xkcd

I love xkcd. Here are some reasons why:

Ben & Jerry + John Lennon = FTW

I'm not crazy about caramel or toffee but I am crazy about chocolate peace signs and imagining things. I thought I was the maximum amount of happy with Ben & Jerry when they released their Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream ice cream. But clearly Imagine Whirled Peace is worlds better. Thank you Ben & Jerry, not just for Whirled Peace, but also for switching to eggs produced from hens NOT raised in battery cages. Those months I couldn't eat your ice cream were killer.

Reef

Normally I don't spend a lot of money on clothes. I prefer to shop at Target over the mall any day. That being said, about 5 years ago I splurged and bought a pair of Reef Swing Sandals. Best forty bucks I've ever spent. I just want to say that I love my Reef sandals and they've yet to fail me. They may be older than my mattress, but they are still probably more comfortable.

Pow! Bam! Punch!

As far as comic book movie adaptations go, the next four years could turn out to be either wonderful, as we watch our favorite superheroes come to life on the big screen, or completely horrible, as we sit through hour after hour of poor screenplays and agonizing acting. With Iron Man's soaring success, both Marvel and DC have decided to go ahead releasing a whole slew of comic book adaptations between now and 2011.

2008
The Incredible Hulk (June 13)
Hellboy II: The Golden Army (July 11)
The Dark Knight (July 18)
Punisher: War Zone (December 5)
Deathlok

2009
Luke Cage 
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (May 1)
X-Men Origins: Magneto
Wonder Woman
Justice League: Mortal
Watchmen (March 6)
Superman: Man of Steel
The Green Hornet
The Witchblade
Sin City 3

2010
Dr. Strange
Ant-Man
Thor (June 4)
The Flash
Spider-Man 4
Sin City 2
Red Sonja
Green Lantern
Nick Fury 

2011
The First Avenger: Captain America
The Avengers
Buck Rogers

And that is just the beginning.

Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

I should be getting ready for work right now but instead I think I will risk being late, again, in order to write my reaction towards this film.

I went to the midnight showing with 4 of my friends and we arrived an hour early, even though we had already purchased our tickets, just as a precaution, and I'm glad we did. Our theater was packed by curtain-up the previews were quite enjoyable (Eagle Eye, The Dark Knight, Kung Fu Panda).

I think I am less excited by this movie than I was by Iron Man but not by a wide margin. I really enjoyed Indy 4 and I think it was definitely, at the very least, as good as the original three but something was a little off and I still haven't figured out what it is. The story line was sci-fi which totally threw me off and I found myself constantly making comparisons to the Stargate SG-1 episode 'Crystal Skull', mainly because they are about the same crystal skull. The dialogue was scarily near  'campy' after the crystall skull's ziggurat was destroyed but if we really think about it, Indy's dialogue was campy back in the '80s too. I also noticed that at one point, when Indy and Mutt are in the scary, dark graveyard looking for the skull, the music reminded me more of Harry Potter than Indiana Jones. Although, that sort of music similarity is bound to happen when the music to both series is composed by John Williams.

This movie really was classic Indiana Jones. It had Indy goofing up, jumping from moving vehicle to moving vehicle, overcoming impossible situations, solving riddles, being irrationally scared of snakes and helping old friends. Oh and surprise! Mutt is really Henry Jones III?  What?! Go on...oh wait, we already knew that was coming. And towards the end of the film, the wind blows Indy's fedora to Mutt's feet ,at which point I freaked out because I'd already heard George Lucas' idea to have a 5th Indy flick with Mutt as the main character and Indy as a Sean Connery type, but I was able to breath a small sigh of relief as Indy snatched the hat out of Mutt's hands because he was able to put it on.

Anyway, I really like the movie, I wasn't disappointed and it was great seeing Harrison Ford back as an appropriately aged Professor Henry Jones.

Thesaurus

Is it a book, or a dinosaur? Turns out it is a book. One that I wish people would use more frequently. I've become so disinterested with using the same words. Do you know how often I say, "awesome" or "amazing"? Probably somewhere in the vicinity of twenty times a day. I know that words go through phases, especially slang. No one has referred to me as "bird" or "doll" in...ever, actually, and that makes me sorrowful. That being the case, I took a few minutes to look up synonyms for "awesome" and "amazing" so that I can diversify my exclamations of glee.

Brilliant	Outstanding	Incredible
Marvelous	Far-out	Singular
Capital	Fab	Magnificent
First-class	Swell	Outstanding
Superior	Super	Tip-top
Quality	Splendid	First-rate
Ace	Champion	Gnarly
Banner	Rad	Wizard
Divine	Wicked	Tubular
Bodacious	Righteous	Sensational
Glorious	Impressive	Wondrous
Striking	Remarkable	Dandy
Crackerjack	Nifty	Stellar
Groovy	Exceptional	Out of sight

Depending on how you define a "word" there are between 170,000 and 210,000 of them in existence. The average person will never use more than 20,000 of them. Isn't that awful?

Wincing the Night Away

I'm moving soon and me, being me, decided to start packing this weekend, despite the fact that I still have weeks before our moving date. I have many, many books so I started with those and it took a few hours, but I finally managed to cram them into 8 boxes or so. Then I started to look around for other things I wouldn't need in the next month. I decided I'd box up my CDs as well. I put the discs I liked into a case so I wouldn't be completely deprived, but I packed everything else. "What next?" I looked at my DVD shelf and laughed. "Yeah, like I could go a month without watching a movie or a season of Stargate." That is when it hit me. That is exactly what I should do. Lately, whenever I am bored, instead of practicing one of my TWO bass guitars or strumming on my electric guitar, I watch a movie or screw around online. "What is the point in owning two bass guitars, if I can only barely make a sad attempt at playing?" There is no point in that. Which is why I went ahead and packed all of my DVDs with the exception of a few I have yet to watch. I figure this plan is two-fold: !) It forces me to read, or practice guitar in my spare time but even if I must watch a movie @) it'll be one I haven't seen yet. Bam! Take that! Creative problem solving at its finest.

