Politics, like sex and death, is terribly over-rated.
Thursday, July 01, 2010
Truth in advertising?
If a law firm's TV commercials boast that they "know the local judges", is that really code-speak for "We know how to grease the right palms"?
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Heang Uy: Biking across America
The above photo was taken on the coast of Oregon a few days ago by Heang Uy. Heang is a friend from my college days, who has been a bigger inspiration to me than I've ever been able to articulate. He's a true brother in the Lord, a great teacher, and an excellent coach at his school.
And this summer Heang is bicycling across the continental United States! Word has come down the wire that sometime this evening Heang should be entering the Mountain Time Zone, headed toward Idaho. If all goes well he'll be pedaling back into North Carolina in August. In the meantime Heang Uy is out there somewhere: exerting both mind and body in an epic odyssey that will have him living the landscape like few dare to experience.
Pretty neat, aye? :-)
Here's Heang's blog, where he's chronicling his journey (accompanied with photos from the trek). Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers as he perseveres toward the goal!
Full-sized Elite costume from HALO
Click on the above link for plenty more photos and a video of this getup. The guys who made this have also made a full-sized Master Chief costume.
Funniest thing I've read all week
"Twilight is like World Cup soccer. They run around for 2 hours, nobody scores, and a billion fans insist that 'you just don't understand'."
-- attributed to one "jayrunquist"
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO or STAR BLAZERS, whatever it is... here's the new trailer!
So I'm pretty sure that every man, woman, child and dumb animal on Earth has by now seen the staggeringly excellent trailer for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Meanwhile, our friends in Japan have just unloaded something just as eyeball-blowing spectacular: a new trailer for the Space Battleship Yamato (better known as Star Blazers on this side of the pond) live action movie! There was a teaser released earlier this year, but this one shows us much more.
One thing I'm worried about: how is the story from Season 1 of the animated series going to be compressed into one motion picture? Maybe Space Battleship Yamato/Star Blazers could become a live-action TV adaptation with modern technology. Perhaps on HBO? Then they wouldn't have to pretend that Dr. Sane was drunk on "spring water", heh-heh...
Anyhoo, what glorious eye candy awaits us from the Land of the Rising Sun! Can't wait to see this.
Did y'all know that I have a Twitter feed?
Yes I do. And I use it for quite a bit of mirth and merriment!
(Okay seriously, for all of y'all going to see Eclipse tonight, hope you have fun :-)
I like TWILIGHT: ECLIPSE already
I'm very thankful for the Twilight movies, because never again will I get flack from my sister for going to see the Star Wars movies premiere at midnight.
'Nuff said.
Monday, June 28, 2010
"This is heavy!" BACK TO THE FUTURE Trilogy coming to Blu-ray!
I know at least two good friends who will without a doubt be buying this on the day it's released (and one of them would purchase it at midnight if he could, and you know who you are coughcoughEdcoughcough)...
This coming October 26th marks a quarter-century since Marty McFly hit 88 miles per hour and took his accidental journey to 1955. And to celebrate that milestone in movie history we're getting the Back To The Future 25th Anniversary Trilogy on Blu-ray!
GeekTyrant has posted a Mr. Fusion-full of details about the Blu-ray release of the Back To The Future movies, which is already one of the most loaded for any home release that I've ever seen.
If this set doesn't wind up on my shelf on October 26th, it will no doubt be on my list for December 25th!
On salvation and pride
It makes as much sense to declare that all the members of another religion are damned to Hell as it does to assert that all the members of your own religion are destined for Heaven.
Horse with no name: Equine-headed mystery lad appears on Google Streetview
IT manager Russell Moffatt was using Google's Streetview feature to locate an optician's shop so he could get his eyeglasses repaired. But while doing the search he found something else: a person, apparently male, wearing a horse's head mask along with a purple shirt, standing on the side of a street in Aberdeen.
This mystery individual has quickly become known as "Horseboy" and as such things go on the Intertubes, has quickly acquired a herd of fans and well-wishers.
Horseboy is just the latest in a string of odd sights found by users of Google Streetview. Among other things people dressed as Japanese warriors, Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Emmett Brown have been picked out of Streetview's data.
If I knew when a Google Streetview car would be coming past my house, I'd probably be waiting outside in my Jedi Knight costume :-)
Rest in peace Senator Robert Byrd
There's not a town in West Virginia that doesn't already have a bridge or a horse trough named after him... so how are they going to memorialize Robert Byrd?
His propensity toward pork barrel spending always irked me. And he was in the Senate way, way too long: nobody has any bidness holding the same elected office for 52 years.
But I must admit: I did have some admiration for Robert Byrd. He was certainly one of the better-read and more eloquent holder of high office in the past century of American history.
Thoughts and prayers going out to his family and the people of West Virginia today.
Supreme Court rules on what most of us already knew...
...and decided that the Second Amendment really DOES apply to EVERY part of the United States. In other words, it affirmed that citizens do have a basic right to keep and bear arms for purposes of self defense (and, I dare say, as an incentive against government getting too big for its britches).
Glad to see the Supremes finally nodding toward something that's been public knowledge only since the Bill of Rights was ratified.
But in any case, this is a major victory for gun rights. Perhaps the tide is turning after all in this land.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
TUCKER & DALE VS. EVIL: A movie SCREAMING for distribution and NOW!
Awright, I'm finally sick and tired and fed up with this. So once more I am feeling morally obligated to use this blog for a cause greater than myself. Maybe lightning will strike again as it has done a few times already with The Knight Shift.
