So I've been collected bottle caps for the past year or so. I started out just keeping a cap of everything I tried, which kinda led me to start trying more and more different things. But as with most people I have certain drinks that I prefer and I thought "What could I do with all these caps?" I remembered seeing a checkers set that my dad had made once out of epoxied pepsi and dr pepper bottle caps and figured I'd try my hand at it. So I've been collecting more and more over the past six months or so and filling certain ones with epoxy.
I'm proud to say that this past weekend (with lots of help from Ricci's Gramps and her dad, Bill) I made my first checker board. Gramps helped with the design and did most of the sawing with Bill. I actually only helped in that part. But I watched carefully so that now I can do it myself. Then I painted the squares and stained the whole thing to look old. I'll put pictures up later. Assuming that the last couple caps finish drying by this evening I will have a full set to play "Corona Extra" against "Corona Light".
Quick Disclaimer: I drink beer from time to time, but I don't get drunk. I think the Bible is pretty clear that being drunk is sinful, but drinking in itself is not. I don't hang out at bars either because of the associations people sometimes make. Nuff said.
Moving on, my general policy is to take the first bottle cap I get from a drink and add it to my collection. After that I just add duplicates to another jar/ziploc/whatever container I'm using. I hope to have some way to display them one day but for now they sit in a closet. As I was sorting out a batch of bottlecaps my in-laws had saved for me (yeah I sort them, order is a good thing) I was feeling pretty good about my collection. I knew it wasn't the biggest but I was kind of proud of my modest little collection.
Then I stumbled across Bottle Cap-O-Rama and was put to shame. I probably have between fifty and a hundred different bottle caps. Whoever runs this site (I would assume a guy, but there's a girl on the top banner so I'm not sure...) has nearly 2500! Wowsers! Looks like I have a ways to go.
Also he/she had links to John T. Unger's bottle cap mosaic fish site. Awesome. I watched the video of how he does it and it looks pretty tedious. It seems pretty steep to charge $500 for some wall art but as I learned this weekend making that checker board, hand made stuff is expensive and time consuming for the person making it. Granted, he doesn't buy all the beer himself, but the wood, metal, and nails plus the time and energy he puts in definitely make it worth more than you might think on first glance.
Back to Bottle Cap O Rama, I haven't quite finished absorbing all attainable knowledge from their "links" section so I may post more.
I also started my training class at work on Adobe Photoshop so look to better designs for this page in the future and less bleak cyber wastelands.
*update*
I just found a link from BCoR to bottlecaps.de and it made me slightly more depressed about my collection. hundreds of thousands.....
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Transformers 2
So I have really made an effort to not let this blog become a page for ranting. You can ask my wife, I am good at ranting. I go off and it will sometimes be almost an hour later that she stops me because she just doesn't want to hear it anymore. So if you don't want to read a long rant skip this post. Also if you don't want spoilers (though in my opinion this movie is already spoiled) skip it. That said, let's begin:
I wasn't going to write this up for the aforementioned reason of trying to not be whiny all the time. Unfortunately I got a forward from my boss because A&M always shows movies on campus for two bucks after they leave theaters and this Friday it's Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Here's the review that was in the email:
The battle for Earth has ended but the battle for the universe has just begun. After returning to Cybertron, Starscream assumes command of the Decepticons, and has decided to return to Earth with force. The Autobots believing that peace was possible finds out that Megatron's dead body has been stolen from the US Military by Skorpinox and revives him using his own spark. Now Megatron is back seeking revenge and with Starscream and more Decepticon reinforcements on the way, the Autobots with reinforcements of their own, may have more to deal with then meets the eye.
And here's the review from Netflix:
Unlikely hero Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) and his foxy girlfriend, Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox), return with tough-as-nails Capt. Lennox (Josh Duhamel) to assist the Autobots in another epic battle against the evil Decepticons in this supercharged sequel to the 2007 megahit. Blockbuster impresario Michael Bay brings his trademark pyrotechnics to the proceedings, while comic whiz Rainn Wilson joins the cast as a college professor.
Please do NOT go see this movie because you love Rainn Wilson. I think he's hilarious but (1) he's only in five minutes of the film and (2) it's straight up garbage. I'm going to take my time dissecting this so be prepared to read for a while.
If you haven't seen the first movie, don't worry. It was decent. Worth watching even.
Here's basically what happens in the second movie (sorry if some of this is out of order):
-5 minute narration from Optimus about how he and a bunch of other Autobots(henceforth "A") teamed up with an international group of human soldiers to hunt down the remaining Decepticons(henceforth "D") for the past two years.
This drug on way too long, and it attempts to catch you up on a bunch of background they didn't want to actually film.
-This team bungles some mission in Hong Kong or Shanghai (I can't remember which) and ends up causing a lot of collateral damage. The D here is ENORMOUS and as he's finally dying he utters out something about "The Fallen". There are a couple of Autobots here from the old show like Arcee that are seen but there is no character development so people who never saw it have no idea. Also the introduce the obnoxious twin robots that are "ghetto" and spend the whole time cussing and fighting each other. And by whole time I do mean the whole movie.
-The government decides to shut down the project and suggest the A's go home because, since the AllSpark is gone, the D's are only sticking around to kill A's. The A's consent but believe that the D's are planning something based on what the D in Shanghai said about "The Fallen". Meanwhile Sam Witwicky is leaving for college and his girlfriend Mikaela (who has the IQ and personality of a meter stick but can somehow rework cars and motorcycles?) attempts to breakup with him. He says they can work it out long distance, blah blah blah.
Where are the transformers in this scene?
-Sam drops a piece of the AllSpark from the hoodie he wore in the first movie, gets blasted in the eye with symbols and spends the rest of the movie freaking out and spouting off gibberish. A bunch of household appliance come to life and Bumblebee has to blast them. One remote control car-bot gets away.
-Sam moves to college and leaves Bumblebee.
Somehow, even though Bumblebee's voice got fixed at the end of the first movie, it is broken again and communication with him is forced to rely on cheap laughs from related songs and radio clips played through his speakers. Yeah, because that didn't get obnoxious by the end of the first one.
-Insert thirty minutes of overdone college move-in humor. He meets some fellow nerd/techies and the form a gang to make money uploading viral video.
Again, where are the transformers?
-Evil tiny car bot attacks Mikaela for piece of AllSpark. She captures it and decides to take it to Sam. The thing cusses at her a bunch. Actually the whole movie cusses a bunch. Like over the top, unnecessary for a movie based on toys for little kids.
-D's patch into government satellite and watch conversation where military details all the secrets they don't want D's to learn. D's then find Megatron's body, revive him and take him to their secret moon base where an ancient D, The Fallen, is residing with a bunch of D's trying to creating a D factory.
WHAT?! None of this made any sense. The satellite D was named "Soundwave", who was an actual D in the old show. He was like a boombox or something and had a bunch of mini-D casette tape robots that would help him out. This was the one time where they took the name of an original character and put it on something else that made more sense for the story. Okay that's cool. You can hack into the government's most secret satellite, I'll accept that. But that took you thirty minutes. What were you doing for TWO YEARS???? Just floating around in geosynchronous orbit waiting for this exact conversation??
