Yahtzee

Todays Score to Beat: 438
High Score is Still: 485

Archie Does Revelation

Here is something of interest for you, it is the Spire Comics adaptation of There's a New World Coming (it's 4+ mb .pdf file), a "wonderful" book about the coming rapture by Hal Lindsey, author of another "wonderful" book that resides on my bookshelf called Satan is Alive and Well on Planet Earth. (I would suggest right clicking and downloading unless you have a fast connection)

Lindsey was the 70's version of Jack Van Impe, or Jenkins and LeHaye of Left Behind Fame-big on the rapture and the antichrist, short on the actual thought.

The comic is drawn in a very Archie like style, and takes a group of kids on a groovy trip through the book of revelation. If you ever wanted to indoctrinate your children into the Left Behind phenomena (though why should you have to? Aren't all the children going to get a get into heaven free card according to the books?) this might be a good place for you to start.



This may be a book written for kids of hippies, but Jesus sure looks like an ass-kicker. He's got a purpose and it's puttin a whoopin on the devil and the antichrist. It surely is a Jesus Rally Random-Flying-Kid. Jesus looks like he's going to go kick some ass. No time for lazying about, no sir, it's time for the second coming.

I mean, look at him, he's happy, but he's prepared to visit plagues and whatnot on you. I'm guessing that his preparation for the rapture is to walk across a field of flowers in front of all the raptured children who fly through a whirly-swirly vortex behind him. Also, this panel answers the burning theological question: Yes, Virginia, there are sheep in heaven. It's not just a metaphor, and the Scotts can rejoice. (it does bring up the touchy question of if there are sheep in heaven and grass for them to eat, how is heaven any different from Earth? I mean besides the whirly-twirly vortexes and briskly walking Jesuses? If the sheep need to eat grass to stay alive in heaven, does that mean that there is death in Heaven? Doesn't that mean that there would be a Heaven's Heaven? Would that make Earth Heaven's Hell? Perhaps I over-think the inclusion of the sheep in the panel.)

This isn't really a very good comic in the areas of storytelling or character. We're not given much background on the kids involved, or really any story on them at all beyond that they seem to be tripping on acid and reading Revelation.



I'm not really sure what the message of the panel to the left was supposed to be. If I were of a less pure mind I might think that the blond headed kid is referring to the girl in the red dress that he is looking at, but that would be a bit of a wrong message for a book like this (and is the kid right below her staring up at the heavens or her chest?). If indeed she is a character from the book of Revelation, why have I never heard of her in church? I don't think his exclamation really answers the other kid's question, but, who knows. Also, wouldn't those involved in the rapture have a good idea of what was going on? I'm pretty sure that LB tells me that those who don't know, or don't accept this particular strain of Christianity are doomed to be Left Behind. (Also wouldn't someone known as "The Great Snatch!!!" most likely be left behind? Just a thought)



Ah, the first panel of the next page seems to explain it. That girl in the red dress was indeed, "The Great Snatch!!!," because this girl in the green shirt and blue hat is "The Rapture!!!" These must all be groovy superhero names, what with all these flying teenagers. This begs the question, where are all the adults in this comic version of the rapture. I realize this is a book targeted at young people, but aren't they going to find it odd that there are no adults going with them up into Heaven? Again, I ask, wouldn't everyone involved in the actual rapturing know what was going on? Shouldn't it be the people on Earth who are all confused?

I'm pretty sure the chick in the blue shirt and red pants in the bottom right of this panel is Veronica from Archie, but I don't see any of the other Riverdale crew around. We know that Jughead wouldn't make it since he's Muslim, and Archie is Catholic, but why not Betty? She's a good, nice girl. I always thought that Veronica was the bad girl in that book. Why does she get taken up and not Betty? And it all leaves the question, what about Moose?

In case you were wondering when all of this is supposed to happen, they provide you with a handy timeline to provide you with a visual representation of the situation:



I hope that solves any questions that you had about the rapture. I am left wondering if there was an Eternity in the past, and an Eternity in the future, what does Eternity mean? Doesn't it mean, you know, forever? How do you have a forever, then something, then more forever? I realize that these are "Things we aren't supposed to know," but if we can figure out what God's Outline of History is, shouldn't we be able to make it make a little more sense?

After a careful review of that chart I come to the conclusion that we are in the Messiah's kingdom which will last for 1000 years, since the entire period of the New Testament occurs in the space of seven years (unless the chart isn't to scale, but wouldn't God be a little more careful with his outlines?)

It is comforting to know that the entirety of Creation is just God's Term Paper. I would imagine that he has a big ass set of note-cards laying around somewhere with all his facts on it as well. I'd really like to see God's Bibliography though. I bet that would be some wild stuff.



You know, forget Russia and her Arab Allies, doesn't this kid need a punch in the eye? He looks a lot like Johnny Quest in this panel, and that alone should get him punched. Also, I may be mistaken, but I don't think that Israel is an island. Perhaps it is going to become one during the Rapture, but I'm not sure.



Just remember kids, God's judgement is so poetic. (Even though the panel to the right only refers to the death of the whore of Babylon, forgetting the fact that the antichrist still releases Satan from the pit right afterwards). It seems the girl over Johnny Needs-a-Punch is very shocked by his statement. I imagine he said it with a little smirk and a snort. He seems that type of guy.

I hope that you all have enjoyed this briefest of glimpses inside this wonderful comic, and perhaps you will download it and read it in it's entirety, allowing it's glorious light to shine into the darkest recesses of your soul and to bring you peace.

Or at the very least you'll worry about that ass-kicking Jesus and his Hydrogen Bombs that will eventually blow up the planet in another thousand and ten years or so.

God's Judgement is So Poetic, and badly drawn.






I found this through the Slacktivist's Left Behind Critique Page. He's going through the book page by page (something I'm not sure if I could do) and providing a counterpoint and commentary to the book.

I found that through BoingBoing by the way.

Merry Christmas and Whatnot

I hope the holidays find everyone well. They've found me well enough.

Right now I'm sitting here watching my sister play Simpson's Hit and Run on her new Playstation 2. She seems to enjoy just randomly kicking pedestrians as much as I do. The game is a re-working of Grand Theft Auto, and features a little more platforming style action, with the gathering of coins and jumping about. It impresses me, if for no other reason, than the fact that Cletus the slack-jawed yokel has a moderate supporting role. It's GTA without the killing or the hookers, but with some of the violence and profanity. Fun for the whole family.

I'll talk at you all later.

Comments

Well, sheeit, I done got a comment from Mr. Cory Doctorow hisself. I am quite the honored individual.

(Assuming that it really was him and not Tommy pretending to be him like he did on my old site when he e-mailed me pretending to be Hulk Hogan after I said something bad about the Hulkster).

Alert level: Yummy Mummy

Don't worry folks we're all Yummy Mummy. Take a moment to stop and breathe deeply and remember that anything could happen to you at any time anyway. It doesn't really matter to us Joes if there are dirty bombs or vague, unspecified threats on anyone and everything.

Make sure to watch out at every gathering of people, commies-i mean terrorists- could be anywhere. Take a moment to look around you, your classmates, your friends, anyone of them could be a mutant, a person born with strange and wondrous powers. Now some mutants like the X-Men use their powers for good, but then there are the evil, terrorist mutants who want to destroy the human race!

The graphic comes from Goopymart by way of bOINGbOING

Rush

Attorney's for Rush Limbaugh are claiming that he was blackmailed by his former drug dealer and that the state leaked the information.

To me the question is not whether or not he was blackmailed, but if he was illegally obtaining and using drugs. In the article it says that his former housekeeper/dealer was the one that went to the Enquirer and broke the story. I find it amazing that he claims that the 2,000 some odd painkillers were legitimate. Don't celebrities have to get re-fills of prescriptions like the rest of us? I don't think those pills come by the thousands, and why would you be getting them from your housekeeper? (unless your housekeeper happens to be a doctor)

I'm wondering what Rush's views on drug users were before this case. I'm sure in all of his voluminous oration on the airwaves and in his books that he has come down on a side, and I'm willing to bet he's of throw-all-of-em-in-jail variety.

Anybody out there know? I'm a Gordon listener not a Dittohead.

Yahtzee

Today's Yahtzee score to beat 454
High Score is still 485

Electronic Yahtzee is a devilish invention. Unlike a gameboy, there is no end to the games, only the impulse to always do better and the quest for the Yahtzee, and the cruel mocking face of the game when it will not give you a damn four when you need it to complete a large straight, but then will give you nothing but fours on the next game when you don't need them.

