Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Back after a few technical difficulties

This morning has been a comedy of errors, it's just turning into one of those days. Hopefully I can pull off getting to Best Buy later, Newbs need to be shot. Especially blood shot bleary eyed newbs who stayed up all night waiting to pick up a copy of a game they could have A pre ordered and B waited til later on today to crack open.

I mean yeah I want my scalps too, I want to be involved in all the C4 exploding, bullet firing goodness. But in my wise old age I know past probably a short learning curve it's an update of an older game, a new installment not the first coming of a brand new epic. The HUD probably hasn't changed much, nor the reticle, a few of the weapons have probably changed and the accessories but again short learning curve.

So it ain gametime for me yet, I still got work today(though work is taking forever to really get started) it's like we've been knocked out of our normal orbit and it's kinda wierding us all out. Not really a huge amount to say mainly because I gotta hit the "office" just want to do my usual morning update, hello and how ya doin.

To all my international visitors *Wave*, hey nice to meet ya hope you enjoy the ramblings of this crazy American. To all my fellow americans, HOW BOUT THEM COWBOYS

Sorry I couldn't help it I haven't called a single cowboy fan friend or relative to gloat but I have been holding it in so long. Yes Wade Phillips is gone from the cowboys and I may blog more in depth about that later but for now this was just a quick release of pent up gloating. I don't gloat often(unless we spanked them in a game then yes I will gloat, it's sports that is a valid and time honored part of fandom: the trash talk), but in this case hey it is slightly warranted, you know with the whole "COWBOYS super bowl champs the rest of yall can just pack it in" talk we have to endure at the start of EVERY season.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Hi ho, hi ho its off to Marianna I go

I'm gonna cut Marianna a break I always talk trash heading out there cause of the lack of cell phone signal with my digital toy addicted tail, but its a nice quiet little town. Off to run a quick little errand, (boss update break before I forget)

Grrr that was a waste of time I feel him wanting to get the stuff we can get done done today but the customer changed the plan and was like hold off. Oh well another one of those "his plans versus the customers schedule" things. Its always fun but back to Marianna:

As a kid I used to traipse my behind from jersey to AR every summer to spend a few weeks up to a month with my "country cousins". I mean I don't know why I quoted that they are from the country I'm talking farms near by(and by near by I mean down the street or next door), open fields, dirt roads, creeks, bunch of ranch houses, and big lawns. And to a young kid used to seeing concrete and grass only around construction sites it was fun. I won't lie I used to run around pretending I was Tom Sawyer(aaah white washing my aunts old barn hmm I guess I could spin that anecdote):

FLASHBACK EFFECT

I remember it was probably like 83-84 the family reunion all us bad behind cousins together. Me(bad grammar be damned I'm telling the story), Vic, Eric, Mark, Herb, Nay nay, Wally, my little sister and a few other little rug rats who's names slip my mind. As was the custom we were all hanging together at one of the aunts houses as we enjoyed some time together. Well it so happens SOMEBODY left a few cans of white paint around, and paint brushes.

Bunch of kids

Paint and paint brushes

A dilapidated building and a warm summers day.

So you know what that means yup "Hey why don't we paint the barn". Now no, we weren't asked, no most of us weren't old enough to be trusted to paint more of the barn that we would ourselves and no it wasn't going to end well.

So?

So we stirred the paint up, found ourselves some stuff to split the paint into and got our resourceful(yeah yeah bad) butts to work. Now half way through our little white washing escapade it was tease the city cousin time. I think it was Vic "Hey Tommy Jr. Tommy Jr.(Yeah yeah I'm a jr. Keep up) you always bragging how you been climbing up there in jersey, you know yall ain got now trees in jersey". Now at the tender age of around 9 or 10 there was not much my little short scrawny tail could do BUT climbing was one of them. "Uh huh" I said(gotta love that young vocabulary) "I could probably climb up to the top of this barn. I could paint the roof"

Now why I say that? Two young kids in a dare contest(basically that boast was throwing down the guantlet I mean how he gone let me make that claim?) and my little 4 foot on my damn tippy toes, MAYBE 40 pounds soakin wet den claimed I could climb all the way up to the top of this here building. So you know him and everybody else got on me to do it. I mean I don't know if we got to the double or triple dog dare but I was dared.

