It's raining in Baltimore, baby. But everything else is the same.

The Princess Bride is one of my favorite movies, and consequently one of my favorite books. The book is told the same way the movie was. It starts out with a young William Goldman sick at home, and his grandfather reading him the very very long version of "The Princess Bride" originally written by a man named S. Morgenstern.

I have had friends who claim that their friends uncles grandfathers sister-in-law (twice removed) has an original version of the extended "The Princess Bride" locked away in some safe, and that they've seen it, and that it's worth two entire butt-loads of money.

The truth is that there never was an original version of "The Princess Bride" and that the story was entirely written by William Goldman, and the grandfather telling the sick grandson was a brilliant story device entirely conceptualized by the author.

My favorite character was always Inigo. Partially because I loved his cool accent, but more because of that fight scene at the end between him and Count Rugen, the Six Fingered Man, where he keeps repeating that famous line, "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." Plus, that's a killer line when Rugen is beat, and he makes him offer him all these riches in exchange for mercy, and he says "Offer me everything I ask for" and Rugen says "Anything you want." And he stabs him in the stomach and says, "I want my father back you son of a bitch." Remember that? That was awesome.

Vengeance is a powerful thing. It made Bruce Wayne become Batman, even though in the Nolan film, the guy who killed his parents was dead years before. It makes more poetic sense in the original Burton film that the guy who killed his parents was the Joker. But even in the Burton version, once the Joker is dead and his parents avenged, he keeps fighting criminals. Vengeance is what drives the Leonard character in Memento, another Chris Nolan film, even though if he gets revenge, he'll never even remember it. (spoiler avoided)

It's odd, but it seems that when the Joker kills your parents, or when Count Rugen kills your father, you can cling to vengeance. When you lose something you feel passionate about, you immediately want to clasp onto something else you feel passionate about to fill that void. And usually the nearest thing to clasp to is the pain and anger you have over losing the someone or something that you loved. You can let it consume you, and fill you in all the places that you are now empty, and it can drive you to study swordplay for twenty years, or put on the Batsuit. It's a fire that does not die easily, because it seeped into all the cracks and holes the loss left you. And if it was a deep loss, it left a lot of damage.

It isn't always vengeance, because some things cannot be avenged. Heartbreak for example. To quote another of my favorite movies, Swingers:

"I don't know man, sometimes it still hurts. I don't know man, it's like you wake up every day and it hurts a little less, and then you wake up one day and it doesn't hurt at all. And it's like, and this might sound a little weird, but it's like you almost miss that pain."
"You miss the pain?"
"Yeah. For the same reason you miss her, because you lived with it for so long."

It's really strange how that works. It's entirely true. I broke up with this girl once, and it was really hard. I was screwed up for about a year. It was before I had this blog, and I needed someone to talk to about it, or some way to get it out, and so I got my camcorder and I taped myself talking. All my anger and my sadness and all that depressing crap fired at a camcorder, which felt like it was the only thing that would listen to me without judging me.

I found the tape a few days ago, and not realizing what it was, I put it in. It's very interesting, and I highly recommend doing it sometime if you're really stressed or angry. I recommend being entirely honest. I also recommend making sure no one else sees it. (I let Rob borrow my camcorder, and I accidentally left the tape in it. When he gave it back he very awkwardly said, "You left a tape of yourself in the camera... you looked pretty mad.")

I watched most of it, and I thought it was actually funny. You ever look back at a hard time in your life and wonder what it was you were thinking, and why you took it so hard, and you wish you could just go back and slap yourself and tell yourself to stop being retarded? Now I know EXACTLY what I was thinking. It wasn't pretty. I was mad, I was sad and crying, I was furious, I was saying some awfully mean things, and one of the last segments I had shaved off all my facial hair, I looked like I had just woken up from a coma, I was barely acceptably dressed, and I turned the camera on and stared off into space for like three straight minutes without saying a word.

It was pretty pathetic.

I looked at it and laughed because now it doesn't hurt anymore, and it seems so far away from a time that it did. And I listened to the things that I said and I thought to myself, "Why am I so upset about this?" In the video I was all kinds of mad because she went to see some movie that I wanted to see with her. God was I mad. Now I look at it and think, "Of course she went without you, you had been broken up for six months. That means you don't go on dates anymore." She especially shouldn't have gone with someone as seemingly psychotic as I was if her seeing a movie without me set me off that bad. All in all it seemed pretty stupid.

