Another sci fi plot type that I can’t seem to get enough of is the amnesia plot.
I loved the Bourne books: way better than the movies. (The whole point is that he isn’t a hitman, geez!)
Also, my current read, The Paradox Men, has been very interesting so far.
And then there are all those Philip K. Dick books. Too bad he’s not around anymore.
Last year, one of my coworkers returned from sick leave a full hundred pounds lighter. She looked so much healthier and happier. I’m sure that she had gotten a surgery similar to this type. The site talks about lapband los angeles, and describes how a belt is inserted around the stomach to limit the amount of food storage.
Talk to your doctor and see if this is a healthy choice for you.
I usually really enjoy science fiction time travel books. But only good ones.
I’ve read some that just do not do justice to such plot line with such fertile opportunities.
Others on the other hand are very interesting in their description of the science of time travel but are a bore in the story that they chose to surround the science.
I’ve always found the paradoxes fascinating, but even better: what if you were physically unable to do stuff in the past that would lead to a paradox?
As Keanu would say, “Woah!”
So I’ll admit it right up front. I’m not the world’s biggest fan of musicals. (Unless you count The Blues Brothers, but that’s for another post.) Nevertheless, I hope to catch Sweeney Todd when it hits theaters later this month, especially after I went to visit the official Sweeney Todd movie site. A psychotic hairdresser out for revenge in 19th century London? Not bad, for a musical.
Revenge has had a long history throughout film that occasionally captures the power and emptiness of the emotion. The best movies reveal the constant, overwhelming force of revenge that consumes every part of the soul. After the act of revenge is carried out, only a husk of a person is left.
One of the greatest scenes of revenge that I can think of offhand is the finale of Mad Max. The biker punks ran down his wife and child and turned a committed policeman into an emotionless shell with nothing left. Max leaves the last of the bikers chained to a wrecked car that’s about to explode but gives him a hacksaw and the advice to saw through his arm instead of the handcuffs.
Sweeney Todd similarly seeks revenge against those responsible for the death of his wife and also comes up with the ingenious idea of disposing of the bodies and turning a profit with a new recipe for meet pies.
You can also visit Sweeney Todd on MySpace.
Phoenix finally has its winter rains.
After three months or so of dryness and temperatures in the 80′s on Thanksgiving (jealous?), we finally have rain. Not the pounding, driving 10 minute storms of summer, but a nice, long, wet weekend drizzle.
Seems like there’s always someone on my Christmas list who is hard to buy for. This year, my sister-in-law’s husband is the one. It seems like a gift certificate is the easiest way out of this problem, but then they know exactly how much you spent on them. What if this year you get a $20 gift card and last year you got them one for $50 – will they think you’re getting cheap? Worse yet, what if they get you a $50 gift card this year and you only give them a $20 card? HORROR!! Since I don’t need that kind of drama this year, I’ve had to figure out what to get him and I’ve found the perfect place – www.opticsplanet.com. They’ve got flashlights, telescopes, even solar scopes (I didn’t even know there was such a thing), gifts for all kinds of interests. What wonderful gadget is complete without a case that keeps it safe – which they have too! Just look for pelican cases, and put your gift inside the case so it’s easier to wrap.
After trying it out in the store and seeing some youtube posts of the game, …
I CAN’T WAIT TO GET THIS!
Thank God it’s still for the PS2. I really don’t want to shell out hundreds of dollars for the latest system.
You can never be too careful when you’re short on money and need to pay somebody. Banks are difficult to work with and take too long to get the money, and credit cards can have some really high interest rates. No Fax Payday Loans can get you money when you need it, but you should always use a calculator like the one on their site to find out how much you’re actually spending.
You ever get that Matrix feeling like the world is changing and you don’t notice it but you should.
Yeah, anyway. I’ve been seeing lots of license plates recently with triple numbers or letters. Not like personalized plates, but random regular plates with three of the same letter or number in a row. Maybe I’m just thinking about it too hard and noticing patterns in the chaotic world.
Or not.
A couple of months ago my brother-in-law was telling me how he had started making a few hundred dollars a month with a couple of the blogs that he was running. I’d already heard about GoogleAds, but didn’t think you could make much with just a small site. Once he made a thousand in one month, I asked for more info, and he told me about PayPerPost.
Every morning and after work he finds some advertisers on PayPerPost that want him to write a couple hundred words about their product, site, or service. The money builds and he’s pulling in the cash. After getting more details, I registered a domain name, started a blog, and signed up for PayPerPost.
Signing up was a little more difficult than I thought. They have some fairly strict registration guidelines to ensure that only serious bloggers can use the service. Now that I’m a member, I’m excited to get my first deposit right into my PayPal account.
So far the site has been great. It’s a lot easier to use than some of the other ‘pay to blog’ sites. Some other sites make you wait while the advertiser accepts a bid. Others just make you wait until the advertiser is interested in you. PayPerPost makes things move a lot more quickly. What are you waiting for. Sign up.
