Category Archives: Fun Stuff
Girl Is A Danger!
[Or: Allamagoosa Unleashed]
“I stun and amaze in my ability to harm myself” – Allie
Allamagoosa and I have long joked about her needing a leash so she doesn’t wander into traffic. A couple days ago, she was getting into my car and must not have ducked low enough because she banged her shoulder on the roof edge. Her right shoulder. Getting in the passenger side. Not quite sure just how she managed that one.
The leash is sounding less like a joke and more like a necessity. Even non-moving traffic is a risk.
Pacific Rim
I recently saw Pacific Rim with Allie and her family. They asked if I wanted to go along, and explained that it was about “giant monsters fighting giant robots.” I decided it would be a fun lark, expecting a sillyass popcorn flick with good special FX. To quote director Guillermo del Toro, “We cannot pretend this is Ibsen with monsters and giant robots. I cannot pretend I’m doing a profound reflection on mankind.”
If you haven’t seen it yet and plan to, you might wanna stop reading here.
Even though it was live-action, this was the biggest, baddest, most hardcore anime ever. Giant monsters and robots, explosions, cities being razed, incredible effects, insane weapons, and a battle cry of “This is for my family!” Some of the action scenes are a little too dark, but the colors are so vivid it almost doesn’t matter. Amazing camera work as well. There’s minimal blood and guts – children around 8 years old or older should be able to handle the movie just fine.
But what surprised me a little was that there was an actual story, and how it was handled. Del Toro said, “I shot about an hour more of material than is in the movie. Every character had a bigger arc, the characters were more complex. But I was really trying to strike the balance where I said,… let me try to get each character to its minimal requirements to have an arc that has a beginning, middle and end, and a payoff.”
I think this helped the movie quite a bit. None of the navel-gazing or handwringing that can be found in nearly any other movie these days. No overblown soliloquies about courage, duty, or sacrifice – they just do it. If a movie with themes like this can be made (by a pacifist, at that) and do well, then maybe Western civilization isn’t totally down the crapper yet.
This is the movie that “Man Of Steel” should have been.
Random Static Emissions II: Daddy-O In Hell
Mann-made dis-ass-ter
Men hunted the dildo to extinction. Women angry, yet dating more.
“Dildo Extinction” is the greatest name for a hardcore nihilistic death metal band that I’ve ever heard.
The Thigh’s The Limit
Women in Tokyo sell advertising space on their thighs.
Men can finally claim a legitimate excuse for staring. Truly, a major advance in capitalism.
I’m thinking of designing a logo and corporate-branding Allie.
Bringin’ Da Movies
Allamagoosa showed me the movie “Surf Ninjas.” Rob Schneider (who may or may not have a superpower), a cyborg Leslie Nielsen, and Tone Loc on a surfboard [Would that make Nielsen a surfborg?]. Allamagoosa continues her campaign to try to “pay me back” for all the spine-melting music* I make her listen to.
*View at your own risk.
100
I’m up to my 100th post, and I wanted to make it something insightful, noble, uplifting, and memorable.
Hey, it’s 1 out of 4. I guess I could count it as 2 out of 4 since something is kinda being uplifted in that pic.
Okay, fine. Have something awesome.
Stephen Hawking’s video for The Big Bang Theory panel at Comic-Con 2013.
Thanks for hanging out at this train wreck of a site.
11.8
[Or: “None Shall Pass”]
Trying harrrrrrrdddddd nooooooowwwwwwwww……..
It’s so harrrrrdddddd noooowwwwwwwwwwwwww………
Immovable Object sloshes roofies into Irresistible Force’s drink.
As commenter Flicker0546 sagely noted, “At least they get to ride back in a convertible.”
There’s No Reason For This Season
Allamagoosa decided I should watch After Last Season, stating that it’s like Nietzsche’s Abyss, if you gaze too long at it, it also gazes into you. Her brother calls it “the null hypothesis of a movie.” The plot summary at TV Tropes actually sounds like a good crime or mystery story with a smattering of science fiction, a vision which the director didn’t merely fail to realize, but realized in a negative antithesis fashion. Someone calling himself The Spoony One has overlaid a MST3K-style commentary over a copy of it, snarkily highlighting innumerable mistakes, confusions, and horrible editing decisions. Allie, being “obscenely fond” of the film fired up the flick, and after just shy of 11 minutes, I was forced to stop.
