up his wife and child with his work.

"This code ... it's not compiling ... it's ... OH MY GOD!!! The CPU is overheati-- BOOOM!!! "

Now, in a lonely lab on one of Saturn’s moons, he toils away, trying to sublimate his guilt by creating the next leap in technology. By combining both organic and technological materials, he creates a living computer, capable of massive storage and computation, far surpassing even the impressive technology of the 24th Century. Thus is created G.E.E.N.E.E., which stands for “Genetically Engineered Essence, for Neurologically Enhanced Encryption.” (It is probably just coincidence that his daughter’s name was “Jeannie”...).

Yes, an intriguing coincidence, that!

His assistant is the effeminate Max DeBlanc, who attends to the Professor’s needs in a manner both effecient and annoying.

"Effeminate?" And, er ... what needs are we talking about here?

Secretly, however, Max is an Operative of the branch of the government who employs the good Doctor. His purpose is to secure the technology and make sure it is delivered into the proper hands. What he ends up creating is far more than even he bargained for, as the Professor solves the problem of true artificial intelligence. Not only is the new technology capable of super-computer tasks, but he implants it with the personality profile of his deceased daughter, in an emotional attempt to restore the life he feels he took from her.

Wait a minute! I thought it was a coincidence? Ransburg and Codden, you tricky bastards!

Just as the Professor successfully installs and interacts with his new creation, he is greeted with the unexpected arrival of a pack of super-human thieves. Nearly alien in appearance, they exhibit a terrifying ability to mutate their bodies in various ways, from surviving the rigors of deep space to forming armor plated skin and deadly tentacles. Overpowering both the Professor and the government-trained Max, they make off with their prize, following the orders of their mysterious commander.

So much for "government-trained" Max. A subtle comment on the limitations of effeminism and effeminists.

They are unaware that the organic components of the G.E.E.N.E.E. unit require a nutrient bath, that needs re-charging every few days. Meanwhile the Government, eager to get its hands on the new technology, deploys one of their top Agents, Sasha Sikorski, to retrieve it. Fresh out of a mock-combat training exercise (in which she demonstrates, purely and lethally, why she is the best in her field), she receives her new orders. When she arrives at the deep space lab, under cover and aboard a junker / courier ship, she finds the invention stolen and Max and the Professor badly beaten up.

So ... they've just been sitting there, beaten up, waiting for the cops to show? Must be disappointing when the doorbell rings and it's only a courier ... OR IS IT?

No! It's Sasha Sikorski, mistress of mock-combat!

Quickly re-grouping, Sasha commandeers the junker ship (overpowering the Captain and winning the begrudging fealty of his crew) and takes off to recover the stolen unit.

"Well, you beat up our Captain, and we're none too happy about that. Buuuuuut ... you are a woman, and space is lonely, so just let us know how we can help."

Unfortunately, the ship’s crew is indebted to the Overlord of the black market, and they can’t proceed any further into space without the mid-range drive that he holds as ransom for their latest cargo.

"Wait, you want to go where? Nope, no can do. You see, if you wanted to go kinda close by, or really really far away, we could help you, but our mid-range drive is in hock. Damn the luck."

Against Sasha’s better judgement (and the Professor’s emotional outburst),
they must journey to the heart of the criminal world – the black market headquarters of Baldezar, hidden in the asteroid belt of the solar system.

Considering that they are near Saturn, if they can get to the asteroid belt on the drive the ship has, why don't they just go where they need to go? Oh, wait. It's probably somewhere closer than the asteroid belt but farther than the corner deli. Curse that missing mid-range drive!

Once there, the ship’s crew tries to negotiate the terms of their business agreement (without the help of their Captain), while Sasha, Max and Professor Richardson shop around and try not to get themselves killed.

Oh my god. If I was at the black market, I'd totally go shopping. I mean, it's like, how often do you make it out to the asteroid belt?

Acquiring some valuable technology – and making enemies with nearly every guard in the place – the rag-tag team makes a quick get-away and rejoins the search for G.E.E.N.E.E.. The race against time is on, as the Doc calculates that her nutrient bath will run out in a few short days.

"Hmm. Maybe we shouldn't have taken time to go shopping. And, really, making enemies with nearly every guard did take a long time. Some of them were pretty cool."

When they finally manage to trace the signal, they find themselves headed for the darkest of Uranus’ moons, Umbriel. An abandoned mining facility there seems a likely hideout for the thieves.

Especially since, you know, we traced the signal there.

The final confrontation pits the Professor and Sasha against the evil artificial intelligence which has kidnapped G.E.E.N.E.E., in his element: inside his own mainframe!

Wait, "mainframe?" What year is this set in?

Meanwhile, Max and HeadTrip confront a fresh obstacle in the "real world" – another wave of genetically enhanced Mutates that guard the laboratory.

Wouldn't this indicate that the previously-described "final confrontation" is, in fact, the "penultimate confrontation?"

Will good triumph over evil? Will man secure his dominance over machines? The final answer may surprise us all, but the trip will be worth every second.

The only way to answer this question is to check out the excerpt!

CHAPTER THREE:
MUTATES IN THE EQUATION
Max woke up about halfway through his rest cycle, with a desperate need to use the waste management facilities.

Um. Let's skip a bit ...

Maybe the guy is part machine himself, he quipped. He sighed, and continued on down the hallway to relieve his call of nature.

Er, a bit further, please ...

Max's eyes flickered quickly over the Professor's torso before coming to rest on the real target—his right bicep. The Professor was not a body-builder, by any means. His physical development had been helped, however, through vitamins and technologically enhanced exercise in varying gravity fields. He was, in short, reasonably developed without being grotesque.

FURTHER!

She was a young Caucasian girl, with blonde hair pulled into twin pigtails. She looked around with a calm, curious expression on her face. As she locked eyes with him, there was some sort of familiar spark in her gaze, but it was gone so quickly it might have just been imagination in the first place.
"Hello," he began, hesitantly regaining his composure.
"Hello." Her voice was high-pitched, but not whiny as so many children's voices are. She spoke slowly and matter-of-factly.