But I think I get it now.

I wasn't trying to hang on to her. I was trying to hang on to the pain. Because in her absence, it was what I had left. It was the thing I now felt passionate about. My anger, my depression, my rage, it was all very real.

In not being allowed to love her, I fell in love with how much it hurt.

You're always made to believe that nothing worth doing is easy. In some twisted sick way, it also meant that if I didn't feel hurt, it meant that my love for her was very casual and weak. I don't know if that is true or not.

But I understand.

You do miss the pain because you lived with it for so long. You do love it in place of what you lost. Is it misguided? Yes. Is it irrational? Yes. Is it wrong or abnormal? Absolutely not.

And most importantly, looking back, I realize that just because the pain went away, it doesn't mean my love for her was weak and casual. It means my love for the pain was. She broke up with me. I broke up with how much it hurt.

It's your party. Why wouldn't you be invited?

-j-

M347B4115&P0747035

Happy Halloween.

It was a really good weekend. Everyday was one of those days where when the clock hit midnight, I smiled because absolutely everything went right.

Now it's monday, and the weekend is over, and I'm looking back at real life again. It was like being intoxicated, and now I'm paying for it. You never regret the drunken partying, you just realize that you were never really thinking about the hangover.

I've got a big headache, I'm kind of light headed, and I've got a bad cough. Dressing up like a pirate seemed like a good idea at the time, but wearing shorts and a thin shirt outside at the end of october in Michigan definitely has consequences.

Erin came up this past weekend. We had a lot of fun. We made meatballs and potatoes the way my mom does and they turned out super awesome.

I had a job interview on friday for Verizon, and it went smashingly. The interview lasted about an hour, and at the end, he said I was one of the best interviews he's had in a really long time. The job pays really well, it's full time, eventually there's all types of benefits, PTO, etc, etc. And I figure since Verizon is a nationwide company, if next summer I decide to go to Denver, I can just put in a transfer request, and see if I can just start a job there right away. It'll be nice to be getting paychecks again.

However, I don't have the job yet. I just had a really good interview. Keep your fingers crossed for me, please.

I'm supposed to go over to Jamie and Jason's and hang out with Charlie, but I'm dragging ass today. I don't feel well at all. Plus I just realized that I slept with the window open last night, because I'm freaking brilliant.

I watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas last night for the first time. I think Johnny Depp is an amazing actor. Although, I must admit, I have no idea what that movie was about, or if there was a deeper plot than a Hunter S. Thompson character and his attorney being on a long drug binge in Las Vegas. That's probably all it was. I absolutely loved the part where Raoul was hiding behind the bar and the photographer knocked on the door, and he was terrified. Or the part right before it:

"There's a big machine in the sky, some kind of electric snake coming straight at us."
"Shoot it."
"Not yet... I want to see its habits."

It was good.

-j-

I walk through in the air between the rain though myself and back again.

Masta Cow is coming up tomorrow, so I've got a bit of work to do to make my room look at least mildly respectable.

I've determined that if I were famous, I think Brad Pitt and I would be good friends. I've never met the guy or anything, but I listened to the audio commentary for Oceans 11 last night, and apparently he liked Mystery Science Theater 3000. In my opinion, that's enough to make us best pals.

I'm hungry, and I'm not sure what to eat. I had one of those Subway Mozzerella Chicken sandwiches that look so tasty on TV. They look better than they taste, but not by much.

Speaking of which, if you're hungry and it's really late, look up into the sky. McDonalds has started marking all it's 24 hour locations by shining a spotlight into the sky like the Bat Signal. They should have the McDonalds logo in the light and call it "The Fat Signal." Hehe. I just made that up. I can be pretty funny sometimes.

Gotta get working.
-j-

5pm

...is when I got off work today. 1pm is the last time that I did anything productive. 6am is the time I got to the theater to set up for the most insane set I've ever seen in a play. 3pm is when I started getting overtime pay.

The trippiest part of today was a choir of little kids singing my name.

The worst part of the day was the guy who apparently was a pro electrician who continually insulted me because it was my first day and I had no idea what I was doing.

The best part of the day was coming home and sitting in this office chair. Soon to be replaced with taking a hot shower and lying down. After not having a job for a long time, getting up at 5am and being on your feet for 11 hours is quite a shock.