Thing is:skinny, chocolate, bored with a decent wing span for my age and short? You damn right I climbed up the building like a damn chipmunk. Was a few times where I had to crawl out of my way to find a decent beam but I made it to the top. WITH my brush, big old gap tooth smile too as I started painting that ceiling acting like Billy Bad cause for that second I was the man. Whew aaaaaand in about that next breath it all came crashing down. Because who should come into the barn (WITH a SWITCH) but Vic's mom Aunt Francis. Now I know the stop snitching policy wasn't in effect yet but as the switch was flying tappin young thighs and back sides a tear filled eye looked right at me. Yes me safe above the fray because who would think anybodies little bad tail would climb to the top of the barn(hands anybody, anybody, Buehler, Buehler).

Now the dilemna: I could hear the wails and tears of my cousins being punished for painting the barn. I was stuck in the ceiling, with paint on my hands which of course I needed to wash off. And well I didn't want a whoopin, who does come on now let's not even lie. So here we go I wait a few minutes, heart pounding because of course I know Aunt Francis will come back any minute to discover me climbing down. Nope didn't happen, I look around no Aunt Francis I get to the bathroom no Aunt Francis she had this bathroom with that long pipe faucent and basin where we could all wash our hands.

So I sneak in next to Vick(what), I crank up the crocodile tears(don't look at me like that I was trying to protect my poor tender buns okay), and commence to washing my hands. I swear the look in Vicks eyes was bloody murder, Herb and Eric were kinda laughing like hey I took the dare and almost got away with it.

Wait you say right? Almost?

Climbed down: Check

Made it in the bathroom:check

No Aunt in sight: Cheee whoops spoke too soon

In the midst of my Oscar winning ""you whooped me already" performance in comes Vic's mom for one last pass so we know how bad we were. And yes hands full of paint I may not have got as many licks overall as everyone else but I got some. Call it karma, to make matters worse Vick starts laughing now. I mean it wasn't funny to me anymore the ultimate Tom Sawyer experience was just ruined, I would have gone down in city cousin history.

I climbed to the heights

Put some paint on the ceiling

AND got away with it homey you can't beat that with a bat. Its still a fun story though we always get a laugh out of it thinking back. I wonder if I have any old group pictures of us especially from around that time. If I can find one I'll go ahead and post it at the middle of this blog. Yeah fond memories I couldn't tell you where I got my tail whipped at, I used to use car travel time as either sleep or comic book reading time(even if it was too dark and I was straining my eyes yeah yeah mom I know I know).

Aiight I've come, run my errand and we are on our way out. Fields are still here, they've knocked some of the trees down, probably a few less open lots, and few more businesses but I still have the memories. The fun of youth and the misadventures that you come to love. From the suburban kid who was pretty solitary and wasn't able to go too far to hanging with my cousins and running free.

And yes by the muddy Mississippi I did have me some nice little adventures(okay not RIGHT by the Mississippi, but hey does that matter to a kid nope I was living a story book adventure.
Aiight putting this one to bed.(haven't dug up the pic yet so that will come at a later edit

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Hello.... Good Morning

And that's about all of that song that I know. Yes I'm still happy about the win last night Zebras and all we still won. I'm also proud of me for still kicking blogs out at a decent pace who knows how much longer it will last but for now I'm productive.

I'm not saying I've solved world hunger or anything but hey my accounting of the world is just another stitch in the tapestry. So enjoy in 20 years who knows where we'll be. I mean when I was 15 if you told me we'd have GPS, Camera phones, internet capable phones, ipods, pads, hand held portable TV's, dvd and blu-ray players, Interactive gaming wait let's stop my head would have popped back at the ipods(which I don't own I use my blackberry with a 8 gb mini sd card).

Hell 10 years ago DVD's just started popping and cd's were never gonna die. So my soon to be old foggeyish account of how things were before some of yall were born or before you learned how to read or write might help you kind of see the perspective of how fast or slow life hits its mark.

Grrrr I forgot to save the draft and my phone froze that's what the hell I get. Okay let's get my head back on, yeah what did I say:

Call of Duty:Black Ops comes out tomorrow I have my copy pre ordered so I just have to pretty much go down there with the rest of the dough and pick it up. To all my soon to be dead enemies, it ain personal it just black ops baby. I love when its new shooter day, puts a pep in my step and a smile on my face.

I still haven't fixed my Madden issue yet I may just have to flush this years rookie class I'm so mad but hey a $59 mil penalty is a 59 mil penalty. You got any hints on how to fix that Holla at ya boy, cause I would greatly appreciate that. I may do some game reviews in the future again to I've been lax of my reviews lately too.

