2008 is here

I finally got my copy of Stephen Tower's Nightmare USA. This is the biggest book I've ever owned in my life. It's 527 pages, coffee table sized, and weighs probably 6 or 7 pounds. It's enormous. The book, from Fab Press, covers American independent horror from 1970-1985. There are literally hundreds of films that Tower covers in depth in here. Everything from your typical Last House on the Left to stuff like Microwave Massacre. It's going to take me days to read through all the info in here. On top of that, it is chock full of photographs. I can't wait to dive into it.

After hanging out with some friends, I came home and watched a few episodes of the Twilight Zone marathon on the Sci-Fi channel. It's sort of amazing the quality in these old episodes. It makes you wonder why there can't be something like that on nowadays. I never watched any of the TZ relaunch they did a few years back. I read some reviews claiming it was pretty abysmal. Would it really be that hard to do a half-hour show like TZ in today's day and age? Heck, even put it in black and white. I would watch that.

Florida State lost their bowl game today. I didn't watch it, but I'm sure the fact they didn't have 36 players because of cheating and injuries didn't help their cause. It looks like next year will be Bobby Bowden's final year. The schedule gets easier, but we're still stuck with the same shitty quarterback situation. Things don't look promising.

The Des Moines Register poll is showing Obama opening up a lead on Hillary. Every other poll shows this way closer so it may not be trustworthy. It should be noted, though, that the Des Moines Register poll was the only poll to correctly predict the winning order last time around, for whatever that's worth. Thursday's going to be an exciting day. I plan on getting some pizza, kicking back, and watching the results. Is it really going to be as close as the pundits think or will there be a big separation when the final results are in? Will the youth actually show up for Obama? Can't wait to find out.

Overall, 2007 was a pretty good year for me. I'm hoping 2008 brings some big things. I'm now officially a Senior (ended up with an A- in my Politics class) and look forward to my final semester and a half of college (f**k my last two Spanish classes, argh!). I've also got grand plans for Outpost Doom. It's going to be interesting....

Bored and cold

Caught two excellent flicks on Friday. First, Alyssa and I went to Sweeney Todd. It's a really good movie. I wouldn't say it is great, though. The songs can get a little long and repetitive in places, I would have liked to have seen more of Sweeney's back story explored (such as his prison time and escape, which wasn't shown at all), and I absolutely hated the stupid "sailor" Anthony. Every time he came on screen, I wanted to punch his face in. The guy just looks like a total sissy and his musical numbers make him the most annoying character I've seen on screen in a long time. Sort of sad, because the film was almost perfectly casted with the exception of that whiny man-bitch. Johnny Depp is aces as Todd and is the highlight of the film. If I were writing a review for Deadlantern, I'd probably give it a 7.5/10

I also caught Eastern Promises over some delicious Valentino's pizza. Cronenberg is one of my favorite directors and I just loved this flick. Great cast, story, and direction. My girlfriend commented that she wished the film had been longer, which I suppose is a compliment in and of itself considering that the film isn't what you'd call "action packed". Cronenberg is such an underappreciated director. I can imagine film scholars fifty years from now rediscovering many of his films and bumping him up the ladder of great directors. I read a rumor that his next film is going to involve Freud and Jung and their interaction with a patient of some sort. Sounds weird, but I'll watch it. Somebody coax him back to the horror genre, please!

I'm still waiting on one more grade to come in this semester. I got A's in Aesthetics, Greek Religion, and Gender/Communication and am now waiting impatiently for my World Politics grade. That's the one class I have no clue as to what my final grade will be and it sucks to have to wait this long to find out.

I purchased Splatterhouse and Punch-Out with my Wii Points cards that I got for Christmas. I haven't spent any time in depth with Splatterhouse, but from little I played, it seemed fun. I got past a couple mini bosses but succumbed to a flying killer picture frame. I'm gonna spend my New Year's Eve slaying monsters. As I was playing, the though occurred to me that if some company were to develop a God of War type game but stuck it in a horror-inspired universe, that could be the greatest game ever. If they can do it for mythological monsters, why not classic horror monsters?

I predict that the Patriots are going to lose to the Giants Saturday night. Just got a feeling...

Christmas: Wherein I Brag about all my Christmas Loot

Christmas is finally over. I'm so glad. Between the family bickering, sheer boredom of two days in Grand Island, and general annoyance factor of having to be in the vicinity of people I can't stand, it's amazing I didn't kill my self. One salvation was getting a much needed excuse to leave my grandma's house and hang out with Jeff and Steve. We caught Aliens vs. Predator and recorded a Splattercast which was a lot of fun. So did I score a bunch of great swag to compensate for putting up with family fighting all weekend? Here's a rundown of what I got:

Digital Camera w/ memory card
2 Wii Zappers
2 Wii 2000 point Cards
Wii Classic Controller
Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles
Guitar Hero III
Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games
Live Free or Die Hard
A big ass Griddle
Aunt Jemima syrup and Pancake Mix
Calculator
Electric Blanket
2 Packages of Socks
Countless shirts and sweatshirts I'll never wear
An FSU t-shirt and hoodie
3 much needed new towels
2 Pairs of gloves
2 packages of Lil' Dutch Maid cookies
1 Coca-Cola mug stuffed with cherry candies

Considering that I only asked for the Griddle, I'd say I came out ahead. I've played all the way through Guitar Hero on the easy setting and have come to the conclusion that I hate almost every song on there. In fact, off the top of my head, I can't think of any song that I liked (actually, I just thought of Welcome to the Jungle and Bulls on Parade). The moral of the story is that I have no real desire to play through the game again on the higher difficulty settings. I suppose if any of my friends want to play online, I'd be up for a match, but I just could give a shit about unlocking new guitars or playable characters, y'know? Maybe it's more fun as a party game?

I'm currently reading through Cinema Sewer. It's pretty great if you're into reading old fanzines. The book is a compilation of the best of the first 12 issues. I'd always heard about the magazine, but never had the opportunity to take a look. Wouldn't it be great if Fangoria or GoreZone put out a big compilation book of their old issues? Fangoria has that famous "Order our back issues" page at the end of its issues, but god, early issues are just way too expensive for my taste. If I could pay twenty bucks and get the collected reprinted issues in book form, I would gladly throw down money for that. Comic books already do this with graphic novel collections, why not Fango or GoreZone?

I'm off to get ready for Dead Politics.

Sweeney Obama Cheaters

Sweeney Todd has been getting rave reviews and I'm getting anxious to go see it. I absolutely love the broadway version with Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Lovett. It's great and has hilarious tunes. I'm not a big fan of Tim Burton, but this flick looks really nice. I also like the fact that Hans Gruber has been getting so many big roles lately. Dude has the perfect villian voice. He looks a bit too much like an Trent Reznor as an old man in the Harry Potter movies though...