Well, at least it doesn't involve bodily functions or inappropriate workplace ogling. But "Slowly and matter-of-factly?" All she said was, "Hello!"

What Max saw on his monitor was an unimaginably huge stream of data and computer commands scroll by on the screens in front of him.

I'm sorry, I can't quite envision how huge that stream of data and computer commands is. However huge I imagine it is, I'm reminded by the text that, no, it's even bigger.

Alas, despite the fact that no one takes any more bathroom breaks during the course of this excerpt, we are left with no answers as to the eventual triumph of good or evil. The evil "Mutates" arrive and, admirably overcoming the fact that their name is a verb, steal G.E.E.N.I.E and whisk her away to the outer edges of the solar system.

One can only hope that the rag-tag band of heroes will be unable to enlist the aid of the government that is so keenly interested in the professor's invention, and that they will, by grit and determination alone, find some way of confronting the villain in his very lair.

(Well, actually, thanks to the very lengthy synopsis, we know that they will do precisely that.)

But who will truimph? That's the question only you, the reader, can answer. (Because I'm certainly not going to read it.)

Jesus, speaking of needing editors ... I think this is the longest thing I've ever posted. Oh well.

Wow, a Correction!

2008-01-16T16:08:00.000-08:00

FOLLOW-UP: After a very courteous comment/correction was left by Matthew Peterson, author of ParaWorld Zero (and here I thought I was just talking to myself...), I have amended my entry on independently-published novels. I hope that term is more acceptable, and acknowledge that it is very different from self-publication.

Considering how few people actually read this blog, Matthew must be doing some pretty intense web search refreshing to have found it. But, then, if my novel had just been published, I'd probably be doing the same thing.

At any rate, ParaWorld Zero, at least, is not self-published, and is available through several outlets listed on Matthew's site. There is even a trailer for the book, created by the author himself, featuring ... kung fu, I think ... and an iguana. I didn't know they made trailers for books, and I'm not sure this is a trend I want to encourage.

Anyway, Mr. Peterson further informs me that the book is doing quite well in on-line sales, which, as he rightly says, is pretty good for a first-time author. It even has a five-star rating on Amazon, and many reviewers do, in fact, compare it to Harry Potter.

In my defense, this is a pretty awful piece of promotional art:

Still, my apologies and good luck going forward!

Now if somebody out there knows Timothy LaBadie and wants to come defend that ... er ... plot synopsis for To Live Without Warning, bring it on.

No, I don't think that's going to happen.

Voices in the Wilderness

2008-01-16T10:44:00.001-08:00

I subscribe to the very wittily-named Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, a generally high-end market for short speculative fiction. Over the years, I've read many an entertaining short story and been inspired to look up other works by some of the authors.

However, there is a dark side to F&SF -- an aspect that simultaneously repels and draws
me in with its strange wordplay and unique artwork. Horrifying and amusing (often at the same time), I have found myself looking through back issues just to find more of these bizarre nuggets of entertainment, as they are elusive and rare.

I speak, of course, of the ads for ~~self-published~~ novels from independent publishers. Here shining examples:

To Live Without Warning [by Timothy LaBadie] is a story set in a future San Francisco, where public transportation is the only way to travel, and people with colds are required by machines called breathe-eraters[sic] to wear masks. ... There are aliens who disguise themselves as homeless people, and there are twins from an alien abduction, one human, one not, plus a virtual couple who live in a bungalow on the beach in a virtual Costa Rica who mix up their computer code to have a virtual child, and then there is a cat woman who can do all sorts of erotica with her tail, and a drummer who leads more than a band called Death, Ax and Grind.

Man, that sounds totally rad!

Honestly, though "To Live without Warning" sounds kind of like a cautionary tale about a world with no pregnancy tests.

But what if I was in the mood for something a little more magical?

Paraworld Zero, by Matthew Peterson: Earthling, Simon Kent, stumbles upon a secret that thrusts him into a bizarre adventure filled with magic, technology and deadly out-of-this-world creatures. He discovers a true friend, confronts his inner demons and becomes the savior to a peculiar race of people, when all he truly wants is to find his way back home.

George Lucas, eat your heart out!

According to one of the endorsements, this book features, "The exciting action of Star Wars with the humor of Napoleon Dynamite." So says Diana Pharaoh Francis, author of the Path and Crosspoint series.

I'm honestly surprised no one mentioned Harry Potter, since the crappy Poser art in the ad is pretty clearly supposed to (and utterly fails to) evoke the cartoony covers of Rowling's books.

True Movie Magic

2008-01-11T09:31:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Ink Gorilla for sending me this video. It's an inside look at a very, very impressive undertaking in which three graphic designers recreate the D-Day invasion on film by themselves in a matter of days.

Reasonable Facsimile

2008-01-11T08:23:00.001-08:00

Yes, I have realized my lifelong dream: warbling into a microphone and fooling a computer into believing that I can sing.

Rock Band is quite possibly the best game ever.

I will leave the drumming and guitar playing to my cohorts Full Metal Ted and Ixtililton, however -- I have no time for those aspects of the game that actually require "rhythm" or "skill."

No, instead I will use my sort of half-assed mynah bird-like ability to mimic sounds, which seems to be enough to fool Rock Band quite handily at easy and medium difficulty. This is because the game does not notice whether you actually know the words, or can even read them off of the screen. No, all you need to do is match the pitch and timing.

You could be singing in Japanese, as long as you were hitting something approximating the right notes at the right time. It even shows you what pitch you're actually singing at, relative to what you should be hitting, so you can find your note.

That is why, contrary to all logic, the hardest songs to do well on, vocals-wise, are the punk songs and the irritatingly-syncopated Aerosmith song "Train Kept A-Rollin'."

(Speaking of Aerosmith: how is it possible that this man was left off of this list? I mean, seriously.)

So, anyway, our "band," "Reasonable Facsimile," isn't exactly sweeping Rock Band off its feet (ace drumming by FMTed notwithstanding), but we have managed to score a tour bus and win a band challenge against an "evil" rock band --- a victory right out of a cheap Hollywood version of Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas (which is an obscure Jim Henson holiday classic, notable mainly for the fact that the down-homey good guys lose to the scuzzy heavy metal stylings of the Riverbottom Nightmare Band).