-There's a bunch of backstory about the Fallen being Megatron's master and that's why Megatron came to earth. The Fallen wanted to use the Matrix of Leadership (MoL) to start a machine on Earth that would create Energon (transformer energy-food/fuel) but destroy the sun and all life on Earth. Ancient "Primes" stopped him by taking the MoL and killing themselves to seal it away. He's been waiting on the moon for thousands of years for revenge.
What's all this stuff about The Fallen? The fallen was never in any Transformers show before now. And in the first movie Megatron just came to Earth for the AllSpark so he could make a massive army of D's. If you're gonna create something original at least follow your own story. Continuity fail. Also the MoL was from the comics and old show. I didn't read the comics but in the animated movie it bestowed a fancy upgrade on Hot Rod and made him into Rodimus Prime after OP died. In the animated series it is closer in function to the AllSpark from movie 1, not just a key for the SunHarvester. The SunHarvester plot isn't bad it just doesn't really mesh with the first movie.
-Sam goes to a party and starts doing the symbol freakout when he decides to leave. Bumblebee has shown up for some reason (I can't remember)and as they start to leave, some college "hottie" gets in and starts trying to blatantly seduce him. She pretty much tries to prostitute herself out to him while some jock is chasing him out of the party. She climbs into the passenger seat and starts seductively describing cars and stuff. They get back to his dorm and she conveniently gets him onto the bed around the same time Mikaela is arriving to show Sam the evil toy car. Insert overdone "She tried to kiss me" scene - (WHERE ARE THE ROBOTS THEY NAMED THIS MOVIE AFTER?! What does this have to do with anything?!) - but wait! Turns out the girl who for some ridiculous reason is way too attracted to shia labeouf is actually a D! A chase scene ensues which ends with Mikaela smashing Robot McSkankgirl against lightpole in her car. Okay...so you somehow pretended like the last thirty minutes were not irrelevant and were actually an assassination attempt...but...if they could look like people, why didn't they just impersonate AirForce personnel and get all the government secrets TWO YEARS AGO??
My memory is kinda fuzzy about the details of what happens next. I was kinda losing interest on account of no robots fighting.
-Somehow Sam gets separated from the group and captured by Megatron. The D's try to torture him into giving them the information from his symbol brain blast and then try to take it by force by cutting his head open. I was thinking about doing it myself so the emotional appeal was kinda lost on me here.
-The Autobots show up and Sam gets away with OP. They end up in some forest and the best scene of the whole movie takes place where OP pulls out two swords and fights off four or five D's including Megatron to protect Sam. I think he kills a couple and then ends up getting killed. Yes, that's right Optimus Prime dies. The other A's show up and carry Sam away to safety. Nice timing, where have you been?
-Somehow (again, losing interest so I don't remember as well) Sam and Mikeala end up at the Smithsonian, while the A's are being told they have to go home by the government. Sam and Mikaela end up ressurecting an SR71 Blackbird who happens to be a really ancient D (but for some reason he doesn't mind helping.) He gives a lot of backstory on the Fallen and somehow they end up in Egypt looking for the MoL, with that annoying government guy from the first movie, Sam's nerd friend and the ghetto bots (Skids and Mudflap).
-After finding the MoL, Sam sends a message to AF Capt. Lennox from the first movie who sends a message to his CO. Lennox and Tyrese change course of some cargo planes that are carrying the A's and ejects a government guy with a parachute into the dessert. (This was funny, but I assume he will be discharged at some point). Sam and gang begin making their way to meet up with Lennox, thinking MoL will revive OP. The MoL crumbles into dust, which Sam scoops up into his handy small cloth bag. (Where did he get this? This might have been explained, I just don't remember.)
-In an effort to slow down some D's following them, the ghetto bots, gov. dude, and nerd friend stop to fight in a construction zone (?). Enter the Constructicons, another reference to the old toys/show/comics. These are a bunch of construction vehicles that transform together to form a giant D called Devastator. He pretty much trashes all of the good guys without actually killing anyone (unfortunately, because these are the most annoying characters, besides Megan Fox). Devastastor starts destroying pyramids to find the SunHarvester.
-The A's with Lennox start fighting a bunch of D's. Sam is trying to get to OP with his magic dust. (I'm fuzzy here because it was about two hours and I was just tired.) I think that at some point Megatron or the Fallen gets a hold of the fairy dust which does nothing for him, and then the MoL magically reforms in Sam's hands. He brings back OP. OP fights the Fallen with some extra parts from the Blackbird (I still don't know what the point of this guy was. I think he was just some comic relief and story telling. I'm not really sure what side he was on. He is called a D when they ressurect him but then he helps the good guys?)
-The gov dude calls some ship off the Mediterranean Coast that just happens to have a secret weapon that he knows about. He gets them to shoot it at the coordinates and kill Devastator. (Really? You killed Devastator in one shot? Two A's with alien guns got thrown around like rag dolls but your secret human weapon killed him in one shot?)
OP kills the Fallen. Megatron and Starscream and any other D's flee like little girls. Everyone is happy, blah, blah, blah. OP has some closing monologue about freedom, etc. There will probably be a third movie that I will not see.
Okay to fair there are a few things I liked about this movie. The fight scene with OP in the woods was sweet. Soundwave was cool. I liked that they actually showed the tension between Starscream and Megatron. Sorry I didn't talk about that but it was only a sentence or two here and there.
Megan Fox is the worst actress ever. There was waaay too much cussing in this movie. Also there was too many unfunny sexual references even beyond Megan Fox and the Prostituticon at Sam's college. The RC-D humps Megan Fox's leg, Sam's dogs hump each other, Devastator just happens to have two hanging wrecking balls between his legs, etc.
In reference to the synopsis above I assume they get this information from the people that made this movie because most of that is impossible to discern from the movie:
*The first line talks about the battle being for the universe not for Earth. Which is true except that it's all about draining the sun and killing everyone on Earth. But that's all.
*About Skorpinok, you can hardly even tell what's going on when they are resurrecting Megatron at the bottom of the Marianas Trench. They rip apart someone in the background and shove parts onto M, and then bring him back with a piece of spark the stole from a gov facility.
*Also it says that Starscream returned to Cybertron, which is possible, but it didn't say it was Cybertron. It looked like the moon to me. But that's giving them the credit of following the animated series where there was a base on the moon.
*I'm sure there were a lot of things like this, where they intended something but it was never said outright, so we don't know.
Also there is no character development with anyone new, except maybe the Fallen. Starscream and Megatron are developed a little. Nothing is developed with the relationship between any of the A's, especially since there are a bunch of new ones. They just all get shoved into the background. I assume we are supposed to know Skorpinok's name from the old shows or the toys. That's the only way I knew it since they never said it.
I guess maybe I just had my hopes too high for this film. I thought there would be character development and rational plot lines. I was wrong. Just a bunch of senseless explosions, swearing and sex. If I wanted that I would watch something from Terentino or Frank Miller. Actually those guys put a little plot in there though. So Sin City may have been better than Transformers 2.