Pictures

I figured I'd share a few pictures from my crap digi-cam today:

First up is a view of a ceiling. See if you can guess where it is! There isn't a prize!

Next is the sky from a few weeks ago from the parking lot of the Murfreesboro K-Mart.

This is the Adams Family shocker game at the theater.

Some crap in one of those crane games.

I hope you have enjoyed this experience as much as I have.

From Jehovah's Witness to Militant Islamic

So Jacko has joined the Nation of Islam. He already has the military suits, glasses and berets to wear.

I'm just looking forward to the inevitable press conferences with Jacko/Farrakhan that are surely now in the works. That "racist devil" Tommy Mottola better watch out when they get done with these charges and Tom Sneddon.

Gordon and Ollie

I was just on the way back home and was listening to The Steve Gill Show on and off (I would put up with callers as much as I could until I had to turn the radio off for a few minutes), and his guest was Oliver North. Ollie was going on about those loonie liberals, Madeline (Not-so-bright as Steve called her) Albright, Howard Dean and Wesley Clark (who he called something along the lines of an armchair brigadier). He was wondering how they could even consider that the capture of Saddam might not make Americans safer, or that Albright could even float the possibility that the Administration knew where Saddam was or had him already and were just waiting on the proper moment to publicize it (Stephen Grant suggests that they are using it to smokescreen the Halliburton flap and I think he may be right).

This got me to thinking along different lines. What does it say about the right that two of their big talking heads: Ollie and G. G. Liddy are both convicted criminals? Does it help that a third, Rush Limbaugh, is involved in illegal drugs? Doesn't this bespeak of a little bit of a double standard?

Clinton lies about an affair, but Ollie sells guns to the Iranians and then uses it to fund the Contras and this is viewed as a minor transgression. He was, after all, just following orders (Clinton was following orders as well, they were just communiques from his pants).

I can at least respect Gordon, he may be a crook, but he doesn't lie about it (at least not that he's been caught on). I don't get any of that from Ollie or Rush. Ollie finds it laughable that the capture of Saddam doesn't make us any safer, but I know for sure what didn't make us any safer, selling arms to the Iranians.

I'm not sure what my point is.

Why couldn't the GOP have run McCain for president? I would have voted for him, now if the GOP are to be listened to, I'll have to vote for Dean, who I don't find very trustworthy.

Why can't the Democrats run McCain for president? I'd still vote for him.

Not Santa

I figure everybody's seen the image at the left by now. It shows a bedraggled Saddam Hussein in US hands after spending quite some time on the run in Iraq.

The first story I read about it said solidiers removed a fake beard from Saddam after finding him. My question is, is the beard in the picture at the left the fake one before it was taken off, or after the fake one was taken off?

In my mind I imagine that when they found him he had a large, curly, white Santa Claus beard on over the one pictured. Either that, or he had one of the beard's with the hooks that go over the ears that the women wore in Life of Brian when they were sneaking into the stoning.

LXG

Since League of Extraordinary Gentlemen came out on DVD yesterday let me again reiterate how much I loathed the film.

Remember the scene in Last Action Hero where the Governator's Jack Slater is playing Hamlet? That was taking a great and finely written tale and turning it into a big, stupid action movie. I found that humorous.

Taking The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neil and turning it into a big, stupid action movie is not funny.

Not funny at all.

Reading Material

Cory Doctorow's writing is so consistently good that it is a bit frightening. I read his novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom after Warren Ellis talked about it on DiePunyHumans. (you can download the book for free as Cory's site).

It's a good read and worth your time if you like science fiction.

I just finished his book of short stories A Place So Foreign and 8 More. You can read seven of the nine stories online, and they too are very much worth your time.

The stories in the book do a good job of making the reader think about what's happening. Most of the time you are thrown, flailing, into an unfamiliar world and left to find your bearings quickly.
Often it would take until after I had finished a story for everything to gel in my head (though that could be due to my reading the stories largely in the break room at work).

The titular story is about a boy from New Jerusalem, Utah, in 1898 who finds out that his father is the ambassador to 1975 which they travel to through a hidden door in their barn. It's a sci-fi Tom Sawyer.

Three of the stories in the book take place in the same universe where an alien race, the Bugouts, have come to Earth and taken over. One, "Shadow of the Mothaship" tells the story of a man who is in constant rebellion against his father and the bugouts. "Home Again, Home Again," tells of a man who was raised inside a Bugout insane asylum. Finally "The Super Man and the Bugouts" presents a story of a very Jewish Super-Man and his dealings with humanity and the aliens.

Another story Beat Me Daddy (Eight to the Bar) is available online at Fortean Bureau. A post-apocalyptic story of survival over idiocy.

Go check them out and buy Cory's books.

The Simple Rich Girls Life

I had the pleasure of being subjected to my first viewing of an episode of Paris Hilton and Lionel Richie's Daughter's wonderful fish-out-of-water show "The Simple Life" while in Athens, as well as some of MTV's "Rich Girls."

Ahhh Television.

I think I am a bit offended by the way that SL manages to make fun of the Arkasas family and town that are in the show. Look at the bumpkins, ain't they so silly. There is a bit of the same backhandedness towards the stars as in the Anna Nicole Smith Show, but not as much. Whereas Anna is pretty stupid and everyone in the show except her is in on the fact that that's what the show is about, SL is about the girls knowing that they will try to spin it that way and trying their damndest to make themselves look like the fun-loving party girls.

The reason the show doesn't really work for me is that there is no consequences to anything that the two do. During the show they jerked off on the job at Sonic, doing things that would have gotten pretty much anyone else fired. They were kept on because of the cameras. I also liked the fact that the show seemed to want to portray Sonic as something that only exists in the rural south, when I know for a fact that there are sonic's at least as far north as Kentucky and as far west as Texas.

So what did they get for wandering off the job, writing juvenile things on the sign out front, and being "aren't we so cool, look how we can make fun of the yocals without them realizing it" asses? They get a paycheck at the end of the day and a talking to from the family patriarch that they're staying with.

Maybe if there were consequences to their actions; say the father or their bosses at work had the ability to take money away from the no-doubt big payday they'll get for the show. For instance, say they decide not to do any chores around the house one day, well that's $10K off each off what they make, do it again and it's $20K. In the end they could end up owing money to the family (Not that that would be a big thing to Hilton), that might be a better show.

Which brings us to Rich Girls.

Actually I don't think it does. I'm not even going to waste more space talking about that show, we'll just leave it at that.

I wonder if Charmed is on?

City Hunters

This story was on the front page of my local paper when I was in Athens:

Calhoun Can't Stop City Hunters


It brings to mind visions of men dressed in camouflage and bright orange hats and vests taking coverbehindd the Hardees and shooting at wandering deer and ducks. Lots of these guys, coming in from out of town and deciding that the city of Calhoun is the perfect place to go a huntin'.

I find it interesting that there is so much of a problem of people hunting in the city of Calhoun that they have to try and enact legislation to stop it.

I also find it interesting that it isapparentlyy legal for people to hunt inside the city limits as long as they aren't being too reckless about it.

Just becarefull where you're pointing your gun and make sure that you have an up-to-date hunting license.

The Democrat Civil War

I caught as much of the G. Gordon Liddy show on the way in today as I could stand, and one of the large topics of discussion that he and his listeners were positively orgasmic over was the idea that the Democrats are going through a schism of sorts. On the one side you've got the Dean/Gore camp that are, at least on the surface, liberal democrats, and on the other you have the Lieberman/Clinton (to some degree Clark) camp, that are more centrist, almost masquerading republicans.

Of course there were lots of good ol' Clinton and Hillary bashing moments thrown in, but that was the general gist of the show.

I'm in favor of this just as much as Gordon is, but for different reasons. I don't think that this means the end of the Democratic party so much as an opportunity for change in our outmoded one-party pretending to be a two-party system.

It's time for the democrats to split.

I think a new party made up of the so-called liberal democrats would be a good thing for the country. I don't think that it would so much divide the current base of voters for the democrats, but would pull even more voters from the republicans as many of the more left leaning of the reps would flow over into the centrist Lieberman camp and the ones that the GOP desperately wants to paint as the loonies would be allowed to be liberal.

What is Dean trying to hide? He is trying to seal his records as governor of Vermont for ten years. What's going on there? Is whatever he's wanting suppressed the reason that the Republicans are so jonesed to have him as the frontrunner? Is it something that they can exploit, but don't want to let out until the eventual election so they can crush him? Do they not want to put it out there so that they can use it and not the other democratic candidates?

Does it even matter in the end? We all know that if he becomes the Democratic candidate, Rove and his crew will smear the hell out of him and it won't matter what the truth is.

