Guy's Grumblings

Chris Floyd (3/22/66-12/29/07)

2008-01-02T23:40:00.000-08:00

"Check your junk mail... a bunch of your jarhead buddies sent you some."

That was how I found out that the best friend I have ever had had died. Lori had noticed that a few of my jarhead friends (the term doesn't offend... trust me) had sent me some emails to my junk account (for some reason no one ever thinks to send us mail at our primary account!). So later that night (Wednesday the 2nd/3rd) I logged onto my yahoo mail account at work and... there it was.

I spent the next twenyt minutes or so calling both Floyd's cell number (one of the emails had said that his wife, Michelle, had that phone) and Michelle's. After not getting any answers there, I called another fellow Third Herd alumni, Stacey Frizzell. Stacey answered (Stace is a guy, by the way...) and the rest is plain from the header of this particular post. I found out that the funeral is set for 2 p.m. on Thursday, the 3rd. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little bit twisted up over not hearing about my best friend's unexpected demise early enough to actually attend the funeral but there's just no one to get mad at in this particular SNAFU. Apparently Floyd had written our new North Dakota number and address down sometime around the tornado in August that just about wiped us off the map but neglected to actually put it in any books or phone lists or anything else, so when everyone started calling and looking for me... nothin'. I understand. It's disappointing, but if Chris could have used a cel phone directory as well as he could a suicide clutch or a spud wrench, well, the result would have been pretty much the same but at least I could have been there.

Since I can't, though, I wanted to eulogize him as best I could.

You hear a lot about how adversity forges friendships like nothing else. You heard right. Now don't get me wrong, peacetime service in even a bungled beauracratic looney bin like the Marines isn't like what's currently going on overseas but in the mid-to-late 80's, painting fifty yards of gravel road white rock-by-rock, digging holes deep enough to bury a 1985 Ford F-150 and then being told to just fill it in when you're done, walking firewatch in the barracks on your liberty days for something a brown-bagger did while the brown-baggers got to go home because "They gots families", having CS gas tossed at you more often than is really necessary (even for training purposes), and a thousand other little inanities could really turn a bunch of young miscreants into... well, miscreants, to say the least. But we were miscreants bonded together against a common enemy. You guessed it: anyone that had even one more stripe than the rest of us. And flashy metal on the collars? Forget it... those guys shoulda all been fragged on sight!

Those (and too many others to list!) were the circumstances under which I met Chrisopher Alan Floyd. Now had I met Chris (or rather; "Floyd", or "Sigmund" or [my personal favorite] "Pink") even so much as one year earlier I probably would've sneered, mumbled "burn-out!" under my breath, and forgotten the little creep. Okay, he was never little... that's exactly why I would've mumbled "burn-out!" rather than said it out loud. But I didn't meet him then and, instead we became friends.

Now Chris was no saint, let's not kid ourselves here. I can remember literally hundreds of times when he'd scarf up the last beer and laugh as he slobbered all over the neck of the damned thing just to keep you from being tempted to snatch it away from him (as if you could!). But you know what? He'd usually be the first guy to pony up for another six (or, in 3rd Herd's case... a case!), assuming, of course that he hadn't pissed his entire paycheck away on the beer in hand. Which happened. A lot!

We hung out a lot. And drank a lot. And got drinking in public tickets a lot! But we had a lot of fun beyond drinking... although I really can't remember ever NOT drinking with Floyd! My first concert ever was with Floyd and Yogi Simpson (and maybe Hackman too, I really don't remember it very well) at the Aerosmith concert when they were still on drugs and Ted Nugent opened for them. Besides being temporarily deaf from ol' Ted's routine, I probably got drunker that night than I ever have before or since. I vaguely remember sitting down on the floor of the McDonalds' right in the line to order when Floyd looked me over and, no doubt realizing that it was either sit down or fall down for me, said; "Hey, Down'van... whaaaaa doooooon't yoooo siddoooowwwwn 'foooooore yooooou fallllll dooowwwn?" I also remember his nearly girlish giggle as he grabbed my by the armpits and literally dragged me over to a booth and dumped me in it before going back to the line to get the food.

I know; not exactly a "he dove onto the hand grenade to save me" kind of story that you see in the movies but we weren't in the movies. And for us, being drunk out of our ever-loving gourds in Norfolk was about as close as we ever got to that kind of action anyway.

And as ballsy as he was he never got pissed at us grunts when we'd start singing "Floyd's woman from Tokyo..." after he started dating Michelle McCauley, a waitress of Korean/Irish descent, at the legendary Yorktown Pub. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned that story to you before, Michelle, but if I haven't, well... there you have it: we were less than touchy-feely, sensitive guys.

And then of course there was Scott McQueeney, who beat us all to whatever comes after that last six pack. Floyd was with there along with the rest of us who went to Manchester, NH for Scott's funeral. I remember how understanding he was when I used a bic lighter to burn off that Irish pennant from the collar of his, borrowed of course, dress blues while practicing for Scott's funeral at the local reserve armory (said Irish pennant being probably at most a half inch under his chin!). Very understanding indeed. That's just the kind of guy Floyd was, though. But by later that night at the Salty Dog he was totally over it and, you guessed it... drank it up with the rest of us poor saps.

I could go on forever (and wish I could) but we have to save some of our stories for the next reunion (and the one after that and the one after that and...), not that I don't think we'll be repeating 'em all over again for the rest of our own days!

In short I just want to say that Chris Floyd was a hell of a guy. In fact I've considered Floyd to have been my brother since long before we got out of the Corps together; closer even than my real brother. I was hoping that my little girl would grow up thinking of him as "Uncle Floyd" the same as Hack's kids do but now she'll only know him from pictures. He was my best friend... ever, and the world is a sorrier place without him.

Goodbye Chris. I'm gonna miss the shit out of you.

Top photo: Floyd and one-year-old Susie in our hotel room in Williamsburg, VA, 2005 (their only meeting)

Bottom photo: Floyd, Michelle, Lori and I at a restaurant in Williamsburg, VA, 2005. One of the last times I ever got to see him.

This isn't really typical of me but...

2007-08-18T22:17:00.000-07:00

Does it strike anyone else that it just might be a bad idea for the shuttle Endeavour to come back to Earth without using that special filler material that NASA came up with after Columbia burned up on reentry to cover that hole that the latest piece of falling ice/foam made?

I really don't like second guessing NASA. I think the media does everything they can to present the space agency in a bad light without ever reporting on all the great things are accomplished by the same bunch of guys. The mass media seems to look at NASA the same way as they do the military. You know; "We love the troops but we hate what they do." Same thing with NASA: "We love astronauts but they're all a bunch of alcoholic, psychotic, gun-toting, diaper-wearing weirdos, aren't they?"

Oh well, I guess that's a topic for a different post. Back to what I was talking about...

A few flights back they sent a guy out on a robotic arm to pull out two pieces of felt gap filler material that stuck out about 1/8th or 1/4 of an inch. For all intents and purposes it was done because they felt that even though the best brains in the business all concluded that there was very little chance of a serious problem ocurring due to the filler strips sticking out slightly that it was "better safe than sorry". I thought then (and still do now) that management made the right decision to pull the strips. If for no other reason it was the right decision because after Columbia the public needed to see that safety was foremost in NASA's mind.

Well now they've got a hole gouged all the way through a tile that has bared a piece of the actual skin of the shuttle to superhot gasses created by reentry. The astronauts have photographed it, used a laser to determine it's depth, and eggheads round the world (no doubt) have pondered the level of danger that this may or may not present to the crew and the vehicle itself. Everyone seems to have come to the conclusion that it's really not that bad. Hmmmm.

Don't get me wrong; I'm no egghead. I've been called a lot of things ending in "head" but never egghead. I don't have an advanced degree. I don't even have all the facts that the real eggheads do. But I wonder if this isn't something that maybe they should be applying that "better safe than sorry" ethos to. I mean come on... even if the danger isn't really all that high isn't this the ideal time to try that filler goop out in a real space environment and see how it handles the heat and stress of an actual reentry rather than rely on lab tests and computer models? Isn't this the perfect opportunity to see how well it can really be applied in a microgravity, airless environment? Hmmmm?

