ATTENTION

Maybe I'm out of the loop, but did anyone else realize that Steven Seagal is a recording artist as well as ass-kicking re-incarnation of an ancient buddhist holy man?



I am suitably in awe of this.

Does JCVD do this? No.

Jet Li? No.

Sharukh Khan? Well, yes, actually. But this isn't Bollywood, this is B-Grade-Action-Movie-Star Time!

First he drops an energy drink on the unsuspecting world...now this?

I must have BOTH of his albums.

We must buy copies of his albums en masse. He cannot be #260,672 in music sales on Amazon. He should be at least around #174,000.

I will pray for more albums, and so will you. Do not let Steven become another Don Johnson, or--Shudder--Bruce Willis.

The song My God from Songs From the Crystal Cave is pure unadulterated brilliance.

W. Axl Rose

In 2002 W. Axl Rose ended my hopes that there would ever be another Guns and Roses album by debuting a new lineup and saying his new album, then only a decade or so in the making would be out soon. Then they went on tour. Then they came off tour and broke-up.

Then the album didn't come out.

There were two things that I didn't think I would see in my lifetime, a Black President of the US, and GNR's Chinese Democracy.

Two in one year.

In my mind the election of Barack Obama has brought Chinese Democracy to all of us, and W. Axl Rose has managed to do something that only Brian Wilson has done before...bring the world what is probably a heavily over-produced and incredibly hyped album years and years in the making.

Axl's pitch for Obama to appoint him Secretary of Crazyland (a post held under the Bush Administration by Prince) is a pretty slick and listenable mishmash of every possible thing that you know from GNR, without all the other 'members' to hold Axl back.

In that way it is less like a GNR album and more like an Axl Rose album. This works pretty well, much like, say, a Mick Jagger album sounds a lot like a Stones album.

There are songs here like Old GNR, a couple of Rob Zombie style tracks, and at least one that would sound at home in a Broadway show. Also there is the one track that sounds like Axl doing Bohemian Rhapsody.

I think there was probably quite a bit of pitch correction and vocal tuning done on many of the tracks, but that probably just comes from the fact that there were probably about 1,000,000 hours of sound recorded for these 14 songs.

This ain't no Britney comeback where she just went in and said about 20 words into the mike and Scott Storch's minions (Pooh Bear) make twenty tracks from that.

There is one track that had me thinking that Axl should have hired Timbaland to drop in some phat beats One Republic style, though. That would have guaranteed some radio play.

All in all, much better than I expected, but not really a GNR album. I don't think it's going to unseat AFD on the influence and popularity lists, but it's also not going to just plunk and disappear like Billy Corrigan's solo album (but I don't think Billy spent 15 years working on those songs).

Chuck Klosterman's review

Micky Rourke as a Sympathetic Shawn Michaels

This looks ridiculously good to me.

Even though, as Roxanne said to me, the plot sounds a bit like Rocky Balboa.

End of the Shield

There aren't many shows on T.V. that I really look forward to from week to week and year to year, but one of the few that has continually kept that position is FX's cop-drama The Shield, starring the commish.

It's ending next week, wrapping up seven seasons of completely unpredictable corrupt cop action.

I've tried to predict what will happen, and I like to say that anything that I predict will not happen, so it never does.

I've been doing a lot of predicting on this last episode.

For those of you who don't watch this will make very little sense, but here we go with my prediction.

After basically boning ICE into giving him immunity for delivering Beltran and his Cartel, and rolling on Ronnie, Vic has raised the ire of Olivia and her ICE supervisors as well as Claudette.

This causes Claudette and Olivia, as well as possibly Aceveda to enter into a deal where they use the out clauses in Vic's deal to turn or use Ronnie to break up the drug deal, but in the end arrest Vic for his crimes. Either Ronnie gets immunity or is allowed to run to Mexico. Vic was responsible for the deaths of one guy working for the feds, and also for the death of an informant from Mexico (Guardo).

Vic goes down, but so does Aceveda who is implicated in many of Vic, Beltran and Pezuala's crimes.

As for who dies in this episode (I read a rumor that 4 main characters bite it in this episode): Mara o.d.'s and Shane dies by suicide by cop. Also Dutch is killed by either the serial killer kid or the kid's mom.

