Screening in the Rain

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

Last Thursday, we had probably the worst rainstorm we’ve had in some years… definitely in the last four years that I’ve been here. I don’t know the exact numbers in regards to rainfall because it changes block to block, but there was definitely a steady pour and some places got flooded… and basically everything north of Golden Gate Park in the city was without power for at least six hours… some up to 12 hours… but thankfully we don’t really have to deal with freezing temperatures in December like so many other places do. Basically, I went to work… the power was out for a while… I couldn’t do my job with the power out… so I picked up Izzy & we spent the day in the dark… doing beer stuff of course. No… really… we totally kegged our Beet Pale Ale & transferred our Chocolate Hazelnut Porter to secondary, unfortunately because my phone has been a piece of sh*t the past few weeks, only Izzy has a few pictures… but it's pretty standard stuff...

 

The power came back on about an hour before sunset, so then we decided to watch some movies that completely fit the rainy setting, starting with “Sharknado 2: The Second One” starring Ian Ziering & Tara Reid. Look… you’ve probably heard about this movie… or at least the original where a tornado hits Los Angeles carrying swarms of sharks in its tunnel & they start eating half of the city? Well, this was greenlit shortly after and… well, they go on a trip to New York City… and as luck would have it, there’s another tornado… carrying hordes of bloodthirsty sharks into Manhattan. There’s cameos by the likes of Perez Hilton, Billy Ray Cyrus, Judd Hirsch & others… but it’s exactly what you’d expect from a SyFy Channel movie sequel. If you liked the first one, then you’ll think this one is even more ridiculous… if you didn’t, then pass to the next movie we watched…

  

We followed that up with another sequel “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2” featuring the voice talents of Bill Hader, Anna Faris, Will Forte, Terry Crews, NPH, Kristen Schall, Andy Samberg, James Caan & others. Okay, so the original which I haven’t seen is about an inventor named Flint Lockwood who makes a machine to help end world hunger… that causes food to fall from the sky… and then it goes haywire and spoiler alert, everything ends up okay. Well, in this sequel, Flint realizes a dream of his by working for his idol, inventor Chester V with Live Corp (think Steve Jobs & Apple) and is soon sent on a mission to find his invention from the first one… when he finds out that it’s now producing food-animal hybrids on the island that it’s located on. Again, I haven’t seen the original, but if it’s anything like this one, I want to see it as soon as possible. This was a pretty funny kids flick and extremely cute. Sure, the story isn’t the most solid & the conflict between some of the characters is a bit ridiculous… but overall, the characters are fun & entertaining, the humor is surprisingly good (not just fart jokes, etc), and it was just a great time watching it & I’d do it again… preferably with the niece & nephew so it’s slightly less creepy… but I figure as long as Izzy’s around, that’s pretty good too. Also, the monkey voiced by Neil Patrick Harris is named Steve… what else do you need?

 

That night, we watched “Noah” starring Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Ray Winstone, Emma Watson & directed by Darren Aronofsky (“Requium for a Dream”, “The Fountain” & “Black Swan”). First & foremost, this story is based on a book. You know how I feel about movies based on books… why spend days/weeks reading a book when you can just watch a two-hour movie? Case closed. Okay, so it’s not quite that bad of an opinion… but I’m just lazy when it comes to reading books usually… especially when the book in question is the Holy Bible, King James Version. Why? I live in America… and everybody has a different interpretation of the same (often crazy sounding) source material from this particular series of novella. Trying to keep an open mind about religious dogma, I tend to keep everything on the same frame of perspective… mythology. For example, if I were watching a movie based on Catholic or Hindu or Greek Mythology, I would expect a strong antagonist (like Hercules or Odysseus or Moses) to be heading the story and hear about him fighting giant mythical creatures & being a total badass in every conceivable way… and of course based on whoever is telling the story passed down through the generations, it’s going to vary slightly or greatly… but the root story/moral is usually the same… or at the very least adjusted to modern times. You know… changing little things like a child-bearing wife being 12 years old to an adult by the current framework of the law… or maybe adjusting the gruesomeness of the Grimm Fairy Tale and making it a little more “child-friendly”. Not as many ravens pecking out eyes or chopping of bodily appendages. What Hollywood is doing a lot nowadays with the infallible antagonists from mythology, is making them more realistic & personable… basically making the superhuman above-average human. We’ve seen it in movies like “Troy”, “Hercules”, and basically every comic book movie in the past decade. Sometimes it’s worked out great, sometimes it really hasn’t… but it’s always up for interpretation as it’s usually the same source material but with a new angle or perspective on the story.

 

That being said… you know what’s one story from the Holy Bible that sounds boring as f**k to watch a movie about? The Story of Noah… about a man who is told by God to build a large ship to house his family & two of every animal on the Earth because there’s a pending flood that’s going basically clean the slate of the mistake of humans. The antagonist is a person who has visions in his dreams that this is something that is going to happen & is really more mentally unstable than hero in the modern view. No battles or conflicts other than convincing his wife & kids that he’s not bat sh*t insane and is now dedicating his life to completing this task instead of… you know, providing. No mythical creatures except maybe for the unicorns & dragons that get left behind and thus don’t make it into the Earth reboot. Really no appeal to the story other than seeing what a visionary director is going to do with this story since he turned math into a thriller with “Pi” back in his independent days. Now, I kinda liked “Evan Almighty” a few years ago when it did a comedic, modern day take of this story… but Steve Carell is a comedic genius & Laurie Graham is fantastic MILF eye candy. So for this movie… how are they going to solve the problems with the story since it doesn’t seem intriguing? Well… they cast Maximus (Russell Crowe) as Noah. Well played, Hollywood. Well played. Badass by association from past movie roles achieved… and there was definitely a lot of asskickery in this movie. MUCH more violent than I expected. Oh, let’s throw in Jennifer Connelly as the MILF eye candy. Now we’re really getting somewhere $teve likes! Now they’re adding in the conflict with the local group of marauding sinner hordes led by Ray Winstone, who also happened to kill Noah’s father? Now it’s personal! Wait… was that in the book? You know what, it doesn’t matter… there will be BLOOD!!! Now we just need some mythical creatures & we’re on our way… so now let’s do the breakdown:

 

What I Liked about this Movie:

·         Liberties Were Taken – Noah is a fallible character, certain things had to be tweaked in the story to make it more appealing to people willing to spend $15 a ticket to watch a movie more than based on the whole “being a good Christian” aspect. Like all of the new Moses & Ramses remakes, “The Last Temptation of Christ”, “The Passion of the Christ” and a whole score of other less popular movies the filmmakers take their liberties to make the story either more realistic, personable, glorifying, controversial, conservative, whatever the desired demographic demands… and this movie desired ALL of the demographics if possible. Were there people up in arms over the liberties taken? Of course… but since it wasn’t as big a splash hit as the “Passion” or anything, nobody really seemed to care. Overall it makes a movie that can be received by all, interpreted & then everybody will have their pros & cons depending on their perspective, instead of completely alienating from the beginning with an overly conservative or absolutely hedonistic retelling.

·         The Tone – Dark, gloomy, gritty, twisted. Director Darren Aronofsky is pretty much a master of keeping the viewer in a certain frame of mind with the tone, color & pacing… and then whenever something is a little off, such as something being brighter, faster, basically off-kilter, then it emphasizes how it differs from the baseline narrative. The scenes were you venture to the village of sinners are extremely dark, dangerous, just makes you wish that a giant flood would wash this entire… oh wait… that’s kind of the point.

·         Emma Watson’s character – Look, anybody who looks into the future & thinks about sequels before the movie ends was going to look start shuttering in disgust when they realized that Jennifer Connelly was going to be the only human capable of repopulating the human race with her husband and three sons… and though Jennifer makes that kind of vision half-tolerable, the addition of Emma Watson at least puts the next generation question on the backburner until you really start to think about the other two brothers… but more on that later. It also adds a LOT more conflict within the family relationships, almost to a negative, but yeah, she’s not in the Bible but I’ll allow it. Let’s face it, the Bible does a horrible job of explaining a LOT of the repopulating the Earth thing too, so you can’t really hold that against the movie. Consider the source material.

