The Weird Tour Chicago – A Cautionary Tale

As the name implies, if you take this tour, you should expect it to be weird, right? I guess everyone’s definition of “weird” is different. The description of the tour makes it sound like it will be cool – or at least so lame it might be cool – “Ghosts, Gangsters, and Ghouls of the Windy City”. As it turns out, I feel ripped off that I spent three hours of my life on this. If you read this, you’ll get to feel ripped off that you spent a few minutes of your time reading about this waste of my afternoon. You’re welcome!

The tour left from the Hard Rock Café in downtown Chicago at 3PM. This was probably our first mistake – doing this tour during the day. It might have sucked less at night…drunk…maybe… We arrive and find that our transportation is a black “short bus” with no air conditioning. It’s a 90+ degree day, but we bought some water and were still determined to have a good time. All six of us pile into the back of the bus and wait for the torture…er…”tour” to begin.

Our “tour guide”, for lack of a better title, is a self-proclaimed Professional Ghost Hunter though she’s never been paid. I bite my tongue and do not ask her if she understands what “professional” means. As the volunteer ghost hunting business isn’t very lucrative (go figure) Erica is also a sports reporter/production company owner. She claims that she did production work on The Dark Knight, but I’m guessing she’s also an occasional resident of one of the local Chicago asylums.

Generally on a tour, you travel about a city seeing sights and learning interesting facts about said sights. Our first stop was promising – the site of the Eastland disaster where hundreds of people died when the boat tipped over due to shoddy engineering. Whoops. We listened to her tales about ghosts supposedly seen and heard there with polite interest. One of the girls I was travelling with had to point out to Erica that we happened to be there on the anniversary of the disaster. Seems to be something an informed tour guide would have been prepared for, doesn’t it? We should have left the tour right then, but no, we gave her the benefit of the doubt and climbed back onto the bus.

Our next stop - the last semi-legitimate stop - was the Congress Hotel. Most tours probably would’ve concentrated on the beautiful, ornate Tiffany glass mosaics covering large swaths of the ceiling. Not our tour! No, we go to a wall with framed pictures of ballrooms to hear about the ghosts that stalk their dance floors. Do we go upstairs to visit the ballrooms? NO! We just look at the pictures and listen to her rambling stories. For 45 minutes. Standing. Awesome. Once again, we foolishly climb back onto the bus.

We stop at a red light and two guys on the tour hop off the bus and don’t look back. We come to envy them.

The next three stops are in front of alleys where she claims buildings used to be but clearly aren’t there anymore. She doesn’t even have pictures of this stuff, so we’re pretty sure she made it all up. We would’ve seen a fourth thing that wasn’t there anymore but our brilliant guide didn’t realize that a huge section of the city was blocked off for a festival. So while we’re driving to the next location she tells us about what we would have seen if we’d gone there. Considering that what we were supposed to visit wasn’t there anymore, she had a lot to say. Think about that for a minute.

At this point, 3 hours into the tour, we turn down yet another alley. This time one of my friends, a local, leans over and says, ‘This is a very bad part of town.”. I took a look around and realized that she was right. Even my naïve eyes could see we were driving between the buildings of a very prosperous chop shop. Erica, ever-savvy of her surroundings, begins talking loudly about how this is clearly a “very legitimate car repair business” and we notice the workers quit what they’re doing and come to the doors to watch us. Yes, that’s right – since it’s so hot the windows are open. At this point I get a text from across the bus.

Meredith: Is this tour ever going to be over?

Me: We’re going to die here. We’re never getting off this tour.

I found out later that Meredith had sent a text to her husband with the name of the tour and told him to call 911 if he didn’t hear from her in the next hour.

Erica has us all get off the bus in the scary alley to see if we “feel any paranormal activity” and to take pictures since “we might catch a shadow figure or a ghost”. All that was there to take pictures of, without considering the chop shop which we were all smart enough to try not to look at, was part of a fence and a bunch of trash including some scary looking needles. My guess is a homeless drug addict was living there. Fantastic. To the credit of the workers, they just watched us and didn’t attack. We were able to get back on the bus.

As soon as we reached a safer section of town, we asked them to pull over so we could get off the bus. Erica actually had the nerve to ask us for a tip for the driver! It’s bad enough they took $30 from each of us for this travesty of a tour, but asking for a tip seemed a bit over the top. We were happy to be alive though, so we tipped him anyway.

We assume, since we don’t have any evidence to the contrary, that the other 7 people remaining on the bus were taken somewhere and murdered so that Erica can tell stories about seeing their ghosts to her next tour. We hope their souls find peace wherever they roam now.

Which reminds me about one of the best parts of Erica’s story. Do you know of the TV show “Ghost Hunters”? She claims that they approached her to be on that show but when she read the contract one of the provisions was that she sign up for falsifying evidence and she had too much integrity for that. Seriously, that’s what she said.

Anyway, if you actually read this far, I am sorry that my first post is so bad. :-) Hopefully I’ll do better on the next one!

Why District 9 Rules! (Spoilers)

(For all of my loyal readers, this post is a cheeky response to Ben's latest post. I am so hoping to create an old-school rap-battle style battle here, wherein one person posts something and another person writes a blog post in response and everyone's creative juices get flowing.  For my younger readers, back in the day rap bands used to write songs to dis each other.  It was delightful.

EDITOR'S NOTE:  Having reread this previous paragraph, I realize now how very geeky and white I am....)

I watch District 9 like six months ago.  So, time may be kind to my review, but here is why I really dug the movie (and I did 4 star it on Netflix, so I must have really enjoyed it at the time). 

Before we get into the specifics, there are two things that everyone should know.  (And Ben is right - they aren't blatantly said in the film, but I did some digging around afterwords to figure some stuff out.)
1 - The writer/director (Neil Blomkamp) grew up in South Africa during Apartheid.  (He emigrated to Canada when he was 18.)  This movie was inspired by his childhood.
2 -  Some types of insect colonies have a "drone" type of citizen and a "queen" type of citizen.  These types of colonies are loosely what the prawns are based on.

So, with that in mind, away we go!   Here's why the movie was so awesome:

We aren't told much about the aliens and whatnot.  That's definitely by design.  If we knew too much about them, it would take away some of the mystery.  Plus, in the beginning of the movie, we are seeing things through Wilkus's eyes.  So, we're really meant to see them as more of a pain in the ass than anything else.  Definitely not supposed to be there.  We don't know why they are there and that's that.  (This is a parallel to Apartheid.   Whites didn't care why the blacks were there, they just knew that they were a pain in the ass.)

I really dig that the ship broke and we're not really given a reason why.  I work in technology and shit just stops working.  Sure, if you've got a specialist, he can start to debug it, but if all you've got are drones, then you're pretty much SOL.

And speaking of drones, it's probably worth mentioning that all of the prawns that we see are drones.  There is no ruling class or "queens" around.  The implication is that the prawns were essentially slaves (there was a shot when humans first boarded the ship to see what was there and they were all huddled together in a dark room - not exactly lush conditions).  So, to me, the implication is that there was some ruling class and that for some reason they died.  Infection?  Infighting?  Dunno and I don't really think that it matters.  The important thing is that the slaves were the only ones left and the ones who were liberated.

But Phil, wouldn't that mean that the ship would crash?  No so!  I figured that the ship was on auto pilot.   So, when everyone died, it just went to where it was supposed to go and stop.