I really am looking forward to this episode, but I dread it as well. It reminds me of a few years ago when I knew that Transmetropolitan was coming to an end.

C-Span Archive Dive

Trolling the C-Span archives I came across this gem that I had been looking for for quite a long time.

The Ultimate Warrior speaks to the Young Republican National Convention in July of 2003

Warrior starts around an hour and twenty minutes in.

I happened to catch this on C-Span when it originally aired in 2003, but haven't been able to find any clips of it or mention since then. Then I was looking through the C-Span archives (as I know that many do) and happened to find it.

And secondly:

The Roast of Rahm Emmanuel.

Not a Lisa Lampinelli in sight.


Also

The Al Smith Dinner with Obama and McCain

The Al Smith Dinner with W and Al Gore

Dukakis and Bush at the Al Smith Dinner

Pi No Longer Irrational

"In the Tennessee legislature a bill was introduced to make pi equal to three; it was reported out by the committee on public education and morals, passed without objection by the lower house and died in the upper house."

Robert Heinlein,
Stranger in a Stranger Land

I'm reading SIASL right now, and I hit this line yesterday and it made me laugh, then I saw this headline on the cover of the DPA: Bell: GOP's State Wins To Speed Up Legislation. And I saw this part of the story:

This is the first time Republicans have held majorities in both the state House and Senate since 1869, the Tennessee Republican Party reports. Bell said one bill the new Republican regimen will see through a Constitutional amendment that would eventually return control of abortion regulation to lawmakers. He said abortion regulation has been governed by Supreme Court decisions.

Bell said several gun bills should be met favorably this term, too. He mentioned legislation that would allow people with gun carry permits to take their weapons in state wildlife areas. (boldface mine)

Is there hunting allowed in state wildlife areas? Just wondering. I would imagine that is probably the reason weapons are not allowed there.

Also, Supreme Court decisions tend to trump laws, even ones in constitutions in individual states.

Then, we did have a law banning the teaching of the theory of evolution in schools that wasn't even overturned in the Scopes trial, but sat on the books until very recently.

Anyway on to what I wanted to write when I laughed at the line in SISL.

NASHVILLE--Lawmakers today applauded a state bill to make pi equal to three.

"This is a bold move and shows the decisiveness with which government can act," said State Senator Bud Bradley. "This will allow our children and scientists to save time and simplify many of our housing and economic problems."

Debate on the bill was postponed in favor of a unanimous consent vote in the House, and met only minor resistance in the Senate.

"You cannot legislate mathematics," said State Senator Kim Marshall. A retired public school teacher, Marshall who objected to the bill went on to vote for it.

"Why not? I think we just did." Bradley during a short debate period in the Senate floor. "What this does is put our state on the map in the world of mathematics. You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists."

Pi is a mathematical constant representing the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter in Euclidean geometry. It is approximately equal to 3.1415927, but if passed, the Tennessee amendment would round that number to 3 and would do away with the symbol entirely.

"I hear that pi is an irrational number," Bradley said. "I don't think we have room for irrationality in mathematics."

The bill is expected to be signed by the Governor on Tuesday.

Get Your War On

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

A Prediction

Palin/Bachmann 2012

Whoever the Republicans run (probably a woman) in 2012 at the Democratic convention Joe Biden will gracefully bow out of the race and resign, but will introduce someone they think is a suitable replacemnt...HRC.

Long Voting Lines

Just a short note:

Seeing the long voting lines at early voting locations across the country on the news, I couldn't help but be reminded of 1990 and the opening night of a little film called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Our Carmike Theater here in Athens is now closed but on that night the line stretched around the building what I remember was about five times. I--in my TMNT screen printed shirt from Jekyll Island, Ga., and my mysterious friend Bill, in his season inappropriate jacket and four giant buttons, one of each turtle--stood in that line for quite some time to get into the movie (it was awesome by the way, well worth the wait). The line around the building looked a lot like the ones in this story, only there were many, many more children and, if possible, even more irritated looking adults.

The point is, I think that voting is just as awesome as TMNT the movie, but standing in line is not that awesome. But sometimes standing in a big ass line is necessary to get to something awesome.