Marcy, if you've got the camera, I can take some pictures for you. My friend Erin will be up here thursday, so I'll be hanging out with her this weekend. I'm sure I can get some time to take your photos though. Let me know what you need of me.

I'm about to crash. Later.
-j-

5am

This is when I usually go to bed, not get up.

I got to falling asleep at around 11:30pm though. My plan actually worked. I caught a bit of the Wings vs. Blue Jackets game last night, up until Shanahan scored from behind the net. I watched it on OLN. Don't even get me started on that.

I'm on my way out now. The only redeeming value of being up this early: McDonalds Breakfast.

-j-

Wu too.

My Wu name is "Action-Packed Mentallist."

My personal Wu-Tang Clan would consist of:

Erin Cain aka Masta Cow
Kristine Williams Boswell aka Erratic Assassin
Éowyn Mishawn aka Homicidal Terrahawk
Jason Ervin aka Big Gay Mule
Jamie Flynn aka Inscrutable Drama Queen
Charlie DeBone aka Tha Visible Choirboy
Chris Brill aka Violent Toilet Thing
John Aitken aka Dependable Skeleton
and
Marcy Bross aka Fiendish Observational Comedian.

My old friend Tera Breinich's name would be Bastard BASTARD Harbourmastah.

My mom would be Ol' Filthy Sweaty Bastard. My dad: Cybernetic Tiger. Jordan is Grand Moff Puppeteer, and Brent is Flippant She-Creature.

My favorite is my great uncle Ed though, or should I say my great uncle Dubious Masturbatah-X.

When I put in Éowyn's full name it said "Please go back to the form and fill in the form with sensible names! This is no laughing matter." Too funny.

Damn you, Starship Troopers!

...seriously.

Why me?

My CD/DVD burner is now carving a nice round groove into any CD I put into it. Just one more thing on my list of crapiness. This is the last straw.

You ever get to that point where stuff keeps going wrong, and you're really stressed out on top of that, and you're having a terrible time, and then that one additional unnecessary ridiculous thing goes wrong, and you just can't help but laugh, because it just figures. And for that moment you can step out of yourself and see what a comedic calamity your life has recently become, and you get a little chuckle out of it as your world kind of crumbles around you.

Maybe it's me not taking the troubles too seriously. Maybe it's a defense mechanism to prevent a panic attack. Whatever it is, can look around me right now, and think that it can only get better from here.

I know I'm wrong, but I do my best to focus on the positive things. I guess that's why I can sometimes laugh at how I've basically fallen apart and how I currently completely suck at life.

See? That last sentence I wrote with a smile on my face, because while it may be true, it's written in a dramatic and humorous way. I even went back a few times and added adverbs to try to maximize the funny.


"Time passes in moments... moments which, rushing past, define the path of a life, just as surely as they lead towards its end. How rarely do we stop to examine that path, to see the reasons why all things happen, to consider whether the path we take in life is our own making, or simply one into which we drift with eyes closed. But what if we could stop, pause to take stock of each precious moment before it passes? Might we then see the endless forks in the road that have shaped a life? And, seeing those choices, choose another path?"

Omelette!

Hey everyone. Check out ManiaTV tonight at 10pm Eastern, on a show called "Too Short For Hollywood" they're showing the top ten films from the 24 hour Boulder Shootout, one of which is a film I believe called "Heartsong," directed by Eowyn Mishawn and Kristine Williams Boswell. There may even be an interview with them, as their film won "Best Sound Design."

Congrats, ladies.

-j-

You... Are... Special.

Mr. Rogers Neighborhood is on right now. He was a sweet guy and everything, and that's all well and good. But seriously, I always thought Mr. Rogers was a little bit creepy. Just the way he's always looking into the camera, like he's staring right at me like Hannibal Lecter, and he talks really slowly, and occasionally breaks out into song, then he does the voices of King Friday and all those puppets, and I don't know... he just kind of creeps me out.

So he's showing kids how he swims on this episode. Check out his swimsuit.



Uhhhh.... WTF? Seriously.

-j-

Can't sleep again.

It's 4am again. I've been in bed sice 12:30 trying to go to bed at a decent time two nights in a row, but alas, I cannot sleep again tonight.

I just got a spam email with the subject, "Are You Big and Beautiful, Curvacious and Love to Flaunt?"

Why yes, yes I am.

Three things.

Only in more dreams...

