April Non-Specific History Month: April Showers: The Concludening

My essay is about Pamela Anderson Lee, aka Pamela Lee Anderson. She is best known for her famous video that argued for family values, and there's more.

Pamela Anderson was born in British Columbia, Canada. She was originally thought to be the first baby born on the centennial for Canada, but this was untrue. Her parents were kicked out of her hometown for this scam they tried to pull.

After graduating from secondary school, Pamela was ready to challenge the world and get any job she wanted. However, it was the eighties, so she had to settle for fitness intructor. At the end of the eighties when people were beginning to realize how silly leg warmers looked, Pam caught a break. At a Canadian football game, the jumbo screen showed her. The crowd cheered, and this was the first recorded moment where anyone cared about Canadian football.

Pamela got a modeling career thanks to this. She even got to model for Playboy, but she later made an ill-advised decision to use "Ilicic" as her porno name. Despite that, she was a very popular Playmate. She decided to move to L.A. after she got the required dye and boob job.

She was first noticed by Americans when she got a recurring role in Home Improvement. This didn't last too long because of Tim Allen's grabbiness. She left the show to get a starring role on Baywatch. This was around the time where America was still superstitious about CPR, so this groundbreaking television show dispelled all the myths.

In the middle of the nineties Pam made Barbwire, the quasi-sequel to "Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy." The angel was thrown out so that the movie could focus on a Casablanca like setting. It failed, though, due to the lack of nudity compared to the former. Still, we can't blame the fine people of Gramercy Pictures for this blunder.

At the end of the nineties, Pamela starred in V.I.P., a title that is often censored in more conservative areas. After the show ended four seasons later, Pamela was worried that she was starting to get typecast. This was remedied when she got her roles in Stacked and Stripperella. She also was a behind the scenes nurse for Stan Lee, who clearly lost his mind around this poin.

Besides her work as an actress, Pamela is also known for her activism. Her biggest target has been KFC, which has been criticized for its cruelty to chickens. Pamela is now the best known person when it comes to the issue of the suffocation of poultry.

In conclusion, Pam's myspace is really pink.

April Non-Specific History Month: April Showers

My essay is about A_Judas_Rimmer, aka Rimmi. She is best known for her ass.

Rimmi was born in...hey, wait a minute!

This Week in Entertainment (4/30/07)

My pick of the week is the second sequel in my favorite movie series of the decade. I really hope that this movie is as good as the previous two.

On a related note, Spiderman 3 is coming to all the major consoles. The first two Spiderman games are pretty good, especially the second one that allows you to travel through New York. Let's hope Activision keeps up the good work.

On dvd, the definitive Joyce DeWitt collection - Three's Company: Capturing the Laughter - Janet's Episodes.

What killed the dinosaurs? Well, according to this dvd set, it was some kind of obnoxious enviromental message. But you still gotta love the baby.

Harry Potter Rumor (4/24/07)

SPOILER ALERT!

At the end of the novel, Voldemort tries to fly over Hogwarts's Gorge. He doesn't make it.


Please reference this blog when reporting on this.

This Week in Entertainment (4/23/07)

I'm a big fan of Columbo, so this set of late eighties episodes is my Pick of the Week. The online consensus is that the movies aren't as good as the seventies episodes, but I'll still pick this up.

Thr3e is a movie that was described as a Christian Saw. Seriously. It was made by Fox's Christian movie department and is suppose to be hilariously bad.

60 Minutes is releasing it's report on one of the dumbest celebrity controversies in recent memory.

You had my interest for a second when you said "Modern Marvels - James Bond Gadgets", but then you immediately lost it with the cover that reminds me of Die Another Day.

I thought this dvd was more milking of a recent celebrity death, but then I remember that the names of Pamela Anderson and Anna Nicole Smith are mixed up in my mind.

Hey look. It's a movie called "Most Offensive Comedy Ever Made." And the dvd cover has some guy with a swastika on his shoulder. I bet the stuff they leave out of this movie is far more offensive then what they leave in.

This movie doesn't contain Joe Don Baker, so what's the poin?

There used to be a show called America's Funniest (Stupidest?) Criminals. We had a tape of that and the format was really funny. I think they brought it back once but the format was really different and not as funny. Anyway, I hope this DVD - "World's Most Stupid Criminals" - is something like it.


In video game news, Pokemon Diamond and Pearl is coming out for the DS this week. The only Pokemon game I own is Red, so I can only assume that it's just another artificial upgrade from whatever the last Pokemon game is. (My sister and I jumped in on the craze early, so I apologize for my role in the popularity of this franchise.)

Sunday, Lazy Sunday (4/22/07)

I know I haven't posted much lately. The reason is because my dad's aunt died recently. She got sick just before Easter and her funeral was this week. I've been spending time moving stuff out of her apartment.

Hopefully I'll get back to posting something once a day this week. I have a few ideas that I hope to get to (for really real!)

April Non Specific History Month: April Showers

My essay is about Kevin Bacon. He is best known for the fact that he shares his name with a delicious meat product, but he has been able to come out from behind the shadow of this famous pizza topping.

