All Apologies

I want to write a review of Danny the Dog, because it is quite a good film and I want to talk about it. But then, to be fair, I should also talk about War of the Worlds and Batman Begins, because I also like those films and I also like talking about films. But I am also a very tired puppy. This freaking humidity really saps a man's will to live.

I will try to talk about these films soon. Maybe somehow I will manage to tie them all together. Sometimes I can do that. Usually only when I don't mean to.

As an apology, here is a picture.



The Japanese women? They don't believe in the one piece, yet another reason why Japan is one of the smartest countries in the world.

Rainy Season

I kinda like this here rainy season. Other than the fact that it should have been last month.

See now, I thought it would be nothing but rain. Rain rain rain all the time. That ain't the case, least not so far. Nope the day can start out sunny, hot, and beautiful then it'll cloud over and start raining in the blink of an eye. It all happens so fast that the girls wearing their tight white Tshirts who didn't bother to bring an umbrella have to run all over the place, trying to minimize their wetness.

I really like this country.

I'm a Dollar

The internet is a wonderful thing. Just the other day, without really meaning to, I found the unaired pilot for Buffy. It was only a half hour show, and Willow was played by a different actress. It was interesting. And I don't mean that to be as dismissive as it comes across. It was still a good show, just not as good as it could have been (or as good as it was? Cuz the pilot that actually aired, the hourlong one with the cute Willow, was pretty good).

I bring this up as a roundabout way to talk about Revenge of the Sith. Cuz it was good, but could have been a lot better if they went back and fixed it up a little bit. I gotta say, I was a little let down by this one. People all over have been saying that this is the one that makes the prequels all worth it. Maybe I should stop listening to those people. To be fair, I was drunk and it was 3 in the morning when I saw it. I'll have to give it another chance, but here are my thoughts on the movie as of right now:

The opening scroll was nice. Not deadly dull like the one from Episode 1.

The opening shot was/is probably the best thing George Lucas has ever done. It's a long tracking shot that starts of with an homage to A new Hope at the beginning. A massive ship soars past the camera, then two fighters zip by. The camera follows these 2 ships as they fly along the exterior of the ship, once they pass it they bank hard and the camera follows to reveal: a massive space battle. The camera sticks with the fighters as they plunge headlong into the battle. After a bit of excitement the camera pushes in even further until it's inside one of the fighters. That's just a great shot. And a great way to start the movie.

The whole opening action piece is fantastic: after blowing some shit up in space, Anakin and Obiwan crash inside a cruiser and fuck some more shit up Jedi style. Just great. And R2 gets in on the action too. Carla didn't like the R2 part though, she said it seemed a bit out of character for him. I can see where she is coming from.

The Anakin, Obiwan, Dooku rematch wasn't as long as I would have expected. Still good, just short. And I love the look on Christopher Lee's face before he gets taken out. Plus I like how the staging of it mirrors the Vader/Luke fight from Return of the Jedi.

After that opening, though, things really turn to shit. After their victory, the two Jedi go back home. Once home, Anakin gets to make mushy talk with Padme. Yipee? Dear fuck!! Everyone knows that the 'romance' was the worst part of Clone Wars. Even Lucas himself has said that he ain't too shit hot when it comes to the dialogue. Here's an idea Georgie boy: don't write any more dialogue than you have to.

Fuck! In interviews, Lucas likes to brag about how he is so proud that his films can work with the sound turned down. He's a visual storyteller, so says he. Well then tell the fucking story visually. One longing look of love, just ONE, would have been immeasurably better than all that "I love you!" "Nu-uh, I love you!" "I love you mostest!" bullshit I had to sit through.

Fuck! Just look at your own God Damn Films George!! Look at Empire Strikes Back. "I love you." "I know." That's all it took.

While I was glad to see the Wookiees, they seemed to be there as fan service. 'Let's throw in some Wookiees, everybody loves Wookiees.' I do love Wookiees, but I dunno.. I have two main problems with the Wookiees, the first being that it makes them seem more like Ewoks. Third film fuzzy creatures that need help fighting off the evil oppressors. The second is Chewbacca. Fuck off! Chewbacca did not need to be in this movie! The only reason he's in this movie is so that Yoda can thank him. That bothered me.