So last night, in a near miraculous event for me, I went to bed at 11pm and was asleep by 11:15. I woke up at midnight for a split second to look at the clock before falling back asleep. Then I woke up at 4am and struggled a bit to get back to sleep, and I was probably awake for 20 minutes. I woke up at 8am, rolled over and fell back asleep until about 10am.

But wow did I have some strange dreams last night.

It started out with people trying to do my hair while I was asleep. I was on some new reality TV show and people give you make overs while you're asleep, but they woke me up and so I got kicked off the show. Then for some reason I was in the arctic, and I came upon this structure that looked like about a hundred 30' by 30' blocks of snow across a valley, and I was standing on a snow cliff on the other side. One of the blocks moved, and out came Bugs Bunny. He told me to come into the structure, and so I tried to jump down the cliff, and I missed my ledge and fell about eighty feet to the bottom of the cliff. I was okay though, because I somehow had some cartoon like abilities and could fall from great distances. But I remember it really hurt.

So Bugs and I go into this snow structure which has like 44 sublevels under the ice. It turns out to be Warner Bros. Studios, which for some reason had to move out of Los Angeles. He starts bringing me through the studio, and suddenly I'm somewhere else.

I'm in some big hotel room in New York City across from Madison Square Garden. There must be like a WWF (WWE) event going on at MSG or something, because I'm on the same floor as some wrestlers. There's this girl on my balcony who is vaguely latino and with the wrestlers, but for some reason I know she's bad news. She's flirting with me a lot, and I'm playing along, but it's a lie, because for some reason, I'm trying to trick her or something. My balcony is made of those safety mats that we had in gym class so it's not at all stable. If you lean on the railing, it'll fold over and you'll fall to your death. So I get her to come off the balcony and into the room, when suddenly (and I'm not kidding here) Triple H and Edge are out doing a little like irish jig on my balcony. I tell them to come in, because the balcony isn't stable, and Edge tries to disprove me, and falls over the railing. He grabs something and climbs up, and runs inside. Triple H then comes in and pats me on the back and thanks me for the warning.

And that's all I can remember.

Dear Michael E. Pralle, CEO of General Electric

I've already posted too much about Serenity, but I just saw this on one of their message boards, and I really felt the need to comment.

There's a fan on these boards who is trying to get everyone to boycott the Sci-Fi Channel (and their parent company, all the way up to GE)until they pick up and run new Firefly episodes.

First of all FOX still owns Firefly, so that couldn't happen.

Second, to boycott General Electric would be next to impossible.

But most importantly, GE owns NBC-Universal. Universal released Serenity. So they'd have to boycott their movie that they worked so hard to get, (which it appears the majority of the public is doing anyway).

My question is if Serenity fans boycotted GE, do you think GE should care? Serenity fans are responsible for what at this point is a $50 million dollar debt. Universal took a chance and tried to please these guys once, and it bit them in the ass. If I were the Sci-Fi channel, I'd cancel all reruns and aquire the rights to Firefly, and promise the fans that they'd follow up and do a second season of Firefly, as long as the Serenity makes $125 million. Every fan would have to go see it like twice a day. They'd pay us back for the movie that they demanded. How awesome would that be. We'd boycott the fans.

Think about it.
-j

It's time I had some time alone.

Now I'm watching the athiest show. Primordial Ooze TV. Evolutionvision.

Athiests think they're really smart, and everyone else is not. Isn't it ironic, athiests with "holier than thou" complexes?

For some reason they film in front of a blue screen, to make it look like they're in a news room, and they key it terribly. Plus their outro song is pretty hilarious.

It's my opinion that athiests who are all in everyones face about their beliefs that there is no God, makes them just as annoying as the right wingers who are all in everyones face that they're going to burn in hell.

I always believe that people who NEED to convert others to their beliefs are people who are unsure of them to begin with, and need the reassurance from others willing to buy into it that they are right.

Me, I believe that I don't know what the hell is going on. I don't think there's any proof that any religion is right, or that any is wrong, or that there is or is not a God.

I just try to be a good person. Seems like a good plan.

-j

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.

I'm watching the christian channel. GodTV. Jesusvision.

Apparently the end times are here.

In the bible it says that Paul said that Jesus said that the signs that the end times are upon us are that the church will stray from the truth and there will be false idols and false Christs. There would be wars, and rumors of wars. There would be earthquakes and storms and wacky weather. There would be racial wars, there would be national wars. There would be plagues. And all this stuff would happen back to back.