Kevin grew up in Philadelphia where it sucks to live. He looked for any excuse to get away from this area and his annoying parents so he decided that acting would be a good career. He was the youngest actor ever admitted into New York's Circle In the Square Theatre. This place is known for its dull logo.

Kevin set really high goals for himself for his movie career. And they were instantly achieved when he starred in a small role in Animal House. Sadly, his career will never achieve a high poin like the zit scene, but he keeps on trying.

A couple years later Bacon made the most important film of his career, Friday The Thirteenth. This seminal movie launched many careers in the eighties and offered good morality tales as well. Kevin's character Jack, for example, showed us the importance of banning arrows. Sadly, this wise advice has been ignored. Kevin left the series after the first movie because he didn't want to get typecast despite the strength and depth of Jack.

Bacon's next role was Footloose. This was originally a working title for the next Friday the Thirteenth movie, but it was changed to hide the spoiler. When Bacon dropped out of that franchise, this movie was reworked to be about dancing. Jason was changed into the reverend that banned dancing in a small town. The movie contains a lot of annoying songs, including the title song that still contains the lyrics, "Everybody cut foot loose."

Kevin's career started taking off in the nineties. He first appeared in Tremors, a movie about giant worms. His character was a farmer who was in charge of finding really large leaves. Later Kevin starred in A Few Good Men. This was a movie about people who couldn't handle the truth. Coincidentally, Kevin was also in JFK.

In nineties Kevin shocked everybody by starring in every movie made during that decade. This was noticed by some college students who made up the Bacon game. You play this game by eating bacon everytime Kevin appears on screen.* For those who are wimpy there's a healthier Bacon game available.

In the later nineties Bacon appeared in Wild Things. This movie was a weird hybrid of two concepts that don't belong together. It was a prequel to his earlier film, She's Having a Baby. However, for some odd reason it was also a remake of Apocalypse Now, only with two women replacing the role of Captain Benjamin L. Willard. This movie didn't quite work but it featured a nude guy so women naturally loved it.

Everyone will agree that Kevin's greatest screen presence was in Hollow Man. Sadly, his body started to break down after making so many films, so he's only made about one film a year in the 00s, and none of them were any good.

In conclusion, everybody has a Bacon number of 13.







* These college students chose drugs over the other usual choices of alcohol and piracy.

This Week In Entertainment (4/16/07)

My Pick of the Week is a Virtual Console game being released today. (I think. This may be changed later today.) Bonk was one of the few things that made me want to get a Turbo Grafx 16, so I hope to get this game and the original someday.


The rest is just dvds.

Spider-Man 2.1 has extended cuts of the original movie. I don't plan to buy this but I love the Spider-Man movies. Still, I have to wonder why it's 2.1. Why not 2.5? Remember X-Men 1.5?

Also coming out this week is The Venture Bros. Season 2. My friend Rimmi asked me to watch an episode with her once. There was a butterfly guy trying to win the love of a deep voice Jackie O. look-a-like.

The Highlander Ultimate Collection is subtitled The Best of the Best. However, it has 6 dvds, so I'd pass on it. Do you really want to switch between 6 dvds just to watch all of the first movie?

Here's a stinker: America's Funniest Home Videos: Motherhood Madness. Sorry, but it's just not as funny if you hit a woman in the groin with a baseball.

I said in an earlier update that they were releasing Dragon's Lair on Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. I was wrong: it's this week. I still stand by my comments about the game, though. (Heh, and check out the review at amazon for the Blu-Ray game.)

Sunday, Lazy Sunday (4/15)

It's tax day. Do you know where your 1040s are?


I was flipping the channels today and I saw a Nats game on MASN. I was watching the tail end of it and the Nats pulled it out. I was excited until I saw the score updates that said that the Nats were postponed. It suddenly occured to me that other inconsistancies (some guy was said to be a rookie, when I remember him being around since the beginning) poined to the fact that this was a rerun of a game from a previous year. Blah.

My friend Lita has been showing me a feature at Somethingawful.com called Let's Play. It's a forum where people show themselves playing games while giving a running commentary or whatever. I've only seen two so far, and I'm watching the videos they have for Majora's Mask. If I ever run out of ideas for this blog, I could try stealing that idea. I'd rather stick to games pre-32 bit era, of course.

I have some other material too. Besides Killer Shrews which I have yet to watch, I could watch the colorized version of Plan Nine. It has a commentary by Mike Nelson and I've been wanting to see it.

I also have a cartoon show DVD set and I would like to poke fun at each episode by writing long reviews about them. (See websites like Jabootu.net or agonybooth.com) Sadly, that takes way too long to do so that won't be frequent.

I beat Twilight Princess yesterday. It's good, but I'm willing to bet that the next Zelda game for the Wii is going to be a big step forward. Something that will shake up the series.

Today I started replaying Majora's Mask.

Jeez, this entry did nothing to dispell the notion that all I post about is video games.

Demo Fun #10

Today I'm going to do something a little different. I'm just going to show pictures from five demos. That's because these demos only show a picture. Some of them have music in the background.


The first demo is called Jaws ESCOS and it was made by a group called Boys Without Brains. It simply features a picture of a guy.