Pre-Election Letter

BST has a tradition of addressing his internet prayers as letters to Superman, and tonight I would like to respectfully borrow from this tradition.

Dear Superman,

I know that we don't talk that much anymore, but there are a few really important things that I'd like to ask for this election season. I've held off on this until the last minute, much like the entirety of my life's Christmas shopping, but I think that it's better late than never.

We've got a big election here in the U.S.A. tomorrow (lot's of little ones too), I'd just like to ask that you make sure that everyone is able to get out and vote if they want to. I don't really care if they vote with me or agin me, it just does my world good that they do.

Please make sure that there is enough certainty in the election results that there can be no real question from either side that the 'lection is Super-Validated. Please keep an eye on the polls.

Please make sure that whoever wins that they don't just do what they think is right for the country, but that they make the right decisions that should be made and everything works out in the end.

Superman, I know that the most that you can do (unless you are written by John Byrne) to influence people is use your Super-Powers, Super-Smugness, and Super-Intimidation, but If you could make sure that if the guy that I'm voting for wins that he does what is best and remembers that the crazies in his party aren't always right and that at the very least I am voting for him in the hopes that he has good judgment when he is in office and is able to work for the betterment of us all.

Bizarro, if the opposite happens and the other guy wins, please don't make sure that he does not also do a bad job of things and looks out only for himself.

All I'd really like, Superman, is that whoever wins tomorrow that our country is able to put a lot of this ugly-assed 85-year election behind us and that our incoming President is able to unify everyone (except the crazies), and is able to move us into a more positive future.

Thanks, I'll let you get back to reporting, fighting Metallo, or Super-Crocheting now.

Your Pal (no, not Jimmy Olsen or Bibbo),

Bill

Mike Gravel Should Have Won

Mike Gravel wants to engage you in a staring contest. He could outstare any average or non average man or woman.

He just sucks at skipping rocks. It's all about selection. Then it's in the wrist after that. Perhaps he was actually the Discordian candidate in this campaign and was just involved in a game of Sink.

Wouldn't have known about this add without tonight's Rachel Maddow show. But then most people probably don't remember Mike Gravel when he was involved in this election about twenty five years ago.

More Endorsements

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

I Voted and got a Sticker!

Sweet Bo-Jeebus

I sense this will be only mildly-coherent.

Ah, Michelle Bachmann. When I thought that Sarah Palin could quite possibly be the one that inadvertently sets women back in the Republican party and in politics in general by years I had not yet heard from sweet, sweet Michelle Bachmann.

Her eyes were what stood out to me the first time I saw her. I don't ever, EVER, trust anyone who has too much white in their eyes showing above and below their irises. I keep feeling like they're trying to hypnotize me. I WILL NOT BE HYPNOTIZED!!!!!!

There is this thing here where people are attacked for associating with or talking with or talking to someone who shares different views than they do that they are somehow legitimizing or agreeing with or becoming that other person and their views. I believe this comes from the whole we-must-destroy-or-convert-forcibly those who do not agree with us.

I don't know the content of conversations that Barack had with Bill Ayers or anyone else, but at the same time I don't think that any contact that they had denotes an endorsement of politics of the Weather Underground.

I have many friends and acquaintances that I do not agree with. Granted I don't think that any of them have orchestrated the bombing of anything in particular (except possibly themselves).

The argument continues to be made that no one else who has ever associated with Bill Ayers is relevant because non of them are running for president. I wasn't aware that Barack was running for president when he was working in Chicago.

It is a curious and interesting phenomena that it seems that there are three broad types of people and groups that have any interest in helping the poor and poorly educated. (1) Religious groups--For some reason various churches seem to see it as their duty to help the poor and work with the poor. (2) Liberal Radicals--For some reason (probably to create a giant army of socialist uneducated poor) Liberal radicals seem to want to go and help out poor people. (3) People who can get something cheap--Businesses who want cheap, unskilled labor (mostly now shop for poor in other countries).

If you are a person of any of these bents (or any other, these are by no means exhaustive) that you will end up colluding with some unsavory folks.