 

What I Didn’t Like:

·         Ham’s Story – Ham is the youngest son of Noah… and I feel like his character in this movie is pretty oddly constructed. Look, the interpretations of the story of Ham are wide spreading, varied and basically just all over the f**king place. From what I gather though, is after the flood, Ham looks upon his naked drunken father one afternoon… and decides to leave the family and go off into the wilderness. Now, based on who’s telling the story, he becomes the new world’s first confirmed bachelor and likes men, which is an abomination… or he goes off to repopulate the world with people darker than Irish, which may or may not have involved bestiality presumably since there were no other humans out there… unless there were other people who weren’t affected by the flood… but again, the Bible is NOT a historic document. In this movie though, he wants a woman for after the flood… as any teenager would. One cannot repopulate the Earth with a tube sock… and he doesn’t want his dad or brother’s sloppy seconds… especially when it’s probably his mom. The problem: All other females are sinners & doomed to death by drowning and an eternity in the fires of Hell. Also, his dad says no way because of this. There’s no Resentment like Cock-blocking Resentment. What’s a teenager to do? (clear throat) When the injured leader of the barbaric hordes makes his way onto your ark, you find him, nurse him back to health for nine months (not 40 days because spoiler alert, there’s a baby involved), then as he’s ready to KILL YOUR FATHER WHO YOU’RE MAD AT, then you suddenly have a change of heart. Also, don’t give me that whole “he wanted him to kill Noah because of the baby aspect” BS because Ham couldn’t give two sh*ts about his new niece or nephew… it was all out of spite over letting the woman that he knew for all of 15 minutes but was his only option for female companionship being left behind in a bear trap while they were trying to get on the ark. Oh yeah, spoiler alerts & sh*t. Then after saving his father at the last second, they get to dry land (“It’s not a myth!”) he sees his dad drunk & naked, apparently realizes that there’s nothing for him there with his family, and goes off on his own path… into the unknown. That part I can get. The other stuff… come on. There’s a LOT of stuff there like… so nobody knows when there’s another person on the boat? Nobody even looks around from time to time… or even, I don’t know, takes a walk? For nine months? I assume he ate all the cool animals on the boat?

·         Rock Monsters – Okay, so Noah gets help from Golums, which are basically fallen angels, to build the Ark… over the course of about eight years. Again, the timeframe is a LOT longer than traditionally told… basically just so you can have a little girl turn into Emma Watson’s tappable self… but yeah, apparently it still takes eight years to make a giant boat, even with the help of magical seeds making a forest for them, a dozen giant rock monsters, and thousands of marauders seeing this bountiful forest and saying “Nah, let’s mine for mystical gold nuggets that we can turn into cannons.” Anyway, these fallen angels take the form of Rock Monsters, which gives it a very distinct “Lord of the Rings” vibe in those scenes. Now, this is their interpretation of the fallen angels / golum that helped out… and I’m all for it as opposed to other possibilities for angels… but it was just a little awkward. Also, the other “mythical” creatures like the armed dog thing (very pangolin-ish animal) that I guess… didn’t make the trip, those were okay too. Basically it was showing a time before documented time of which it’s a blank slate that we really know nothing about & going from there… but still, just odd at times.

·         Methuselah – Sir Anthony Hopkins is LEGEND!!! However, in this movie, he plays Methuselah, the grandfather of Noah… and he basically has three short scenes in the entire movie. The first when Noah goes to him at his man cave (literally) to seek advice on his dream & ends up roofied and having a lucid dream… another when Noah’s wife goes him asking to help make Emma Watson fertile so that she can carry on the human race… and a third scene quite randomly eight years later when he shows up looking for berries, blesses her womb, and she runs off & instantly makes savage love to Noah’s eldest while they’re supposed to be looking for Ham… minutes later, they both end up back at the ark without Ham but the glow of freshly released teenagers, “Where is Ham? Where is your brother?” Dumbfounded look of “Oh yeah, sh*t… we were supposed to be looking for him.” You could say that he has a fourth scene when he’s washed away the moment he bites into a berry like it’s a 5 Gum commercial… but yeah, that is all this legend of screen is utilized in this film.

·         Noah’s Conflict Towards the End – Okay, so while aboard the ship (or maybe moments before boarding, I can’t quite remember) Noah tells his family that his new mission after seeing the horrors of the marauder’s village… is to get all of the animals safely through the flood… and then they, the last of the human race having only barren females, will simply die off & the world will be ride of the evils of Man. Surprise! Emma Watson is pregnant! “Okay well, if it’s a boy, then that’s okay… it’ll die with the rest of us. If it’s a girl though, I’m gonna abort it in the fourth trimester… in the name of God.” At that point, this seems like a REALLY pointless contrived scene made to basically extend the movie for another hour… because otherwise you may as well roll credits as soon as the doors of the ark are locked up & the thousands of marauders’ screams die off in the waters. You know… a high note. How contrived of a scene is it? Well… the “stepdaughter” Emma Watson that wasn’t in the Bible is thrown in… 40 days becomes nine months… the stowaway evil Ray Winstone that never existed… Ham nursing him back to health because he hasn’t learned the pleasures of masturbation… all have been written into this movie, along with the antagonist turning into a baby killer… JUST to make the last hour of the movie any kind of intriguing. Even then it only kinda works…

 

Overall, I’d say if you have any urge to see it, go for it. It’s not a horrible movie by any means… it’s just that if it wasn’t rooted in the Bible, the story sounds kinda ridiculous from an outside perspective. However, if you have nothing better to do on a rainy afternoon and want all-natural surround sound while watching a movie about an epic flood… then by all means check it out. There are a LOT better movies out there though.

 

On that note, I guess I’ll leave you all for my annual Christmas vacation back home in Utah. The $tevies may be delayed this year due to the length of my vacation, the certain pile of catch-up when I come back, and my general laziness as I seriously haven’t even thought about them until just now. Upon my triumphant return, I will certainly share pictures, tales of merriment, probably a few movies that I’ve seen, this year’s $tevies, all that wonderful stuff… and until then, I just want to wish you all the merriest of Holiday Seasons & the best of times!!! Hopefully you get to spend it with the ones that you Love!!! Happy Holidays & a Fantastic 2015 as well!!! Have a great rest of the year everybody!!!

I Can See It In Your Eyes

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

Well, it has started raining… and apparently won’t stop through the weekend so that’s cool. We need the water & the mountains need the snow. Freaky stuff up in Washington state apparently with snow double what their previous record was. That’s crazy! Still nothing compared to the other places I’ve lived but they’re not prepared for it… so be safe out there Washingtonians. Aside from that, I’ll enjoy the rainy weather by watching some football divisional championships on Sunday, maybe do some cleaning & cooking, and on Saturday I may be delivering my old TV to my roommate’s friend in El Cerrito. She’s promised me food for my troubles… so how can I say no to that? Also, I convinced my mom to get a PSeye so that we can chat over the PS3… which means that I’ll get to see my niece & nephew (or rather a grainy representation of them) and that’s pretty cool. Technology nowadays is pretty amazing… and only getting more so every day.

Gretchen is going on a trip to Tahoe this weekend. No, I won’t be going with her. Allow me to explain. Y’all know Bubbles, right? One of my best friends for many years now? Well, this time of year is a rough patch for her… as well as she’s had a rough few months recently… and she has a surgery coming up pretty quick… so she could use a vacation. Her family’s in town (brother’s birthday) and they were looking to go to Lake Tahoe for a little ski & spa weekend… but since the NFC Championship is going to be here, rental cars are RIDICULOUSLY priced. She’s a little strapped for cash… so she was going to call the whole thing off… and she really needs it. So… being the ultimate badass that I am… I offered Gretchen’s services… for several reasons:

1) She really needed this vacation & I didn’t want her to have to give up a spa weekend in Tahoe
2) I’d rather have her in a safe Jeep fully loaded, prepared & experienced for Tahoe weather since it’ll probably be snowing all weekend, than in a broken down rental car anyway
3) It saves her enough money to really enjoy herself & I know she’ll be paying for her family too
4) I wasn’t planning on going anywhere this weekend anyway except maybe to El Cerrito to help with the TV, but I can take a bus there & it only takes an extra 15 minutes or so each way & I don’t have to drive
5) I can trust her & I know she’s good for it
6) Karma comes back around
7) Did I mention that I’m the ultimate badass? Cuz I feel like that’s pretty important when I’m entrusting my most financially valuable possession to a friend.

