Finally. President Obama stands up and defends his position in a smart, intelligent, and well thought out manner. No mudslinging, no name calling, no politiking. At least not from him. He doesn’t lavish the House Dems with accolades and he doesn’t condemn all Republicans. What he does do is make very valid points that people need to think about. The video is long, at least an hour, but it’s well worth watching. I heard Fox News cut it off 20 minutes early. For shame. The media will frame this as a “sparring” session or that Obama was “lecturing” to the Republicans. It was neither. It was intelligent and insightful. The best I’ve ever seen in a long time.
Did a little shooting recently with my Canon AE-1. Film stock used was 35mm Fuji Superia X-Tra ISO 800. Pretty happy with the results. I’ve been in a more blurry, experimental phase lately, and that’s certainly what I ended up with. Will post more as I proof them.
____________________________________________
_________________________________________
________________________________________
I think in this era of bluray/hd/3-d/4-d/more-d I’ve found a little comfort and relaxation in the blurry. I guess it’s also, for me, a little bit of a rebellion against my camera, which I feel wants to take pretty, sharp images.
__________________________________________
“I guess the point of some art is to illuminate. I guess I just don’t see the evidence that it’s happening. Or it happens for ten minutes, you know, and then everyone is thinking about where they want to go eat.” – Steven Soderbergh (on film, specifically)
Thank God, the dreaded 0’s (as I like to call them) are done. 2010. It sound so epic. Like we should have flying cars and time machines, but eh, we don’t. I wish I could get in a time machine and break the news gently to my younger self, so he wouldn’t have to go through life believing we’d all be in a bunch of flying Deloreans by now. Speaking of, here is a good clip to ring in the new year. Its Biff Tanen (aka Tom Wilson) singing a song about how many dumb questions he gets asked about Back to the Future.
More Back to the Future awesomeness, “sweded” (if that word means nothing to you, then you havent seen “Be Kind, Rewind” – for shame)
Be forewarned, this will be a political discourse / raving. It will be about Obama, health care, and the genuine decline of humanity in general.
The other day a co-worker of mine was on one of his usual anti-Obama rants, a habit which I’ve found to be increasingly annoying and certainly not a topic of discussion for the workplace. I’m honestly still not convinced that this “Obama-hatred” is not just veiled racism. Anyway, back on point: yesterday a conversation ensued where he/she decided to comment on his epic struggle against socialism and Obama. I tried to stay out of it, thinking it prudent to not begin a political debate in front of customers. But I couldn’t, so I made the (what I think to be) valid point of noting that garbage pick-up is socialized, along with a lot of other things. His reply to me was that he didn’t feel he (being a working class person) should have to pay for some “bum who does nothing” to go to the hospital and receive care. I let the conversation go at that, because it was beyond inappropriate for the workplace. However, having time to reflect, I realize my answer is this: Yes, sir, yes you should pay for his health care. Just like someone who works even MORE than you should pay for YOURS. And so forth. Thinking more about this, I am truly dismayed at this display of selfishness. When did our society become so “me, me, me” all the time? To the point that we’d let someone else die so we can keep our money? Yes, co-worker, we should help each other, and no, not because it will make us feel good or out of some misplaced obligation, but because we are (presumably) intelligent human beings who understand the idea of compassion.
If we don’t understand this fundamental concept, then we should just give up, donate our brains to science, and de-evolve into single cell organisms again, because we are wasting our time.
” I should like to help everyone if possible, Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another, human beings are like that. We all want to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone and the earth is rich and can provide for everyone. “ – Charlie Chaplin from The Great Dictator
Ok so, I’m definitely not the biggest Scrubs fan in the world, I don’t even own any. But I’d like to think I’ve watched my fair share, and with the “sitcom” being pretty much dead, I was very happy to see this show on last Tuesday. Spin-offs or “revamps” can always be dangerous (case in point: the Friends spin-off “Joey”) but after watching the first two episodes of Scrubs: Med School, I feel pretty confident that it will succeed. My only pending fear is the removal of JD, which I hear is possible in the near future. While I don’t feel the secondary new characters are weak at all, they certainly have potential, having Zach Braff around legitimizes the show as “Scrubs” – which maybe the creators don’t want to do. Either way, I’ll keep watching.
And now for an awesome Sam Neil Jurassic Park photo:
So check this out, a few months back Roger Avary, writer of Pulp Fiction and American Psycho and director of The Rules of Attraction was sentenced to prison for a DUI Manslaughter charge.
Well, apparently he’s been tweeting about it. Normally I think celebrity twitter is a load of crap, but this is actually interesting. How he’s able to pull it off, I don’t know.
Yeesh. Certainly not the best mug shot in the world. But the be fair, who really does have a good mug shot? Oh yeah, this lady:
***************UPDATED****************
But not with anything having to do with Roger Avary. Just discovered this Crysis mod online and it proves what I’ve been saying all along: a Back to the Future next gen game would SELL! And be amazing! Behold!