But it's not the end of the world, just the end of the age of the church. The dawning of the age of aquarius.

What is supposed to happen after the end times, is that Jesus takes up all the people who are good, and then the anti-christ is in charge of the world. He make a peace traty with Israel, then goes back on it and makes a statue of himself in the temple. Then Jesus comes back down and whoops his ass, and then goes and kicks Satan's ass, and throws them into the lake of fire. And then he starts a kingdom on earth and judges everyone, and then reigns over it for a thousand years. And then Satan comes back, and Jesus kicks his ass again, and then I don't know what happens after that. It's not the end of the world, it's called the Tribulation.

So this guy on TV says that all that stuff to precede the Tribulation has already happened. We had lots of wars in the 20th century, there's the bird flu, there's been earthquakes, and hurricanes, there was David Koresh and the Heaven's Gate guy who were false Christs, and there's racial fighting all the time. Clearly Jesus will be coming back in the next few weeks or so.

Look busy.

This is why I don't buy into organized religion. All it does is display fear tactics trying to scare people and stray from the real message.

What I always wonder is why is the message always so centralized on America? He mentioned all the wars we've had in the 20th century... WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Korea, Iraq I, Iraq II (technically 21st century). What about other countries wars? We're not the only ones who are invited to war. France and England fought for years and years. Japan, Russia, they've had wars. Look at South America, Africa, there's wars and ethnic fighting that's been going on there for centuries.

Also, what if all this already happened. I mean, truth could've fallen out of the church 1,700 years ago, meaning that what we're reading is entirely untrue. It's proven that parts of the bible have been intentionally left out and omitted so that the general public cannot read them. Why would that happen?

All religious conspiracies aside, the end of the world has been coming for almost 2000 years. Stop trying to be so scary.

Huh....

So I'm looking for work in video production / editing, and I came across this.

In other news, today marks the ideallic conception of Bootyloo: The Happiest Place On Earth. Éowyn and I spent almost four hours on the phone designing the coolest loft apartment (which quickly became not just an apartment, but the entire building), complete with home theater, wine cellar, stage with retractable stripper pole, waterslide that goes from rooftop to basment pool, giant kitchen, secret passages with peepholes through portrait eyes, panic room with secruity monitors, a giant waterfall that goes the length of the building and past my bedroom which has a glass wall looking through the waterfall, a subtle pirate themed bedroom for me, a bedroom with retractable television and coffee bar for Éowyn, a freight elevator with code panels so evil-doers couldn't break in, a balcony, a rooftop heli-pad and tiki bar with outdoor patio furniture and a theater screen to watch movies or the game, an underwater pool elevator to bring people up for a second ride on the waterslide (which is transparent and goes through the rooms on the lower floors, and even outside of the building at parts), video intercoms, a bouncy trampoline room like those jumpy castle things for kids, a ball pit, a very dark zen room called "the Crypt" with water lights and six coffin like sensory deprivation tanks, a intricate tube system to pass stuff along like those things that suck up your checks at the bank, a giant arcade with pinball, Street Fighter 2, air hockey, a pool table, and virtual reality games, a party button just like the ones in the movies that flip bookcases around to reveal the bar and turns off the normal lighting as starts the blacklights and strobe lights for our kick ass rave parties that all the famous people will want to come to, but most of them will not be on the list, a giant parking garage for our many cars, and for guest parking, a retinal scanner for the front door in case we lose our keys, a camera on the front door so we can see who is knocking at the door, and a party meter that rates our parties as PG, PG-13, R, or NC-17.

We call this pleasure paradise Bootyloo, and it will be ours.

-j

You are NOT the father.

Anybody ever watch those Maury Povich shows where they have the women who don't know who the father of their baby is, and then they have the punky guy come on and he's like "I'm 100% sure I ain't the father of Shaniqua's baby." or "If I'd'a known what type of slut Sally is, I'd'a never laid down wit dat ho."

Why is the woman the hero on this show? Everyone cheers for her, and boos the guys because they're dogs. But I mean come on, there's a woman who was on the show for the fourth time, and brought the seventh guy that wasn't the father. I understand the guy who's a jerk, and he's the only one who is suspected of being the father, then he is. But seriously, if you have gone through seven suspects, and you STILL don't know who the father is, and you're thinking back "Who did I have unprotected sex with back in October over those 2 weeks, there was Tommy and Bill, and Roger, and Steve, and Dave, and Tim, and John, and Mark and Phil, and Phil's brother, and The Detroit Pistons..." then you really are a ho.

