I'm So Exicted.... And I Just Can't Hide It...

So there's a lot of stuff coming out in the second part of this year that I'm excited for. Yeah, I know. I'm a pop culture whore. Some of it's guilty pleasure, some not. Either way, I'm pumped! Recently I was very satisfied with the new Taking Back Sunday CD as well as the new Marilyn Manson CD. Mandar and I are also loving the Sims 3 so I hope what still is to come won't disappoint.

True Blood: Season 2 - June 14th



Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince - July 15th



Wii Sports Resort - July 26th



Julie & Julia - August 7th



New Cobra Starship CD - August 11th



I Can Do Bad All By Myself - Sept 11th



New Super Mario Bros. Wii - Holiday Season



In addition I am also looking forward to the new Richard Dawkins book for which I couldn't really find a good YouTube video for. There are also new Tarkan, Shakira, and Atreyu CDs slated for release this year!

Bunnies On The Highway

I just finished reading Carl Sagan's 1985 novel, Contact. I saw the movie when I was a teenager and loved it but the book was quite a bit better in some places and not as great in other. It was slow in places. Nevertheless, I still think that Jodie Foster played Ellie Arroway perfectly, maybe even better than Carl Sagan wrote her, lol.

The book was strange in a way because it was published in 1985 and it ends in the year 2000. For example, the Soviet Union still exits in the book. I'm not in anyway saying that was a failure in any sense (he couldn't have known) but it was strange and kinda funny at times. Not to mention, the President of America in the book was a Madam President which by 2008 we still have not seen. I bet if Sagan was alive today he'd be surprised that we had a black president before a female.

Overall, the ending was considerably better. More detail made it deeper. There was also a very thought provoking thing that had to do with pi at the end.

But while reading there was a very funny part where Ellie was talking to a old man who lived in a retirement home that orbited earth. I would like to share it:

"You see, the religious people -most of them- really think this planet is an experiment. That's what their beliefs come down to. Some god or other is always fixing and poking, messing around with tradesman's wives, giving tablets on mountains, commanding you to mutilate your children, telling people what words they can say and what words they can't say, making people feel guilty about enjoying themselves, and like that. Why can't the gods leave well enough alone? All this intervention speaks of incompetence. If God didn't want Lot's wife to look back, why didn't he make her obedient, so she'd do what her husband told her? Or if he hadn't made Lot such a shithead, maybe she would've listened to him more. If God is omnipotent and omniscient, why didn't he start the universe out in the first place so it would come out the way he wants? Why's he constantly repairing and complaining? No, there's one thing the Bible makes clear: the biblical God is a sloppy manufacturer. He's not good at design, he's not good at execution. He'd be out of business if there was any competition."

I guess I never mentioned why I called this bunnies on the highway. There was a long exposition early in the book about rabbits in New Mexico that see car lights. It was interesting.

Fun With Captions! Potter-Style

After the release of the new theatrical trailer for Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince, I decided to have some fun with captions with it as well.See below.

Epic!

In theatres July 15th!

I Challenge You!!!

I challenge you to listen all the way through the following two videos from Bollywood sensation Aishwarya Rai and not have the dying urge to jump out of your chair and shake your booty! Really! LISTEN! AHHH! GODZILLA!

They Can Just Eat My Ass!!!

So I saw Madea Goes To Jail and it was fucking hilarious. I have not seen a movie so funny for years. I really loved Diary of a Mad Black Woman and didn't think any of the sequels would do better but this was simply amazing. There are rarely movies that I could see twice (especially comedies!).

What made this movie even better was the fact that the theatre was nearly packed (Harry Potter and Pirates didn't even have this many people on opening day!). People laughed and cheered and everything. A really great movie going experience overall.

Now, Rotten Tomatoes has given Madea Goes To Jail 32%. Apparently critics don't like Madea because Diary of a Mad Black Woman and Madea's Family Reunion both got lower scores. Well fuck them, they can just eat my ass. S go on, call the po po ho. I ain't scared of no po po ho.

I won't spoil any of the movie but it was all good. From the storyline of Madea to the storyline about the prostetute. Simply hilarious. My favorite part has to be when Madea is arrested at her house. I was a little worried before the movie as often movies tend to put all the funniest parts in the tv-spots and trailers. But the hilarious parts of this movie were all left for the theatre audiance.

Take it from me, I rarely see comedies that I would recommend to other people to go see. See this movie. You'll pee your paints. Believe me, Mandar and Pandora will admit that I am usually extremely critical of movies, especially comedies. This was just so great.

Oh, and there is this really great part in the end where this guy does something great and this collection of older black ladies behind us inthe theatre were saying, "Erhurm! Now that's a man! A-hun!"

