...but it seems to me like it should be a simple enough affair: Bush should look her in the eye and tell her for what reason was it that her son was killed in Iraq.
In another time, real men could do that much.
Thursday, August 11, 2005
After-Action Report: Revenge of the Sith at Atlanta's fabulous Fox Theatre!
The only way this could have been better would be if a good friend had gone with me to this. Otherwise, I can't imagine a finer way to have ended seeing the first-run theatrical release of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith than what happened the night before last.
ME: Hey Ed do you think I should go see Episode 3 at the Fox Theatre tonight?There was also gonna be a wine-tasting before this thing. Since I've never been to one before, all the better for the new experience, eh? Anyhoo the movie started at 8 and the wine tasting at 5:45 so I left Lisa's parents' house shortly after 4, fought an awful thunderstorm while "heading down the Atlanta highway" as the B-52s once put it, and after overcoming the local environment's traffic quirks I pulled into a parking garage around quarter 'til 6.
WEIRD ED: ARE YOU NUTS HECK YEAH MAN!!!!!!!!!!
Why drive over an hour to see a movie I've seen about twelve times this summer already? 'Cuz it's at the Fox Theatre!! It must be said with such awe and reverence. I'd been to the Fox twice before - once to see Stomp and a few months later for The Phantom of the Opera and every time this place bowls me over. This is the theater that had the world premiere of Gone With The Wind back in 1938. It's hosted a lot of neat shows and world-renowned folks (and in 1996 it was headquarters for the Australian Olympic team) over the years. Ignore all that and the place will still absolutely overwhelm you: the architecture is grandiose beyond mortal ken. The entire building was originally a Shriner's temple back in the 1920s that got bought and converted into a theatre at the dawn of the Great Depression. Well those Shriners wasted no expense in giving the building an Oriental/Egyptian/Moorish look: the outside of the Fox has those onion-shaped domes out of "Arabian Nights". That's nothing compared to the inside: the main auditorium will literally make you weak in the knees, it's so overwhelming. The bathrooms are cleaner than most people's houses... heck the bathrooms have like a smoking lounge between them and the rest of the theater! The Fox is so grand it borders on the obscene. But, it's incredibly beautiful. It must be seen in person at least once in your life, just so you'll know that this kind of place really does exist in the world... and for seven bucks for a movie ticket, you can take it all in for the evening!
Well, the wine-tasting it turned out cost an extra ten bucks. I ain't a cheapskate but I thought it'd be wiser to keep the pocket change I had on me for a possible bite after the show and 'sides, this thing would be better shared along with Lisa. I decided to forego the wine this time. So I hung out in the main lobby and about 6:15 Darth Vader and four Imperial Stormtroopers came out, joined later by Boba Fett. They were from the 501st Imperial costumer's group, so respected it is that those troops that accompany Anakin into the temple in Sith were dubbed the 501st by Lucasfilm... is that cool or what? There's a documentary film in the works about them also. Neat bunch of guys. Oh yeah did I tell you that there was gonna be a costume contest before the show? Darn... 400 miles from home and I sure could have used my Jedi outfit and custom-made lightsaber. Ahhh well...
They opened the doors at 6:45. I got me the biggest tub of popcorn and a large root beer and then found a seat in the upper balcony (the best seats in the house). Like I noted at the beginning, I didn't have any good friends with me but I did make a few new ones: there was a really nice lady named Marie, in town from Miami, sitting next to me and she hadn't seen Episode III yet. We had quite a good conversation about Star Wars and other stuff. I even told her about Forcery and she said she'd have to take a look at that :-) At 7:15 an organist came out to play on "Mighty Mo": from what I've read it's the 2nd biggest theatrical pipe organ in the world, after the one at Radio City Music Hall. So we listened as he played some stuff and then everyone did a sing-along (complete with lyrics slides that date back to the 1930s) to songs like "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" and "You Are My Sunshine". Then came the costume contest: about three Darth Vaders, two Obi-Wans, a pre-burn Anakin, one Darth Maul and a Twi'lek chick, along with a few generic Jedi: the smallest Darth Vader was the winner, I think.