A kind old woman quizzed Obama on his Islam ties today. Even when he explained, she still felt the need to verify that he was a Christian by making him define what a Christian is. This exchange shows that Clinton's goon squad's tactics are working. Planting the question of Muslim in voters' minds doesn't work as well with younger people, but it DOES work great with older voters who tend to be far more prejudiced towards those sorts of things. In other words: The voting bloc Hillary is depending on. If Obama cracks the older vote, then he's won Iowa.

It's going to take a miracle for Florida State to win its bowl game against Kentucky. 36 players aren't going to be playing, most of those because of an academic cheating scandal. What an utter embarrassment. I mean, it would be one thing if these players were cheating and WINNING, but sucking and cheating together stings all the more. And it's not like this shit doesn't happen all over the country. Alyssa had a class a couple years back where the professor let the football players take the same test after the rest of the class take it (thus knowing every question on it) as a matter of POLICY. Which probably explains why there were dozens of football players in that class. Unfortunately for Florida State, they've had, shall we say, a shady reputation of past problems, so they're always going to be under the microscope. I wouldn't suspend these dipshits. I'd gank their scholarships.

It's over

The semester is finally over! I had to drag my ass out of bed to do my philosophy final at 8 this morning. Is there anything worse than trying to write an essay on the nature of the meaning of "Is" in artistic identification? Bill Clinton has a famous quote saying "It depends on what the meaning of 'is' is" in regards to the Lewinsky affair. The context obscures the fact that there is a difference in how 'is' is used (I used too many is' in that sentence).

There is an "is" of identity. "Cicero is Tully" is an example of this. The names refer to the same person. Tully is Cicero and vice versa. On the other hand, there's an "is" of predication such as "Grass is Green". The 'is' refers not to something that is the same (Green is not the same thing as Grass), but the state of something. I mention this because a famous 20th century art critic named Danto claimed there is a third type of 'is' involved in artistic identification. The theory goes that you must have an intrinsic knowledge of the history that goes into art in order to be able to recognize something as art.

The example Danto uses is an imaginary person named Testadura. Testadura looks at, say, Warhol's Brillo boxes and says "That's not art. Why is a recreation of a Brillo box so great? I could do that". Testadura represents someone who just "doesn't get it". Another example would be a Jackson Pollack painting where the paint is just randomly put all over the canvas. Is that art? Testadura would say no because a chimpanzee could do the same thing. However, Danto argues that there is an artistic identification that Testadura just does not have. He doesn't understand the evolution of art, the history of technique, application, and dynamic. Warhol's Brillo boxes would not have been art 50 years before, yet they are now precisely because the artist can see how things have evolved. In other words, Testadura is just ignorant to the fact that there is something more to art than just what we see with our own eyes. Danto argues that there is more to it than that and only certain people have access to the trait of artistic identification. Anyways, I had to write about that. Now I'm finished. Yay.

Christmas is coming up soon. Alyssa is gone all weekend visiting her grandparents in western Nebraska, so I've got the apartment to myself. I think I'm going to do some cleaning. Every once in a while I get in this mood to just clean everything like I'm possessed. Other than that, I plan on watching some movies. Stupid ass Netflix sent me an e-mail saying that three movies are being shipped from the east and west coast. I mailed these back on wednesday, so instead of having movies to watch this weekend from my local Omaha distributor, the bastards won't get me my movies until next week AFTER Christmas. I hate Netflix!

Gallup is showing Obama tied with Clinton in New Hampshire. I still think Hillary will pull out the nomination because I think most undecided people are ultimately going to go with the person they "know" rather than someone new to the scene, regardless as to whether or not Hillary would be good. That's sad, but probably the truth of it. As I've always said, this experience and exposure in the primaries will only help Obama in a future presidential run if he falls to Hillary. Still, I hope Santa brings a victory :)

The Toll of a Campaign?

Ah yes. The famous Drudge "Unflattering photo". The photo of Hillary has been on the top of Drudge's page all night. No link accompanying it. Just this bad picture with the headline "The Toll of a Campaign". What is the point of this, exactly? Nothing more than to take a pot shot at Hillary Clinton. Openly mocking the way she looks to the millions of visitors to the site who will no doubt see this pic and laugh. Is this news worthy? Nope. In fact, I'm pretty sure that you could find just as many pictures of all the candidates looking tired and worn out right about now.

Is there an agenda behind this picture? Probably. Drudge is part of the anti-Hillary conservative psychosis who seem strangely obsessed with bringing her down. Don't get me wrong, I don't care for Hillary, and by comparison, Obama has been getting nothing but positive stories on the site, but this is just a little tacky, don't you think? Drudge, Rush, Hannity and the club would like nothing more than to see Hillary beaten in the primaries. That would officially end the "Clinton Era" of Democratic politics. Considering the fact that Hillary has recently gotten some momentum back because of the Des Moines Register endorsement, it's not surprising certain interests are trying to make her look stupid again. After all, the conservatives want Obama to win and it looks like they'll do whatever it takes to help him climb that extra mile. If they can take out a Clinton in the process, that will make it all the more sweet. Perhaps they should focus their attention on the wackjob they have leading their own primaries because even Hillary would crush him in the general election.

I Am Legend sucked ass. Terrible CGI monsters. Terrible ending. Terrible just about everything except for the shots of a desolate New York. After the movie got out, my girlfriend and I couldn't stop talking about all the stupid shit that this supposedly "genius" guy did. The religious element brought in out of the blue in the last 20 minutes of the film didn't work at all and I'm still wondering why the hell Will Smith didn't get in the wall opening with the other two. Pull the pin, throw the grenade, jump inside, shut the door. Nobody in his position would do what he did. Stupid.

What also sucked is that they didn't show the trailer for The Dark Knight before our print of I Am Legend. Instead, we got 10,000 B.C. , which I'm predicting is going to fail horribly. It looks like Apocalypto, only with wooly mammoths. By the way, what the hell is up with all the atrocious CGI in movies lately? The Mist suffered from the same poor CG. Here's an idea...it might be sort of radical, but hear me out: use practical, real fx work. I seem to remember it working pretty well The Thing. I know, I know, it's cheaper and easier to chug out some shitty CG monster in a fast amount of time, but you lose so much with unrealistic fx. If you're dead set on CG, then you have to spend the time doing it right, perfecting it so as not to draw attention to its own fakeness. Give me a Tom Savini, a Rick Baker, or a Rob Bottin over ILM any day.

Gender and Communication final today, World Politics on Tuesday, and Philosophy on Friday.

I Am Kickass?

I've been anticipating seeing "I Am Legend" all year long. I love the story, I love the the Vincent Price version "Last Man on Earth", and I love post-apocalyptic stuff.

Checking Rotten Tomatoes, it's currently right below a fresh rating at 59%

The general consensus seems to be "Will Smith is awesome, the CGI is god-awful, and the ending is sappy". As I was walking home from work tonight, I passed by a stream of people who were getting out of a showing and all these guys were like "That movie was fucking sad!". Everybody was chatting about it like it was cool, so I've got high hopes that this is one of those films that kicks ass but the critics are too proud to rate highly, for fear of looking like they enjoy a big budget Hollywood flick. I think I might be going to this with Alyssa tomorrow night after work if it isn't snowing badly.