A Thought On Black History

Tomorrow Mandar and I are gonna go see Madea Goes To Jail (see theatrical trailer below... for some stupid reason, there is a teaser for another movie before the trailer for Madea... so no, I didn't put the wrong code in).



Tyler Perry's movie franchise is a strange one. Often dramatic. Hilarious. Heartwarming. Some people say that it portrays a negative view of the southern black community and enforces stereotypes. But unlike Cosby did in the 1980s, I think Perry actually portrays black (specifically Georgian) life in a far more accurate sense with a great balance that isn't afraid to take on tough issues. Hell, Maya Angelou is in the second movie, Madea's Family Reunion. What more do you need!?

Bill Cosby did something very different but I think he failed in avoiding all controversial subjects. He floated his sitcom around in this strange world where racism didn't exist. Althought that's nice, it's not reality. And if we're ever going to get to that reality, we need to address the issues that are still present today. After all, it isn't uncommon for me to overhear people at work or school or wherever talking about "President Nigger."

Now, Tyler Perry's series isn't perfect. And god help me I hate his television programmes, but I really love his movies. When it comes to dramatic comedies, there really isn't anything else out right now that I give a damn about.

Perhaps it's because Madea reminds me of my grandmother from Texas, or perhaps she's just fucking hilarious, but I love her. Below are a few of my favorite scenes from Diary of a Mad Black Woman and Madea's Family Reunion.





I don't really know what there is to say about Black History Month. To be honest, there really shouldn't be a black history month because black history is not black history, it's simply history. Human history. It's a history that we all can learn from and shouldn't dare pretend is a thing of the past simply because we've elected a black president. Hell, America elected a Catholic president once and still people today say they would be afraid to do so again.

It really saddens me how many young people today use the word nigger. At least half of my work says it without flinching. Several of the teenagers I work with are under the believe that "blacks have more rights that whites now days" and "niggers get away with anything because nobody wants to look like a racist." I could understand if someone in their seventies said something like this, but seventeen?

And why do we call Barack Obama our first black president? He's not fully black. In fact, most people aren't fully black. I'm not fully white. My mother is latina and my dad is white... and actually his great uncle is black so what does that make me? Am I white simply because I'm light skinned. What about Barack? If he's 50% white and 50% black, then why does the black part overpower the white part so much that we are forced to calling him the first black president and not the first multiracial president?

Here is a little test that I heard about from Richard Dawkin's "The Ancestor's Tale"...

Below are 10 squares of skin taken from people's faces. Try and guess before clicking on the pictures whether or not the person is black or white. Then see whether the color of the skin really is what determines a person's "color".

On a final note, you might have noticed that at no point did I refer to anybody as "African-American" and there is a good reason. I had my consciousness raised by a friend of mine back when I worked at Sears. She was black and told me that she didn't consider herself "African-American" because she and her parents and her grandparents were all born in America. None of them have even been to Africa. She called herself a black American, pure and simple. And true, we might say, yeah, but her lineage goes back to Africa. But if we say that, then aren't we all African-American's then?

So there's my random rant about black history. Thoughts?

Oh Yeah! This Makes Sense...

This is a poster for the new Ice Age movie coming next year. Apparently they've decided that the next one will be when the dinosaurs take over the world...

Strange, I didn't know that the Ice Age movies were set in a universe where times goes backwards and species de-evolve.

Dinosaurs: Went extinct 65.5 million years ago.
Sabor-Tooth Cats: Went extinct 9000 years ago
Mammoths: Went extinct 4500 years ago.

No why in the fuck are dinosaurs attacking Sabor-Tooth Cats and Mammonths!? Does nobody over at 20th Century Fox know that it's after the Dinosaurs went extinct mammals evolved rapidly to form (in the fullness of time) cats and elephants. Didn't anybody say to themselves, "Hrmm, wait a minute. Dinosaurs went extinct tens of millions of years before Sabor-Tooth Cats and Mammoths ever walked on earth. Maybe this is a dumb idea..."

It's not like these two types of animals were thousands of years apart... but MILLIONS! Millions and millions and millions of years. 65.5 MILLION! Worst of all, I have been looking online and very few people seem to have picked up on this HUGE mistake. What the fuck.

Now, here is Jesusland ::cough cough::, I mean America, it won't be that big of an issue. But over in educated countries like England, France, Spain, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Portugal, Switzerland, Japan, Taiwan, Germany, Canada, Austria, Ireland, Latvia, Norway... and so on, where the studios want to get international moneys, there might be a fucking issue.

Fuck You, Fuck You, You're Cool, Fuck You...

What a fucking day. I'm gonna go ahead and divide this whole post up into "Fuck You!" and "You're Cool." I think it will be most fitting for this roller coaster of a day.