7:55 and the curtains opened up to show they screen. They ran that old Warner Brothers cartoon Duck Dodgers in the 24th and 1/2 Century!!! How cool is that?!? And then you know how most theatrical chains have a custom-made "welcome to the whatever theater"...? Well there was a VERY beautiful one made just for the Fox Theatre: that should give ya an idea how important a place this is, when this ONE theater has its very own... one of those thingies.
Then they crank up Revenge of the Sith. As far as I can tell it was practically a virgin print of the movie. And for the next two hours or so... it was unlike any showing of Episode III I'd ever seen.
Nobody talked. Everybody was spellbound. Marie, sitting to my left, cried a few tears, I noticed, during that heartbreaking scene between Anakin and Padme and Obi-Wan.
The quietest I've ever heard the Fox Theatre be came when Darth Vader's mask and helmet come on for the first time: the mask locks down, the helmet clamps on, there's that momentary silence and then Vader's breathing for the first time: "whooooooo-hhhhaaaaahhh". You could have heard a pin drop in that place, I swear.
And then not long after that the show was over, and as everyone was leaving I told Marie it was great meeting her and we wished each other a good trip back home. I got to my car and after getting on I-75 I turned on my MP3 player and dialed up the PERFECT song to end the night on: "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Yoda".
And, that was my night at the Fox Theatre to see Star Wars Episode III. Even if you never see a Star Wars movie there (who knows maybe they'll run all six of them there someday) it's well worth any chance you get to experience the place. But as for me, if there had to be a one last time to ever see a Star Wars movie during its first run, I can't imagine a better venue to have had it in than at the Fox. It was a night I don't think I'll ever forget.
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Ain't no way to check out
In South Korea a 28-year old man has died after playing video games for almost 50 hours nonstop.
Meanwhile in Washington state another man has died after having sex with a horse.
Call me old-fashioned, but when my time comes I want to go out standing up, with a gun in my hand and loud 'splosions going off.
20,000th visitor to this blog coming today?
Looks like this blog will get its 20,000th visitor sometime today. It got more than 5,000 visitors in just the past month or so alone.
Maybe I'm doing something right? :-)
Will have a full report later this evening on something really cool that I did last night. Here's a tip in the meantime: if you're in the Atlanta area you might wanna check out the Fox Theatre tonight around 8 or so.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Post-Prince: Is Rowling tricking us with Snape?
For some truly fascinating thoughts regarding the latest Harry Potter book, head over to Dave Kopel's blog, where he posts an essay on Severus Snape. It's a very long but provocative article about where things now stand in this story in the wake of Half-Blood Prince's events.
Monday, August 08, 2005
Vox Day puts women in their place
Read it over at WorldNetDaily now and be sure to check out Vox's blog right now especially this and this and this and this 'cuz the reactions to this article have been a real scream!!
Sunday, August 07, 2005
RuneScape is a pretty neat lil' game
I'm going to be writing up a review of Guild Wars pretty soon (now that I'm almost level 11 and have had time to explore the game a bit). In the meantime, my 12-year old cousin Dylan came over earlier today and showed me something pretty darned cool: RuneScape. So far as massively-multiplayer online games go it's rather unique. Fer starters, the entire game is played via Java applet on your web browser. Graphics are 3-D, not the full-detailed stuff you'd find in World of Warcraft or City of Heroes, really sorta glorified textual MUDding but they're still rather effective. Play is either fee-based full membership or free, which limits the landscape you can explore and quests you partake in and puts some banner ads in your browser window. But even free, it's quite a nice game to behold. I found a lot more info about it at Rune Tips and Runescape Realm.com (Rune Tips has a nice graphical bestiary where you can take a gander at the game's various monsters... which includes chickens, ducks, and drunken dwarfs). All things considered, I was rather impressed with RuneScape, so sign up for free and check it out!
Kyle Williams hits the mark again
This time he's spotlighting Christian hypocrisy toward homosexuality while caring little for the actual sanctity of marriage...