The ship broke down since it was just hanging in the atmosphere for 20  years without any maintenance.  I think that it was lucky that the command module was the only thing to fall off.  And yeah, they may have been more fluid on the ship, but the main prawn couldn't exactly get to it (what with the main ship floating about 200 yards in the air...) without raising suspicion.  So, he needed to slowly build up enough to get himself home.

The one prawn that seemed to have a head about him seems to have bugged a bunch of people.  With some bugs, when the queen of a colony dies, someone will step up to be the leader.  (Kinda like how some reptiles have the ability to change genders when there aren't enough of one gender.)  So, I think that this one have something snap inside of him and he was developing into a "queen" class.  He probably could have organized other prawns, but again, he didn't want to raise suspicion until he was ready to make his move.  Plus, prawns were all just drones.  Unless he was able to control them, they would just fuck everything up anyways.  (The less people know a secret, the better.)

As for the prawn behaviour... you have to remember that they really were just stupid.  Unless a leader came along, they were pretty brainless.  The cat food was essentially their crack.  They didn't care about the weapons, they just wanted the food cuz it tasted good.  (Apparently, this was actually something that happened in South Africa too..)  And as for collecting the fluid?  They didn't know what it was or what it could be used for...

One point that I can't really address from Ben's post is why the main character knocked out his prawn friend.  I can't remember that happening.  But maybe it was a heat of the moment thing?  Or maybe the screen writer just needed another reel.  :-)

All in all, I really dug this movie.  One thing to note is that it was actually pretty ballsy to make the prawns look like they do.  Generally, if a director wants the audience to sympathize with an alien, the idea is to make them look really human.  (Take a look at someone who knows what they are talking about when reviewing Avatar:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJarz7BYnHA#t=6m50s )However, this movie goes the other route and it works wonderfully (at least for me...).

why district 9 sucked (spoilers)

Well i finally got around to watching District 9 (along with about 6 other movies since friday, thanks to the aforementioned-by-phil netflix/roku combination, which leaves me with a mere 240 movies in my streaming+dvd queues).

I realize i'm a contrarian (but not completely alone, i'd like to point out) in saying this, but... what the fuck?

I got the impression that the writer said "i've got sci-fi for the fan boys, and a controversial/moral/intellectual topic for the bourgeois.. i don't need to worry about having a reasonable/sensible plot!" And apparently it worked. Yeah, those who know me know that i "suck the fun out of things" by asking too many questions, and i understand that with some movies the whole purpose of the movie is to force you to think about the possibilities, come up with theories, discuss with friends, etc..... I loved donnie darko and it didn't explain shit.

but the questions in this movie were much more mundane, but so pervasive that it utterly destroyed my ability to care about the plot of the movie because i was so fixated on the fact that how the situation had come about was not being justified to me.

Questions without answers, mainly because if they were answered the whole need for the conflict wouldn't exist:

Why did the ship come to earth?

Why was the ship broken? Did it need more "fluid" or was that just the command module? If it needed more fluid, why didn't they make some on the ship (presumably way easier than spending 20 years doing it on earth!)

Why did the "command module" just "fall off"?

Why did only one alien in the entire fucking population know about this magical command module?

Why wasn't he able to organize a couple additional aliens to collect more of the special fluid, when they were turning over their weapons to the humans left and right? Didn't anyone else want to go back to the mothership?

Why did the other aliens trade giant battlesuits capable of fighting off an entire small army (particular in the hands of someone more capable than our bumbling, human protagonist) for 100 cans of cat food instead of using it to better their situation?

Who were the aliens? (prisoners? colonists? military? cruise ship passengers?)

Why was the protagonist so retarded as to knock out the one guy who knew how to get him back to the mothership and cure his condition? did he really think he'd be able to do that by himself? Oh but luckily he has a change of heart......eventually, after creating another unnecessary crisis.


If the writer couldn't be bothered to provide an actual back story to justify his setup, then i'm not willing to buy into his "brilliant" recreation of a historical human rights atrocity in an "innovative" scifi environment. Movies aren't just cute ideas, they've got to hang together if you want your audience to be able to follow you on your journey.

Netflix: Streaming by Thine Name!

I gotta say that I freaking love Netflix.  Unlimited rentals for a fixed monthly rate?  Absolutely wonderful!  (Plus, I only need to watch like two movies in a month to be equal with the amount spent for the same rentals from Blockbuster.)  And the selection!  There have only been two movies that I wanted to see that I couldn't get on DVD when I wanted to.  ("Cannibal!  The Musical!" and "Blackula", if you are wondering.)  Really the only limiting factor is that there is a 3-4 day turn around between sending back a disk and getting a new one in the mail.  And that problem has been fixed!

Last year (maybe two years ago?), Netflix started streaming movies over the internet. I didn't really dig that since I'm not a fan of watching movies in front of my computer.  I just want to watch my movies on a TV, like Edison intended.  Fast forward a few months and alternatives start to pop up to allow for watching streamed movies on your TV.  Microsoft was the first to offer something on the XBox.  Then, Roku came out with a little box that hooked up to your TV.  Finally Playstation got an app to mimic the XBox.  (Of course the Wii didn't do it right out of the gate...)

So, since the wife and I are both bit movie nerds, I picked up a Roku box for her for Christmas.  I thought "Man, this is a great gift!  I freaking *rule*."  And here, dear readers, is where my luck starts to come in to play.  Literally less than a fortnight later, Nintendo announces functionality to stream Netflix (for free).  Arg!  O well, at least we have options now.

Then, my father in law goes out and gets the craziest awesome  TV that I have ever come close to owning.  (Thanks for that, BTW - it's freaking awesome!)  Amongst the plethora of features is Netflix Streaming built in.  So, this afternoon, I  actually had 3 devices capable of streaming Netflix hooked up to one TV.  What's a guy to do?

Well, I'll tell you what I'm doing. I moved the Roku upstairs and now we have streaming to both of the TVs in the house.  And all is good again.  Especially since I have recently discovered "Arrested Development" and it's on the streaming side.  Viva la stream!

