Father's Day Essay #2

My essay is about David Letterman. He is the best known expert about low IQ pets, but he should be known for other stuff as well.

David was born in Indianapolis. He attened Broad Ripple High School and Ball State University. This is because the people of Indianapolis are so invested in the Indy 500 that they can't be bothered to come up with good names for their schools.

Letterman's early career included radio talk show host and weatherman. As the latter, it's said that he either impressed everybody with his sense of humor or committed suicide. I'm not sure which.

In 1975 he moved to LA to become a comedy writer. His talents got him one of the sweetest jobs: He got to pick the appropriate moments to say "DYNOMITE!" on Good Times. It was there that he met his future mortal enemy, Jimmy Walker. There have been movies made about their late-nite rivalry.

Letterman appeared on several shows, and even hosted his own game show called The Riddlers, but the pilot was never picked up because he refused to where the question mark costume. Letterman eventually ended up on Carson's show as a regular after a particularly confusing Carnac bit.

Letterman got his first tv show in the morning, but people didn't want to wake up to that face, so he was moved to the night where he became famous as a late-late host. Although he was initially happy with the spot after Carson, Letterman soon got tired of his show, and started picking fights with Cher and Shirley MacClaine. He also became a big jerk around animals, throwing pencils at them or dropping them off buildings. Naturally, he was awarded with a big contract to host the CBS late show.

On his new show, he was able to win his slot for 18 months, until the pressure of writing a top ten list every night finally caused him to break down. He suffered a heart attack that wasn't noticed until half a decade later. (There was some suspicion that there were problems when he hosted the Oscars.) Still, his appearance in Cabin Boy is a fan favorite.

Letterman's company is Worldwide Pants. This led to him being stalked by some woman, because men in pants are irresistable.

Today Letterman still hosts his show with Johnny Carwash. In conclusion, Leno is a hump and a pinhead.

This Week In Entertainment (6/25/07)

My Pick of the Week is Mystery Science Theater 3000, Volume 11. This includes Ring of Terror, The Indestructable Man, Tormented, and The Horrors of Spider Island. The last episode was my favorite of the last season. I haven't seen Indestructable Man. Ring of Terror featured some of the oldest college kids ever. Tormented featured a girl outacting the rest of the cast.

Also out this week, and would have been my pick if it was any other week, is The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3: The Complete Series. Sadly, they seem to have cut out the episode where Princess Toadstool went to a Milli Vanilli concert. I'll have to find that episode at youtube and review it someday.

I've gots to get my hands on this one: Zero Hour! This 1957 movie was the inspiration for Airplane!

Cult Camp Classics 1 - Sci-Fi Thrillers (Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman 1958 / Giant Behemoth / Queen of Outer Space) - Worth it just to see Zsa Zsa Gabor as a Venusian scientist. There's a scene where she pretends to be the Queen of Outer Space, and nobody comments on her accent.

The New Adventures of Batman - No, this isn't the crappy WB cartoons where they needlessly redesigned the bad guys. This was made in 1977 and features the voices of Adam West and Burt Ward. Maybe they'll finally release the tv series.

The New Adventures of Superman - This was made in 1966. It's probably as crappy as the New Adventures of Batman. (Of course, how could you compete with the standard set in the forties?)

Dead Silence is coming out this week. I made fun of it when I first heard of it, but I completely forgot about it until now. If it was anything but a horror movie, I would conclude that it probably didn't do so well.

The Doomsday Machine - If it weren't for the ending, and the fact that Jabootu did a review of it, I wouldn't recommend this movie. Space movies are boring. Still, I would love to see the movie just for the ending.

Check out the comments for Bozo: the World's Most Famous Clown. People are getting into a shouting match over who's local clown was better.

"PYLE!" "SHAZAM!" "PYLE!!" "SHAZAM!!"

For the Chick Heads in your life, it's King James Version Bible on DVD!

Father's Day Essay #1

My essay is about Alec Baldwin. He is the best known member of a very talented family.

Baldwin was born and raised in Massapequa, New York. He is part Irish, which explains his constant drinking and fighting. Since substance abuse is so common among his people, it's not surprising that he once worked at Studio 54 as a busboy.

Alec attended George Washington University for three years. He ran for a student body president, but lost. He transferred to New York University afterwards, which was the first time he equated losing an election to running away.

Alec's first role was in a tv show named Doctors. Coincidentally, the show ended it's 19 year run during his two years on the show. He gained a little fame on another soap, this time Knot's Landing. His preacher character left the show after he didn't have a good landing.

Alec's movie career started to take off in the late eighties. He starred in Beetlejuice, a movie known for its singing and dancing. In Working Girl, he plays a character who gets dumped. That's what happens when your character's name is Mick.