Looking through John McCain's life he probably mostly associated with military folks and Senators, but I'm pretty sure there are some unsavory ones in there that were more than just acquaintances.

You know what, If John McCain had been associated with Bill Ayers it would not have been news because that would mean that John McCain was working in poor areas in Chicago on education reform, making him not John McCain.

I live in an area where I know of people who have been accused of becoming Muslim, and avoided, because they were seen reading the Koran.

By this logic I am a Christian/Morman/Wiccan/Satanist/Muslim/Communist/Dittohead/Scientologist/Hindu/Buddhist/Beat Poet/Shaman/Jewish/Discordian/Crowleyite/Redneck amongst other things that I cannot offhand think of.

I have known people of most of these persuasions as well. I have also worked with them. To my knowledge none are actual terrorists.

Barack is not a Muslim. Being around Muslims does not make you a muslim. Barack is not a terrorist, being around terrorists does not make you a terrorist (being a terrorist makes you a terrorist). Barack is not anti-American. I think that he has the dubious honor of possibly representing Americans that some other Americans don't find American, because they are of the opinion that American means one thing and one thing only.

American doesn't mean one thing only.

Do I agree with Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground that there should be violent attacks on the US Government. No. Do I think that Barack agrees with him on that one. No, I would imagine that he wouldn't be running for POTUS, or serving in the senate if he did. Anarchist Radicals do not typically take on jobs in the government.

By the way on this associating with terrorist malarkey. I believe there are photos and video of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein back when we were his friends. I believe (though I could be wrong) that many of those Afghani freedom fighters that we were supporting against Russian aggression may have evolved and grown into the terrorists in Afghanistan we know today.

I'm glad to know that under the coming Palin-Bachmann administration no one will be allowed to associate with known America Hatin' liberals. They will all be wiped away to some other area (large prisons/Canada/Mexico/Cuba), and out of our public and private education systems. Everyone will agree on everything and anyone who doesn't will know that they'd better learn to.

Fear America. Fear Barack Steve Obama and his health care proposals. Fear his proposed alternative energy research. Fear his new tax structure where you most likely will pay less. Fear his popularity in the rest of the world. Fear him America.

Fear the liberals. Fear the Minorities. Fear the different.

Actually, face the fear. Vote Obama.

I don't know if he will live up to the hype or the hope, but at least lets let him try.

Obama Songs

Obama by the Alan Cohen Experience (Quite Good little song. Found it through LHB

Yes We Can by will.i.am and Barack Obama

We are the Ones by will.i.am (In the video of you can see that Barack has gotten the elusive Theo Huxtable vote)

Puttin on the Hits

What some people will do for a free concert ticket.

Endorsement

via bOINGbOING:

In an ad airing in Southwest Virginia, Dr. Ralph Stanley lends his support to Barack Obama. Audio here, and here.

Archive Dive #2

Watch

Wackiki Wabbit-I bet you've seen this one before.

Look

Alice's Adventures Under Ground: Being a facsimile of the original Ms. book afterwards developed into "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

Listen

Don't Let Your Deal Go Down Blues-Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers (1925)

Wildwood Flower-The Carter Family (1928)

Crawdad Hole-Doc Watson (1930)

Listen Up

Just two quick tracks for now:

Mutual Admiration Society Live at Bowery Ballroom on 2004-08-14:

Going To California (Led Zepplin Cover)w/John Paul Jones

Gallows Pole (Led Zepplin Cover)w/John Paul Jones

Mrs. Evilhippy on the Financial Crisis

My Helpmeet just posted what I think is a erudite and witty commentary on the current near financial meltdown of Wall-Street and the giant Dr. Evil-like proposed bailout plan, but I'll let her take it from here:

A Pop Culture Guide to Financial Armaggedon

One thing's for sure, and that is, I'm sure not an economist. Any attempts I've made this week to understand the financial mess we are in right now has done nothing but prove this to me over and over again. But for all the unreadable, un-understandable, unprocessable amounts of information I've looked at this week, I thought I'd try to share what little of that which I have been somewhat able to fathom. And since I am no economist, I have absolutely no working knowledge of most of the terminology involved, much less the implications.

So what do I do?

I will liken it to Pop Culture! That's good, right?