Palpatine is pretty cool. I really like how subtle he is. Then he goes a little too over the top for me. Seriously, one minute he's nudging Anakin to go in a direction he might not want to go, the next he's yelling, "ABSOLUTE POWER!!!" Also, while I like his fight with Mace, he takes out those other Jedi too fast. These guys are the best of the best, and he takes out 3 of them in about as many seconds. I know it's supposed to show how much of a threat Sidious is, but instead it makes the other guys look like chumps.

The Jedi slaughter part of the film was pretty good other than that. Wait, just as I thought Sidious went over the top right after the Mace fight, I also didn't quite buy Anakin's sudden change of heart. I know it wasn't "sudden", but still, I wanted more conflict. Maybe those two snarks are related. If Palpatine didn't start cackling like a god damn madman, maybe I could accept Anakin blindly following him a little better.

Plus, Sidious totally has an ass on his forehead. That just looks stupid.

Now, there have been a lot of complaints about the acting in these prequels, especially concerning Hayden and Natalie. But I think they both do some really good work in this film. In fact one of my favourite bits in this film is watching Padme watch the Senate get behind the Emperor. "So this is how democracy ends... to thunderous applause." That's a great fucking line. And the heartbroken look on her face is... heartbreaking.

I also dug the little homage to A New Hope when all the little robots scattered at Anakin's approach.

The final showdowns weren't as epic as I was expected. This is why I want to see the movie again in a less sleepy state. There was nothing wrong with the fights at all, they just weren't as 'right' as I wanted. I guess.

I didn't like seeing Yoda turn tail and run. I wanted to see him try again. But then Ben pointed out, "Do or do not, there is no try." So Yoda wanted to do, it turned out he did not, so there would be no point in trying again. I can get behind that.

I can't get behind a lot of Yoda's dialogue in this film. They sound like cliche action movie lines as recited by a dyslexic. Kinda lame.

The end of the Anakin/Obiwan duel? That was pretty cool. Pretty graphic too. And the look in Anakin's eyes made it seem like his rage set him on fire. I liked that.

Carla liked the irony of the ending. Anakin turned to the dark side to save Padme, but his dark side led to her death. That was nice.

Not so nice? Her actual death. "She's given up the will to live."? Fuck you!

I liked how the birth of the twins was intercut with the 'birth' of Vader.

I liked the shot of the mask coming down, the quick look of fear and regret in Anakin's eyes. Nice touch. The profile of that helmet 'shoonk'ing into place? Should have been in the trailer. Fucking iconic.

I wasn't a huge fan of Vader's first few 'Frankenstein' steps, but I appreciate the homage. I really like his force freak out, crushing everything around him. If they had left it at that, that would have been great. But no (or should I say NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!), Lucas fucked up Vader's first scene in the worst fucking way possible. There is no way, no way at all, that that scene, that 'beat' could work. Clenching your fists and screaming NO! as the camera pulls out? That cannot work in a drama. Everyone knows that. How the fuck did that make it into the final cut?

The bit with Uncle Owen striking the same pose as Luke? Seems kinda forced to me.

And let's get back to the bit about George the visual story teller. Why not fucking show us Qui Gon? How fucking hard would that have been? I can understand though, audiences would see Liam Neason and go, "Hey, remember how crap he was in Episode 1, and how good he was in Batman Begins? George Lucas sure does suck huh?" Man, that cheesed me off. "Hey Obiwan, Qui Gon is totally talking to me from beyond the grave. Practice for 20 years and maybe you can do the same." What a cheap, lazy way to handle that.

That was one of the big mysteries I wanted solved in this movie. I was all like, "How come Obiwan and Yoda disappeared and no one else did?" I'd rather it stayed a mystery than how they shat out the answer at the end of Sith.

Man, that's a lot of negativity, isn't it? I still want to see the film again though. Even if I like it better the second time, I'll still find this funny.

Scary

Saw the ugliest baby ever on Saturday. Swear to god. It was either a baby or a horribly disfigured midget. I cannot accurately describe it, which is wholly to your benefit. From the quick, painful glance I got, I imagine that the wretched little thing could never, ever hope to close it's mouth. Not even Mick Jagger's lips could cover those craggy, creepy bicuspids. Her insane eyes also seemed incapable of ever shutting. Those two features kind of made any other visual information gathering nigh-impossible, but I got the impression that the skin was blotchy, pallid and not at all comfortable at ease on the bones underneath it.

This is what I said to Carla: "I just saw the ugliest baby ever. I just about yelped." Carla had to have a look for herself. I watched her approach, saw her try to steal a glance and winced as she nearly gave herself whiplash.