Long overdue rant part 2: The X-Files

Moving onto the 90's, my television obsession of choice was The X-Files. And I mean obsession. I had every episode on VHS (taped off the the TV as it first ran). I even collected the TV Guide adds in the beginning. I still remember that it premiered on September 10th, 1993 and that I wasn't at home at the time, but was camping with my parents and watched it both at the campground and later on the tape I had set at home.
On top of it being really good television that spoke to my sci-fi obsession without being self-parody (well, until they intentionally self-parodied, which in and of itself was hilarious) I was insanely attracted to Gillian Anderson (by 1995, what man wasn't?). It helped that this show started at a time in my life of great change (I started dating my first girlfriend that October). It also ended the spring before I ended my first engagement. So I followed it from Sophomore year of high school all the way through my first two years of working in the "real" world.
The X-Files was broken down into three types of episodes: Conspiracy arc, monster of the week, and later the "comedy" episodes (which, with the exception of the "Dreamland" two part episode were all monster of the week).
The seasons themselves, in my horribly biased opinion, can also be separated.
Season 1 was the "introduction" which basically introduced us to the main characters, gave Chris Carter time to gain some traction, and showed us the beginning of the conspiracy.
Season 2 was shifted to accommodate both the corner they wrote themselves into in season 1 (they shut down the x-files division in the season finale due to the uncertainty of season 2, at least it would have had closure) and Gillian Anderson's pregnancy. This led to the creation of the "Scully is abducted" sub-plot which really gave birth to the overall conspiracy ARC and gave the show its real direction. Keep that in mind for later.
Seasons three through five were basically the high point of the show - the conspiracy got deeper, the Darin Morgan episodes were in here, and the show gained so much popularity that Fox agreed to make a movie.
Here is where the problem starts - Chris Carter wants to turn the show into a movie franchise, but Fox isn't ready to let go of its sure-fire television success so they agree to continue the contract through season seven.
Several things happen which make me think things would be wildly different if Carter got his way:
They closed The X-Files and burned down the office in the Season Five finale.
For the first time since Season 1there was no "To Be Continued" at the end of the season finale
The movie itself, which of course I loved because it was, well, The X-Files, was a pretty good movie, felt like a movie, but there were definitely episodes that were better. If this, however, were the first movie in a SERIES OF MOVIES, I could see X-Files, Part 2 being something similar to X-Men 2 and The Dark Knight in its ability to expand on the first movie. There was even a part of the movie edited out and re-added on the video version that had The Well-Manicured Man (played by John Neville) basically explained why Mulder's sister was kidnapped and what happened to her (or her clone). Carter originally edited this out because he knew he was going back to series (the movie was filmed before the decision was made to have a season 6) and he would have and need more time to explain this.
Seasons six and seven were the "LA" years. Duchovny started getting big for his britches and decided he wanted to start dictating and be closer to his wife in LA, so he basically strong-armed getting the show moved from Vancouver for shooting to LA. The first scene of the show it was obvious they were filming somewhere else.
Don't get me wrong, there are some fantastic season six and seven episodes (two that stand out are "Monday" from season six which very subtly referenced an earlier episode without making you realize it, and the episode from season seven with the Genie).
However, the team realized they needed to do something different, so they decided to basically explain the whole conspiracy, kill it off, then change it. When they did this the first time it worked brilliantly. I even liked that they tried to turn Mulder into a "Christ-like" figure, mainly because there have always been some religious undertones in the show (personified at times by the Scully character). They also left some things up to you to decide, not clearly explaining why Mulder becomes psychic but giving you pieces to draw your own conclusion.
This led to Season seven, which was the end of the contract obligations for the bulk of the actors. This very much felt like the "last" season by the loose ends they tied up (what REALLY happened to Mulder's sister, which Carter basically said is what would be told at the end of the series) and other episodes that hinted at Mulder and Scully finally transforming their relationship beyond "partners." In fact I think the season finale of season seven would serve as one of the best series finales I have ever seen.
It left plenty of mysteries, which is GREAT for a show all about mysteries. It would also allow Carter to go back to turning this into a movie franchise.
Fox got greedy and wouldn't let it go, so we had Seasons 8 and 9. I'm very conflicted about these last two seasons. Duchovny was only in a handful of episodes, and the ones he was in were actually pretty entertaining. He left a bit of mystery as to what happened to his character.
I also really enjoyed Robert Patrick and his character. At this point it made sense to make Scully the believer, and John Doggett was a great skeptic for her. They disagreed a lot more, but he played the character solid and although most fans of the show didn't like him, I enjoyed his character.
Then mid-season they shifted. Big time. Mulder came back, dead. Then he was alive again because they figured out how to bring him back. After three months in a coffin. Ahem. They also introduced the "Super-Soldiers", aka the new new conspiracy which basically had Alien replicants infiltrating the government and the FBI. I think Duchovny was in two more episodes after they "brought him back" since they fired his character (which sucks if you think about it. You're abducted and they do horrible experiments on you. You die. You are brought back to life, just to get fired. Actually that's kind of what happened to David Duchovny's career in real life, so....
And they brought in Anabeth Gish, who I didn't mind looking at, but wasn't much of an actress or character. Suddenly it went into season nine as "X-Files: The Next Generation" with Scully being the "elder" and Doggett and Reyes being the new agents. America didn't buy it, and the show was allowed to finish out its ninth season. However this allowed the last half of season nine to be pretty enjoyable, since the show was ending we got to see some cool episodes that dove into Doggett's back story, revisited the Brady Bunch house (with David Faustino) and there was even a weird episode with Burt Reynolds and a very sad but well executed episode where Scully gives up here baby.
So then there's the series finale, which could have been one hour long had they not decide to spend the first hour explaining everything that happened up to that point. So basically Mulder is tried and convicted for killing a military officer and is sentenced to death. Of course this officer is a "super-soldier" and can't actually be killed. But he's convicted, so everyone gets together and breaks him out of jail. The show ends with Mulder and Scully on the run, but now Mulder is more spiritual because he believes that the dead are not lost to us. Or something. The ending of the episode was a nice throw-back to the pilot, but still was way too convoluted.

The part of the blog where I actually talk about what I said I was going to talk about
Sorry for the long intro, but I wanted to give everyone an idea on where I was going with The X-Files: I Want to Believe. When I first heard about the movie coming out, I was concerned. Since the series finale a lot had changed in my life and I was a different person. I also on a more practical level didn't know HOW they were going to pull it off. There were rumors that it took place during the show's timeline, which made no sense since they were visibly a lot older. Then it was confirmed that no, it takes place after.
How, I thought? I like to think I'm creative, but I couldn't creatively think of a way they would work this one out. So how did they do it?
Quick plot synopsis - an FBI agent is attacked and kidnapped during a rather ridiculously snow Virginia winter and the only lead is a psychic, who also happens to be a convicted pedophile and former priest, who says he can help the FBI. We flash to Scully, who's now a doctor in a catholic hospital. They give her a sub-plot about a boy with a terminal disease that she is trying to treat. She gets a call from Xhibit the FBI agent saying that they need Mulder back because they want to find this agent and this case is x-files like. (None of the other characters are even referenced. That would have been such an easy thing to do and would probably have gotten more fans involved, but I digress). So she goes to a house where Mulder with a beard is living and tells him the FBI wants him back for this case and will drop all his charges (didn't realize the FBI had the ability to pardon people who were tried and convicted in military court for murdering military officers, but OK I'll shut my brain off sorry). So I know they had to fix that major issue somehow, but I just wish they could have been smarter, because part of the reason The X-Files was so successful was that it WAS an intelligent show. This show hit big right at the time that darker shows with more cerebral fare were getting successful as a response to the big, dumb action shows of the 80's (see what I did there? I referenced a previous blog. I am AWESOME). So seeing this take a silly plot hole out was disappointing.
Aside from that, I was one of the few people that enjoyed it (i was also one of the few that saw it - I went to a 10pm show opening night and the theater was 3/4 empty). It would have made a really good episode of the show, and beside the pardon in the beginning was a standalone episode (aka monster of the week) versus the previous movie which was very conspiracy heavy. I know Carter still has dreams about making this back into a movie franchise, but something tells me Fox is pretty much done with this franchise.
Now let me tell you what I REALLY liked about it. First I'll get the plot out of the way. Scully keeps saying to Mulder we should just leave and retire or whatever. Mulder and Scully help the priest who is right. They don't find the FBI woman but they do find another victim. Walter Skinner pops up in super-cameo mode and helps them find Mulder just in time to save the girl and him (this was also kind of a nice reversal of the "Scully as Damsel in Distress" formula that sometimes found its way into the show). So at the very end Scully's faith is renewed, Mulder is clean shaven and I guess not wanted for murder anymore. Then the credits roll over a background of ice melting (the whole movie takes place during snow). Eventually it becomes grass, trees and then pans back and is flying over an ocean in a tropical setting, and closes in on a row boat with them in bathing suits (looks kinda CGI) then they look up at the camera and wave as it fades.
This along with what Scully says in the movie strike me. When Mulder rightfully questions "why should I go back, how do I know this isn't just a way of smoking me out" she responds "they're just happy to have you out of their hair. No one cares anymore" it dawned on me. This isn't the beginning of the movie franchise. This is the end of the franchise itself. Lets ignore one of the other writers saying "the series has 2012 being the alien invasion, and we're considering making another movie for that" and think about it. The series ended basically a mess. This movie allows a much happier ending for the title characters, who after 15 years (yikes!) of crap and heartache finally get to go and retire and be happy together. What surprises me even more is I REALLY like this ending to the franchise.
The show was a product of the 90's. It BELONGS in the 90's. The feelings and events that happened in that decade are different then those in the decade that just passed. Trying to make The X-Files 2012 is counter-productive because the times are different and it just doesn't fit. Making a big budget "X-Files! Invasion 2012!" movie would be silly because the show was never about showing outcomes like that. The only cool thing about the 2012 date is that it was considered at least half way through the show because a nameless character in an easily missed line in season 5 basically says that that is the year of colonization (told you this was an obsession). I like that the date was set before all the 2012 hype kicked into high gear. For that its creative. To bank on it now for another sequel would be exploitative at best.
So I'm sorry to see it go, to put these characters to rest, but as an adult I realize that this should happen more often. If it would be popular to end things (Lost is a GREAT example) at the right time and NOT try to spin off or remake it, we may have more original ideas in Hollywood. Life isn't a series of "reboots." Good storytelling isn't either.