I’m sure she’ll have a great time up in Tahoe & say hello to some of my peeps who may remember her from the Anniversary Party last December. Meanwhile I’ll be chillaxing, resting up my knee that’s still a little sore from basketball last weekend (and walking 2-3 miles a day on slick uneven terrain doesn’t help much), do another good deed by donating my old TV to someone in need across the bay, maybe enjoy a museum or something along the way back through downtown, watching some great football games & hopefully play a basketball game Sunday night. Also, maybe get to see my mom, niece & nephew via PS3. Sounds like a pretty great weekend to me… though I’ll admit, Tahoe may be more fun. Oh well… next time.

Also, pretty big news on the engagement front. No, not for me… at least directly. Remember in November when we went to Vegas for Jackie D’s 25th birthday extravaganza? Well, the couple that we went with… are now engaged. Congratulations to them first & foremost… but there’s more. They live in Philadelphia… but want to get married… in Vegas. Not only that… but they want to get married in Vegas… in the Cosmopolitan hotel that we were staying at… in one of the bars… on Doomsday, December 21st, 2012. Granted this is if the snakes haven’t completely taken over by then (more on that later) but… I can’t help but feel pretty much responsible for this. Like… a LOT. According to Jackie D, I was even mentioned by name ($tev-OOOOH!!!) when she was told about it. So what does that mean? Well, I’m more than likely going to be invited to the wedding… and I may even have to make a speech (excuse me, SPREECH!!!) during the ceremony at some point. The only concern… is that Friday, December 21st date means that I might have to make a combination Las Vegas / Christmas in Utah trip. That may require some of the family parties to tone it down as Uncle $teve tries to recuperate. Anyway, that’s a long ways down the line… so again, congratulations to them, and here’s the news…

Tebow IS Mortal – After being shellacked by the Patriots on Sunday, it appears Tim Tebow actually needed more R&R than anyone thought. The Broncos quarterback played through rib, lung and chest injuries he sustained in Denver’s 45-10 loss at New England in the AFC divisional playoffs last weekend. He won’t need surgery, is expected to make a full recovery with some down time and his offseason training program shouldn’t be affected in any way. ESPN first reported Wednesday that Tebow got hurt on a third-quarter tackle, then had trouble sleeping because of the pain and underwent an MRI on his chest Monday. Team spokesman Patrick Smyth said that while he couldn’t confirm the exact extent or nature of the injuries due to team policy, he acknowledged that Tebow finished the game in considerable pain. Backup Brady Quinn quickly got ready to go into the game after Tebow was hit by Vince Wilfork and Rob Ninkovich, but Tebow stayed in and finished up. “It’s just the physicality of playing football. Sometimes you get hit and it can hurt a little bit. But, I wanted to play a lot of the game,” Tebow said after the game. The outcome had long been decided by the time Tebow got hurt. “I just wanted to show character. You just continue to fight and it doesn’t change who you are, how you play, how you go out there, you should be the same at all times. That’s what I wanted to show, it didn’t matter if it was the first play or the last play or you were down by 42. I was going to be the same player and I was still going to give everything I have. Because that’s all I have to give.” Tebow wasn’t in the locker room during a one-hour media window on Sunday, emerging with a smile from the trainer’s room as reporters were filing out as the players streamed to their end-of-season meeting with coach John Fox. On Monday, Broncos boss John Elway declared Tebow the incumbent starting QB entering training camp next summer and reiterated his plan to work with him during the offseason to help polish his passing game. Tebow went 8-5 as the Broncos starter after supplanting Kyle Orton following a 1-4 start. He engineered a six-game winning streak that included four straight fourth-quarter comebacks that sent Tebowmania into full pitch. He faded at the end, losing his last three starts, including one to the Kansas City Chiefs and Orton, but the Broncos backed into the playoffs nevertheless at 8-8 as champions of the middling AFC West. Tebow had the best game of his pro career in the wild card round, when he averaged 31.6 yards per completion, the best in the NFL in 40 years, and threw an 80-yard touchdown pass to Demaryius Thomas on the first play of overtime for a 29-23 win over heavily favored Pittsburgh and the league’s No. 1 defense. That was Denver’s first playoff game in six seasons. Tebow, who didn’t get the first-team snaps during training camp or for the first month of the season, realizes he has a long way to go himself. “Just work and improve, fundamentals, understanding defenses, footwork, everything,” he said. Some say the injury was only a matter of time as Tebow’s style of play this year with the read option is very rare because the NFL usually protects their quarterbacks like China dolls 100% of the time… but Tebow noted that he actually takes glancing blows, if any, from smaller defenders while on the run, making him less vulnerable than when he stays in the pocket and might get sandwiched by 300-pound linemen… but for any team to win, you need balance in your running & passing offense. “We’re always looking for balance,” Elway said. “Balance is what we won Super Bowls with.” Elway and Tebow are eager to see what a difference an offseason can make— they didn’t have that luxury last year during the NFL lockout. As Tebow put it, “I feel like I’ve improved a lot in a lot of different forms of my game. And I continue to improve and continue to get a lot better, and I believe I can, and I’m looking forward to putting in work.” Best of luck, Mr. Tebow… and I hope that you feel better soon too. It’s gonna be a lot of work… especially since the team kind of sabotaged your chances by trading away your best receiver the week you became starter & didn’t really have a lot of weapons on offense to begin with. Oh well… still, best of luck in getting the tools you need to succeed. You’ve got the right attitude.

Kareem Abdul Jabbar Update – Okay, since I was a little boy about 7-8 years old, there were two players that I really respected both as players & men. I know that most of you probably think it’s a tandem like Michael Jordan & Magic Johnson or something like that… and they get mad respect… but not them. First & foremost was David Robinson, a Hall of Fame center who had just started with the San Antonio Spurs after being drafted two years earlier… but fulfilling his commitment to the Navy. He also played piano, saxophone & had several charitable organizations that he worked with… and could also play some serious ball. Did you know he scored over 70 points in a game once? MJ didn’t do that. Anyway, he was one… and the other was a man whom I had just read an autobiography about in my spare time at school (while I was waiting for others to learn math that I had been doing for years). It was about a kid named Lewis Ferdinand Alcindor, jr growing up in Brooklyn. He was pretty gangly & incredibly tall… and pretty much made to play basketball as he was nearly seven feet tall by the time he got to high school in the early 60’s during the Civil Rights Movement. He not only became a great athlete but also focused on expanding his mind & abilities beyond basketball, learned from the legendary coach John Wooden at UCLA (while losing like twice in his four years there), was the #1 pick of the 1969 NBA Draft, in a career spanning twenty years, he’s won six championships, six MVP awards, is the league’s all-time leading scorer, rebounder & probably shot blocker except they didn’t keep the stats until he was well into his career… and beyond that he’s written several books, helped countless young stars balance their careers & personal lives as an assistant coach, starred in a movies with the likes of Bruce Lee, Leslie Nielsen & the creators of South Park… oh and somewhere in there he changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Well now, another giant milestone…

The NBA's all-time scoring leader is now a global cultural ambassador. The State Department announced Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's appointment Wednesday. Ann Stock, assistant secretary of state for education and cultural affairs, says Abdul-Jabbar will travel the world to engage a generation of young people to help promote diplomacy. Stock says the appointment is part of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's vision of "Smart Power" that combines diplomacy, defense and development to "bridge the gap in a tense world through young people." Abdul-Jabbar will travel to Brazil on January 22nd for a number of events centering on education, using his own experiences to help connect with young people. Not bad for a lanky kid from Brooklyn, huh? Yet another example of how education, hard work & a little bit of God-given ability can go a long way. Congratulations Kareem!

Apocalypse Update – It has finally happened… Big Brother has found my blog & the US Government is actually heading my advice. God help us all. Tuesday, the United States announced a ban on Burmese pythons, after years of unsuccessful efforts to eradicate the giant snakes from the Everglades National Park in Florida. U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who has championed the ban, said it would take effect within about 60 days and make it illegal to import the snakes or transport them across state lines. A bit extreme you may be saying? Keep reading. Salazar announced the measure at a news conference at a flood control pumping station in a corner of the Everglades just outside Miami, where he was joined by Florida Senator Ben Nelson and two senior park and Florida Wildlife Commission officials as they held aloft a recently captured 13-foot python. Too extreme now? "The action we’re taking today is a milestone in the protection of the Everglades," Salazar said. Biologists say most pythons in the Everglades are thought to have been released there by their owners once they realized that the "pets" can grow from just a foot to 12 feet long within their first two years of life. So instead of stray domesticated cats & dogs… you’ve got giant irate constrictors prowling your neighborhood. In addition to the Burmese python, which has become one of the most notorious invasive species in U.S. history, the ban affects the yellow anaconda and northern and southern African pythons.

