Too busy to blog...

too much work, side work, and house at the moment.

Sorry.

Stupid, stupid saying

Okay, most everyone has already heard this but last night Roz pointed out something that made me crack up.

This saying: "If you shoot for the moon and miss, you will land among the stars." It makes no sense. Why? Because if you miss the moon you will either:

1. Be sucked back into Earth's atmosphere.

or


2. Drift in the space between Earth and Mars until you run out of oxygen.

Roz suggested amending the saying to: "If you shoot for the stars and miss at least you will land around the moon." And this struck me as good wisdom but I have a few more alternate versions.

If you shoot for the moon and miss, you better have a good heat-shield because re-entering the Earth's atmosphere is extremely hot.

Or

If you shoot for the moon and miss, you're a really bad aim. How the heck could you miss something as big as the moon?

Do you think these might catch on?

The blogsphere expands...

I've added 2 new links to the sidebar: Sadico Junction and Joe's Universe.

Were they inspired by culturezoo to publish their thoughts to the web? Should they give me thousands of dollars because I inspired them?

Perhaps we'll never know.

Colin Powell's Tell-All Book: Steroid Use Rampant In White House

This is pretty funny

Good news for us Junior College dropouts

The following is excerpted from Paul Graham's very interesting article, How to Start a Startup

"If you work your way down the Forbes 400 making an x next to the name of each person with an MBA, you'll learn something important about business school. You don't even hit an MBA till number 22, Phil Knight, the CEO of Nike. There are only four MBAs in the top 50. What you notice in the Forbes 400 are a lot of people with technical backgrounds. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Michael Dell, Jeff Bezos, Gordon Moore. The rulers of the technology business tend to come from technology, not business. So if you want to invest two years in something that will help you succeed in business, the evidence suggests you'd do better to learn how to hack than get an MBA."

Desperado...

I know this is old news, but for some reason I got to thinking about Linda Ronstadt's insistence on dedicating the song Desperado to Michael Moore. I would just like to ask my few (but very good-looking) readers, did you ever picture an overweight, scruffy, left-wing, documentary filmmaker when you heard that song? Anyone?

It just strikes me as an odd association.

Also, did Linda even listen to the words before she dedicated it to Mr. Moore? I mean, the first line goes: "Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?" I think the Republicans are asking the same thing.

Then the line: "Your pain and your hunger are driving you on." That's got to hurt for Mr. Moore. We all know he has a weight problem, does she really have to taunt him about it?

Linda, sometimes you puzzle me.

Not-so-guilty pleasure

I find it odd how some people (myself definitely included) love to flaunt their love of obscure musical tastes.

For example, in conversation I'll mention that the new Tom Waits album is "Amazing" and "Earthy". I smile to myself as eyebrows are raised.

"Who is Tom Waits?" my fellow conversationalists ask. "I've never heard of him."

Of course you haven't, I think to myself. Only musical elites, like me, have the ear to listen to such refined and obscure artists

Or maybe I'll try this tactic: "You know," I begin, "I've really been into Nazareth lately."

Nazareth? The 80's glam band? But yes. I'm so confident and refined in my tastes that I can enjoy glam rock. I don't need to follow the latest trends.

"Oh," say my dumbfounded (but impressed) fellows. "I've been into Nickleback lately."

I can't help but guffaw. Nickleback? The money-chasing, overly-serious, talentless band that drowns the airways in their musical sewage?

Truly, I am elite in my tastes.

---

Okay enough of that. The sad part about the piece above is that it's partly true. I don't know why I'm like that. It seems so stupid when I step back and look at it.

So in defiance of that part of me, today I would like to announce that I really like the new Kelly Clarkson album. I might be tempted to admit this as a "guilty pleasure" but why should any pleasure in music be guilty?



Go out and listen to it! It's pretty good.

Now I need to stop feeling superior over the movies I like.

Comic book thoughts...

(To the low-bandwith folks, sorry about all the images in this post.)

Marvel Comics once had a series of comic books called "What If?" where they just asked stuff like "What if Galactus had killed Mr. Fantastic?" and would spin a story off that.



It was an interesting concept: Fantasy within a fantasy universe. At the very least it was fun to see your favorite characters mucked around with.

Which leads me to my own "What If?" idea. This hit me on my way home from work and I haven't been able to get it out of my head.

What if the characters from The Lord Of The Rings movies were played by the characters from the Back To The Future films?

Think about it and you'll get goosebumps.


Playing Gandalf: Doc. ("Great Scott! It's a Balrog!")


Playing Frodo: Marty.

George McFly could play Sam; Biff and his gang could play the Orcs. Does anyone else see the possibilities?

And speaking of comic books...

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I love Superman. He's my favorite superhero. I think the best comic book ever is Action Comics #1 (see above). It captures everything I love about superheros and comics in general.

Who can forget panels like this:


Or:


The illustrations in this comic are beautiful, the story is romantic and exciting. I wish there were more like it.

Unfortunately, Superman has seen some low points since the wonderful Action Comics #1.



In the 50's and 60's Superman's adventures became silly to stupid and Superman himself (along with his pals) seemed to fall prey to the idiot atmosphere. See below:


Sure maybe you could accept the super dog, Krypto


But did we really need Steaky the super cat?


Beppo the super monkey seemed like sick joke:


Comet the super horse was the only member of The Legion of Super-Pets that seemed to retain some dignity.

