“The Lake house” is only proof The Postal system is more screwed up than you thought it was.

Yes, yes, yes I fully realize that the movie “The Lake House” came out in 20016 (thanks for ruining my day GOOGLE!). When A lonely doctor (Sandra Bullock), who once lived in a beautiful lakeside home, falls in love via letters with its latest resident, a frustrated architect (Keanu Reeves). When they discover that they are living two years apart, the pair must unravel the mystery behind their incredible romance.Blah, blah, blah lets get to the time traveling shenanigans pulled off  by The United States Postal System shall we?? Hmmmm?

Any time I bring up this topic in polite conversation over dinner, lunch, coffee, or a random ice cream cone inevitably the focus goes to the Mail box at “The Lake House”. The person trying to make their point gets all dreamy eyed looking and says something like: “its a magical Mail box”. Normally at this point I want to tussle their hair and respond back sarcastically: “That’s right sport, Love conquers all and stuff”..  Its not their fault they react and respond this way because that is exactly what the movie wants you to do. It wants you to think there is something mystical, magical, possibly romantic about the process of letters traveling through time. The movie is a puff piece, a blatant piece of Hollywood propaganda. The bitter truth is (a much larger pill to swallow, and inconvenient truth that doesn’t test well with movie audiences) OUR POSTAL SYSTEM SUCKS!!

Here,  let me prove my point just a moment. Lets take the same exact premise of “The Lake House” and apply it to a very large settlement check both the lonely doctor and the frustrated architect are expecting from the same large Bank for very similar reasons.(public transportation bus going faster than 50 MPH, or a Boating Accident lets say) Your focus would quickly go from gushy romantic movie  to frustrating “Check is in the Time traveling mail/postal system” movie in a heart beat. Why?? because you got bills to pay and the stupid stupid postal person sure is not going to pay them.

 

 

All this blog Needs is a Buzz Phrase

Act Now and in 38000 easy payments (that’s less than a cost of a cup of coffee folks) these scrubbing bubbles with activate the activated charcoal along with these scientifically proven moisture pockets residing within the patented vortex wind funnel cleaning wand.

That sure got your attention Huh? Wow that was exciting! I could just picture myself wet-dry cleaning an elephant and even the elephant’s wrinkles would be squeaky clean. Finally! Heck knows even elephants deserve clean wrinkles.

Everywhere I look it seems there are MADMEN creating brilliantly annoying advertising campaign’s just lousy with buzz phrases. (Or is that lousy advertising with annoying buzz phrases??) Only in commercials do we find out that Bounty is the quicker picker upper (I would hate to see it be the slower, I will get that tomorrow, non-picker downer), Gerber’s baby food has Comfort Proteins, Zip lock bags have snap and fresh seal technology, Fresh Step Cat Litter has activated freshness molecules, and further learn that it only takes wearing a lab coat and a buzz phrase and voila! I can convince you that super-duper smart scientists worked around the clock (with no bathroom break mind you) to create this thigamabob that makes your life complete.

I have some burning questions: Is secret really strong enough for a man, but made for a woman? And will a man blow up into a bazillion little pieces if he wears it any way? Is Irish Spring made in Ireland? Are the thoughts of a dead turkey wrapped in Reynolds wrap protected against Alien thought invasion? Are Colgate cleaning molecules treated differently at the local bar as opposed to regular molecules? Are flavor pockets related to Flavor Flav? (yeeeeeeeee boy) and just what exactly is dry weave technology?

I am beginning to suspect the writers who used to create the techno-babble heard in a Star Trek episode now make up buzz phrases heard in commercials. Maybe if I employ the interlocking viral blog packets then its slightly possible fiber optic cyber freshness seal molecules will dry weave a nice cardigan sweater for me.

Skip the guilt, pass the mash-potatoes please

It’s the same thing every year. To the point where I truly have a love-hate relationship with my television and the programming it gives me. My wife and I don’t have any children so I guess having both internet and TV is like having kids (in a way). One minute your so disappointed in them (BAD! TV & INTERNET! BAD!) that you swear your going to kick them permanently out of your home, and next thing you know they bring you (where I actually mean me in this case) kittens, puppies, science fiction, and absolutely no signs of Miley Ray Cyrus twerking while smoking pot.