That’s not all you have to worry about as other invasive species in subtropical parts of Florida include dragon-like Nile Monitor lizards and raccoon-sized African rats. That’s right… rodents of an unusual size… combined with apparently fire-breathing, dragon-like lizards have turned the Everglades into a veritable Fire Swamp not unlike “The Princess Bride.” However of all of these invaders, Burmese pythons, which are native to southeast Asia, have become the stuff of legend in the Everglades since they were first sighted in the wildlife haven in the mid-1970s. With their razor-sharp teeth, they have been known to eat practically anything that moves in the park, from small mammals to large wading birds. Last year, a 15.7-foot Burmese was found with a huge bulge from a recently consumed 76-pound deer. Compounding eradication problems, however, the bone-crushing snakes have also bred in the wild in the savanna and steamy swamps of the Everglades. One of the creatures was aggressive enough to try devouring a 6-foot alligator in the park in 2005. The alligator was believed to have been dead already and the snake also died trying to digest it… but that’s not the point. I think the next stop is military action. Sure, they’re using our precious national parks as a hostage in this case so that we can’t completely eradicate the whole area… but I’m sure the military is already coordinating a major tactical movement against this invaders… you know, once they settle all that stuff in other countries. We may just have to grab our machetes & go into the glades ourselves to settle this once & for all. Sure, they have the home field advantage… and their ability to reproduce their numbers gives them an advantage… but I’m sure once they see our camouflage becomes the skins of their fallen comrades, we will strike fear deep into their bile-pumping black hearts & other species will think twice before forming an allegiance with these Burmese bastards. Who will lead us into this battle? I can think of only one man who’s perfectly equipped for the job…

MACHETE KILLS AGAIN!!!
(You’re welcome for the premise of your next movie, Robert Rodriguez…)

G Spot Update – That’s right ladies… read carefully. We about to talk about… the G Spot… and no, not the club on Columbus. Many women swear they have one, but a new review of 60 years of sex research shows science still can't definitively find the G-spot (though they’ve tried many black holes). Researchers have used surveys, imaging scans and biopsies of women, all trying to locate and define the presumably orgasmic area on the vaginal wall known as the G-spot. Based on a review of 96 published studies, an Israeli and American research team came to one conclusion. "Without a doubt, a discreet anatomic entity called the G-spot does not exist," said Dr. Amichai Kilchevsky, a urology resident at Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut, and lead author of the review, published Jan. 12 in the Journal of Sexual Medicine (call now for subscriptions). Kilchevsky conceded the work is not "1,000 percent conclusive," allowing that other scientists could one day find something his team missed. But they would need new technology to do it, he said. Fun fact: The G-spot was named in honor of the late Dr. Ernst Gräfenberg, who in 1950 described a particularly sensitive 1- to 2-centimeter wide area on the vaginal wall. How’s that for a legacy? Having the G-spot named after you? Gräfenberg's description put Western medicine on a quest to define and learn more about the spot, purported to be a few centimeters in from the vaginal opening, on the vaginal wall toward the front of a woman's body. But Gräfenberg wasn't the first to write about such an erogenous zone. The Kamasastra and Jayamangala scripts dating back to 11th century India describe a similar sensitive area, according to the new study. Modern surveys of women on the subject only confounded the search. From a review of 29 surveys and observational studies, Kilchevsky concluded that a majority of women believe a G-spot actually exists, although some of those women also say they can't locate it. Other researchers have looked for physical evidence. Biopsies of tissue taken from the vaginal wall often find more nerve endings in the area of the purported G-spot than in other regions of the vaginal wall. But Kilchevsky and his colleagues also found biopsy studies with inconclusive results, and the authors point out that sensitivity in the human body isn't determined by the number of nerve endings alone. One 2008 study used ultrasound imaging to explore the vaginal wall of women, and found evidence of thicker tissue in the area of the G-spot among women who reported having vaginal orgasms. Women who said they had never had vaginal orgasms had thinner tissue in that area. However, other imaging studies included in Kilchevsky's review couldn't find a conclusive G-spot. Ultimately, Kilchevsky said he hopes his conclusions support women who worry they can't find the G-spot at home. "Women who can't achieve orgasm through vaginal penetration don't have anything wrong with them," he said. Kilchevsky doesn't think women who claim to have a G-spot are crazy either. "What they're likely experiencing is a continuation of the clitoris," he said. G-spot skeptics often point out that the tissue of the clitoris extends into the body, behind it where the G-spot would be located. One study in the review kept "the possibility of a discrete G-spot viable," according to Kilchevsky. A Rutgers University research team recently asked several women to stimulate themselves in a functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) machine (you know, I need to be a researcher in these f**king experiments). Brain scans showed stimulating the clitoris, vagina and cervix lit up distinct areas of the women's sensory cortex. This means the brain registered distinct feelings between stimulating the clitoris, the cervix and the vaginal wall – where the G-spot is famed to be. Barry Komisaruk, the lead author of the fMRI study and professor of psychology at Rutgers University, advocates calling it the G-area, or G-region, instead. Why not G-zone? G-plaza? G-park? G-district? Or G-G-G-G UNIT? I’ve got more… "I think that the bulk of the evidence shows that the G-spot is not a particular thing. It's not like saying, 'What is the thyroid gland?'" Komisaruk said. "The G-spot is more of a thing like New York City is a thing. It's a region, it's a convergence of many different structures." Komisaruk said that pressing on the area proclaimed to be the G-spot also presses the urethra and a structure called Skene's gland, which is analogous to the male prostate. "Each of those areas have different nerve sites," said Komisaruk. "I think there's good enough data that a lot of women feel that that is a particularly sensitive region." Debby Herbenick, a research scientist at Indiana University and author of "Great in Bed" (DK Publishing, 2011), pointed out that ambiguity is nothing new in sexual research. "I'm not sure why some people get caught up in this desire to find this anatomic thing that is the end all be all," Herbenick said. I agree… trying to find it in different ways is half the fun anyway… the other half is finding it. Findings from the well-known Australian researcher Dr. Helen O'Connell show the vagina, clitoris and urethra may act as "clitoral complex," during sex, Herbenick said. Any time one of these parts is moved or stimulated, it moves and stimulates the others. "We don't even have orgasm all figured out yet, I don't why we would expect to have the G-spot figured out," Herbenick said. Here here!!! So ladies… now is the time for us to stand united. I know that together we can find out the mysteries of your last frontier & show the world that your G-spot does in fact exist. I’m accepting applications for a study at no cost to you and the benefits… let’s just say they’re priceless. You’re welcome.

Lionel Richie “Hello” Remix – Since I’ve been talking about the end of the world & the extinction of the G-spot, I just thought I’d end this entry with a little bit of bright side before we prepare for battle. Please enjoy this video combining the legendary love ballad “Hello” with a dozen or so movies… Have a great weekend everybody!!!

My Only Comfort is the Night Gone Black

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

So… the thunderstorms have been a plenty and a violent the past few days. I haven’t really seen sunlight for three days up until this morning… and even then it was just when I went to work and was above the fog line. I like it a lot. Sure, the bit of ice on the roads in the mornings is a reminder that winter is once again approaching… but hey, I knew what I was getting into when I moved here. Absolute paradise half the year, and then a winter wonderland the other half… with a few muddy weeks in between, you know, just as a reminder to make sure your snow tires are on & your chains and shovel are back in your vehicle. Let’s see, my dad is flying in on Saturday, football game Sunday night, flying out on Monday. I may have another date some time this next week but… you know, schedules. Three weeks from now I’ll be packing up for a week in New Orleans… and I still don’t have a set Halloween costume. I don’t think that a makeshift Captain Hammer costume is going to fly this year… but hey, I’m fairly clever and resourceful. Hmm… we shall see. Maybe I’ll keep it as a surprise too.