I see the latest news on Space.com is that Endeavour is undocking from the ISS a day early in order to come home before hurricane Dean (I think that's the name) can cause problems. That's wise. I guess we'll all see if they're as right and wise about the tile damage as they are about the weather when Endeavour comes back.

I'll be crossing my fingers!

One last post before we go...

2007-07-25T22:21:00.000-07:00

Well we're movin' into our new house on Monday and our internet's gonna be down for as long as a week or two so I thought I'd update this pig. Besides, it's been more than a month since my last post and I was afraid that I was gonna turn into Joe if I didn't post something!

First off; here's our new house for those of you that may have missed the pics on email.

Yes, it is a little crooked. It's the picture, though, not the house.

Honest.

Remember my last rant about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Of course you do... it's right below this one ya yutz! Well Lori recently got me a copy of the book for Father's day and I read the whole thing to Susie over the course of about a week. Now, having read the fershlugginer thing, I have to say...

The book's total shit too! I was shocked. I've always loved Roald Dahl's work and couldn't believe that the book that's considered to be his crowning achievement is largely garbage!!!

I suppose maybe my perception is colored irretrievably by my childhood memories of the movie with Gene Wilder but I'd like to think to think that I have the capacity to be impartial on this one. After all, I knew that the Star Wars prequels were destined to be dissappointing for me because (news flash!) I'm not twelve anymore. There was just no way that Georgie Boy was gonna be able to make a film that affected me in the way that Star Wars (that's right... Star Wars! None o' that Episode IV: A New Hope garbage!) did because twenty years had passed.

But Charlie/Willy predate that period considerably and given that the book came first I hoped that I would find that it was Dahl's outlook on it that had changed and that the book would indeed be just as good (though not necessarily the same as) the movie.

Boy was I wrong!

So I suppose I owe Tim Burton an apology for the vast amounts of acid and general hate I spewed forth in his direction from various orifices (mmmmmm... there's an image!). Sorry Tim. Your movie is, indeed, extremely faithful to the book. In fact I would have to say that the Burton version of C and the C F is one of the best examples I can think of of a movie that follows the book in virtually every way.

But...! My opinon on the film remains unchanged. Sorry Tim but that's the way it goes. You were slavishly faithful to a book that stank; a book that pales in comparison to the 70's film version. The earlier movie has heart and humor and lessons galore while the new one (like the book) is full of an "aren't these people awful?" sentiment with virtually no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

And as a last aside to Mr. Dahl: Double... NO!... Quadruple shame on your withered soul for disparaging a film that so clearly improved on your own work! Whassamattah, Roald... jealous that you didn't think of some of that dialogue of Willy's in the Wilder version? Sure most of it's not original but Willy himself is a creature of pop culture so why shouldn't he speak in literary references? Particularly since the dialogue you gave him was so unmemorable and pedestrian!

Dahl was credited in the earlier film as the screenwriter so I'll have to assume that a number of the improvements over the book are his (Slugworth and the Everlasting Gobstopper subplot, etc.) but for him to badmouth the film due to its dialogue being improved by a highly respected producer with decades in the business is just ludicrous. It's not often that I come down on the side of a suit but this is one exception I'm glad to make.

FIN

Coming up next post: Do all 107-year-old houses make all those creepy noises?

Charlie and the Big Bag of Runny Shit.

2007-06-04T18:03:00.000-07:00

Last post I threatened to review something that I actually liked. Of course you didn’t believe it because you know me.

Never let it be said that I disappointed you.

Surfin’ around the plethora of HBOs the other night (our free subscription is almost up and there’s just no way I’m gonna pay for that crap) I stumbled into Tim Burton’s remake of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Initially I thought, "Hey, that’s funny!" No, not because something amusing was happening but because for the last few weeks Susie has had the Gene Wilder version on a constant loop here at our house in Those North Woods, USA. Now when this particular… flick… was in theaters I just couldn’t believe that anyone thought the original needed to be remade. I’d heard for years that Roald Dahl was famously unhappy with the original and refused to ever watch it (his script apparently was changed drastically) but having never read the book (it would have interfered with my constant re-reading of 2001) I have always considered the film to be one of my all-time favorites and sort of thought of it as being near perfect—despite the admittedly low production values.

Well, anyway… back to the point. It was on. It was free. I was morbidly curious. I watched it.

"BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP-(splash)-A-DAP-A-DAP-A-(splash)-BUBUBUBUBUBUBUBBUBUUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuuuuup-(splash)-… up-(splash)-….up-(splash)-…. up-(splash)-…. Fweeeeeeee -(splat)."

What was that, you ask? That, my friends, is the cartoonish representation of what a really nasty case of stinking liquid shit being shot out of a Marine’s ass after a night of wild drinking at some local shitkicker bar complete with chicken wire in front of the stage sounds like, toilet water splooshes and all.

That same sound seemed to come out of my 5.1 sound system during the entire viewing experience of watching "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". Of course it was all in my head but that was the general "taste" I was left with by the time the friggin’ credits slithered their turd-like way up my stained and violated 27-inch CRT.

You might assume I didn’t like it. You’d be right if you did.

Now I have to preface this whole "review" with the admission that not only have I never read the book but I didn’t even see the opening 20 minutes or so of this particular, ummmm…. production. I stepped in it, I mean stumbled into it at the point where Charlie finds his golden ticket at Bill’s Candy Shop.

Initially I thought that maybe HBO had started yet another new channel-- one dedicated to showcasing workprints of unfinished films that had since been finished and gone on to theatrical runs. Such a channel would be of specific interest to true movie geeks who get a kick out of watching a film go through the whole process from script to screen. I thought this because the whole time Charlie is opening up the wrapper of the chocolate bar there isn’t any music creating any underpinnings of tension and the pacing of the scene was dull and lifeless, as were the expressions on all the actor’s faces. Imagine, if you will, unwrapping a piece of Bazooka Joe bubblegum and… GASP!!!!… finding a small comic strip inside the wrapper! Yeah, I know; Big F’in’ Deal, right? They ALL have that in them. That’s pretty much the feeling that’s telegraphed by the scene. It felt like an assembly edit. No one seems to think it’s all that big a deal. If they do, then maybe it’s the massive doses of thorazine that they’re all apparently on that are what’s keeping them from acting surprised or impressed or, well, anything!
So then all the kids show up at the gate of the big, impressive, computer-generated chocolate factory.

The kids. That leads to my next rant.

Whatever you may think of the "original", you have to admit one thing: they’ve each got loads of individual character. While they are undeniably stinkers who need a good hard swat to the behind with a circular saw they are also absolutely real examples of children that all of us have, at one time or another, run into in our daily lives. I won’t go into them individually but I felt like I knew these kids. And while I didn’t like them I always felt like they were at least potentially rehabilitatable. The same sort of goes with the parents; they’re messed up too, but not soooooooo badly that you can’t relate—at least a little.

Now here comes Tim Burton and his "artistic vision" thing to go and screw all that up. The kids in C and the CF are nothing less than total reprobates who come off as nothing more than budding recruits for some inner-city gladiator academy. While the kids in the original were portrayed as horrible little kids, the future sociopsychopaths in Burton’s poopfest resemble nothing more than miniature versions of Karla Homolka and Jeffrey Dahmer. Mike TeeVee (or however it’s spelled in this incarnation) is, by far, the worst of the lot. I think Stanley Kubrick protrayed Alex in ‘A Clockwork Orange’ as more of a redeemable soul than Tim Burton did with poor little Mikey (whose father should not only deprive him of a real gun until he’s twelve, he should probably seriously consider depriving the little S.O.B. of oxygen for the same amount of time and help us all out). The same sort of goes with the parents (just about the only thematic element that this thing has in common with the 1970’s version is that the kids and parents are about equally screwed up, relative to each other). They’re messed up soooooo badly that you can’t relate—not even a little.

Plus (as if all that wasn’t bad enough!) there’s no Slugworth character. There isn’t even a hint of any desire on the kid’s parts to get into the factory so as to sell all of Johnny Depp’s secrets for their own selfish gains, as in the Wilder version. They all just seem to want their stinkin’ chocolate. To make things worse, the appearance of the everlasting gobstoppers cause two of the kids to sort of eyeball each other as if to say, "Hey… that’s the thing I came to scarper off with and make scads of ill-gotten dough on the black candy market!" but then nothing happens with it! WTF?