The Candy Snatchers!

One of the reasons that I had for creating a blog was to document the cool shiza that I do.  One of the problems is that as a married man with a youngin, I don't really do all that much cool shiza these days that doesn't involve the youngin.  (I'm not complaining, mind you.  Just saying that while I find it *adorable* that Sam demands to "push the button" to pop the "Aunt Amy toast" from the toaster, I'm not sure that all of the readership would...)  So, this week when I went out to the movies, I hit gold.

Now, I know what you are saying.  "What's the big deal about going to movies?  I mean this summer it's especially painful, but as long as you're a little masochistic, you're good to go."  Well, dear readers, lemme tell you a little story about a grindhouse movie that I watched this week.

My good friend Bobby is pretty connected with a bunch of cool happenings in Raleigh.  He and I were chatting on Wednesday and he told me he was heading out to see a movie.  (I know!  A school night!)  I said - what movie are you watching?  He told me "The Candy Snatchers".  So, he pointed me here.  (Warning:  It's a grind house style trailer and so pretty NSFW.)  Though the movie didn't really appeal to me (they showed this just a few months ago and that's more my style), I figured, what the heck?  I hadn't seen Bobby for a few months, so this would be a good excuse.

Lemme say this...  the experience of this movie was very much unlike anything that I had done in quite some time.  First off, tickets were only $5.  For a cheap bastard like me, that was totally worth it.  Secondly, and this one is a little harder to describe, unless you were there, but the atmosphere was really appropriate.  There was this neat vibe in the air.  Remember that this movie is a 70s exploitation movie.  The theater that we were watching it was definitely of that era.  It wasn't symmetrical since there were support columns holding the ceiling up.  O, and how about shag carpeting on the walls?  Awesome! 

Another groovy thing was the people there.  It was definitely a younger leaning audience, as the only people there over thirty seemed to be me, Bobby, and the two guys running the show.  Not a bad thing, just not what I'm used to.  Plus, people there all shared a bond of love for movies.  I never get that feeling if I go down to the local Carmike.  Seems people there just wanna sit down, shut up, and enjoy AC in a dark room for 90 minutes.  Here, people really seemed to dig the culture of making films.  You've gotta appreciate that.  And lest, I forget, I met a very nice lad whose claim to fame was that he built his house based on the house from Halloween.  Think I'm kidding?  Think again.

And then we come to the movie itself.  From the trailer, it looked just like another POS movie banged out  in a week.  But it was actually surprisingly deep.  Granted, not exactly Oscar-worthy, but deeper than you would expect.  The characters actually had back stories.  Oh, and how about this?  The film was shown on the old school projectors where the reels had to manually be fed and adjusted occasionally?

I'll definitely say that this was one of the more graphic movies that I have ever seen.  (But it's a grind house movie - what do you want?)  It is only the third movie that I have ever seen with an on-screen(ish) rape scene, oddly also featured in the trailer above.  (The other two being Last House on the Left and I Spit on Your Grave.)  However, I will say this... it wasn't concentrated on and was handled as well as that subject really can be.  It's also worth mentioning that the rest of the movie hangs together so well that it doesn't really stand out as being out of place.  I just figured that I would mention it, should you be interested in seeing it yourself.

One last part of awesomeness was that the theater showed old school movie trailers both before and after the movie.  Definitely helped to set the tone.

This probably won't be a monthly occurrence, but I did have a hell of a good time, and I wanted to share.  Thanks for the invite, Bobby!

A little bit of historical WFT-ery.

The other day I was making fun of Nic Cage, which is becoming more and more frequent as of late.  I mean, seriously?  How many ridiculous wigs can one man wear?  Lemme give you an example of how stupid his wig department has gotten:

(BTW, I can only assume that Cage has a department that works on wigs since over the years it has gotten really strange and I'm guessing that someone is trying to justify their budget year to year.)

Anyway, the topic of "National Treasure" came up since how could it not?  And so I said "You know what my favorite part of the movie was?  Let's get the treasure map... on the Declaration of Independence!"  I mean, really, who green lit both this *and* a sequel.

Then, it hit me...  Where is the Declaration of Independence stored?  National Archives in DC, right?  Well... WTF is it doing there?  I mean, we wrote the document to tell Britain to piss off, right? So, shouldn't it be like... in Britain?

I mean, it's like this.  America is like Britain's kid, right?  So, imagine this situation.  You're Britain, bopping along like nothing is wrong.  Sure, your teenager has been bitching recently, but that's what teenagers do.  They'll get over it.  Then, one day your teenager sends you a letter saying "Hey - you're a dick and I'm leaving."  If I'm Britain, I'm not exactly going to be keeping that letter in the baby book or anything.  And after we fight and I get my ass handed to me, I'm not exactly going to handing back something so valuable to them.  So, what's the deal?

Well, I went to wikipedia to figure it out.  Lemme just say that I didn't get nearly the whole story from elementary social studies.

What I thought happened was that the states got together and decided that this is how it's gonna be, banged out the Declaration of Independence, and the war was on.  (I remember the reason that John Hancock wrote his name really big was cuz if things didn't work out, he didn't want the King of England to have to put on his reading glasses to read his name.  Again, leading me to believe that the King actually had *seen* the declaration.)  Apparently, what actually happened was that the revolutionary war broke out in 1775 with state militias just deciding "Fuck it, if we see the red coats, we'll fire on them."  Throughout the year, this happened to get popular so the bureaucrats decided that they should probably actually say *why* they are fighting.  You know, so dad doesn't think that you're just being fussy.  After it was written (in 1776 - a year after hostilities broke out!), copies were circulated, but the original never left the capital.  So there you go.