The second is called Quicky. It's a picture of a tree. It's done by The Sarge and the background music sounds familiar. I believe I've heard it used in another demo I've talked about.





The third demo is called Robot Walk. It has some animation of a Robot walking. It's done by Flash Cracking Group. Somehow it was programmed in the early forties which makes it very impressive.




Here's where things get a little weird. This fourth demo is called Rasputin. I have no idea what it's about. It was done by the 1001 Crew in 1986.




Our final demo is called Zoo-Mix. Even though the picture says Zoolook. Whatever. It was made by Mjau in the eighties.




There you go. Next week I should do a regular demo. Good bye for now!

Women Who I've Had a Crush On #2

One day during the summer of 1995(?) my parents bought The Flintstones movie. Before then I had read the critic in my high school paper and he called the movie horrible. Because of that I was prepared for a terrible movie and I even protested getting the movie.

We went back to our trailer in Delaware and watched it, and it turned out to be not bad. It had a couple good gags here and there, and the movie survived the fact that the plot was just a few sitcom cliches stapled together.

Of course, probably one reason why I liked the movie was Halle Berry's character. She is a very attractive woman. After that movie I quickly memorized her name and any movie commercial that she was in would catch my attention.

Sadly, she seems to pick terrible movies to star in. I don't even have to bring up her superhero starring role, do I? And even though I find her attractive, that doesn't mean I want to see Swordfish. But I'll always remember her for making the Flintstones movie awesome.

Tork Dream Watch 4/12

In order to understand this dream, you have to have seen Design for Dreaming. In case you haven't seen MST3k, Nuveena is the nickname given to the unnamed woman in this short. Her real name is Tad Tadlock and I have a crush on her.


So somehow I found myself in a mall, which I guess was suppose to be like the fake hotel in Design for Dreaming. Nuveena had led me there, and while she was leading me around I figured I could go along with it. I even thought about imitating a few of her subtle mannerisms early in the short.

Then suddenly, something was wrong with her white dress. Parts of it were falling off like pieces of tissue. No, it's not like I could see anything, and I don't think the dress was in trouble of falling apart or anything. Still, she was embarrassed, and suddenly she started running away. That's when I chased after her. She ran up an escalator, and I followed. At one poin I picked up a bit of the cloth.

On the second floor I eventually caught up to her. She got to an escalator leading down and just sat on the steps. I ran up to her and sat down next to her. We talked. Then the dream went somewhere else and I forget what happened next.

There is TOO sound in space!

So I wanted to watch The Killer Shrews this week, but I've put it off for now. I didn't want to really pay attention to it and the dvd has no subtitles. (All dvds should have subtitles. I'm not deaf but sometimes I really have problems figuring out what's being said on TV.) I needed a dvd that I could sorta watch but not really pay attention to. So I decided to watch the Clone Wars DVDs.

Spoilers and nerdular nerdence ahead!!!!

In case you avoid everything Star Wars, the Clone Wars go like this: Stuff happened between episodes 2 and 3. The Clone Wars was a throw away line in the original movie that was suppose to give texture to the world without having to show it. Now it's a storyline with weird-face cartoon characters! The wars are about the Jedi leading the cloned storm troopers into battle against the planets who are breaking away from the corrupt, lazy, stupid republic. Cartoon Network showed it in small intervals but the dvds edits it into two movies.

I didn't watch these cartoons when they first aired, partly because I don't watch that much tv, but partly because I didn't really cared. The character models looked too anime for me. Also, I thought the second episode was worse then the first. I wasn't looking forward to seeing those characters again. Another problem was that my love of the original trilogy has diminished.

I could blame the lameness of the newer episodes, but it actually started after that stupid "Jedi" as a religion thing. I know there will always be rabid fans that become so obsessed that they try to take over a franchise or something for themselves, but this was one of the earliest mainstream examples. And a lot of rabid fans just make websites or blogs that nobody ever reads, so Star Wars is just too popular for it's own good.

Anyway, the story picks up when some storm troopers go around blowing stuff up. The whole first episode of this series must have been really boring, because it's nothing but storm troopers doing not interesting stuff. I don't even remember why, but they were probably fighting the seperatists. At some poin, Count Dooku shows up and fights a female robot(ish?) sith-wannabe. Who is she? Who cares! Star Wars is not really a movie franchise, but a video game franchise. The canon movies are just long cut scenes. Female robotish sith-wannabe is just the big boss of the first Clone War DVD. She actually has more back story then Darth Maul, even though he had the cooler lightsabre fight.

Obi and Annakin fight in the wars. Obi leads some of the storm troopers, but he doesn't get a lot of screen time early on. He would have gotten in the way of the explosions with his, pffft!, character. Annakin says good bye to his secret wife (Padme looks hilarious, by the way) and goes to a boring space battle. Oh, and he still has a robot hand. I wasn't really paying attention so I thought the robot hand was the female sith-wannabe because they kept showing the hand alone pushing buttons. Annakin disobeys Obi at some poin because he's a one-dimensional character. When story boarding episodes 2 and 3, I bet the "Annakin disobeys Obi Won" card got used a lot.