Some of the very people who vehemently oppose and criticize homosexual marriage are basking in the hypocritical light of a double standard. Their mantra is "save marriage" – from homosexuals presumably – but the practices of the average American have nothing to do with a devotion to chastity. In other words, what is marriage being saved from when Britney Spears, while in a drunken stupor, gets married in Vegas for 55 hours? And aside from social repercussions, there's very little encouragement from our nation for couples to stay married.Mash here for the rest of his article over at WorldNetDaily.
Friday, August 05, 2005
Thursday, August 04, 2005
Now, THIS is a neat fanfilm! Why isn't TFN hosting this?!
Friend sent me a link tonight to a new Star Wars fanfilm that, apparently this is the first one known to come out of Russia. I think that's a strong selling point on this 'cuz Star Wars Alien War is full of that Russian storytelling tradition that emphasizes depth of character. For most of the story it's two characters in a darkened room, so it has to carry through on whatever strength is in the dialogue. It's native Russian with English subtitles, but it's quite effective. And those might be the best lightsaber effects I've seen in any fanfilm to date.
EDIT: I went to the TheForce.net forums to see if this movie had been mentioned in the Fan Films section. Sure enough it has been. For too many reasons to go into I thought THIS one would merit hosting by them (yeah even if Forcery didn't) but...
Yes, we submitted it to TF.N, but we were denied the hosting: film's not good enough. But, actually, it doesn't matter at all, 'cause we have a good hosting for our files already, we just wanted to get in TF.N news... And looks like we won't make it. Happens.This film's "not good enough"?!? &%@$!!! WHAT the heck are they SMOKING over at TFN Fan Films these days?!? I saw where the filmmaker noted on the thread that this is indeed the first fanfilm to come from Russia. It should warrant good TFN hosting on that mark alone. It's a gutsy movie, to not rely on "action, faster, more intense!" to drive the story. It has EXCELLENT special effects. Look, Jeff, John, Kurt, whoever's at the controls over there: I don't care what you thought of my own movie at this point. But you are positively NUTS to turn Alien War down and deny it some good recognition.
Once again - but NOT thinking of my own movie at all here - I have to wonder what kind of criteria they're going by in judging which movies make the cut and which don't. TFN Fan Films prides itself on being "a leader" in fan-made productions. Well, it won't be a leader much longer if it keeps denying rich content like Alien War. This is a work of genius that should be accoladed, not absconded from.
This is why I no longer do the political discussion sites
I gave up participating in them about a year ago. For over five years I was known as "Darth Sidious" on Free Republic, until FR went neocon-crazy and banned me. Then it was a good stint on Liberty Post for awhile. I still watch LP every now and then for stuff... even though I can't stand the mean-spiritedness of many of its posters at all.
This is one example that I found a few minutes ago, from a thread about Supreme Court chief justice William Rehnquist returning to the hospital:
2. To: out damned spot (#0)Gloating over the ill health of two or three Supreme Court justices out of bitter partisanship... that's just too cold.Rehnquist is next, then Stevens and finally Cancer-girl Ginsberg.
Man would I hate to be a liberal, even if they were to win in 2008, the Dem will have to face a 7-2 Republican SC.
LOSERS.
GENANDREY VLASOV posted on 2005-08-04 21:41:55 ET Reply Trace
That is why I gave this up: I didn't want to be tempted to become this way myself. And I was getting too close to it as it was anyway.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Carolina Circle memories, or: How one mall's food court destroyed an urban economy
There was a lil' "meet and greet" at our apartment complex tonight, after which Lisa and I decided to take a ride. Do some explorin' ya know. So it was that while driving around Greensboro and finding ourselves on Cone Boulevard I realized it had been a pretty long time since I'd seen the far east end of it, where Carolina Circle Mall was. That's where we aimed the car toward.
Ooh-boy...
The northeast side of Greensboro has seen a lot better days. I feel old now just after coming back from it. It's nothing like it was fifteen-some years ago, when that entire part of town bustled with activity. I mean, there were several restaurants, a K-Mart, a big Toys R Us that I remember seeing open in '85, a lot of other stores. And at the hub of it all, one of the best shopping malls in the region: Carolina Circle Mall.