Last night, I finally watched the latest remake of “Alice in Wonderland” by director Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Crispin Glover, Anne Hathaway and the voices of Alan Rickman & Stephen Fry. You all know the story… with the only twist being that Alice is a teenager in this one… and doesn’t like the life that’s set up for her… so she runs off and falls down the rabbit hole… and the rest is pretty standard to the Disney story from there, just with some cool CGI and pretty entertaining performances from Depp & Carter. It’s quirky and awkward and awesome like most Tim Burton movies. That’s… really all I have to say about it. Not incredible, not horrible, just if you like Tim Burton, it is exactly what you would expect. So yeah… I’m sure if you wanted to see it, you already have… but if not, go ahead and check it out. I’ve got “Labyrinth” to watch tonight through Netflix… hmm… maybe I can go as a taller, sexier David Bowie for Halloween. Sigh… if only I knew how to do that crystal ball juggling stuff like a pro. That’d be sweet. Anyway, here’s the news…

Graphene – So a while back, I told you about this super cool substance that scientists are messing around with called graphene. Well, apparently I wasn’t the only one that thought it was pretty awesome… as they deemed it worthy of a Noble Prize. Why? Well, it is the thinnest and strongest material known to mankind & no thicker than a single atom and 100 times tougher than steel. Could graphene be the next plastic? Maybe so, says one of two scientists who won a Nobel Prize on Tuesday for isolating and studying it. Faster computers, lighter airplanes, transparent touch screens — the list of potential uses runs on. Some scientists say we can't even imagine what kinds of products might be possible with the substance, which hides in ordinary pencil lead and first was extracted using a piece of Scotch tape. Two Russian-born researchers shared the physics Nobel for their groundbreaking experiments with graphene, which is a sheet of carbon atoms joined together in a pattern that resembles chicken wire. Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov of the University of Manchester in England used Scotch tape to rip off flakes of graphene from a chunk of graphite, the stuff of pencil leads. That achievement, reported just six years ago, opened the door to studying what scientists say should be a versatile building block for electronics and strong materials. "It has all the potential to change your life in the same way that plastics did," Geim, 51, a Dutch citizen, told The Associated Press. "It is really exciting." Michael Strano, a chemist at MIT, said trying to predict its uses would be "folly ... We can't even imagine the uses we're going to find." But he and others have some ideas. Graphene's electrical properties mean it might make for faster transistors, key components of electronic circuits, and so lead to better computers, the Nobel committee says. As a single layer of carbon atoms it's tiny, which could pay off in more powerful cell phones, several scientists said. And since it's practically transparent, it could lead to see-through touch screens and maybe solar cells, the committee says. It might even pay off for big TV screens. Its tremendous strength could produce new composite materials that are super-strong and lightweight, for use in building airplanes, cars and satellites, the committee says. So why aren't pencil leads super strong, if they contain graphene? Breaking a lead generally involves a shearing off between graphene sheets rather than breaking the sheets themselves, explained James Tour of Rice University. And while a person can tear up a single sheet of graphene, it's still stronger than a one-atom-thick sheet of anything else. "There's nothing stronger," Tour said. Graphene has not made its mark in ordinary consumer products yet, although some prototype electronic display screens and composite materials have been created, Strano said. Lots of scientists are studying it, in some cases to learn about basic physics, Strano said. Researchers are still trying to find a practical way to make large quantities of pure graphene, something more amenable to large-scale use than the Scotch-tape approach, he said. "The field is still very new," he said, and the awarding of the $1.5 million prize to Geim and Novoselov is "absolutely marvelous." (By the way, Peyton Manning made that on Sunday just for playing the game of football… and probably doubled it with all the commercials he starred in. Stay in school, kids!!!) Joseph Stroscio, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, said he had thought it would take a few more years of scientific appraisal before graphene would win a Nobel. But its potential applications and the brand-new behavior it presents for basic physics have drawn strong interest since the 2004 breakthrough, and the prize is well-deserved, he said. It might take five or 10 years before graphene shows up in products like cell phones, he said. Novoselov, 36, is the youngest Nobel winner since 1973 of a prize that normally goes to scientists with decades of experience. He holds both British and Russian citizenship. Paolo Radaelli, a physics professor at the University of Oxford, marveled at the simple methods the winners used. "In this age of complexity, with machines like the super collider, they managed to get the Nobel using Scotch tape," Radaelli said. Congratulations comrades. Can’t wait to see what marvels will come out of this simplest of atomic arrangements. Oh… and speaking of scientific breakthroughs…

Vegas Death Ray – Not exactly what Tesla had in mind… but it’ll do for today’s technology. Okay, so it’s not really a death ray… but perhaps a slight exaggeration. MGM Resorts International is taking the heat for an intense beam of searing desert sunlight, jokingly dubbed the "death ray," that some hotel guests say poses a risk of severe burns to bathers lounging poolside. The beam is actually a concentrated reflection of solar rays bouncing off the gleaming glass facade of the concave-shaped, high-rise Vdara hotel and condominium, which opened on the Las Vegas "strip" in December (must be CityCentre). Local media, as well as some hotel staff and guests, have come to refer to the reflection as the "death ray," but MGM Resorts officials prefer to call it a "solar convergence phenomenon" which has an obviously less threatening tone to it. "The refraction moves across the pool deck over a period of 90 minutes," company spokesman Gordon Absher told Reuters. "It's never in the same place from day to day or week to week because the sun is changing its elevation in the sky." MGM Resorts, which owns the property, has sought to correct the problem by installing a high-tech solar film over each of the 3,000 glass panes covering the south facade of the Vdara to scatter the rays. But the concentrated sunlight remains hot enough at certain times, in certain spots, to melt plastic and singe hair, said William Pintas, 49, a Chicago lawyer and Vdara condo owner who first encountered the effect earlier after a dip in the pool. When his head started burning, he thought it was from chemicals in the pool. "So I just laid down in the chair, and that's when my back and the back of my legs started burning, and I ran under a nearby umbrella. And I'm under the umbrella and there is no shading from the light or heat," he recounted. "It was the strangest thing." Pintas said he could even smell his hair starting to burn. Astonished and angry, he alerted hotel staff, then called the local newspaper to draw attention to the problem. Absher said MGM Resorts is "now looking into further mitigation procedures," including more umbrellas, additional foliage or shade structures. He said not everyone has complained. On cooler days, he said, he has seen sunbathers deliberately lay their blankets on the convergence spot for additional warmth. But Pintas said he worries that sooner or later, someone will end up seriously burned if they fall asleep in the path of the ray, even if under an umbrella, because as he found the concentrated light can penetrate the shade. "In Vegas, people are out drinking the night before, so it's not hard to imagine people being unconscious there under an umbrella," he said. So what do you think? Is it a Chicago lawyer trying to get some additional scratch? Or a serious concern because they unintentionally somehow found a way to make Vegas even hotter? Death ray may be a bit of an exaggeration… but then again, have you been there in the 115 degree sun? Now add it under a magnifying glass? The point of this story – Don’t stay at Vdara. You know what, don’t even go to Vegas. Come to Reno!!! And while you’re at it, slip on over to Lake Tahoe. We’re free of Death Rays… and at this altitude, intoxication is guaranteed. Sigh… I’m sorry, Vegas. You f**ked me over a few times. I was angry. I do miss you. Hopefully we’ll meet up again shortly.

The Rockets Red Blare – How sure are you that you know all the words to the Star Spangled Banner? Really? THAT sure? Sure enough to risk jail time? In the Philippines, a land of passionate singers, taking on the national anthem is about to get a little more daunting -- get it wrong and you could land in jail for a couple of years and be fined more than $2,000. A ban on the improper singing of Lupang Hinirang (Beloved Land) and unpatriotic displays of the Philippine flag is a Senate vote away from becoming law after the lower house voted 196-0 in favor of it on Monday. Repeat: Something is about to pass through the Filipino government… after a vote of 196 to 0. You probably couldn’t get our congress to agree 196 to 0 that women are people too. Go ahead. Try it. Prove me wrong. Let’s see what Strom Thurman has to say on the subject at the hearing. Anyway, back to the Philippines, "Our Congress has given more teeth to government's campaign to invigorate patriotism, respect and love of country by singing our anthem properly," Representative Salvador Escudero, the bill's principal author, told reporters. He lamented that Filipino artists and singers had been changing the anthem's military march melody and beat, and that the flag had been made into shirts and short pants (and probably underwear). If the Senate passes the law, the first approved by the lower house since the change of administrations in June, violators face up to two years in jail and a fine of 100,000 pesos ($2,280). Okay, now it’s quiz time. “Ooh say can you see / By the dawn’s early light / What so proudly we hail… as the twilight’s last” EEEEH!!! It’s AT the twilight’s last gleaming. Hands behind your head! Pretty messed up, huh? Imagine what they would think about these patriotic wonders…