Padme at some poin gets to go to a planet and blow up stuff, for some reason I forget. I think they just wanted to have her wearing her skin tight suit so cartoon nerds can... She at one poin gets C3PO to walk right into an ambush so she can find out where some invisible robots are. Maybe Lucas should make a sitcom called, "Everybody Hates C3PO."

Mace Windu also does stuff, and the notable thing about him is that he looks like he's 80 years old. Nice wrinkles, mutha!

By the end of the first DVD, Annakin defeats the boss and we get to see the new one. General Grievous is the white robot thing that showed up halfway through the third episode. Here he's portrayed as the one thing that turns the war in favor of the separtists. Grievous is supposedly such a great lightsabre warrior that he can beat 5 Jedis at one time. Why? Because he's a boss that comes after the female sith-wannabe, duh. He's got to be a harder boss, even if he lacks The Force.

His backstory? Bosses don't need no stinkin' backstories!

The lame part of the whole Grievus thing is that he's so unstoppable in The Clone Wars yet Obi Won cuts him down so quickly in Episode 3 that I don't know why he was even necessary. Oh right. He was necessary for Legos Star Wars, duh.

The second dvd ends with the eeevil Palpatine being kidnapped by Grievous. By the way, why does Obi defeat Grievous so easily while the female whatever and some other Jedis have such problems with him? Was his Dragonball Z power level just higher then most? Did Lucas intend for the human male to be the only one capable of stopping a character who's simply an apprentice of Count Dooku? Anyway, Palpatine is really annoying throughout the two dvds. He acts as calm as the Discwold's Vetinari, which should tip the dumb Jedi off at some poin.

Oh, and at some poin Annakin does something with a bunch of mutantized blue people that is suppose to be similar to the Jedi trials. And there's something about the secret Jedi temple being almost destroyed. And Padme has the biggest eyes in the world. But none of that is really interesting.

The thing that stands out about this series is how unimportant it is. Since there is very little character scenes and there's no backstory provided for General Grievous (nor Count Dooku, who never got a proper amount of screen time), you don't miss a thing if you skip it. Oh, unless you wanted to know why C3PO turned gold. There's a weird scene when C3PO strips to show his new body to Annakin and Padme, and the camera gets a good look at him. Let's move on.

The animation was better then I was expecting. I still hate the anime-inspired character designs, but the animation was good. The ships remind me of the 3d work that Futurama did, which I always liked. It's stuff like that that makes me wish I took a computer animation class even though I can't draw well.

The voices did a good job of imitating the live action counterparts, with the exception of Annakin and Padme. They both that a weird twang at times that reminded me of Lu Anne from King of the Hill.


Wow, that was far nerdier then I intended. Anyway, although it probably looks like I was bitching, I just meant to poke fun at the Clone Wars. It's an ok waste of time and the animation is worth a look.

Tork's Poetry Corner

Poin

If poin were a color, it would be bright red
It would be as swift as cougar
It would be as harsh as the light of day
It would be as embarrassing as a lost bra
If a poin were a smell, it would be the scent of failure
If a poin were a sound, it would be a giggle




Blondes

Long blonde hair makes my heart speed up
Long blonde hair makes my brain hiccup
Long blonde hair is as sweet as syrup
Long blonde hair doesn't let up
Long blonde hair is not a toss up
Long blonde hair as in charge as a bishop




Logo Turtle

Little turtle on the screen
Born in memory buffer
Child of ones and zeros
Lived in my monitor
Studied lefts and rights
Overcame difficult angles to turn
Worked as a line marker
Challenged by kids of the eighties
Personal trait is determination
Always triangular
Never a circle
Best known for drawing a square

April Non-Specific History Month Essay #2: April Showers

My essay is about Sarah Michelle Gellar. She is best known for her role in The Grudge 2, which she was great in.

Sarah grew up in New York where she attended a couple of private schools. There she met her friend Melissa Joan Hart. There is no truth in the rumor that they are exactly the same person.

Sarah was first discovered by a talent agent when she was criticizing a McDonald cheeseburger. She was cast into the role of a Burger King lover, but was sued by McDonald's after she proclaimed that Ronald McDonald personally licked every burger. The suit was settled out of court, but Sarah was banned from eating food ever again.

One of her earliest roles was as some kid in a movie called "An Invasion of Privacy." This was an after school special about leaving your parents alone. Then Sarah went on to have a part in All My Children, because of the SGA rule that all actors have to appear on a soap opera at some poin.

During the nineties Sarah starred in her most memorable role, as Cici in Scream 2. This character was so popular that Sarah was eventually cast as Buffy in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The original plans were for Sarah to be killed in the first episode by the vampire Angel carrying a knife, but the show's creator is a moron. To make up for this, Sarah also starred in I Know What You Did Last Summer where her character had a similar fate to Cici.

Sarah continued to play the part of Buffy despite her disappoining character. Sarah was also a pain behind the set. During the fourth season of a show, an actress named Katharine Towne was going to play the part of a reoccuring villain, but Sarah forced the writers to kill her off because she feared that Katharine would become too popular.

Sarah later starred in Cruel Intentions. On the set is where she first met Michelle Trachtenberg.