I'm about to be in dead signal ville so I'll edit this bad boy when I hit the crib. Putting this to bed PrimalData
Til the next episode(old signature I used to use back in the day, yes I can be a little bit hammy so what life is more fun when ya havin fun)

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Sunday, November 7, 2010

A touch of destiny

As I have mentioned as of late animated movies have stepped out of the realm of just kiddie fare and are actually pretty good. As such the latest in the line of the Anti hero or non traditional hero movies is here.

We start off at the collapse of 2 distant worlds far far away. From one planet comes our Antagonist, he has the brains, he has the curiosity, and he has THE MINION so obviously he is the bad guy right, I mean I said Minion not Sidekick. And from the other world comes our hero, he's handsome, he's super strong, he's invulnerable he is your TYPICAL super hero. Now their rivalry basically really does start from the crib(slash space ship) as their ships bump into each other relentlessly before they finally arrive to their respective guardians for the story.

Okay let me stop some of you are saying "wait space ships, dieing planets, crash landing on earth to guardians why does this sound like superman" well save for the other ship crash landing EXACTLY when his ship does I mean it is superman(in one of the new tellings SUPERGIRL'S ship crash lands like 30 years later but I digress). I mean all the baby needed was a spit curl and it would have been a TOTAL RIPOFF of the iconic DC character. Hell there are quite a few Lex Luthor Superman similarities throughout this story, but it's kind of fun.

Anyway Metroman(real name never discussed) bumps Megaminds ship out of the way and lands in the quaint rich estate of two wealthy parents. The mom attentive and the dad is the typical rich male stereotype(yes I know HUGE BATMAN RIP OFF in a sense) now I don't know if Metroman's parents ever die but he appears to have a normal and happy childhood. Megamind's ship lands in the prison, now wait stop I know what your saying "okay so why didn't they take a BABY out of the prison", I don't know probably because the story is more fun if the antagonist sees jail as his home. Look its a movie not real life just have fun with it. Anyway you see Metroman getting a good and normal upbringing and his super powers and in jail you see the manifestation of Megamind's intelligence. He may not have done anything to ORIGINALLY deserve to be in jail but instituting a jail break at like 18 months yup bad boy. At about grade school age Megamind is sent to Shool(I don't know he has this weird speech thing he calls school shool and Metro city{oops before I forget he's Metro man because he protects Metro city}Metrossity its goofy) and bumps into his old rival Metroman, hi jinx ensue and Megamind finds his calling as an EVIL super genius. You see him invent lots of Goofy gadgets in his attempt to fit in.

Fast forward to the future like most super villians Megamind is locked up in jail and seems to have a flair for the flamboyant (not to the level of being flamboyantly gay like some old school super villains but flamboyant), the man loves to make and entrance and or EXIT. As in most superhero stories you have seen that Megamind the bad guy has lost often crazy scheme after crazy scheme Metroman has stopped him. The thing is (this subject was broached in the Incredibles) this dynamic has it seems become monotonous to everyone. I mean this is your typical monthly installment comic book stuff, they have witty banter back and forth, a damsel is put in distress(she's a reporter so of course it is cliche') and here comes the gallant hero to save her.

Now here's the problem for me this is the "twist" of the movie where instead of waking up to prince charming the princess wakes up to THE OGRE(yeah yeah shrek reference). Now while in the trailers I have seen you kinda know what happens with Megamind you don't really know how. So this is a give away point and as I stated I hate ruining movies. Basically as was shown in the trailer the Hero would like to change careers. So the bad guy is running amok except well, you know he kind of liked the old dynamic. (another superman reference) as when in the Superman cartoon they referenced the death of ole superman even his greatest foe while he may want him out of the way it's that flight of fancy he wants it but really doesn't know what to do with it if it actually came to pass(yeah yeah Dark Knight joker to Harvey speech it's a super hero movie give me a break) and Megamind gets melancholy(he mispronounces it but that's his shtick or at least part of it).

I mean he does the whole villain victory lap, runs amok for a few days but it gets old REALLY old to him because like I said it was a flight of fancy thing he had all these plans for "the next time" that he will never get to try. Okay the whole movie seems to have stuck with me so I will stop going into details here. This movie employs some top of the line talent for the main roles:Will Farrel is Megamind, Brad Pitt is Metroman, Tina Fey is Roxy, and Jonah Hill is the cameraman Hal. Oops I almost forgot David cross plays minion, which I think is a perfect use for David Cross's talents he's great when he can let loose one liners and possibly be a suck up. I wouldn't mind seeing Cross vs Reynolds in a quip fight(not unlike spidey vs deadpool) it's just NOOOT too many places you could pull that off live action, animated somewhere sure but Ryan's been a Gym Warrior lately and Dave just looks like dude you hung out at the quad with back in the day discussing Star Wars vs Star Trek weapon output ratios.(damn digression my bad)

