Alexander

Sue and I went and saw Alexander this weekend. I did not think it was possible to make a movie about one of the greatest military minds of this or any time boring, but Oliver Stone did a fine job doing just that.

My biggest beef with the movie is that it skips so many interesting things about his life. There are only two battle scenes: one in the very beginning and one at the very end of the movie. In between, the movie drags horribly. I saw Collin Farrel on Ellen yesterday saying the every scene in the movie is very emotional, and that is true. So much so that by the end you are thinking of Alexander not as the brilliant soldier that he was, but as a whinny, crying, little bitch.

The movie tries to paint Alexander's very bloody campaigns as little more than a side note through much of the movie. Instead, it portrays a message of politically correct tolerance for all in a time when such a concept was utterly foreign. It feels awkward and does not work in a lot of ways.

Other points:

• Yet another movie where armor of any sort serves no useful purpose.
• Angline Jolie is still a sexy bitch. Although she does spend the majority of this movie acting like the crazy chick the tabloids always make her out to be (no great stretch there).

Best Quotes

Best Quote of the weekend: "I like my turkey like I like my women: Hot, moist, and stuffed!"

Best Ironic Quote from Rush Limbaugh today: "If you turned on the news channels this weekend, you saw an orgy of talk on morality..."

Textbook Disclaimer Stickers

Recently, the Cobb County School district in Georgia required all textbooks with reference to evolution to include the following text:

"This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered."

Check out this link for a few other stickers that should probably be included in textbooks as well:)

http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/cpurrin1/textbookdisclaimers/

Good Article on Alabama

There is an excellent article on Alabama in the Washington Post today:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1802&e=2&u=/washpost/20041128/ts_washpost/a16443_2004nov27

P.S. I know it has been a long time since my last update (6 days! My god!). I'm sure the 3 steady readers of this blog have been saddened by our current lack of posts. But we have more coming I can assure you.

Fun movies

When Eric was out of town in Phoenix, I rented a few movies the Friday night before he came home. I didn't plan it to be a Macaulay Culkin weekend, but it was. I rented two great movies that he was in recently.

The first one was Saved! This was the little movie with Mandy Moore and Macaulay Culkin. It makes fun of super Christian people and what happens when some of them do things that are "un-Christian" like. It is hilarious and Macaulay Culkin plays the angry brother of Mandy Moore's perfect christian child role. It also has some good messages in it.

The second movie I rented was Party Monster. This one has Macaulay Culkin as the famous club kid Michael Alig and Seth Green as James St. James. Wilmer Valderrama , Dylan McDermott Chloe Sevigny, Natasha Lyonne Marilyn Manson are also in it. The movie is based on the novel that James wrote about their true lives as club kids. This movie definitely makes you think "Don't do too many drugs at once and not everyday". Michael Alig and the other New York City club kids were famous in the 80's and 90's for changing what clubbing was. They would dress up in crazy outfits and make-up and Micheal Alig would hold crazy party's. They also did tons and tons of drugs. They liked to do Special K, crack, and Heroin together. Eventually Michael Alig kills his drug dealer friend Angel over money. Micheal would do tons of drugs and not pay for them and so Angel got pissed off. Another lesson I learned watching this, do not live with your drug dealer ecspecially if you are not going to pay him. This movie rocked! I loved it and watched it many times. It is also based on a true story so it makes it even better! This movie is totally fucked up, but that is what I like. I recommend that everyone watch it.

Some of my favorite quotes:
Micheal: "Well, what do you know. That is a rat-hole, not a crack- hole! The rat is on crack attack!"

Micheal to Angel "We did all of your drugs and we need some more."
Angel:" What?"
Micheal: "We did all of your drugs and we need some more!"

Pulp Fiction In the Southwest

My four days here in Phoneix so far have reminded me of the great opening to Pulp Fiction:

V: "You know the funniest thing about Arizona? It's the little differences. I mean they got the same shit over there that we do here. Just there its a little different."

J: "Example?"

V: "Well in Arizona people think 65 degree weather is the sort where you should wear a winter coat, hats, and mittens. And at Arizona State, the girls wear long pants and long sleeve shirts, but they are crop shirts that show their belly. And do you know what they call the biggest waste of water in Phoenix?"

J: "They don't call them yard sprinklers?"

V: "Nah man, they don't have grass in their yards. They wouldn't know what the fuck a yard sprinkler is."

J: "Well what do they call them?"

V: "They call them golf courses..."

J: "Golf courses..."

I love the night life! I love to boogie....

Sue and I are back from a abso-fucking-lutely awesome 4-day weekend with our college pals Paul (who needs a blog so that I could link to it here), Sue (no relation to my Sue except that they both kick some serious ass), and Kien (who does have a blog).

It was remarkably like being in college again. The alcohol on a Thursday night, the slurpees nearly every night (mmmm...), staying up passed 3am just to chat about random crap (or even until 7-8 the next morning), the little competitive streak that sneaks in when playing Mario Tennis for 3 hours, watching South Park into the early hours of the morning, constantly spouting movie line to one other at odd moments, and general good natured ribbing that comes from folks you have know long enough to call family. The best part was that despite the fact that we were together for only a weekend, it never seemed like we were in a huge hurry to jam as many activities as we could. It was very relaxing and enjoyable.