There’s no contract to sign! The friggin’ oompa loompas are all played by Deep Roy on crack! Willy Wonka appears to have a Dorothy Hamill/Elton John fetish! Nobody so much as breaks a sweat or acts in any way disturbed when the kids all meet their inevitable "ends"! Jesus… lemmee offa this lame-ass ride already!!!!!!
And now the worst for last--

Charlie.

I don’t know who the kid was who played him. It’s not his fault. I hope he goes on to do something more meaningful with his life. Something like crushing used hypodermics into a garbage can at an L.A. methedone clinic (Oh we’ll get you off that smack, oh yes we will!). But the truth is that the Charlie character was even bigger B.S. than all the other kids put together.
Sure he was poor. Sure he meant well. He had a heart of gold. He was the only one who "got" Willy. He was… hopelessly perfect.

In the original, Charlie was all of that as well but he was a real friggin’ kid! He effed up! He STOLE fizzy lifting drink and bumped into the ceiling which had to be washed and sterilized and he damned near got NOTHING! He damned near LOST! Good DAY sir! Only the fact that his innate goodness overcame his equally innate badness and his conscience made him give back the everlasting gobstopper rather than sell it to Slugworth and get revenge on Wonka saved him in Willy’s eyes. But in Timmy B’s idea of a better way of doing things poor little Charlie is the one who stands his moral ground and eventually leads to Willy’s reconciliation between Willy and his father and parenthood in general.
Huh? Why do all the great, older filmmakers have to go through Lucaspeilberg Syndrome? Why must the adults all be infantile and pathetic and only be redeemed at the hands of the superior child? Why God why?

So just in case you scrolled down here real quick in an effort to avoid all of my sulphurous ranting, here’s the final word:

P.S. If this is what ol’ Roald Dahl had in mind all along (he wrote the lyrics for the Oompa Loompa songs), then he should be ashamed of himself for badmouthing the original so badly all these years.

P.P.S. If Mel Stuart is still around, someone let him make more movies!

Lack of image credits: Friggin' Blogger, of course!

Impostor or; The Rising Cost of Impostage

2007-05-13T14:17:00.000-07:00

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve tackled a film review on this glacial site so I guess it’s time I took a running start and tackled another turd again. Here we go!

A long time ago in a feces-encrusted theater in Burbank, Lori and I saw a trailer for an upcoming flick called Impostor starring Loo-tenant Dan and Madelyn (clothes… what clothes?) Stowe based on a story by Phillip K. Dick (he of ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’/Bladerunner fame) about Sinise’s character (shame on you if you didn’t get the Gump reference… in fact just get the hell out! You heard me!) being framed as an assassin of some sort in the typically Dick-ian (I just can’t bring myself to say ‘Dickish’) dystopian future full of blue light, garbage, and steam all over the place.

It looked vaguely intriguing yet was pretty undecipherable and we both kinda figured, "What the hell? It’s got ‘Mother’ from ‘A Midnight Clear’ and a chick who’s notorious for stripping in virtually every movie she’s ever made… why not?"

Well then the damned thing just up and did a Peter Pan right in front of us and disappeared from sight and/or memory.

About two YEARS later we went and paid good money for another turdfest and what do we see in the trailers? You guessed it; Impostor. Same trailer. Same cast. Same reaction. We wondered; "What the hell? Where did it go for two years?" Anyway… that was the last we saw or heard of it again. I think this all started sometime in ’95 or ’96 (yes, smartass… that’s 1995 or 1996, not 1895 or 1896. Jeez, I’m tellin’ ya!).

Then last night Netflix sent the fershlugginer (you may have noticed my love of that non-word. If you don’t get it you’ve obviously never read any Mad Magazines prior to 1984) to us. I guess Lori had noticed the title in their database and figured, as we had twice before, "Why not?"

Well here’s why not.

Okay, baldly synopsized (no snickering from the Peanut Gallery!) the thing goes like this:
Earth has been attacked in the middle of the 21st century by the Centauri and lots o’ folks is daid. Loo-tenant Dan’s dad is one of them. He grows up and becomes an Oppenhiemer-type of weapons design genius who has created some sort of weapon of mass destruction that should give us poor backwards human types the ultimate opportunity to go and kick some Centauri butt back across the 4.whatever light years to the Centauri homeworld and put a stop to the interstellar shenanigans.

But before he can finish his science project a Gubmint ‘bad guy’ (is there any other kind in Hollywood?) played by Vincent D’onofrio comes along and claims that he (Loo-tenant Dan, that is) is really a Centauri replicant (Phil Dick… remember?) who is an exact copy of the real Loo-tenant Dan, sent here by the aliens to assassinate the Chancellor of Earth.

So all hell breaks loose and lots of fighting/running/shooting/swearing/sweating and other movie kinds of stuff happens, starring an astonishingly complete cast of Hollywood’s B and C-grade actors and extras. The sheer number of nameless faces that you’ve seen in literally hundreds of movies and TV shows that you see again in this flick is brain-deadening. Some of the background players actually went on to get higher profile work like Connie Neilson, Mekhi Pfeiffer (or however in the hell the dude spells it) and the greyish black guy from CSI but most are just there to remind you that even B and C-grade actors gotta eat.

Anyhow, long story short… Loo-tenant Dan figures out that the alien sent to assassinate the Chancellor must have met some sort of grisly end before ‘copying’ him (if you rent it pay attention to ‘the fire’) and goes to find the crashed ship with his doctor wife (Stowe, who I have to add is actually about five years past her ‘best if used by’ date in this particular flick) and is followed by about 18,000 other Gubmint baddies with real machine guns and plastic helmets that were (I kid you not) borrowed from ‘Starship Troopers’).

I won’t blow the ending for you (though it kinda blows all on it’s own) but there’s a twist, then there’s an explosion, and then a bunch of names scroll up the screen before you realize, "Oh… it’s over? Huh."

About that time is when you want to look at the special features section of the DVD and check out the "original short film". It’s basically the entire flick minus about 45 minutes of absolutely inconsequential characters and action that pretty much serve only to stretch this thing out to feature length. Apparently the whole story was originally intended to be part of an anthology movie like "Cat’s Eye" or "Creepshow". Honestly, the short version isn’t perfect either but it’s really more enjoyable than the full-length feature if only for the fact that it wastes less of your time.

Anywhoo… go ahead and rent it if you want, of course. It’s not really a bad movie. But that’s part of the problem. Really great movies are, well… great. Really bad movies can be fun. But flicks like this one just sort of lay there and make some indistinct noises while the experience goes from ‘okay’ to ‘oh hell… just finish it off already, will you?’

Maybe next time I’ll just go ahead and review something I liked.

Believe it or not it happens!

(photos courtesy of www.rottentomatoes.com)

In Memoriam for Joe Lampone... wherever he may be.

2007-04-18T06:29:00.000-07:00

Ordinarily I just don't find this kind of fan-boyish crap to be funny. Precious? Maybe. Retarded? Uh huh. Pretentious and more than a little scary that someone would actually spend time on it and desperately be awaiting your similarly geek-induced approval and even adulation? Oh HELL yeah!

Check it out all the same. This one's actually funny (though mostly at the very end... it starts off pretty typically for this kind o' thing).

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/blue-stripe-cafeteria.php

Yub yub! (gag)

So morons aren't solely a U.S. commodity?

2007-04-12T22:50:00.000-07:00

I don't really put much stock in religion so let me just say "Thank hydrogen for the Canadians".

Check out the following article that an ex-BP friend of mine (that means she's no longer in the BP, not that she's no longer a friend) sent me concerning some of the ignorant questions that Canadian Customs gets asked on a daily basis by the world's brainless elite who wish to soil their shores...

Because Everyone In Canada Lives In An Igloo.

Now that Vancouver has won the chance to host the 2010Winter Olympics, these are some questions people fromall over the world are asking. Believe it or notthese questions about Canada were posted on anInternational Tourism Website. Obviously the answersare a joke; but the questions were really asked!

Q: I have never seen it warm on Canadian TV, so howdo the plants grow?(England )

A: We import all plants fully grown and then justsit around and watch them die.

Q: Will I be able to see Polar Bears in the street?(USA)

A: Depends on how much you've been drinking.