We specialize in songs that aren't particularly challenging, amped up to "medium" difficulty when we're feeling daring. Our manager tells us that if we want to be World Tour material or get our own private jet, we're going to need to expand our repertoire beyond Nirvana's "In Bloom" and Weezer's "Buddy Holly," but, dammit, we have to play to our fanbase.

Plus "Blitzkrieg Bop" is really, really hard to sing, for some reason.

David Lynch on iPhones

2008-01-08T01:02:00.000-08:00

A rather blunt insight on the growing trend of people buying movies to watch on a tiny portable screen.

Drunken History

2008-01-03T15:47:00.000-08:00

And now, a guy who just drank a bottle of scotch discusses Aaron Burr:

The Bottom 50

2007-12-27T16:13:00.000-08:00

The Beast has a great list of the 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2007.

It spreads the hate around pretty widely, though any sensible list of hateworthy people is going to skew heavily against Republicans.

But it's more than merely a liberal hate list. For example:

17. Hillary Clinton
Charges: Began in politics as a teenage Nixon supporter -- that's twisted. Moved on to corporate law, representing Wal-Mart and bravely defending Coca-Cola from disabled employees. Married out of ambition. Failed miserably as the first lady of health care. Has spent whole of senatorial career as a hawk and a panderer. Would have no shot at becoming president if she didn't just happen to be married to one already.

Exhibit A: Has deftly avoided the flip-flopper label -- by never, ever answering a question directly or committing to a position in the first place.

Sentence: Victim of vast right wing conspiracy to shove a brick up her ass.

Harsh but awesome: The 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2007.

I Am Legend

2007-12-27T10:59:00.000-08:00

Rating: 4/5

Of the three movie adaptations of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend go, I'd only previously seen The Omega Man, the very loose 1971 version starring Charleton Heston. The earlier adaptation, 1964's Vincent Price-starring The Last Man on Earth is rather more obscure, though I'll probably try to see it at some point.

Having read and loved the novella, and after literally waiting over a decade for a modern adaptation, I was pretty dismayed to learn that Wil Smith had been signed to star in 2007's version of the vampire apocalypse story that inspired everything from Night of the Living Dead to 28 Days Later. I was fresh off seeing the abysmal I, Robot and my loathing for Smith (and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman) had really peaked.

Still, there was little doubt that I'd see this new version, despite the involvement of these folks. Fortunately, while Goldsman brought his patented "shit" writing touches (Batman and Robin, Lost in Space) to the movie, it managed to survive thanks to the efforts of others, principally Smith.

That's right: Wil Smith is absolutely fantastic in this movie. I never expected to type those words, believe me, but his performance is easily Oscar™-worthy, in my opinion.

Thank god the Arnold Schwarzenegger version never got made.

And now, a few negatives (of course):

Most reviews I've read of the film mention that the CGI vampires are awful, and that is somewhat true. It's not the quality of the animation, though, but rather that they are incredibly generic. These vampires are essentially the same wall-crawling, super-jumping badass swarms of CGI beasts we've been fed over and over and fucking over again in the last ten years. From the horrid morlocks of the equally-horrid 2002 version of The Time Machine to the horrid robots from the previously-mentioned I, Robot, it seems like there is an irrational compulsion in Hollywood to make monsters act like swarms of pissed-off crickets.

I would have liked some explanation of how certain things came to pass regarding driving to and from Manhattan at certain points. They weren't deal-breakers, but were kind of hard to rationalize.

Why use an actress of Emma Thompson's caliber as the creator of the "cure for cancer" if you're not going to have another interview with her after it has all gone wrong. An interview where she's just devastated by what she has accidentally wrought would have been fantastic.

Warning: Spoiler-ish!

The ending SUCKS.

You don't even have to be familiar with the brilliantly dark ending of the novella to find what the film gives us disappointing. Not only is it the polar opposite of the novella, it also squanders its own work at creating some kind of depth in the antagonists. I am furious at whoever wrote the ending (undoubtably Akiva Goldsman -- the bane of my existence as a movie lover) because they threw away so much potential. It's as if whoever wrote the end hadn't even read the rest of the screenplay, much less the source material.

What pisses me off is that all my curiosity at what they were building to with the vampires' obvious intelligence and the female he'd cured will remain unsatisfied forever, because they just tossed it.

Cautionary Tale

2007-12-27T10:06:00.000-08:00

Did you hear about this? How frightening!

This lady has changed her habit of how she carries her baby after her stroller was stolen. Her stroller which contained her purse, mobile, baby, etc., was stolen and she was distraught. She called her husband from a pay phone to tell him what had happened and he says "you were just here and asked for your PIN number, our safe-deposit-box key, and a big tongue kiss, at least I assumed it was you because the person was carrying our baby, but now come to think of it he did have a serious moustache."

They rushed down to the bank and found out that all of their money was gone and that all of their accounts including their mortgage had been put in their baby's name and the baby had been labeled as a roll of quarters and deposited. Moral of the lesson: take a good look at anyone you're going to kiss to make sure that they're not just a hairy stranger with your baby.

The Greatest American Hero

2007-12-18T08:16:00.001-08:00

My apologies if this is becoming the "whatever videos make Morgue chuckle" blog, but here's a preview of yet another superhero movie for 2008. This one gets points for originality and at least one bit in the trailer made me laugh out loud.

Warning: Potentially Offensive Video Alert

2007-12-17T15:06:00.000-08:00

This is funny, to me. It may not be funny to you, particularly if you believe that nativity scenes should not involve combat.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year, 2007

2007-12-12T15:39:00.000-08:00

Yes folks, the world has finally sat up and taken notice of the jubilant victory cry of the online gamer: w00t!

Best Campaign Ad Ever

2007-12-12T12:16:00.000-08:00

With thanks to small flowers crack concrete (despite the fact that this video isn't actually featured there).

Now This is a Review

2007-12-12T08:48:00.000-08:00

From the Onion AV Club's "My Year of Flops" entry on the currently-dying-in-a-few-theatres disaster "Southland Tales"

I literally could have stripped off all my clothes and somersaulted down the aisle screeching the lyrics to “Umbrella” while watching Southland Tales, secure in the knowledge that my actions would constitute merely the second craziest thing happening in the theater at any given moment.

