Here comes another busy week...

I'm sitting here trying to come up with questions to ask Uwe Boll. I wanted to make sure I knew how to correctly pronounce the guy's name and luckily for me, I found this great clip of Mr. Boll actually telling some haters how to say it correctly. Good thing I found that site, because I've been saying OOO-VAY this entire time.

I'm pretty nervous about this. Uwe Boll definitely isn't some huge celebrity or anything, but it still feels a little intimidating to be talking to someone who is so recognized the world over. I've only ever done interviews through e-mail, so actually speaking with someone "famous" is going to be a first. I hope I have the courage to channel my inner Chris Matthews and confront him with some "tough" questions :)

Who are those striking football players clad in evil black uniforms? Those be the Seminoles, fresh off their 25-6 beating of Duke. I watched this game and came to the realization, somewhat abruptly, that there is a hell of a lot of talent on FSU's team. The one glaring weakness is the horribly spotty QB play. Neither Drew Weathorford nor Xavier Lee seems able to bring it all together. For example, against Duke in the first half, the Noles were in the red zone 4 times and came out of it with 9 points. We can move the ball, we just can't score. And now comes the brutal part of the schedule: @ #2 Boston College, @ Virginia Tech, Marlyand, and @ Florida. A betting man would say that the only reasonable victory would be Maryland, and even that isn't a sure thing. I'm predicting an upset this weekend, as FSU will go into BC's house and beat them. We only need 1 win to be bowl eligible. Still, next year look's like it could be a return to form, as the schedule gets decidedly easier and we get a bunch of stellar recruits coming in.

By the way, if you're wondering why the black uniforms, every year for one game the university honors the Seminole Indian Tribe for being the only tribe never to have signed a treaty with the United States. The slogan is "Unconquered" and it's to pay respect to the traditions of the Seminole people.

Meanwhile, Nebraska is mired in a blackhole of suck. Here's the way you defeat Nebraska: spread them out with 4 wide receivers, go into shotgun, and then run down their throats. How can one guy put up 200 yards and 3 TD's in a single quarter on a defense? Can you imagine what the score would have been if Texas had done that from the get go instead of trying their hardest to pass all over the place? Still, I think Nebraska has enough in the tank to knock off Kansas, who is overrated in my opinion.

I have two more tests this week: Communication and Philosophy. I'm getting real sick of constant exams. I can't wait for college to be over with. At least we're talking about film in Philosophy now. Even though I bitch about it all the time, I've aced all of my philosophy exams and my paper on Psychical Distance and Halloween. Philosophy really is easy when you think about it. All it is is some guys arguing an opinion. As long as you have the nuts and bolts of what they are trying to say nailed down, it's pretty easy to grasp the concepts.

I thought I was going to lose this week's Dead Lantern Fantasy Football game. I felt Steve clearly had the upperhand in terms of matchups. Unfortunately for everybody, Tom Brady is on my team and as long as he's giving me 5 TD's per game, it's going to take an awful lot to beat me on most days. Of course, I'm going to go out in the first week of the playoffs by a lucky game from someone because the regular season apparently means nothing. I'm a very competitive person when I'm involved in something (even something just for fun, like this) and I've taken quite the interest Fantasy Football, trying to figure out how it all works, what the best matchups are, etc. For never doing anything like this before, I'm pleased that I seem to be picking it up so well. But heaven help those around me if some joke punks me out of the playoffs because all my guys are riding the pine in order to save themselves for the real NFL playoffs. Where's the justice? :)

Anyway, I should get back to compiling Uwe Boll questions. It should be an interesting Splattercast #50...

I Kant take it anymore

Most stressful day of school ever. Yesterday I had a midterm exam in Political Science, a Philosophy exam, and a paper in Communication.

Immanuel Kant is my enemy. Not only did I have to write an in-class essay on his somewhat complicated theory on beauty and the sublime, but the dude popped up in my PolySci class as well forcing me to write another huge essay on liberalism and the Kantian Trinity of Democratic Peace, Economic Interdependence and IGO's. Ugh. At least it's over and I feel confident about how I did, but still, I was up all damn night trying to wrap my brain around this guy.

I remember when Florida State-Miami used to be the biggest game of the year, every year. Now nobody cares except the fans of each team. As far as a Seminole fan like myself is concerned, we can lose every game this year...as long as we don't lose to Miami. Speaking of bad football teams, I'm reveling in the misery of the Cornhuskers. Tom Osborne has been brought in to save the team, and considering stories like this, it shouldn't be too long before Callahan is out of work again. Which begs the question: If Nebraska goes on a great run and makes it to a decent bowl, will Callahan still be fired? Word on the street is "Yes" and that Osborne will hire Turner Gill. Which begs the question: Is Nebraska going to junk the West Coast Offense and go back to the Option with Osborne and Gill at the helm? Should be an interesting year in Lincoln.