Bacon Update - October may be Breast Cancer Awareness Month… but it definitely won't be the best month to be a feral hog in the state of Texas. Instead of declaring Bacon Awareness Month, the state's Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples has declared October "Hog Out Month - Get the Hog Outta Texas!" as part of a campaign to eradicate the delicious pests. The campaign aims to get Texans to lock and load and hunt down the animals, which cause widespread damage to farmers and other landowners. "Not only are feral hogs a costly nuisance to agricultural operations and wildlife habitats, but they are increasingly finding their way into urban areas and destroying residents' yards, public parks and golf courses," Staples said in a statement this week when the campaign was unveiled. "On my ranch in East Texas, I have eliminated a number of hogs and I am asking Texans around the state to step up and join the county challenge to learn about feral hogs and how best to legally hunt and trap them in their area," he added. Feral hogs are mostly domestic pigs that have gone wild, with some European wild boars that have escaped from exotic game ranches thrown into the mix and bloodlines. State officials estimate the feral hog population in Texas to be around 2 million and they are estimated to cause around $400 million in damage annually as they eat or root up pastures, crops and even golf courses. That’s $200 per hog… and I’m thinking this is a great stimulus plan as you can easily get that much pork out of a big one. This makes them one of the most costly invasive species in the country… but can also be profitable (unlike snake meat down in the Everglades, which is why I assume the Apocalypse is still continuing as scheduled). The campaign may not please some animal rights groups but Texas farmers don't need much prompting to pull the trigger when it comes to feral hogs (and frankly, they just don’t give a sh*t what those hippies think anyway). Their numbers are growing because they are prolific breeders with few natural predators and are moving into suburban and urban areas. They are also regarded as a challenge to hunt or trap because they are wary and intelligent (slow cooked on a rye bun with my grandpa’s recipe of mesquite barbecue sauce). "Get the Hog Outta Texas" month will feature a challenge among Texas counties that will run until October 31. The county that documents the most hogs removed during the month will get a $25,000 grant toward what the Texas Department of Agriculture terms "feral hog abatement technologies." So let’s go get some bacon!!!

Panda Update - Chinese experts sent to Japan to investigate the death of a giant panda on loan to a zoo have determined that the animal died of asphyxiation, state media reported Saturday. Kou Kou died last month at the Oji zoo in the western port city of Kobe (great beef) after it had received an anesthetic so that veterinarians could extract semen from the 14-year-old male panda to impregnate his partner, Tan Tan. Experts found that Kou Kou had suffocated when "objects in its stomach went into its lungs, leading to asphyxiation," the official Xinhua news agency reported. Earlier, reports suggested the experts believed that the death could have been caused by an overdose of sedatives and were questioning why Japanese veterinarians were extracting semen outside the animal's mating period. A breeding agreement between Beijing and Tokyo includes the stipulation that Japan pay 500,000 dollars in compensation if a panda dies due to human error, state media reported previously. Xinhua said Saturday that China and Japan would settle the matter in accordance with their cooperation agreement on panda research, without providing further details. The panda's death came amid the worst crisis in relations between the two countries in years, stemming from the collision of a Chinese fishing trawler and two Japanese coastguard vessels near disputed islets in the East China Sea. It also comes after Tokyo's Ueno Zoo reached an agreement in July to receive a pair of pandas from China in a deal that will cost nearly one million dollars a year for the next decade. The money is to be spent on protecting wild animals in China. Giant pandas, a highly endangered species native to parts of China, are notoriously slow at reproducing in captivity. There are just 1,600 pandas left in the wild. Nearly 300 others are in captive-breeding programs worldwide, mainly in China, according to official reports. I’ve probably repeated that information dozens of times though… but never before had I reported about a possible… PANDA MURDER!!! (Dun dun duuuuuh…) Sure, the media wants you to believe that it was an accidental drug overdose… while in the act of getting jerked off by a few hot Asian scientists while in a dream state… but are you really going to believe that? There are just too many questions. Who stands to gain from this? Sure, China can try to get a half-million bucks if they find it was due to human error, but Japan’s got a few hostages… and don’t think for a minute that they don’t have ninja guards ready to execute those two pandas if negotiations don’t go their way. Could this lead to international war between the two (and obviously bring us in as Japan’s buddy)? Was this panda’s death REALLY an accident? Could the panda have simply taken a cyanide pill in an effect to bring about the Apocalypse through an alliance with snakes, alligators, tigers & bears? And the most important question of all – Do pandas REALLY need to be sedated to be jerked off? Doesn’t that usually have the opposite effect? Sure, a little sedating can greatly improve the stamina but we’re talking about just getting the gravy in an effective manner. Are pandas such prudes that they won’t even allow themselves to be released by another? So many questions… so few answers.

That’ll wrap it up for today. Sorry to leave you with that image of a panda in a precarious position but… what can I say? I’m a sucker for science. Getting VERY excited for the game this weekend, possible date in the near future & New Orleans at the end of the month… plus plenty of fun stuff in between I’m sure. Gotta make a few more trips out to the lake before it gets too icy to safely traverse. Have a great night everybody!!!

Wave of Killers

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

Well, this weekend was pretty weird. It was bright & sunny Saturday morning, then it’s been torrential rain ever since. Not complaining though, because you know how I love the rain. Even went for a little walk in it… before it got too damn cold for that. Great college & pro football yet again. Did anybody else watch the end of the LSU – Tennessee game and think that LSU is probably the sloppiest f**king team ever? But thanks to a little miscommunication, they ended up getting the win. Eagles lost… and surprisingly, even with a 14-0 deficit in the first quarter, Vick getting injured, Kolb sucking so much that I was afraid it would cause a rip in the time-space continuum, some BS calls by the referees (especially that horse hucky at the end of the half with delay of game), some guy named Torain running all over them, and the home crowd booing them at times… they still only lost it when the ball bounced off Jason Avant’s hands on a Hail Mary pass as time expired. Well, hopefully even if the Eagles suck next week when I go to see them at Candlestick Park, at least we’ll hopefully suck less than the winless 49ers. Wouldn’t be too surprised if coach Mike Singletary lined up on defense for those guys. Anyway, it should be fantastic!!! Let’s see, other than watching football this weekend I… well, I cleaned up the apartment, did some laundry, played some basketball Saturday morning, ugh… watched “She’s Out of My League” thanks to Netflix, and ugh… yeah, that’s pretty much it. Oh, I had some crazy dreams too. Wanna hear about them? Tough… cuz here they come…

Friday night – I was at a hotel. Not entirely sure at what capacity, but I was in a suit & looking good as always. I went to this bar area, sat down at the bar, ordered a drink, and started chatting with this sexy woman next to me (See? Obviously it’s a dream at this point). We’re chit chatting about something (dreams are fuzzy like that) and then we took our drinks out onto the balcony and admired the sunset. It was golden & crimson mostly, with the sun glaring off the ocean in shimmering waves, you know the type… the kind that burn their image into your mind forever. There were even some dolphins jumping in the distance amongst the waves. Perfect. Wait a minute, those look too big to be dolphins. Are those… killer whales jumping up out of the water? Sweet!!! This is the greatest sunset EVER!!! Wow, there’s certainly a lot of them jumping now… and they’re getting awfully close to the shore. HOLY CRAP!!! IT’S AN AMBUSH!!! I kid you not, the water rose up to cover the streets and killer whales just kind slid up and started eating people like they were the runt seals of the pack. The whole bottom floor was now underwater, but luckily we were on the 2nd or 3rd floor, so me, the woman, and a few other people from the bar start heading away from the windows and grabbing sharp objects. You know, like axes in case of fires and bar stools. More blunt than sharp in some cases. The water’s rising up the stairwells, with orcas right behind, so we’re moving upwards… and seriously, looking back it was like one of those REALLY bad SyFy movies… you know, like “Sharktopus” and my personal favorite “Dinocroc vs. Supergator” where these killer whales were like popping in windows and trying to snatch up some dinner. REALLY bad if it were a movie… but it was a dream… and honestly, once it’s made into a SyFy TV movie, perhaps it’ll be prophetic… but yeah, I woke up a few minutes into it because… it was pretty ridiculous, right? Anyway, there was another one…