Feel free to leave comments disagreeing or clarifying any of the parts I left fuzzy. Again sorry this was so long and angry I just felt like I was going to bust every time somebody brought up Transformers 2. I'll be good now that I have it down on paper. Or blog. whatever.
I wasn't going to write this up for the aforementioned reason of trying to not be whiny all the time. Unfortunately I got a forward from my boss because A&M always shows movies on campus for two bucks after they leave theaters and this Friday it's Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Here's the review that was in the email:
The battle for Earth has ended but the battle for the universe has just begun. After returning to Cybertron, Starscream assumes command of the Decepticons, and has decided to return to Earth with force. The Autobots believing that peace was possible finds out that Megatron's dead body has been stolen from the US Military by Skorpinox and revives him using his own spark. Now Megatron is back seeking revenge and with Starscream and more Decepticon reinforcements on the way, the Autobots with reinforcements of their own, may have more to deal with then meets the eye.
And here's the review from Netflix:
Unlikely hero Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) and his foxy girlfriend, Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox), return with tough-as-nails Capt. Lennox (Josh Duhamel) to assist the Autobots in another epic battle against the evil Decepticons in this supercharged sequel to the 2007 megahit. Blockbuster impresario Michael Bay brings his trademark pyrotechnics to the proceedings, while comic whiz Rainn Wilson joins the cast as a college professor.
Please do NOT go see this movie because you love Rainn Wilson. I think he's hilarious but (1) he's only in five minutes of the film and (2) it's straight up garbage. I'm going to take my time dissecting this so be prepared to read for a while.
If you haven't seen the first movie, don't worry. It was decent. Worth watching even.
Here's basically what happens in the second movie (sorry if some of this is out of order):
-5 minute narration from Optimus about how he and a bunch of other Autobots(henceforth "A") teamed up with an international group of human soldiers to hunt down the remaining Decepticons(henceforth "D") for the past two years.
This drug on way too long, and it attempts to catch you up on a bunch of background they didn't want to actually film.
-This team bungles some mission in Hong Kong or Shanghai (I can't remember which) and ends up causing a lot of collateral damage. The D here is ENORMOUS and as he's finally dying he utters out something about "The Fallen". There are a couple of Autobots here from the old show like Arcee that are seen but there is no character development so people who never saw it have no idea. Also the introduce the obnoxious twin robots that are "ghetto" and spend the whole time cussing and fighting each other. And by whole time I do mean the whole movie.
-The government decides to shut down the project and suggest the A's go home because, since the AllSpark is gone, the D's are only sticking around to kill A's. The A's consent but believe that the D's are planning something based on what the D in Shanghai said about "The Fallen". Meanwhile Sam Witwicky is leaving for college and his girlfriend Mikaela (who has the IQ and personality of a meter stick but can somehow rework cars and motorcycles?) attempts to breakup with him. He says they can work it out long distance, blah blah blah.
Where are the transformers in this scene?
-Sam drops a piece of the AllSpark from the hoodie he wore in the first movie, gets blasted in the eye with symbols and spends the rest of the movie freaking out and spouting off gibberish. A bunch of household appliance come to life and Bumblebee has to blast them. One remote control car-bot gets away.
-Sam moves to college and leaves Bumblebee.
Somehow, even though Bumblebee's voice got fixed at the end of the first movie, it is broken again and communication with him is forced to rely on cheap laughs from related songs and radio clips played through his speakers. Yeah, because that didn't get obnoxious by the end of the first one.
-Insert thirty minutes of overdone college move-in humor. He meets some fellow nerd/techies and the form a gang to make money uploading viral video.
Again, where are the transformers?
-Evil tiny car bot attacks Mikaela for piece of AllSpark. She captures it and decides to take it to Sam. The thing cusses at her a bunch. Actually the whole movie cusses a bunch. Like over the top, unnecessary for a movie based on toys for little kids.
-D's patch into government satellite and watch conversation where military details all the secrets they don't want D's to learn. D's then find Megatron's body, revive him and take him to their secret moon base where an ancient D, The Fallen, is residing with a bunch of D's trying to creating a D factory.
WHAT?! None of this made any sense. The satellite D was named "Soundwave", who was an actual D in the old show. He was like a boombox or something and had a bunch of mini-D casette tape robots that would help him out. This was the one time where they took the name of an original character and put it on something else that made more sense for the story. Okay that's cool. You can hack into the government's most secret satellite, I'll accept that. But that took you thirty minutes. What were you doing for TWO YEARS???? Just floating around in geosynchronous orbit waiting for this exact conversation??
-There's a bunch of backstory about the Fallen being Megatron's master and that's why Megatron came to earth. The Fallen wanted to use the Matrix of Leadership (MoL) to start a machine on Earth that would create Energon (transformer energy-food/fuel) but destroy the sun and all life on Earth. Ancient "Primes" stopped him by taking the MoL and killing themselves to seal it away. He's been waiting on the moon for thousands of years for revenge.
What's all this stuff about The Fallen? The fallen was never in any Transformers show before now. And in the first movie Megatron just came to Earth for the AllSpark so he could make a massive army of D's. If you're gonna create something original at least follow your own story. Continuity fail. Also the MoL was from the comics and old show. I didn't read the comics but in the animated movie it bestowed a fancy upgrade on Hot Rod and made him into Rodimus Prime after OP died. In the animated series it is closer in function to the AllSpark from movie 1, not just a key for the SunHarvester. The SunHarvester plot isn't bad it just doesn't really mesh with the first movie.
-Sam goes to a party and starts doing the symbol freakout when he decides to leave. Bumblebee has shown up for some reason (I can't remember)and as they start to leave, some college "hottie" gets in and starts trying to blatantly seduce him. She pretty much tries to prostitute herself out to him while some jock is chasing him out of the party. She climbs into the passenger seat and starts seductively describing cars and stuff. They get back to his dorm and she conveniently gets him onto the bed around the same time Mikaela is arriving to show Sam the evil toy car. Insert overdone "She tried to kiss me" scene - (WHERE ARE THE ROBOTS THEY NAMED THIS MOVIE AFTER?! What does this have to do with anything?!) - but wait! Turns out the girl who for some ridiculous reason is way too attracted to shia labeouf is actually a D! A chase scene ensues which ends with Mikaela smashing Robot McSkankgirl against lightpole in her car. Okay...so you somehow pretended like the last thirty minutes were not irrelevant and were actually an assassination attempt...but...if they could look like people, why didn't they just impersonate AirForce personnel and get all the government secrets TWO YEARS AGO??
My memory is kinda fuzzy about the details of what happens next. I was kinda losing interest on account of no robots fighting.
-Somehow Sam gets separated from the group and captured by Megatron. The D's try to torture him into giving them the information from his symbol brain blast and then try to take it by force by cutting his head open. I was thinking about doing it myself so the emotional appeal was kinda lost on me here.
-The Autobots show up and Sam gets away with OP. They end up in some forest and the best scene of the whole movie takes place where OP pulls out two swords and fights off four or five D's including Megatron to protect Sam. I think he kills a couple and then ends up getting killed. Yes, that's right Optimus Prime dies. The other A's show up and carry Sam away to safety. Nice timing, where have you been?