Not too long after this Buffy was finally cancelled. This allowed Sarah to persue her life long dream, which was to star in remakes of Japan horror films. Her first film, The Grudge, was finally able to take advantage of Sarah's weird head.

Sarah also starred as Daphne in the Scooby Doo movies. This gave her the opportunity show off her acting range as she got to stand around and put her hands on her hips. She also got to be the girlfriend of her real life husband while making out with the costar who played Velma. Sarah somehow avoided being a druggee while on the set of these movies.

Sarah has recently done voice work for TMNT and Happily N'Ever After. This is because in the future, all movies will eventually be animated, so Sarah is bright enough to start early.

In conclusion, in order to get an acting career it helps to have people constantly mention your middle name.

This Week in Entertainment (4/9/07)

My Pick of the Week is Super Paper Mario. This is a sequel to the earlier two Paper Mario games, although this one is more of a side-scroller then a full RPG. This game was originally going to be released for the GameCube but Nintendo decided to cancel that version and release it with Wii controls. The plot has something to do with Princess Toadstool and Bowser getting married. Can't wait to pick this one up!

In theaters this week is Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theatres, which is a movie about how two guys and their questionable ad campaign. In it, they plant advertisements that scared the crap out of people. Also, there's probably something about a talking fry holder, milkshake, and piece of meat.

Also opening is The Hoax, about Richard Gere as some guy who made up stuff about Howard Hughes. Didn't Gere star as the crooked defender in Chicago? Is he like a go to guy for swindlers?

Coming out on DVD is the Mel Gibson ultimate Collection. I've seen none of these movies, but I can only assume that they're gory and questionable.

Scooby Doo, Where Are You! - The Complete Third Season is also out. Did you know that there is almost as many episodes of Scooby Doo as the Simpsons? Wow.

I was wondering if nerds were taking too far when I saw the title How William Shatner Changed the World. Then I saw on the video box that it was suppose to explore the science behind Star Trek, which made me laugh. The science in Star Trek is very fictional.

Game Box 1.0 is suppose to be about some game tester who lost a girlfriend and lost himself in video games due to his grief. I'll avoid the obligatory, "He had a girlfriend?" joke and poin out that it's another movie where video game equals 3-d virtual world. I wonder if this movie will make references to Dante's Inferno.


I'd hate to approach a controversial topic, but I have to just this once. 60 Minutes is releasing a dvd about how global warming is doing mean stuff to Antarctica, or the ozone layer or something. I bring this up because I think it's hilarious that they're releasing this three days after it was snowing in our area on the day before Easter.

Sunday, Lazy Sunday (4/8/07)

I completely forgot what I was going to say today.

I hope to watch Killer Shrews this week and give my thoughts on it. I have the MST3k version and I've been wanting to see it for some time.

The Caps season ended this week. Phew!



Happy Easter!

March Madness: In April?

Ok, so I should have posted this last week, but let's add up the final score.



I only got one pick right for 16 out of 32 poins.




In the final round, Florida beat Ohio State, which means I got 0 our of 32 poins. Stupid Florida.


My final score is 126 out of 192. That's 65 percent. Oh well, better luck some other time.

Demo Fun #9

Today's demo is called Panther. It can be found here at the usual site.

The picture is of some sort of rocket/satellite thing with a office building in the background. There's also a couple flying saucers and some clouds. The cloud on the right looks like a woman holding a big fricken gun. It does. The leg gives it away. On top is the name of the team who made this demo, The Meanteam.

The text starts off telling us that the Meanteam persents us how to be a "complete b******d." Yeah, like how to add asterisks to reduce the offensiveness of your mildly profane language! OR, how to write a para demo. Or not. The author is just "snipin' at sum awesome coders." Speaking of being a complete b******d, he hasn't used any periods yet. This is going to be a long one. And before I can recover, he fires this run on sentence at me:

I am writing this message under a total and utterly amazing amount of hassle from STE and JCB to finish this message.

Keep in mind that the demo can only fit about 3 or four words on the screen at a time. Also, I find it interesting that the hassle he got sounds so positive. This is followed by what looks like a bunch of division symbols or maybe lightning strikes.

Then the demo gets real nerdy. He asks us if we just 'luv' his chr set. He says it's from an old super blast(?) called Hellgate. Then the unnamed author tells us that if we think JCB did this demo, we're wrong. Look, I wasn't prejudiced in anyway! Claka is the one who did this. Then JC...Doh! I mean Claka goes on a long tangent about how great a demo called Sanxion Ish by Paras is. It's the best demo on the face of the earth! This is probably sarcasm, because Paras is described as infamous and we should give them credit for trying. "Very trying."

Claka tells us that this demo is 99 percent BASIC (GASP!) with a little machine code for the "bit map." He also tells us to try shift-clr-home if we can. And I wish he could use a period if he could. This is suppose to make the color in the demo disappear. Claka attempts a metaphor here.

just look at that colour vanish like demestos down the bog

Sorta makes you think, doesn't it? Whatever it means.

Whoa, periods! Oh, it's a long ellipsis. Must be making up for the lack of periods so far. Claka can't wait for their next demo. Yep, it's already marked on his calendar.