Divided Loyalties, Part Two

2007-12-07T15:11:00.000-08:00

Part Two is up now, here.

Brawndo Makes you WIN!

2007-12-07T14:22:00.000-08:00

This is made of 100% awesome.

Freeman's Mind

2007-12-07T08:50:00.000-08:00

Even if you've never played the original Half-Life, this is a pretty funny video:

Fiction - Divided Loyalties

2007-12-06T10:01:00.000-08:00

I've decided to try to motivate myself to write by creating a new blog where I'll post fiction I'm working on in serial form. I'll link it here when I update, which I'm hoping to do at least twice a week.

The first entry I'm posting is the beginning of a fantasy story I'm very tentatively calling "Divided Loyalties." Some folks may have read this first bit in a different form before.

Anyway, feel free to comment, as this is a work in progress.

Divided Loyalties, Part One

Random Rules II

2007-12-04T09:29:00.000-08:00

It's that time again, kids! For lack of anything more inspired to write about, I'm gonna hit you all up for audience participation.

In case you forgot (or are new to the Random Rules thing I stole from the Onion AV Club), the rules are as follows:

Take your iPod or other MP3 player and do a shuffle that includes all the tracks on the device. Take the first 10, list them, and comment. One track per artist, and you can skip soundtracks and audiobooks if you choose. You can also take one "mulligan" and skip a single track you find too embarassing to describe (mention it at your discretion). Add a comment to this post with your list to let us know how much cooler you are than me.

Here are mine:

1) "Spade" - Marilyn Manson

Okay, justifying Marilyn Manson isn't easy, but the album this comes from, "The Golden Age of Grotesque," is probably their best, and this is one of the best songs on it. Hard rock, alternating between slow and moderate tempo, with a very effectively sinister tone. With the number of Manson tunes I have on my iPod, I'm surprised I didn't have more of them to choose from. Oh well, "Spade" will do.

2) "Waste it On" - Silversun Pickups

Silversun Pickups sound a lot like Smashing Pumpkins (who I hate), but I like them anyway. This isn't the best track off of the album ("Carnavas"), but it has a cool baseline.

3) "The One" - The Like

The Like is a girl band I bought a few tracks from because they were playing at Coachella the last time I went. Not bad. Kind of sound like The Pretenders to me, but less annoying. They ended up playing at Coachella while we were still in line to park.

4) "Ikea" - Jonathan Coulton

From the "Smoking Monkey" album. It's not his best song, but it's funny and clever. You can't really beat a song that features the lines, "Ikea: Just some oak and some pine and a handful of Norsemen/Ikea: Selling furniture to college kids and divorced men."

5) "Haven" - Flesh Field

Obscure industrial with a nice buildup. It sounds a fair bit like soundtrack music from The Matrix before the lyrics kick in, and then it sounds ... well, Flesh Field doesn't use excessive vocal distortion, but they have both male and female singers, which rarely works well for my ears. In their case, it works better than many.

6) "Ball of Confusion" - Love and Rockets

I forgot this was on my iPod. It's a good song if you haven't heard Love and Rockets lately, but it's a bit too plodding for my taste. Certainly not their best single ever, but that technically goes for every single they ever released as Love and Rockets, considering their entire ouvre as Bauhaus was better than anything they did without Peter Murphy.

7) "Doggie Tom" - Lords of Acid

This is one of my favorite Lords of Acid songs. It's got a fantastic drumbeat and is a very catchy song. Its limited popular appeal can probably be attributed to the fact that the subject matter is risque, to say the very least...

8) "Tentative" - System of a Down

I liked System of a Down for about a week. I really need to remove all System of a Down songs from my iPod.

9) "Right Here, Right Now" - Fatboy Slim

From his album, "Greatest Hits - Why Try Harder?" This song is cool background music, I guess. It has a cool beat, but, like many Fatboy Slim tunes, is incredibly repetitive.

10) "Roots Radicals" - Rancid

Yay! A punk song. Now I seem pretty cool, huh? Well, I would feel a lot cooler if my mulligan hadn't been "Uncle Noah's Ark" by the Wiggles. (I guess I can be thankful that it wasn't "Shake Your Tail Feather" by the Cheetah Girls. What can I say? I have two young daughters.)

Reiteration Space

2007-11-28T08:32:00.000-08:00

Revelation Space
by Alastair Reynolds

My tradition of "reviewing" things that are several years old continues with Revelation Space, the debut novel of Welsh writer Alastair Reynolds. It's a science fiction novel set in 2543-2567 AD, which rather disconcertingly skips back and forth between two stories that, eventually, manage to come together.

Dan Sylveste is the stubborn, egotistical leader of a scientific mission to the planet Resurgam. The mission has become more of a colony, actually, since a large portion of the original expedition pulled up stakes and left years before, feeling that there was nothing left to learn about the Amarantin, an intelligent race nearly a million years extinct thanks to a suspicious solar flare.

Sylvestre is adamant that there is something vital to be learned from the Amarantin -- something important for humanity, though he's not sure exactly what that might be. His fanaticism has blinded him to a new and growing opposition in the colony and he soon finds himself a prisoner after a coup removes him from power.

Meanwhile, ten years before that, a ship called Nostalgia for Infinity is searching for ... Dan Sylvestre. But thanks to that pesky speed of light, they are just arriving at Yellowstone -- a planet Sylvestre left nearly 30 years before that. Ilia Volyova, one of the ship's "triumvirs" (three officers of supposedly equal rank below the captain), is having trouble getting her new gunnery officer acclimated to the job.

"Trouble," here, means that the mental link to the gunnery drove him completely psychotic, raving about something ominously called the "Sun Stealer" and trying to kill Volyova, forcing her to kill him instead and cover it up.

Nostalgia for Infinity definitely needs to find Dan Sylvestre, for reasons that eventually become clear, and they pick up a new gunnery officer in the form of Khouri, a former soldier turned professional assassin who has her own secret agenda: Kill Dan Sylvestre.