I’ve been a fairly regular viewer of Law & Order: SVU for a number of years now. Now, I know that the writer’s strike has hit all of Hollywood hard these days, but I was under the assumption that most of the episodes that we’re seeing right now were written before the strike.
I can’t figure out if the writer’s just gave the show terrible scripts right before the strike, or if the actor’s just decided to wing it without a screenplay, but there have been some truly terrible story lines this season.
Watch! as Stabler goes blind, but then can see again.
Thrill! as Mrs. Stabler is in a car accident, goes into labor, and dies… but is okay and so is the baby.
Writers, please come back.
Can you have more fun than going to the outskirts of town, donning a plastic face guard, and shooting your friends with painful spheres of paint? I submit that you cannot.
There’s a place just north of Tucson that has an excellent variety of terrains from wide open to lots of cover.
This site has plenty of paintball gun packages for people looking to get started in paintballing to experts looking for the latest models from Tippmann, Empire, Draxxus, Spyder, Smart Parts, and Dye. The free shipping can’t be beat.
I’m hoping to head back out to paintball early next year, and hopefully I’ll get one of the new paint ball guns for Christmas!
A few years ago I took a gamble at the game store and picked up a funny little card game called Bang! The basic premise is that you and your opponents are all Old West gunslingers stuck in a spaghetti western (all the cards are printed in Italian).
Everyone randomly draws different characters with different advantages. Then everyone draws a job which determines your goal for the game. The wide variety of cards lets you shoot at your neighbors around the table, heal yourself by drinking a beer, or sending the Indians after everyone, among other interesting choices.
I highly recommend the game as a fun part of holiday family get-togethers. But watch out.
Bang!
Several years ago I found myself in the position of having a car that wasn’t worth enough to trade in so (at my parents’ suggestion) I ended up donating it and getting a tax deduction for it. Now I’m in that situation again (“What was that car dealer? I can only fill up half way because the tank leaks, the tail lights are out and it has over 200,000 mi so you won’t take it as a trade? I couldn’t hear you over the engine knocking.”). I can’t remember the name of the place I gave my car to before but I’ve found plenty on the net (who needs the yellow pages anymore?) Some of the IRS rules have changed but most anywhere you donate a car will have that information to give you. A lot of different places accept car donations and you do get that write off just about anywhere along with a free tow if it doesn’t run. If you really want it to be a donation, though, you have to do your research. What does the charity you’re donating to do? How much of the money they raise goes toward their stated goals? I’ve found charities that do everything from give out free children’s DVDs to doing reading workshops to fixing up the car and giving it to a family in need. I’ve looked up the Kelly Blue Book value of my car and it would be nice to bring in a little money, but how much will I have to spend on advertising? Not to mention I would feel very guilty about foisting this beast off on someone only to find out they had higher hopes for it than anyone reasonably should. Car donation is just the fastest and easiest way to get rid of a car that has seen better days.
Well I’ve begun Christmas shopping. I’m trying to be really organized this year. I started by making a list of all the people I need to buy for and then giving myself a budget for each person. Then I tried to come up with ideas that fit into the budget. I started shopping at a store I consider a step above Wal-Mart — Target. So far I’ve been able to get most of the things that I want there (I don’t have ideas for everyone yet so I make another trip each time I think of something.) I know that things will pop up closer to Christmas and that’s the hardest part to budget for — the person who you didn’t expect to get a gift from, the Secret Santa at school, the Adopt-a-Family program with the volunteer group. Luckily, all the gifts I’ve gotten so far have come in under my budget amount so hopefully that will even out with the other gifts i need to buy. Good luck to all of you in your holiday endeavors.
There are horror movies that should more accurately be called “scare movies”. From the opening credits their one and only goal is to make the audience (usually 13-year old girls) jump at some loud noise, spring-loaded cat, sudden decapitation, etc. Then there are the rarer horror movies that actually horrify the audience.
Last night I went to see The Mist with a group of friends. I read the novella a couple of years ago and was very excited to see this adaptation coming to the big screen, especially in the capable hands of Frank Darabont. The movie was extremely faithful to the novella with only slight modifications to fit the medium. As the movie progressed, the audience, and my friends in particular, began to feel more and more uneasy, uncomfortable. This is no fun-time “horror flick” with winks to the audience and clever death scenes. There are a few moments of levity throughout, but the final 30 minutes are tense, uncomfortable, disturbing, and horrifying.
Most of the cast was strong. I kind of wish that they had gotten another actor for the lead. I get the feeling that this movie was too much for Thomas Jane. He did a competent job in The Punisher, but this is a very different movie. Also, the dialogue and delivery of the lines at the beginning of the film in the back of the store seemed a little off. No other way to describe it.
I could see the ending coming even though it was different than the book. Knowing what was coming in no way lessened the impact of the final scenes. I look forward to other filmmakers following Darabont’s lead to make King’s novels not so much “scary” as horrifying.