_________________________________________________
” When this baby gets up to 88mph, you’re going to see some serious shit. ” - Doctor Emmett L. Brown
Hmm so here are some interesting looking trailers – some of which are coming to DVD and some of which may be out in a theater near you. Certainly not near me, I never get anything cool. Boo.
Ok so, the trailer may either entice or bore you. But I looked up a review and Roger Ebert gives this movie 4-stars, which I’ve rarely if ever seen, so if you put any stock in that sort of thing, it may make it worth checking out. And check it out you can, at Blockbuster, where I’ve picked it up and put it down many times. Soderbergh, of course, did all the Ocean movies (no need to put trailers on here) but one little movie he did that I loved and no one else saw: Solaris with George Clooney. None of the trailers really tell you what the movie is about, so I won’t post them, suffice it to say that it’s worth checking out. Maybe The GF Exp. is too. If I do rent it, I’ll get back to you.
The Fantastic Mr. Fox – Wes Anderson
What can I say? It’s Wes Anderson. It could be a movie about a guy eating lunch and I’d line up to see it. In case you don’t know awesome, Wes Anderson is responsible for Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic, and The Darjeeling Limited. My favorite of which has to be Tenenbaums, though Darjeeling has struck a lasting chord with me. Now he delves into animation, and while I am a little sad that it isn’t a typical Wes Anderson movie, I still will see it with glee come Thanksgiving. Woo!
Antichrist – Lars von Triers
I actually can’t watch the trailer again because it creeps me out so much. And it’s 1pm and sunny here. This will be creepy and depressing as all hell, I can feel it now.
And that’s all I’ve got for now. So here are some alternatives to 2012 and whatever else kindof mindless-FX crap will come out by Christmas. By the way, I’ll probably be seeing 2012 soon, so I’m not hating, but I’m not expecting my brain to be stimulate, just my eyeballs and my manly need to see destruction.
” You just took our reservation? What kind of people are you?” - James Franco and Mila Kunis – Date Night – heh I didn’t think it looked good enough to post up top, but some awesome cameos!
This interview from “This is Your Life” was conducted on Christmas Day, 1978. After the “Thrilla in Manilla” and the rivalry is finally put to rest, I find it incredibly interesting to see Ali and Frazier interact. Watching this, I truly wish Muhammad Ali had stopped boxing and not gone after Larry Holmes and Trevor Berbick but eh, you do what you gotta do. The part I find most chilling is Joe Louis message to Ali and the almost unbearable resemblance he shares with present-day Ali, now suffering from Parkinsons.
Ok. So. This morning I woke up and I decided I’m tired. Even though I had just woken up. Tired of trying to enjoy the exploits of my long-time favorite superhero. This is not a rant about the horribleness of the “One More Day” storyline or what it did to Spider-Man. I’ve already covered that, long ago. (But here’s a quick (and funny) rundown, if anyone needs to catch up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDF52sDD_78&feature=related).
So, One More Day is over. Brand New Day is over. There have been numerous storylines that have started, ended, left hanging, etc. Currently they’re drudging up some old story about Ben Reilly (aka the clone) that seems kindof interesting. But here’s why I’m still disappointed – bad storytelling. Yes, nobody remembers Peter’s identity. And by nobody, I mean NOBODY. Harry Osborn? Nope! Norman Osborn? NOPE! Black Cat for whatever reason has no clue. Even though he revealed his identity a loooooong as time ago. In events that had nothing to do with Civil War or Mary Jane or anything. Not only that, but now they constantly have shitty throw-away lines like “it’s really dark, so there’s no way Harry/Felicia could’ve seen my face.” WTF. What the Fucking Fuck? How old are you guys who write this? I love the Black Cat. Seeing this cover made me quite excited:
Woah, a blast from the past! Finally, after bringing Mary Jane back into the fold, now Black Cat comes! Cool! But the truth of the matter is this: Mary Jane remembers he’s Spider-Man. And she is barely in the book at all. She’s on a list of about 5 people Peter Parker is boning (Black Cat is also on that list). That’s his former wife, partner, best friend, the lady of his life. Reduced to another notch on the belt. I guess that’s the thing that still upsets me about this new Spider-Man. Yes, they did Brand New Day for a reason. Aunt May is alive, Harry is alive. Neither are really in the book in any significant way. It’s frustrating. And the writing suffers from such gimmicks as “oh no! my webshooters aren’t working” and “I’m glad nobody saw my face because it was so dark” ! Sloppy and lazy. And yet I’m still giving them my money, 3x a month. Why? I’m on the edge of quitting the damn book. I already quite the Hulk because of Jeph Loeb’s sloppy storytelling. Damn.
HIV Vaccine Study First to Show Some Effectiveness in Preventing HIV
September 24, 2009
Rockville, Md. – A Phase III clinical trial involving more than 16,000 adult volunteers in Thailand has demonstrated that an investigational HIV vaccine regimen was safe and modestly effective in preventing HIV infection. According to final results released by the trial sponsor, the U.S. Army Surgeon General, the prime boost combination of ALVAC® HIV and AIDSVAX® B/E lowered the rate of HIV infection by 31.2% compared with placebo.