Q: I want to walk from Vancouver to Toronto -can Ifollow the Railroad tracks? (Sweden)

A: Sure, it's only Four thousand miles, take lots ofwater.

Q: Are there any ATM's (cash machines) in Canada?Can you send me a list of them in Toronto, Vancouver,Edmonton and Halifax? (England)

A: What, did your last slave die?

Q: Can you give me some information about hippo racingin Canada? (USA)

A: A-fri-ca is the big triangle shaped continent southof Europe. Ca-na-da is that big country to yourNorth...oh forget it. Sure, the hippo racing is everyTuesday night in Calgary. Come naked.

Q: Which direction is North in Canada? (USA)

A: Face south and then turn 180 degrees Contact uswhen you get here and we'll send the rest of thedirections.

Q: Can I bring cutlery into Canada? (England)

A: Why? Just use your fingers like we do.

Q: Can you send me the Vienna Boys' Choir schedule?(USA)

A: Aus-t ri-a is that quaint little country borderingGer-man-y, which is...oh forget it. Sure, the ViennaBoys Choir plays every Tuesday night in Vancouver andin Calgary, straight after the hippo races. Comenaked.

Q: Do you have perfume in Canada? (Germany)

A: No, WE don't stink.

Q: Can you tell me the regions in British Columbiawhere the female population is smaller than the malepopulation? (Italy)

A: Yes, gay nightclubs.

Q: Are there supermarkets in Toronto and is milkavailable all year round?(Germany)

A: No, we are a peaceful civilization of Veganhunter/gathers. Milk is illegal.

Q: I have a question about a famous animal in Canada,but I forget its name. It's a kind of big horse withhorns. (USA)

A: It's called a Moose. They are tall and veryviolent, eating the brains of anyone walking close tothem. You can scare them off by spraying yourselfwith human urine before you go out walking.

Q: Will I be able to speak English most places I go?(USA)

A: Yes, but you will have to learn it first.

NONE OF YOU HAVE ANY...

2007-03-17T22:18:00.000-07:00

Hee hee! Sorry, I just couldn't resist.

I figured it was high time I updated this fershlugginer thing but just couldn't really think of anything worthwhile to say. I know, I know... it's never stopped me before has it?

Anyway, here's another pic I ran across surfing through Google images trying to come up with an idea for a post:

This isn't too far off of what we actually saw as we limped across the state line pullin' a 2500 lb trailer with our rubber band-powered clown car. It was winter, we were in North Dakota... go figure!

Oh, and here's another (unrelated) pic just to get you thinking:

I noticed that they're "Manhattan Style" so I guess that one is for John.

Eat 'em up dude! You can have all of mine!

Har har har!

Next week: hopefully something a bit less stream-of-consciousness.

Where have you gone Joe Lampone-io?

2007-02-12T13:43:00.000-08:00

Jesus loves you more than you can know!

Seriously folks... anyone got any idea what happened to Joe?

I heard that Jersey State Troopers found his abandoned IROC Z-28 on the side of the road somewhere outside of Palmyra with a trail of discarded clothing meandering more or less eastbound into the Pine Barrens.

Coincidentally, there was a Jersey Devil sighting reported at the Trump Casino in Atlantic City about a day and a half later. Witness Hazel Blomquist, 81, of Sea Isle City was quoted as saying, "It was horrible! Whatever it was, it reeked of garlic and kept muttering; 'Dude... stupid!'. All I could think of to do was to give it $20 and a breath mint. Can I go back to the buffet now?"

Mr. Lampone's co-workers at the Deptford School for the Mentally Bewildered were unavailable for comment. An anonymous letter was received by the Carbuncle, N.J. Police Department late yesterday. The letter contained only a photo, Mr. Lampone's name, and the phrase 'meat product' repeated approximately 67 times. The photo is reprinted here by permission of the Carbuncle P.D. and the Lampone family in hopes that the general public may be of assistance in the search.

A comment attributed to Detective Hyram Bahlzurswollen of the C.P.D. Missing Persons Squad has led to speculation that this photo may represent the last thing that Mr. Lampone witnessed before disappearing. When asked if that was the case, Det. Bahlzurswollen responded; "Well I don' know 'bout youse but if I was clobbered in the face by a flyin' midget I'd prolly wanna disappear for a few days myself!"

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has been contacted about the possibility of using their facial recognition software in order to identify the bystanders seen in the picture. When asked if the identity of the midget would also be ascertained Det. Bahlzurswollen replied; "Why? You can't trust those people. I mean, lookit 'im! Christ!"

The Lampone family has also announced that they have created an internet site for the public to leave any information that they may have regarding the whereabouts of Mr. Lampone in an anonymous setting. The address for that website is; www.dudewhereyouat.com.

Any help would be appreciated.

North North North In The Deep!

2007-02-03T22:55:00.000-08:00

I suppose y'all have heard by now but I thought I'd make it official for any o' youse who hadn't gotten the news yet:

WE'RE FINALLY GETTIN' TO GO NORTH!

Thass right, yo! Uncle Sam finally got his head out o' his butt and decided that we could finally have what we've been wantin' all along.

We're being moved to Grand Forks, North Dakota (near Fargo... one of my many old stomping grounds) and we've even found a place to stay until we can find a house. Below is a picture of it during the warmest summer on record.

Seriously though, we're really looking forward to it and you're all invited to come visit next time you can spare about four days to drive out there. Har har har!

For real though, here's where GF is in the state:

While it's true that it floods out from time-to-time (the flood of '97 nearly wiped the town off the map), thanks to the northward-flowing Red River (no, not the one in the song) the people of Grand Forks, unlike New Orleans, got their crap together and, without screaming about how everyone owes them and how George Bush hates Scandinavians, rebuilt the place. I hear the floods are pretty well under control now, thanks to an elaborate series of dykes (women in comfortable shoes?) and spillways that the Corps of Engineers put in after '97.

Well, that's pretty much it for right now. We're just going out of our minds making preparations for our cross country trip (in the middle of the winter, no less... Uncle Sam may have finally given us what we wanted but he had to do something to make sure that it wasn't quite ideal, didn't he?) and starting the new life as honorary Norskies.

On my days off I'm declaring it my mission in life to track down Black Jaques Shellac and interview him about his days at Termite Terrace.

$^*%&^%#**&^^%$!!!!!!!!!!!! AGAIN???????

2007-01-06T23:50:00.000-08:00

Here we/I go again!

I just found out yesterday that Hollywood's remaking another sci-fi classic, this time it's gonna be "When Worlds Collide."

Now anyone who's anyone who knows anything about sci-fi knows that George Pal's 1950's productions of "War of the Worlds" and "When Worlds Collide" are probably the crown jewels of the "silver age" of science fiction. While a lot of the other flicks of the day were pretty much excuses to go to a drive-in theater (remember those? Congratulations you old goat!) and grope some poodle skirt wearin' babe, George knew how to make 'em smart! They may seem quaint by today's standards but remember, things were different back in the stone age.

At first I was pretty jazzed because I thought, "Hey, this could actually be good! This story is actually ripe for a retranslation if done properly and with an adequate budget for some first-rate FX work!" Well now it's up to a new generation to defecate all over those old, cherished memories of decent storytelling, I guess.

Then I read on to see who was producing. It went downhill from there. Here he is...

I guess he just wasn't content with having doubled both H.G. Wells and George Pal over the proverbial couch and takin' a good, long waltz right up both of their respective stradachocoladas while consequently foisting off yet another "reimagining" on us.

Of course I have to accept some of the blame for that one, having actually been naive enough to go and pay for the limpid piece of lukewarm penguin poop that I had fervently hoped that it wouldn't be.

And as an aside to casting directors in Hollywood--

Guys! There have to be more cute young child actresses out there other than Dakota Fanning! Right????? I mean, come on!

After having a good cry and changing my underwear I summoned up the courage (oh foolish me!) to continue reading the post on the IMDB only to see the rest of my daffy hopes go up in smoke. The director is to be none other than...

That's right! Steven Somers. You got it... he of The M(D)ummy, The
M(D)ummy Returns, and, (best of all!) Van Hellsing. Yeah, I know I misspelled that last... it's actually more accurate that way.

I could go more in depth into this travesty but just go back to my "I Am Legend" post and substitute WWC for IAL and that'll do.

Crap!

Damn!