Speaking of work, I heard a bunch of people around me doing USA Today surveys and asking questions about the presidential elections. I'm not sure if this is just a general nation wide survey, or if Gallup has started individual states yet, but soon I should have a better idea as to where Obama actually stands. One of the latest in state Iowa polls shows Obama with a commanding 9 point lead over Hillary. That seems a little overly optimistic. Still, he's gotten nothing but great press since Oprah and Hillary has looked like a shrill, vindictive bitch the past week or so. If you want to see a campaign in absolute desperation mode, you have to watch Hillary's campaign strategist try and weasel his way out of the negative publicity in this video. Mark Penn wobbles back and forth and actually uses the "Cocaine" word when denying Shaheen's attack (Shaheen himself didn't even say cocaine when talking about Obama's past drug use). Keep your eye on Joe Trippi who looks at Penn in utter disgust.

Mark Penn: sleazeball.

There's some news out that the Halloween 6 producer's cut may finally be coming out on DVD in the future. I hope so. I've always wanted to see it.


Dog Soldiers miraculously showed up in my mailbox this afternoon (along with Hollywood Gothic by David Skal) and I watched it with some Subway and Doritos. I had seen this, gosh, probably 5 years ago, but didn't really remember much of it. I think I was distracted at the time. Anyway, watching it again, I liked it more than I thought I did. I was pleasantly surprised to see Kevin McKidd in the lead role. He's one of my favorite actors going right now (still mad I missed Journeyman this year). There's just something missing in this film for me. It's got so many great elements that I like, but I can't shake the feeling that it doesn't all come together like it should. Some of the editing is bad and the werewolves seemed to be under-utilized to their full potential. Still, I like it, just not enough to give it a glowing review.

B-

Woo hoo! School's almost out!

Oh happy day! Writing papers doesn't bother me...except when they have to be 15-20 pages long. I've got 3 finals next week and then the semester will be over. On sucky thing is that my last final is next friday at 8 in the morning. I'm so close to finishing school I can taste it!

Hillary Clinton apologized to Barack Obama earlier today for her drug story hit job on him. Anybody that follows politics in any meaningful way, even superficially, doesn't believe that she had no idea this was going to happen. I've said before that I used to think the portrayal of her as some great evil were overblown, but I'm really beginning to despise this woman. I think I'm starting to understand why so many conservatives hate this woman. Regardless of whether or not you support Obama's views, I don't think anyone can honestly say the guy is some conniving force of evil. In the unfortunate event that Hillary is elected in the primaries, I'll be writing in Obama as my selection next November. As for that picture....don't they say the Sith always come in pairs?

:)

I was supposed to get Dog Soldiers from Netflix last week. It still hasn't arrived. I've reported it, but that's one less Christmas horror film that I'll get to watch this weekend. I think I might head to Audio Visual this weekend to see if they have the Silent Night, Deadly Night collection on VHS. 5 for $5 is where it's at

There's been a interest in my idea for Super Smash Casters. The idea is that all the different horror podcasts will play Smash Bros. Brawl each week and trash talk the hell out of/promote each other each week. I think this could be great with the proper planning. Looking forward to it.

I was doing some investigation into illegal immigration with my professor and came to an interesting "bigger picture" point. Most people know that European populations are declining due to lower birth rates. The long term effects of this are devastating as the population grows older and there are less working age people. But did you know, the same thing is happening to the population here in the U.S.? Our country is essentially "break even" in terms of birth/death rates. Ironically, the U.S. is not having the same problem as the European countries. Why? Because immigrants both legal and illegal are replacing the affected population. Therefore, in a bigger picture future scenario, the U.S. will hypothetically be less affected by a power reduction precisely because illegal immigration is continually renewing a working class population. Weird, huh?

I have no idea if this is true or not, but just goes to show, the government is everywhere :)

Procrastinating again...

My goal was to have 3 papers done by Sunday. I did 1.

I really need to break this procrastination habit. Argh!

There's an interesting observation stating that none of the Republicans in the field are inherently electable, even though collectively they have the advantage in experience and accolades over the Democratic candidates. It's kind of weird to see a party have nobody they really like.

"Oprahpalooza"? I've watched the rallies both times so far and it's definitely odd to see grown women screaming like little girls at a Hannah Montana concert. I read somewhere that there were 30-40,000 people at the South Carolina rally. Crazy. I also read that Obama's campaign asked the crowd to text message their phone numbers so they could sign up to be volunteers and a Guinness World Record was set when thousands of people called at the same time to their congressman's office to voice their support for Obama. Gotta give his campaign props for creativity.

While at work, I decided to check out the "liberal blogs" like Dailykos and Mydd. I can't believe the venom many of these people have towards Obama. Whether it's the lack of interest or brushing off of coverage by the main bloggers, or the readers who publish "diaries" criticizing him...it's very odd. Then again, all these blogs are huge supporters of John Edwards, which still baffles me. You would think that the blog community would rally around a guy who was against the war in Iraq from the beginning (something Hillary and Johnny Lawyer can't say). The best I can figure is that the "Leftist Blogs" aren't as irate about Iraq so much as they are healthcare. They are so hung up on the fact that Obama does not want a mandate for healthcare that they've just turned on the guy. Well, that might be too harsh a statement. More like they are standing on the sidelines, making snide comments every once in a while and waiting to see the dust clear. I guarantee you that if Obama beats Hillary, all these guys are going to be singing praises.

From what I've seen, if Obama wins, he'll be doing it without the support of the "blogosphere", which is telling in and of itself.

Food for thought: In the event that Obama pulls off the "miracle" and wins the Democratic nomination, who would he choose as his VP? This is a story that I haven't heard anybody talking about. You always hear who Hillary might pick, but not Obama. Here's an idea: Harold Ford, Jr.

A couple reasons I think this would be a good choice. First, Obama has already expressed the desire to put some conservatives in his Cabinet. He's stated that it is important to be surrounded by differing opinions. That's a good thing and I completely agree with his sentiment. Ford offers a unique set of talents that would help Obama's candidacy. Ford is definitely not what you'd call a "Left leaning Liberal". He supported the war in Iraq, has advocated stricter abortion policies, and believes in banning same sex marriage. He would be a good yin to Obama's yang in many ways. He lost his race for Senate in Tennessee a couple years back...by only 50,000 votes. Meaning, with him on the ticket, Obama could very well pick up Tennessee in a general election. Ford also offsets Obama in the area of public speaking and eloquence. Stick Ford in front of a group of people, even when he's been beat, and he just has it in a way that Obama sometimes struggles to articulate. It also doesn't hurt that he has big influence with religious voters in the South. And that he's one of the only Democrats who isn't afraid to be on Fox News (regular on Hannity and Colmes). And that he's chairing the DLC and is probably looking for a promotion...