-Somehow (again, losing interest so I don't remember as well) Sam and Mikeala end up at the Smithsonian, while the A's are being told they have to go home by the government. Sam and Mikaela end up ressurecting an SR71 Blackbird who happens to be a really ancient D (but for some reason he doesn't mind helping.) He gives a lot of backstory on the Fallen and somehow they end up in Egypt looking for the MoL, with that annoying government guy from the first movie, Sam's nerd friend and the ghetto bots (Skids and Mudflap).
-After finding the MoL, Sam sends a message to AF Capt. Lennox from the first movie who sends a message to his CO. Lennox and Tyrese change course of some cargo planes that are carrying the A's and ejects a government guy with a parachute into the dessert. (This was funny, but I assume he will be discharged at some point). Sam and gang begin making their way to meet up with Lennox, thinking MoL will revive OP. The MoL crumbles into dust, which Sam scoops up into his handy small cloth bag. (Where did he get this? This might have been explained, I just don't remember.)
-In an effort to slow down some D's following them, the ghetto bots, gov. dude, and nerd friend stop to fight in a construction zone (?). Enter the Constructicons, another reference to the old toys/show/comics. These are a bunch of construction vehicles that transform together to form a giant D called Devastator. He pretty much trashes all of the good guys without actually killing anyone (unfortunately, because these are the most annoying characters, besides Megan Fox). Devastastor starts destroying pyramids to find the SunHarvester.
-The A's with Lennox start fighting a bunch of D's. Sam is trying to get to OP with his magic dust. (I'm fuzzy here because it was about two hours and I was just tired.) I think that at some point Megatron or the Fallen gets a hold of the fairy dust which does nothing for him, and then the MoL magically reforms in Sam's hands. He brings back OP. OP fights the Fallen with some extra parts from the Blackbird (I still don't know what the point of this guy was. I think he was just some comic relief and story telling. I'm not really sure what side he was on. He is called a D when they ressurect him but then he helps the good guys?)
-The gov dude calls some ship off the Mediterranean Coast that just happens to have a secret weapon that he knows about. He gets them to shoot it at the coordinates and kill Devastator. (Really? You killed Devastator in one shot? Two A's with alien guns got thrown around like rag dolls but your secret human weapon killed him in one shot?)
OP kills the Fallen. Megatron and Starscream and any other D's flee like little girls. Everyone is happy, blah, blah, blah. OP has some closing monologue about freedom, etc. There will probably be a third movie that I will not see.
Okay to fair there are a few things I liked about this movie. The fight scene with OP in the woods was sweet. Soundwave was cool. I liked that they actually showed the tension between Starscream and Megatron. Sorry I didn't talk about that but it was only a sentence or two here and there.
Megan Fox is the worst actress ever. There was waaay too much cussing in this movie. Also there was too many unfunny sexual references even beyond Megan Fox and the Prostituticon at Sam's college. The RC-D humps Megan Fox's leg, Sam's dogs hump each other, Devastator just happens to have two hanging wrecking balls between his legs, etc.
In reference to the synopsis above I assume they get this information from the people that made this movie because most of that is impossible to discern from the movie:
*The first line talks about the battle being for the universe not for Earth. Which is true except that it's all about draining the sun and killing everyone on Earth. But that's all.
*About Skorpinok, you can hardly even tell what's going on when they are resurrecting Megatron at the bottom of the Marianas Trench. They rip apart someone in the background and shove parts onto M, and then bring him back with a piece of spark the stole from a gov facility.
*Also it says that Starscream returned to Cybertron, which is possible, but it didn't say it was Cybertron. It looked like the moon to me. But that's giving them the credit of following the animated series where there was a base on the moon.
*I'm sure there were a lot of things like this, where they intended something but it was never said outright, so we don't know.
Also there is no character development with anyone new, except maybe the Fallen. Starscream and Megatron are developed a little. Nothing is developed with the relationship between any of the A's, especially since there are a bunch of new ones. They just all get shoved into the background. I assume we are supposed to know Skorpinok's name from the old shows or the toys. That's the only way I knew it since they never said it.
I guess maybe I just had my hopes too high for this film. I thought there would be character development and rational plot lines. I was wrong. Just a bunch of senseless explosions, swearing and sex. If I wanted that I would watch something from Terentino or Frank Miller. Actually those guys put a little plot in there though. So Sin City may have been better than Transformers 2.
Feel free to leave comments disagreeing or clarifying any of the parts I left fuzzy. Again sorry this was so long and angry I just felt like I was going to bust every time somebody brought up Transformers 2. I'll be good now that I have it down on paper. Or blog. whatever.
Monday, September 7, 2009
MLIA from this morning
This made my morning. Sometimes, despite all our efforts a child or two gets "left behind". Take for example this quote from MLIA this morning:
Today, in Spanish class, my teacher asked everyone to take turns telling the class why they’ve chosen to learn Spanish. The 16 year old pregnant girl that sits in front of me seriously said, “My baby is half Mexican, and I want to be able to understand it when it’s born.” MLIA
simply brilliant.
Today, in Spanish class, my teacher asked everyone to take turns telling the class why they’ve chosen to learn Spanish. The 16 year old pregnant girl that sits in front of me seriously said, “My baby is half Mexican, and I want to be able to understand it when it’s born.” MLIA
simply brilliant.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Two new websites
So in the past two days I have discovered two new websites that I like. I want to share them with you.
1. People of Walmart
This is a site dedicated to pictures of all those weird, gross, and creepy people you see at wally world. Priceless. Normally I don't read the comments on these kinds of websites but here I typically read most of the way down. Why? Because the best part about Walmart is everyone goes, so there's usually a comment somewhere like "Oh yeah I've seen that guy around town. Soooo creeeeepy..." It gives comfort and validation knowing nobody photoshopped the shirtless man with his crack exposed.
ex:
2. My Life is Average
If you're familiar with FML then this site is similar. Only the posts aren't about terrible things that happened to people and the language is usually cleaner. But similar "twitter style" postings about weird goofy things that happen in people's lives.
ex:
Today, a new kid from England with glasses came onto our speech class, the teacher asked him to share something unique about him to the class. He pulled up his bangs to reveal a lighting bolt scar and claimed that he fell on a rock. Yeah right, Harry Potter. MLIA
Today I realized that my e-mail automatically sorts any e-mails from the government into the spam folder. I'm proud to know that my inbox is willing to stick it to the man. MLIA
Today, While leaving Wal-mart me and my mother passed an advertisment of Miley Cyrus promoting her new clothing line. My mother asked me if I was a fan of Miley Cyrus, I said No. She responded by buying me Ice Cream and telling me what a good daughter I was. Me: 1, Miley Cyrus: 0. MLIA.
ps - i hate twitter. It didn't do anything to me personally, I just don't think people need to know every time you fart or whatever.