I can't begin to describe how wonderful a place this was. It was a two-story complex sprawled across a few city blocks' worth of space. In its heyday it was home to a Belk's store, a JC Penney, an Ivey's (some of these won't ring a bell with most reader's but trust me Ivey's was big and Belk's is still a clothing giant in these parts), a Montgomery Ward, and dozens of smaller stores. The Waldenbooks at Carolina Circle was my absolute favorite place in any mall anywhere to look for new books: I'll never forget that joyous day there in 1991 when I spotted the very first Star Wars "expansion" novel Heir to the Empire, which I quickly snatched up and took to the register. I've no idea how many books on my shelves came out of the Waldenbooks at Carolina Circle.
There were other stores too, like K&K Toys: I got everything from Star Wars toys to G.I. Joe figures to model rocket equipment from that place over the years. There was DoctorX Pet Store (I kid you not that's what it was called): I got a lovebird for my sixth birthday that came from that store, we named him "Pete". Had a couple of hamsters from that place too.
There was a music store that Mom bought her organ from. She even took lessons there once a week for a while. This friend of our family would take my sister and me all over the mall while Mom was having her lesson. There was a Baskin-Robbins that most times in summer our family would walk out with ice cream cones. Another store, I remember buying my first compact discs from. A candy store. Everything else you could think of, Carolina Circle had.
This is where our parents took us every December to sit on Santa Claus's lap. Carolina Circle Mall was the very first place that I drove my car to on my first solo drive out of town.
That mall had the movie theater that, to this day it's what first comes to mind whenever I think about going to see a movie, the AMC Carolina Circle 6. Six screens, reddish-colored walls and carpeting. I can still smell the popcorn with that butter, the way movie theater popcorn butter used to be before the Food Police(tm) wrecked it years ago. I never saw it there but this was one of those theaters that used to show The Rocky Horror Picture Show every Saturday night. That was the theater that I saw Return of the Jedi at in 1983: as long as I live, I will never forget the wild cheering and applause that broke out when Darth Vader lifted the Emperor and threw him down that shaft. There's never been a cinematic moment like that since then at all. The last movie I ever saw there was Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country on December 7th, 1991... the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, it so happened.
Carolina Circle was the kind of mall where you could just go to sit and watch people and talk to just about any relative stranger and wind up with a friendly conversation. It was a family shopping mall. Partly because of charming choice of stores, and partly because of the great movie theater...
...but mostly because of its ice-skating rink.
On the lower level of the mall there was a pretty good-sized skating rink. Everything else in the mall centered on that. And there just ain't no telling how many families spent the evening skating around that rink, or how many first dates took place there, or how many kids had birthday parties next to the ice. The ice rink was the heart and soul of Carolina Circle Mall. No matter what other business brought you there, you always wound up taking in the wonder and free-spiritedness wafting from across that ice into the rest of the mall.
I guess you don't realize how much you miss something, until that thing is gone. I guess too that nobody realized just how dependent a lot of things were on the ice rink, until it was too late.
Like I said, the rink was the heart of Carolina Circle Mall. And the mall was the center of all the surrounding area's business.
So it was that in the early Nineties the mall's owners made the galactically horrible business decision of DESTROYING the ice-skating rink... and replaced it with a food court.
You could practically watch the mall wither and die after that, as one tenant after another vacated the premises. I think a lot of us kept coming though out of longstanding loyalty to such a family environment. But in the end, as more empty store fronts looked down onto a soulless food court (that never had that much to offer to begin with) we really had no more reason to keep coming. There were a lot of other malls around, and movie theaters that had ten and sixteen, and then twenty and twenty-four screens to offer us. And then, maybe four or five years ago, the mall locked its doors for good.
Every other business around it suffered, including the Toys R Us. I was in there last a few days after Christmas in 2000, and they were preparing to shut down then. That was my last real time anywhere in the old Carolina Circle Mall complex until tonight.
My heart darn near broke to see what's become of it: a vast parking lot rife with weeds, overlooked by a shell of a building in the process of being demolished. I could even see where Waldenbooks used to be. The Toys R Us building is gone completely.
There is no sign that a movie theater ever existed there. Mom and Dad took me, my sister and my best friend Chad to see A Christmas Story there in 1983. One beautiful memory of my childhood and they went and wrecked the joint.