I'm not saying it's gonna happen, but if Obama wins and you start hearing the name Harold Ford Jr. floating around in VP conversation, you heard it here first :)

Jumping into HD

So I'm buying a 50" HD television in January or February. I've actually never bought a TV before. The only one I've ever owned is a little 13" that my grandma bought me back in 1999. I'm doing this for a couple of reasons:

The first is that the tv we currently use, my girlfriend's 27" standard, is just begging to be replaced. Something happened a couple years ago and suddenly there is a huge green glob in the upper left corner of the frame. It looks like a magnet went across it somehow. The television is well over 10 years old and besides its age, it's just large and clunky. It's served us well, but its living room privileges have been revoked and it is destined to be put in an extra bedroom somewhere.

The second reason I'm doing this is, frankly, HD television is soon to become the standard. I have no problems with standard television and I have no intention of replacing my enormous DVD collection with HD versions of the films unless I find out for some stupid reason that I can't watch a regular DVD on an HD tv (haven't done much research yet, so I don't know all the nit picky rules). I've had big debates with buddies of mine about whether or not HD is just as good as a theatre to see a movie. I still firmly believe that the theatre is the superior viewing experience. That hasn't changed. And no Jeff, you can't change my mind :) Still, in a year or so, all of television is going to be in high-def (that's the government for you, I guess) and whether I like it or not, our normal tube TV isn't going to cut it. I'm sure I could buy some sort of digital box to plug into it or something, but I don't want to bother with all of that. Might as well just buy a new TV.

You might be wondering why I'm getting a 50"? Well, to be honest, if I'm going to splurge on a new TV, I might as well make it as impressive as I can. I've seen the 32" Hi-Def's but god do they seem tiny to me. Maybe it's the widescreen nature that doesn't seem to do it for me. A box shape looks much better in 32" than a rectangle to me. I don't know, there just seems to be something a little off with the smaller HD's. Maybe the bigger ones give the impression of the "real" theatre experience? Regardless, I just don't like the little ones. And since I'm getting three thousand bucks from my job as a "Thanks for being smart!" bonus in January, I might as well get the best I can get. Why buy a small hi-def when I can one that covers an entire wall? :)

I think gaming will be a lot more fun as well. In fact, I know it will. Playing Mario Party on Jeremy's big screen was great fun a couple years back and I'm looking forward to seeing a three foot tall Bowser on Smash Bros. Brawl :) Maybe I'll even check out God of War which Jeff says is great on HD. I can't imagine the coolness of playing it on a 50" TV.

One other thing, by actually having an HD tv and using it on a regular basis, I'll be able to really figure out whether or not home theatre systems are on par with regular movie theatres. Perhaps my position will change once I've had some in depth usage? We shall see in January/February I guess

Crunch time

I've got 7 days to write 4 papers. 3 of which need to be about 8 pages, the other needs to be 15-20. This is going to be the suckiest week I've had in a long, long time. On the brightside, I think I aced two more exams this afternoon and had a fun time reading to my Gender and Communication class the sex tips offered by Seventeen magazine, which included telling a girl what an orgasm was. In case you're wondering, Seventeen magazine claimed an orgasm was "Like a sneeze, only it feels great!"

A couple polls that came out have shocked some people. In one, Obama is essentially tied with Clinton in South Carolina, and the other shows him within 6 points of Hillary in New Hampshire. People are wondering why he isn't attacking the crap out of Hillary, but his message seems to be catching fire. Is it too little, too late? We'll see, but it's ads like this that bring people to his cause, I think. It's kind of weird to see a non-attack ad in a race this close.



Kudos to the person who put this together. They hit up that swelling orchestral score for max "goosebump" points. It reminds me of his big speech at the DNC a few years back that put him "on the map". I've already heard accusations of "cheese!" in regards to the ad, but at least it's positive while still taking a high road swipe at Hillary in the process, which is always a good thing :)

Find out what all the hype is about at BarackObama.com

Braving the cold for a Nintendo Wii

Batman Begins was fantastic. Arguably, the best part of it was the last scene where Commissioner Gordon gives Batman the joker card, thus tantalizing us for the inevitable kickass sequel. Heath Ledger was cast as Joker, much to the chagrin of many people? Clear pics are finally coming out and I've gotta say, Ledger looks pretty great as the Joker. There's a real sense of menace or something here. Not like Nicholson, who played it as over-the-top as only Nicholson can do. But the problem with Nicholson was that he never seemed psycho enough. I suppose that fits with Burton's world, but now that Nolan is doing a more "realistic" Batman world, I have a feeling that the Joker is going to be one scary mofo. Good to see he's still rockin' the purple, as well.

Tomorrow morning, I'm heading off with my mom to stand in front of Toys R' Us at 6 a.m. in hopes of getting a Wii. I decided to tag along for moral support. She's picking one up for my step-sister and her husband, and I figured I'd be a good son and hang with her. Then I figured "Geez, I should just buy one myself and sell it on eBay". So that's what I'm going to do if I can get my hands on one. Supposedly, Toys R' Us is getting 21 Wii's in tomorrow morning and if I can, I might as well pick one up for my misery standing in the cold and sell it for a nice profit. Yay capitalism! :)

Frank Rich has an interesting Op-Ed piece in the New York Times about how Obama could be the Republicans' worst nightmare if he gets the Dem nomination. My pal Jeff seems to have this same view as he was trying to convince me that Obama would fare much better in the general election than Hillary. I'm still not completely sold on that line of thinking. It's one thing to have all these nice predictions a year ahead of time, but for the vast majority of Americans, they still have no idea who Barack Obama is. Most Americans wake up and start paying attention to the election when there are only two choices left, Democatic and Repbulican, and then it's a whole new ball game.

Nevertheless, all these glowing Op-Ed pieces are popping up because Hillary is dropping in the polls. The latest Crapmussen is showing her lead in the single digits in New Hampshire. These daily polls are fun to digest on a superficial level, but wake me when Gallup starts polling in these states. I'm still ecstatically restrained, but could the snowball be getting bigger and could it be rolling faster?

Next week is going to be insane. I've got to write 3 long papers and 1 extremely long paper (15-20 pages). Then I've got to finish the Outpost Doom script. I've got a lot of damn writing to do in the next couple weeks.

An Ego Boost from various professors....

Now isn't this promo poster for the new Terminator series kinda ridiculous? Maybe a closeup of giant breasts with the faintest hint of erect nipple is an eye-grabber, but Sarah Conner doesn't strike me as a character that screams feminine sexiness, you know? Maybe in the first Terminator you could make a case, but the progression of her character in T2 kinda destroys that entire view. And by the time she becomes the mother of the "leader of the resistance", she's pretty weathered and beaten down. Then again, maybe this is a closeup of the new Terminator, who I hear is a female. In that event, props to Skynet for mimicking the female form :)

I'm looking forward to seeing this. I'm hoping the show is great and if it is, maybe it will lead into more movie franchises adopted for the small screen. I'd love to see a Predator show, wouldn't you?