Was it too awful, too horrible, too brain-damaging? Bitchez, please. I pour movies like this on my breakfast cereal. The problem I had was that I want this movie in Walter White-level 99.1% pure form, not cut with diluting material. Some broken disaster of a person (I know who my readers are) find me a copy.
…I Got Nothin’ To Add To This
Allamagoosa is a devoted listener of Radio Dead Air, specifically their show “What The Fuck Is Wrong With You?” and proving yet again that she’s the right girl for me. The most recent episode ended with a segment featuring one of the top 10 greatest headlines ever written –
Homeowner Clubs Burglar With Pottery, Holds Him At Elephantpoint After He Urinates In Basement, Leaves Beer In Washing Machine
Tell me you don’t want to read that.
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It still doesn’t quite match up to the standard set by the 61-year old cross-dressing, meth-dealing priest who liked homosexual transvestite sex in the Rectory and used a sex store & head shop to launder the drug money, though. But then, what could?
Trippin’ Cross Country
So I moved and am pirating Allamagoosa’s bandwidth until I get a connection. I’m getting slowly settled into my new place, it’s pretty nice.
Her designs may be fabulous, but her cat’s still a snob
She showed me the movie Kiki’s Delivery Service, an animated Japanese film with Phil Hartman doing one of the voices. mostly ad libbing. So yeah, I had to check it out. Very cute, but not smarmy. It’s a perfect kid’s movie – if you’ve got little ones, they would probably love it. Or as Allie says, the best part is that your kids will love it and you won’t hate it, especially if they want to watch it over and over. The flight animations and scenes are particularly well executed.
Allie informs me that in the version currently available, most of Hartman’s ad libs had been sliced out. Still worth watching though. She also has a book about the art, which should surprise no one.
I’ve been wanting to watch Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex for quite a while now. Guess who has the entire series? I’m liking it. The Tachikomas are disturbingly appealing.
The real caped crusader calls his crime-fighting cohorts when he‘s running late
I’ve been returning the favor (if you can call it that) by showing her Big Bang Theory episodes. Sometimes she laughs so hard I think she’s going to run out of oxygen.
Last night, I showed her the first episode of Breaking Bad. She doesn’t know yet if she liked it or not.
Pointless
* “Why do people always want to talk to me when I have something stuffed in my mouth?” – Allamagoosa, eating a cookie.
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* Penny’s Diner in Rawlins Wyoming is awesome. If you ever pass by that way, stop in and be sure to get the chocolate and peanut butter milkshake.
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* “I don’t even know what to think of it.” – Allamagoosa
Game Not Over
[Or: “The Extra-Collectible”]
A Canadian film studio has been given permission to excavate an Atari landfill in Alamogordo,* New Mexico, where horrible games went to die.
Of particular interest in the Atari landfill is an old E.T. video game. The game had been created after the 1982 Steven Spielberg movie, but the game was universally panned as being awful. Now, however, people are clamoring for copies of the game and the old Atari games have become quite the hit on eBay.
Fuel Industries wants to search the Alamogordo landfill to see how many of the old Atari games they can recover. They have been given six months to search the landfill, and many will be curious to see what they find. Word has it that in 1983 nine semi-trucks dumped various Atari toys in the landfill, including many copies of the coveted E.T. game.
Reportedly it wasn’t just “E.T.” (extra-terrible?) that was buried, but other games and entire systems as well. Seems like F.I. is looking to profit from the failures of others.
Rule for people and/or companies who develop craptacular products – don’t bury or destroy them. Shelve them in a warehouse and wait 10 to 30 years** while they amass a cult following, then sell them as “collectibles” for ridiculous prices on eBay.
* No, it’s not Allamagoosa’s hometown.
** Average length 15-20 years, until the kids mature into late-30-something adults and contract nostalgitis.


