Here is a word of advice for anyone who is willing to listen. It's a simple thing, but it could very well save your life ... and your immortal soul. If you're ever meeting with an advisor from your college and you're asked if you would like to take a macroeconomics course, kill the advisor and flee. You'll have to remove the head or destroy the brain, but this is the only way to make sure they don't come back. Also, you'll probably want to burn the corpse just to make doubly sure. Only, make sure the smoke is contained so that it doesn't escape into the atmosphere. Otherwise rain clouds could be contaminated and then we would all have a plague on our hands.
When I signed up for this godforsaken class, I though it sounded interesting. "A study of how society's needs are satisfied with the limited resources available." That sounds like it could be interesting, right? Well, it's not. It sucks ass. If only I could go back in time to kick myself in the balls as a warning.
I'm sorry if you're an economist or if you're in to that whole thing, but come on. Do you really have to make a graph for everything?!? Some things can just be said. You don't have to graph every single damned thing.
And some of the shit that's in my textbook is just plain stupid. Here's an excerpt from the book: "a $10 bill will do when the price of an item is $10, but a $10 bill plus a $1 bill is needed when the item costs $11." I'd like to point out that this textbook costs, as of the writing of this blog entry, 109.85 U.S. dollars. And anyone who pays this amount in exchange for the book is paying for that excerpt. I would like my money back. Or at least the portion of what I paid that went toward stupid crap like that.
Luckily I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Not much longer until this semester is over now. And then I can put this whole terrible nightmare behind me.
The drought was ended in a spectacular fashion yesterday when the heavens opened up and pissed all over us in biblical proportions. OK, maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but it did rain pretty freakin' hard.
So hard in fact that it pwned my basement. I had to miss work today so that Debbie and I could run to get a wet/dry vac to clean up the mess.
But first I had to remove the obstruction from the gutter that I think may have been the root of the issue. So I ventured out around 8:00 this morning in the cold, pouring rain to climb up to my roof on a slippery ladder on muddy ground. That was fun. The headline was running through my mind: "MAN FALLS ON HEAD, DIES WHILE BEING DUMBASS."
Nothing of any significant value was lost, luckily. We did have to throw away some stuff, but all that crap probably should have been thrown away a long time ago anyway. The box containing Debbie's Barbie doll collection was a little wet, but I don't think any of the actual packages were affected.
On the plus side, while shopping for a wet/dry vac, Debbie purchased her very own Nintendo DS, of the crimson/black variety. It's pretty cool looking. And now I fully expect her to keep her grubby hands off mine. Final Fantasy VI isn't going to finish itself and how was I supposed to do it when she was using my DS to play New SMB?
Besides having fun playing the multiplayer modes of New SMB and Phandom Hourglass, I've been delighting in sending her obscene drawings via the DS's PictoChat function. I'm sure there's a better use for PictoChat, but damned if I can think of it.
So anyway, today kind of sucked. But I did get a day off work. And that's always a good thing. Although if I had fallen off of that ladder and killed my damn self, that wouldn't have been so cool. Unless I DID fall off the ladder and die and now my spirit is continuing its routines as if nothing had happened. Oh wait, no, that would be cool too.
I picked up The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass a few days ago and I'm really glad I did. This is a great game. And it does a phenomenal job of utilizing the touch screen of the DS. Many of the tried and true Zelda conventions are given new life with the advent of the touch screen and the stylus. You don't just throw the boomerang in the direction of your choosing, you can actually plot out its course by drawing a line on the screen.
Even the sea travel system is reborn in Phantom Hourglass. While that aspect was, in the opinion of many, a detriment to Wind Waker, in Phantom Hourglass, it's actually fun. Again, you can plot your course using the stylus. And, instead of directly steering the ship as in Wind Waker, once your course is set, the ship essentially steers itself while Link is free to man the cannon.
All of these new ideas work together to create a unique Zelda experience. Even though this is primarily a top-down adventure with gameplay similar to A Link to the Past or any of the other Zelda titles for the handheld systems, everything seems new. The level designers were able to use the new functionality of the boomerang and other tools to create fresh puzzles.
This one seems to be more of an adult game than previous Zelda titles. I don't mean to say Link is dropping F-bombs or giving his patronage to hookers ("yo honey, I'll show you a real good time for twenty rupees!"), but some of the puzzles require a depth of thinking that is, frankly, unusual for a Zelda game. And many of the puzzle hints are vague at best.
Playing Phantom Hourglass has reawakened my taste for the older, classic console games. Luckily for me, many of the old games that I cut my gamer teeth on are now available for the GBA. And, it just so happens, the GBA games are compatible with the DS. So now my handheld game library is stocked with games like A Link to the Past, Final Fantasy IV, and Final Fantasy VI. Once I finish Phantom Hourglass I'm going to start those journeys again. Rockin' it old-school. Hells yeah.
Today was my 29th birthday. Which means that, in just one short year's time, I will have been breathing oxygen for 30 damn years. That's a long freaking time. Especially since, in high school, I was voted Most Likely to Die From Asphyxiating on Vomit Before the Age of 25*.
Anyway, it was a pretty normal day. Went to work. The kids made me birthday cards, which is always cool. Every year I get new homemade cards from Emily and Xander which serve as a benchmark for their progress as little people. Every year I can see their skills and creativity growing and it feels good. It's funny that my birthdays have become less about me and more about my family, but I guess that's the way it's supposed to be.
I ate O'Charley's for dinner tonight, which was a rarity because Debbie usually makes dinner. I had their pecan/chicken tender salad. If salads could have children, I would want this salad to bear my children. It's badass.