One in Ten Million

I am from a long line of men on both sides of my family who pretty much refuse to go to the doctor. Arm falling off, it's fine I'll walk it off. Coughing up ugly mucous monsters, fine.

Most of the time it is only on occasions where someone forces me to go that I will. I don't know if that's just a southern male thing or what, but it's the same for pretty much all the men in my family, regardless of any other peculiarities of character.

So it took my mother making me an appointment to see my optometrist this weekend for me to actually go and get some new glasses (which I have been needing for about three years, as it was getting to the point where it was harder to see through the scratches and whatnot than to just puzzle it out without them).

So I go with the expectation of just getting fitted with a new prescription and that's that.

But noooo.

After the first doctor spends quite some time looking over my eyes, specifically my gimpy left one, he talks at me a bit and then tells me he wants to go get the other doctor to come and look at my eye. So I sit and wait for a few more minutes (20 or so) until the other doctor is free and then he gets out optics and looks as well. Then there is some conference and he says "I wish I could see this on my scope."

At this point they're making me a bit nervous don't you know.

Some background on my gimpy eye. When I was very young I had some form of fever blister on my eye that did left a scar on my cornea and my retina that makes my vision not so good out of that eye. I can see movement and detail and whatnot, but it's pretty blurry and my better eye picks up most of the slack. It's been like that for most of my life, and it doesn't bother me so much.

Anyway, back to the two doctors and the various nurses clucking about my eye.

This ends up with the first doctor telling me that I've got some blood vessel growth on my eye that's growing down over my cornea and could lead to--dum-dum-dum--Glaucoma.

Then gives me the warning symptoms of a retinal detachment, telling me that it is a fairly remote possibility, but something that I should be aware of.

"If you ever see bright lightning bolts over your field of vision and lots of big floaters and your vision starts getting dimmer and fading out, get to a doctor immediately. Every second is more of your vision that you save."

That's some scary stuff right there.

Also he talked a little bit about a corneal transplant being the only real thing that could fix the problem.

Then he set up an appointment to see the specialist the next day so that she could give an opinion on my case.

Needless to say that with the already stressful week this was freaking me out more than a little bit.

The next day I go in to see the specialist, and luckily she's quite a bit more reassuring than the previous day's visit. The chances of me going blind in my left eye are pretty remote, and the new growth doesn't look very bad, but it is something that should be watched. She did say that my eye's condition is one in ten million. Perhaps she was exagerating, but I like that, at the very least, I am one of maybe 200 people in America that have this type of gimpy eye.

Immediately my visions of corneal detachment and eventual eye-patch and monocle wearing started evaporating.

So now I have an appointment with a corneal specialist here in Nashville. Yet another doctor to see.

All because I wanted some new glasses.

Out of the Loop

My Grandfather died last week and I've been out of town for his funeral. My mother's computer seems to have something against blogger so I haven't updated while there.

It was only a short time ago that my grandmother died, and it is a sad thing to know that neither of them will be there anymore. My mother pointed out a spot under a tree at my grandparents house where I used to play and was known to eat mud (in my defense it was more than two years ago).

When we were going through their now strangely quiet house I saw lots of things that I hadn't thought about in years, like the furniture and things in the rear bedrooms of the house where I spent many nights when visiting them.

It's funny when you think about people who are gone the things that come into your head. When they were asking me if there was anything in the house that I wanted to take with me the only thing that I was fixated on was a lamp in the living room that is made from an old hand-waterpump. For some reason that is the one item that I identify most with their house and them. It's in my room here now, and it makes me both sad and nostalgic to look at it.

Be a Man

Chuck D spoke at MTSU recently, and I read in the campus newspaper that he said something along the lines of "The current state of rap is sorry. Kids are sitting at home listening to this stuff and thinking, I can do this, and they're right."

Macho Man Randy Savage's Be a Man is the album that proves Chuck right.

Anyone can make a rap album. Anyone.

Take one out of work wrestler with a reasonable amount of celebrity, mix with semi-talented writers and producers, stir in a song challenging another 80s wrestler and one in honor of a dead one, and shake. Out pops this album.

This is quite possibly the most craptacular thing ever produced by man. Never before have the worlds of rap and wrestling been merged into a seamless whole such as this.

There were glimmers of such a thing in Hulk Hogan's 1995 Hulk Rules album, where the Hulkster laid down some fresh rhymes, and NWA-TNA wrestler Ron "tha Truth" Killings is a rapper who has put out a few albums, but nothing in comparison to this.

Nothing.

I think they missed out on something by not cursing more. Just the new horizons for rhyming words ending in "-it" would have added alot to the songs, rather than relying on "That's the slogan" being used more than once.

After listening to this album the 14 times that is legally required for writing a review I have a few questions for Randy. In one song he talks about how he won't cheat on his lady because she's stuck by him, but in another he talks about how they're wanting to have some fun with ladies at the club. Which is it Macho?

Of course he didn't actually write any of the lyrics.

Macho Man is credited as a co-writer on only one track, the titular "Be a Man," where the chorus chants:

"Be a man Hulk,
Come on don't be scurred,
You're runnin from Macho
That's what I heard."

The rest of the album is credited to K. Keene and a few others. Either Keene isn't a very good lyricist, or he's saving his better rhymes for himself or somebody that might be a bit higher profile, but the rhymes here are some slaw.

You'd almost start thinking that I don't like it, wouldn't you?

Not hardly.

This is the greatest album ever produced. Ever.

The RIAA is worrying that file sharing will kill the record industry, that's bull. This will kill it. After hearing this album everyone will be so crestfallen by it's brilliance that they will not be able to continue on. In the future there will only be a succession of Macho Man albums, all rappers and producers will only be able to hope to one day work for him.

All hail Macho.

'Cause Randy don't play. Oh Yeah!

Playing Undead

Playing Undead a good article from 1995 by Douglas Rushkoff on live action role-playing in San Fransisco.

Permanent Damage

Stephen Grant's Permanent Damage column over at CBR is a good read if you like commentary and criticism on the comic industry and television/movies as well as a bit of political observation thrown in there as well.

This week he talks about Bush's (or the Hand Puppet as he calls him) trip to feed thanksgiving dinner to some troops in Iraq and likens it to Lyndon Johnson's trip to Vietnam in 1966. Neither of them were for campaign purposes, right?

Also he covers the swiping of artwork that is done by many artists in the comic industry and compares it to plagerism in writing. Swiping refers to the using of another artists layout and style for a page or panel. It was very prevalent in the older Bullpen days of comics, and continues through today. It even happens that you'll see someone steal their own layout like Jim Lee did in an issue of Wildcats where he used the exact layout of one of his x-men pages. It boils down to much the same idea of master studies done in art school where you copy an artists works to find out how the produced an image, the only difference is that if you try to sell a master work you may be arrested for forgery.

Jangle bells makes them crazy

An Austrian trade union has claimed the repetitive playing of Christmas Carols in department stores is nothing short of "psycho-terrorism" for salespeople.

From morning to night, for weeks before Christmas, there was the same Christmas music in department stores over and over again, said Gottfried Rieser of the Union of Private Employees.

"Many staff in the retail sector suffer psychologically from it. They get aggressions and aversions against Christmas music. On Christmas Eve with their families, they can't stand Silent Night or Jingle Bells any more," he said.


Yes, we all know it's Christmas time, but the stores don't need to beat it into your heads. I think it becomes apparant if you are in stores that play an excess of Christmas tunes that there are only so many versions of songs out there.

It'll be nice when January rolls around for just this reason.

Lost in Translation

Here's a translation of the red-riding hood japanese video from a few posts back:

"This is Anabuki Construction Company's Campaign Girl, Anabukin-chan! She tries to be good just like any good girl, this Anabukin-chan!"

Anabukinchan, [go for it]!
Okay!
Expanding dreams,
Service mansion!
Expanding hopes,
Service mansion!
Expanding chests,
Expanding, expanding,
Wow!
Service mansion!

"Good service!"

Actually it is reasonably similar to Gunny's translation.

Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

Found via Boing-Boing.

Election Is Now for Bush Campaign Early Efforts Aim To Amass Voters


This ran on Drudge today with a headline quoting the figure that Bush's campaign has 10 times the number of volunteers that Deans does right now

It's gone now, so I don't see the actual sentence, but that was the gist of it. You can see from reading the story that that is the number of e-mail subscribers that they have, not the number of volunteers.

Regardless of that fact, Bush has no opposition in his party right now. Dean is up against a number of candidates, thus splitting the possibility pool for him. Also it seems that the right wants to choose Dean as their opponent, which leads me to believe that they have something on him and think he is the most beatable of the likely winners of the dems.