1. People of Walmart
This is a site dedicated to pictures of all those weird, gross, and creepy people you see at wally world. Priceless. Normally I don't read the comments on these kinds of websites but here I typically read most of the way down. Why? Because the best part about Walmart is everyone goes, so there's usually a comment somewhere like "Oh yeah I've seen that guy around town. Soooo creeeeepy..." It gives comfort and validation knowing nobody photoshopped the shirtless man with his crack exposed.
ex:
2. My Life is Average
If you're familiar with FML then this site is similar. Only the posts aren't about terrible things that happened to people and the language is usually cleaner. But similar "twitter style" postings about weird goofy things that happen in people's lives.
ex:
Today, a new kid from England with glasses came onto our speech class, the teacher asked him to share something unique about him to the class. He pulled up his bangs to reveal a lighting bolt scar and claimed that he fell on a rock. Yeah right, Harry Potter. MLIA
Today I realized that my e-mail automatically sorts any e-mails from the government into the spam folder. I'm proud to know that my inbox is willing to stick it to the man. MLIA
Today, While leaving Wal-mart me and my mother passed an advertisment of Miley Cyrus promoting her new clothing line. My mother asked me if I was a fan of Miley Cyrus, I said No. She responded by buying me Ice Cream and telling me what a good daughter I was. Me: 1, Miley Cyrus: 0. MLIA.
ps - i hate twitter. It didn't do anything to me personally, I just don't think people need to know every time you fart or whatever.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
books and games update
I finished Call it Courage last week. So good. I think it was only like a hundred pages but definitely worth it. It's about a boy, Mafatu, who lives on an island but is scared of the water because he lost his mom and nearly drowned when he was very young. At a certain point he decides to prove his courage to everyone and sets out on his own.
I also finished The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. I think some of the endings were supposed to be a surprise but this game is aimed at people from 10-20something so I guessed most of it. I did not guess however that the final boss would transform four or five times and that that fight would take an hour and a half.... not bitter....
So now I just have to beat Super Mario Galaxy and I can get rid of my one player games. Unless of course they come out with another cool one player game. They did release the metroid prime games with wii controls....
I also started Jack London's White Fang. I never read this or saw the movie as a kid. Nobody warned me how violent this is. It's kind of intense. But good so far.
I know this is random but does anybody know where I can get a copy of the classic Risk game? I have the "vintage" one from Target that looks like a book but the pieces are kinda crummy. And if you buy it new it's all corporations and junk. The Risk 2210 might be fun but I really want the classic.
Alrighty well I'm gonna get back to White Fang.
-Josh out
I also finished The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. I think some of the endings were supposed to be a surprise but this game is aimed at people from 10-20something so I guessed most of it. I did not guess however that the final boss would transform four or five times and that that fight would take an hour and a half.... not bitter....
So now I just have to beat Super Mario Galaxy and I can get rid of my one player games. Unless of course they come out with another cool one player game. They did release the metroid prime games with wii controls....
I also started Jack London's White Fang. I never read this or saw the movie as a kid. Nobody warned me how violent this is. It's kind of intense. But good so far.
I know this is random but does anybody know where I can get a copy of the classic Risk game? I have the "vintage" one from Target that looks like a book but the pieces are kinda crummy. And if you buy it new it's all corporations and junk. The Risk 2210 might be fun but I really want the classic.
Alrighty well I'm gonna get back to White Fang.
-Josh out
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Information overload (get ready)
I didn't realize it had been so long since my last post. So here's a super fast recap of what's been going on since:
1. Grimm and I went back to the park. We went much further in this time and it was a lot tougher. Fun but exhausting.
2. Went to the book sale and picked up a paperback copy of White Fang and a hardback of Martin Eden (both by Jack London), a hardback of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, and coffe table book about Volkswagen Beetles, a giant pop-up encyclopedia of dinosaurs, as well as a couple of books for Ricci. Grand total: $5. That's right, five smackaroos. That's why I went ahead and got the paperback of White Fang. I'll read it now for a buck and if I really want a hard copy later I'll find one. Afterwords we went by Halfprice because Ricci wanted a copy of Madeline hardback that I had seen the day before. It was a reprint though so she didn't want to spend five bucks on it. However I picked up a copy of Call it Courage for a quarter. No joke with tax and all I only spent 27 cents. Awesome.
3. Ricci's great-grandfather Pappo passed on weekend before last. The funeral was last Monday and then we went back this past Saturday to his farm with a bunch of the family to clean up and take things to remember him and his wife Nanny by. I never met Nanny because she died 12 or so years ago, long before I had any relation to the Barnes, Lowaks or Fenners. It's really cool to go through all of their stuff (in a totally respectful way). I picked up a couple of pins for my collection and some glasses from the old Pearl brewery. It was good to see the family laughing and joking about the things they remembered about that house or about Nanny and Pappo.
4. Ricci and I (mostly Ricci) spent last Tuesday decorating one of the guest bedrooms. She painted the walls green and we hung up a bunch of my old posters. I tend to hang out in there because it's mostly my old stuff as opposed to the frilly stuff in our bedroom. If we stay here for med school we're going to get a big desk and that will be my office/study room. That's why Ricci wanted to make it look nice, so I could enjoy being in there for hours on end when I study. Part of the decorating process included buying a shadow box for all of my pins and buttons. So now I can actually display them all. There's still some room for more but I'll probably have to buy another box in a couple years.
5. Zach and Brandon came in last Thursday so we could all go watch Rifftrax Live: Plan 9 from Outer Space. From the same guys that did Mystery Science Theater 3000 comes a new movie-riffing show. However this one skips all the in-between stuff and goes right to poking fun at movies. Rifftrax.com offers downloadable audio of people making fun of movies. Then you provide the movie and play them at the same time on your computer or with a dvd player and iPod. This way they don't have to deal with royalties, etc. and can riff a movie as soon as it's released. For this event, however they were doing a live riffing of Plan 9 from Outer Space in Nashville, Tennessee. That was broadcast live to hundreds of theaters across the country. So the three of us went to go see it here, and had a blast. Zach also had a bootleg copy of Transformers 2 (though I don't support bootlegging or piracy). I watched and was dissappointed. I might go into that in another post, but it's too long for this one.
6. This week I got in my first issue of Wired magazine, my Cabella's fall 2009 catalog, and picked up a hardback copy of The Boxcar Children for a buck. I also finished Island Boy and I think I'm going to start Call it Courage next. IB was good. Not as good as I remember CiC being but I'm more partial to survival stories so I have nothing against Island Boy. It's a good read, though definitely aimed at a younger audience. It does a great job of telling the story while giving a view of life in ancient Hawaii.
I'm trying to finish all of my one-player games for the wii by Christmas so I can sell them back. I have Zelda:Twilight Princess and Super Mario Galaxy. Both are enjoyable but Mario definitely moves faster and is less confusing/tedious, though the camera angles and controls for Galaxy often make me nauseous. I don't do backwards and upside down very well.
I found my leatherman. Very exciting/humbling. It was right where it was supposed to be. Somehow I thought I had lost it for several months... :|
Lastly, this morning when I got up to run with Grimm at 6, I found a swarm of ants on the counter attacking some rice krispie treats. awesome.
Sorry that was the update equivalent of a wildebeest stampede. ( In the gorge! Simba's down there!)
Josh out.