Alright, here goes nothin'..

The secretary of the Treasury Department presented a 3 page document to Congress requesting authorization to infuse the stock market with up to 700 billion dollars over the next 2 years. To form a mental picture, just pretend that this is the movie 'Fight Club'. Imagine all of our Representatives and Senators garbed in all black, Project Mayhem style, and everybody is talking at once, freaking out. The economy just had a giant hole shot through its head and is oozing brains out everywhere. Imagine then that George W. Bush is Tyler Durden. He walks in the room and says "You are not a beautiful, unique snowflake! Any attempt to add snowflakery to the plan will make all the snowflakes melt all over the place and that would be just terrible!"

"I will give you brand new sheets of construction paper! You will start over! Your poor scissor skills will all go away!"

Everyone is still confused. How does new construction paper clean up all the blood and brains oozing out all over the floor? Everybody starts arguing again, to which Tyler George Durden Bush starts a chant "His name is Henry Paulson. HiS NaMe iS HeNRy PauLSoN. HIS NAME IS HENRY PAULSON."

Here is a draft of this 3 page bill as proposed. Pay special attention to Section 8 of said proposition that gives Henry Paulson more unchecked power than Almighty God.

As an aside, there are interesting associations to the term Section 8. In the military, it is the dismissal sited when you are crazy, and from a government housing standpoint, it is the name of program used to provide housing aid for the poor.

It is doubtless that this will NOT be signed as presented. The current reports are that there will be oversite for how this money is spent, and most likely, there will be additional stipulations that we, the taxpayers, can recoup some of this money.

It still doesn't answer the question of where we get this money in the first place. And as best as I can find out, it will be borrowed from China (just like the recent stimulus money). It will then be put into the stock market, mostly by buying chunks of 'bad debt' (to the tune of 700 billion dollars worth) from financial institutions (such as sub-prime mortgage loans that are uncollectable now). The effect is that these financial institutions will no longer have all these bad debts on their books, as though they never made them in the first place, causing the value of the company to return to a normal level.

If this sounds like a horrible idea, it is. But the only alternative is to let the vast majority of American businesses go bankrupt, all at once, plunging the nation into the Great Depression 2: Bigger, Badder and Uncut! If I understand it correctly, this almost happened Thursday. What stopped it? And injection of 105 billion dollars, pre-market opening. This is what I read, see if you can make any more sense of it than I did .

But, at least this collapse would have made some form of sense. People are scared. In one day, they tried to get 500 billion dollars worth of their own money out of the chaos that is our current stock market.

Another of the aspects of our current situation that is to some degree understandable is looking at failed institutions like Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, who offered a lot of people the chance to borrow money to buy a home that did not have the means to pay back that kind of debt, hence the term sub-prime mortgage lending. And blame is useless here. The Republicans want to say that the Democrats started programs like these. The Democrats want to say that the Republicans have been consistently against regulations that would prevent these types of loans from being legal in the first place.

But the real crazy, the real ugly is all the made up stuff that no one but an economist (or a trader) can understand. You see, we have these things called Derivatives . Right now, we have somewhere in the ballpark of 1000 trillion dollars worth of them. As a country, we don't even necessarily agree with the rest of the world on what to call that number. Is it a sextillion, or is it a quadrillion. Or is it a bazillion-illion-dillion?

There are many, many complications to any attempt whatsoever to explain or define derivatives, and I in no way profess to understanding them. This is the my "are you smarter than a fourth-grader" explanation of just one single one of them. It is called a swap. What you do is not trade money, you just talk to somebody else about how risky their investment is, and then they ask you how risky your investment is (I'll show you mine if you show me yours) and if your risk is better for them than theirs is and their risk is better for you than them, you just swap risks. Viola! The trouble comes in when one of those swappers gets into financial dire straights. In that case, the risks are returned to their original owners, who may or may not have seen it coming and may or may not have the ability to pay the piper.

How is this possible?

The short version is this: They are unregulated. Meaning: No limits, no safety net, no supervision.

Warren Buffet calls them "financial weapons of mass destruction".

The Republican platform has long been against regulations, claiming that the market is essentially sound and will regulate itself.