She says I didn't adequately prepare her. That may well be true. In my defense, I was rendered nearly mute. My brain was in a state of shock, my powers of description were even more retarded than is the norm. It was a bad scene.

*shudder*

Abstemious

"I look back over what I've written and I know it's wrong, not because of what I've set down, but because of what I've omitted. What isn't there has a presence, like the absence of light.

You want the truth, of course. You want me to put two and two together. But two and two doesn't necessarily get you the truth. Two and two equals a voice outside the window. Two and two equals the wind. The living bird is not its labeled bones."

I finished The Blind Assassin. I never remember if I'm supposed to bold or italicize book titles. If only there was some way to check such a thing. But I have no time for that. I'm blogging. I quite enjoyed the book. There were a lot of good words in it, put together flawlessly. Not that it is my favourite book, but easily the best book I've read in this country. I've read a fair bit. Still can't read non-fiction without falling asleep.

She compared a dude's face to a testicle. I wish I would have dog-eared that page so I could quote it.

Motherfuckers Gettin' HURT!!

I trust we've all seen Ong Bak. I know there weren't no story, but it looked pretty good and God Damn in Tony Jaa ain't amazin'!! Well, it looks like that flick was just a warm up. Tom-Yum Goong is his latest film and I think he won't be making another one for quite some time because he appears to cripple every stunt man he gets close to. I mean: JEEZUSS!! This shit looks painful! I warn you now, the site is beyond slow, so start downloading the trailer, go out and rent Ong Bak, watch it, return it and then watch the trailer. Unless you try for the large size trailer, I doubt you''ll get the whole thing before the actual movie comes out.

God damn, he kicks a dude right in the fucking head! I know, you've seen it a thousand times before. I know. But you've never seen it like this.

Holy fuck.

Grr

It annoys me how much I don't get done in a day. I haven't sat down and studied any Japanese in forever. I haven't written anything of any import in about as long. What did I spend my night on tonight? Reading forums. That is not a good use of time. Man, I suck.

FHjo

Yeah, not really so much to say. Work is still work, and there ain't much else going on right now. But, I really don't want to not write just because I have nothing to say. I must write damnit. Yep. I must write, but you are by no means required to read all this scribbled drivel.

I have at least three gray hairs on my head. I don't like that. Back in Australia, I had a white hair in my goatee. Now that was cool. These grey fuckers, not so much. I totally meant to use two different spellings of grey. I'll leave it up to you to figure out why.

Curses

So I said that I would both blog and study more. The studying part hasn't so much happened yet. Dang. But I do feel compelled to post at least something every day to this world wide web of nets. Even if I have nothing to say. I guess I could just make shit up. Like this:

If you are passing by some bushes and the bushes say "Oi!", do not stop and talk to whomever is in the bushes. Bad things will happen.

I Just Totally Blogged

Sure, I surfed the internet a little bit, but I didn't do it for as long as I could have (and usually do). I haven't even played with Kimber yet, and it's best to try to train her while Carla ain't around. She doesn't like listening to me repeat the same commands over and over and over again. Dude, I totally picked blogging over the internet and videogames.

Yay me!

Munificence

munificence

n : liberality in bestowing gifts; extremely liberal and generous of spirit [syn: largess, largesse, magnanimity, openhandedness]

I just now learned this word. I'm quite busy not learning Japanese words, but I looked up this here 'munificence' on dictionary.com. Why? Because of Margaret Atwood. I likes me my Margaret Atwood. This is a new discovery for me. I mean, I'm sure I've liked her for years now, it's just that I haven't picked up any of her books until about a month ago. That book was Wilderness Tips, a collection of short stories. Short stories about women mainly. Depressing mainly. The happiest story ended with a slightly older than middle age woman crying in her bathroom during the Christmas holidays. Yet I loved every sentence of it. Maybe not every sentence. But there were perfect sentences in there. Sentences that made me stop reading, just so I could grin and drink them in again. Sentences that a trillion monkeys on a whole lot of really nice typewriters would have a hard time topping.

I don't own Wilderness Tips, so I can't quote any of those sentences, but I am right now reading 'The Blind Assassin' and loving it even more. I''m less than 50 pages in, but man am I digging it. Somehow has made put me right inside the head of an elderly woman. Which is not somewhere I ever thought I would be.