Nottafingahhhhhh!!!!!!!!!

Ragin' Rudolph II: Santa Gone Bad!

2006-12-23T14:33:00.000-08:00

As promised, here are a couple of funny little Rudolph bits I ran across in the process of "researching" my last post.

Enjoy!

It's me! As Santa Clause!

Hermie's gay! Say it isn't so!

Oh well, another childhood favorite sullied by reality.

I've got more but that's all that the Burgomeister Meisterburger over at Blogger will let me post for now.

I know, you get what you pay for, don't you?

Happy Bad X-mas!

2006-12-23T14:10:00.000-08:00

Lori did the Happy Holidays thing with the sweetly remeniscient (yet still darkly warped) "A Christmas Story" post so leave it to me to darken things up just a little bit.

I know you're shocked. Here we go!

First off here's the Bad Santa poster in German... 'cause English just isn't nasty enough!

Now here's one I just found today.

I especially like the subtle mary-jane in the background. For all of you in California this one probably isn't all that unusual is it?

I'd post more but, as usual, Blogger is freakin' out if I try to post more than one or two pics at a time. I'll just have to make another post right after this 'cause I ran across a couple of Rudolph's that are perfect for the theme too.

Anyways-- Merry Christmas to all and to all a good, well... whatever.

The "Wheels on the Bus" for a new generation!

2006-12-16T21:49:00.000-08:00

Okay.

It seems that a lot of traditional kid's songs don't really reflect the world that we all live in now. Allow me to rectify that...

After going through a particularly draining session of "cookies and books" with Susie tonight I found myself resorting to a typical (for me, of course) method of keeping my own interest up in the midst of a truly mind-numbing cavalcade of requests to "do it again."

Introducing my new-and-improved version of the classic "The Wheels on the Bus."

The wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round, 'round and 'round, 'round and 'round,
The wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round, all through the town.

The wipers on the bus go swish swish swish, swish swish swish, swish swish swish,
The wipers on the bus go swish swish swish, all through the town.

The horn on the bus goes beep beep beep, beep beep beep, beep beep beep,
The horn on the bus goes beep beep beep, all through the town.

The doors on the bus go open and shut, open and shut, open and shut,
The doors on the bus go open and shut, all through the town.

The brakes on the bus go screech screech screech, screech screech screech, screech screech screech,
The brakes on the bus go screech screech screech, all through the town.

The driver of the bus says "Fare's gone up, Fare's gone up, Fare's gone up,"
The driver of the bus says "Fare's gone up," all through the town.

The hobo on the bus says "Spare some change? Spare some change?, Spare some change?"
The hobo on the bus says "Spare some change?" all through the town.

The people on the bus say "Not today, Not today, Not today,"
The people on the bus say "Not today," all through the town.

The junkie on the bus says "Ugh ack uhnnn, Ugh ack uhnnn, Ugh ack uhnnn,"
The junkie on the bus says "Ugh ack uhnnn," all through the town.

The people on the bus call 911, 911, 911,
The people on the bus call 911, all through the town.

The mugger on the bus says "Stick 'em up, Stick 'em up, Stick 'em up,"
The mugger on the bus says "Stick 'em up," all through the town.

The victims on the bus say "Not again! Not again! Not again!"
The victims on the bus say "Not again!" all through the town.

Thank you! I'll be in town all this week.

Next time... versions of classic kid's books that you've never heard before, including:

The Whorax, Green Eggs and Sperm, Oh, the People You'll Screw, and The Three Billygoats Foulmouthed.

I Am Legend? More like 'I Am Disappointed'.

2006-11-24T16:42:00.000-08:00

Here we go again... Hollywood just can't seem to figure out that the remake thing just isn't working too well.

There was the shot-for-shot remake of Psycho.

Then they had to go and screw up The Thomas Crown Affair.

Most recently they thought that The Omen could be a lot better if they just remade it with an inferior cast and music that didn't have half the s**t your pants quotient that the original had.

And now Richard Matheson's classic novella "I Am Legend" is getting the treatment.

All right, I hear you already: C'mon, Guy... this book has already been turned into two less-than-stellar movies. Why not another?

Because. So there!

Alright, I'll get a bit more in depth. First off, I haven't seen Vincent Price's "The Last Man on Earth" but I hear it wasn't exactly a Doctor Phibes.

And as for "The Omega Man", get your stinkin' paws off of my boy Chucky Heston! I actually like that flick! Sure it's dated. Sure it's cheesey. One could even say that its ahead-of-its-time portrayal of postapocalyptic sexual race relations is totally done in by some (hindsight mind you) truly offensive dialog. Actually I thought that the Harlem reference (rent the flick if you don't know what I'm talking about) was pretty funny but I can understand people being offended.

Well now the Hollywood intelligentsia has decided that the time is ripe to make another movie version of the book. Given that both of the previous versions differ fairly significantly from Matheson's brilliant book I would ordinarily be pretty keen on the idea of a more faithful version going into production. But there's always a problem, isn't there?

Allow me to introduce the problem:

What! What! Thass right yo! Big Willie hisself is gwine ta be de stahhh o' dis heaah joint.

Sorry. The producers of this blog would like to announce that the previous writer has been sacked. On with the rant.

Anyway, the powers that be feel that with an unblemished record that includes such artistic and box office favorites as "The Wild Wild West", "Hitch", and "I Robot", who better to finally achieve perfection in realizing Richard Matheson's greatest story since "Hell House"?

At this point I'm gonna assume that you, gentle reader, haven't read the fershlugginer book and give you a quick rundown as to what it's all about. Note: if you've seen The Omega Man, you've already got the general idea.

Okay, written some time in the 1950's, the story is set in the 1970's. You know... the future. Anyway, a small-scale nuclear war between China and the Soviet Union has kicked a lot of junk into the air that didn't use to be there, things like borscht, rice, vaporized panda bears and, oh yeah... a virus that causes vampirism!

Against this sort of vampiric "On the Beach" we are introduced to the character of Robert Neville; the last normal human being left on the earth. He has had to incinerate his young daughter during the worldwide crisis and even had to stake his wife after she died and came back home as a rotting, diseased vampire who missed her hubby and his supply of delicious blood. Now he's left to wander the wasteland of Los Angeles by day and hole up in his suburban house after dark, the object of all of L.A.'s newest trend: sucking the blood from the living. All right, I admit that last part sounds more like keen observation rather than science fiction but it's meant as science fiction. The fact that modern L.A. sort of resembles Matheson's 'future' L.A. in some ways isn't his fault.

Anyway if you want to know more just read the book. As far as this sure-to-be-craptastic version though, well you'll pardon me if I beg off for now. Now originally this was set to star Ahnuld himself. That would have sucked too but I just can't imagine seeing this done up as some sort of MiB-ish turdfest. Don't get me wrong, I liked MiB... I just don't wanna see this turn into that.

Oh well, I guess if anyone in Hell-A gave a flying handfull of monkey poo about what I thought, then I wouldn't currently be a Federal Stooge would I?

Just remember, when you see this stinker and don't like it...

I TOLD ya so!

Oh, and Blogger? Thanks fer screwin' me on the pics again! Chintzy bastards!

As promised...

2006-10-16T04:45:00.000-07:00

Okay, this will be my last post concerning Alice. I won't subject you all to any more after this but I did say that I'd post some pics of Alice's grave at the Sleepy Hollow pet cemetery.

The first is the entrance to the cemetery. It's actually pretty nice... for California. Alice is under the Palo Verde that's directly behind the sign, almost in the center of the picture.

Next is a poem that someone put up next to the entrance a long time ago (some of the dates go back to the mid 70's).

Goodby Old Friend
You'll be in my heart forever.

They will not go quietly
the pets who shared our lives.
In subtle ways they let us know
their spirit still survives.
Old habits still make us think
we hear a scratching at the door
or step back when we drop
a tasty morsel on the floor.
Our feet still go around the place
the food dish used to be.
And sometimes, coming home at night
we miss them terribly.
And although time may bring new friends
and a new food dish to fill,
That one place in our hearts belongs to them
and always will.

Yeah, I know it's pretty cheesey stuff but I think it pretty much sums up the feeling.

Lastly is the grave itself. Lori did a really nice job on the rock that we used as a marker.