Local news and the demented newscasters who appear on TV are the absolute worst. Anyone who has to look good on camera, be heavyhearted because of today’s fresh hell of tragedies, then in a blink of an eye brighten up with a story of a penguin who is using its body to shelter homeless seal pups who ‘s mommy and daddy died has to have some personality and mental issues.

Once again, right on time the demented newscasters start with the “eating with moderation”, holiday diet, turkey can kill you, why mash-potatoes are dangerous, cranberry’s are really terrorists, gravy causes cancer, dressing is really an alien ploy to take over your mind, please please let us find every reason in the world for you to feel guilty for actually enjoying a meal with your loved ones (if you can).

Let’s just say we skip the guilt, and pass the mash-potatoes please. Not everybody has a home, not everybody has family to be with, and some even have to spend thanksgiving in the hospital, in prison, in another country defending your freedom to watch football or 24 hours of “A Christmas Story”. Let’s just be thankful for what blessings we have and remember despite all the efforts your momma’s sweet potato pie may be making to clog your arteries that there is always someone who is going through something you could never imagine.

Bad celebrity/noteworthy people choices:

English: Arnold Schwarzenegger in July 2003 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Being on a Boat with Robert Wagner
Being in a car With Ted Kennedy
Being on a plane with Buddy Holly
Being on top of the Empire State Building with King Kong
Being on Mars with Arnold Schwarzenegger
Baby sitting in late 1970’s suburbia with Jamie Lee Curtis
Being on a distant moon filled with Xenomorphic aliens with Paul Reiser
Being a entertainer sharing the same video music award stage with Miley Cyrus
Being the Warner Brothers executive responsible for choosing Ben Affleck as the new Batman
Being in any movie of any kind with Steven Segal
taking a taxi ride to pretty much anywhere with a Mohawk clad Robert De Niro
Being the guy on a landing party with red shirt on Star Trek
Being in a pit of molten Carbonite with Han Solo

Do something Human now because the future is lousy with Robots

Somewhere In Japan, China, Euro-Disney, Silicon Valley California, a un-disclosed Mythbusters bunker, and the lab of Howard Wolowitz, there is a sinister plot to make humans more like machines, and machines more human. 

Please count me fully annoyed because I have not trusted anything that even remotely looks, sounds, and even tastes (a story I don’t wish to share) like artificial intelligence since my buddy and I had the hair brained idea to allow our furby’s be in the same room at the same time. 

Furby’s learn what you teach them, then learn on their own, and if they are ever given the opportunity to be in the same vicinity of another furby, they speak furbish (yes this is real) to each other and then teach each other what they have learned. I can tell you the experience is eerie and that’s an understatement. It makes you feel like you need a old priest and young priest, and that not even an exorcism will be remotely helpful.

I just bought my first “smart” phone. Just how “smart” is it? Sure, I love the touch screen features, Gmail app, calendar, Twitter updates, camera, pocket knife, wine cork screw, and fingernail clipper but when I am looking at it, (constantly) is it in turn constantly watching me? A camera/video phone with internet features? Sounds suspicious to me, maybe we all owe Anthony wiener an apology and should be blaming the phone. 

Machines are everywhere anymore. Rumba wants to vacuum your floor and bug your house on behalf of the NSA. The grocery self check out wants to have a full out conversation with you, but seems to have a condescending tone that you bought those donuts. Get out of my face machine scan lady (who do they have such icy, snotty female voices?) I will buy yellow cupcakes and M&M’s at the same dang time and I don’t owe you any explanations.

Haley Joel Osment once portrayed a artificial intelligent Robot with a great future in artificially intelligent acne and robotic mood swings. It’s a good thing the younger Mr. Osment was already robot like it made watching the movie that much more horrible. 