Somewhere in the seventies or the eighties the folks in charge realized that Superman's universe resembled something that you'd find in a muppet movie and they decided to make things cool. And they were successful with some great titles by some great artists.

But in the 90's things really started bogging down. They went too far and finally Superman suffered the ultimate indignity: a mullet.



Thankfully, this didn't last long.

Now I'm seeing a Superman revival of sorts. It seems that artists and writers have finally got him again.

Alex Ross is a perfect example:



Superman isn't Batman. He isn't a dark character and that's what I love about him. For Oddessy fans, Superman is the Mr. Whittaker of comic books - he's a father figure. He's optimistic and relatively happy. Unlike most superheros, he had a good upbringing with the Kents, devoid of tragedy. (Though the comics skirt the issue, I imagine he's something of a Christian too. You gotta believe that the Midwestern Kents were, at-least, church-goers.)

It's strange that one fantasy character has had such an impact on the world; but I think Superman represents everything we want heros to be. In Batman we see the reality of the world but when we look at Superman and we see things the way want them to be.

Geeze, who knew that you could get so philosophical over comic books?

But is life really so good in a Maitta Chevy?

I was driving along today, listening to the radio, when a commercial for a local car dealership came on. It started with the usual car commercial jargon ("And this weekend only, we have everything marked down twenty percent off sticker price"...) and ended with a jingle I've heard countless times: "Ohhh, life's so good in a Maitta Chevy!" But for some reason the actual implications of that jingle got me thinking...

First, the jingle implies that if you are driving a Maitta Chevy your life will be good or even "so good". This strikes me a fairly bold claim. Do people driving Maitta Chevys never cry? Are they all attractive and healthy? Are they satisfied with their jobs? Or more-likely their good life is limited to only when they are physically in the Maitta Chevy; if that's the case then you'd think they'd never want to leave the car. Are the Maitta Chevy customers secretly addicted to the good life in their car? Do they drag themselves with bitter tears from the glorious reality behind the steering wheel into the doldrums of the not-so-good life?

You'd also Maitta Chevy would push this fact to #1 in their advertising - not just tack the fact on at the end. After all, who cares if the cars are 10% off sticker price when you can attain the good life by simply being in one! I'd pay a few extra bucks for that.

Does anyone reading this own a Maitta Chevy? If so would it be okay if I sat it in for a while. My life's been a little drab lately and I'd love a taste of the "so good".

You know who I am: The guy with curly hair, sitting forlorn, behind the steering wheel of a Pioneer Motors Toyota.

Updated: And the award for most melodramatic movie trailer goes to...

Crash

Maybe this movie is great but this trailer is rediculously trying to look like a best-picture. Don't you hate self-important films?

Update: I just noticed the tagline of this movie: "Live life at the point of impact". Does this mean that I'm supposed to live my life screaming in terror as my vehicle slams into another vehicle? Yeah, I'd make a lot of friends that way. "Just ignore the screaming guy, he's living his life at the point of impact." Great advice, Hollywood. Sorry but I think I'll live my life trying to avoid the point of impact.

Monday Musings

So about a week ago me and Suzanne watched Roman Holiday and really enjoyed it. It's charming and romantic, somewhere in the vein of It Happened One Night (which sets the standard for movie romance). And Audrey Hepburn was amazingly cute too.

Inspired to see more of her, we rented "the ultimate Audrey Hepburn", Breakfast at Tiffany's, which seemed to set the standard for meandering & aimless plot. What's up with this movie? And why is it such a classic? Sure it had some nice moments but none of it seemed to fit together.

Here's my list of objections/questions.

• Who was that lady? I don't even know what to call her. You know, Paul/Fred's "decorator". Was she his mother? His lover? The movie never makes it clear. And why did she think they were being watched by Doc? Which brings us to...
• Doc Golightly. Why did they bring this character into the mix? It seemed so random. We find out that Holly's real name is Lue Lamee. Okay... Then he leaves (in a strange farewell scene, which I vaguely felt was supposed to be sad) with us wondering why he ever came.
• Fred's death, where Holly freaks out. Yeah, yeah this was okay. Except the last shot seemed like something by Stanley Kubrick: The door swings open on weeping Holly and we see a shadow of a man stretch into the room. Feathers ominously float in the air and then we fade to black. Hmmmm. What was that supposed to mean?

That's just a sampling of the weird moments contained in this film and I want to ask, am I wrong in this? Has anyone else seen this movie and found it weird? Am I alone in my belief?

Moving on...

---

Do not read The Stand if:

1. You are coming down with a cold
2. It's the cold season
3. You can only read it late at night
4. All of the above
   

I'm checking "4" and putting The Stand down until I'm over this cold and I have a better reading time then after 10:00 PM.

---

I think I may be a bad movie physic. Why? Because I knew The Notebook stank, without even seeing it! I had similar psychic pulses with Raise Your Voice and Uptown Girls. (But did Suzanne, Claire & Rosalyn heed my warnings? Ha!)

Therefore, I think I should be the final authority on what movies we watch on movie night. (True, my psychic alarms didn't go off when I rented Van Helsing, but still...)

---

Finally,

"In Christ alone my hope is found, he is my life, my strength, my song."

What a joyful thing, to find life in him - to become strong and to hear a new song; and such a song.

When I am God's and his blood and body are mine, I can posses nothing else. The world can give me no greater gift nor can I achieve any greater glory.

And that is a comforting thought.

O claymation joy!

THE WALLACE AND GROMIT MOVIE! is on its way. This is one of the best trailers I've seen in a while.