And, no, the camera isn't at an angle... it's a little bit of a hillside under that Palo Verde.

Thanks for looking. I'll try to post something more lighthearted in a few days.

Comments are back on.

Goodbye Alice.

2006-09-25T17:23:00.000-07:00

This one's no fun.

Our 18-year old cat, Alice, passed away today after finally giving in to old age and the inevitable kidney failure that takes most indoor cats.

She died peacefully and now this once indoor-only cat will spend all of her days and nights under the sun and stars in the Sleepy Hollow pet cemetery in Andrade, CA. just over the California border from Yuma.

If Blogger will kindly oblige me just this once, I'd like to include some pictures of her from happier times during the three main periods in which we knew her.

Philadelphia (ca 1991)

Burbank (1995-ish)

And lastly, Yuma (2004) during a meeting of the minds with newborn Susie.

The nice folks at the Ironwood Veterinary Clinic here in Yuma did everything they could to make Alice's passing easier and Lori and I very much appreciate all that they did. She was, without a doubt, the best pet I have ever had the privilege of knowing (which should mean something coming from an all-around 'dog man') and we will both miss her very much.

After she went to sleep for the last time we (Lori and I, Susie stayed with a sitter for the morning) took her to the pet cemetery in Andrade and found her a nice, quiet place under a Palo Verde and marked it with a large stone that Lori had painted for her the day before. I won't bore you all with having to sit through the process of my trying to get over Alice's absence but I'll post a picture of her grave here soon.

As for replies, thanks in advance but I've opted to allow none to this post. E-mails and/or calls are always welcome but I'd rather save myself the aggravation of someone trying to be funny online and only winding up making it worse.

Thanks for listening.

Headin' Out to Eden... Yeaaaaah Brother!

2006-09-16T03:49:00.000-07:00

This one's for Kathy "Herbert" Keegan.

I found a bunch of these silly Trek-themed inspirational posters online and just had to share.

The link is: http://echosphere.net/star_trek_insp/star_trek_insp.html

If you're a fan of the old show (and come on... who isn't?) surf on over there and check 'em out.

This one is my favorite--

Holy crow! Did I just get this numbskull site to actually load more than one image in one post?!

Praise be to the power of Trek!

JMAR welcomes JMAR!

2006-09-11T03:16:00.000-07:00

I'll explain.

The helicopter pad I fly out of here in Yuma is officially referred to as "JMAR" (pronounced 'Jay Mar') so I thought it only fitting that JMAR Sr. should be the one to formally welcome little JMAR Jr. (a bit sexist I admit, but you know what I mean!) to the world on this blog.

So congratulations guys and sleep well knowing that your little girls' initials are repeated ad nauseum over the law enforcement airwaves here in skanky little tonk-infested Yuma.

Auf Wiedersehen Steve-O!

2006-09-04T02:03:00.000-07:00

Well he finally did it! Ol' Steve "the Crocodile Hunter" Irwin tried to jam his thumb up the butthole of something that didn't want anything to do with his oft-jammed digit and got hisself kilt.

Sorry. If you saw his ep of South Park you'd get the humor.

On a more serious note, though, I'm sorry to see Steve go. Sure, he was an egotist of the first order (what celebrity isn't?). And yeah, he did pull that stupid stunt with his one-month-old little boy and a hungry crocodile (remember that? Like a roight dahn-undah Moichael Jaaackson 'e was!) Oh, and let's not forget his 'film'. But you've gotta give him his credit too.

One-- he made Animal Planet cool to watch.

Two-- he proved the point that anyone with any taste marries an American.

Three-- 'Nads baby! 'NADS!!!!!!!!

So I'm sad to see him go (and feel even sorrier for his family) but it all goes to show, "He who f**ks with nature is gonna get f**ked back." So endeth the lesson.

So long, Steve-O. May you go to a heaven where you are met by at least 70 virgin buttholes that have yet to have your thumb jammed into them.

(image credit: google images)

This week: I Salute Blogger.com!

2006-08-18T16:21:00.000-07:00

Given my experiences with the well-oiled machine that is Blogger.com, I thought it high time that someone sing their praises. Then, realizing that THAT wasn't gonna happen any time soon, I decided to speak my piece. Here goes...

First off, let's meet the brains behind the scenes:

Introducing Thakk Whisenhunt, Founder and CEO, pictured here with his lovely wife Judith.

Thakk was sitting around his squalid little dump of a studio apartment in Valley Village, California (a particularly nondescript part of the quagmire-ish San Fernando Valley that most people mistake... understandably enough... for North Hollywood) one day and, for no discernible reason, decided that it was time to get in touch with his tree-dwelling ancestors of a couple of generations ago. Clearly the best way to do this, he thought, was to go ahead and take a big steaming dump right there in his own left hand (thus proving the point of most of the right-handed world).

Having been mostly successful in that endeavour, he decided that the next most logical thing to do was to appease the Pollockian voice that had been nagging at him for most of the last decade or so.

As Thakk admired the sight of his human stain running down the otherwise blank wall directly in front of him (the mustard seeds were a particular delight!), he grunted, burped, and uttered the word that we have all come to love so... "blog"!

And so was born a legend.

Let's all give Thakk a hand!

Next week: the geniuses in I.T. who can't figure out how to allow anyone to post more than one photo with any kind of reliability!

It's finally got a name! Orion baby!!!!!!!

2006-08-17T15:58:00.000-07:00

Tha's right all you luddites! Bow down and tremble before it!

Okay, I guess I should explain this one...

You see, we've all been hearing about NASA's new mission to the moon(and beyond) for the last few years (assuming that you watch the news at all) but it's always just been a nameless thing. Well no longer!

Hopefully we'll soon get a really good idea just what the spacecraft should look like when Uncle Sam finally gets around to awarding a contract to someone in order to design and build the fershlugginer things. But at least we do know what the launchers will be called. The CEV (that's Crew Exploration Vehicle to you somnambulists out there) will be launched on top of an Ares I, and the new LM (I haven't heard an official name for it yet but for now the old Lunar Module name should suffice) will be launched by the new Ares V. I'd post pics of these as well but knowing blogger, it'd just get buggered up. If you're curious enough go to space.com and look them up.

Now I know that somewhere out there some pointy-headed idiot will speak up with some sort of inane and undereducated version of the old "We should be spending this money on something more worthy right here on Earth" tripe but let me put that hoary old chestnut to rest right now.

Yes, this project is anticipated to run way into the billions of dollars. A lot of money, to be sure. But that money is going to be spread out over the next 15 to 20 years! Do the math and the cost kinda seems a little less. A lot but definitely less. In fact, given the awesome expense of just running a country like ours, the entire NASA budget(and that's total-- not just the Orion project) comes out to something like less than 1% of your personal tax dollars. That's right, less than 1%! And given that we're talkin' about billions of dollars adding up to just that miniscule amount I've gotta wonder... what accounts for the other 99 point whatever percent! The pointy-headed would most likely take this opportunity to go off on a rant about our military budget but I'd like to keep this on track. I'll take on further pointy-headedness at some as-yet-undetermined time. For now, let's look at the benefits of Project Orion as well as it's admittedly immense cost: R&D on newer, more efficient, higher tech, and (hopefully) cheaper methods of propulsion. A more trustworthy method of reaching orbit than the Space Shuttle ( a system flawed mostly due to it's launch-to-orbit method... thank you U.S. Congress... not the vehicle itself!). A far cheaper means of supplying and maintaining human crews on board the ISS ( if you don't know what that is you might as well just hit the "back" button now and go back to SomethingAwful.com and save yourself the horrible tribulations of having to read anything over one syllable). The amount of research and developement that will go into a program of Orion's scope is sure to yield a crop of offshoot technologies not seen since... well, Apollo! And in case you don't believe that I'd like to ask you just how in the hell you think you are currently reading this rant on your mindbendingly-powerful desktop or laptop personal computer? Just how do you think the microprocessor was brought about? Perhaps you think that John Lennon and his malformed banshee dreamt it all up while having a Love-In for Higher Technology? And let's not forget about the ultimate reason for the project in the first place... going to the moon and Mars!

Okay. I can hear it now: "Why do we have to go back to the moon? We've already been there!"