I don't know what it is, but apparently I'm some highly talented writer. During my college career, I've had three different professors either tell me bluntly that I should be doing more writing or have told me as much in lengthy comments at the end of papers. One of my film professors even suggested that a paper I did on the horror genre could be published if I beefed it up. I've always sort of just disregarded their opinions, thinking it was mainly because I had a good relationship with them that they were writing these kind words. I'm revisiting that, now. I got back 2 papers today. The first was my Gender and Communication essay and as I flipped through the pages, I noticed that there were no comments anywhere. This had me worried, as the whole point of a communication professor is to give detailed feedback on EVERYTHING (i.e. communicate!). I figured I had some horrible grade. Then I get to the last page and see this comment: "Your writing style is absolutely engrossing. As I read your paper, I was so engaged that I didn't even think about corrections or comments. That's a good thing! You should develop this skill".

Interesting. I wrote the paper so well that she completely forgot to grade it like she normally would :) I'd be lying if I said I wasn't pleased. It was nice to get feedback from a non English professor about the very thing I've been praised for (though I'm not quite sure why). Then I got my Philosophy paper back which applied Aristotle's theory of tragedy to Sam Raimi's "A Simple Plan". Once again, I aced the paper and the paraphrased comments went something like: "Fantastic writing style" and he went on to imply that it's "scholarly" without reading like a "scholarly" essay.

When I was a kid, I won a bunch of school awards for creative writing. I like to write, but for whatever reason, I just never felt I was very good at it. I like coming up with stories and ideas but dialogue has always escaped me. Anyway, this new positive feedback has made me revisit this writing thing. Maybe I should actually sit down and write a book or something? I really enjoy doing the "Disease of Death", so I'm already on that path and I wrote 2 chapters for the "novel" version of The Grand Horror last year, only to set it aside and never come back to it (busy with other stuff).

How hard can it be to be a writer anyways? If Carlin can do it, I certainly can :P

It would be pretty swell to sell a movie script or two, or even a book for that matter. Talk about the ultimate stay at home job :) Nothing will probably ever come of this newfound interest, but it doesn't hurt to try I guess. Who knows, maybe my calling isn't in making movies, but in writing them.

"So you're saying there's a chance....."

Obama supporters are all aflutter. First it was the news that a recent poll showed him winning in Iowa. Now it's a New Hampshire poll showing Hillary dropping by 7% (though she still holds a big lead).

Working in the polling business, I know that one can't get overly excited by these numbers. One-shot polls are great for the weekly news cycle, but you need to string together sustained weeks to create a trend one can feel confident about.

Still, this is great news for Obama supporters. If nothing else, it will galvanize them to feel that their support is actually having some effect. The more positive exposure these polls bring Obama, the more voters will take a closer look. There's quite a big difference between Hillary and Barack. If Hillary become the nominee, I might just take the next election off. I used to think she wasn't the evil incarnate that Republicans made her out to be. I still don't believe that, but I don't trust that woman at all. My gut tells me that if Hillary is elected, nothing is going to change. For better or worse, at least with Obama, I get the feeling that this is a pretty good guy who really wants to change how things operate. He's a fresh, positive alternative to Hillary. For example, Hillary wants to mandate health care to all Americans, forcing everyone to buy it, whereas Obama wants to require it for children, but not mandate it for adults. The idea is that if you get employers to pay more, then more people will be willing to voluntarily get health care if it's cheaper. That's a sensible solution, in my opinion.

Obama can exploit the health care debate to his advantage. I think most people don't really understand the difference between their plans. Obama needs to take a page out of the Republican Handbook and hammer home the fact that Hillary wants to FORCIBLY REQUIRE YOU TO BUY HEALTH INSURANCE (Edwards wants to do the same, populist poseur that he is). I'm probably at odds with most liberals on this issue. I believe in "Universal Healthcare" if the definition is you have the OPTION to buy into it. It should be a public good, but nobody should be forced to HAVE to have it. It's a complicated issue, but one I think Obama can really stick Hillary with.

You know what the really sad thing about all of this is? Why the hell are there so many John Edwards supporters? I mean, he's basically taking the same "I'm not the establishment guy" shtick that Obama is, but he's so obviously a weasel. Edwards is getting 22% in Iowa. Imagine if his supporters woke up and joined Obama.

Hillary would be pissing her pantsuit with Fear! :)

Still, I'm ecstatically restrained at the moment. When Gallup starts doing surveys in Iowa and New Hampshire later this year, and the results are similar, then I'll start doing the cartwheels. Until then, Obama needs to take this new exposure and use it to slam Hillary into the ground.

Interesting paragraph from the NYT article: His aides also circulated an article in which Mrs. Clinton was quoted as saying that she had not yet proposed any punitive measures for people who do not get health insurance. An aide to her said that a Clinton White House would work with Congress to create an enforcement mechanism.

Enforcement mechanism? WTF is that all about?

Back from the Technological Dead

I've finally got home internet access again. Yay.

Some quick thoughts:

Congress is at record disapproval levels, but America still likes the Democrats.

Florida State secured a winning record for the season this afternoon. Bobby Bowden is kickin' it with a bunch of cheerleaders in this very strange picture...

My grandparents' 50th Wedding Anniversary was today and it was boring as all hell.
More stuff to come...

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 :)

Gillian Anderson's inch long erect nipples

Some site called Citizens for Ethics just revealed a listing of the most corrupt members of congress. Sort of interesting if you're into that sort of thing

I didn't see Dragon Wars this evening, instead choosing to watch Closure, the Gillian Anderson revenge flick. God this movie sucks. And Gillian Anderson has very unattractive nipples. My girlfriend said it looked like she had udders. It reminded me of seeing Naomi Watts' crazy long nipples in 21 Grams.

I picked up the 2-disc Death Proof dvd today. It comes with a $5 off coupon for Planet Terror. I suppose I could ask for it as a stocking stuffer (I wouldn't pay for it myself) and give the coupon to my mom so she can save some money.

Now, off to eat some Green Apple Jello

Um...

Hillary Clinton is requiring everyone to have health insurance. This is a terrible idea. Terrible.







Terrible.

USC, FSU, and You

USC just crushed Nebraska tonight. The final score isn't indicative of just how badly they were beaten. Nebraska got a couple touchdowns late in the game after USC put their 8th stringers in the game. The Trojans didn't even bother to throw the ball around, amassing an insane amount of running yards. It actually seemed like they were gaining 30 yards every time they ran the ball. My little sister could have gained 100 yards on Nebraska's defense tonight. Nebraska is blessed by having a weak ass schedule every year because they play in the Big 12 North division. If this team were in any other conference, they wouldn't win 4 games.