"Enuf of the jovial banter." Uh, was he talking to himself? Onto lesser things, and in a pivotal moment, Claka uses a period to end a run-on sentence! This demo was easy because most of the code was made by JCB. Ah, good old code reuse. Friend to all programmers, whether from their own code or from others. Then it gets a little weird.

Oh God the jobless ones are on about sleeping habbits no not who with but with but the sound they make.

Claka, you have to identify who or what you're talking about or you'll confuse your audience. Claka admits that the demo is about to get a little egotisical which makes no sense. I've never heard of a hacker with an ego! (Now that's sarcasm!) We are now to hear from Claka's sponsors.

First up is STE. He addresses "software houses" and asks them if they need any graffix, load screens, or just a coder. At least, that's what I think he says. The sentence just goes on and on and I'm not even going to bother to type it out. Didn't his English teacher ever tell him to keep things brief and clear?

Now for quik joke!

Why did Popeye hit Moses ????? Because he went to Mount Olive!!!!!!

Finally the part we've all been "Judge Dredding." I never saw that movie, but I'm going to assume he talking about Rob Schneider. Actually, it's the long list of other people. Goodie, no wonder why this thing is seven minutes long. Here's the list: Goat, Maaaaiiiirrrr, Ubik, Mat ( JCB says something about K'Busters), Kernal, Huddy, Ian and Mic, Cas, Dokk, Zaz and Mack, Alloy Graphic Design, Le Git La Git and the Little Git To Be (awww, the happy family!), Tom the oh hey wait a minute Mr Postman (Look, I didn't make up these names.), Chris and Griffo .BCS., ..... And some other nerds. This ends with some characters that look like camels.

After listing even more nerds that I don't care about, Claka thanks STE and JCB for the spelling help. Ah, the blind leading the blind. Then Claka says goodbye to anybody thick enuf to still be reading. Oooh! I've been totally burned! I guess that's what I get for reading "rubbish."

Claka ends this demo with "Vark Vark" followed by some lightning bolts and some camels. That about sums it all up.





Stats:

Date - Sometime in the eighties, maybe 1986 if the picture is accurate.
Scrolling text - No lower case letters allowed.
Font - The A are triangular, and the quotation marks look like a circle with a diagonal slash through it.
Europeans - Yep.
Bragging about Accomplishments -
Putting other hackers down - Yep.
Listing a ton of other nerds - Yep.
Harsh language - One word of the s variety.
Song - I'll give it a 6/10.

The Film Crew

It looks like it's been a going to be a good year for Mystery Science Theater fans. First, last year Mike Nelson (and thankfully, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbitt) started Rifftrax. I have yet to actually purchase one of these, but I plan to once I figure out how to deal with the mp3 file.

Also coming out this year is Hobgoblins 2. I admit that I may be jumping the gun. There was suppose to be a sequel to Time Chasers but the studio is probably thinking of ways to exploit Anna Nicole's last movie. However, I've seen the screen shots on the internet so I'm willing to bet that this movie is near completion. Sure, it'll probably be as sleazy as the original, maybe even worse. It may even lack any charm that the original had. (I.E. I really hated the first one, but the sequel made nostalgic for it!) Still, it's neat that the MST3k fan base is big enough that b-movie makers can feel confident releasing a sequel to a movie that should have withered and died in a video store somewhere.

Now lately there's been news that The Film Crew (Mike, Kevin, Bill) and Shout! Factory are going to release some movies with the trademark MST3k-style commentaries. The best part, besides the fact that we won't have to deal with Disembaudio, is that it has a MST3k-like premise. In this case, a guy name Bob Honcho bosses the Film Crew around and gives them some movies to make commentaries for.

I'm most interested in seeing how this part is going to work out. Since they can't just directly call it MST3k, are they going to duplicate any of that show's famous silhouettes? (Probably not.) Is there going to be a doorway sequence or something similar? (Probaby not a doorway sequence, but maybe we'll see some kind of count down.) Are they going to have host segments? (Most likely, but I bet they're less frequent. Maybe two bookends and one in the middle.) Are we going to see Bob Honcho and where he works? He might just be some voice heard over a speaker. Are we going to get a catchy theme song? How about a stinger? (We'll see.) Is there going to be callbacks to MST3k movies that only MSTies will get? Hopefully, but I have to wonder how Shout! Factory wants to market these things. You'd think (and hope) that they have us MSTies in mind, but you never know. I do hope that these DVDs make it into dvd stores.

I also wonder if Bob Honcho's mom will make an appearance at some poin. Would naming her Pearl Honcho be too on the nose?

Anyway, let's be glad that The Film Crew are still providing us with hilarious commentaries long after the death of MST3k. The first dvd will be released on July 10th for about 20 bucks and is titled, "Hollywood After Dark." (1968) I'm not sure if Shout! Factory is planning to make any more of these if it's successful, but let's hope the nerds buy a lot of these DVDs.

April Non-Specific History Month Essay #1: April Showers

My essay is about Janet Leigh. She is best known for her scandalous performances.

Janet was the only child of her parents. This led her to be an isolated child and eventually helped her when it came time to play roles where she fled into the waiting arms of creepy, murderous transvestites. Janet eventually got a contract from MGM to feed the lion.