1. Grimm and I went back to the park. We went much further in this time and it was a lot tougher. Fun but exhausting.
2. Went to the book sale and picked up a paperback copy of White Fang and a hardback of Martin Eden (both by Jack London), a hardback of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, and coffe table book about Volkswagen Beetles, a giant pop-up encyclopedia of dinosaurs, as well as a couple of books for Ricci. Grand total: $5. That's right, five smackaroos. That's why I went ahead and got the paperback of White Fang. I'll read it now for a buck and if I really want a hard copy later I'll find one. Afterwords we went by Halfprice because Ricci wanted a copy of Madeline hardback that I had seen the day before. It was a reprint though so she didn't want to spend five bucks on it. However I picked up a copy of Call it Courage for a quarter. No joke with tax and all I only spent 27 cents. Awesome.
3. Ricci's great-grandfather Pappo passed on weekend before last. The funeral was last Monday and then we went back this past Saturday to his farm with a bunch of the family to clean up and take things to remember him and his wife Nanny by. I never met Nanny because she died 12 or so years ago, long before I had any relation to the Barnes, Lowaks or Fenners. It's really cool to go through all of their stuff (in a totally respectful way). I picked up a couple of pins for my collection and some glasses from the old Pearl brewery. It was good to see the family laughing and joking about the things they remembered about that house or about Nanny and Pappo.
4. Ricci and I (mostly Ricci) spent last Tuesday decorating one of the guest bedrooms. She painted the walls green and we hung up a bunch of my old posters. I tend to hang out in there because it's mostly my old stuff as opposed to the frilly stuff in our bedroom. If we stay here for med school we're going to get a big desk and that will be my office/study room. That's why Ricci wanted to make it look nice, so I could enjoy being in there for hours on end when I study. Part of the decorating process included buying a shadow box for all of my pins and buttons. So now I can actually display them all. There's still some room for more but I'll probably have to buy another box in a couple years.
5. Zach and Brandon came in last Thursday so we could all go watch Rifftrax Live: Plan 9 from Outer Space. From the same guys that did Mystery Science Theater 3000 comes a new movie-riffing show. However this one skips all the in-between stuff and goes right to poking fun at movies. Rifftrax.com offers downloadable audio of people making fun of movies. Then you provide the movie and play them at the same time on your computer or with a dvd player and iPod. This way they don't have to deal with royalties, etc. and can riff a movie as soon as it's released. For this event, however they were doing a live riffing of Plan 9 from Outer Space in Nashville, Tennessee. That was broadcast live to hundreds of theaters across the country. So the three of us went to go see it here, and had a blast. Zach also had a bootleg copy of Transformers 2 (though I don't support bootlegging or piracy). I watched and was dissappointed. I might go into that in another post, but it's too long for this one.
6. This week I got in my first issue of Wired magazine, my Cabella's fall 2009 catalog, and picked up a hardback copy of The Boxcar Children for a buck. I also finished Island Boy and I think I'm going to start Call it Courage next. IB was good. Not as good as I remember CiC being but I'm more partial to survival stories so I have nothing against Island Boy. It's a good read, though definitely aimed at a younger audience. It does a great job of telling the story while giving a view of life in ancient Hawaii.
I'm trying to finish all of my one-player games for the wii by Christmas so I can sell them back. I have Zelda:Twilight Princess and Super Mario Galaxy. Both are enjoyable but Mario definitely moves faster and is less confusing/tedious, though the camera angles and controls for Galaxy often make me nauseous. I don't do backwards and upside down very well.
I found my leatherman. Very exciting/humbling. It was right where it was supposed to be. Somehow I thought I had lost it for several months... :|
Lastly, this morning when I got up to run with Grimm at 6, I found a swarm of ants on the counter attacking some rice krispie treats. awesome.
Sorry that was the update equivalent of a wildebeest stampede. ( In the gorge! Simba's down there!)
Josh out.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Books!
If you've been keeping up you know that Ricci and I will be working on making bookshelves soon. We have books laying all over the house, which is only bad because I have a hard time finding the book I'm looking for. You'll notice I added a section on the side for books I'm reading, will read, and don't own but am looking for. I have an old (really old) Weekly Reader hardcover version of Island Boy that sits out on our living room table because Ricci thinks it has a cool little illustration on it. I've started reading it again because I remember really enjoying it when I was younger.
I've thought about buying the Barnes and Nobles Classics reprints of White Fang, Call of the Wild, and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, but I'd like to find old hardcover versions that I can display like Island Boy. Hopefully this saturday I might find some of those at the Hendricks' book sale. If not I'll start looking at HalfPrice and Amazon.
I think Grimm and I might go back to Brother's park again because we had a blast and he was so exhausted that he slept through the whole night even though we moved his crate out of our room. Here's hoping!
I've thought about buying the Barnes and Nobles Classics reprints of White Fang, Call of the Wild, and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, but I'd like to find old hardcover versions that I can display like Island Boy. Hopefully this saturday I might find some of those at the Hendricks' book sale. If not I'll start looking at HalfPrice and Amazon.
I think Grimm and I might go back to Brother's park again because we had a blast and he was so exhausted that he slept through the whole night even though we moved his crate out of our room. Here's hoping!
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Betrayal
WHAT?! Ricci and I got the original Star Wars movies on dvd from some friends as our wedding present. We were pumped. And I'm still grateful don't get me wrong. But we just watched Return of the Jedi and it had all the extra garbage George Lucas decided to slap in (rather un-seamlessly I might add) in 97. Like the nasty singing dancing alien thing in Jabba's palace. And replacing the sarlac with Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors. And the scene with the fireworks on all the planets when the Empire falls apart. I saw these with my family in theaters as a fourth grader when they were rereleased as "Special Editions" in 1997 so I had adjusted to their unnecessary stupidity. I didn't like them but I didn't let it ruin the movie for me. Unbeknownst to me however was that after making episodes 1, 2 and 3 Lucas re-added things to the originals, I can only assume to try to make the horrible gap between the trilogies less ragged and ugly.
Things like when it shows a particular planet during the fireworks scene, we hear a familiar (aka loathed, detested, hated with the fire of a thousand suns because he is the worst character in the entire series) yell, "Wesa Free!". Okay... I thought maybe I'd never noticed that because I saw it before Phantom Menace. It was plausible that since PM came out only a few years later they were already well into making it and wanted to give a little tease. I could have believed that. Until the worst betrayal of all. Worse than Lando giving Han over to Vader. Worse than Sal helping to set up Michael Corleone's assassination. In the final scene where Luke smiles to the ghosts of Yoda and Obi Wan Kenobi, his father appears but as Anakin Skywalker and not Darth Vader. It is a nice moment where we see what Anakin could have been if he had chosen the path of good. But that wasn't good enough for Lucas, no. He replaced Sebastian Shaw with Hayden Christianson. That cardboard hack of an actor from episodes two and three! WHAT?! Why?!
Thanks Georgy! Seeing as you didn't screw it up enough when you made 1, 2 and 3 so that I have to show my children these movies in the order they were made in so that when Vader says "I am your father!" they don't go "Yes...and...? Didn't we already know that?" But now when I show them 4,5 and 6 at the end they will go "Who's that long haired sissy dude next to Obi Wan dad?"