Fuck You #1: The Traffic Lights In Ontario
So Mandar and I went to go see The Day The Earth Stood Still at about 11 this morning. I had to work 4pm to Close today so we went to see the early showing. Once we got to Ontario frustration set in. I swear to god that the lights are completely fucked up. They stay red for 10 minutes. They stay green for 10 seconds. Arrrrggggh!

Fuck You #2: The Douchebags Behind Us
In the movie there was this couple behind us a few rows that talked quite a bit. The most annoying part was when Jennifer Connolly's character whispered to Klaatu "run" and the guy was like "What did she say!?"

You're Cool #1: The Film
Despite the fucking critics, I really enjoyed the film. Rotten Tomatoes has it at a 22% but I really like it. The critics seemed far to perturbed by the film's message (that humans are destroying the earth). However, when a fucking cartoon robot says the same exact thing, they jizz their pants. They also complain cos Keanu Reeves is emotionless. He's playing a FUCKING alien! One critic said he hated it before he even watched it cos you just can't remake the 1951 original. Jesus Christ!!! So yeah, really good film actually. The special effects were great and John Cleese and Kathy Bates were amazing (like always).

Fuck You #3: Christmas Shopping Traffic
Every single fucking person on EARTH was shopping in Ontario. It took forever just to get down the street.

Fuck You #4: The Airpump At Speedway
My front tires were a little low so I decided to fill them up a little bit. I stopped at Speedway but their fucking pump was broke. Jesus!

Fuck You #5: That Bitch At Circle K
So we got to Circle K to get gas and put a little air in the tires. I went in to prepay and this dumb bitch in front of us took FOREVER buying cigarettes and lottery tickets.

Fuck You #6: The Bitch At Great Clips
So we both get our hair cut at Great Clips. It's cheap. We're guys. We're cheap. Big deal. Wanna fight about it? So we go there and they asked our number and name. By chance we both happen to have the same first name (however I go by my middle name). The dumb bitch could not accept that two people both could live under the same roof with the same first name.

Fuck You #7: The Cashier's Office At School
So I had to pay my first payment for my winter quarter fees. I have to sign this paper but the fucking cash office was closed so now I have to go back again sometime this week to sign the paper. Urgh!

Fuck You #8: Ms. Trainee
So we got back to Great Clips (because the wait was rather long) and we got our hair cut. Mandar had a nice lady who did a good job. I had this dumb 16 year old girl (I swear she was). She didn't do a horrible job, but what irked me was that after she was done she said, "Okay, lemme get somebody to check this for me. I'm still in training." Are you fucking kidding me!? You couldn't have divulged this ahead of time?

Fuck You #9: The Popeye's Management
So we go through Popeye's Chicken for lunch and it takes forever and ever and ever. Finally the guy tells us that when he runs the card it says "Referral" and he doesn't know what the means. After the movie and all, all I had was four dollars and my debit card. I told him that's all I had, expecting that he would understand and give us the meal for only four bucks or so since it's their credit card machine's fault, but no! What a douche!

Fuck You #10: Bitchy McDonald's Lady
So, pissed off, hungry, and angry, we stopped through McDonalds. The card was denied. What. The. Fuck! I know we have money in the bank. So I ended up having to use my credit card to pay for the food. Which in retrospect I could have done at Popeye's as well. But of course I felt like a douche having my debit card denied.

Fuck You #11: Richland Bank's Saturday Hours
So I was furious! I immediately called my bank. It was 3:04pm. My bank closed at 3:00pm. Grr!!!

Fuck You #12: My Fucking Bank!
So on the way home Mandar and I speculated that one of three things must have happened. Either one, our card number was stolen again (two years ago it happened twice). Or two, Mandar's paycheck bounced (this happened several years ago before he worked there). Or three, nothing was wrong and our bank was fucked up. Either way, I knew all I had to do was to log into my online banking and check what the fuck was up. I logged in. My balance was $284.76. Now after 6 hours of work, it's still $284.76. Not negative. Positive. So what the fuck is the issue!?!?!?! I guess tomorrow when I call up the bank and ream their asses I will find out.

Fuck You #13: 3 Doors Down
I don't know how I forgot this. But FUCK YOU 3 Doors Down! What a fucking sell out you are. Shooting a music video for the fucking military to try and get more kids to enter into the army. I hated 3 Doors Down to begin with, this just bumped it into a whole new bracket! I love how they make war out to be so simple and so heroic. Clearly they have no fucking idea.

Some Horrible Movies Are Amazing

I don't think I will ever get tired of hearing that guy scream "MORTAL KOMBAT!" just before the totally gay techno music sets it while the larger than life video game characters fight. Last week Mandar and our friend Gary watched "Mortal Kombat: Annihilation" on DVD. It was amazing. Sure it's a horrible plot, terrible graphics, and sub-par acting. But for some reason I still love this movie. Maybe because during the 90's I was obsessed with the Mortal Kombat franchise. This reminded me how much I love it so much that I totally ran straight to Wal-Mart to purchase Ultimate Mortal Kombat for Nintendo DS. Love it!