Speaking of not winning games, Florida State somehow managed to beat Colorado in another terrible offensive performance, 16-6. Please, somebody tell Drew Weatherford to transfer and can the coaches please make a gameplan around 6'6" Greg Carr? When you have a wide receiver who should be playing basketball, it might be wise to throw him the ball. Especially considering he catches it every time they throw deep. He's got a good vertical, y'know?

Alyssa and I have been making our way through the first season of Six Feet Under. It's a pretty good show. Looking forward to seeing the next few seasons. Speaking of shows, the second season of Dexter starts in 2 weeks. This is a really fine program and something most horror fans will probably love. The only thing that sucks about it is Dexter's annoying ass sister. The actress who plays her sucks and delivers some rotten dialogue on a constant basis. Other than that, the show is marvelous. Check it out.

Game 2 of the Dead Lantern Fantasy Football League starts tomorrow. I'm benching Larry Johnson for Maurice Jones-Drew. Let's hope I actually get some running back and wide receiver production this week.

Off to sleep.

Random musings...

I just saw a poll that shows Al Franken within 5 percentage points of Norm Coleman. Franken is running for Coleman's Minnesota Senate seat next year. Can you imagine Al Franken in the Senate? I mean, seriously? One thing is for sure, he would make C-Span much more interesting. In a way, I'm really hoping he pulls it off and wins just to watch the loon show that will no doubt be the United States Senate (as if it weren't already). I also just read some info stating that the reason Hillary has such a lead on Obama in all the polls is because Democrats simply think she has the best shot to beat whoever the Republican nominee is. The sad thing? That's true. She's the only one of the frontrunner's that has any semblance of what the electorate defines as "experience" and she has that last name that garners an automatic 45% of the voters.

So this is what all the waiting has been for? This essentially means "I'm stopping the surge." So, in reality, what has happened is that Bush threw in a bunch more troops to "stabilize" an area that hates us only to take those extra troops out next year because Petraus recommended it? Huh? This reeks of politics to me. Sorta like, "the elections are coming up next year, let's bring some troops home so it will look like we are capitulating to the electorate's wishes". The funny thing about this is that if Democrats say we should start bringing troops home, Republicans say we'll destabilize the area and allow terrorists to "win". Yet if a general says the same thing, and a Republican president brings troops home, it's suddenly "things are better in Iraq!". The hypocrisy is maddening :)

Californication is not getting any better. Disappointing since I thought the first episode showed a lot of promise. The biggest fault of the show is that the dialogue is just downright bad. It amounts to David Duchovny saying fuck a lot or "hip" sarcastic jokes like "You want to suck my cock?" and referring to the "Brown Eye" when discussing a woman who tried to put her finger in her husband's asshole. Seriously. The scripts are trying desperately to be edgy but are coming off as forced and contrived. Even the plotlines are stupid. For instance, Duchovny's agent is cheating on his wife with a Suicide Girl who likes to be degraded and dominated. The agent character isn't anybody you even care about or want to be watching, yet the show deems it necessary to throw in Suicide Girl plugs and a separate storyline for it. It's stupid. Even the main hook of the show (Duchovny accidentally sleeping with the 16 year old daughter of his ex-wife's fiancee) is going nowhere. I'd give the show so far a C- rating and I wouldn't be surprised if that grade goes lower in the coming weeks.

I just read a review of the latest Argento flick, and predictably, it isn't good. Personally, I've never been a fan of Argento and don't really understand the fanaticism he is shown by some horror fans. Still, I don't think he's some hack or anything. I thought Pelts, his latest Masters of Horror episode was pretty good.

I'm seeing 3:10 to Yuma tomorrow. I'm looking forward to that. It's been a while since I've seen a good western. Ironically, it's a remake that is getting great reviews, although remake haters won't mention that fact :)

I was trying to come up with a good way to describe the difference between liking a movie and the movie being "good". This seems to be a concept that most people I've come across just can't understand. They just can't seem to separate the idea that though they really enjoy a movie, that that same movie can be utter garbage. In other words, there's a difference between liking a movie and recognizing it as a quality piece of cinema. I've got this analogy of Gold and Pyrite (Fool's Gold) that I'm working out in my head. I'll post it in an upcoming blog. Until then, time to rearrange some stuff in my living room

Colds

Ugh. I've got a cold. It's not one of those "I don't want to get off the couch because I'm miserable" kinds, but rather one that's just annoying, as in you've gotta constantly have a couple boxes of kleenex within reach and your head aches yet not enough to be an excuse to skip work or school. I'm in a weird middle state of sickness right now.

The Evil Empire known as Time Warner Cable is giving me a bunch of free channels and I happened upon the Florida State/UAB game this weekend. FSU looks bad. Really bad. Late in the 2nd quarter, UAB was ahead 17-3...at Doak Campbell stadium. They were losing at halftime and needed a late run to put the game away. This saturday, Florida State plays Colorado in Boulder.

I was wandering around Best Buy today and noticed they have a pre-order for Guitar Hero III, which will be coming to the Wii. I've never really played Guitar Hero. I've picked it up a couple times at Best Buy and tried going through a song only to put the guitar controller down immediately because I found it near impossible to play. I hear it's great fun if you get into it, though. Maybe when it comes to the Wii I'll give it a shot.

I coerced my girlfriend into watching Robocop with me this evening, fully expecting her to hate it. Much to my surprise, she thought it was good. There's hope for her yet :)

The Deadlantern myspace page has 35 subscribers to the blog already. Crazy.

And just like that....

...we're out of the top 25. Watching the FSU-Clemson game was excruciating. I didn't think Florida St. would win (brand new offense and coaches, opening with an ACC game on the road at the loudest stadium in the country, same shitty quarterback as last year) but I didn't expect them to look that bad either. Particularly the offense. I mean, there's no way they could suck worse than last year with Jeff Bowden right? Wrong. They had 1 first down the entire first half and had like 50 yards of total offense. This is going to be a long ass season....


I've sort of made it my mission to review every single horror film from the 1930's for Deadlantern. If my investigations are correct, there were 42 horror movies released in the 30's that have been available on vhs or DVD at one time or another. I have most of them on DVD, but I plan on trying (if possible) to track down the others. Most horror sites never focus on these early films, mostly because audiences today just don't have the patience to watch them. That's sad. I suppose if my reviews get one or two people to watch these movies when they otherwise wouldn't, then that is a success. Look for some Mummy reviews coming soon...

The Dead Lantern Football League starts tomorrow when Indy takes on New Orleans. I'm playing against Carlin's team this weekend, so I'll be keeping a close eye on how Marvin Harrison and Marques Colston do. I don't have any players on either the Colts or the Saints, but if Harrison and Colston put up a ton of TD's, I'm going to have some serious ground to make up come Sunday. Jeremy just dropped Jeff Garcia for the Denver defense. Sucks for me since my top WR, Lee Evans, is going against them this weekend. We'll see what happens. Expect trash talk and an update on Monday's Splattercast.

Go Noles!