Um...

Once again, from the WTF department....

That puck hit him harder than I thought.

If you guys know me, you know that if I have a sports idol, it's Steve Yzerman, captain of the Detroit Redwings. It's why my hockey number was 19, it's why my AIM screenname ends with 19. I met the guy, got a jersey autographed, he's really cool.

I just saw a commercial on Fox for this. Only it wasn't just bedroom stuff, it looked like really kind of rustic woodsy oakish furniture, including living room sets, and coffee tables and stuff.

It looks nice, but what business does Stevie Y have in a furniture line? I mean, more power to him, but it's not a connection I'd have drawn.

Eat your heart out Clooney

If this ain't chic, I don't know what is.

:)

"If this is your first night at Fight Club... you have to fight."

An interesting question was just posed to me at MySpace, and I thought I'd repost it here. Leave a comment with your answer (and your name, anonymous people,) to Tyler Durden's famous question:

If you could fight any celebrity, alive or dead, who would it be? (...and why?)

"Geek Chic:" a retort to a retort

So this is why you got so quiet.

For those of you who read Jon's site, I am in fact the friend who rather "viciously" attacked the idea of comic-con trekkies and live action role playing being the new "in" thing in American society.

Before you say it, I know you never said that. You did however say the phrase "geek chic" which I think is absolutely hilarious.

Maybe I laughed at the idea before you got time to explain to me that "geek chic" was in reference to people like George Clooney, and Quentin Tarantino, and Jack Black. Not actual geeks, but cool people who can afford to be a little geeky.

We all quote Napoleon Dynamite, we all thought the movie was funny, but nobody wants to be Napoleon Dynamite (except for his sweet dance moves).

Your other article says how great Beauty and the Geek is, and that Serenity is coming out, which proves somehow that geeks are awesomely cool. We're talking in the realm of social acceptablility here, and the idea of a show like Beauty and the Geek is exactly contradictory to your point. It takes hot girls who want to hook up with hot boys, and the twist of the show is... they're geeks. Now eventually, they become less shallow when they realize that the geeks are actually nice people, but throughout history the geek has always been the social outcast. It was like that in high school in the 50's, the 60's the 70's 80's 90's and today. And I don't need to tell you how well the general public is receiveing Serenity.

Personally, I'm not saying being a geek is bad. I'd consider myself geeky about things. You and I have gotten into geeky arguments about which order the Star Wars movies should be watched in. But let me ask you this. If you and I were on a double date with two really attractive women, do you think that's something we'd bring up? "Ladies, what do you think? It's my contention that because of the character of Obi-Wan Kenobi being heavily involved in the more advanced, and yet somewhat inferior prequel trilogy, that his death in episode IV: a New Hope, would be a more moving moment as the film goer realizes that the fate of the galaxy is now truly in the young hands of an inexperienced jedi named Luke Skywalker, and the idea that Anakin Skywalker, aka Darth Vader, aka the Dark Lord of the Sith, is this young boys father being known to the audience at this point, but not to the character is a deep and forboding secret, and that it not being a suprise to the audience as it is to Luke in episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, is not as big of a deal as my friend here believes it to be... ladies? Where did you go?"

Maybe geek is chic with hot chicks though, because if she came back with some clever theory of her own, I may fall in love with her that very night.

Anyway, I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings about geekiness being the new cool. They tried that. It was called "Emo." Geeky sad kids. I'd love it though. I'd love it if you could get a girl hot by naming all the members of the Fellowship of the Ring, or mentioning that I've spent $200 on a Plo Koon costume to wear to the local comic-con, or stating that I haven't showered for days because I've been too busy playing Everquest.

Instead, to make geekiness "chic," you have to make sure that you're also George Clooney. Otherwise, it's just really annoying.

-j

Follow up to: Secret of the Uwe

It's possible the video game movie just got a tremendous shot in the arm. It was recently announced that Bungie has just secured Peter Jackson (of Lord of the Rings fame) to be the Executive Producer of the upcoming Halo movie. That means that it has a decent chance to be the first good video game movie ever made.

Serenity Now.

Okay, it's monday, and after my post last week about Serenity, I said I'd come back and admit if I was wrong about their $6.1 million dollar opening weekend. And I was.