Sure, we've been there. But who thinks that we know everything about it? I certainly don't. And why is that important? Well in case you slept through Apollo (or weren't around for it, or just think it was all faked in some soundstage out in the Arizona desert) that program pretty-much proved that the moon was once part of the Earth. The more we know about the moon, the more that will help us understand the basic formation of the Earth. The more we understand the Earth... get the point? That should appeal to the treehuggers, at the very least!

Plus let's not forget the fact that as long as we as a species are stuck to this muddy ball of rock and water (however polluted) with no hope of ever getting off of it, the more we stand the chance of getting creamed by a wandering comet or asteroid. We need to stop listening to the "spend all that money on the left-handed, red-breasted snotsnorter's habitat in the Okeefingerme swamp!" crowd and spend some money on figuring out how to get into (and beyond) orbit cheaply and easily. Only then will we be able to really begin to learn how to effectively protect our planet full of squabbling a**holes from being given the ol' Alderaan treatment by an aircraft carrier-sized hunk of iron fresh out of wherever. Whew! I need a breath!

Personally, I think we should give the moon a temporary pass and just go straight to Mars. We'll learn more there and the equipment needed to get there works just as well on the moon as it would on Mars. The reverse, however, is not true due to Mars' stronger gravitational pull than that of the moon. Besides... I'd much rather live under a rusty pink sky with a thin atmosphere than a black one with none. But like Charlie and surfin', Georgie don't listen to me!

Hell, I'd volunteer to move the whole famn damily to Mars right now if it was possible! I mean, sure... I'm no rocket scientist but the boys (and girls, mind you) with the big brains are gonna need someone to lift those heavy boxes, right? And at 1/3rd Earth gravity those boxes aren't gonna be THAT heavy! Sign me up!

In short, if we don't do this soon we stand a pretty good chance of bein' hit by an asteroid or comet and then the whole damn planet is gonna be lucky if we're left with a level of technology that looks somethin' like that Godawful movie "A Knight's Tale" (complete with feces-encrusted mobs singin' stuff like Queen tunes).

In fact, going into space might just turn out to be the ultimate way of preserving that damned left-handed, red-breasted snotsnorter livin' out there in that friggin' Okeefingerme swamp!

-FIN-

(image credit: Space.com and NASA)

And now... A-CRAP-olis!

2006-08-04T03:01:00.000-07:00

All right... so I knew that this one was gonna be crap just goin' in. What can I say? It's a great excuse to sound off and just be a general pain in the posterior.

So here's the deal: Ol' Jimmy Franco has actually been impressing some people as Harry Osborne (sp?) in Raimi's Spidey flicks. I guess given the potential of actually becoming a solid young actor in a business known for fluff and overhyped celebrity despite a dearth of talent (are you listening Jared Leto?) Jimmy must've figgered that now was the time to head that little precedent off by starring in this corn-studded turd of a film.

Have you ever seen An Officer and a Gentleman? Of course you have. Well that pretty much tells you what you're in for. That's right, an updated, younged-down version of an already weak movie that makes said previous cheesefest look like it was robbed of an Academy Award for best picture (maybe it was... though either Trek II: the Wrath of Khan's Fake Chest or Conan the Somnambulist really should have taken that puppy home back in '82 instead of On Golden Shower Pond. But I digress).

Ennyway, Jimmy hooks up with a tough-as-nails female instructor (who appears to be all of 14 years old) almost immediately upon being admitted to one of the world's most prestigious academies through one of the most outlandish plot devices I've seen shoveled off as legit writing in a long time (Donnie Wahlberg... who is rapidly pissing away all those brownie points he scored in Band of Brothers... decides to take a chance on this young, snot-nosed punk even though he's uneducated, unwashed, unintelligible, and attitudinal to boot!).

And wouldn't you think that being a freshman at a U.S. Military Academy would involve lots of hardcore classwork in things like math, chemistry and physics... even the 'softer' studies like literature and philosophy? Yeah, I did too but apparently all you really need to know is how to box like Rocky Marciano (or Mike Tyson if you're into that ear-chomping, prison-raping kind of thing) and look good. Having been in the service myself (boy, I bet you didn't know THAT about me, did you?) I found myself thinking; "Holy crap! All those skinny, wimpy dweebs that I served with from Annapolis and figured for spoiled rich eggheads actually were tough? Well shut my mouf!"

Oh, yeah... I'm completely neglecting the "conflict" of the story. Enter Tyrese Gibson (apparently not related to Mel, despite the fact that I'm reasonably certain that he's not Jewish) as this flick's pathetically re-tooled version of Louis Gosset Jr.'s awesome Gunnery Sergeant Foley from AOAAG. Ahhh, Louey... whatever became of you (supporting actor Oscar curse theory anyone?)? Well it's the "ought"'s now dear puzzled, older moviegoer and now we get characters like Gibson's... umm, well, I'm not sure just who he's playing. Supposedly he's a Marine but he wears a Navy Good Humor Ice Cream outfit and his rank is decidedly NOT that of a Marine. Okay, now, I never went to Annapolis so I'm pretty far from an expert on the subject but I'm a reasonably well-informed outsider, having served with (I don't like saying "under" in relation to other males... no matter how dweeby) several Academy grads and I would think that an enlisted man assigned to the Naval Academy as an instructor of cadets (plebes in this case) would be using his official rank and wearing the uniform of his service (see LGJr. in the affore-mentioned AOAAG). Not here. I can't even remember what he was called, something like "Cadet Lieutenant Junior Soap Boy" or something. Whatever he is isn't really important I guess. What he does appear to be is some sort of robotronic, badasserific, genetically-engineered and hydraulically-augmented boxin' son o' GOD!!!! He and Jimmy boy both know immediately after setting eyes (or whatever type of photoreceptors the Robotron uses) on each other that, "I must crrrrrrrush you!"

And so it goes. As the "how to make a military school movie" playbook unfolds before your tired eyes you are treated to what feels like a never-ending parade of cliches and trite plot points. I was truly shocked when (at roughly 43 minutes in) Jimmy succumbed to his nagging self-doubts and general blue-collar angst and decided not to return to the U.S. Naval Home For Good-Looking Kids Who Want To Box And Stuff after Christmas break. My jaw nearly hit the floor when he decided that he needed to finish what he started and went back to face the Instructornator in the boxing ring.

Well a bunch of mish-mash involving some sort of other miscellaneous plebes ensues upon his fateful return to school and I think it all got kinda settled but I can't remember, having been in a sort of cinematic tripe-induced fog from which it was kinda hard to cut through. I think someone jumped/fell/was pushed out of a window somewhere along the way but, well... hell, just rent the turkey if you really want to know!

The culmination of the film comes when Jimmy aces his final exams and is carried through the streets of Annapolis, Maryland while his fellow plebians chant "We Are the Champions" and... oh wait... that didn't happen. Oh yeah! Boxing! That's the real test of officer material!

Jimmy and Robotron square off in the ol' canvas ring and duke it out like the brainless killing machines that are the true hallmark of an officer... let alone a gentleman!

**********Well it seems that Blogger took a dump and deleted the rest of this review so I'll just have to republish and wrap it up a little faster than I did before.************

So Jimmy and the Apocalyptoron go head-to-head and... guess what? Jimmy doesn't win! He doesn't really lose either, but he doesn't win! The best he can manage is to stand there and take what's thrown at him without falling down and crying like a baby rhesus monkey in a hammer-throwing contest. Remind you of another, better movie? Yeah, me too. I guess that the studio suit in charge of developement must have either set the software to 'random' before he left to bang his assistant (reguardless of gender) or he entered Rocky somewhere into it's parameters before hitting the 'generate' key. Jimmy does manage to make the Gibsontronic leak a little bit of hydraulic fluid that I suppose was supposed to be blood (and I could swear that I heard some kind of high-pitched whine coming from somewhere in the vicinity of his battle chassis) but that's about it.

At the end everyone respects and appreciates each other and all agree to give it another go next year. I don't think this fluffernutter of a flick did well enough to warrant a sequel but since when has THAT ever stopped Hollywood? Anyone remember Tomb Raider? All I can say is that if they insist on making "Annapolis 2: Sophomore Slump", I'm gonna pass.

(image credit: RottenTomatoes.com)

Alright already!!! NOW are you happy?!

2006-07-28T14:29:00.000-07:00

(image credit: Kraft Foods North America)

Finally... a new frikken' post!