BTW, here's another factoid (really?  "factoid" is in the Firefox spell check dictionary?) that I didn't pick up from history in elementary school.  So, I thought that we had won the war with a little help from France and we were all happy.  That's true to be sure, but there was so much more.

So, long story short... France started quietly funneling supplies to the Americans until the Americans won a few key victories.  Then they said "It's a party - let's start whooping on England in the open."  That also drew in Spain since they were in treaty with France at the time.  And with that, other nations essentially had to bend over backwards to prove allegiance to Britain or they would be considered hostile.  So, there was tension of a land war in Europe, as well as India and the West Indies.  Obviously, England was a bit overstressed.

Oh... and there's more on the American continent as well.  First off, there were about 15 % of colonists who were loyal to the crown.  How about the native Americans?  O they were divided, but some 13,000 of them fought with the British since they were afraid that their territories would be encroached upon, should America become independent.  (Such a silly thought!  We would never do that... o wait...)  And so, there was also a western front to the war as well.

So, all in all, it wasn't so much the Americans and French beating back the biggest military power of the time.  It was the biggest military power of the time collapsing under its own weight, being too over-extended around the world and having the rest of the world gang up on them since they were pricks. 

And so thank you Nic.  For making me look more into history.  That and being a hell of a good butt to a joke.

See here, Nintendo!

I've been a Nintendo fanboy, pretty much from the beginning.  Yes, that means that I was actively evangelizing their playing cards 80 years before I was born.  And yes, those are real cookies that I made.  See?  I even like to have my diabetes branded.  (OK, so those cookies didn't really stand for "Dual Screen", but rather "Daddy" and "Sammy", but before they were eaten, I had enough presence of mind to make a Nintendo reference out of them and I think that says something....)

In reality, my torrid love affair with Nintendo goes way back into the 80s.  My dad, being the bleeding edge technology embracer that he is (that's sarcasm, BTW - we didn't even have a VCR until I was almost out of grade school) jumped right on the Nintendo band wagon when it was first released in 1985.  That is to say that my brother and I saved up our paperboy delivery money to buy ourselves on in 1988.  (Ironically, we would later go on buy the video game "Paperboy" so that we could do the thing that we hated on Saturday mornings, but without the added benefit of exercise or being paid to do it.  On the plus side, the video game did have death chase you so there you go...)

Man, Stefan and I played the hell outta that console.  Stefan more concentrated on the Tetris and RPG side of the fence and I whooped it up on everything else.  I loved how you could get a peripheral that allowed you to play with four people at the same time.  (It was called the "Four Score".  Sadly, my young brain kept calling it the "Four Play", which my brother mercilessly made fun of me for... once he explained it.)  There were only like 5 games for 4 player mode, but I loved being able to play with a whole bunch of people in the room all hollering like mad men.  So great!  Brilliant use of technology.

(As a side note, both Stefan and I still have fully functioning 8 bit Nintendos right now.)

Then, what did Nintendo do?  They came out with a way that I could waste time in the car on a trip!  Gameboy?  Yessir, sign me up!  And what's this?  You sold another accessory that lets you connect 4 Gameboys together?  Nintendo, baby, you're reading my mind!  We'll be happy forever!!

Then, came the Super Nintendo.  And the quality kept coming.  We'd be over at Chris's place playing everything from Final Fantasy 2 (I know we played RPGs together - that's how tight we were with the Nintendo) to Bill Lambeir's Combat Basketball (BTW, horrible crappy silly game - and I wouldn't have it any other way!).  We played that system into the ground.  I think that Stefan and I may have gotten one of these, but I can't swear to it.  I seem to recall Stefan trading it for a Playstation while I was away at college.  I know, heathen!  But in Stefan's defense, he *did* need to support his Final Fantasy addiction and Nintendo's steadfast commitment to cartridges made Capcom seek greener fields.  So, it's all good.

Now, we enter the college years.  Of course, we hit Nintendo 64.  Yeah, you know how I didn't get a 4.0 GPA?  Well, that was because of the Nintendo 64 (sorry Dad!).  Well, that and me being a dumb-ass, but that's a totally different story.  :-)  Bond, Starfox 64, Mario Kart 64.  Ben and Jerry (yeah, yeah, yeah - not the ice cream guys though - fun fact the ice cream guys actually took an ice cream making class at Penn State) gladly opened their room pretty much every night after dinner so that we could yell cusses at each other until it was study time (read:  Until someone got pissed that Jerry kept whoopin us).   I can't remember playing a bad game on the 64.  And what's this?  It *came* with 4 ports for controllers?  Nintendo, you were only missing one port - the port to my heart.  Cuz, Nintendo, you complete me!

After college, we still played a bit on the 64 (can you say Conker's Bad Fur Day?  Cuz I sure can!), but we definitely weren't as hard core as we once were.  We drifted apart a little, but we still cared for each other. 

After I gave my hand to another in marriage, I still kept up my affair on the side, discretely.   Over the  years, Joy picked up a GameCube and a DS for me.  With my friends no longer living in my dorm room, down the hall, it was a bit of a pain to actually play with them, but Nintendo says "Baby, it's more fun to play with people in person anyways."  I gritted my teeth - sometimes couples fight and this was no different.  We were happy enough...

Then came the release of the Wii.  I told myself "No, I'm too old... I think that I'll sit this one out..."  Then, Kookie and Skoot got one.  And it was awesome.  So, I said "I must have one.  Our love cannot be denied!"  I know that I'm gonna take some heat from Joy for skipping out on a lot of content here, but this blog is already approaching novella size, so I'll skip a little with this:  "After a bit of research, I finally was able to find a Wii after about a month of searching."  And this is the point when things started to sour...

So, the Wii is Nintendo's next gen console, right?  I knew going in that the graphics weren't going to compete with Sony or Microsoft's, and I was OK with that.  But the overall fun factor was what I was going for and prepared for.  But now, the rifts are starting to get deeper...

(Before, I get into poo-poo'ing Nintendo too much, lemme say that I still have a hell of a time with the Wii, it's just that compared to the other platforms, it's getting left in the dust really badly....)

One of the big selling points is online play.  Sweet!  I'm onboard there!  OK, so let me explain online play.  Other consoles, you turn on your system and boom!  You're online and you can see your friends.  With the Wii, you need to swap codes with your friends.  I'm sorry - what I mean is that you need to swap 32 digit hex codes with your friends.  FOR EACH GAME THAT YOU WANT TO PLAY TOGETHER.  (I know that you need to pay a monthly service for the other systems, but come on!  Register consoles and then let the hardware worry about the games.)

Next, we were promised an immersive experience with the Wii-mote.  They said "You wanna fight with a light saber?  Well, no more pushing a button for you!  You're gonna actually be doing the moves!"  Only problem is that instead of just pushing a button, you're wiggling the controller now.  Not really moving the controller as you would a sword - just flipping it back and forth randomly.

"But look!", said Nintendo,  "We have all the same games as the other platforms!  I ask hesitantly - "Do you have Rock Band?"  "Damn right!"  OK I'm on board again.  O wait - you can't download all of the songs from the first game like you can on PS and XBox?  And online play is pretty much useless?  Ugh...  Why is that?  "Oh, well, we can't actually patch software"  WTF???