At least they're organized and seem to agree on something. Most Dems can't agree on a damn thing. And I have no love for either of our Presidential Candidates as they continue to campaign while Congress barks at each other.

What a missed opportunity to show true leadership!

I still have more to say, but this post is long enough. Here are a few more links to what I've found that is the more-understandable breakdowns of what is happening.

Paulson Financial Rescue Plan
Nifty Chart of Disaster
Overview of the Current Financial Crisis

Archive Dive

I have decided I need a weekly feature here. My new idea stolen blatently from Large Hearted Boy, is to weekly delve into the bowels of Archive.org to bring you interesting and free things to watch, read and listen to on the interwebs.

First up,
Watch:

First is the classic public educational film on surviving thermonuclear warfare:
Duck and Cover



Next up we have a film that may be of interest to some people out there and to me as well:
Victory Garden




Read:

Learn about the world heavyweight boxing champions up till 1910 from Heavy-weight champions (1910)

The L. Frank Baum classic The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

The Complete Mark Twain, vol.1



Enjoy

All Zombie Films Are Not Created Equal

There's a certain type of charm to lots of bad films. There's a certain type of soul that shows that even though the film might not be the best or the brightest, it was still loved and cared for.

Bad films can transcend in ways that well put together soulless pap cannot.

Bad films can be great films.

I've seen quite a few great bad films --Street Trash comes to mind immediately, virtually any Troma film directed by Lloyd Kauffman, John Waters films. These films rise above their humble beginnings to attain something greater.

Then there are the truly soulless abominations of cinema that contain neither soul nor substance. These are the films that look like bad film school projects.

Very rarely do I encounter a film that fails within the first few minutes. Usually if the film fails that spectacularly, something brilliant may follow. Sometimes not so much.

Day of the Dead 2: Contagium is one of those abominations.



I will now summarize the first twenty minutes of the film (the part Roxanne and I watched before shutting it off):

In the late sixties there is a hospital with a mad scientist in it creating zombies from a Russian soldier who is apparently a super-zombie. There is a soldier who steals some of the zombie formula and puts it in his thermos. Then the military rush in and start shooting everyone, including a host of zombies who were apparently running rampant at said military hospital. Dude manages to run away from all the killing with all the subtlety of a GI Joe cartoon. Then he turns into a zombie and they shoot him. During the commotion he drops his zombie-juice filled thermos into the weeds.

Flash forward to the present. The military hospital is now an insane asylum populated by bad actors with little direction. This is the point where the movie becomes a strange combination of attempted Tarantino dialogue and girl interrupted. We have crazy guy in glasses, crazy guy who may be gay, crazy other guy, crazy possibly retarded or just stupid or burned out on drugs black guy, and crazy guy who has visions and has a girlfriend who is a cutter with a friend who wears devil horns.

Hooray!

Didn't even get to the zombies in the present. Could. not. do. it.

There is a making of documentary on this DVD which I feel I must see. I am curious if the makers of the film realize how terrible the film is.

Some directors can overcome horrible acting and bad scripts to make something good.

Very few directors can overcome horrible acting, a bad script, bad editing and horrible direction to make something good.

The worst part is the association that this film had with Romero's Dead films due to the title. That is the saddest thing.

I am now done talking about this movie.

Zombie Story, pt. 1

Watching a lot of Zombie stories here lately. Decided to write something Zombie-ish, here's part 1:

Your first instinct, mine too, is to get someplace big like a mall, or a town hall, or a hospital, but your instinct is wrong. Big is good to get you lots of people, but big is also good to get you overrun.

Your first instincts are what get you killed.

Second instincts are good, third instincts are best.

Trust me. The first place I went was the mall. I guess I watched Dawn of the Dead a few too many times and thought it would be a great place to spend the Zombie Apocalypse. All it was was burning and so full of those things you couldn't even pretend to wade through them.

This was in the beginning when some of them were still fast and smart, before they really started falling apart. I hit the local mall thinking I'd find survivors and supplies and I ended up finding neither.

It's not like even in the beginning these things are too hard to handle in a one on one situation. Even the fast and smart ones aren't really that fast and smart. A moderately fast guy on crutches can outmaneuver one of the fast ones.