This storyline then follows the increasingly disturbing trek of the Infinity to Resurgam, in search of Sylvestre, while the former storyline picks up with Sylvestre, after several years under house arrest, and, through the miracle of time dilation caused by traveling at a speed approaching that of light, the stories more or less seem to have a similar timeframe, despite years of actual difference.

Confusing? Yeah, but you get the hang of it around a third of the way through. It doesn't help, though, that sections from different characters' points of view are often separated by nothing more than a blank line.

Of course there is more to the Amarantin than everyone believes, and Dan is eventually vindicated in his obsession with the extinct race. But there are sinister forces at work, and no one character really gets all the pieces laid out for them until things have gotten rather out of hand.

Despite having a fairly intriguing concept, Reynolds definitely needed some editing here. While nearly 600 pages in paperback, the book could easily lose 100 of those pages by removing segments where characters basically explain to other characters things that the reader already knows. This happens with irritating frequency in the last third of the novel, as the disparate story lines finally converge.

Conversely, Reynolds practically skims over some intriguing points, particularly the identity (and nature) of Khouri's mysterious employer and the discovery of a wrecked starship. This is somewhat frustrating, given the number of pages dedicated to decidedly less interesting bits.

While Ilia Volyova, Khouri, and the rest of the crew of Infinity are pretty interesting characters, Sylvestre, despite ostensibly being the novel's "main" character, is less so. He is inconsistent in his attitudes and other characters treat him in vastly different ways. He's supposed to be an arrogant genius, but the genius part is mainly displayed by people referring to him as such, rather by anything he actually does.

Likewise, Sajaki, an enigmatic and threatening member of Infinity's crew, seems to scare everyone he comes in contact with, but when push comes to shove, there is nothing there. His character is apparently 95% public relations.

Published in 2000, Revelation Space received pretty good reviews, particularly for a first novel, and, despite my criticism, it did have a lot going for it. I looked up Reynolds on Wikipedia and was pretty impressed to see that he's published seven novels so far. That's one a year from 2000 on. I'll probably look up some of his other works, since even halfway decent "hard" science fiction is pretty scarce.

Sometimes You Get the Bear...

2007-11-19T12:43:00.003-08:00

Hi. Remember me?

If you're still bothering to check this blog, I appreciate your patience. It's not like I've kept up with the non-stop witty and insightful commentary that was my stock-in-trade in the salad days.

Why is that? Well, as much as I'd like to blame computer games, I usually do most of my posting at work (like I am now). And I have been pretty busy with work.

In fact, I recently found out that the search for another programmer/analyst here has been put "on hold" due to a hiring freeze. Isn't that super? I'd try to spin that into something positive, like "job security," if not for the fact that my company is absolutely in love with outsourcing.

Oh well.

On another note, I choked on NaNoWriMo for the third time in a row. This time I only ended up about 8100 words in before I decided it really wasn't interesting me anymore. For that, at least, computer games are at least partially to blame. But I haven't managed to finish a 30 day novel since the first one, and I think a large part of it is that feeling that, "I've done this already."

After all, the end product of a 30 day novel-writing blitz is rarely something you're going to be proud of, except for the pride of actually having finished the damn thing. I've finished one, so I keep wanting to write something worth writing and I keep finding that the 30 day novel process ends up taking whatever decent ideas I have and grinding them into a meaningless word count exercise.

This time around, I really didn't prepare for it. The companion book is called, "No Plot? No Problem!" which, I guess, is accurate if you're just pumping out word count, but it's really not interesting enough to keep me on track. It feels a lot less like writing a novel than like doing homework, and I'm too old for homework.

"So take your supposedly good ideas and write a novel!" you might suggest. Maybe I will, but I'm starting to suspect that long form writing isn't really in the cards for me. Maybe short stories, I'm not sure. I think I need a little time to form some kind of perspective about the whole thing.

Plus, I have a sandwich to eat.

Hell Yeah!

2007-11-09T07:58:00.000-08:00

Got my new computer working, finally, after losing my mind for a bit thinking I'd gotten a bum part or installed something incorrectly.

Finally, I can enjoy violent virtual combat in the pixel fill rate (and corresponding AA grunt), texture sampling and filtering rates it was meant to be seen in.

... Yeah, okay, I don't know what those terms mean, either, but it looks bitchin!

"...and then a bunch of ninjas come in through the skylight."

2007-11-06T00:30:00.000-08:00

Jeez.

I'm starting to think I should have done a lot more prepping for this NaNoWriMo. I'm only about a day and quarter or so behind schedule, but my attitude has gone pretty sour. Now I feel like I'm telling two completely different stories, only one of which is even vaguely interesting, and I'm struggling to make much headway.

I added part of a prelude to try to give the damn thing some context, but, really, I can only give it the illusion of context since there is literally no continuity for it to flesh out.

I'm starting to debate the merit of pounding out word count just for the sake of pounding out word count. I really hope something catches pretty soon or this is going to be a major chore.

If this is a "lesser work..."

2007-11-03T22:33:00.000-07:00

Wild Seed, by Octavia E. Butler

Apparently, this is considered one of the late Ms. Butler's "lesser works." It doesn't merit its own Wikipedia entry, it didn't win any major awards, and I haven't seen it on any must-read lists of science fiction/fantasy.

Frankly, I'm surprised, because, after my third reading, I am still overwhelmed by how incredibly rich Wild Seed is.

Published in 1980, the novel spans about 150 years of time in the lives of two immortals. The first, and oldest is Doro, whose existence is sustained by his ability to steal the body of the person closest to him, either when his current body naturally dies, or, much more disturbingly, whenever he wants to make a point. Doro is a menacing figure, both alien and human, who has lived millennia before the novel's opening, attempting to breed a race of superhuman descendants via a eugenics program whose scope and methodology would make Josef Mengele look like a slacker.

In all his existence, Doro has never met another person with even the potential for immortality. This changes in 1690 when, after finding one of his "seed villages" in Africa destroyed by marauding slavers, he feels the pull of a powerful presence.