While the rest of the world deposits checks by snapping pictures of them, and are watched by Skynet I think I will take my refuge at the airport and get a full body scan.

Calling all no name actors

 

I recently read on the internet that Warner Brothers is wanting to do a remake/reboot of “The Island Of Dr. Moreau” . I quickly posted on Facebook that I would not mind a remake since the previous incarnations were lackluster at best. I personally feel a slick/dark “Contagion” meets “Jurassic Park” meets “The Walking Dead” horror/thriller that scares the crap out of audiences while keeping them on the edge of their seat would be a welcomed version of the H.G Wells classic. Unfortunately it seems the project is attached to Leonardo Dicaprio and Jennifer Davisson Killoran.

I say unfortunately because I have no idea if this means big names starring in a big lavish production that means well but misses the opportunity to really harness the potential unseen spooky/horror/thriller bite the project/movie could really have. Already I am scared its going to be a big trussed up boat going no where (need I remind everyone of the ham handed “Prometheus”??) because its being described as a Sci-Fi film with a topical ecological message. Ugh.. I already can see the save the earth, tree hugging everyone in the theater please hold hands and sing kumbaya overkill.

Not its not an important message to save the earth but I cant say enough how I would much rather see a movie that pulls on the same paranoia strings that Contagion and Jurassic Park does allowing the belief that this could really happen and its coming after you.. like now.

Can I point out to well meaning Hollywood studios that a lot can be learned from movies like “The Blair Witch Project”, The Original “Alien”, “The Descent”, “Night Of The Living Dead” and a gaggle of other movies that was made on a shoe string budget with no name actors? Sometimes less is more folks.

Apparently people seem to prefer their leaders (and monsters/aliens) spitting, snarling, yelling, and in dire need of deep psychotherapy.

AAAAAAAH !! !SPARTA!

:Warning may contain nerdy references to nerdy stuff :

Oh hello Leonidas, leader of the 300 (spit included) !SPARTA! Half naked (gosh that must be cold) warriors. You have a visitor from the Persian empire. I have heard of being kicked to the curb but do you have a habit kicking all your UN-welcomed guests into a well??

Spider Man’s dead uncle says with great power comes great responsibility. If you missed him saying it at least 3 times in the original Tobey Maguire version the people at Marvel Comics and Disney (who owns Marvel) were kind enough to repeat the phrase again a few more times in the next movie (again with Tobey Maguire).

What good old (and dead) Uncle Ben forget to mention was people (separately and in groups) seem to take you more seriously if your yelling, screaming, spitting, snarling, and have veins popping out of your neck and head. In other words all the stress anxiety filled behavior your cardiologist warned you against.

I have drawing, doodling, painting, coloring and creating for as long as I can remember. I have a online art gallery, and actually have shown some of my art work at a few local gallery’s. Most of my subject matter is inspired by comic books, aliens, monsters, and robots (big surprise huh?). My mom asked me one time why 90% of the aliens and monsters I draw are spitting and snarling. Well Gee mom, friendly monsters and aliens are a nice idea and such with the whole saving the world, kumbaya people holding hands, figuring old cold fusion, tree hugging, xenomorph sole kissing happiness and everything but spitting, snarling monsters and aliens with anger management issues are just plain cool.

Lets just be honest for a moment, your watching your favorite sports team. If the your team is stinking up whatever playing field they play on, do you really want the coach to give everyone on the team a hug, call them over for “soul palates”, have them hold hands and click their heels, burn scented candles, or sing a 80’s big hair power ballad to them on a karaoke machine? Absolutely NOT! You seriously expect the coach to yell, scream, look like he’s about to pop his top, spit, snarl, and yell loving hatred at them. The visit to the cardiologist and psychotherapist can wait for now, we have points to get on the board to get. Bragging rights at church and work are hanging in the balance here dang it.