College football season started this past weekend, but for me, it starts tonight. Florida St. vs. Clemson on national tv, labor day. I'm a huge Seminoles fan and long gone are the glory days of the 90's when we were winning 12 games a year, beating Nebraska, and winning national championships. I wouldn't be surprised if Duke kicked our ass this year. Anyways, since FSU has sucked the hard one the past few years, I rarely get a chance to watch their games. However, tonight I'll get to see just how much we've "improved" with Jimbo Fisher and all the other new coaches at the helm. For the record, I think FSU will struggle to have a winning record this year. The schedule is brutal and unless Drew Weatherford magically becomes the second coming of Chris Weinke, I don't see us winning more than 5 games. Still, I can't wait to watch it!

Also tomorrow night, one of my all-time favorite movies ever is on TCM, La Jetee. It's 28 minutes of pure awesomeness and brilliance. Terry Gilliam later remade it as the hack job 12 Monkeys. Everybody that reads this blog is here in Nebraska, so I'd recommend you guys check it out tonight. It's on at 7 p.m. on Turner Classic Movies.

Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween was utterly abysmal. I can't even fathom how somebody can defend it on the basis of quality. It's just unbelievably bad. Even I didn't think Zombie could make something that poor. On the brightside, it's now blatantly obvious who intelligible movie critics are. This is one of those movies that is so bad that anyone giving it a positive rating must not know jack shit about what a good movie is. It's become easy to see the critics in the pocket of the studios and any self-respecting horror fan that thinks this film is good is delusional an not to be trusted.

My classes

The Senator Craig situation is a big deal because 1. A U.S. Senator pled guilty to a crime and didn't tell anybody about it 2. Said Senator is now blaming a newspaper for his guilty plee and claiming he didn't do it 3. He's a freaking Senator. Those guys are pretty important. Paris Hilton doesn't make policy decisions that affect this country.

anyways...

Here's my initial thoughts on my four classes this semester

Ancient Greek Religion: For some reason, I thought this was Roman religion. Turns out I was wrong. Class looks easy enough. I've come to the conclusion that the goal of all Classics classes is to make you memorize the Iliad and Odyssey. I'll be reading both for what seems like the 28th time in my college career.

Gender Communication: A very interesting class. First off, our professor has started a blog that everyone in the class must participate in. Part of the class curriculum is to post anything and everything you want on that blog anonymously, if you so desire. I just cut and paste my previous blog into it to be the first non-professor blog entry but I plan on doing some strange stuff and riling up controversy if at all possible. See, the professor has told us we can have multiple personalities and sign up for multiple accounts if we want. It's all anonymous (a very convoluted process I don't want to explain) and the idea is to "see what happens". Apparently this is a way that everyone can express what they really think of other people in the class without feeling threatened. It's a very strange idea, that the entire class must blog about each other, and it seems very dangerous when you get right down to it. Maybe part of the idea is to see if the blog degrades into namecalling and nastiness? We'll see soon enough, I suppose. The other cool aspect of the class is that the final project is completely creative, so instead of writing a paper, I can do a video. Depending on how much time I've got, I may go that route. I was thinking about going around and interviewing all of the homeless people downtown and getting their perspective on things. Who knows, maybe I can be Lincoln's version of Michael Moore :)

Aesthetics: There's a reason why UNL Film Studies majors are always pissed off. The classes offered for our major are completely screwed up. I won't get into it, but basically over half of all the classes we can take are either not available or are in the broadcasting and art departments, of which you either have to have a bunch of pre-requisites to get in or are shit out of luck because the broadcasting and art majors get first dibs. Seriously, it is almost impossible to get the classes you need.

There is only one Philosophy class offered for Film majors: Aesthetics. It's a 300 level course. I was lucky to get into it and the class itself looks fun. Essentially, we'll be reading a bunch of philosophers and their theories of art and how art works. We get to go to a bunch of plays, concerts, and art galleries. Cool. What isn't cool is that the professor comes in and says "This is a 300 level class and I'm sure some of you haven't taken any philosophy classes before". The actual description says you need a 100 and 200 level philosophy class as a pre-requisite. He then asked for a show of hands of who hadn't taken a philosophy class before. Out of the 30 or so people in the class, at least 25 (including myself) raised their hands. They guy was completely taken aback. He then looked at the student roll and noticed that almost everyone in the class was a Film Studies major. Like I said, UNL is retarded.

Anyways, the class sounds fun, but there are 3 papers to write and 7 essay exams. Good lord. I'm supposed to be reading Tolstoy right now, but instead I'm writing this blog. I have a feeling I'm not going to be able to skate through this class...

Understanding World Politics: Now this class is going to be right up my alley! First off, the professor is bat-shit crazy. Secondly, the entire class is about future events. The major project is creating a scenario paper about how we see things going in the future regarding world politics. Now I can finally write down my entire China/Russia/United States scenario I've been claiming is going to happen for years. This class will be fun, I think.

All in all, I like all of my classes. The Philosophy class still kinda frightens me, but at least I'll be having fun (we get to write a paper on any piece of art we want and apply a theory to it...I'm already waiting for the right theory to apply to Big Trouble in Little China). The other classes should be relatively easy.

Another thing I've noticed is that lately, professors have been in open revolt against textbook manufacturers. This semester, two classes have eschewed with required books altogether (the professors just giving info in lecture) and the professor for my politics class has built his entire semester on free articles from UNL's website, thus no books whatsoever. I noticed this change a year ago, as more and more professors I had started saying "Screw you" to the book companies (one professor who had no choice but to get us a $75 book gave us the e-mail address of the company so we could complain). I have no reference so I'm not sure if this is a widespread thing or just localized to UNL, but it seems to me that professors are collectively trying to force the hand of book companies to either drop the prices or risk them not using them at all, especially with the easy access of articles online that can be had for free. It's interesting....

I purchased the latest Metroid game tonight. There is absolutely no way I'm going to be able to play it anytime soon, but I'd rather pick it up cheap at Deep Discount then spend fifty bucks at Wal-Mart or Best Buy. Same goes with the Robocop disc that just came out. Twenty bucks at Best Buy, only sixteen at DD. I'm sure there are cheaper places online if I looked hard, but I don't really understand why people buy stuff at Wal-Mart and Best Buy. I mean, if DD were a store here in town instead of an online retailer, you would definitely buy your stuff there rather than go to Wal-Mart.

The Deadlantern fantasy football draft went well. It took longer than I thought it would, but it was still fun. Now I just have to make decisions, which sucks :)

I love Fox News

When a United States Senator is busted for not only trying to solicit sex in a bathroom, but for also covering up the fact that he pled guilty to the crime, that's big news. It doesn't really have anything to do with the fact that he is Republican who preaches anti-gay rhetoric. That's beside the point. It could have been Joe Biden caught banging some Catholic schoolgirl. Point is, it's major news.