Which draws me to my second reason for writing this: that Tucker & Dale vs. Evil would be an immensely successful and quite welcome entry into the slate of films for the summer of 2010... if it can land a distributor RIGHT NOW. Let's face it: this summer so far at the box office has been a bit of a letdown. The past couple of years were better than usual but now there's quite a bit of a lull in the amount of "must-see" movies. Tucker & Dale vs. Evil would be something that we don't get to enjoy nearly enough of: a bona-fide "sleeper" hit movie that people go to see and tell their friends about how great it is. First-time director Eli Craig has crafted a perfectly balanced mix of slasher-style horror and campy satire that would be like ambrosia for those starving for good cinema this season. And with Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine headlining a great cast, I can easily see where people would be demanding more Tucker and Dale movies to get made. This really does stand to be a whole lucrative franchise waiting to happen. But even if it doesn't, Tucker & Dale vs. Evil as a standalone would earn some serious coin at the box office before fall arrives.
I am speaking about Tucker & Dale vs. Evil.
And ya wanna know why I'm writing about this, here and now? Two reasons. First of all, THIS MOVIE IS CRAZY AWESOME!! I first saw it at ActionFest in April. It was midnight on a Friday night and the theater was packed and everyone was laughing and lapping it up and begging for more! I had to leave later the following day but my filmmaking partner "Weird" Ed saw it again at midnight that evening and he reported that not only was the screening once more full but he himself enjoyed it even more the second time around!
And I would love few things more right now than to be able to drive over to the neighborhood cinema and see Tucker & Dale vs. Evil again but for some reason beyond my comprehension (and I can comprehend an awful, awful lot) this movie has still yet to find a distributor!
As I said though: this movie needs, nay, deserves a distributor... and it should have had one yesterday.
If anybody in the industry is reading this and wants to pick up what is one of the best-kept secrets in film right now, then do yourself a favor and become the distributor for Tucker & Dale vs. Evil. I bet if this can come out in August, it would rake in at least $75 million... if not much, much more.
World's scariest swimming pool...
...will make you think you're swimming over the edge of the world itself:
55 stories above the streets of Singapore, the Sands Skypark in Singapore provides a swimming pool, casino and greenway held aloft by three skyscrapers. The skypark is almost 1,250 feet long and the pool itself is 500 feet long.
What happens if you go over the side of the pool? You and the water get safely dumped into a basin that pumps the water back up to the pool. You, presumably, will have to walk up stairs or take an elevator back up to swimming altitude.
Click on the link at designboom for more information about the Sands Skypark and its swimming pool in the sky!
6-year old girl on Homeland Security's "No-Fly List"
One more bit of evidence for the already bloated file of arguments for why the Department of Homeland Security, the Transportation Security Administration and the whole damned "War on Terror" is an effin' joke...
Alyssa Thomas, all of six years old, was temporarily detained from boarding a flight from Cleveland to Minneapolis by TSA agents. Alyssa is on the dubious "No Fly List" and nobody knows why.
Here's the story from Fox 8 News in Cleveland, Ohio...
WESTLAKE, Ohio - Alyssa Thomas, 6, is a little girl who is already under the spotlight of the federal government. Her family recently discovered that Alyssa is on the "no fly" list maintained by U.S. Homeland Security.In a saner day and age, the people of this country wouldn't tolerate this kind of crap. And we would have beaten those most responsible for this bureaucratic BS to within an inch of their lives."We were, like, puzzled," said Dr. Santhosh Thomas. "I'm like, well, she's kinda six-years-old and this is not something that should be typical."
Dr. Thomas and his wife were made aware of the listing during a recent trip from Cleveland to Minneapolis. The ticket agent at the Continental counter at Hopkins Airport notified the family. "They said, well, she's on the list. We're like, okay, what's the story? What do we have to do to get off the list? This isn't exactly the list we want to be on," said Dr. Thomas.
The Federal Bureau of Investigations in Cleveland will confirm that a list exists, but for national security reasons, no one will discuss who is on the list or why.
The Thomas family was allowed to make their trip but they were told to contact Homeland Security to clear-up the matter. Alyssa just received a letter from the government, notifying the six-year-old that nothing will be changed and they won't confirm nor deny any information they have about her or someone else with the same name.
"She's been flying since she was two-months old, so that has not been an issue," said Alyssa's dad. "In fact, we had traveled to Mexico in February and there were no issues at that time."
According to the Transportation Security Administration, Alyssa never had any problems before because the Secure Flight Program just began in June for all domestic flights. A spokesperson will only say, "the watch lists are an important layer of security to prevent individuals with known or suspected ties to terrorism from flying."
Right now, Alyssa has other priorities. "My Barbies, my magic mirror and jumping on my bed!" But her name will likely stay on the list and as for the next time she flies, the FBI says they'll rely on the common sense of the security agents.
"She may have threatened her sister, but I don't think that constitutes Homeland Security triggers," said Dr. Thomas.
The Thomas family can still fly, but the check-in process will likely take much longer. They plan on making another appeal to U.S. Homeland Security.
Perhaps someday the pendulum will begin to swing away from our national apathy about bigger government, and this sort of nonsense will be put to death at long last. Until then, little Alyssa Thomas will be made to endure more of this insanity whenever her family chooses to fly.
My opinion? Don't fly at all unless it's absolutely necessary.
