For Those of You Too Lame for Reformation Day…

…Crowder shows that stealing candy from children is harder (and creepier) than it looks:

Tip of the Hat: IMAO

Summer of Disappointment Awards

So, I finished the Summer of Disappointment. Star Trek, Wolverine, Terminator, Transformers, and G.I. Joe. A 5-man band of incompetence. Let’s highlight the worst of the worst.

The Worst Lead Actor Award goes to Terminator. I’m still trying to decide whether John Connor or the robot was the lead. It was that bad.

The Worst Lead Actress Award goes to Mitchell Fox (from Transformers). She cannot act. She cannot pass off as a real-life woman. I’m surprised she can read. There is nothing redeeming about her.

The Worst Supporting Actor Award goes to the racist Autobot twins. Jamaican Jar-Jar did not offend me in the movie theatre. Those two deformed morons did. Unnecessary gold teeth, ebonics, stupid in-fighting, “we can’t read no Cybertronian” all come to mind.

Dishonorable mention goes to Wheelie.Michael Bay found a way to make Wheelie even more annoying: having him dry-hump Mitchell Fox’s leg.

The Worst Supporting Actress goes to the mom from Transformers. Was the pot-brownie scene really necessary? Really?

Dishonorable mention goes to the Decepticon chick. “She smells like diesel.”

Worst Cameo goes to Brendan Frasier. He played either Sgt. Slaughter or Sgt. Flint in G.I. Joe. And by play, I mean drive around on an ATV randomly and then stand, arms folded, laughing at Snake Eyes beating the snot out of Duke. It was surreal. Fan moments need to be integrated into the movie better, Hollywood; if I cannot figure out who the guy is supposed to be, it does not make me feel acknowledged.

Worst Special Effects goes to Wolverine. The “Whoa, shiny claws” bathroom scene and the creepy de-aging of Patrick Stewart stands out.

Worst Ret-con goes to Wolverine. I’m not sure if this is for “Blob has an eating disorder” or “We gotta justify putting Cyclops in the movie somehow…”. But it’s for one of those two.

Worst Politically Correct Moment goes to Terminator. There is a series of barely hidden jabs against fighting terrorists that spews out of John Connor’s mouth before he heads off to the big anti-climatic naked Arnold battle.

Dishonorable mention goes to Wolverine. Agent Zero is an East German. They made him Asian. This is especially heinous considering: 1) Zero was a bad guy 2) East Germans are an ethnicity that Hollywood is normally okay with making the bad guys (if you need examples, picture one of Nazi movies galore Hollywood still makes). There was no real justification for doing so.

Biggest Plot Hole goes to G.I. Joe. Why did Destro need to steal back the nano-tech weapons? Could he not just have a “lab accident” or a staged break-in? I mean, come on.

and finally…

Worst Movie of the Summer: Transformers.

Shape up next time, Hollywood, or I will continue to just wait until things hit the $2 theatre.

No, I Have Not Fallen Off the Face of the Earth, Part II

Has it really been over a month since I posted anything?

Well, I’m still alive (as far as I can tell) and still working two jobs. I still have not gotten used to trying to write anything substantial after a 50-60 hour workweek. The only reason I’m writing anything now is that I’m stuck at work for 8 hours on a Saturday; Saturday morning classes are notoriously under-attended, especially during big holidays (like Reformation Day), so I have time to spare.

So, what has happened over the past month?

• I got off the parent’s car insurance and need to find the time to finish the title transfer. After that, I’m completely off the apron strings, for better or worse.
• I caught a throat/sinus infection during Homecoming. Half a paycheck went to the medical profession to get that diagnosis. Our stupid third-party payer system makes health care way too expensive (and believe me, it will be worse if the government becomes the only third-payer in town…).
• I finally got around to watching G.I. Joe, thus completing the Summer of Disappointment.
• One of the reasons I instituted my “11th commandment” rule (Little Green Football’s Charles Johnson) either went completely off the deep end or everybody else in the blogosphere noticed how crazy he is. It got so bad that the other reason I instituted the aforementioned rule (Allahpundit of Hot Air) threw in a couple of jabs. Other people documented it as it was happening. I just thought I should note it.
• Rio got the 2016 Olympics. I’m happy about that, but not in the Nelson laugh towards Obama way the media tried to spin it. If the Olympics are supposed to be about countries getting together in the spirit of friendly competition, we should be spreading the hosting wealth around. In the past 25 years, the U.S. hosted the Olympics thrice; the entire Southern Hemisphere has only hosted the Olympics twice (Rio will be the Southside’s third Olympics). If a country is able to provide the support to be able to host the Olympics, they should be given an opportunity even if that means the U.S. needs to step back every now and then. Of course, I could be wrong about the whole point of the exercise…
• A new nadir in Nobel Peace Prizes has been reached. While it could be argued (falsely) that universal nuclear disarmament would result in a more peaceful world, Obama has yet to accomplish anything making that particular windmill more a reality. At least Gore made a successful documentary about stopping global warming to get his Peace Prize. I’m sure that the Nobel Committee will come up with something to top the embarrassment of this year’s award (Iran’s leadership winning one for nuking Israel?), but still…

That’s all the updates I can think of.

I Was Going to Post The New Crowder Video…

…but decided against it. Crowder parodying Olbermann and cross-dressing just does not feel right. Or relevant.

Here is something that, if not exactly right, is more relevant to my life:

They could ask Destiny… or would that be too catamite of them?

Thoughts on Patriot’s Day

Well, today is 9/11 (“Patriot’s Day, for those that tire of just saying the date)…

And I really do not have much to say on the matter.

I’ll just steal others’ work and not call it my own!

Basil’s Two Cents

Moe Lane’s Declaration of RAGE! (What if the “Third Way” was: Calmly picking up your Chainsaws to fight off the mindless Mohammadean hoard? Could I pick the third way then?)