Anyway the voice talents mesh perfectly, again being a super hero movie yes there are some cliche's that can't be avoided, being another in a line of anti hero super hero movies it runs into a few more little cliche's but it is a fun romp through Metro City even the "love story" break doesn't seem heavy handed, actually I say break but they fit it in during the whole conversion period. There is a lot more I could say about the movie but I would be ruining it Good guy fights bad guy, bad guy falls for the girl, bad guy becomes MOSTLY good guy, and they all live happily ever after. I don't know if you can sequel this but hey kung fu panda got a sequel and shrek got 3 sequels so if you can get the original cast back together there are a few super hero premises you COULD take on if you wanted to make fun of a few of them. Take your kids to go see Megamind if you have them or if you just want to sit back and enjoy a few laughs go have some grown up fun. Oh wait I almost forget there is one EGREGIOUS form fitting pants in between the butt cheeks part in the movie and  Hal had some self wedgie issues for a minute so you know you've been forewarned, you know it's coming don't be all like "AAAARGH my eyes" I'm telling you now Hal brief wedgie issue, Megamind spandex too tightly molded to the crack two scenes don't make it weird just prepare for the slight moment of awkwardness and move on, yes you can laugh(just not too hard).


And as they should ALL good things must come to an end

18

18

18

18

18

Even in our best years that damn number has haunted us, Captain Cranium the Eagle killer. Peyton Manning, for the longest Donovan had more Playoff wins but didn't have any head to head wins(still doesn't) and if Donovan didn't have any head to heads, then neither did Andy Reid. I know everybody says against all odds when they watch their team win a tough game, but today I can say without a doubt it was against all odds. Every call that could go against us went against us, my favorite still has to be the one on Austin Collins injury. I am sorry the man got hurt, but he caught the ball, took 3 steps(both feet hitting the ground) got himself into a defensive position and then got sandwiched. Yes I will not deny he got crushed but the call on the field pretty much tells me either the refs just threw a flag and then made up a penalty afterwards or else they had money on the game.

What do I mean? The call on the field was "The ruling on the field is an incomplete pass(first mistake), with a personal foul for hitting a defenseless player, 15 yard penalty, 1st down colts" some might say well if we had a time out we could have challenged the play. No it was 3rd down, the incomplete pass part would not have bothered me, 4th down they kick it we get the ball. It was the penalty, you can not challenge a flag and it was about 3 or 4 flags in this game that damn near cost the eagles the game. I can be a little more lenient with the blow to the head call, they may not call them consistently but there was at least obvious grounds for that one, the hand did brush the helmet. I don't like that it gave them a first down but that flag could be explained and MILDLY justified. Now tomorrow I fully expect the NFL to come out and say that the refs in the Eagles vs Colts game made the right call. They have to, there will be anarchy in the streets this week if they don't who knows how many down this will be now with refs blowing calls. Because it will go back to week one with Detroit, how can you erase a touchdown because he loses the ball when getting UP after his butt hits the ground. Seeing that call kind of told me what kind of season it was going to be ref wise, because nobody has a choice if your Rule Upholders are shown to not know the rules exactly how can you play the game?

I actually feel sorry for Roger Goodell, he has tried to clean up football he is trying to clean it up while still leaving the physicality in the game problem is this year he has hired a bunch of bumbling idiots. Bad calls should not be a running narrative every week. Every few weeks sure a guy can miss a call or make a bad call, but EVERY week? And not just kind of bad calls but GAME CHANGING calls, wow there are teams who would have much different records if the refs would have made the right call.

But hey, we won Michael Vick bested Peyton Manning in the Hunter Green and Silver all is right with the world, the streak is over and another remains intact(Andy Reid is 12-0 after a bye week), and in case anybody wonder WHY Asante Samuel gets paid the big bucks ahem when the game is on the line and you not only intercept the ball but run 11 seconds off the clock YOU DA MAN. We didn't need another score we had the lead I don't care if I win by 2 points or 50 I just want to win. By the way anybody notice Desean Jackson basically tell dude I don't play that. I know Desean is a skinny guy and USUALLY skinny guys are thought to be kind of timid or mousy especially the brash and loud ones. Talk about the heart of an eagle, you gonna give me a head shot pimpin I will stand my ground and give as good as I get. And while he may not have gotten that BURNER pass on the next play from Vick when he did get it can I tell you Djax is pretty much unstoppable, as the announcer set he just outran the ball. 3 guys versus one man and he still gets the 20 yard pass, then with less than 2 minutes on the clock he gets you a first down and then another 8 yards for insurance, yeah we got a false start call but hey clock management was perfect(I'm not gonna kvetch about 6 seconds on the play clock just hike it and let it go) penalized for almost as many yards as we had rushing and we still won. Fly, EAGLES, Fly