Last night, there were some pretty amazing thunderstorms going on… like rattle the windows and making the bed shake kind of rolling thunder. How do I know this? The roommate asked me if I had heard them this morning. So that part’s legit. Well, during one of these thunder strikes, I woke up lying face first… and I simply couldn’t move. It felt like I was being held down by the covers or something… and then I heard something like… a growling in my ear. I tried to nonchalantly turn myself over and maybe sneak a peek at what was doing this… but it was no use. So then… I really started to struggle… and it felt like my arms were asleep to begin with… but eventually I whip around and there’s really nothing there, except this darkness that didn’t really form any shape… just kind like the shadow of a cloud or something… and basically with all my struggling and whipping around and swinging at things that aren’t there, my bed is trashed. Sheets, blankets, feather comforters, all thrown about the room. I’m up on the bed, poised in crouching position like I’m a f**king cobra ready to strike… and nothing’s there. By the way, I apparently dozed off back to bed after that… and when I woke up, I was snug as a bug in a rug in my bed… and my room was in perfect order. So my flip-out where I went Jackie Chan on my bedroom didn’t happen. So yeah, I’m basically losing my mind yet again… good times. Anyway, happy birthdays out to K-Fish (even though she’s been giving me the silent treatment for a few months now) and my cousin Ranae back in Denver over the weekend. Hope y’all had a fun time!!! Miss y’all madly. Here’s some news…

Chippendales – Now, I haven’t thought about my days as a Chippendale’s dancer in years… especially since my 26th birthday party in Vegas. Alisa & Filly know what I’m talking about. Anyway, this little story brought back memories. The male erotic dancer company Chippendales stumbled on Friday when an appeals court ruled that it could not trademark the bow tie and shirt cuffs that the men wear. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in a ruling -- which included a sketch of a fit gentleman shown from the waist up wearing only a bow tie and shirt cuffs -- that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office was correct in refusing to trademark the "Cuffs and Collar" costume. New York-based Chippendales, which filed the original trademark application in 2000, failed to prove that the bow tie and cuffs costume was distinctive, the court said. The court noted that the Chippendales' expert witness acknowledged that the outfit was "inspired" by the Playboy bunny suit, thus stripping the Chippendales' Cuffs & Collar of the distinctiveness needed to get a trademark (yeesh!). The Playboy bunny suit was trademarked in 1964 and expired in 2004, the court said. That costume is shirt cuffs, corset, tie, bunny ears and bunny tail. Hmm… I think I know what my Halloween costume is going to be when I go to New Orleans in a few weeks. Now that I don’t have to worry about trademark infringement… and I’ve got the bowtie and cufflinks… then again, it may not be the best weather for an outfit like that. We shall see. Tough break, guys.

Brazilians Elect Clown as Congressman - Voters the world over complain about having clowns for politicians, but Brazilians embraced the idea on Sunday by sending a real one to Congress with more votes than any other candidate. Francisco Everardo Oliveira Silva, better known by his clown name Tiririca, received more than 1.3 million votes in Sao Paulo state in Brazil's presidential and congressional elections. That was more than double the votes of the second-placed candidate in Brazil's most populous state. I'm NOT joking. This guy, pictured here, is a Brazilian congressman. Tiririca caught the attention of disillusioned voters by asking for their support with the humorous slogan: "It can't get any worse" and a promise to do nothing more in Congress than report back to them on how politicians spend their time. "What does a congressman do? The truth is I don't know, but vote for me and I'll tell you," the 45-year-old said in his campaign advertisements. The clown, whose stage name means "grumpy," usually appears in public wearing a blond wig, a red hat and a garish outfit. He survived a last-minute attempt by public prosecutors to bar him from running because of evidence that he is illiterate (See? My political career isn’t completely ruined because I can’t read no good). His candidacy may not have been as spontaneous or innocent as it might appear. Tiririca's well-financed campaign will help elect other politicians because under Brazil's election rules he can pass his substantial excess votes on to other candidates in his coalition, which includes the ruling Workers' Party. Nice, right? So just to recap, a well-meaning hip hop legend can’t even get on the ballet in a fubar’d country like Haiti… but a Brazilian Bozo the Clown can not only get elected in a landslide by the most populous city in South America… but use those extra votes to help everybody in his extra small car get elected too. I love political loopholes. They’re absolutely amazing and frightening at the same time. I really need to get into politics. It would be quite the adventure… and I would like to think that I could do some good… but at the very least, I’ll make a few people laugh hysterically when my memoirs come out. Can’t wait to read this guy’s memoirs when he… oh yeah, he’s illiterate. Oh well.

On that note, now that you know more about me than you care to… I’ll leave you be. Great Monday Night Football going on tonight… and I get to enjoy the rain for the next few days too. Have a great night everybody!!!

Dr Mookie Love Reboot

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

We had a nice little thunder & rainstorm come through here last night… and you know how I love the rain. Just let that smell come all throughout the apartment. It was the first good storm we’ve had since Memorial Day… and it was even followed by a blanket of fog in the morning at about 38 degrees Fahrenheit. Ah, memories of beautiful winter weather… in August. So yeah, didn’t do too much yesterday other than laundry and what-have-you. Shot a few hoops before the storm came in. Also got an interesting question asked of me today by my mom. She was wondering if I’d be okay with my brother coming to live with me for a few weeks. Why? So that they can renovate & remodel his condo… and she doesn’t want him living with her (just the grandkids). Nice, right? She doesn’t want him with her… because he’s a douche. What do I get out of the arrangement? A douche sleeping on my couch (that he broke last time he stayed with me) who will do nothing except probably b**ch about my slow internet connection & how his stuff is so much better than mine, sleep while I’m at work and then stay up all night playing video games, and just be negative the whole time he’s in my paradise. I hate to jinx it, but I’m pretty sure he’ll find a way to get into a fight with my roommate too. I don’t know why… but it generally seems to be the case. Who knows? Maybe I’m just assuming the worst (or have lived through it a few times). Then again, maybe he’ll come out here, enjoy the natural grandeur & cool temperatures, and return home refreshed. Oh… and it’s not like I’m going to be compensated in any way either. He has no job. Apparently he’s planning on living off Love and an allowance from my mom (which will last him three days) while she remodels his condo. By the way, did I mention that he’s been unemployed for a LONG time now? Does that mean I’m going to tell them to f**k off? Of course not, because that’s my family. If he does end up coming out here, I just hope he realizes that I’m not his b**ch… and I don’t care if he starves. Hell, he may have to have my dinner ready for me when I walk in the door at 5 o’clock. Sh*t ain’t free. I don’t know what you’re mama taught you... but my mama taught me better. And yes, I know that we have the same mama. Sigh… I don’t know. Seriously, what am I supposed to do? Would you tell your family to f**k off? It’s not like he’s moving in (yet). I got 99 problems and a b**ch ain’t one.

Honestly though, I’m not even really that opposed to him visiting. I love my brother. I’m sure we’d have a lot of fun while he’s here (on my dime). It’s just… he is a douche… and I just know that after about 24 hours, he’s going to revert into b**ch mode and complain about every little thing… and I’ll tell him to take his b**ch ass back to Utah. I don’t have to deal with him. Also, I’ll be doing this out of the kindness of my heart… while he’s having his condo remodeled… and he’s been unemployed for well over a year now. I’m living paycheck-to-paycheck and working myself into a frenzy… and the roughest part of his day is changing a diaper or two (when he hasn’t convinced my mom to babysit yet again) and “all these p**sies that post up in sniper positions” in his video games. Poor bastard. Eh, I’m probably just getting all worked up over nothing and it’ll be hella awesome to see my baby bro. Then again, that’s what I always think… and then I can’t stand to be around him after two days. Oh well, I’ll keep you posted. Another twist is that it’d happen in two weeks or so… which if that’s true, I’ll be back in Utah for a week of that time that he’s allegedly here. Nice, right? Ah, wish I had a condo that was bought, paid for & remodeled by somebody else… that’d be sweet.

The other night, my roommate and I watched “The Book of Eli” starring Denzel Washington, Mila Kunis and THE Gary Oldman. Set in a post-apocalyptic future (apparently after the snakes invasion leads to nuclear war), a wanderer (Washington) makes his was westward carrying a book. The path is wrought with desperate people, murderers, cannibals, all the usual Mad Max stuff, essentials like women & water are basically currency (yet this guy has an iPod… but that’s another story). He wanders into a town ran by a bad boss (Oldman) who has been searching for a mystical book that will give him incredible power (Is it witchcraft? Cold fusion? Spoiler alert: Trust me, it’ll probably disappoint you too). Well, after the wanderer kills a bunch of his men, the boss tries to convince him to join his gang by offering him Mila Kunis (SOLD!!!) but of course not, he has a mission. To take this book west. Now, I’m gonna stop right there… because I don’t want to give too much away (except Malcolm McDowell’s involved) but this movie was pretty good for a storytelling standpoint and a few badass (30-second) fight scenes… but I didn’t really care for it. Mostly because of the preachiness (sorry if that gave it away). Anyway, still think it’s worth a watch… but yeah, you may be disappointed too.