Anyway, back to the story that Drudge was trying to spin:

Bush's campaign has an e-mail list totaling 6 million people, 10 times the number that Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean has, and the Bush operation is in the middle of an unprecedented drive to register 3 million new Republican voters. The campaign has set county vote targets in some states and has begun training thousands of volunteers who will recruit an army of door-to-door canvassers for the final days of the election next November.

I sure hopes that somebody from the Bush campaign comes to my door.

The entire project, which includes complementary efforts by the Republican National Committee (RNC) and state Republican parties, is designed to tip the balance in a dozen-and-a-half states that both sides believe will determine the winner in 2004.

"I've never seen grass roots like this," said a veteran GOP operative in one of the battleground states.

You know why he's never seen grass roots like this? Because it isn't a grass roots campaign. Bush is the gawldurned president. The Republicans are in control, any campaign they run is top down and orchestrated by Rove. There is no grass roots movement, only sad little dittoheads that march in lockstep party lines.

The real story of this story is that the republicans are scared shitless about this next election because they know that there are MANY out there who will get out and vote against Bush, be it Dean, Kerry or Clark who gets the final nod (or one of the others, but I doubt it will be any of them). They are also worried that the faulty e-voting machines won't get used in enough places so that they can cheat the vote if needed.

They are scared and they are trying to work as much control now while the dems are fighting with one another.

Ummmm....

Found via Warren:

Further evidence that the Japanese are very wrong people.

Honestly, I don't know what the hell this is.

Comic Book Database

Comic's fans take a look at the General Comic Book Database. It contains a multitude of comics covers and information that is searchable, much like the Internet Movie Database is for movies.

They don't have my favorite comic cover of all time:

Sunglasses After Dark #2,
Though they do have:

Dr. Strange #80

Dreadstar #17

Uncanny X-Men #234

Slapstick #1

also Every issue of Speedball

Found via Stephen Grant's Permanent Damage column at CBR.

We Are Behind Denmark in Reality Television

A baby was conceived on Danish Big Brother.

These are the two what done it, Sissel and Robert.

Robert looks like quite the punk-ass, doesn't he?

MTV needs to get off their asses and get a baby made on one of those Road Rules/Real World shows. We cannot let Denmark beat us in reality tv milestones. I want the first conception to birth reality show on MTV. Perhaps Jessica Simpson and her husband could be persuaded.

Bathroom Reading

Tommy has a sci-fi anthology on the back of the toilet that I've flipped through a number of times when I forget to bring my book in with me. I've read part of a few of the stories, but most of them are too long for me to read in one sitting and I forget about them.

One that wasn't too long for me to read was Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Link to a probably copyright infringing copy of the story is here

It's a pretty good little story that I think could be a pretty good bigger story if it was given the chance. It reminds me quite a bit of Warren Ellis' stories in his book Available Light, just short little scenes really.

Alot can be done with this format, but it leaves me wanting more of the story alot of the time. I realize the Vonnegut story was just a short thing for a pulp magazine, but it just has the feel of alot of Phillip K Dick's stories where they just seem to wrap up to nicely and quickly.

I like it though.

Honestly it's the only Vonnegut I've ever read. I'm a bad, bad pseudo-intellectual.

Uncle Sam



By way of Rich Johnston's Lying in the Gutters column at Comic Book Resources.

The image is an unused cover from the US Vertigo Comics mini-series by Alex Ross and I think Mark Waid about the life and times of Uncle Sam.

It was a pretty good book, but that's a very good image.

Damn Art

Rex Mundi over at Damn Art Diary is quite the damn artist. If the other people that took advantage of his free art promotion recieved pieces of the quality that I did then I have no doubt that they are quite pleased.

I've got two of the prints up on my wall right now, and the only dilemma I had in putting the work up is that I didn't have room for all of them at once.



These are the two that I have up (my pictures don't really do them justice, but they are way to big for my scanner). The first is called Behind the Fencerow and the second The Old Gods. Both are quite nice and put me in the mind of medieval woodcuts (are they woodcuts Rex? Or are they of the rubber print type?). Whatever they are they are some good shit.

There were a couple of original ink drawings and some more prints in the package as well. Head on over to The Damn Art Store and buy something from the man.

Town passes ordinance requiring firearms

GEUDA SPRINGS, Kan. — Residents of this tiny south-central Kansas community have passed an ordinance requiring most households to have guns and ammunition.

Noncomplying residents would be fined $10 under the ordinance, passed 3-2 earlier this month by City Council members who thought it would help protect the town of 210 people. Those who suffer from physical or mental disabilities, paupers and people who conscientiously oppose firearms would be exempt.

"This ordinance fulfills the duty to protect by allowing each individual householder to provide for his or her protection," said Councilman John Brewer.

Found on Drudge

What exactly are they providing from protection from with this? Maybe I'm being a bit citified, but I would imagine a town of 210 people doesn't really have anything that hordes (or even one) criminal is going to come in and try to take. Maybe it's for protection from animals?

"...and people who conscientiously oppose firearms would be exempt."

So, the fine is pointless. You could just say I conscientiously oppose firearms and that would be that, right?

Don't the residents of this community have some televised football to watch or something?

Buy Me Things vol II



That there is talking Master P, he's not on my Amazon wish list, but there's alot that is.

For those of you who feel obligated to buy me a christmas gift go and take a look. I'm not saying you have to buy me something from Amazon, but it's there for some ideas.

Hulk Rules

I saw this review of the album Hulk Rules by Hulk Hogan and the Wrestling Boot Band at i-mockery.com.

I have a copy of this album on cassette somewhere, my sister gave it to me for christmas one year I think. I used to use it as torture music in my car. When someone else was riding with me I'd crank that sucker up to 11 and let it rip with "I Want to be a Hulkamaniac."

Ah, such memories.

The reviewer is way to easy on the album. If you've heard the The Wrestling Album (And if you have, I'm sorry) it's much the same thing on this album. Not what I would call good music, but then I do love GWAR. This album is pure Jimmy Hart. If you like Jimmy Hart and Hogan, then this might be your bag.

I think what the world needs more than another Macho-Man Hogan wrestling match is a rap battle between the two. Get John Cena to be the MC and let the two go all freestyle yo. That would be something that would sell on PPV.

By the way I'm winding into the final hours of my vacation, and I'm not looking forward to the return to work. You see how I'm choosing to spend my time.

Namco count

The current Namco Arcade ticket count won from Skee-Ball is: 164

By my calculations that is roughly $8.50 spent to win that number of tickets. I can now cash them in for: 1 blow up Spiderman or Hulk, a Simpson's ball, and possibly some candy.

I figure I've only got about $300 or so more to spend and I'll be able to get that remote controlled tank...sweet!

Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life

I realize that this one came out in theatres quite a while back, but I just got around to watching it on DVD this week.

While this movie is better than the first one, that is not exactly a lavishing of praise, most films are better than the first one.

This movie is an example of why film budgets don't need to be so high and that sometimes computer effects aren't the best way to go.

This movie had some terrible effects work. I thought I was watching one of the early Babylon 5 episodes, or maybe Andromeda. I don't understand why there was the need for a CGI shark, or the shadow monsters near the end. Is the idea of an ass-kicking female Indiana Jones type of character not enough to carry a movie? Indy had supernatural foes, but it wasn't so overdone and unrealistic. I bought it when the nazis were melted in Raiders, but I didn't buy any of this film. They couldn't even get the digital matte-paintings right, often characters were obviously screened in.

I say give Troma the $80 million this probably cost and let them do the picture. Granted Laura'd be fighting giant penis monsters and would be seconded by Kabukiman, but is that so bad? I think the movie would be much more realistic and entertaining that way.

I Need TP

I saw this on Unscrewed tonight and thought I would bring it to your attention.

Jeff Goldblum is watching you poop

It's a bit of the viral marketing, though not based on a product. I am unsure if the massive amount of typos I saw on the page were purposeful or not. I can't see why they would be.

Also the same story brought to my attention that the face in the Obey ads is Andre the Giant. I should have made the connection with the Andre the Giant Has a Posse signs and also with the fact that I have a poster of the same damn picture up on the wall in my room. I just never put 2 and 2 together.

I am a product of public schoolin after all.

and the face in the obey adds is Andre the giant

Chili?

The Man Show Host that isn't Joe Rogan on his first orgasm after a vasectomy:

I didn't know what to expect to come out, blood, semen or chili.