In 1990, Alec starred in the Hunt for Red October. This was the movie debute of Jack Ryan and the screenwriters thought that they needed to show his inexperience, so that explains his confusion with calendars. It was such a good movie that the Soviet Union soon collapsed.

The following year Alec met future ex-wife Kim Basinger on the set of The Marrying Man. Soon she was getting him roles in movies like the Shadow. The producers wanted a man who would disappear and not be seen by any of the other actors, and Alec was a good fit.

Later in the nineties he starred in The Juror, a movie about a teacher threatening to kill a juror. He won critical praise for portraying the way teachers go crazy in this country. He also starred in Mercury Rising, a movie about a landfill full of old barometers. In won a few enviromental awards.

In 2001 Alec starred in his most beloved role, as some guy in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. It was such a popular movie that the studio that made it decided to shut down afterwards because it already set a standard impossible to duplicate. This was such an important film for Alec that he starred in several other great films, like Cats and Dogs, Pearl Harbor, and The Adventures of Pluto Nash. He even got to work with one of Hollywood's greats, Mike Myers in The Cat and the Hat.

No one knows why, but Alec Baldwin holds a large grudge against Simpsons fans. This can be proven if you watch the episode that he appeared in called "When You Dish Upon a Star."

In conclusion, when is Saturday Night Live going to ban this guy?

The Games I've Played #1

Yeah, there hasn't been much activity going on lately. My heart hasn't been into it the last couple weeks. So to fill space, let's look at a video game I've played. I'll give my random thoughts on the game.



Today's game is Donkey Kong for the Atari 800.



My dad and uncle bought about a couple dozen Atari computer games but most of them stayed with Uncle Buddy. Donkey Kong was one of the few that we kept at our house. I still think it's the best of the home versions.

As you can see the sprites are all squashed and a little fat. The barrel level only has four floors. The cement mix level doesn't have retractable ladders. The game also has less color and has a blueness to it. (I never noticed this at home because I could never get color with our crummy game switchbox.) You'll note that Pauline is a brunette, like they made her in the last Donkey Kong DS game. It has all four levels, which makes it better then the NES version and the levels are in the proper order, which makes it more accurate then the Donkey Kong 64 version.

What makes this game great is that it's really fast. Mario is really quick and Donkey Kong can throw several barrels down at you. I love the arcade game, but it is slow compared to this version.

One funny thing about this game is that it has rubber walls. You can actually jump at a wall and if your toe touches it, you'll jump backwards and land safely. You can avoid a firefox this way. I forget if this is in the arcade version, although I wouldn't waste a quarter to find out. Other funny things include the fact that you could steal rivets by touching them slightly with your feet on the right side and the fact that you could score poins by jumping up and slightly missing the spring.

The instruction manual mentions that this was the brief time where Mario was a carpenter. It also mentions that you should be careful climbing ladders because the barrels have a mind of your own. When I was a kid, I took this literally.





On a scale of 1 to 10, I give this game a ranking of "Desert Island Game."

This Week In Entertainment (6/18/07)

My Pick of the Week is Pinky and the Brain, Volume 3. I got the first volume but I haven't picked up the second volume yet. I'm a little nervous about this pick, though, because I'm not sure if they got to the Elmyra episodes. If so, then I may have to change this pick.


Also out on DVD this week is Animaniacs Volume 3. I don't have any of these sets. The Fox episodes were great, but I don't think the show was the same after it went to the WB. I'm not poining any fingers, I just think the show already used up it's A material by the time it moved, and the lost of Pinky and the Brain didn't help. Still, I need to start picking up these sets.

We have the Die Hard Collection set with all three movies. Say, is there a sequel coming out anytime soon?

The final documentary by Steve Irwin is out. Isn't it still a little too soon?


In theaters we have Evan Almighty, a sequel to a Jim Carrey movie I didn't see. Some guy builds an ark. Funny stuff happens, I guess. Maybe someone will talk out of their butt, even if it's a pale imitation of Carrey's greatest work.


On to video games. We got two interesting games for the Wii. The first is the latest Harry Potter game. I haven't played any of the Harry Potter games, mostly because they were clearly designed for kids. (I wouldn't mind a game where you could explore Hogwarts, but the games I saw didn't look too good.) This game might be interesting because the Wiimote would be great for casting spells. Come on, designers. Don't be lazy.

The second Wii game that catches my interest is the latest Pokemon game. As much as I don't care for the franchise right now, this one interests me because it's the first Wii game in the U.S. that supports online play. This will hopefully open the doors for more Wii online games. (I would like to see an online Wii Sports.)

A Movie Idea, and It's Mine!

My blog is still alive. I've just been busy lately. I'll have an essay up soon. I finally have a topic for June.