She was also hired to do some acting, and she did. She started in the late fourties and made some films that probably aired on AMC when it was good. In the fifties she made even more films. This is a good way to sustain a movie career.

Some of her films of this decade include Houdini, where she played Bess, his eventually wife. This movie taught us that while Houdini could easily escape a open any safe (especially if he was placed inside), the most important safe to open was Bess's heart. Awwww! Janet also starred in a movie about Prince Valient as Princess Aleta. I would give details about this movie but since it's a newspaper comic, nobody reads it and therefore nobody is even sure it exists.

She was also the title character in My Sister Eileen. The movie was going to be about two women who take an unfortunate turn and end up at a motel, but that testing audiences hated the idea so instead the movie is a musical.

In the sixties, Janet played her most famous role, the love interest of Sinatra's brainwashed character. Janet had to be watched for the rest of her life, but thankfully she hasn't betrayed her country to Commies. Yet.

Janet also starred in Psycho. Alfred Hitchcock had bought the rights to a novel that talked about the virtues of relaxing in the bath tub and not rushing everything with a shower. He went on to make a movie that scared people about dumb showers. However, this backfired when people realized that watching a woman shower was very sexy. At this poin Hitchcock renamed his main character to Bates.

Janet was a bright woman. When filming this movie, she was quoted as saying, "The best part of this movie is that someday this will be a big genre that my daughter will get a role in." This was proven true when Jamie starred in Perfect when her aerobic instructor character pulled out a knife and stabbed John Travolta. I think I once saw on a message board some wrote in italics that Jamie Lee's daughter is now starring in torture movies, which goes to show how Janet's granddaughter is following in her footsteps.

In the seventies, Janet starred in her scariest film, "Night of the Lepus." People could not look at the Cadbury Bunny the same way after this film was made. Janet also starred in a Columbo episode, where Peter Falk played as the second creepiest stalker in her entertainment career.

In conclusion, shower scenes rule.

Nat Watch (4/4/07)

The NATS win the pennant! The NATS win the pennant!

The Nats won their first game of the season, 7-6. And thanks to MASN, I was able to watch it afterwards. The winning hit was made by Dimitri Young who was coincidentally the player who was miked for the game.

Anyway, the Nats still gave up way too many runs yesterday, but it was nice to see them battle back and win it in the ninth.




Nats Record - 1-2

Next Game - Tonight vs Diamondbacks at 7pm

Never Say Never Say Never Say Never Say Never...

Last week I was going to write a post about my thoughts on Casino Royale, but I had a hard time doing so. Yesterday and today, I saw Never Say Never Again, and hopefully this time I'll get somewhere.

Spoiler alert!

Never Say Never Again was a movie that was made by some producer who supposedly helped Ian Fleming come up with the ideas for Thunderball. Ian took the ideas and put them into his novel, and producer Kevin McClorey sued. The results was that Kevin eventually had the rights to make one movie, which had to be a Thunderball ripoff. They were able to get Sean Connery to return for this film and recast all the other major bit players.

I guess I should just compare the two films. The original movie is not one of my favorite Bond films. For instance the underwater scenes are two numorous and boring. One of the major miscalculations of Thunderball was the big underwater shootout at the end. It's hard to give a darn since it's a bunch of extras shooting harpoons at each other. This movie had some underwater scenes but they're thankfully brief. The only problematic underwater scene was the climatic battle with the bad guy. It's too anti-climatic and the villain loses too easily. He's pinned by his own bomb for the last third of the time.

Thunderball does have better action scenes over all. Thunderball had the opening fistfight (think, "It's a MAN, baby!") and Bond's rooftop chase, while the only memorable action scene in NSNA is when he faces the giant henchmen from Raiders of the Lost Ark. The henchmen is as indestructable as Jaws and Bond has to run from room to room trying to find ways to beat him. Too bad it ends with a dumb gag where James throws his urine sample in the bad guy's face, which causes him to land on glass bottles. Other then that, there's a motorcycle chase and a boring shoot out at the end. Nothing memorable happens with the chase scene and the shoot out is like any other. Oh, and the film starts with Bond trying to rescue a woman, but it turns out to be a rather elaborate training course. (please! How much did the garroted guy get paid?)

The plot in this movie seems to be slimmed down from the plot in Thunderball, but I can't say for sure since I can't really remember Thunderball. Thunderball probably had a stronger plot, but NSNA has less underwater scenes. Basically, there's some nukes, SPECTRE steals them, James has to get them. In this movie, the villian Largo is suppose to detonate one of them in the Middle East to destroy the oil supply there. I'm no geologist but that sounds a bit far-fetched.



Eh, that's all I'll say. Once again I'm having problems giving my thoughts. So I'll just get to one of the goofier things about this movie. Basically the Bond movies have always had a bad habit of sticking in something popular at the time that makes the film look dated later. The Man in the Golden Gun had a couple martial art scenes during the martial arts movies craze, while Die Another Day had The Matrix camera gimmicks. This movie was made during the early eighties when Atari was king, so instead of a showdown at the casino, Bond and Largo face off with a vector game. Boy, vector games really were the future, weren't they? I can't wait for Asteroids 07! Largo takes a half minute explaining the rules, but since it's hard to tell who's winning, it's not exactly fun to watch. It's even more silly when it turns out that the joysticks are electrified when you start to lose. It's one of the highlights of this movie. It was also jarring watching Bond-girl Domino walk into an arcade (all Atari games, of course.) I wonder if there were people who burst out laughing when this movies was in theaters.