Payday, the Day Where I Buy Stuff I Don't Need

It's my bi-weekly day to go out and buy things (with the extra money that I'm not spending on comic books and wrestling). I picked up a book called The Languages of Tolkien's Middle-Earth as well as Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams. I also picked up Mr Show Season 3 and a Spike Jonze video and short film collection.

I also bought the new Two Towers box set on Tuesday, and watched the extended version of the film yesterday. The new 40 minutes or so added a bit to the end and to Merry and Pippin's story. There is also a scene with Boromir and Faromir added in that gives you a little bit more to Faromir's story.

Yep, time to go watch Smackdown.

New Comment System and Some Answers

I'm switching over to HaloScan for my commenting system so all of the previous comments are going to disappear (sorry). I'm a little bit tired of Enetation not working more than half the time. Here are some answers to recent comments:

About Troma Toys asks:

There's more to film-making than Troma, but it's a good place to start...

Have you seen?: Cannibal the Musical? --that's one of my faves.


"Are you lookin at my EYE?"

Cannibal is indeed one of the finest comedies ever made and I think it is made much better by the drunken commentary track. One of my favorite comedies.

About my sister's drinking of Gravy, my sister says:

I did not drink the whole thing, i finished what was left after i ate it with the chicken. I like the gravy, sue me!


What was left after the chicken was about 2/3 of the cup. It was the white, thick type of gravy. I still think it is a bit disturbing.

SKBubba says:

I don't know who's the most messed up member of your family (it would be hard to say at this point) but I just noticed that 1982 World's Fair T-Shirt in the picture. Very cool. Is that you? Do you still have it? Were you really that little in 1982?


That little in 1982? I'm still that little now, that picture was taken in 1998.

My sister is far more messed up than me.

And about my being John Constantine, Rex Mundi has this to say:

I bow to you Hellblazer...you were such a help to the Swamp Thing

I try to help out my friends, and I look nothing like Keanu Reeves.

Things I Learned From the MTV Europe Awards

I returned today from visiting with my parents and sister where I was subjected to my sister's t.v. viewing habits. I was 'fortunate' to witness the MTV Europe Awards twice over the weekend, as well as most of the E! True Hollywood Story of Baywatch and some Saved By the Bell.

Here are some things I learned from the awards show:

...In Europe Robbie Williams is famous. So famous that he is up for album of the year against a bunch of Americans.

...Someone in the MTV Europe design staff must read Warren Ellis's DiePunyHumans, since the logo of the show was a Filthy Monkey grasping the award. They were also suitably cynical about the whole thing with graphics talking about the factory created celebrities and the interchangeableness of them.

...Eminem thinks he is alot cooler than he is.

...Host Christina Aguilera is this generations Cher, and not in a good way. Her multiple costume changes and bad hosting were not as pleasant to watch as they should have been.

...This show was completely unnecessary as most of the winners were just the same boring crap as at the VMAs.

Thank you and goodnight.

Wisdom From Lloyd

...My shit was so enormous it hurt my butthole coming out. But then I was finished and it felt good.

From All I Needed to Know About Filmmaking I Learned From The Toxic Avenger by Lloyd Kaufman and James Gunn. That's how LLoyd ended up his first book on the Troma way of filmmaking. I think it sums it up pretty succinctly.

I really like LLoyd's books, they're some of the very few books I've read that have actually made me laugh out loud constantly. They make me want to make a movie.

Carbonated Thanksgiving Dinner

Jones Soda is set to test market a turky and gravy flavored soda.

This brings up an interesting (and disgusting) anecdote. I took my sister to Sonic a little while back and she got the chicken finger meal. That's all fine and good, I enjoy a good fried chicken strip mean complete with onion ring, but the disturbing part is that after she finished the chicken she popped the top on the cup of gravy and started drinking it.

Let me reiterate that for you and put it in boldface so it stands out a bit My sister drank an entire cup of Sonic gravy.

She only smiled and laughed at my look of utter horror, then she asked me if I was going to finish my gravy.

The point of all this is when I showed her the story about the soda she said:

"I don't know about the turkey, but the gravy, of course."

Somehow I'm kindof glad that they aren't testing this soda anywhere near her, though maybe they should, it would be hugely successful.

Again...She drank ALL of the cup of gravy.

And people think that I'm the most messed up member of my family.

Yep


You are John Constantine.
John has a strong knowledge of the occult and at
times he appears to wield strong magical powers
but he has also become known as something of a
con-man, more likely to talk himself out of
trouble than pull a rabbit out of a hat.


What Gritty No Nonsense Comic Book Character are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Elf
Dir by Jon Favreau

Who would have thought that the guy who brought us Swingers and Made would come out with a nice family-friendly Christmas movie?

The story of a child, Buddy (Will Farrell at his over-acting best), adopted by an elf (Bob Newhart) at the North Pole, who goes to New York to find his real father (Jimmy Caan). There is also the love interest, Jovie (Zooey Deschanel), and a variety of other supporting characters including a cameo by Kyle Gass of Tenacious D and Andy Richter as a duo of children's book authors who work for Caan, and Ed Asner as Santa Claus.

The acting is fine, with a standout performance by Farrell who makes each inappropriatly grand emotional response better than the last. Everyone else is servicable.

The movie is good and funny except for an abrupt change in pace and tone at the end with the introduction of the villanous Central Park Rangers that just comes across as oddly forced and out of place.

I also wonder if the scenes in the North Pole were originally planned to be done in stop motion. The snow and some of the creatures (including Leon the Snowman) are CGIed to look like the old stop-animation christmas specials, but with only parts of them being done this way it didn't quite come across right and I the movie picked up when they got away from them.

All-in-all your standard fish-out-of-water story with a strong performance from Farrell. If you like Will Farrell, you'll like this film, if you don't you probably won't.

Luther
Dir by Eric Till

Joseph Fiennes stars in this a bit overlong historical drama about the famous civil rights leader.

I was very surprised with the decision to go with a white man (Fiennes) in the role of Dr. King, and I was even more surprised that they set the film not in 1960's America, but in Germany a long time ago. That alone seems to dilute Dr. King's message, but they also left out the "I Have a Dream Speech." You'd think they would have at least included a little bit about his assassination as well.

One thing that is for certain after this film is that I really, really want to be a Luthran. In a really bad way.

A nice historical drama with good performances all around. Only the forced bit about the crippled little girl and her pesant mother was overly hokey to me.

Al Franken Considers Running for Senate

MINNEAPOLIS (Nov. 13) - Comedian Al Franken, a Minnesota native, says he's considering moving back to the state to run against Republican Sen. Norm Coleman in 2008.

"It's a long way away, five years away," Franken told the Star Tribune this week. "It might be crazy. I might not be the best candidate. Part of this is seeing what happens next year and what direction things are going."

His possible bid for the Senate was first reported by Newsweek. When asked to respond to the story, Coleman said: "I have no comment. I don't do comedy."


If I moved to Minneapolis right now would that make me eligible to vote for Al? Would that make me crazy and impulsive?

Truck and Stair Dismount

I've been playing Truck and Stair dismount, and I have to say that I find them quite good games. Push a guy down the stairs for the most damage and look at it from different angles, or cause a truck wreck for the most damage.

Good fun.

Sunday Comic
A good Doonesbury from last Sunday.

I think there are lots of people like the girl in that strip, maybe enough this election.

SkeeBall.com, for your edification and mine.

‘Something’ felled an M1A1 Abrams tank in Iraq – but what?
Mystery behind Aug. 28 incident puzzles Army officials


Warren had this story up, and I thought it was interesting.

This and That

...Saw Matrix: Revolutions, I'll probably have something longer to say about it later, but for now I'll just say there was a bit too much talky-talky in it. They could have done better to let the visuals speak for the film, even on the philosophical stuff. It was like watching a movie written by Chris Claremont or Jim Starlin...way heavy on exposition.

...Picked up some new DVD's today: Immortal Combat starring Roddy Piper and Sonny Chiba, terrible, terrible stuff; God Told Me Too and Carnival of Souls double feature; Jin Roh; The Rutger Hauer Action Pack: Escape From Sobibor, Beyond Justice and Cold Blood; and The Third Man Criterion Collection. Hopefully I'll get to watch them all pretty soon.

...also picked up Pearl Jam's 6-25-00 show from Berlin, bringing me closer to my incredibly obsessive goal of acquiring all of their live discs (only about 45 more to go).

...reading Wolves of the Calla, the new Dark Tower novel, and it's pretty good. So far it looks to me like he's going in the direction with the books that I thought he was earlier. More on this after I finish the book.