Big Hollywood has many, many words and posts on the subject…

Sarah “Paladin” Palin uses the vile Facebook for some good.

Thoughts on Obama’s School Day Address

If he did not refer to himself so many times (I counted 66 “I”s and “Me”s that were not quotes from someone else), I would not know this was from Obama.

He kept it apolitical (well, other than the hubris of using the presidential bully pulpit in such a way) and focused on personal responsibility. Of all the speeches I read though from Obama, this was by far the least offensive and most in-line with the American experiment. Here are some quotes:

“But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.”

“And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.”

“But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life — what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home — that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you.Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.”

“But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.”

“The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best. It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rightsand put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter andFacebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.”

Of course, I could be wrong. What’s your take?

To Sunray and Back

In all the hullaboo of the past couple of weeks, I have yet to give you a proper travelogue of my trip to Sunray, Texas. This is my attempt to do so now.

For those of you (like me until I actually arrived there) that do not know where Sunray is, it is a small town of approximately 1500 people about an hour North of Amarillo. It is quite a drive (took me 8 hours to get there, 7 hours to get back). And the sights I saw would blow your minds.

The GPS decided to send me through the wastelands North of the Red River, turn west in the horrible pile of smoldering buildings that used to be called Oklahoma City, and turn North once I hit Amarillo. It was an interesting experience. I got stopped by the border guard. They seemed nice enough people, bravely defending our nation from the roving bands of hippies and other sub-human scum that populate Those United States. Driving through the 5-mile wall was an haunting experience. Pitch darkness surround you, with the occasional crush, rotting bodies of those who did not escape the concrete pouring peeping out. WinStar Casino survived by forming a thick glass dome around their property before King Norris ordered the creation of the border wall, for those of the gambling persuasion. They even hired mole people to do all their outdoor services (valet services, parking lot lawn care, dome repair, washing mangled bits of human flesh off of visitors’ cars, et cetera). Most people probably would not notice the difference.

I am relatively happy to report that the Wasteland is attempting to at least restore the semblance of civilization they had going before they were accidentally nuked by Those United States. Unfortunately, they think civilization is measured in highway repair efforts. I drove through 4 different highway repair zones in my brief time in the Wasteland. Then again, the billboards tell a story that the denizens of the Wasteland had little idea what civilization was in the first place. Ads for this one Ham Sandwich joint peppered the first hour across the border. Once I got past the Ham Sandwich place, billboards for various tourist traps (casinos, drive-thru safaris, an action figure museum) showed that the Wasteland had little of value to offer. Kind of sad, when you think about it.

But still, the mutants that inhabit the wasteland still take legal tender and not crave the flesh of men, so it could be worse.

The effort I had to exert to get back into the Kingdom of Texas was much greater than the effort it took to get out, as one would expect. I’m not allowed to divulge all of the tasks one had to perform to prove one’s allegiance to the great Kingdom of Texas (we are trying to keep to riff-raff out), some of the things I am allowed to list (to try and scare out would-be trespassers) are:

• Gargle 50-alarm chili.
• Hit a target with a long arm whilst blindfolded.
• Perform a bone-shattering roundhouse kick on a captured mutant.
• Rip a mutant’s heart out without killing it and feed the organ to it.
• Survive 5 minutes in an artificial black hole and then escape.

I got through, filled up the car, and continued on my way.

I got to see the largest cross in North America from the highway and passed by a place advertising a free 72 ounce steak (so those places you here about actually do exist). The Texas panhandle is a sparsely populated, hilly prairie; there is not much to see.

I had a nice visit with the parents. Apparently, Mom is cooler than I am (she has an iPhone, a Facebook page, and a Twitter account). They say one dies a little when ones discovers that one’s parents are cooler than one is; I think I had some hair follicles dissolve. Dad seems content with semi-retirement, having given up the lousy Wal-Mart job to work as a teacher’s aid for the school district. And R Lee Ermey hates gum balls but loves to paint with machine guns.

I pseudo-ignored the suggested route on my way back to Denton. My mouth had not yet healed up from the 50-alarm chili, which is so hot that Yankees would burst into flames at the mere smell of it, and did not wish to try again while healing up from the experience. The guards said King Norris is the only one able to consume it without being at least somewhat burned by the fiery dish. So, I stayed in Texas throughout my trip back. It drove my cheap GPS a little crazy, but it eventually found the right track.

I got to drive though Bowie, thus completing my efforts to at least visit all the cities that NCTC has a campus in. I also got to see the empty space that supposedly holds the mythical city of Decatur. They say that if you arrive in the actual city, you are vaporized by the giant, laser-shooting robo-ants that guard the recipe to “Texas Tea” (which is the source of all things Texan). It’s not exactly a recommended tourist spot, if you get my drift.

All in all, a good trip.

Read a Book!: Brave New World

Brave New World

by Aldous Huxley

I do not quite remember who started my search to read this book (you remind me, I’ll give the appropriate tip of the hat), but I finally found it at a decent price (ironically enough, at the local used book store in Denton) and devoured it in 2 days.

Some of the criticisms aimed against the book are valid (a little too sex focused; what caste was the love interest in?), but the analogy is scarily apt. Big brother coming in the form of hedonistic instant gratification is a tempting beast; one only needs to look at America’s partial descent into it’s arms to see that. I probably would have enjoyed the book a little more if I did not read the forward (Huxley seemed to have missed his point on a couple of things), but it still was a good read.

Read this Book!

Interesting Read

What’s the Point?

Tip of the Hat: Reader Tony

This Dog is Racist!

At least, that’s what the liberals would imply.

On another note, who feeds dogs carrots? That’s cruelty to animals.

Tip of the Hat: IMAO