I just saw this movie last night and was elated that it was as good as it was. It was absolutely FULL of laughs. Usually when I go to a comedy I’m just expecting to see the jokes I saw in the commercial with relatively boring parts in between (like “Fred Clause” – also a good movie but this one is way funnier). Steve Carell is quickly becoming one of my favorite actors. I can’t watch “The Office” because it is just too awkward for me (I know that’s the point but it’s still too much for me to take on a weekly basis). The same kind of awkwardness used in the sitcom can be found in “40 Year Old Virgin” but I could handle that knowing it would be over soon. “Dan in Real Life” has a bunch of those moments but it isn’t just a billion awkward scenes strung together so those moments are actually funnier because they’re broken up.
My initial reactions to Beowulf were definitely mixed. Robert Zemeckis has directed some great movies and also some ho-hum movies. The CGI looks fantastic, but it kind of reminds me of The Polar Express. Beowulf is a classic piece of literature that unfortunately has never been successfully realized in theatrical form. (The 13th Warrior comes close but was only limited in its faithfulness to the story.) 3D is good, but then again, 3D has also been added to some really lame movies to help them draw crowds (Jaws 3D). Angelina Jolie is in it, but Angelina Jolie is in it.
You can tell I’m on the border with this one.
The advertising campaign is working on me though. I will diligently tread to the multiplex, put on the silly glasses, and hope to go for an amazing ride. If not, The Mist will make up for it next week.
Last summer I managed to round up a group of friends and find some other volunteers to help me make a zombie movie. Hopefully, I can finish up post-production work in the next couple of months. When things do wrap up for the project, I’m glad that I found www.MyMovieNetwork.com. From all appearances this Entertainment Industry Networking Site seems to be a great way to get some initial exposure for the no-budget, amateur film.
With the recent drop in prices for all kinds of semi-pro equipment, more and more amateur filmmakers are trying to put together a short or full-length feature. Sites like this one offer a lot of help for people that are just getting started. The forum provides a wealth of information on who to contact, what to do, and what mistakes to avoid. Reading about the mistakes of others and taking steps to avoid those pitfalls can save a lot of time and trouble when time is of the essence during production.
Another area of the site that should provide a lot of help for amateurs everywhere is the Scouting section. It provides an easy way to get in contact with other film people that share your interest for movie making. Making movies is the most collaborative art form today and is almost impossible to tell an effective narrative on your own. When you search for people to work w/ on Scouting section of the website, you can find all sorts of people with all sorts of talents. It is only when enough people talented in acting, directing, writing, lighting, sound, and a dozen other disciplines come together that a film can be effectively made.
One thing that I cannot wait to do is to enter my finished film in the Film contests section of the site. Making a movie can end up being a pointless exercise if nobody ever sees it. The film contests and Movies sections on the site can give a low budget feature film or short film the kind of worldwide exposure that is otherwise very hard to come by. Not only that but the contests feature prize packages and cash prizes. There’s nothing better than cash.
So, if you’re a future filmmaker, drop the “future”, get out there and do it. No movie ever got made by talking about it. Your first film may not be very good, but actually making a movie is the only way to get experience and to get better at it. Hopefully, the tools at this site will help. Good luck.
How does one go about acquiring a girlfriend? Since I’ve been out of the market for over a decade now, I really don’t have much of an idea at all. I’ve always thought that it just sort of happened. I mean, can you really learn to be better at getting a girlfriend? Since some people are obviously better at it than others, I would have to say that you can learn. And it may be easier than you may think to learn how to get a girlfriend. Let’s get that old dog to learn some new tricks.
Finding a girlfriend is usually fairly difficult unless, of course, you are either ridiculously wealthy or unbelievably famous. Then it’s just downright easy. For the rest of us mere mortals, there are some skills that we can practice and improve. The site at these links gives some fairly good tips. Most of them are common sense things that people just don’t seem to think about on their own.
The tips that made the most sense to me were about overcoming different fears. I think that the main reason that most men struggle with finding the right girlfriend is that they have a deep set fear of talking to women. One of the hardest things to do in junior high or high school is to go up to a girl and ask her to dance. Such a simple thing, really. In reality, the pulse quickens, beads of sweat form at the temples, the mouth goes dry, and the brain packs its bag for a short trip to Acapulco. Help with overcoming those fears even as they carry over into adulthood is a great tip for men everywhere.
Another common sense tip that some men just don’t seem to get is to go where there are women. Too often I’ve seen friends complain about not meeting any women when it’s obvious that they won’t just by looking at their schedule. They don’t work with any women, they exercise by themselves, and then go to sporting events, concerts, and movies with their friends. They never even have a chance to meet new women. Go to bars, go to clubs, go dancing, take classes. Just go to places where women go.
Other tips mentioned on the site will help to a greater or lesser degree. Body language is an extremely underestimated form of communication. Having the wrong type of body language can unconsciously convey things about yourself that you don’t mean to convey. While having a flirting body language can help portray yourself as more attractive. Dialogue, when combined with the proper body language also needs to convey the right attitude. This site mentions having a cocky or funny line. You may not want to use the same line over and over again. But having a few lines that don’t sound like “lines” could be a big help if you struggle with what to say.