To our hosts, I would like to formally in writing pronounce to the world that you guys rock, I am honored to stand up with you when you get married, and that Sue and I will be there for you guys in anything that you need. Ditto to Kien of course. My old roommate is one of the best guys I have had the privilege to know. Are there any woman that need a good loyal, smart, funny guy? Cause this guy is it! (I think I just crossed the line from compliments to pimping)

I'm sad that we had to return, and I am REALLY sad I had to catch a 6:45 am flight the very next day. Nothing makes aircraft bench testing at 9:00pm at night worse than thinking about the hella good time I could be having with those guys. I'm stuck here until Saturday afternoon, so everyone needs to send Sue a nice IM/e-mail/call/etc. to relieve her boredom:) While your at it, everyone should do the same for me. Perhaps one of those nice, "I'm still alive and this is what I have been doing since the last time I emailed you", emails that get me back in the loop. Yeah, that would be cool.

Older is Better

A while ago I posted a blog stating that there was nothing to look forward to in terms of birthdays after your 21st. Today I remembered that I need to amend that. Now that I am 26, I am now offically too old to be drafted!

Christmas is Coming

So I was sitting around today thinking about the need for more ideas for Christmas for various family members when I had an epiphany. I said to myself, "Self, why don't I just ask the loyal readers of this blog to come up with good books, movies, music, or other random crap that they think I should read/watch/listen to/do whatever is appropriate with random crap?" Then I can leave all the thinking to other people AND get exposed to some material I might otherwise never consider. Self is always coming up with good ideas like that. :)

So there is your challenge readers. The gauntlet has officially been laid at your feet. Leave your worthy comments!

Circle Gets the Square

The front page story of the Huntsville Times today was that people are confused and alarmed about the first "roundabout" in the Huntsville area. Sue told me that it was also one of the top stories on the local news.

I happen to go though it on my way to work. This morning, someone stopped on the middle of the circle TWICE to let some folks into the roundabout. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PEOPLE!!!! It's a simple concept. YOU GO AROUND THE CIRCLE! You exit at your street! How hard is this? The people not in the roundabout YIELD. Hence that big red sign at the entrance to the roundabout!

Random crap

• Star Wars Episode III Trailer was released yesterday - It only make me realize how GOOD episodes IV - VI were and now HORRIBLE the new ones are.


• As an update to my earlier post on amendments: apparently the shrimp support amendment passed, but the one removing segregation text from the constitution failed by a couple hundred votes. I think there is enough irony in the above sentence that I don't need to make another snide comment.


• Yesterday, Bush held a press conference where he said, "As a matter of fact, no president should ever try to impose religion on our society." HA! That's funny! Maybe you should have mentioned that before you got elected. By the way, was that a flip-flop?

The morning after

Well, even with some of the biggest efforts made to prevent Bush from being re-elected, it happened. I am sure as most of you know from reading my blogs, I am severely disappointed. It is not just because I dislike Bush and all he stands for, but I am saddened by the direction that this country is going in with the his re-election. It just amazes me that this election came down to so-called "Christian" values and morals and not social issues, ecspecially when both candidates were Christian. I still do not understand why people went with Bush and said that he was the one with Christian values and morals. Please explain to me how going to war for the wrong reasons fits into Christianity, how does the fact that many, many people cannont afford healthcare fit into Christianity, how does giving yourself and the rest of the rich tax cuts fit into Christianity? I don't get it! GOP does not equal GOD! I also do not get how people are for a man that vocally discriminates against a group of people. SNL had a good point the other day in a skit with Bush and Tony Blair. Blair said that he doesn't get how when he goes to war in Iraq, his popularity drops a lot and then in America, Bush's goes up. "I just do not understand!" I also don't get how people can handle the fact that most of the rest of the world hates America because of all of the things that Bush has done. I salute all of the Michigan people back home, you did your part. Way to go!

Oh well. All I can say is that I am so glad that there is alcohol! The next four years will have to be a drunken blur. Must escape the evilness of the red state. Must go to blue state...

Reporting for Duty Sir

Well, Sue and I now have the smug satisfaction of having voted. I love that feeling. And I always love that little "I voted (which shows I am patriotic. See? There is a flag on this sticker to prove it! And why haven't you voted dick-hole?)" sticker they give you after you successfully connect two ends of an arrow.

Alabama once again proved how retarded the whole state is with this election. The following is the list of constitutional amendments we voted on this time around:

1. Allow Baldwin County the power to buy property and to issue bonds. - FYI: I actually don't live anywhere near this county. Stupidly, every county has to get a constitutional amendment to do anything useful.
2. Repeal portions that still say racial segregation is legal in this state and that the state can still charge a poll tax - Are you f*#king kidding me? I know these have no effect anymore, but the fact that they are STILL in the constitution disturbs me. Hell, interracial marriage was only approved recently in this state by a 60-40 vote.
3. Allow any county the power to buy property and to issue bonds. - Same as (1), except someone finally got smart enough to say, "Hey, maybe this whole getting people in one county to vote on issues in our county are stupid."
4. Provide for the promotion of shrimp and seafood - I swear to God this is what it said. We have to enshrine this in the constitution?
5. Allow the City of Trussville to create a tax - Again I live no where near this.
6. Allow Crenshaw County to pay its district judge the same as their associate judge - And I would care because ?
7. Allow Macon County to tax cigarettes - Again I live no where near this and by this point I don't care about anything else on the ballot anyways.
8. Something about a motor vehicle tax - heck no!

VOTE tomorrow!!!

Please vote tomorrow (NOV. 2nd)!! Vote for who you believe is the best candidate. Don't let anyone tell you who to vote for, vote with your own gut feeling. It is predicted that a large number of voters ages 18-30 are going to vote this year and I hope that they are true. If more college age people would vote, we could swing elections and we could get some new, young ideas into politics. You don't want old people to decide the president or your local issues, do you? Then get out there and vote! If you don't P. Diddy may hunt you down and kill you :)

John Kerry
George Bush
Ralph Nader