Peter Parker (and Tobey Macguire) was a nice guy dork who got bullied, Spider Man was a nice guy dork with great powers (you say the rest I can’t take it any more), but Venom was Spider Man’s darker alien infused, spitting, snarling, cooler anger management weirdo doppelganger self. People paid attention to him, he was stinky, nasty, and would have made a great sports coach, half naked warrior leader, and a great candidate for psychotherapy. He will just have wait in line with Bobby Night, The Incredible Hulk, Wolverine, Charlie Sheen, Leather Face, The predator, The Terminator, and Sam Kinison.

Don’t look now, the Government is watching you watch a movie about the Government watching you

Open lap top, open a internet browser window, get a pop up. Pop up has a virus hoping to access your webcam. Right click.. get a message about adult diapers. You just sent a email joking about adult diapers and now every time you go to look at your email account there is a advertisement with a balding man looking ashamed he has to wear adult diapers. You click a picture of Edward Snowden and 10 days later your being audited by the IRS. You go to Yahoo movies, click on showtime’s for movies. A bush rustles near your kitchen window. You decide to see: “Closed Circuit” with Eric Bana. Its a “fictional thriller” about people being watched by the government. Your feeling overly paranoid so you try to choose between wearing your favorite tinfoil hat or the entire tinfoil suit you made one Saturday afternoon. GPS off, black masking tape over webcam, and you put on your NON squeaky shoes. Check,and check, you see a man across the street who looks like Tommy Lee Jones as a MIB. That is his happy face, the Government just admitted area 51 really does exist and he no longer has to be a personal body guard to a slimy alien. Now where did you put those sunglasses you DIY’d into a pair of night vision goggles???

Please don’t eat the Evil Daisies

English: Gordon MacRae and Doris Day in Starlift, taken from the film’s trailer. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ever wonder out loud, to yourself, inside a dryer, on top of a whirligig, while eating a sausage pizza, while flying like Superman in your underwear what it would be like if super syrupy saccharine sweet happy sappy chirpy people were Evil?

Doris Day always played a super sappy “girl/woman/mom” next door. She was flighty, flirty, happy, and sappy. Ugh.. enough Doris we know you secretly wanted to unleash your special brand of flying monkeys, evil human eating carp, zombie apocalypse deadly hamsters, devil with a blue dress, blue dress on.

Katie Couric is no help. I am honestly starting to believe that she may indeed be Doris Day’s love child. Please don’t check Katie’s age or even remotely expect my theory to be true. I base my theories on sitcom plot themes not facts. Katie is really super secretly Evil or she’s real proof that there really is a village of the damned somewhere.

Mr Rogers freaked me out even when I was a kid. He just was NOT based on any reality I was even remotely familiar with. A cardigan clad guy who talked to puppets, played with trains, and had (lets just admit it and get some therapy) a weird relationship with the postman who came to his house. Gee.. I don’t know, nothing Evil or weird going on there. Oh look! He was secretly working on a ice making laser beam that could have frozen the earth for 2 million years and turned every one into a mindless pet rock.

I blame People eating Evil daises.. Please Don t eat the Evil Daises

What I learned from “The Wolverine”

When you loose your will to live you grow a crazy looking beard. when you have a crazy looking beard you look like a crazy homeless guy. When you look like a crazy homeless guy your best friend is a grizzly bear. When your best friend is a grizzly bear you wind up smelling like salmon poop. Don’t wind up smelling like salmon poop, Get Direct TV and don’t loose your will to live.

Obviously being hairy, grumpy, a rage-aholic, and being “dreamy” (my wife’s words not mine) can only be pulled off by Hugh Jackman

Wolverine claws Vs Samurai sword: Claws win.

Wolverine claws Vs Large Adamantium robot: Tie (sort of)

Japanese girl + Katana + Bullet train = awesome

There is a 2 mutant minimum per movie

What the H? Wolverine survived the H bomb in 1944 Nagasaki Japan and he didn’t even say what the H?

Wil Wheaton is NOT a mutant

Wil Wheaton is NOT human

Wil Wheaton is NOT in this movie

$4.00 is too much to pay for chocolate covered raisins

Every time I go to the theater and the staff is tuxedo garb I always feel under dressed