I got sent a DVD called "Heartland Horrors" which is an anthology of short films from the midwest. I actually was sent two of them, so I'll be giving one away on Splattercast 50. I also ordered a bunch of cheap horror dvd's to give out as well. We've already had a bunch of people e-mail us about Splatterpiece Theatre with the correct answer. I'll have to make this week's a little tougher. I've also noticed that there is some German site called Nerdcore or something that regularly links to Deadlantern, I found that kind of strange. Ah well, the more viewers the merrier I suppose.

The Splattercast is filthy

For those of you who don't keep up on such things, next year is going to bring lots of negative publicity on Hollywood. That's because, the Directors/Writers/Actors unions have expiring contracts and they are all expected to go on strike at the same time, effectively shutting down Hollywood. There's a bunch of horror films that have been fast tracked into production and the writer of the article brings up a good point, albeit without really following up on it. Are all of these movies going to suck because they are being made as fast as humanly possible? In the mad rush to have a bank of films ready to be released in the event of a prolonged strike, is there a big potential for low quality output? I think so. There's only so much talent to go around and personally, I'd prefer to see the Wolf Man or Black Lagoon film a couple years later if it means the quality will be better rather than some rushed hack job in order to have something to release. Of course, on the plus side, the horror genre has thrived throughout its history on rushed hackjobs, so maybe everything will turn out fine :)

More Republican congressional seats in jeopardy. That first one hints at the bigger problem for Republicans. If they can't get at least a small majority of Hispanic voters to vote for them like African-Americans vote for Democrats, then it could be a looooooong time before we see Republican majorities in our government. This will become especially prevalent in 10-20 years when more and more Hispanics coming to this country. I wonder if Republicans will stick to their current philosophy or change in order to court the Hispanic vote in the coming years? If the Democrats secure the Hispanic voting block, it's game over for Goopers. Game over.

Looking for ways to improve the Splattercast, I've been browsing around various horror message boards, looking for info on what people like and hate in a podcast. Overwhelmingly, it seems people are just looking for shows that focus solely on horror (i.e. stay on topic and don't veer off into stuff they either don't understand or have no interest in) and, most importantly, aren't filled with crass jokes about other non-related stuff. I'd like to start giving out more horror info and at least attempt to allow our listeners to learn something practical about the genre. I think we need more debate and fresh segments, but I have no idea what those would be. Gotta start brainstorming. I did find it quite humorous that one of the moderators on the Rue Morgue board wouldn't include us in the main list of horror podcasts because of our filthy mouths, ah well :) I like our crassness, but we do have a tendency to go overboard a bit (I'm looking at you, Deejay) and fly way off topic. But I think that must be part of our charm, because we've got a lot of listeners. Can't please everybody, I suppose, but I think we can improve.

After I get back from the haunted house tomorrow, I'm gonna catch the Florida St. Wake Forest game. Last year, Wake Forest beat us like little bitches, 30-0, in Tallahassee. I'm hoping we can pull out the win at Wake to set up a big game with Miami at home next week. Go 'Noles!

Mark it down, Oklahoma State's spread offense will shred Nebraska this weekend. OSU's problem this year has been a constant string of turnovers that have caused them to lose all 3 of their road games. If their offensive line can give the QB time, Nebraska will be in another shootout. Here's hoping Nebraska goes down in flames just so I can watch Callahan scrunched up face again.

"God hates faggots"?

I suppose one of the downsides of going to a public university is that you get extreme religious wackos that feel the need to preach to you about the fires of hell as you walk to class. For the past week or so, there has been a group of Christians standing in front of the Union, yelling out to everybody about how Jesus hates "faggots" and that pretty much the entire college is one giant Satan love orgy. This isn't a new phenomenon, by any means. Christians are constantly out and about on campus, railing against various things. I don't have a problem with that, but I do have a problem when they are walking around holding billboards that say "God Hates Faggots". First of all, doesn't their God love everybody? What disturbs me the most is that there is always a huge contingent of students sitting around listening to their hate speech.

So what I'd really like to do sometime is get a group of people together, dress up like the gods of ancient Greece, and preach right next to them. I'd like to stand right beside one of these douchebags holding a lightning bolt and telling the audience not to piss me off else I'll fry their asses. I'd like a girl to dress up as Aphrodite and preach how awesome sex is and how it's a natural part of life. That would be funny and great all at the same time.