I've been really inspired by The Beatles lately, ever since my History of Rock-n-Roll professor played a clip of "Tomorrow Never Knows", which just took my breath away, so their songs were the first I searched for tablatures of. Obviously I picked the easiest ones, generally off their earlier albums, songs like "All My Loving" and "And I Love Her". I've also been practicing the 8 minute song "I Will Possess Your Heart" by Death Cab for Cutie. Its got a fun, repetitive bass line, which is perfect for someone trying to work on accuracy and speed. I even tried to sing along as I played. It was short lived but I managed for about a bar. So anyway, I don't have a music stand so in order to be able to achieve optimum viewing of said tabs, I taped them all onto my closet doors. It looks like this:

It is the perfect layout. I sit, or stand, facing my closet, with my headphones coming from my laptop on my desk and my amp beside my chair. I never thought I would use the Targus Noise-Cancellation headphones my grandpa got me with my laptop two years ago, but here I am. Using them. Yay me! They are perfect for tuning out all the commotion in my house and focusing on the music.

Music is a ridiculously important aspect of my life and its always been a thorn in my side that I can neither sing, nor play any musical instruments. Sometimes you just want to play along with a really groovy tune and it sucks not knowing how. So instead of living with the sucky, I'm gonna teach myself to be some sort of Jaco Pastorius or Jack Bruce or Flea. It may take the next decade, but by golly I'm gonna try. And I know, Yoda, "There is no try". Well this time there is. I just wish it didn't hurt so badly. These blisters are murder.

Mach GoGoGo!

Could the critics harp on Speed Racer any harder? It makes me wonder if they've ever seen the cartoon; for if they had, perhaps they'd have noticed that Speed Racer captured its ancestry wonderfully.

"Go, Speed Racer, go! Go find a story more worthy of your mind-blowing visuals!" Matt Stevens - E! Online

"This adventurously awful film is awful in many ways at once." Kyle Smith - New York Post

"For a movie about velocity, the excitement factor is low and the races feel like a drag." Claudia Puig - USA Today

While I do take Kyle Smith's review with a grain of salt, (after all, he is only upset about having to write his shite reviews for the Post instead of the Times), these other people have no excuses. "...like being force-fed a Costco-size bag of your favorite candy. " Really Ty Burr of the Boston Globe? Really? The cartoon, Speed Racer, first debuted in the US in 1967 and people are still trying to figure out what Speed and Trixie were saying, they just talk so darn fast! Thankfully, Emile Hirsch and Matthew Fox didn't run around hammering off their lines at the rate of The Chipmunks on speed.

Ok, so that is one good aspect of the movie. Can I think of two? Uh, yeah I can! Say it with me now, "visuals". Oh yes. They were stunning. They made a live-action Speed Racer feel like it was animated which in turn made me feel its Anime and Japanese roots. The Mach 5 was like the most radical cartoon car I've seen come to life (behind Batman Begin's Batmobile [that's right Herbie, bugger off]) and I honestly didn't mind that they ended the movie with a Mach 6. I felt like Christina Ricci's performance might have accidentally wandered into the "Campy Department" but other than that, all performances were spotless. I admit, Mr. Royalton did have a tendency to prattle on about "corruption this" and hit-man that" but if long winded, awkward villainous speeches aren't what '60s cartoons represent, then I don't know much about '60s cartoons.

And also Ty Burr of the Boston Globe, there are worse things than being force-fed a Costco size bag of your favorite candy. If you don't believe me, go watch Dragon Wars.

Iron Man

Ok. So. I'm pretty sure that everyone else was just as mad as I was after staying awake all night and waiting in lines for hours just to be slapped in the face by the pile of dung often referred to as Spider-Man 3. And then Hulk happened which just...well...it hurt my heart. And I know that Fantastic Four, and it's craptastic follow-up, Silver Surfer, did nothing to assuage anyone's anguish. After this series of devastatingly poor comic book adaptations, I found myself rocking back-and-forth in the fetal position wondering why the hell these films didn't turn out more like Batman Begins.

When I heard about Iron Man, my initial reactions was terror. I was terrified that Mark Fergus and Jon Favreau would ruin Iron Man and add him to the list of heroes that have been emasculated on the big screen. But then...I went and saw it....and it was good. Scratch that, it was great! It was well written, well cast, AND well performed. Triple threat alert! Robert Downey Jr. was simply brilliant. He brought everything about Tony Stark to life, from his simple genius to his sarcastic wit. The suit...oh the suit. It was glorious! Iron Man definitely re-established that when one uses the astounding film technology that is currently available, appropriately, one can kick ASS! I also liked the fact that there was only one villain present...*glares at Spider-Mans 2 & 3*...which meant that there was ample character development for both Stark and Stane.

I just...I don't wanna talk about it anymore. I don't typically tell people what to do or think but that being said...go see it. And Place it at #2 on your list of comic book adaptations, right underneath Batman Begins, and get psyched for this summer to see where The Incredible Hulk and The Dark Knight fall into place.