I did get a really cool toy for my birthday. The wife and kids got me a new mountain bike. You can see a pic of it here. That's not a picture of MY bike, but it's the exact same model and color and everything. It's not a competitive bike by any means, and I won't be descending any mountains with it, but I wanted something that wouldn't bankrupt me which could also handle easy to moderate trails without falling apart. I can't wait to try it out, hopefully this weekend.
*That's not really true. I made that whole bit up.
Today is the September equinox, which, for myself and all the other residents of the northern hemisphere, means today is the first day of fall. We're coming out of an exceptionally hot and dry summer here in Northern Kentucky, so that's good news.
I think if I had to choose, I'd pick the fall as my favorite of all the seasons. It has more personality than the others. Plus, it's the season of my birthday. Also, it's home to my favorite holiday: Halloween.
As a way to welcome the fall and to commemorate the summer, Debbie and I took the kids on a short hike this morning to Middle Creek Park, which isn't too far from Boone County Cliffs. It was pretty cool, except for the swarms of mosquitoes (the drought has left lots of standing water where a creek used to be) and an encounter with one pissed off dog that, for some reason, really didn't like the kids. There are at least three distinct trails in the park. We stayed on Trail 1, but we saw signs that pointed to Trail 2 and something called Mud Road. Trail 1, with its wide, level, well-worn paths, was very hospitable. I didn't really see any of Mud Road, but Trail 2 looked like it may be a bit more challenging.
I plan on getting a mountain bike here in the next week or so and I think Middle Creek will be a great place to break the bike (and my legs) in.
Looking forward to a great fall season.
Rob Zombie's 2007 remake of the horror classic Halloween was met with plenty of skepticism. Perhaps rightfully so. Hollywood hasn't exactly been kind to the Halloween franchise over the years. And when the reviews started pouring in for Mr. Zombie's go at it, they were less than flattering. Hell, it only scored a 23% from rottentomatoes.com.
To put that into perspective, 23% is only 19 percentage points higher than what House of the Dead (Uwe Boll's insult to both gamers and moviegoers everywhere) scored from the same website, and it is actually 16 points LOWER than what Freddy vs. Jason scored.
It's hard not to be influenced by numbers like that when you go to watch a movie, but I tried. And you know what? The 2007 Halloween remake really wasn't all that bad.
Sure, it had some faults, but most movies have at least a few of those. First of all, nearly a third of the film was spent tracking young Michael Meyers. So much time was spent developing the Michael-as-a-kid storyline that, by the time he finally grows up and starts stabbing people, you almost feel like you're supposed to identify with him on some level. I don't know, maybe that was intentional. Rob Zombie did ask you to identify with sadistic murderers in The Devil's Rejects. But come on. This is Michael Fucking Meyers. He's a force of nature. You can't identify with that. And he certainly doesn't need explanation beyond "he had a real bad childhood and now he stabs people a lot."
Another thing that kind of bugged me was the sheer size of Michael in this movie. He was played by 6' 8" WCW star Tyler Mane. This was a little excessive if you ask me. I know Michael Meyers is supposed to look large and commanding, but in many of the shots, he looked like ... a professional wrestler in a Michael Meyers mask.
Yet despite its flaws, there is one major thing that this movie does right where all of the previous Halloween sequels have failed: it does a pretty good job of capturing the feel of the original. I mean, after the whole Michael-as-a-kid bit, anyway. Obviously no movie will ever recreate that feel perfectly, but this one takes a mighty swing at it.
I think the biggest reason for the poor reviews of the new Halloween is that many of the reviewers are naturally comparing it to the original. Well, you just can't do that and expect to get a fair reading. You have to view this as a standalone film in order to appreciate it. While the other Halloween sequels fail while standing either beside the original or alone, this one can stand on its own feet. Well, again, after the kid Michael part.
I guess what I'm saying is that, if you can forget that the first Halloween existed, you'll get at least two-thirds of a good movie when you watch Rob Zombie's remake. And that's better than what you get from most movies.
Clive Owen
Paul Giamatti
30,000 bullets
+ 1 lactating hooker
= awesome
OK, so it's not going to win any Oscars, but Shoot 'Em Up, the Clive Owen/Paul Giamatti action flick, does deserve to be recognized. Not for being particularly good, but for being fun.
In the opening scene, the film announces its intent. After Mr. Smith (Owen) kills the first mook by shoving a carrot into his mouth and punching the root vegetable through the back of the guy's head, he says, "eat your vegetables." At that point I said to myself, ah, so THAT'S the kind of movie I'm watching.
And that's not at all a bad thing, mind you. Movies like this, in my opinion, deserve to be judged in a category all their own. If I were to score this movie up against all the other movies out there, I'd be forced to give it a D. Yet, when scored against other movies of its kind, I'd give it an A.
You see, this is the kind of movie that you can pop in, switch your brain to auto pilot, and come out on the other end convinced it was the greatest movie ever. Other movies that I think are in this category are Cranked, Kung Fu Hustle, and just about any Jackie Chan movie ever made.
If you have trouble suspending your disbelief, you'll probably not enjoy Shoot 'Em Up. The fight scenes are blatantly ridiculous, but they are consistently so. The carrot through the back of the head is just one example of this. But if you've got no trouble accepting things such as that, this movie might be for you.
The performances are pretty good, especially for an action film. Clive Owen's always a plus. Sure, he doesn't have a lot of range (or if he does, Hollywood's not letting him use it), but it's still cool to watch him fire a gun. And Paul Giamatti makes a great bad guy. He pulls off the evil, sadistic, criminal genius very well.
Fun movie. Check it out.