I have got to share a couple pics!



Bond will be back in, "You Only PWN! Twice"




An accurate photo of what it would be like if Tork and his friend Lita ever met.

Nat Watch (4/3/07)

Today's regularly scheduled post will be delayed. In it's place will be what I would have done for Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday.


Anyway, I found today's Nats game on channel 52 in my area. I sat down and watched the first three innings. Sadly, the Nats were terrible on defense and gave up 5 runs. It was 0-5 and I'm taping the rest.

Simpsons Script

I just saw the revenge episode yesterday, and I'm more convinced then ever that I could write my own episode. One day I need to sit down and pour my writing skills into "Marge Vs. the Birail." It would probably have a scene like this:



Homer: Marge, remember the cars we use to have? Not anymore!

Marge: Homer! Were you drinking?

Homer: Only at AA meetings!

Marge: (Groans) I guess we'll all have to take that new birail to go on our trip.

Family: The Simpsons are going to Idaho!!!!

Bart: I want to see a potato!

Comic Book Guy: This birail thing sounds suspiciously like an adventure Our Favorite Family had earlier.

(Every starts to stare at the camera.)

Homer: Thanks for poining that out. That makes it ok!

Lisa: Speaking of Idaho, the war in Iraq sucks and we're ignoring the enviroment somehow!!!







The only thing holding me back is the obligatory lengthy Godfather parody. I'll have to watch those movies before I finish the script.

This Week in Entertainment (4/2/07)

My pick of the week is this DVD set that includes the entire Ant and the Aardvark series. It's basically a Tom and Jerry style cartoon series where the aardvark has a vacuum-like snout. I used to watch all these Pink Panther cartoons on TNT as a kid.

Another set featuring cartoons that I used to watch as a kid is the Betty Boop set. It has 42 cartoons, so it's perfect for that big-headed cartoon fetish crowd!

That's it for DVDs.

In theaters is Ice Cube's "Are We Done Yet?" It's the movie series that dares to ask, "Wait, does this series really need to be a trilogy?"

Also in theaters will be the ridiculous looking Grindhouse. I have to say that the commercial with the woman launching a rocket with her leg weapon was enough for me. Bleck.

Christini Ricci is starring in Penelope, which is about a woman who hides her pig snout. What a career year for this actress!

For the Nintendo DS, Squaresoft-Enix is releasing some Chocobo game. Beware of Final Fantasy fanboys this week.

Sunday, Lazy Sunday (4/1/07)

It's Palm Sunday. Do you know where your palms are?

I wonder if there was any mass today where they do the Passion of the Christ reading, and then they go "April's Fools!" at the end. I also wonder if there's any churches that were destroyed by lightning in the news today.

You know, I was about to set my DVR to record the Nationals opener tomorrow, but I just realize that they don't show Nats game in the area that I live in. I use to live in the DC area, but moved to the lower Baltimore area last year. This really sucks because not only will I not be able to watch these games, but they'll be even harder to follow then they use to be. If I watch Comcast Sports Channel (formerly Home Team Sports) and see the damn Orioles, I'm going to punch something. How much longer are the Nats going to be here until the new owners move to Vegas or something? Probably a year after the new stadium is built in DC. Come on, people! I should at least make an attempt to follow this team.

In related news, tvguide.com sucks. I shouldn't have to look up the Washington Post's TV guide.

I'm looking right now at a website called mlb.net. They're offering the ability to watch any out of town games for 14.95 a month. That's actually tempting, but I'll pass. I work during the afternoons when most games are played, and even if I could download games, it wouldn't be worth the effort. Heck, I'm a much bigger Redskin and Capitals fan and I don't even pay attention to their games as much as I used to.

It seems that the Nats slogan this year is "Pledge Your Alegiance." Hmm, it's not quite "Fear the Turtle!" but it may be that humorous in a few years.

It just occured to me that I could have tried out to be a pitcher for the Nats. Dang.

I almost didn't do this today, but what the heck!

March Madness: Third and Fourth Round

Here's the result after the third round.



I got every pick right, for a total of 32 (4*8) out of 32 poins.


On to the fourth round. Here's my results.



I got three right, for a total of 24 (8*3) out of 32 poins.


I now have a total of 94 out of 128 poins.

Europe Quickie (4/1/07)

Recently it's been revealed that there's a handbook for the EU banning government spokesmen from saying jihad, fundamentalist, or Islamic within seven words of the word terrorists. Jihad is to be avoided altogether.

Coming Soon: Gipper Edition

Usually I would ignore this kind of movie. From the entry at the internet movie database, it's clear that this movie has some political messages. It seems that David Arquette wrote a Republican-bashing slasher between periods of smoking some funny looking cigarettes.

However, it does have a Ronald Reagan look-alike hacking up hippies, so I'm sure it'll be one of the most popular movies of the year.