He seeks out and finds the source of his attraction in the person of Anyanwu, a healer and shape changer who can control her body almost absolutely and has lived many lives of her own by appearing to grow old and then relocating for a time before returning as a young woman to the people who do not recognize her as their grandmother or great grandmother.

These two characters meet on page four. The following 275 pages are an epic account of their unique and disturbing relationship and the book as a whole is one of only a small handful that have ever inspired me to read them more than twice. Race and culture, love and bitter hatred, and the struggles of virtually immortal beings to retain their humanity all combine to make Wild Seed a gripping tale.

Though it is categorized as "fantasy," those of you who are geeky enough to distinguish between flavors of fantasy might notice that it is effectively a "supers" tale, albeit in a very unusual setting. Doro's children, his experiments both successful and failed, are reminiscent of the mutants of the X-Men series -- terrifying to the general population and often tortured by the very powers that make them different.

The book is also very reminiscent of the better parts of Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire. Like Interview, much of it occurs in the antebellum south and the timeless natures of Doro and Anyanwu and their tenuous and tragic attachments to the mortal world have many parallels with the descent of Louis into Lestat's world.

Butler was probably the most prominent African-American science fiction/fantasy writer of her time, and certainly the most prominent African-American woman in the field. If Wild Seed isn't her best, then there are some amazing books out there I still haven't read.

NaNoWriMo Begins!

2007-11-01T22:19:00.000-07:00

Just finished my first day of writing for NaNoWriMo 2007 at 1,683 words.

I had a small body of notes on this story that I thought I'd be using. It concerned a young man newly made a lord by the death of his older brother returning to his home.

Then an assassin jumped him. I'm not sure where that came from, though I had my suspicions the moment the character appeared. Luckily, he was saved by ... um ... somebody. So far, the other person is just a loud voice behind a door and a very heavy knock.

I guess this is a good beginning, since I'm rather curious about what will be revealed in tomorrow's chapter.

Here's What I Like

2007-10-29T12:18:00.000-07:00

I realize that my last several entries have revolved around video games that no one who might be reading this blog have actually played. I also realize, based on my most recent traffic report, that the list of people who are actually reading this is very, very short.

So, in an effort to increase general, non-gamer interest in my blog, I want to talk about SEX!

Just kidding.

Here are a few trivial things I like:

Dipping things into other things before eating them.
Movies that have an emotional impact, for a good reason rather than simple button-pushing.
Watching TV shows a season at a time on DVD, rather than week-by-week.
Not driving.
Cheese on crackers (preferably Triscuits -- I'm not a cracker elitist).
Making lists about things.
Making self-referential meta-comments in the middle of my lists.
Um...

Hmm. Everything else I want to add to this list seems to involve snack food.

Discuss!

The Perfect Game

2007-10-24T13:30:00.001-07:00

OK, so I finished Portal, and those of you who have already heard me go on ad nauseum about how amazing it is, you probably want to skip this post.

Portal is one of the best gaming experiences I've had, period. I feel pretty fortunate, actually, to have had some pretty spectacular luck with game purchases lately: Psychonauts, you may recall, had me raving like a fanboy at a Leia's metal bikini-themed costume contest, and Team Fortress 2 has been sucking up a lot of processing cycles on my computer (when the frigging machine isn't on the blink, that is).

One of the "negatives" in some reviews of Portal has been it's rather short running time. Though there is some replayability available via the "challenge" levels unlocked by completing the game, a reasonably good player could probably chew through the basic game in under four hours. It took me about six, I think, but I've played the entire game through again and it took me barely two hours to complete a second time.

The fact that I did play it through again is probably significant, here. I just don't do that with computer games. I can't recall a single puzzle or adventure-based game I've played through twice, with the exception of some of the Infocom text adventures from back in the days of the Reagan administration.

The reason for the replay, and for my continued enthusiasm for the game, is because, while it is eminently clever and very funny, it is also a bizarrely-touching game. You really become attached to the light, musical and extremely diabolical voice of GLaDOS, the computer in charge of the "tests" you are being put through.

The less you know about the specifics, the better, I suppose, but here is my personal plea: SOMEBODY PLAY THIS DAMN GAME SO I CAN TALK TO YOU ABOUT IT!

And play Psychonauts, too, dammit. That game is just too good to miss.

Prevaluation

2007-10-17T13:21:00.000-07:00

Radiohead - In Rainbows

When I heard about Radiohead going to the extreme of releasing their album on the internet with a "choose your own price" purchase plan ... well, I forgot about it for about a week. But then I remembered and went over to check it out at their website.

Now, I've never been a huge Radiohead fan, but I did recently buy a few tracks from lead singer Thom Yorke's solo album and liked them pretty well. I am, however, a huge fan of big artists helping us all to make record labels a thing of the past.

The interface on the site is very, very (very) simple. You don't even get to preview the tracks, like you might on iTunes or Amazon. I'm sure you could preview them somewhere by now, if you really wanted to, but I was on a mission.

After a few minutes playing around with a currency converter (the field for setting your own price is in pounds), I decided that showing my support by buying an album I might not like much was worth about ten bucks to me. I got a link to a zip file, downloaded it, and added the resulting MP3s to iTunes (not without a certain pleasant feeling, as they are DRM-less.)

Then I gave the album a listen, and the first two tracks were pretty encouraging. "15 Steps" has a neat sound and was pretty listenable, despite Yorke going a bit warbly on the vocals, and "Bodysnatchers" is a respectable scratchy rock song, even. Unfortunately, the next four or five tracks didn't really interest me much. They're kind of laid back and unmemorable.

The album picks up a bit in the last two songs or so. "House of Cards" is still laid back, but it's a bit more interesting than the mid-album lull. "Jigsaw Falling into Place" is another rock song, though it's a lot cleaner and not quite as much fun as "Bodysnatchers."

And that's it, really. Three or four songs I'd listen to, and five or six I'd probably skip. In my book, that makes it a decent but not exceptional album. I've certainly paid more than ten dollars for albums that weren't anywhere near as good, but I've also heard better.

Orange Box

2007-10-17T09:21:00.001-07:00

Got the Orange Box from Valve on Monday. Thus far, I've tried two of the games and they're both pretty nice.