And what's this?  You sell a game that lets you work OK a little while playing video games?  OK... I'll give this to you - the Wii Fit Board is pretty awesome and a brilliant use of technology - no problems there...  And all of the simple kind of proof of concepty games (like Wii Tennis for example) are pretty bad ass.  Just ask Skoot, Marie, and Ben about our monster sessions.  And the point and shoot games (like House of the Dead Overkill) are just about as spot on as you can get.  So, OK, the Wii is pretty great...

But seriously Nintendo, you're still on thin ice here.  You're really only got one more generation of console to get things a little more in order before I officially renounce my "Nintendo fan boy" title.  I want us to be together, I really do.  But we need to kick it up a notch.  First off, a few more higher caliber games would be good.  You've got your proof of concept down pat, but start using that Wii-Mote Extender a bit more.  That's brilliant!  Why is Red Steele the only one using it now?  Secondly, get your head around online play more.  I've got buddies all around the country - it shouldn't be this hard to connect.  Next, I'm a software guy.  I know how pressed for time dev cycles are.  So, don't be afraid to patch your games.  It's OK.  It's common practice these days.

Now, I don't want to have ultimata here.  That's not what i'm trying to say.  I love you, Nintendo, but you're making it hard for me to do this.  Nobody cares about a Black Wii.  How about a game that uses both the Wii-Mote extender and the Wii Fit Board.  How cool would that be?  Just think about it.  I'm just sayin'...

SEPTA Blogs - Archive

I take public tranportation to get to work here in Philly. There is usually something fairly amusing or incredibly odd going on, and I like to comment on it. Here is an archive of Facebook statuses from the past sis months. More observations will be on the way as I find them:

3/12/10 – Decided to take the subway train that was NOT on fire.
3/22/10 – Had to sidestep what I’m guessing was human feces in the stairway to the train station in Havertown today. On a Monday. However I didn’t actually step in it, so could that be a sign of a good week?
3/30/10 – “Early” is not considered on-time when you’re a train. Watching my train pull away three minutes before it was supposed to arrive (from the street) did not make my happy. Its actually worse than being late, now that I have to wait 25 minutes. Thanks SEPTA
4/5/10 – My other job is apparently seatback for the woman sitting next to me on the subway
4/13/10 – Has been outside of 69th street for 15 minutes, and now a later train just passed us heading towards 69th street on the wrong track. SEPTA appears to be using the “If we ignore them, they’ll go away” strategy of problem solving
4/28/10 – Wondering what the deal is with the guy on the subway train that has a jacket pulled over his face. I see no paparazzi.
4/30/10 – Fry was right. The subway really is a mobile apartment without rent. Just ask the guy that was already on the train, sleeping as it pulled into 69th street. And then there’s the buster brown shoes with the big yellow laces.
5/7/10 – Wonders what the ratio is of temperature outside to odor inside the Route 100 train
5/18/10 – Subway trains leave approximately every 8 minutes. And if there’s only one on the track it’s not leaving yet. There’s no reason to nearly push elderly women down the stairs to get to the train
5/18/10 – Is curious about the guy on the subway train that is filming the trip
6/4/10 – Wonders if the air conditioner sitting on a handtruck standing on the back of the NHSL train had to pay a fare. Some days I wish my phone had a camera on it. The most important thing is its standing in my spot
6/4/10 – Was a little concerned by the guy on the train who kept repeating “I kill his son! I kill his f’ing sister! I kill them!” over and over again. Especially when he smashed his hand into the glass partition
6/8/10 – Sorry guy on the El. Didn’t realize this was your backpack’s seat
6/10/10 – Amused by the guy who walked right in to the El turnstile without slowing down, paying or swiping a pass. Its funnier because he looked really confused when he nearly flipped over it. Maybe he thought he was in the EZ pass lane?
6/18/10 – No better example of people acting like cattle then at 69th street. Why is opening the other door so revolutionary? No. All 50 of us will try to squeeze through the small doorway that’s propped open, thank you very much.
6/29/10 – Glad he didn’t get stuck behind the guy buying a SEPTA pass with singles, nickels, dimes, quarters and pennies
7/1/10 – Has “Checked in” to 40th street station and missed stepping in human feces by about three inches. Thanks God I met that quota for the week.

Long overdue Rant, Part 1: Knight Rider

I decided to kick this off with something I’ve wanted to rant about for about two years now: the returns of Knight Rider and The X-Files, my television obsessions from the 80’s and 90’s. Both of these attempts at rebooting said franchises failed horribly, which makes this rant even LESS relevant. What can I say; I have a desire to be obscure. The news of Knight Rider’s small screen return and The X-Files big screen return broke around the same time. I remember being at first cautious, then quickly allowed nostalgia get the best of me and was REALLY excited.
I’ll critique in chronological order. February of 2008 I was glued to my television ready for Knight Rider to return! Doug Liman was producing! Will Arnett was the voice of KITT! Hasslehoff was making a cameo! There’s no way this could be bad.

Oh, wait.

Two-Hour TV Movie
KITT was now a Mustang. I found out much later that this was GM’s fault, and not Ford’s. NBC approached GM first and they did not want to try and replace a true classic. Ford jumped at the chance. Now there is no Pontiac. Hmmmm….

The guy who wrote the pilot was pretty much completely green to the franchise (and, judging by the witty dialogue and heart-stopping pace, he was also green to screenwriting in general).
Hasslehoff had all of three lines, and they were silly. His stellar delivery gave the impression that someone was wrangling him just off-camera with a cheeseburger. And then there was the voice of KITT who was now Val Kilmer because Will Arnett apparently had a gig with GM and pretending to be the voice of an autonomous Mustang violated his contract (I’d be really interested to read that contract). Not sure what Will would have been like, but Val was certainly no William Daniels. So I suffered through the pilot, which had the son of Michael Knight (named Mike Traceur or Mike Tracer, depending on how French you wanted to be) eventually driving the new KITT. So who’s the Mom? It’s a woman who lives in a shack on a compound owned by the guy who invented KITT. A scientist we’ve never heard of in the franchise, of course. Who the woman was is never explained, but judging by the age of the new lead character, his birth would probably have taken place during the original show. There was so much potential for at least some continuity that was completely lost.

It had a huge viewership, mainly because people were curious, but critics rightfully destroyed it. The Executive at NBC, whose idea it was to restart the franchise, was so eager that he went ahead and green lit a series under a different show runner. Gary Scott Thompson was someone who actually has written some screenplays in his life. The screenplay under his belt however was the first The Fast and The Furious movie. And was it ever apparent.

The "Series"
Suddenly the show was mindless action. Mindless CGI action. Mindless BAD CGI action. It was painful to watch, but I watched it. I literally watched week to week hoping that SOMETHING relating back to the original show would pop up. Then it did. Someone mentioned KARR and I got all giddy. KARR was the Evil KITT in the original series, and they set it up the same way here. What we find out is that new KITT was the second iteration of the Mustang Robot, just like the original KITT was the second iteration of the Trans Am Robot. Of course the first KARR in both scenarios was corrupted and sorta evil and killed people and stuff. If I were the scientist who invented these cars I’d probably avoid naming ANYTHING KARR.

Then it turned out that the ratings pretty much showed that I was the only person watching this show, and so the thought was “reboot it again!” One of these days I’ll probably have a ranting blog all about how “reboots”, once a creative way to introduce an old story or a fun way to be nostalgic about an old property is now a lazy way of making money for a movie or television study by marketing with name recognition instead of interesting characters or stories. And Fanboys are to blame, but that’s another rant.