Since I have some space to kill, let me share some ideas for a movie I would like to write. I want to make a movie where the villians are a team of field hockey players. I think it's a idea whose time is due. I mean, what is the deal with those curved sticks, huh? Girls are weird.

I should start by writing the obligatory scene where a guy thinks his girlfriend is not a field hockey player because she's wearing a wig. Then he'll scream in terror when she reveals her blonde pony tail! That scene should write itself.

The climax will have a small town fighting back the girls as they invade the town. I'll probably toss in an obligatory "good" field hockey player who cuts off her pony tail and has to sacrifice herself at the end of the movie. You know, audience love that kind of thing. Besides, I don't want people to be too scared by this movie.






By the way, wiki apparently feels that there are non-blonde, non-women who play field hockey. Damn, you just can't trust that site for important stuff.

This Week In Entertainment (6/11/07)

My Pick of the Week is the second Fantastic Four movie. After watching the first movie I don't have too much hope for this one, but what the heck.

Also opening this week is DOA: Dead or Alive. Awesome! I love how they have to explain the acronym, even though critics are still going to use Dead On Arrival in their headlines.

Out on DVD is Ghost Rider. I noticed that Amazon didn't list Nicolas Cage as the star of the movie, which probably tells you about the quality of the movie.

Just in time for the movie being released this week, it's The Original Nancy Drew Movie Mystery Collection.

The last Jim Carrey film I saw and laughed at. Now on HD-DVD-BLAH-BLAH-BLAH.

Moving on to video games, we have The Sims 2: Pets for the Wii. For those of you who found a way to get a Wii and want a watered down version of the Sims 2.

Also on the Wii is Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree. I hope that this game is worth playing for more then an hour, because it's 30 bucks more expensive then the DS version.

I don't know what kind of movie this is, but I'm going to include this because the title amuses me. It's Nice Girls Don't Explode. Feel free to discuss what kind of movie it is.

Europe Quickie (6/7/07)

The EU is planning to ban old barometers because they have mercury in them.



Say, do you know what also has mercury in it?

This Week In Entertainment (6/4/07)

My Pick of the Week is Tomb Raider: Anniversary for the PS2. I still consider the first Tomb Raider a classic, and this is a remake of that game with the Tomb Raider: Legends game engine.

Nintendo is releasing a web browser for both the DS and DS Lite. I thought this was a cool idea until I realized how hard it would be to get WiFi where ever I wanted it. Oh well.

Seinfeld Season 8 is out on DVD. Get ready for more of those wacky adventures of that lovable Kramer!


Fantastic Four: Extended Version - Say, are they going to release a sequel anytime soon?

I'm only mentioning The Most Powerful Families in Wrestling because I keep imagining a mafia of wrestlers and it's cracking me up.

Run for your lives! It's Rachel Ray!

This one's for the ladies! It's U2: The DVD Collector's Box.

Belated Hippie History Month Essay #4

My essay is about George Carlin. He is best known for being the architect of the world, or at least that's what he claims.

George Carlin was born in New York and raised in Manhattan. Despite that he didn't die. He dropped out of high school at the age of fourteen for being a class clown and joined the US Air Force. This gave him the vocabulary necessary for his later career in comedy.

In the late fifties, George Carlin joined Jack Burns to form a comedy team. They eventually moved to California and stayed as a team for two years, but quit after Jack got in an argument with a taxi driver.

In the sixties, George Carlin tried to get a job on television. His first job was as a weatherman, but he got fired for being stoned all the time. His attempts at being a disc jockey were also disasterous. And his Indian Sargeant character was offensive enough to hurt his tv career for a while. Still, he was able to find work on Johnny Carson's show.

In the seventies, Carlin embraced the spirit of the seventies and became too hip to be clean-cut. He eventually got many fans when he started recalling and counting all the words he read on a bathroom wall the previous day. The FCC wouldn't allow him to say these on tv, and he was eventually taken to court. The Supreme Court finally handed down a verdict that "piss" was too lame to be a word not heard on tv, so George was fined for his act. Amazingly, this made him more popular then ever.

After finding a permanent home at HBO and hosting the first Saturday Night Live, he took the rest of the seventies off. He returned in his Oscar deserving role in the Bill and Ted series. He also got a job on Shining Time Station because a judge ordered him to.

In the nineties he starred in his most beloved role, as the star of his own Fox series. After this classic was canceled, he had a role in Dogma as a cardinal obsessed with frisbees.

In the 21st century, he appeared in Jersey Girl. Due to this, he now does voice work in movies like Cars, Tarzan 2, and Happily N'Ever After. One day he'll probably show his face again.

Since George Carlin played a hippie on some animated show, it's well known that he likes to talk about helping the world even though all he does is smell bad and smokes pot. But he does know a great recipe for porkchops.