...there was an add before the Matrix movie with a stuntman who first talked about how much he loves making movies and how much it means to him, then it hits with a bit about how if somebody downloads a film or bootlegs it it takes money away from him and his family and that is a crime (or some shit like that). That's just a shitty way of making their point. I seriously doubt that this guy gets backend points on the film or merchandising, he was paid to do a job and that's that. He gets paid when the film is made, no matter how much it makes or doesn't make. Maybe thinking that makes me an asshole, but, hey, like anyone is surprised by that.

...speaking of shit, that was a word that was used alot in the Matrix film. It was like they were told "We'll let you say shit and damn but no f-bombs."

...the new crop of comic-book movies is not exactly inspiring me. Be it Man Thing or The Punisher, I am not impressed with what I am seeing right now. Constantine starring Keanu worries me the most. They've taken one of my favorite characters and changed him from a late 40-ish British chainsmoking asshole into Keanu. Maybe it'll be good, but I doubt it seriously.

The Greatest DVD in the World

I picked up the Tenacious D Complete Master Works DVD yesterday. It is quite possibly the greatest DVD ever produced, by the greatest band in the world.

On the first of two discs there is a complete concert as well as all six episodes from the HBO series. On disc two there are three short films which rely heavily on scatalogical and body fluid humor. There is also tour footage and the three videos (Wonderboy, Tribute and FHG) from their album. FHG is an animated video by the kind folks at Spumco.

If you like the D (how could you not?) pick it up to have your world rocked.

Secondhand Lions
Written and Dir. by Tim McCanlies

This was a film that I had decided not to see, but it came down to a decision today between it and Brother Bear, and it seems that Lion eats Bear.

This is, with the exception of the final four minutes or so of the film, a great movie. I read on IMDB that the ending was re-shot because test audiences didn't like it. I imagine that it was left a bit more ambiguous than it stands now. That would have been for the better, I think.

You've probably seen the trailers, but don't be fooled into thinking that this is a grumpy-old-men film with cute little Haley-Joel thrown in to livin things up, it isn't.

To me this film has more in common with The Princess Bride with high action flashback sequences detailing the adventures of young Garth (Michael Caine) and Hub (Robert Duvall). These are told to Walter (Haley Joel Osment), the two's nephew who his floozy mother leaves with the brothers (?) for the summer to find out where they've hidden a vast fortune that they may have gotten as bank robbers, soldiers or Mafia hitmen (and also so she could go play the loose woman in Vegas).

This is a well written and directed film, and Duvall is the standout to me, with a striking performance in the role of the searching-for-his-place former soldier/man's man. Imagine if Indiana Jones got old and settled down and was passed by by the world (I know that that happened in the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, that's not the point). What does he do with himself when he can't go out adventuring anymore?

It's also the story of Walter who does the standard boy growing into a man schtick with his crazy uncles. There's also a subplot about (other) scheming relatives and a used circus lion to add some more flavor to the mix.

I'd suggest you catch the film in the theatre if you can, or rent it on DVD shortly, if you can handle just a bit of good old hokey Hollywood filmmaking.

"I'm Hub McCann. I've fought in two World Wars and countless smaller ones on three continents. I've led thousands of men into battle with horses and swords, artillery and tanks. I've seen the headwaters of the Nile and tribes of natives no white men had ever seen before. I've won and lost a dozen fortunes, killed many men, and loved only one woman with a passion a flea like you could never begin to understand. That's who I am."

Harry at AICN hit it right on the head in his review.

Terrorist Busters!



Go right on over to the CIA's War on Terroism page, where amongst other things you can learn that, contrary to the lies of the liberal (scum) media:

1. The CIA never, NEVER had a relationship with Usama Bin Laden (because they say so, and we can trust them)

2. CIA agents could recruit him now without company approval, if they felt that he had information of threat importance to the US or allies. (so if it comes out that they did have a relationship, it's ok after all)

3. A group is not a terrorist group if they do not practice international terrorism. (That's why we're not sending troops into Ireland or Montana)

Go learn about you some terrorism, don't let it learn about you first. Because knowing is half the battle.

Dark Light



This is a streetlight amongst the trees near my apartment. I just like the way this picture looks. I took it walking home the other night.

Master of Puppets

You're Karl Rove! You're the de facto leader
of this great nation, also serving as godfather
of the family Bush.


Which member of the Bush Administration are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Dreamcatcher

This is a bad, bad movie. Stay far away.

Badly paced, badly acted. When I accidentally pushed the button on the Playstation that brought up the menu about 3/4 of the way through the movie I didn't feel compelled to try to find the point that I left off at and continue.

Let me summarize the film: Take one part Tommyknockers, mix with one part It and mix in another part Stand By Me. Stir the mixture well until blandness occurs, then pour the gloppy soup onto the television screen.

There you have it. That is all.

Spiritual Herald

There's a 'paper' here in Murfreesboro called the spiritual Herald. It's a small religious paper and is sold out of machines for the astounding price of $1.00 per issue. It's black and white and I think probably eight pages. I don't know how often it comes out, most likely monthly.

I glanced at the front cover on my way out of Shoney's this morning, and one of the headlines caught my eye. It was something along the lines of "You Must Read This." Well I read it, and it started by saying "We are fast approaching the 21st century."

Right there I knew there might be something amiss to the story, as, If I am correct in my observations, we have been in the 21st century for at least a year now.

It went on to reveal the startling information that the right to vote for African Americans will expire in 2007, due to the expiration of the Voting Rights Act of 1965".
According to the paper African Americans only gained the right to vote in 1965, and only keep it through the renewal of this act; the most recent renewal having been for 25 years and signed by Ronald Reagan in 1982.

Standing there I was pretty sure that there was a, you know, Constitutional amendment that covers this area. I thought that I remembered that from my social studies classes, but I have been known to be wrong.

So I came home and looked it up, and damned if there isn't the 15th amendment that guarantees the right to vote for all citizens (assuming you were male and 21 of course, women and 18-21 year-olds would have to wait until the 19th and 26th amendments respectively).

You see, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 only became necessary to stop Jim Crow laws enacted by the southern states.

The whole story can be found here.

A simple knowledge of civics or a search of the internet would have revealed this fact to the editor's of the paper.

I think that they were duped by an erroneous e-mail or letter since the story lead with the "...approaching the 21st century..." bit, and just pretty much printed the info they had verbatim.

Just goes to show you you should always check your sources.

Sneaky Bastards

Has anyone else noticed that when you type (anything).blogPSot.com you get a bible site, or as it calls itself "Mega site of Bible studies and information"?

The guestbook is an interesting read, especially the guy who was using crack cokane (sic).

That's some sneaky stuff on the snaring links. I am a sloppy typist sometimes, and I would imagine they catch quite a few people.

I wonder how many other domain names they have misspellings of pointing at that site?

Here's a bit I'd like to refute from the site:

The Bible gives us over 50 descriptions about the people at the time of the end. These fit the people of today perfectly, but did not fit the people of fifty years ago. Here are some:

A. Some would depart from the faith and go into devil worship-1 Tim 4:1. This is perfect.


B. People would mock about the last days and not believe-2 Pe 3:3; Jude 18.


C. People would become lovers of themselves-2 Tim 3:1,2. Remember the TV commercials—"I do it for me"?


D. People would be disobeying their parents-2 Tim 3:1,2.


E. People would be grateful for nothing-2 Tim 3:1,2.


F. Homosexuality would increase-Lk 17:28,30; ref Gen 19:5; Ro 1:24,26,27.


G. People would be without self-control in sex-2 Tim 3:1,2,6; Rev 9:21, Lk 17:28,30; Jude 7. Is this not the great sex generation?


H. People would love pleasures more than God-2 Tim 3:1,2,4. This is true. Shall we go on a picnic, watch football, or sleep. Church?—we can go another time. Our American motto "In God we trust" has become a joke. Remember, these were all predicted centuries ago as part of the signs that we are at the time of the end.


I. People would be taking drugs-Rev 9:21. The Greek word for sorceries, in Rev 9:21, means pharmaceuticals or drugs. God’s Word is 100% right on every one. That’s 6 out of 6. How could you have any doubts at this point?
Note: Fifty years ago, many people seldom locked their doors at night. There was little or no profanity on television, radio, or in the movies. One of the biggest problems in public school was gum chewing. Those days are long gone.

OK, it may not have applied to whitebread central America 50 years ago, but I hate to tell the person who wrote this, it very much described the debauchery of America 80 years ago in the 1920s, and at various other times since these books were written a couple of thousand years ago. It's just that we have a little thing called television that brings the world right inside our homes. It is a scary place for these people, I would imagine.

Also that was only 9 descriptions, not 50 as the site boasted. I'd like to see the other 41. (was the person who wrote this not able to count?)