So the KARR story was apparently supposed to be a season long arc, and they got it all out of the way in one unusual episode. Unusual because I enjoyed it and did not, in fact, want to punch a wall. They even managed to get Peter Cullen to be the New KARR, which was a nice nod to the original series. The two episodes before this one weren’t bad either. This three episode arc was setup to kill off the most expensive actors on the show, and of course people actually dying made it interesting.

Then there was the “new” format. The “old” format was the Knight Rider team worked for a government agency and basically thwarted terrorists from week to week. The “new” format is the Knight Rider team works in secret for F.L.A.G. and is a private sector group. Basically, new Knight Rider was now old Knight Rider.

Old Knight Rider worked because of the car, the Hoff, and William Daniels. Otherwise it was poorly written, sometimes poorly executed, and formulaic. But so was EVERYTHING at that time. So now I can watch it again for what it was and appreciate it for that. Television today is a lot more intelligent (for the most part). Action TV shows today don’t last because they don’t have the budget to be Big Dumb Action movies. In the end, Knight Rider was an Action TV Show, which is why it was cut two months before it was supposed to end its first season, and was silently not renewed.

The real reason this show was rebooted? Glen A. Larson (creator of the original) wanted to reboot this as a movie a few years ago but had trouble getting funding. He had rights to make a movie, but NBC still had rights to make this another TV show, so they did. So now we probably get neither. After seeing what a reboot would look like, though, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. I once was the guy who LOVED to see his favorite franchises be “rebooted” and “modernized.” Now I appreciate that they were unique in their times, and should probably stay there. More on that in Part 2.

We Are!!... So Hungry!!!

We Are!!! .... So Hungry!!

So this weekend Marie and I went for the last time to Penn State to stay with Uncle Addie and Frank before they officially moved out of their townhouse and back to Pittsburgh. It has dawned on us just how spoiled we've become in these years being able to come back here and hang out whenever we want , without the hassle of hotels or RV's etc.

So needless to say, almost everything about this trip has been bittersweet. Yes, I know, it's not like we can't come up here again, but it simply won't be the same. And honestly, I don't know how long it will be until we find ourselves up here again for some time.

We happened to be up during Arts Fest weekend and so we went down on Saturday to check it out since Marie has never seen it. Colin certainly loved it. Right before we left to go check it out we got this idea that we would really like to go eat at Waring Commons one last time and so we went online and looked it up for the hours. Sadly, Waring was closed for the summer so we were really bummed. But as it turns out when we got to West Halls, it was actually open this weekend for some camps that were going on at the University so we ran upstairs and sat down and I ate like a friggin KING.

I'm still a bit in disbelief how much I enjoyed this but if it's any sign of how much I really did, it's in the fact that I've bothered to blog about this. I'll say it now, if you have a chance to go back and eat at the commons, DO IT, because I can honestly say the experience far exceeded my memories of it.

Maybe i'm just getting old and I can't remember all the things we had but it was insane. Like 8 different juice selections (kiwi strawberry, mango something, lemonade, raspberry/something, etc.) Whole Milk, 2%, Skim, Chocolate Milk that was super thick. They ever had Honey Comb for people like Ben to steal. And as a bonus (although Phil says he remember this being there), they started having Cookie Crisp. They still have soft serve but they also had cookies and cream and peanutbutter swirl on hand for people like me that prefer non-soft serve. Pizza out the wazoo followed by 3 kinds of pasta. Obviously a salad bar (bleah, serioulsy, why even bother :) ). Onion Rings and Southwestern Rice. The only sad thing that was missing because it was retired about 2 years ago is the Chicken Cosmo . Man, how I miss that thing. So yes, if you're ever there again, I recommend you to go. It was just too damn good.

Disappointing Summer Movie Outing

My favorite thing to do in the summer is go to a fairly mindless movie with lots of explosions and sit inside an overly air conditioned theater when it's like 100 degrees outside. Yesterday I had some time off work in the afternoon and a pass for a free movie ticket. So I thought, hey A-Team. One of my coworkers was just raving about it and I figured it qualified as a fun summer explosion fest.

I'm sad to say I was sort of disappointed. They certainly blew up a lot of stuff. But it was kind of boring. I was sitting through this huge action sequence near the end thinking this should be edge of your seat stuff and I was just kind of "eh". I like a good action movie so I'm not sure what was missing but this one didn't quite do it for me. It's definitely no GI Joe. At least it wasn't as crappy as Eclipse. But that's a review for another time.

My obession... Rock Band.

 If you've talked to me recently, then you know that I'm all about Rock Band.  It's been a long courtship, so let me catch everyone up.

About two and a half years ago, Rock Band was super-popular.  I was kinda out of the loop, as I often am.  But I heard about the game and I thought "Well, geez, that sounds perfectly stupid.  Playing with silly plastic instruments.  And you havta pay like $150 to get in on the action.  (Game plus accoutrement).  I'll pass, thank you very much."  So, I continued on happily for a while, until I think that it was labor day weekend of 2008.  (I can't remember the exact time, but I know that I went up to Philly and Joy was back at home with Sam.  So, I think that this was the weekend, since that was wedding-palooza '08.  But that's a story for another time.  The important thing is that I need to get my blog on more recently so that I can track such super-important times in my life - not all of the weddings, mind you - but the meeting of Rock Band.  Cue Ben saying that blog of silly loads of nonsense.  Anyway, so let's call it May of 2008.)

So, after one of the many weddings, we went back to Joe's place to play some Rock Band.  I suppressed rolling my eyes since I figured that hang out time was more important than actually what we were doing.  So, they fired up the PS3 and brought out the instruments.  I had no desire to really play, but they needed a bassist, so I said what the heck.  We played a Weezer song or two and I was hooked.  Holy cow is this a brilliant idea for a game!  Have your favorite songs play while pretending to play along!  Absolutely brilliant!  Needless to say, we played until the wee hours of the morning.

(I am definitely reminded of this xkcd comic in this story.)

I came home after the sojourn and told Joy just how freaking awesome it was.  However, being a cheap bastard, I didn't immediately run out and buy it.  Funny side story - Bill was at Joe's place that night too.  Apparently, Bill and family had played for the first time a few months earlier at Joe's place and had liked the game so much he went out and bought it for the XBox the next day. 

Fast forward to that Christmas.  Joy had asked me what I wanted and I smart-assedly said Rock Band.  It was a bit out of budget, but I figured maybe she could hold up a liquor store to finance it.  (Hey - love makes you do crazy things.)  So, Christmas day rolls around and we exchange gifts and we're all happy.  Then, joy hands me this little box as my last gift.  I open it and it's got a USB microphone in it with a note that says "Help, my friends have been kidnapped!  Rock Band, drums and guitar are upstairs when you're ready to rock out."  Need I say it?  Great fake out and best wife ever.  Here's the kicker though.  We are about to leave to head up north (ironically) in like 2 hours.  So, I don't get to play it until I get back.  Still, pretty freaking awesome.

Over the next few years, I'm totally sold on Rock Band.  I'm currently waiting on getting another guitar in the mail (I've got three right now - two RB1 guitars, and 1 RB2 guitar - again, this is a story for another time), and I picked up The Beatles Rock Band and most recently Green Day Rock Band.  Still working my way through the latter.  But damn, is this a good franchise.  And, apparently with RB3, there is going to be a Keytar peripheral.  A keytar!!  How freaking great is this????