Review still to come

If this is your first foray into the way I do movie reviews I will explain it really quickly(again since I know I explained it before but now I will tag it so you can look it up later):

I never do movie reviews the day I watch the movie. This is for two reasons 1 like most movie goers I am still wrapped up (hopefully) in the world the director and actors created, my question is how long is that world gonna last. 2 I want to convey to who ever might read this what stood out to me, whatever my mind felt were the brightest colors, as Morpheus asked Neo "Did you hear anything I said or did you just see the woman in the red dress?", well I want to know in my minds eye who or what was the woman in the red dress, now I may cheat a little and kick out some of the names(or at least previous roles for folks who's names I don't have a quick grasp on, like the superbad kid) into a basic outline of the review just so I can kinda remember who was what, but then again I might not screw it I'll remember what I remember and I'll weave the story to you as best I can.

I don't give out stars, Thumbs, eyes, ribbons, or any of that I tell you if I liked it or not and if I would recommend you going to see it. I give you what I liked and what I didn't like and if I know any background on the story or characters I give you that(see blogs I've done on Iron man, spiderman, speed racer, clash of the titans, the A-team, etc). While others may critique the special effects, and CGI I'll focus on the stories and characters.

I try as hard as I can not to give out any spoilers, with some movies thats kind of hard with others there is enough fill space that the blog isn't 2 or 3 words long and then out(you know a men on film "hated it" or "I loved it" and there are NO snaps in ANY direction, though I loved that bit as much as the next guy but it goes against my no arbitrary ratings policy). I don't pull punches if it sucked it sucked, if it was good it was good. I'm not gonna give something a pass because it was a "kids movie", animated, or a remake(hell I'm probably harder on the remakes).

I welcome any and all input if you disagree hit the comment box, if you agree or want to add something more be my guest. I hope this helps for those who come back to read or go through and read past reviews I have done.

The trailers

Okay on my movie the trailers I remembered were gullivers travels , Rango, Yogi Bear, Kung Fu panda 2 and I remember something else starting on December 17 but that's tron day so it ain happening.
Damn premature sendage now I'll have to save one and delete the other(did make for a nice aside though).

And updated true to current life Gulliver MIGHT work it has some grade a talent in it actors I like so I might be remotely interested, but no promises.

Basic premis: Gulliver appears to be a freelance writer who goes off to chase a story. Gulliver piloting his boat to the island where said story exists gets caught up in a storm(yeah yeah insert cliche here), sucked into a vortex and appears on the isle of the lilliputians. Now from what I remember from the book gulliver was a little less goofy and more well rounded than the character jack black is playing. But like a few other old classics a little over the top comedy may be just what it needs.

Rango meh don't know enough about the character just looks like an animated wild west tale same trailer I've seen for like the last 8 months now. Lizard in a hawaiin shirt having wild west antics.

Kung fu panda 2. Jack black is back, didn't really show much in the trailer just black returnin as Poe being silly. If the whole original cast is back it should work. Its hard to lose with kung fu action, especially well animated kung fu action.

Yogi Bear. Yogi and Boo Boo are cgi everybody else is live action. Its Yogi Bear if you don't know what to expect kill yaself. Yes there may be some convuluted love interest for Ranger Smith but this is really about the hijinx of Yogster and Boo. It looks like it might be fun, CGI and live action together is like passe' in hollywood now so it won't be the special effects that sink this movie. If anything it will be waiting til Yogi hasn't had a show on the air in YEARS. Scooby doo in some shape form or fashion is always on the air Live actionish(scoob is always animated in), cartoon, cartoon as kids, live action as teens. But past a few cameos with other Hanna Barbera (thought I forgot how to spell it didn't you ha! ye of little faith) on shows like Harvey Birdman attorney at law, and Robot Chicken(on cartoon work) I haven't seen Yogi, Boo boo or Cindy on the air. He's got the hat, the tie, and the ingenuity but will he have the audience.

I think there was one more opening like I said on Tron day but I'm not sure. The movie review will come from the desktop after I finish the other one and add in all the required linkage. Here's hoping no one locked the door on me the house is in sight.

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