Estimates are in for this weekend, and the film finished in 2nd place at a $10.1 million opening weekend. However, this does include all the prescreenings that have been done all year. Their box office money goes to opening day.

The problem is that this was a $50 million dollar picture. Meaning after theater costs, prints and advertising costs, and distro costs, this movie needs to make at least $80-90 million to make a profit. With a meager 10 million on opening weekend, that's bad news bears for browncoats.

This weekend however, the rating for Serenity went from 8.4 to 8.7, making it apparently a better movie than Citizen Kane which has a measly 8.6 rating. In fact, there are only seven movies on IMDb with a higher user rating than Serenity right now. The Godfather, The Godfather II, The Shawshank Redemption, Return of the King, Shichinin no samurai (The Seven Samurai), Schindler's List and Casablanca. You Whedon fans need to calm down.

-j

Secret of the Uwe

Uwe Boll. Where to begin.

Uwe Boll (pronounced U-E-Bowl) is a german movie director, responsible for such movies as House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark. He's also someone that Nopa and I have talked a bit about recently. Jon posted a link on his site which goes to a videogame lovers site asking the public to help stop Uwe Boll from making more movies. (The rights that Dr. Uwe Boll gets are to videogames, which he then turns into bad films.) And I, like the hero that I am, am riding in, white stallion and all, to come to Boll's aid.

WARNING: WHAT FOLLOWS MAY BE A VERY DORKY POST. CONTINUE READING AT YOUR OWN RISK.

First of all, the people at Loading Ready Run are the last people who should criticize someone for making terrible movies. I digress.

So far, Boll has done two videogame films. Both were bad. I don't disagree with that. (However, as I said and was mentioned in that video, House of the Dead did make it's money back, meaning every copy sold from that point on is a profit.) I'm sure none of the future videogame movies he makes will be that spectacular either.

I'd like to point out though that he isn't the only director to have attempted the videogame movie. He likewise, is not the only director to fail. In fact, when was the last good videogame movie? Can you think of one? I can wait....

No? Me either.

Sure House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark sucked. So did Tomb Raider, Tomb Raider 2, Resident Evil, Resident Evil 2, Wing Commander, Alien Vs. Predator, and Super Mario Bros., and so probably will Doom and Silent Hill.

The best "videogame" movie I can think of was Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, which doesn't count. It doesn't count because the only thing relating it to a videogame was the title. If I took The Great Outdoors with Dan Akroyd and John Candy and named it "Tetris" it wouldn't be a videogame movie either.

Uwe Boll fills a niche. He makes bad movies that you don't really have to think about. Is he the only director guilty of this? Two words: Rob Cohen. Director of such turdy films as xXx, The Skulls, Stealth, and The Fast and the Furious.

The same can be said of Kevin Smith. Don't get me wrong, I really like Smith and his films, but that's not an opinion shared by everyone. There are people out there who hate Smith's work and would love to get a petition going to ban him from directing as well. My directing teacher at NYFA, for example, would be the first person on that list.

Not to make it personal, but I'd be the first guy on the ban Aaron Sorkin list. I think he's a terrible writer. But Jon doesn't. The guy has fans. Who am I to take that away?

All this is really trivial, and I'm making a point through Uwe Boll. Personally, I think he's a terrible director. But instead of trying to take him down, I just chose to not watch his movies. (Which isn't true really because I've seen Alone in the Dark, and I own House of the Dead.) People get way too pissed off about this stuff. Is Uwe Boll ruining videogame movies? No, they've always sucked.

What it boils down to is there are videogame fanboys who spent countless hours playing Bloodrayne and Hunter: The Reckoning in their parents basement, and think that they would make awesome movies, and then they get turned into movies and they suck, and then they get all pissed off at the director. House of the Dead, the videogame, was a game where you walk around and shoot zombies and bats with a gun. Super Mario Bros, the videogame is about two plumber brothers who run around for 32 levels and break block with their head, Tomb Raider is about a big breasted woman who jumps around in caves picking up treasures and fighting with bears, Doom the videogame is a game where you shoot demons with rocket launchers. There's barely enough plot in them to make a commercial, let alone a 100 minute film.

Resident Evil could've made a good movie, because the videogame had a great story. But the only reason the story seemed so long was because it took you forever to run from room to room killing zombies to get the next part. If the movie started out with Jill Valentine running into the mansion with Wesker and the other dude, and then they were like scared, and then it was 45 minutes of her running from room to room, not speaking, shooting zombies, and collecting ammo and green herbs until she finally finds The Sword Key so she can unlock a door and run around some more until we see a five minute clip of the story advancing, then she runs around for 45 more minutes, it would've been terrible.