What next? Are you gonna tell me Mr. Rogers was a drug dealer? I'm more upset about this than the fact that the moon landing may have been faked.
Sigh....tear.....deep breath......okay....I think I'll be alright......
Moving on...To quell some of my earlier anxiousness to get out into the unknown, I took Grimm to Brother's Park and we followed the creek bed through the woods. I packed a pop tart, two water bottles, binoculars, a camera and my knife into my backpack and we headed out. I tried to use a cloth belt (army belt/d-ring belt/whatever you call it) to strap my knife sheath to my thigh but it kept sliding down so I put it on my actual belt. We saw a rabbit and a squirrel and it was a lot of fun. We may go back this weekend. I'll let you know.
Things like when it shows a particular planet during the fireworks scene, we hear a familiar (aka loathed, detested, hated with the fire of a thousand suns because he is the worst character in the entire series) yell, "Wesa Free!". Okay... I thought maybe I'd never noticed that because I saw it before Phantom Menace. It was plausible that since PM came out only a few years later they were already well into making it and wanted to give a little tease. I could have believed that. Until the worst betrayal of all. Worse than Lando giving Han over to Vader. Worse than Sal helping to set up Michael Corleone's assassination. In the final scene where Luke smiles to the ghosts of Yoda and Obi Wan Kenobi, his father appears but as Anakin Skywalker and not Darth Vader. It is a nice moment where we see what Anakin could have been if he had chosen the path of good. But that wasn't good enough for Lucas, no. He replaced Sebastian Shaw with Hayden Christianson. That cardboard hack of an actor from episodes two and three! WHAT?! Why?!
Thanks Georgy! Seeing as you didn't screw it up enough when you made 1, 2 and 3 so that I have to show my children these movies in the order they were made in so that when Vader says "I am your father!" they don't go "Yes...and...? Didn't we already know that?" But now when I show them 4,5 and 6 at the end they will go "Who's that long haired sissy dude next to Obi Wan dad?"
What next? Are you gonna tell me Mr. Rogers was a drug dealer? I'm more upset about this than the fact that the moon landing may have been faked.
Sigh....tear.....deep breath......okay....I think I'll be alright......
Moving on...To quell some of my earlier anxiousness to get out into the unknown, I took Grimm to Brother's Park and we followed the creek bed through the woods. I packed a pop tart, two water bottles, binoculars, a camera and my knife into my backpack and we headed out. I tried to use a cloth belt (army belt/d-ring belt/whatever you call it) to strap my knife sheath to my thigh but it kept sliding down so I put it on my actual belt. We saw a rabbit and a squirrel and it was a lot of fun. We may go back this weekend. I'll let you know.
Wanted: wilderness or frontier
I started rereading Wild at Heart by John Eldridge. And I'm itching to go camping even worse now. Seriously any place you guys know of to go camping let me know. Even if it's somewhere close. I've been looking at knives, tents, boots, everything because I haven't had the chance to really get away in so long. I've got really bad cabin fever right now. Yesterday I was cleaning up the branches on the trees in our backyard and then decided to climb the other one. Sure I knocked a couple of dead branches down but I really just wanted to test that tree out. Guys you know what I'm talking about. I want to get out and do some exploring!
Monday, August 10, 2009
Two posts in one day. Aren't you lucky!
"A woman must not wear men's clothing, nor a man wear women's clothing, for the LORD your God detests anyone who does this." Deuteronomy 22:5
Finally! Biblical proof that it is not okay for guys to wear girl-pants! This is not pointed at anyone in particular, so don't get all huffy if you wear girl pants. But seriously. Ew.
Now I read the verses around this one because I didn't want anyone to say "yeah but you totally took that out of context". We've seen that done countless times. Especially living in Aggieland with the shirt that says "I will cut off the horns of the wicked (Psalm 75:10)". Because the second half of that verse says "but the horns of the righteous shall be lifted up." I'm not dogging people who wear that shirt, I just don't want people to seriously think that God prefers Texas A&M over that school in Austin. If He did wouldn't we have won a few more football games? ;)
I guess my point is that there's not really a way to take this verse out of context. Check it out for yourself. That's what we're supposed to do. But God's laying out simple rules and instructions for the Isrealites. If you see your neighbors oxen wandering around, don't be a jerk. Get it back to him. If that's too far away hold onto it until he comes for it. Don't cross dress cause I think it's gross. Don't put a donkey and an oxen together to plow your field. They are not bff and will probably just screw up your crop rows.
That's a paraphrase, but close enough.
In conclusion:
Yes....
No...
Any questions?
Finally! Biblical proof that it is not okay for guys to wear girl-pants! This is not pointed at anyone in particular, so don't get all huffy if you wear girl pants. But seriously. Ew.
Now I read the verses around this one because I didn't want anyone to say "yeah but you totally took that out of context". We've seen that done countless times. Especially living in Aggieland with the shirt that says "I will cut off the horns of the wicked (Psalm 75:10)". Because the second half of that verse says "but the horns of the righteous shall be lifted up." I'm not dogging people who wear that shirt, I just don't want people to seriously think that God prefers Texas A&M over that school in Austin. If He did wouldn't we have won a few more football games? ;)
I guess my point is that there's not really a way to take this verse out of context. Check it out for yourself. That's what we're supposed to do. But God's laying out simple rules and instructions for the Isrealites. If you see your neighbors oxen wandering around, don't be a jerk. Get it back to him. If that's too far away hold onto it until he comes for it. Don't cross dress cause I think it's gross. Don't put a donkey and an oxen together to plow your field. They are not bff and will probably just screw up your crop rows.
That's a paraphrase, but close enough.
In conclusion:
Yes....
No...
Any questions?
Bookshelves
Last night I was trying to find a particular book and I couldn't. I looked on the very small bookshelf we have. I looked through the books stacked on the shelf in the closet in the guest bedrooms. I looked in the closet in our bedroom. I looked through the stacks of books on the floor of both guest bedrooms and on the guest bed. Still never found it. But I did get desperately frustrated that we have no proper place for our books. So I'm going to Lowe's and HomeDepot today to price up wood and build us one, since pre-made shelves are really expensive or really crummily built. Is that a word? Crummily.... It is now.
I thought about floating shelves but I'd rather not screw stuff into the wall if I can help it. If anybody has good ideas or links for DIY shelving let me know.
I thought about floating shelves but I'd rather not screw stuff into the wall if I can help it. If anybody has good ideas or links for DIY shelving let me know.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Apology
Okay on further looking into "Emails from Crazy People", the website I talked about in the last post, I realized that it is not held to the same "G-rated" standard as most of the cheezburger network. So yeah... sorry about that. I'm not sure I can really recommend that anymore.