You could really believe that this was one of those places that you'd always have to come back to. I've got so many wonderful memories tied to that mall... and now, memories are all I have - all I will ever have - about Carolina Circle Mall and the special place it had in a lot of people's hearts.
All because some IDIOTS managing the place thought it'd be more economically viable to wring a few more dollars out of a food court than an ice-skating rink was bringing in. They destroyed a wonderful family environment, just about the ENTIRE economy for one-fourth of the city, and a lot of cherished memories.
Darnnit... I know you can't stop time, that you can't stop progress but, seeing what's become of Carolina Circle Mall made me feel thirty years older than I really am. It had that kind of affect on me.
Maybe that part of town's luck is about to change though. After demolition is finished the location will then give rise to a Wal-Mart Supercenter. No doubt it'll attract a lot more business to that part of town. But it will be one more Wal-Mart Supercenter: just another big blue-and-white box like thousands of others in seemingly every town in North America, without any warmth and soul and charm, and personality to call its own. It will never occur to most people who shop there that once upon a time there was something far different - and far better, in my book - sitting at that same location.
But as for me, I will always see something else there: a beautiful edifice built not only to accommodate commerce, but friendships and families. Maybe memory and dreams are all that remain of Carolina Circle Mall... but as sweet as those memories are, it will be enough.
Monday, August 01, 2005
Bush was right to recess appoint Bolton to U.N.
Well, he was.
I'm not the biggest supporter of Bush by far (as has been well-documented here). But let's face it: partisan Democrats - and that's what they've been exactly - have been pretty silly to hold up a United Nations appointment without a simple yes/no vote.
I can see a rationale for stalling on something more important, if there's serious questions about a candidate's eligibility... but not on this one.
That said, I don't like how Bush is giving the United Nations some kind of special importance when it really has none. It was a brilliant idea in concept but in execution it's been one bungle after another ever since its inception. It would have been more ballsy to simply NOT appoint an ambassador on that basis alone, and hold out until Koffi Annan and the other powers-that-be at the U.N. got their act together. That would have been the far better thing to do over the long run.
But hey, I'm just a guy with a blog... what do I know?
At last, the face of Professor Alastor Moody
Better known as "Mad-Eye" Moody. Ain't It Cool News conveys the grisly visage of the newest Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher (or is he?) as he'll appear in the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire movie this November. Mad-Eye has become my favorite character after the events of Order of the Phoenix (and I was really disappointed that he only makes practically a cameo appearance in the Half-Blood Prince) but this look for Moody... isn't what I was expecting. I can't remember it said anywhere that his magical eye needs a strap to hold it in place. And it seemed like his face would be a lot more angular/crudely cut. But Lisa likes his look here, and I'm going to hold out on a full judgement until I see the movie. After all it's not so much Moody's look that's as important as his attitude :-)
Four years of journalism school down the drain...
Over at Chad's Running Commentary there's some wry discussion about what happened at my old hometown newspaper this past week that got national attention. Seems that two cub reporters there were caught making up people and quotations for the paper's daily "man on the street" feature. In this case they were found taking mugshots from TheFaceBook.com website and attributing fake quotes to them. The two reporters should have been fired immediately. Instead they and their managing editor were given a choice: quit now or get fired. They resigned and ended up not only giving a bad rep to a 117-year old newspaper, they totally thrashed the formal journalism education they got at UNC-Chapel Hill. Anyway, on his blog Chad offers up some choice advice to whoever it is that works next at the review.
Sunday, July 31, 2005
CAFTA: How to make an elected representative prostitute his principles
You need to register (for free) with the New York Times website to read this, but there's a fascinating (and disturbing) article about what happened behind the scenes that made CAFTA pass by two votes this past week. If just one Representative had voted against it, the measure would have been tied and thus no passage. As it turns out the pro-CAFTA cabal found their needed vote in North Carolina's own Robin Hayes, who had previously been rabidly against CAFTA. I swear, this account reads like something out of a Mario Puzo novel. Sign up with the Times site (if you haven't already, and give a fake address and phone number if you don't wanna give 'em your real one) and check this story out.