Portal is a first-person puzzle game with a really evil sense of humor. I have read that it's supposed to be set in the same universe as Half-Life, but it seems a lot less grim in tone than that series. (Don't get me wrong, it's brutal, but it seems less so because you laugh pretty often.)

You play a test subject for a company called "Aperture Technologies" in what is basically a first-person shooter without any shooting (by you). Using a unique device that can create matching pairs of hole-like "portals." When you (or anything else, really) step, jump, or fall through one portal, you come out of the other one, which leads to some really bizarre situations which you kind of have to see to understand.

It's presented as a series of levels designed to test you and the portal device to destruction, but that dire scenario is somewhat lightened by truly odd announcements and encouragement from the complex's slightly deranged control computer. Messages like this, delivered in a cheery (if somewhat mental) woman's voice, made me laugh out loud while playing:

The next test includes an element of negative reinforcement. Please be aware that touching the floor in this area will result in a failing score. Followed by death.

The puzzles are challenging, but so far solvable (and I'm not really all that good at stuff like this, so it might be a bit too easy for some), and the game is really just a fun experience.

Team Fortress 2, on the other hand, involves a great deal of shooting. And explosions. And knives.

Unlike Portal, which is a "simple yet hard-to-describe" solo thinking game, TF2 is multiplayer-only, complicated, and frenetic, to say the least. That's not to imply that TF2 isn't a thinking game, though.

In TF2, you are a member of a ... well, a team, obviously. You can play one of many roles on that team, however: heavy weapons, demolitions, sniper, spy, medic, pyrotechnician (A.K.A. flamethrower guy), engineer, scout, or soldier. Each role has a unique style of play, and a team generally needs a good variety of roles represented to succeed.

Most of the scenarios involve facing off against another team in a battle to control certain locations, either taking and holding territory, assaulting defended positions, or defending against assault. It's very fast-paced and violent, but, like Portal, TF2 has a unique sense of humor that really works.

The character archetypes each have their own voices and personality, and the game has many moments that sort of blur between action movie standards and professional sports. For instance, when you die (as you do very, very often), the camera zooms in on a freeze-frame of the enemy who did the deed, complete with dramatic music and the offer to take a screenshot for posterity.

When someone takes you out several times in a row, the game makes note of that fact, declaring them your "nemesis" of the moment, and, if they continue to kick your ass, it starts letting everybody know. This can be a little irritating if you're really getting shut down, but I think on balance it is a good thing for one reason: it makes it unnecessary for other players to do a lot of their own taunting, saving you from hearing "pwnt!" and other standards of FPS braggadocio over and over again from semi-literate twitch gamers. Believe me, that is a net positive.

The bottom line is that TF2 is fun as hell, and really well designed. I had a lot of fun with almost every class (though I have yet to try engineer.) The spy was a bit too tricky for me to play without getting irritated, but I think it's one of the more demanding classes, skill-wise. My favorite by far were the sniper (for obvious reasons) and, surprisingly, the medic. This is probably because people are genuinely thankful when a medic comes to their aid. It lets them shine, keeps them alive in the face of enemy fire, and can really make a difference.

I'm going to have to try the third game in the box (Half-Life 2: Episode 2) soon, but I think Portal and TF2 are going to be getting a lot more attention first.

Wow, that Didn't Take Long

2007-10-12T13:15:00.000-07:00

Here I am, posting about Peruvian spiders forming gangs and terrorizing the countryside, when we have our own, vastly more horrible spider invasion right here in the good ol' USA.

Most spiders are solitary creatures. So the discovery of a vast web crawling with millions of spiders that is spreading across several acres of a North Texas park is causing a stir among scientists, and park visitors.

If that story doesn't make you want to stock up on Raid, check out pictures of the event in question.

I don't know about you, but I get the feeling we're about to be subjected to some kind of nightmarish retribution from Mother Nature for causing global warming or inventing spray cheese.

<hicks>"I say we dust off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."</hicks>

This is a worrying development...

2007-10-12T11:37:00.000-07:00

Normally, the threat to humanity from spiders is constituted mainly by "Eeek! I'm such a puss that I am afraid of an animal 1/100000th my body weight!" moments.

Fortunately, spiders are generally a solitary lot. Humans, as social animals, often have a mate or other companion who is not paralyzed by arachnophobia. Thus, since we don't seem able to beat them using simple common sense, we can at least rely upon the fact that they are solitary, and unlikely to call upon reinforcements to overcome us with their eight-legged awfulness.

At least, that used to be the case.

An amateur spider researcher recently discovered a tarantula species in Peru big enough to kill a hen that, unlike other tarantulas, doesn't cannibalize it's young, but rather hunts with them in a pack to take down larger prey!

That's right: A pack of friggin' spiders. Tarantulas, no less.

We can only hope that John Goodman will once again come to our aid in this dark time.

His Dark Material Girl

2007-10-12T09:01:00.000-07:00

The Golden Compass, by Phillip Pullman

This is the first novel in the fantasy series with the ominous-sounding name, "His Dark Materials." The series is fairly well thought-of and this volume is "soon to be a Major Motion Picture" with the star power of Daniel Craig, Nicole Kidman, and Sam Elliot (who is breaking out of his typecast mold and playing a gruff but heroic Texan).

Before discussing this volume, I should point out that this series has already broken the Three-Book Barrier. The TBB, in case you're wondering, is something that I just made up to fill space. But that doesn't make it any less important!

The TBB refers to the number of volumes beyond which a fantasy series begins to falter under its own weight. This is, of course, due to The Lord of the Rings. (Yes, I know that LotR is more like six books crammed into three volumes, but did you know that Tolkien originally wanted the whole thing sold as a single volume? Liar.)