In other news I just found out that I sort of know a comic book artist. I mean we've met a couple of times and I know his kids pretty well. Aaaaanyway, his name is Darrin Stephens he works with Jorge Vega to create Kaeru Boy, a comic book about an unlikely hero. I haven't really had the chance to get my hands on a copy yet so I can't say much. But I have seen pictures and I'm excited. Darrin and Jorge make up KidKong Entertainment. It's good clean fun. I'm excited about reading a comic that isn't oversexed like so many (by which I pretty much mean all) today. Here's to you Darrin, Jorge and Kaeru Boy
In other news I just found out that I sort of know a comic book artist. I mean we've met a couple of times and I know his kids pretty well. Aaaaanyway, his name is Darrin Stephens he works with Jorge Vega to create Kaeru Boy, a comic book about an unlikely hero. I haven't really had the chance to get my hands on a copy yet so I can't say much. But I have seen pictures and I'm excited. Darrin and Jorge make up KidKong Entertainment. It's good clean fun. I'm excited about reading a comic that isn't oversexed like so many (by which I pretty much mean all) today. Here's to you Darrin, Jorge and Kaeru Boy
Friday, July 31, 2009
The Cheezburger Network
If you aren't familiar with the "Cheezburger" network, I suggest you familiarize yourself with it now. The Cheezburger network is a group of websites that started with ICanHasCheezburger.com.
While this was a blatant rip off of Lolcats, ICHC took the idea, organized it and has since become a monumentally better website than the actual lolcats.com. They eventually expanded with IHasAHotdog.com (the dog equivalent) and other sites for different categories of captioned pictures. My personal favorite is of course Failblog.org. Now failblog is not always as kid-friendly as ICHC or IHH, but is by far the funniest. I also recommend ROFLrazzi and PunditKitchen. All of these can be reached by the tabs at the top of each site, which is another reason this site far surpassed lolcats.com. The different sites are integrated and look simply like different pages on the same site. Bravo cheezburger network.
Anyway I saw a post on Failblog about a new project under development called "emails from crazy people" and decided to check it out. It's not tabbed into the rest of the network yet because it's still under development but from the first post I read, I'm sure this one will be a classic soon.
Here are some guidelines if you decide to check these sites out for the first time:
ICHC - scroll down to the bottom and click "last" so that you start at the beginning. Otherwise you will probably be in the dark about certain jokes. This one and the dog one have their own language that you will have to familiarize yourself with. Things are intentionally mispelled, etc. Basement cat is kitty Satan and ceiling cat is a reference to God. also if you don't know what LOL and ROFL mean you're gonna be way behind.
Hotdog - pretty similar to ICHC. I would suggest starting with ICHC to get a feel for the language and typical jokes and then moving over to IHH.
Roflrazzi - Keep up with pop culture references.
Pundit Kitchen - Keep up with political and news references. Don't get offended, nobody is attacking your moral grounds. Some people just have it coming.
GraphJam - charts and graphs. Gets old kinda fast because the jokes are recycled too often.
Once Upon a Win - "Hey remember this? It was neat!". that's it
Failblog - this one is easy. just laugh at dumb people.
Engrish Funny - funny mistranslations. It gets a B+ in my book, because it's not as good as engrish.com, which it totally rippped off.
Forums - Just don't. Seriously. The cheezburger and hotdog forums are full of people talking like they are animals and it gets obnoxiously preschooly. PK is people who are offended about the picture and often ends up in a debate about gays or abortion or the war in the middle east. Failblog is often funny to read but if you write something on there and don't triple spellcheck it and double fact check they WILL throw you under the bus and whatever point you were trying to make will be completely ignored. So my advice is to avoid writing on the comments/forums.
There you have it. The Cheezburger Network and there new project Emails from Crazy People.
Enjoy
While this was a blatant rip off of Lolcats, ICHC took the idea, organized it and has since become a monumentally better website than the actual lolcats.com. They eventually expanded with IHasAHotdog.com (the dog equivalent) and other sites for different categories of captioned pictures. My personal favorite is of course Failblog.org. Now failblog is not always as kid-friendly as ICHC or IHH, but is by far the funniest. I also recommend ROFLrazzi and PunditKitchen. All of these can be reached by the tabs at the top of each site, which is another reason this site far surpassed lolcats.com. The different sites are integrated and look simply like different pages on the same site. Bravo cheezburger network.
Anyway I saw a post on Failblog about a new project under development called "emails from crazy people" and decided to check it out. It's not tabbed into the rest of the network yet because it's still under development but from the first post I read, I'm sure this one will be a classic soon.
Here are some guidelines if you decide to check these sites out for the first time:
ICHC - scroll down to the bottom and click "last" so that you start at the beginning. Otherwise you will probably be in the dark about certain jokes. This one and the dog one have their own language that you will have to familiarize yourself with. Things are intentionally mispelled, etc. Basement cat is kitty Satan and ceiling cat is a reference to God. also if you don't know what LOL and ROFL mean you're gonna be way behind.
Hotdog - pretty similar to ICHC. I would suggest starting with ICHC to get a feel for the language and typical jokes and then moving over to IHH.
Roflrazzi - Keep up with pop culture references.
Pundit Kitchen - Keep up with political and news references. Don't get offended, nobody is attacking your moral grounds. Some people just have it coming.
GraphJam - charts and graphs. Gets old kinda fast because the jokes are recycled too often.
Once Upon a Win - "Hey remember this? It was neat!". that's it
Failblog - this one is easy. just laugh at dumb people.
Engrish Funny - funny mistranslations. It gets a B+ in my book, because it's not as good as engrish.com, which it totally rippped off.
Forums - Just don't. Seriously. The cheezburger and hotdog forums are full of people talking like they are animals and it gets obnoxiously preschooly. PK is people who are offended about the picture and often ends up in a debate about gays or abortion or the war in the middle east. Failblog is often funny to read but if you write something on there and don't triple spellcheck it and double fact check they WILL throw you under the bus and whatever point you were trying to make will be completely ignored. So my advice is to avoid writing on the comments/forums.
There you have it. The Cheezburger Network and there new project Emails from Crazy People.
Enjoy
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Background
New background is up. Because...you know...you obviously didn't see it or whatever.
Anyway...
Thanks to:
Photoshop CS2
My wife
CBB
I've been reading up on how to write html. It's not terribly difficult but sometimes it's hard to find where in the blogger template I'm supposed to put what I've learned. So thanks to CBB for explaining it. Now that I've gotten a background I think I'll work on a cool header and we'll see what follows. Stay tuned!
Anyway...
Thanks to:
Photoshop CS2
My wife
CBB
I've been reading up on how to write html. It's not terribly difficult but sometimes it's hard to find where in the blogger template I'm supposed to put what I've learned. So thanks to CBB for explaining it. Now that I've gotten a background I think I'll work on a cool header and we'll see what follows. Stay tuned!
Friday, July 24, 2009
Give Me Something To Do
Alright I've started this blog for several reasons, but mostly I was bored at work. I'm not slacking off, there's just actually nothing to do and it's driving me crazy. Unfortunately until I find a real job I gotta come in and do nothing so we can pay the bills. I'm going to use this to talk about my momentary fixations, whether it's projects I'm working on, things I'd like to do someday, or something I just want to know more about. I think this will be something where I ask a lot of questions and will hopefully get helpful comments. Thanks for reading and enjoy.
ps - my first project will be to make this thing not so boring without the use of templates or somebody else's layouts.
ps - my first project will be to make this thing not so boring without the use of templates or somebody else's layouts.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)