I saw that happen outside the hospital.

A group of them though--a group of them would take out a Jamaican sprinter.

I haven’t really seen any of them that can take out a truck though.

Just keep the doors locked and the windows up and your eyes open is the best way to go. They’ll bang on the windows, but unless they get clogged up under your wheels you’re good to go.

I think I spent the first few hours running around in shock like everyone else. You don’t really have a way to plan for the Zombie Apocalypse, even if you think you do. I’ve seen Fulci and Romero and Shaun of the Dead and lots of the regional zombie films, and nothing really prepared me for this. The only real thing that I brought away from any of those is to keep my eyes open and be distrustful of the security that groups bring.

Groups just bring you problems.

It’s not that being alone is all that much fun either, but I will take being alone to being left at risk by someone else's problems.

Not that groups of people are a real problem at this point. It's been forty-seven days since I saw or heard from a non-Zombie. In the beginning there was chatter all over the short wave and CB. The television and internet were alive with reports from all over, then, after about a week those started to trickle out and then they stopped.

Now it's radio silence.

All quiet on every front.

Power is still on in a lot of places because my wireless card still picks up the net, but there haven't been any new youtube videos or blog reports in quite a while. I can look out my front door and see an enticing amount of nothing and lack of activity which makes me want to go out and see what's going on, but at the same time all quiet doesn't necessarily mean all dead and not moving.

Fey=Palin

For those that missed it Tina Fey with the pitch perfect Alaskan/Wisconson accent and Amy Poehler acting like Hillary Clinton probably feels:

Unify through disunity

There's nothing like forming your own group to work on unifying everyone else's groups. Presidential elections are a prime time for this type of thing and there seem to be brand new groups popping up all the time. Don't let the fact that some of them may be run by people they seem to be trying to oppose and that some of them are just arms of other organizations that already exist, that's beside the point, really.

Here are a few of those groups, more as I find them:

Unity 08: Law and Order's Hang 'Em High McCoy stumped for this group earlier in the year, but, unfortunately the man has brought them down already.


DividedWeFail.org: This is an arm of the AARP, but they do have the coolest logo.


WeCanSolveIt.org: Founded by ManBearPig hunter and popularly elected president of the US, Al Gore. This one is more of an environmental one, and you can guess.


One.org: Star power to find unity in something or other.


TillAllAreOne.org: Autobot campaign using the matrix of leadership to light our darkest hour.

Hope all that was helpful.

For Gunny Walker

Just for Gunny Walker:

The other day I was strolling around the interwebs the other day and I happened to find a bootleg of a concert that Gunny and I were at at MTSU. Here for your (Gunny Walker's) listening pleasure are the Presidents of the United States of America live at Tucker Theater from MTSU. If you listen closely (Gunny), you can hear Gunny singing along.

Spin, Spin, Spin

Watching James Carville being completely flummoxed by how to argue against Sarah Palin with Rep. Michele Bachmann because it seems like the Republicans are spinning so fast on trying to back up a position here that they run the risk of catching fire.



"She easily has more qualifications than Sen. Obama and Sen. Biden combined if you look at executive experience. She's been in an executive position for two years. She's made very tough positions.

She's looked her own party in the eye and said enough with your corruption and she says throw the bums out. She has delivered and she knows how to get things done."

--Michele Bachmann



I like the confusion from Carville trying to distance from attacks on the teen-pregnancy angle and the showing of the picture of the town in Alaska that Palin was mayor of.

How is it that this can at the same time be a horrible negative for McCain, but a positive as well.

It seems from Bachmann that there are already talking points and catch phrases that they have been given to use.

Also interesting on a panel with three women and one man where the man was the one supporting a female presidential candidate and one of the women is for Obama there is someone arguing that to question the qualifications of Palin is offensive to women.



"They tout her experience as mayor of this town in Alaska. This is a picture of the city hall. It looks like a bait shop in south Louisiana."

--James Carville

Republicans and Hillary attacked Obama for a lack of experience in foreign policy and a lack of experience overall, but now are all a twitter for someone who has been governor of Alaska for less than two years and saying she has more experience (albeit Bachmann then qualified it as executive experience) than Obama or Biden put together.