I like flipping through the major news channels during the day. CNN, MSNBC, and FOX all have very different ways of portraying the news. Case in point:

Today, I was watching the press conference with the Senator Craig. MSNBC and CNN were covering it live and then had commentary afterwards. Cuz, y'know, it's a big story. I flip over to FOX, just to see how they are covering it, and I swear to god, this is what I saw (I even wrote it down because I was so dumbfounded):

"Is Katie Couric Really America's Sweetheart?": they then interviewed some author of a book claiming that Couric "slept her way to the top"

"Healing Owen": In which the FOX host speculated that Owen Wilson was strung out on drugs and interviewed some psychologist dude about how a guy who "has everything in the world: fame, women, tons of money" could possibly be depressed.

"Fight in a courtroom!": in which FOX showed a mother screaming and having to be held back at the trial of a guy who murdered her son. There wasn't even a "fight". It was a bunch of people holding her back.

Remember, these were the stories FOX was running while the Senator news was breaking.

Are you kidding me? People who get their news from this station are brain dead. Seriously. You can claim CNN is liberal, but at least when a major news story breaks, they don't run stories mocking Owen Wilson's suicide attempt. It isn't surprising though. FOX hates Hollywood and CBS and enjoys pumping their sheep with stupid "news" like "Fight in a courtroom!"

I mean, c'mon...

Another boring semester

The fall semester is upon me and I've set up all my classes to be back-to-back on Tuesday and Thursday, giving me 5 days off a week. Classes:

Ancient Roman Religion
World Politics
Gender and Communication
Aesthetics

I'm kind of worried about my philosophy class. I've only ever heard horror stories about college philosophy courses so hopefully I won't have to explain the nuances of the Socratic Dialogue in some New Age way.

I posted a review of Entrails of a Virgin over at Deadlantern. I'm having a great time sticking screencaps in the reviews. I think it adds a much needed visual element and makes the reviews more interesting to read. Of course, I could be wrong about that. Hopefully everyone else is getting a kick out of them. There were some better screencaps for Entrails, but I'm not sure how much we can "get away with" so I decided against showing some of the more racier stuff. Still, I think the theme of the film comes across just fine :)

I am really tossing around the idea of trying to get a Public Access show started. I think it would be a fantastic way to get our name out there locally and could be a lot of fun to do. Imagine Deejay as some mad scientist in front of a green screen introducing old horror films. It would be great, and probably pretty simple to do. Once again, lots of ideas floating around that will probably never come to fruition.

Now, off to watch Employees' Entrance while my laundry is going...

Rarely Recognized Advances

Caught the season finale of Big Love tonight. Overall, it was a good season. Not as good as the first, but still really good. The finale was filled a lot of character decisions that push the boundaries of "suspension of disbelief" and was fairly lackluster all things considered. Part of the problem with the finale is that it doesn't leave you craving for season 3. In the end, the status quo is maintained. Bill is still fighting Alby, they still have Weber Gaming, and Ben is still going the polygamist route. Disappointing. Here's hoping the show doesn't take a precipitous dive in quality next season.

Hollywood scored a record $4 billion dollar summer. Not surprising considering the insane amount of tent pole franchises that were released this year. Holy crap were there a lot of big name movies! More than I can remember during any other year in recent memory. Here's a prediction: Next year will be seen as a major disappointment. There isn't a whole lot of huge films coming out next year. Indiana Jones 4 will be big, but I don't see it making anymore money than what Spidey 3 did this year. 10,000 B.C. is going to be a major flop, I think, as well as Speed Racer (does that film even sound appealing to anyone?). Iron Man will do some bank, but will probably end up with a high first weekend and then drop off considerably, tailing off around 200 million. The Dark Knight is my "sleeper" pick to be the box office champ next summer. I think most people will be thinking Indy 4, but I think Batman Begins is fresher in peoples' minds and I think the whole Joker aspect will drive people to the theatres in droves. But really, there isn't a whole lot of big stuff coming out next year, which is going to lead to the inevitable drop off in box office receipts and you'll no doubt be reading many articles about how the sky is falling and Hollywood executives are pissing their pants trying to make the audiences come back. Yawn. Hey Wolgamott, didn't I tell you?

One film that is getting zero buzz and that I'm most curious about is the apparent remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. It's supposedly going to be released next May, and yet I have seen next to zero info about it. No trailers, no news, no anything. It's the most mysterious thing about next year's movie lineup, even moreso than "Cloverfield". At least that film has some damn teaser trailers and enough news to keep people guessing! Still, I'm eagerly hoping to hear something about this film. Maybe they are planning on revealing some badass trailer upon an unsuspecting public with the release of I am Legend?

I hate technology. Mostly because it always fails when I'm around it. But there are some advances that I greatly appreciate. Take the vending machine where I work, for example. In the "old days", popping in a couple quarters and pressing the buttons for your desired candy was a scary thing. Maybe one out of every 10 times, you'd get a machine where the the steel spiral thingymabobs that held the candy would be off by a little bit. It would spin, you'd watch your Reese's Pieces come forward, only for it to become "stuck" because the spiral moved its set length and your candy didn't happen to be in the correct position. Usually, you'd start cussing and try shaking the machine. Always a bad idea if the Darwin Awards are to be believed. Anyhow, we have a new vending machine where I work and the same damn thing happened to me. The spiral spun. The candy was stopped right before it could drop. I cussed. Then a strange thing happened. The machine paused for a few seconds and then spun again until the candy fell. Turns out, the machine has a sensor at the bottom that reacts to the candy hitting it. So, if it doesn't sense anything, it auto continues to turn until the candy falls. You're guaranteed not to lose any money because the machine won't stop until it gives you your item. Why the hell didn't they of this for the last 40 years?


My mom surprised me today with a copy of the final issue of Weekly World News. This magazine was an integral part of my childhood (and probably explains quite a bit now that I think of it). I moved a lot as a kid and every time I made sure I knew where the closest gas station was so I could head over each week and pick up the latest issue. I was with Bat-Boy from the beginning and I was there with Ed Anger bitching and moaning about America. I wanted to write for this magazine and would come up with ridiculous storylines so I could feel as "cool" as the writers at WWN. Ah to be a kid again! I haven't bought an issue in years, but I would still make a point to check out the cover every time I went to the grocery store and if it was particularly good, I'd pick up an issue and thumb through it while waiting to check out. I'm sad that I'll never be able to read about Satan appearing in a U.F.O over New York ever again and even sadder that there will be one less time I smile while at the grocery store. Apparently, they are continuing the website but that's just not the same, you know? Weekly World News, you will be missed!

20 more favorite films in no particular order:

61) House on Haunted Hill
62) Rosemary's Baby
63) Night of the Living Dead
64) Ace Venture, Pet Detective
65) The Shawshank Redemption
66) The Truman Show
67) Raiders of the Lost Ark
68) The Neverending Story
69) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
70) Freaks
71) The Clash of the Titans
72) Karate Kid II
73) Matinee
74) The Burbs
75) King Kong (1933)
76) The Ten Commandments (1956)
77) Contempt
78) Safe in Hell
79) The Mouthpiece
80) Night Nurse