2006-07-07T01:21:00.000-07:00

All hail Jerry Goldsmith!

It's hard to believe it, but Jerry's been dead for three years now. My question is... where the hell is the next great composer and why the hell is it taking him so long to rear his(or her... not to be a misogynist, after all!) head dammit!

For the last part of his career Jerry seemed to be stuck in the musical ghetto of a never-ending stream of crappy movies not worthy of someone as monumentally talented as Jerry but even then he turned out some incredible work.

It actually became sort of a joke amongst Jerry-philes: "What piece of garbage is Jerry gonna score next that I don't want to watch but am eagerly waiting to buy the score for?"

The 13th Warrior? Creighton crap... but an amazing action score. The M(d)ummy? Garbage of the worst order... but probably one of the best scores of the 90's. Going back even further you can point the wagging finger of shame at The Haunting, Along Came a Spider, City Hall, Sleeping With the Enemy... the list seems to go on; forgettable (at best) movies that all had one thing going for them-- a score that they didn't deserve.

Of course for each of his "why Jerry, why?" movies we thankfully have some of the greats to remember him by. You may be reading this rant thinking, "Good God, what the hell obscure fool is this moron going on about?" but you know the movies (and maybe even the tunes): Patton. Star Trek--The Motion Picture. Alien. The Omen. LA Confidential. The Ghost and the Darkness. Gremlins. Planet of the Apes. The list goes on. Even television is full of his work: The Waltons, Barnaby Jones, Room 222 (alright, I'm guessing I'm the only one who remembers THAT one!).

Meanwhile, John (I may as well have died after Shindler's List) Williams continues to defile his own greatness with pathetic pieces of pandering poop like the Star Wars prequels (don't even start with me on those, Joe!) and Munich. James Horner's automatic regurgitron never seems to break down, providing a whole host of films with a kind of Bravehearty/Legends of the Fally/Titanicy pablum that makes me yearn for the glory days of Wrath of Khan.

But I digress.

On the brighter side, there are some newer talents that may, just may some day become great composers on a par with Jerry and younger, much, MUCH younger Williams's and Horners. Guys such as Christopher Young ( the otherwise godawful TV remake of On the Beach), Richard Harvey (TNT's Animal Farm) and Klaus Badelt (the theme for The Time Machine is probably the only good thing about that flick!) but they seem to be having a tough time competing against the "heavy hitters" that Hollywood just loves to throw money and work at.

In the meantime I guess we still have the James Newton Howard Shore's to deal with (don't get me wrong... I loved Howard Shore's work on The Lord of the Rings [particularly for The Two Towers] but he's hardly proven any great consistency as yet).

Maybe someday soon we'll get our next great composer. Maybe he'll even be somebody that's currently working who just hasn't 'clicked' yet. But until then, I sure do miss Jerry.

(image courtesy of fantascienza.com)

2006-06-24T16:52:00.000-07:00

Okay. First post. Be kind, I'm just getting the hang of this blog thing. Starting tomorrow you can let me know how messed up it is. Until then... here goes!

My first movie review.

You know, for my first movie review I'd like to start with something that I really liked and feel is, or is sure to become, a classic. Something along the lines of the first Rocky (yeah yeah yeah, I know... I said the FIRST Rocky!) or On The Beach, or A Bridge Too Far, or The Day the Earth Stood Still, or, well, anything good. Instead I'm gonna kick it off with Firewall.

Sigh. I remember the day when Harrison Ford was poised to become the Cary Grant, Clark Gable, or Gregory Peck of our generation. I also remember before that, of course, but I'm talkin' about just after Indiana Jones and the Rai... uh, I mean Raiders of the Lost Ark. Harry had promise and seemed to grow further and further as both and actor and an icon. Witness, The Mosquito Coast, Frantic, Reguarding Henry... the guy was on a roll!

Well that guy seems to have long since fallen asleep next to an alien cucumber and now we're stuck with his lifeless, dull, repetitive clone/replacement pod-dude. Huh.

Okay, so much for what I think of Harrison (oh where have you gone, Han Solo?) Ford. Now on to the movie.

You've seen those made-for-T.V. flicks where somebody's family is put in jeopardy and the everyman father/boyfriend/paperboy has to step up and save the day? The one where the kids are nothing more than a plot device that serve to be put in harm's way and, inevitably, get rescued by the afforementioned f/bf/pb? The same kind of flick where the wife is a sucessful, educated woman with a career of her own and a leading candidate for mother of the year yet somehow manages to not contribute one single positive thing to either the story or the movie in general?

Yep. It's one of those.

Early on you're introduced to Harry as a late 50-something computer supergenius (the least farcically unbelievable thing about the flick, I kid you not) who is... surprise... top of his field of electronic security for a bank that is being taken over by a bigger bank. Harry doesn't like the T-1000 (the last time I'll even bother to mention Robert Patrick as the guy who he's going to be working for after the takeover because that's about it for his involvement in the flick) and his children are stereotypically annoying movie kids who torment each other mercilessly only to recieve beatific smiles from their oh-so-loving parents who think such behavior is "cute". Of course the only purpose this really serves is to introduce a piece of malfunctioning electronic gear that, if you have more than IQ of13 (or have actually watched any of these kinds of movies), you will figure out pretty quickly is going to be... gasp!... hugely significant in about 52 more minutes. Assuming, of course, you stay with this thing that long.

Anyway, long story short: Bad Guy menaces family at home and makes Harry do all kinds of things at the office that make everyone think "What the hell is his problem?" The gist of the thing seems to be that Bad Guy wants Harry to transfer a ton of money to Bad Guy's overseas bank because only Harry can do it (he is a computer supergenius, remember?)

Meanwhile the fam does little besides stare blankly and do, well nothing.

Early on, Harry tells Bad Guy not to feed his ignorant son anything for no apparent reason. It takes all of about 20 more minutes before Bad Guy manages to get the kid to eat a cookie with peanuts in it. The little snot-nosed creep (the kid, not Bad Guy) is at least 10 or 12 but hasn't seemed to learn to read yet (or not to believe Bad Guys, either) because he goes ahead and scarfs the damned thing down. Surprise!... he's allergic to nuts and starts kickin' around on the kitchen floor like a fish in a parking lot until Bad Guy gives Harry the anitidote that he's snuck from the moron family's medical kit. This is the general kind of stupid plot devices that convince Harry that he'd better cooperate. Just havin' guns and stuff shoved in his and his family's faces isn't enough, I guess. Go figure.

Anyway, lots of stuff happens without really much happening and... surprise again!... Harry's family is rescued by Harry and all ends well. And just in case you actually rent this limp excuse for a movie, don't worry about the damned dog. Hell, Hollywood doesn't have the scrote to off even a mangy mutt anymore.

I know it's a pretty bare-bones review but trust me, it's not really worth much else. Three bucks for a rental isn't a total rip-off but I'll tell you what; had I paid full price for this turkey in the theater I would've been tempted to fire my gun through the screen just to smell something better than this pile of flaming monkey dung in the air.

One positive note, though! The mousy chick who plays Chloe O'Brian on 24 plays Harry's assistant and she steals every scene she's in. The best part, though? Harry's character is named Jack! Don't you figger that this chick just HAS to be sick of playing roles where she answers phones and pulls things up on computers for guys named Jack? Also, there's a scene where Harry and "Chloe" stop somewhere to pick up some supposedly important piece of gibberish from yet another minor office flunky and they wind up at some kind of weird charasmatic church concert thing. I was waiting for the rock and roll snake handlers to show up!

That's another thing, the script actually has a number of moments that could easily have been turned into dark comic gold but just never has the rocky mountain oysters to actually do something fun and unexpected. Knowing most of the people who are gonna be reading this thing, I just know that you'll know what I'm talkin' about when John goes ahead and rents this piece of past-it's-eat-by-date piece of mashmallow fluff of a flick for a bad movie night. But that's the real problem... it's bad, but not that bad. You know what I mean. There's "Speed 2" bad (is he eating the leaches?), or "Battlefield Earth" bad (Get into the learning machine![cue the Andrew Lloyd Webber score]), but this thing is just more like "Shattered" bad.

See? You don't even remember that one, do you?

2006-06-21T14:04:00.000-07:00

(image credit: Google images)