So executive position (albeit governor of Alaska)trumps Senator since 1973 in experience.

Spin Republicans spin.

I think they went all in on the Flop with a K-Q on suit in heads up, but they're really going to need to pull out that gut-shot straight draw on the river.

Another Chess Post

Apparently the USCF keeps records for a long time. Very detailed records. Take a gander at my chess rating and history from waay back in High School.

It took me a good little while to pull my rating up over a 1000 after getting the most ridiculously low beginning rating imaginable. I remember at one tournament one of my opponents not believing me when I told them my rating was 599.

Wu Tang Clan Ain't Nothin ta F*** With

Play chess in the 36 chambers with the RZA.

Iron Man

Iron Man shows yet again what a superhero movie can be if taken seriously and given over to talented people who actually care about making a good movie instead of a merchandising extravaganza.

Everyone from the top down on screen in this film gets it right, from Robert Downey, Jr.'s cocky and personable Tony Stark to Faran Tahir's villainous Raza.

One of the things that I was worried about going into this film was whether or not the action and the characters would mesh well or if it would end up as two halves that never quite meet.

This is a really smooth movie and doesn't fall prey to the sins of most superhero films. There is no real camp, the progression of the character makes sense and is believable. There is no real forced love story. No one is hamming up their roles. The action and special effects are well done and believable (even the CGI is better done in this film than in many others of the type).

Jon Favreau has done an excellent job of bringing this film together with a kick-ass cast.

Tony Stark is not Bruce Wayne in this film, nor should he have been. If the proposed JJ Abrahms/Tom Cruise version had been made that is probably what we would have gotten. Instead Downey makes Tony a unique character rather than the standard millionaire playboy with lots of technology. He has all the technology because he built it, not because he bought it.

I also liked the subtle nods to the comic book fans such as the obvious S.H.I.E.L.D. references, as well as the terrorists belonging to the Ten Rings which would seem to foreshadow both Hydra and the Mandarin (the logo of the ten rings in the back of the terrorist base looked quite a bit like the Hydra logo and the Mandarin does wear those ten rings).

Excellent film.

Read and Owned

Saw this at Brenna's Livejournal:

These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read, italicize the ones you own. The ones you both own and have read, do both.


Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Coppeld
The Three Musketeers


I believe that is 36 owned and 37 read.

TNA

Just got a bunch of TNA PPVs on DVD, and thought I would share a couple of quick horribly egotistical screen captures:

Me and BST before a show.

Me and BST shocked by Kid Kash performing a hurricanrana on one of the SATs both Jose and Joel Maximo through a table at ringside.

Extra points if anyone really knows who Jose and Joel Maximo of the SAT's are.

Oh YEAHHH!!!!!

There's been something bothering me for literally days now.

Sunday I was eying a package of single serve kool-aid and the smiling Kool-Aid man pictured thereupon, and I started to wonder (Aloud): "Is Kool-Aid man sentient liquid in a type of pitcher containment suit, or is he a sentient pitcher with Kool-Aid inside?"

Also, is his "face" something formed by the liquid or the pitcher body?

Is he, in fact, some type of kool-aid fueled cyborg?

The Kool-Aid being some type of blood would seem to be the case since he does change colors on the different packaging, but does that mean it is a different Kool-Aid man, or perhaps he just has different powers?

If he is, indeed, as previously postulated, a sentient liquid mass, does that mean that if you drink him he would retain his identity inside you, or, much like the aptly named Spider-Man villain, Hydro-Man, does he have the ability to make any Kool-Aid a part of him, but when it ceases contact it goes back to being just ordinary Kool-Aid that has been touched by the extraordinary?

This doesn't help explain at all.

Neither do the descriptions of his comic book exploits.

My vote tends toward sentient liquid. I refuse to believe that a being with such an obvious hindrance as a completely open top of his head would refuse to at least wear a hat.

This also begs the question of sugar or sugar-free Kool-Aid. Which is he? I'm betting standard Kool-Aid man is Fruit-Punch with TWICE the recommended dosage of sugar.

Is there a giant wooden spoon man? Does that enter into some awkward territory?

Discuss.