Oh and just for shits and giggles, I checked out Rotten Tomatoes to see what it's rating was there. 4%! Haha. That must be a typo. Cos' I'd give this shiz a 94%! Come on people. It's pretty amazing and you just don't wanna admit it.

Is Anything Original Anymore?

So last night Mandar and I watched the first episode of The Legend of the Seeker. It's a new fantasy show on WGN America that looked like it would have some potential. We had DVR'ed it and had it sitting on there for a while. Now, first of all the show is based on the Sword of Truth novels by Terry Goodkind. There are currently 11 novels in the series which means that if the show does good it could be on for a while.

To start with, the show began with this long chase scene with some girl and her sister. Her sister dies and then the one girl opens up a magic portal with some magic stone thingy. It's okay to start. The very next seen we see the protagonist "Richard Cypher" wearing hardly anything at all, making a bridge.

Now to start, he is quite gorgeous but the problem is that it is so obvious that they had to throw in a shot of him shirtless and stretching right in the beginning to keep the interest of women and queers. I wasn't swayed. In fact, I was a little offended that they would be so blatant with their gratuitous semi-nudity.

This whole thing seemed kinda familiar. I was reminder of a scene from the Eragon movie where it's lead hot protagonist shares a less than one minute scene meant only to show him removing his shirt and showing of his hairless and firm body. Nice to look at. But completely gratuitous.

So then the show started to progress. The majority of the plot is pretty nondescript and quite generic. I love how Richard can suddenly slow down as he jumps in the air to attack thought. Very realistic.

Later in the show the girl is gone and the bad guys are trying to find the boy (who manages to keep his shirt on throughout the rest of the show). Richard apparently wants to know more about the girl, and his father tells him to talk to the strange and mysterious man who's been mysteriously around ever since he was born ::cough cough, star wars. cough cough::.

So he goes up and then meets the old man and the girl. There is some arguing and then it's revealed that Richard is the 'seeker' or 'the chosen one.' The girl has this book which is written in another language and Richard says, "I can't read this." She responds, "Look again, the chosen one can read it." He looks again and says, "Oh, I can!" Wow, can I have some wine with that cheese? I'm honestly amazed that the actors can keep a straight face saying these lines.

The lines are so terrible that I had trouble paying attention. I thought, give it time, it'll get better. It didn't, in fact, it got way worse. We learn about this evil bad guy named Darken Rahl. I'm sorry, but if your name is Darken, then you're just destined to be an evil lord. Seriously? Darken Rahl?

At some point the old wizard guy tells Richard that his father isn't really his father. Apparently there was a prophecy of some sort and he doesn't know who his real father is (remember this little fact for later in the post).

So like the archetypal reluctant protagonist, Richard decides that he just can't be 'the chosen one' or the 'seeker' so he leaves and goes home to live a peaceful normal life. Oh no! His home is being burned down and his father ends up dying. Oh no! His father confesses on his death bed that he isn't really his father. Oh no! Who ever saw that coming!?

The rest of the episode is pretty much just Richard deciding that he has to live out his destiny as the seeker that way the prophecy comes true and such. Snore.

This morning I hadn't totally given up on The Legend of the Seeker. I was kinda curious if there was any fan art of Richard Cypher to see if this stud playing him looked like he was described in the book. I typed in 'Richard Cypher' into Google and clicked on the Wikipedia link which had him down as "Richard Rahl (aka Richard Cypher)." Apparently sometime in the 11 books, Darken Rahl (evil bad guy) is revealed to be Richard Cypher's father!!!

Are you fucking kidding me? Is there anything out there that hasn't ripped off Star Wars or Lord of the Rings? I thought Eragon was bad! The problems with Eragon and Legend of the Seeker are so bad that I don't even know where to begin. So here's a nice little chart.

What is so annoying is that both authors of Eragon and Legend of the Seeker have openly stated that they were inspired by Star Wars. What the fuck! If you're gonna steal the plot from a movie, don't call it your greatest inspiration!

So I give up on Legend of the Seeker. The only good thing it has to offer is an attractive guy playing the lead role, but I can just as easily look up images of him without wasting my time watching the show. Thankfully there are a few things out there that are original. Harry Potter may have borrowed scenery and themes, but it's main plot is original and new. Even more original is the His Dark Materials series by Phillip Pullman. I shall cling to them, along with Star Wars and the Lord of the Rings, as the original originals. For every penny shelled out for the piles of plagiarized filth of The Legend of the Seeker and the Eragon series, I die a little inside.

New HBP Trailer

The wait will be far too long...