A couple great things that I really dig about Rock Band:

• I can play it with Joy.  I know, kinda silly, but I enjoy playing games with people and Joy's not exactly a hard core gamer.  Plus, it fulfills the quality time that couples always need.
• I think that it's given me a better appreciation for music.  For example, I never really cared all that much (or even heard) about Sir Paul's contributions to the Beatles.  Now, I can really appreciate that he did really good, though under appreciated, work.
• Sam is starting to get into the act!  He's actually requested the drums and likes to play on them!  (Also, he turned to Joy the other night and said "Do you want to play my game?"  Joy said "Sure, sweetie - what game?"  To which Sam replied "Rock Star!")
• It's just great mindless entertainment.  I spend all day thinking and this is a great way to unwind at the end of the day.

The only thing that I'm curious about is whether I'm missing anything not playing Guitar Hero?  (But thank you very much Nintendo, none of your peripherals are compatible.  I've got a Nintendo rant up my sleeve for another time, don't you worry....)

Help Make Joy More Interesting

My husband is about to surpass my stellar blogging history of three posts so it's time I put pen to paper to stay ahead of his shenanigans. That is of course metaphorical pen and paper. I'd use real ones but they're kind of hard to find these days.

So I'm thinking to myself - what to blog about?

I clearly can't talk about the disproportionate amount of time I invested yesterday trying to select the perfect seats for the Wiggly Circus tour. I woudn't want to go all "Mommy Blog" on poor Ben right out of the gate. The rest of my time recently has been devoted to helping with a softball tournament and trying find reasons why I'm needed at work. These do not great blog entries make.

The conclusion I've come to is I need to do more interesting things. Phil's entertaining and all, but he clearly has no problem sharing his own brilliance with the world. So - I'm opening the floor to suggestions. What wacky hobby should I take up that will lead to the fascinating blog entries Phil clearly expects of us all?

New contributers alert!

Woo-hoo!  My two posts have been so successful (not to mention an email directly), they've attracted the attention of new authors:

Erik (or E for short) marks our first Philly contributor.  E was the head of an email list that we had back in the nineties.  Yes, Virginia, this was before fora and blogs existed, though it served the same purpose, essentially.  Anyway, E's wit is razor sharp, and as his house is bursting with ladies, I'm fully expecting greatness in his posts.
Ator - He is a powerful warrior from land far East of here.  He's from a different time and is known mostly for his lack of shirt and his beautiful French Braid (for some reason). 

Happy blogging, y'all!

Genetic Ridiculousity

There's a reason that I haven't had any formal biology training since high school.  It's mostly cuz biology (or more specifically genetics) blows my freaking mind.  I heard a statistic a while ago (and similar things since) that all humans are something like 95% genetically identical.  (Initially, that sounds way too high, but if you think about it all humans (with rare exceptions) have the same number of internal organs located in approximately the same place doing the same job.  So, 95% doesn't really sound that far out of whack to me....)  So, whenever I do read something related to this field, it's generally some anomaly.  Thing is, if only one case is found, they won't give the condition a name.  It's when there are several of these cases that they'll start to name it.

So, if you take a look around, there are so many crazy genetic conditions that I am frankly dumbfounded that humans, as a whole, are able to continue as a species.  From things like Polycystic Kidney Disease to Progeria to a hundred other crazy ways that our genes have gotten together and just said - you know what?  Let's tweak things and see what happens.

Why I am bringing this up now?  Well, I was reading a potty training book last night (yeah - it's getting to be about that time...) and there was a section on medical problems that could hamper the process.  So, I stumbled on a condition called "Hypospadias".  Now, you may wonder why I didn't just through a Wikipedia link in there like I did with the other conditions that I've listed.  It's cuz I wanted to give you a warning.  The Wikipedia link to this condition's description has a picture, and it is very much not safe for work.  So, if you are so inclined, take a look at the link here.

Now, for all of you who didn't click the link (and still consider me a friend), Hypospadias is a condition where the hole of the penis is not on the tip, but on the underside.  Let me repeat that so that you can fully appreciate the situation.  For some reason, the genes decided that it would be jim dandy to have the hole for the penis not at the end, which has a proven track record, but somewhere underneath.

"But Phil how common could this really be?" I know that at least some of your are saying.  The book that I read said 1 on 250.  So, that means that in Raleigh, which is where I live, there are about 405,000 people.  Let's say that roughly half of them are men, which leaves about 202,500 men.  So, if 1 in 250 of them have Hypospadias, that means that 810 people running around the city have this condition.  How did I not know about this?

I work in Quality Assurance, and I'm just saying that if I were to let this go out the door this I think that I may be written up.  So, God or nature or genetics or whoever is in charge of this, I just think that you should really figure this out, cuz it is blowing my mind.

(As a standard disclaimer, I'm not saying that people with any of the above listed conditions are bad or anything.  I'm more commenting on how there are a shit load of different ways that you can be messed with before you are even born.)

Now, I am fully waiting for someone who actually knows what they are talking about to come in here and tell me what for.  Someone who may have the word "genetic" on their business card?   (hint, hint.  :-) )

Greetings and salutations...

Well, here is it.  The blog to end all blogs.  I know, I know, it sounds like an awful lot to promise, but I am just that good.  :-)  Anyways, I figure that I should probably throw a mission statement up here before the antics get into full swing.  So, here goes:

I've created this blog to keep in contact with a bunch of people that I've met through my life.  Seems that a bunch of my friends are quite distributed throughout the country, and I reckon that this will be a good (ish) way to keep in contact with everyone.  This is an open blog, which means that anyone can see its contents.  So, no nasty stories, unless you are going to be comfortable having your mom read it.  (And yes, I have forwarded this on to your mom.  We are pretty close.  Yes, I did just use a your mom joke in my first blog post.  *MY* mom would be so proud!)

With that, lemme throw out our starting crew of crack bloggers (this list is meant to be open - so if you get the blogging bug, send me an email and I can get you in):

Phil - Me, your humble webmaster.
Joy - My wife, and all around fantastic blogger.  She has had several wildly successful blogs, which she brags about to no end.  So, we've got high hopes for her entries!
Ben - My former college and post-college roommate.  Also a successful blogger.  His wit has covered me on the rare occasions where I ran into writer's block.  Also, he doesn't want this to turn into a "Mom-blog", so he's gonna be bringing in both the funk *and* the noise.
Thomas - He's the cheeky one.
Skoot - And old Penn State buddy.  I'm not entirely certain that he's literate, but he tries and that's gotta be worth something.  (irony tag - I initially misspelled "literate" in the previous sentence.   So, that's bodes well, I think...)
Marie - Skoot's better half.  Plus, I think that she'll be bringing in a hell of a lot of outside readership (that is, her mom has been known to lurk in fora where I have been the primary poster.)
Melanie - Blogger be thine name.  Little known fact:  Melanie's been blessed with three (count 'em) three extra fingers.  So, she's able to type like 33% faster than the rest of us.  She was born to do this.
Kookie - OK I didn't get a chance to invite him, but I'm sure that he'll be on-board.  I mean, he wouldn't embarrass himself by *not* posting entries, would he?

And that's about it.  As for the name of the blog, "Diamond Shaft", well, that's a story for another time....