A surprisingly good little comedy that I saw yesterday though was “I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell” starring… well, the only guy I really knew was Jesse Bradford. Anyway, it’s based on a book by Tucker Max and it’s basically about three friends, a bachelor party, lessons learned and blah blah blah. Yeah I know, it’s a format that’s been ran into the ground a thousand times over… but yeah, it’s pretty funny. A little ridiculous and harsh at times as you might expect… but full of witty remarks, bad language, shenanigans and everything else you expect from this kind of movie. I enjoyed it. Chances are that ladies won’t though. Just throwing that out there. One of the guys is REALLY cynical and derogatory towards women. Like, think of my sarcastic cynicism… to the third power and dead serious. It’s hilarious until you realize there are douches out there like that… but hey, it’s a movie. If I’m looking for a life lesson in a movie titled “I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell” then there’s something genuinely wrong with me. However, I will say this… the moral of the story, which I agree with, is to know who your real friends are. It’s a truly lucky thing to have a handful of people who make you feel special and are always there for you… no matter what… and you need to show them how much they matter to you. Otherwise, they may not let you crash at their place… or return your calls… or bail you out of jail (again) or anything like that. REAL Friendship is a precious thing… and I’m truly blessed to have a few REAL friends out there that I know I can rely on if worst comes to worst. Thank you all very much. Now for your local news…

Kerouac on Everybody’s Ass – So… did you know they’re making a movie about Jack Kerouac’s book “On the Road”? I didn’t. But hey, Amy Adams (“Enchanted”) and Viggo Mortensen (“Lord of the Rings” and oddly enough “The Road”) have joined the cast of "On the Road" for MK2, American Zoetrope, Videofilmes & Film4 reports Deadline. Walter Salles directs this $25 million long-gestating adaptation of Jack Kerouac's acclaimed 1957 novel about Kerouac's years traveling all over North America with his friend Neal Cassady on a "cross-country bohemian odyssey". Sounds awesome, right? Garrett Hedlund (“Four Brothers”) and Sam Riley play the pair. Adams will play Jane, the emotionally damaged junkie wife of Old Bull Lee (Mortensen). Kristen Stewart and Kirsten Dunst also star in the Jose Rivera-penned production. Francis Ford Coppola, Rebecca Yeldham, Nathanael Karmitz and Charles Gillibert will produce. Filming kicked off this week. So now you have another book adaptation to look forward to.

Tarantino Update – Now, you know that I love Tarantino movies. The real shame is only that he makes one every four years or so. It’s like being an American soccer fan and only getting excited when the World Cup is on… or a track & field enthusiast waiting for the Olympics. There’s a lot of pointless rumor and speculation… but then something happens and hits theatres. Well, here’s more speculation… but because it’s Quentin, I’ll share it with you. Quentin Tarantino has apparently become attached to the reboot of "The Shadow" currently in development at 20th Century Fox reports Pajiba. Sam Raimi and later David Slade had been attached to the project when it was setup at Sony Pictures. Sony sold the rights earlier this year to Fox but at last report Raimi was still attached as producer. Tarantino is now said to be re-writing Siavash Farahani’s script. If true, the move comes as a big surprise as Tarantino is linked to plenty of other projects but his name has never come up in regards to "The Shadow" before. "The Shadow" debuted in 1931 on a CBS radio show and followed the adventures of a crime-fighter who skulked in shadows wearing a hat and cape, and who had the power to cloud men's minds. The character went on to become one of the greatest pulp heroes of the time, appearing in all sorts of merchandise and several television series, and influenced many others works including "Batman" and Raimi's own "Darkman". Alec Baldwin, Penelope Ann Miller, Tim Curry and Sir Ian McKellen starred in the previous 'Shadow' film adaptation in 1994 (remember? The one with Genghis Khan or something?). Will QT direct the “Shadow” reboot? Who knows? The Shadow knows.

Spiderman Reboot – So I really don’t care about the “Spiderman” reboot… but I was peaked by hearing that Oscar winner Christoph Waltz is reportedly in talks to play The Lizard, the supposed antagonist according to The Playlist. In the comics, Curt Connors is a Florida surgeon who lost an arm during a stint in the army. Returning to civilian life as a research technologist, he tried to re-grow his amputated arm using an experiment in reptilian limb regeneration. The procedure worked but eventually turned him into… The Lizard (dun dun duuuuuuh…). Waltz's "Inglorious Basterds" co-star Michael Fassbender was previously sought for the role, but he opted instead to play Magneto in "X-Men: First Class" for Fox. Andrew Garfield is so far the only confirmed cast member in the Marc Webb-directed production. So an “Inglorious Basterd” dropped the role for another Marvel flick… so they went after another? Join us next time when we finally hear that Brad Pitt has signed on to play Ant Man. Sounds crazy, right? Well… there’s always that rumor about him playing Dr. Moriarty in the “Sherlock Holmes” sequel too. Besides, Til Schweiger may be looking for work too. There are plenty of Basterds out there.

Quantum Leap Reboot – Speaking of yet more reboots, actor Scott Bakula has confirmed that a script for a cinematic reboot of the TV series "Quantum Leap" franchise is in the works reports Blastr. Speaking about it the other week during Comic Con, Bakula says show creator Donald P. Bellisario is "working on the film script and has a big time Hollywood producer who wants to do it... Don did say that as he was writing, he told me he was having trouble, 'getting you and Dean out of my head.' But I know he will do it." Of course the roles that he and Dean Stockwell played in the original time-jumping genre drama will go to younger actors, but Bakula is keen to be involved in some way saying "Dean and I will have a part in it somehow." As a kid, I loved Quantum Leap. Why? Time Travel of course. Sure it was a TV show and some of the writing had more loopholes than an Afghan rug… but I really hope they don’t change a whole lot on this. I want Ziggy to be a giant handheld calculator that beeps like R2-D2 and malfunctions a lot. And of course… the last line of the movie HAS to be “Oh boy!” setting it up for the sequel. That’s a given. Anyway, yeah. Quantum Leap. Now I have to Netflix the series.

Double Jeopardy – Okay, this doesn’t have anything to do with reboots… at least at first. Authorities trying to solve a shooting in New York have zeroed in on identical twin brothers — but now they have to figure out which one to charge. A prosecutor on Wednesday won the right to photograph 31-year-old Niagara Falls residents Edward and Raymond Nickens with their shirts on and off to see which one might match a witness' description in the May shooting. The brothers wore matching clothes and goatees in court. But tattoos visible on their arms were different. Edward Nickens' attorney argued photos should be taken after charges are filed. Raymond Nickens' attorney said police have already taken pictures. But the judge allowed the photo session after the Niagara County prosecutor said the brothers could change their appearances to look even more alike (aka matching tattoos). You know I love to mock the legal system & how twisted it is… and can be manipulated… but that’s not why I mention this. Why then? Because it’s about two identical twin brothers… and one will be charged with, not really sure… but murder or assault or something, the story wasn’t specific. I can’t help but think of Judge Dredd (and the impending reboot). Oh, you don’t remember the plot of the movie? Allow me to fill you in. Judge Dredd is charged with murdering a Justice… and the big piece of evidence is that his DNA was attached to the bullets (futuristic gun technology). Only he didn’t do it… his evil twin (clone) brother Rico did it (oh yeah, spoiler alert… but if you haven’t watched it yet, you weren’t going to). This is kinda the same thing… but it’d be more compelling if there was DNA evidence to back it up too. Would make for a helluva case to watch. I can see them doing like synchronous motions and stuff so that even the jury can’t tell them apart. Only one of them did it… but which one? They have matching evil twin goatees now. You can’t tell them apart (well, except for the tattoos which will be a big thing). Anyway, just thought I’d share that with you. How often can I pull Judge Dredd into everyday life?

That’ll do it for today. Softball tonight (hopefully). Did I tell you we had to forfeit last week because TWO of us showed up (and a ringer roommate)? Yeah, that happened. But we had beers instead and made the most of it. Hopefully we get to play a bit today. Even if we’re embarrassed like the last few games. At least we show up, right? Anyway, have a great day everybody!!! Tell your REAL friends that you appreciate them!!!