Here is some rebuttal point by point:

A. In most mainstream Christianity, devil worship would include any form of non-Christian, or non-the-same-denomination-as-the-person-looking-at-the-other-person, so that would lump in pretty much everyone else in the world except the little clique that the person writing this belongs to.

B. I think that this is pretty much all times. I don't think that's a recent occurrence.

C. Ditto. This person is saying that people didn't love themselves in 1950?

D. Almost all children disobey their parents. That was also happening in the 50s, otherwise there would have been no beats and then no hippies.

E. Another one that applies pretty much across the board.

F. I don't think that it's so much increasing, but that it is more public and open. It was also around in the 50s, it was just that gay-bashing was accepted more then.

G. If they are referencing the 60s and 70s with the great sex generation, doesn't that blow the 50 years ago bit, because that was over thirty years ago. Anyway, I just think the person writing this is either afraid of sex, or isn't getting any themselves.

H. Again, this is the constant struggle of religion over secularism. "You don't love and think about God enough." This has been around as long as religion.

I. People have ALWAYS taken drugs. It is just that there has never been the gigantor drug industry that we now have. Just remember that Sugar can be considered a drug. If I read this right, isn't this page arguing that the line should read "People would be taking sorceries?" That would open up a larger scale to the meaning. Sorceries can be in drug or idea form.

Also there is a place where people seldom lock their doors at night, and it isn't the 1950s, it's Canada, where there isn't such a culture of fear around.

I think that I've spent enough time on this.

From Al Franken's wonderful self-help book Oh, The Things I Know!:

The effect of laughter is more than just psychological. When you laugh, your body releases endorphins, and every so often, if you laugh really hard, a small amount of diarrhea. Like a good orgasm or a good sneeze, a good laugh relieves unhealthy pent-up tensions which can cause an imbalance in the body's humors--specifically an excess of black bile--which we have known since the Middle Ages is the cause of all illness.

I have lots and lots of black bile. That is partially why the knickname Black Bile Bill is so appropriate. I also have problems with laughing really hard, it seems.

Hopefully I won't laugh too very hard at the comedy show on Thursday, since I don't really think that anyone wants me to be releasing black bile during the show.

Me Forgetful Is

The woman on Who Want's to be a Millionaire right now is really, really stupid, but that's neither here nor there. She's used two lifelines before 1000 and her phone a friend is an idiot too. Coven of witches. That's the answer. Very simple. Even though Vampires is technically correct in some uses as well.

But this is a post about my own absent-mindedness. I was just sitting here after cleaning my room and thinking how nice it was to have washed that big pile of dirty clothes and gotten them into the clean pile where they are supposed to be, and this got me to thinking: Did I hang up all my pants or what? Then I realized that I didn't go down and get the last load of laundry out of the dryer yesterday.

I would just like to state that the clothing thief that has prompted multiple signs to be posted in my laundry...

Crap this woman is stupid. Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon. Not the Book of Jehovah. Sooooo Stupid

...such as "Stay with your laundry. Protect your financial investment," is crap. My clothes stayed down there for over 24 hours and they were still there. Though I could see why no one would want to steal them.

That is all for now.

The Big Stupid Tommy Friday Five

1. Which would you rather have? Three extra fingers on each hand, or an extra nose right above the one you have? What if there were magical powers bestowed upon each trait?
I think the fingers would be nice. Would you also get the extra number of toes to go with it? I think that would cause problems with finding shoes and whatnot. Fingers would give you more dexterity, while an extra nose would just allow you to smell better. Unless the magical powers were something like flight, or invisibility with the nose.

2. What was something that you worried about, but told yourself to stop worrying, because it was silly, and then have had that thing come true? Was it silly?
I'm always worrying about gremlins, and then deciding it is silly to worry about things you can't control. Then when the gremlins start attacking it isn't so silly anymore. Lucky they only come out at night and I am not at home most of the time.

3. Who would be the absolute worst celebrity to have to share an apartment with?
Russell Crow, since he's always so serious. He would constantly be punching me and whatnot. Also we'd end up killing one another.

4. What is the funniest moment on television that you've ever seen?
There is nothing funny on television. Except for that time that they had that Tommy discussion on "I Love 86" on VH1. Who would have thought that Tommy would provide such fodder for Chris Jericho and Juliette Lewis to expound apon, and Triumph the insult comic dog's comment of "Yeah, I remember Tommy that year. He was great...for me to poop on." Classic.

5. Do you know personally anybody named Vance?
I don't really know them, but I know of two Vances.

Giant Sized Man-Thing

How did it escape my attention that Marvel and Artisan were off filming a Man Thing film?

The mind boggles.

Now where's my Dr. Strange movie Avi?

Upcoming Show

Does anybody remember the Zach Galifianakis show on VH1? Maybe I was the only one who thought it was funny.

He and Jim Gaffigan are coming to MTSU's Tucker Theatre on October 29th, at 8 o'clock and I think that I shall have to go. This is more to remind myself than anything else.

Consider me reminded.

PUSA

Saw the Presidents of the USA in concert at MTSU's Tucker Theatre tonight, and I have to say that it was a pretty good rock and roll show. There was a story on Fark a little while ago about them playing sold out shows in Alaska. Well, the theatre was mostly full standing up for the show.

Their opening act was Murfreesboro's local De Novo Dahl. They are a new wave style college rock act with a keyboardist/singer (who needs to wear pants for godsake), a guitarist/xylaphone player, a bored looking bass player in a skirt, a drummer, and a cute blonde who played tamborine and bounced around. Gunny described them as pretty sucky, and I would tend to agree. They have some potential, but to me it looked like that there were at least two types of band wanting to break out on the stage, the bass player and lead singer want to rock out, while the guitarist and keyboardist seem to want the new-wave style harmony band, the blonde (Sarai) just bounced and looked pretty for the most part. The crowd was mostly indifferent to them, and sat through the set.

PUSA took the stage after a bit of a break and proceded to rock the house. They played all of their recognizable songs (Lump, Peaches, Mach 5) as well as others like "Naked and Famous" and "Kitty" as well as some new songs and covers of Iggy Pop and Sex Pistols song and a good rendition of "Video Killed the Radio Star." Where the crowd sat on their hands for the opening act they were on their feet for the whole of the hour and a half or so that PUSA played.

They came out for a four or five song encore as well.

High energy rock and roll power.

Can a Darkhawk Revamp Be Far Behind?

Why in the hell would anyone want to bring back Sleepwalker?

For those of you who don't know it was a moderately stupid to completely stupid comic character from the early 90s sucktastic period of Marvel comics where anyone who could hold a pencil or could write more than two words in a row (any words mind you, and the row didn't have to be all that straight) could get a multi-book deal from Marvel. Sleepwalker is a big green alien guy who wore purple clothes and legwarmers who could only come out when his alter-ego was asleep. Sortof like Freddy Krueger as a good guy, only with ill-defined powers.

He was from the same era as Darkhawk and the poster child for that era Slapstick the cartoon superhero.

I won't lie, I have most of the three year run of the original Sleepwalker somewhere in my 30 some odd long boxes of comics, due to 5-for-a-dollar sales and the like. I like Brett Blevins' artwork (He was the guy who did New Mutants before the New Mutant Rob Liefeld took over). He draws the pretty women and, no matter what Phillipe Jones will tell you, I think he did a fine job on people's faces. He has a bit of a cartoony style, but much like Terry Moore over on Strangers in Paradise, he still makes it work believably.

But seriously, why the hell would you want to revive this book? Is the clamor for it that deafening? It's a bit like having Terry Taylor come in and wrestle at your promotion, it won't really hurt you in the long run, but what's the point?

I guess if it keeps one more Spider-Man/X-Men book from starting up, it's good, but pointless.

Marvel needs to work on fixing the books it has, then branch out into some new stuff. I'm not for the closing down of the Epic line before it really begins, but Sleepwalker is not the route to go.

By the way, Marvel comics guys, if you are reading, I have a really great pitch for a new Night Thrasher comic that I think would really sell.

Oh, Danny Boyle

I picked up 28 Days Later on DVD this morning along with a couple of Hammer films from the $5.88 bin and one that has a no doubt fine film called Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter as well as Dementia 13 and the Screaming Skulls. Perhaps there will be a report later, but probably not.

On the 28DL disc there are three alternate endings. One is a variation on the ending shown in US theatres, only without a main character making it through to the end. Another is the same main character dying after a try at a valiant save by the other two.

The third ending, though, is glorious.