Speaking of annoying Christians (I don't mean to dog on this, but I have yet to have a Muslim come up and annoy the piss out of me), I get off work a couple weeks ago on a friday night. Every weekend, there is a couple Christians who stand on the corner of our downtown theater holding a giant white cross and yelling at people who walk by. The way the walk lights turned out, I just happened to walk right by the guy. Oddly, there weren't that many people out that night so I was the only person on the corner with him...except for two little girls on the opposite side, standing by the light pole. These girls could have been no older than 7 years old. They were a ways away from the lunatic with the cross, and of a completely different ethnicity. I figured they were just waiting for their parents to pick them up from a movie. So I'm standing there, waiting to cross the street and one of the little girls says "Here you go" and hands me a small business card. I didn't really look at it and I said "What is it?". The girls looked at each other and said "Um...it's just an IQ test". The walk light turned and I started across the street. Naturally, I glanced down and it was your typical "Are you going to burn in hell?!" propaganda.

That wasn't what pissed me off. What pissed me off was the fact that not only did this asshole carrying a cross feel the need to invade my personal space by yelling that I was going to burn in hell as I walked by, but he had a couple little girls trying to whore his message to passersby. Not only that, but I'm pretty sure he instructed them to LIE about what it was they were handing people. I seriously wanted to walk back over there, ask the little girls if Jesus loves liars, and then break the cross over that dickhead's face.

As you can tell, I've been pretty angry lately. So angry in fact that I told an annoying little girl to shut the fuck up here at my apartment "complex" who was getting on my last nerves. Argh!

In other, somewhat less angry news (but still unhappy), Hillary Clinton is crushing potential Republican candidate Rudy "9/11!!!" Giuliani in Ohio and Pennsylvania. As of right now, Democrats are way up in Senate races, Governor races, and the Presidential race. It's weird, because much has been made of the low ratings of congress, which the Democrats control, but those low ratings do not seem to be transferring to individual races. It leads one to believe that there is a huge Republican backlash sweeping this country right now. It's almost like voters are in the frame of mind that "we don't give a shit who the opposing candidate is, as long as it's not another Republican". I guess that would also explain why the Democrats in congress aren't really worried about anything even with historically low approval ratings. The Republicans in congress are getting just as bad reviews by the American people. It is quite possible that come next November, the average Republican in America will wake up to see a Democratic President with a fillibuster-proof congress staring them in the face.

Damn, it's been a while...

Wow, I haven't posted in a long time. Not sure why. I blame being busy.

Florida State got a big win against Alabama. The coaching staff finally got some goddamn sense and put Xavier Lee in at quarterback, benching the scarecrow (a.k.a Drew Weatherford). Hopefully this move will be permanent. Lee has already been named the starter this weekend which is a positive sign. He'll make some mistakes, but he's far more talented than Weatherford. Who knows, maybe they'll actually break that 5 win total I predicted they'd get this year.

I watched yet another Democratic debate on MSNBC last week, and once again, Obama did nothing to help himself. I've sorta tossed my hands in the air and resigned myself to the notion that Hillary is going to be our nominee. I haven't given up. Maybe Obama knows something we don't know. There are some internal polling reports floating around claiming that he is actually leading in both Iowa and New Hampshire. Winning those two primaries would definitely change the race dramatically and make him the front runner. His problem is that he's running on not attacking his opponent. I'm all for making politics a nicer place, but you can't simply change 200+ years of how politics works in your first primary. You gotta start playing hardball with Hillary, and sadly, he won't do it. It's a shame because he could really nail her on multiple issues.

My Philosophy class has been like a revelation to me. I finally found somebody with credibility that has the same views as I do (mostly...) on viewing art. The dude is David Hume. What's ironic is that he was a total subjectivist. Most of my friends fall into this category. Essentially, a subjectivist's position is that everything is relative. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that. Can you really judge a piece of art objectively? A subjectivist would say no. However, Hume was having a difficult time reconciling his views as a subjectivist and facing the "reality" that there are accepted standards for "taste". Without going to far into it, he listed 5 criteria that come together to create objective standards. The ironic thing is that in trying to use subjectivity in a theory of aesthetics, he actually created a template for the opposite. Stuff I've been arguing for for years is straight out of Hume's "On the Standard of Taste" essay. In my free time, I plan on reading a criticism of Hume's essay by Peter Kivy. Anyways, this Philosophy class is great and really gets my mind going. I'm thinking of starting a "Know your Philosopher" category on Deadlantern, giving the main arguments each of these philosophers have on how you judge art. Maybe we can enlighten our listeners and readers :)

I'm tied with Steve at the top of the standings for the Dead Lantern Fantasy Football league. Considering I constantly sign and drop players, I've considered myself extremely lucky to get my wins. I pretty much owe my three victories to Tom Brady, who keeps amassing yards and touchdowns at an MVP rate. Now I'm glad Jeff took Peyton Manning :)

I made it a point to watch the Cavemen series premiere tonight on ABC. It is one of the worst shows I've ever seen. I will not be watching it again. On the positive side, the season premiere of Dexter was rockin' and it's pretty much the only thing that's decent on television right now.

Now, I'm off to watch my first Uwe Boll movie, Alone in the Dark. Please pour a libation for the Cthonic gods on my behalf if you don't hear from me again :)