Story gaps need to be filled, which is why they add so many more plot elements that weren't in the game, which angers fanboys, and usually isn't any good because no respectable writer will go near the failure ridden videogame movie genre.

These fanboys are the same people who get mad at the tiny details that are wrong in comic book movies.

People need to relax, and realize that just because the Space Invaders movie sucks it's not the end of the world. People's heads need not roll, people need not be fired, nor castrated, nor done any bodily harm whatsoever.

Uwe Boll is not a good director. Neither is Rob Cohen. Neither is the guy who made Blood Gnome. If you don't like Uwe Boll movies, don't go see them.

Personally, I like House of the Dead. Not because it's good, but because it's so bad. I want Uwe Boll to keep making movies. I enjoy them. I'll see Bloodrayne in the theater. I'm sure it'll be god-awful. But it'll be fun. Plus it's got Michael Madsen in it. Here's the plot outline from IMDb: "In eighteenth century Romania, Rayne, a dhampir (half-human, half-vampire), prone to fits of blind blood rage but saddled with a compunction for humans, strives to avenge her mother's rape by her father, Kagan, King of Vampires." How can you go wrong with that?

Didn't the videogame take place in Nazi Germany? The fanboys are gonna be PISSED!

-j

So... freakin... bored...

It was a nice little saturday. The Wolverines beat the Spartans in OT, which, come on, did anyone see the game? Did anyone see that phantom "fumble" that resulted in a MSU touchdown? I always thought the rule was if the quarterbacks hand is moving forward when the ball comes out, it's called an incomplete pass. So much so that people look at replays where it's so close that you can see the QB's hand move an inch forward when the ball pops out and they rule it down. Today he basically threw the ball directly into the ground, and that big samoan guy just picked it up and ran. It doesn't matter. U of M still won.

I talked to Erin for three hours today. It was really nice.

My roommates went to Lansing to see Serenity today. They have friends on the other side of the state and they wanted to go together so they drove an hour and a half to a central location. They drove to Lansing after MSU lost an OT game to Michigan. A few years ago, that would be a death wish. Johanna just got home.

I watched The Manchurian Candidate today. The Sinatra one. Very good. It's on AFI's top 100 (#67). I watched Citizen Kane yesterday or the day before, it's on AFI's top 100 (#1). I'd seen Citizen Kane before, but had never seen The Manchurian Candidate.

Now I'm really bored. Which is stupid, because it's 1am. Normal people, when they're bored at 1am, they go to bed. Me? It's still early for me. Plus it's saturday, and I actually just ate dinner like an hour ago.

Problem is, there's nothing to do. It's too late to go out if I wanted to do that, because everywhere closes in 40 minutes, and that would be too short. I've watched a bunch of movies recently, so I don't feel like doing that. Maybe I'll play around with some SFX programs and try to learn what I can. That was my original plan for this weekend, but I didn't sleep until about 6am last night, and then I woke up at 9am, and then I went back to bed at 10am, and got up at noon to watch the football game. I should be really tired. Maybe I should just lay down and read a book and try to fall asleep at a normal time. If only I had a good book.

There's books all over this house. I'm going to lay down.

-j

Oh what a night...

Thank god it's saturday. I'm going back to bed. I may be getting sick. I've got one of those tickles in my throat that isn't going away.

Chris's show at Zazios was really good. He played until a little after midnight, and a waitress came up and sang Lean On Me towards the end of the night. It was pretty sweet. Then we went to a college house party until about 4am. I felt old. Then I found out it was a guy's 30th birthday party, and I felt better. Jason and I talked with "accents" all night long. I was Irish, Jason was a kind of a rough Irish / Scottish / English / Italian / Russian / Drunk Forrest Gump mix.

I didn't back down like I usually do when I go to parties filled with people I don't know. I talked to everyone. Even the really drunk girl in the striped socks who fell, or to put it more accurately crashed, in the middle of the dance floor. It was a lot of fun.

But I'm paying for it now.

Michigan vs. Michigan State is today. Go Blue. Go unranked Blue.

My eyes are burning, I've got to go back to sleep. I only slept for two and a half hours. I want an omlette.

Goodnight
-j