It completely dumps the final third act of the film with the soldiers in favor of a smaller story where the characters end up at the same research facility as the beginning of the film and find out how to stop the virus. The story and whatnot are not what makes it so good, however.

The whole thing is done with the only visuals being the storyboards of the sequence, and all dialogue and stage directions done by director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland.

It's like a book on tape with pictures. Or one of those books with the audio track that you 'read' along to and turn the page when the tone sounds. Only there's no tone, and no annoying pages to turn.

If only all movies and or books could be done this way.

Imagine the wondrous world we would then live in.

New Games

I think it was last week that I bought Legends of Wrestling II, and I have found it a fun but maddening game. The selection of characters is good and extensive (Abdullah the Butcher, George the Animal Steele, Andre the Giant, the Von Erichs) but the gameplay is buggy and poorly done. The instruction manual is woefully inadequate (it doesn't tell you what to do in ladder matches for instance, and I was left for ten minutes trying to figure out how the hell to win the match) or cage matches, and to unlock each new character you have to first unlock them as an option in the lengthy career mode and then gamble for them using a convoluted coin system.

The career mode's storyline breaks down, to a cut scene with the promoter then a few jobber matches, to a cutscene with the promoter to a few matches with name talent, to a cut scene with the promoter, to some difficult matches, then another cutscene and a title match with a defense following. Even things like Jerry Lawler's feud with Andy Kauffman follows this pattern.

I just want to play as Andy and Abdullah, but I have to beat them and then spend an hour trying to gamble for enough coins to unlock them. That is bullshit my friends.

On the plus side, the graphics are pretty good, as is the wide range of characters (did I mention Hacksaw Jim Duggan and Roddy Piper?), and there are some good interviews with some of the wrestlers included as a bonus. George Steele's interview is particularly good.

All in all, worth the $20 I paid for it I guess. Not as good as the Smackdown series, but maybe they can get a real game engine in the next installment, or perhaps the NWA-TNA game that is supposedly in the works will fullfill the promise.

Today I bought MTV's Celebrity Death Match, and I can't really say that I'm dissapointed by the game, but I wish they'd gone a little further with the game.

There are a number of 'celebrities' to choose from, including N'Sync, Carrot Top, Mister T, Anna Nicole Smith, Ron Jeremy, Dennis Rodman and Miss Cleo. There is also a fairly limited create a character mode (though I was able to create a pretty good version of myself).

The graphics re-create the show well, and the polygon characters look enough like the clay to pull off the illusion.

The gameplay is simplistic, with a handfull of moves that seem to be randomly chosen when you push a button, as well as a few special moves and weapons that can be used at various points in gameplay. Each character has a specialized fatality that they do at the conclusion of a match that are usually sufficiently gruesome. The game was rated M, mostly for the violence, and also for the slightly scandalous dialoge (nothing really more than juvenile sexual humor).

I was unable to unlock all of the hidden characters and arenas and defeat the story mode in about thirty minutes of gameplay which is not very good. Even on the most difficult setting the game is not very hard. This would probably be a good party game, but as a replayable game the repetitiveness and lack of depth don't warrant alot of returns.

But, hey, it's only $20 new, then you can sell it to a used CD/Movie store for half the price you paid for it.

What's On...now?

Saw this on Tommy's blog awhile back and have been too lazy to do it until now.

What's on...now? asks, "What's On your bookshelf Right Now? (pick a shelf; any shelf)"

Well, there's quite a bit, since I have an inordinate amount of bookshelves, but on the one right behind my chair there are:

Books
Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix
High Adventure in the Great Outdoors by Henry Rollins
More Letters to Rollins by Rob Overton
Cabal by Clive Barker
Strange Days by James Cameron
The Best of Roald Dahl
The Three Theban Plays by Sophocles
Classical Literary Criticism
The Oresteia by Aeschyllus
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Movie History: A Survey by Douglas Gomery
Dance For Two by Alan Lightman
I am Legend by Richard Mattheson
Rainbow Six Gold: Prima's Official Strategy Guide
Legends edited by Robert Silverberg
Speaking With the Angel edited by Nick Hornbey
The Minority Report and Other Stories by Phillip K. Dick
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
MTV's Beavis and Butthead Ensucklapedia
Star Trek: First Contact by J.M. Dillard
The Great and Secret Show by Clive Barker
Midnight Blue: The Sonja Blue Collection by Nancy Collins
The Choice by Bob Woodward
Saturday Night Live: The First Twenty Years
From Acadia to Yellowstone by J.A. Kraulis
Creative Editing for Print Media by Bowles and Borden
These are the Voyages by Charles Kurts
The Dream Cycle of H.P.Lovecraft
Jacob's Ladder by Bruce Joel Rubin
The Gunslinger by Stephen King
Storm of the Century by Stephen King
Clerks/Chasing Amy by Kevin Smith
The Pro Wrestling Illustrated Almanac and Book of Facts 1999

Other
An empty bottle of Lime gatorade (32 oz.)
A can of Krylon Workable Fixatif
A talking stretchy mummy in the mold of Stretch Armstong, whose eye pops out when you squeeze his head
A mini bust of Gene Simmons
My TV remote control (there it is)
and my Stephen Hawking Action Figure

Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

That was way more extensive than it needed to be.

Lego Seeking MasterBuilder
By way of Boing Boing

Lego is seeking a full-time master builder for their theme-park. First, they have a theme park? Isn't that a joke from the Simpsons?

Second, I would apply for the job, cause it would be sweet, but I can only seem to build rectangular towers out of the legos. I'm not so good with the blocks. I think it has to do with my childhood edumacation.

Obey

I may show myself to be the out of touch old fogey that I am with this post, but it cleared up some confusion on my part.

For quite some time I had been seing this face around town on signs and walls and whatnot and had been wondering what it was.

I had some idea that it was attempting to be vaguely big-brotherish and had that confirmed when the word OBEY! sometimes accompanied the image.

I asked people I knew if they knew what it was, and most of them didn't know what I was talking about and the ones who did didn't know what it was either.

Apparantly, that's the whole point.

From the Obey Giant website:

The Obey campaign can be explained as an experiment in Phenomenology. The first aim of Phenomenology is to reawaken a sense of wonder about one's environment. The Obey campaign attempts to stimulate curiosity and bring people to question
both the campaign and their relationship with their surroundings.

Because people are not used to seeing advertisements or propaganda for which the motive is not obvious, frequent and novel encounters with Obey propaganda provoke thought and possible frustration, nevertheless revitalizing the viewer's perception and attention to detail.

The medium is the message.

The idea is a bit of viral marketing, which I understand. Memetic style viral ads seem to be all the rage in the advertising industry right now, where attention grabbing is primary, and the message is secondary.

The new image that is showing up around town is a Barney Fife head in various colors and sizes.

I am a bit underwhelmed that the campaign is in part designed to sell skateboards, but not surprised.

Raiding the $5.88 Bin

Ah, the Wal-Mart $5.88 DVD bin, where you can find copies of such luminous films as Freddy Got Fingered, Samurai Jack, The Tenant, Rambo II and III, Reign of Darkness, The Breed and The Howling III: The Marsupials.

I have mentioned the horribleness of The Breed, a bad vampire movie starring Adrian Paul, before, and I thought that that was the lowest point, the ultimate low that they could scrape for a 'horror' film to be in the bin, but I was wrong.

Reign of Darness is quite possibly one of the worst films I have ever watched the first 15 minutes of. It is so bad that after five minutes I was ready to eject it from my DVD player and throw it in the trash.

It's an Australian vampire/virus outbreak film set in what I assume is the U.S. It stars Kel Dolan as Michael Dorn (not Worf), who is a molecular biologist on some form of program to create some form of virus or other, that the film assures us is believed to be real and exist in our world.

It was filmed on digital for the price of $1 million dollars last year, of which none went to script writing. It seems that Dolan, who also wrote and directed the film with parner David W. Allen, just made the shit up as he went along. In the bit I struggled through there is a lab, there are some chases and gunshots, and apparantly to test the drug the bad guy, who has what I assume is supposed to be a Southern Accent, but just sounds like an Australian with a cold, injects tagged homless people and watches the results. He does so on the mysterious orders of shadowy figures who are most likely vampires.

Yeah. Right. Spend some money on script next time guys. Batman: Dead End was a demo reel for the writer director and cost about $60,000. It had no real story and was only 8 minutes, but it is so much better than this crap that it is scary.

The other film I bought was The Howling III: The Marsupials. WereKangaroos, in Australia. Obviously it's a comedy. It's exactly what you think it is.

If you're in the cheap bin at Wally-World go for the Samurai Jack, it's much better and more worth your time.