Any fantasy series that exceeds three volumes asserts by its very length that it has more to say than LotR, which is a pretty bold statement in the world of fantasy. While a trilogy is able to stand on its own merits without necessarily being compared to LotR, the comparison is inevitable after that point. Almost invariably, when a series has gone beyond three books, it is on a downhill path:

Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea series was a fantastic trilogy ... until she added a fourth book.
Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's series was ... well, the first two books were pretty good. Maybe this isn't a great example.
Most readers will tell you that Robert Jordan should have kept the Wheel of Time series to a few volumes and that later books seemed bloated. (Now, of course, they'll have to suffer for the fact that he passed away before he could wrap up all the plot threads he'd spun out in the 11-volume series unless they want to head down the perilous road of posthumous publication).
The jury is still out on George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series. I personally think that book four was the weakest in the series (though still pretty good), and his rather slow progress on book five makes me wonder if we'll ever see the whole seven-volume series.

Of course, there are exceptions. Frank Herbert's Dune series is well-regarded (though the posthumous efforts of his son and other authors are decidedly less-so), for example.

Anyway. Where was I?

Oh, yeah. The Golden Compass.

Originally titled Northern Lights, this book was renamed by the publisher of the North American edition solely based on the compass-like device depicted on the cover art. This goes down as possibly the only fantasy novel renaming stupider than that inflicted on Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (though somewhat less insulting to Americans).

The book follows the adventures of Lyra Belacqua, an orphan girl who lives at Jordan College in Oxford. Her parent's fate is initially something of an enigma, though moreso to Lyra than to the adults who seem to know an awful lot about her.

An epidemic of disappearing children touches 11-year-old Lyra's life when it claims two boys -- a friend and a rival. Lyra is taken away from Jordan before she can find out much about the disappearances, however, and placed in the care of the sinister and mysterious Mrs. Coulter.

Note: Since the novel was written in 1995, years before her rise to infamy, we can be reasonably confident that there is nothing in this book implying that conservative hate-monger Anne Coulter is a malevolent bitch queen who would stop at nothing to further her own agenda. The fact that she is exactly that is entirely beside the point.

Lyra soon discovers that Mrs. Coulter is not a very nice person and she runs away, carrying with her the eponymous golden compass, given to her by the head of Jordan college just before she left for Mrs. Coulter's care, which is actually a neat device called an "aleithiometer," the purpose of which is initially somewhat mysterious.

What follows is a fairly epic journey into the far north in search of the missing children. Lyra is joined by several colorful characters, including a Texan aeronaut, several "gyptians" of noble character, and a badass polar bear who, like Lyra, has a somewhat mysterious past (though in his case, he knows his own past very well, and any reader paying even the slightest attention can figure it out and predict a good portion of the rest of the book from the moment he's introduced.)

I read this book because the trailers for the upcoming movie looked interesting and, really, it's a decent fantasy novel, if a bit "young adult" in tone. I'd say it's somewhat above the Harry Potter level of drama, but it lacks a bit of the grab power of that series (despite a considerably more original and complex story). Still, despite the fact that it ends on what is basically a cliffhanger, and that the other books are available in my local book store, I'm not really rushing out to buy and read them.

The cliffhanger ending might just sink the movie, as well, particularly since they don't seem to be marketing it as "first in a series." That's asking for trouble, in my opinion, because there are few things more irritating than a movie that ends in an unexpected cliffhanger with no solid promise of a follow-up.

Er... he's Behind that Pumpkin

2007-10-08T08:02:00.001-07:00

Taking my three-year-old to daycare this morning, with my iPod on Shuffle, "Good for Your Soul" by Oingo Boingo came on.

Me: Hey, it's Jack Skellington!
TYO: Huh?
Me: You know, Jack Skellington from Nightmare Before Christmas? This man is his singing voice. He sings his songs for him. His name is Danny Elfman.
TYO: Where's he standing?
Me: ... Good question.

Halloween Horror Nights

2007-10-04T10:50:00.000-07:00

TEDWRD and I hit a preview of Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios last night.

Now, TEDWRD's a big guy and the various performers running around with chainsaws and bloody knives were, every single one of em, dwarfed by him. Some of the smaller performers were cleverer than others, and used TEDWRD as a screen, jumping out at the next people down the line after hiding behind him. It was pretty funny to see guys playing Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th or Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre kind of just look at him. You could tell they were thinking, "Yeah, I'll scare the next bunch, thanks."

Generally speaking, it is a pretty fun experience. Since it was free, I'd say it was totally worth it. For the $60 or so you poor bastards would have to pay ($30 if you know a certain person who works there), maybe not so much. It depends on how much you like being screamed at by horrifically-bloody victims or menaced with chainsaws, or ... kind of glared at menacingly by Jason and Freddie Kruger (of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise).

Speaking of Jason, Freddie, and Leatherface, there was something odd about the presentation of these characters. Each had their own themed maze, which, to say the very least, featured the character prominently.

So prominently were they featured, in fact, that the characters lost almost all of their impact. I mean, how scary is Jason when every room has a Jason in it? The answer, of course, is "not very." We were literally having Jason brandish a machete at us, taking two steps into another room, and watching another Jason gesture hatefully at us with a pair of pinking shears.*

Jason's maze was the weakest of the three because not only was Jason an army of one, but there was also a recurring "Crazy Old Man" character warning us not to go here, not to go there, and to generally run for our lives. He even identified himself as "Crazy Old Man" as we were leaving the maze:

Nobody ever listens! Nobody listens to the Crazy Old Man!

In my opinion, he should really avoid self-identifying as insane if he's hoping for credibility.

*Okay, not pinking shears literally.

Circular Reasoning on the Road

2007-10-03T10:09:00.000-07:00

Three Year-Old: I want "We're in this Together."
Me: I don't have my iPod, do you want to hear Radio Disney? *tunes XMRadio*
TYO: Can I hear "Crazy Frog?"
Me: No, it's radio, honey. I can't make it play a certain song, like on the iPod.
TYO: Can I hear "Stroller Town?"
Me: No. Honey. It's ... look, it's not like the iPod, I can't make a song play. We just have to listen to whatever it plays, okay?
TYO: Okay. ... Can I hear "Podsafe Christmas?"
Me: No! Please, honey, I can't make it play a specific song! It plays whatever it wants to play, like ... well, like a radio. Do you understand?
TYO: Uh huh. ... How about Wiggles?
Me: *counts slowly in head* Honey--

At this point, Radio Disney begins playing "Crazy Frog."

TYO: *grins triumphantly* See?