(on the subject of her thinning hair)
"Beneath it there are glimpses of scalp, the greyish pink of mice feet.
If I ever get caught in a high wind my hair will blow off like dandelion
fluff, leaving only a tiny pockmarked nubbin of bald head."

That's just good stuff.

Makes me feel even more crap about my own writing, but whatever. I am so disenchanted with my own abilities at the moment, that I couldn't even muster any energy to even attempt to imply that Atwood is, like, totally munificent for sharing her words with the world.

Even More Boobs

Damn!! Forgot another great thing about Japan and boobs. In any large store of any kind you will find the massage chair section. This section will always be full. More often than not, a few of the occupants will be comely lasses. Which is great. Let me tell you why. The massage chairs here are fairly forceful. They push the recipient around a bit. So when a cute girl's back is being kneaded, it affects her front as well. God, I am such a perv. Plus, the girls have such blissful on their cute faces. Which, if all Japanese pornography is to be believed, is not something that happens in close proximity to bouncing breasts all that often. It is really hard not to stare.

Also, my spell checker just won't listen when I tell it to learn 'boobs'.

More Boobs

Back when I waxed slightly waxxy about bosoms, I totally forgot to mention how totally awesome girls on bikes are. Bikes are like perpetual motion machines. That is all.

Plans That Will Not Be Fruity

Seeing as I now commute about an hour and a half less every day than I used to, I figured I should try to spend this new surplus of time in a productive manner. The plan, as it now stands is to spend about 45 minutes a day writing and the other 45 studying the Nihongo. I always make plans like this and rarely do I ever see them through to fruition. Even if I do write more, it will probably just be about boobs.

Drool

I love it when women run. It's like Beyonce dancing in slow motion but in real life. I was going to say in real time but when boobs are involved, time seems less real. When those boobs start to move and sway, time becomes sticky. It doesn't flow as swiftly as it should. To me, boobs are hypnotic. I was going to be lame and try to rhyme by writing, 'They make me wax rhapsodic.' But can it really be deemed rhapsodic if I keep using the word boobs?

Late. Never. Better.

I think I finally figured out why I've been so moody lately. It's not because I've been sick for months. And it's not that this constant sickness is a constant source of anxiety for me at my job, cuz why would they want to keep a sicky like me around when there are other, more healthy Caucasians to be found. And it's not cuz Carla and I didn't get the apartment we wanted. Fuck, was that a nice apartment. TV in the bathroom.

It's none of these things. I've been moody because I've been derelict. Derelict in my duties as a browncoat. The trailer for Serenity is up. Has been up for near a week now. I meant to throw up a link here as soon as it went live. I didn't. I aim to rectify that.

Serenity is, of course, the Firefly movie. Firefly was, of course, one of the reasons why television was invented. Joss Whedon's ability to weave action, humour, plot, characters, suspense, cheese, Chinese swearing, philosophy, and everything else together has always awed and humbled me. His film track record ain't so sterling but Serenity looks to change all that.

If I could, I would stand in line for tickets to this move. Hell, I'm giving thought to flying somewhere so I can see it early. Early for me, I mean. No idea when it's coming out here.

I threw in the Firefly DVD so I could accurately quote some of the dialogue, and I ended up watching much more than I needed to. Objects in Space is one of my favourite hours of anything ever. But it's just barely my favourite episode.

Sorry

<a hreh="http://www.4q.cc/vin/index.php">Link</a> that's what I typed in my post last night. As we all know, it should be <a href=... Sorry about that. And in the short time it took for someone to notice my error, write in a snarky comment (thank you Anonymous) and for me to fix the problem, the site seems to have broken. Damn. The link in the previous post works now. You can check if you want. I hope it gets unbroke soon. But, for now, I will just post some of my favourite random facts about Vin Diesel.

Vin Diesel once used Gary Coleman as a hand puppet. Coleman said the experience changed his life and led him to give up smoking.

Vin Diesel once had cancer, but he coughed out the tumor and then used it to butter his bread.

Vin Diesel is a strict vegan vegetarian in all respects except that he will eat shrimp. When challenged on this, he insists the shrimp are "the lettuce of the sea".

Vin Diesel can read braille with his scrotum.

Vin Diesel once circumnavigated the globe in the hulled carcass of George Burns.

Vin Diesel once got so angry at a man that he punched him hard enough to cause his ancestors to feel it. This is how Napoleon lost the Battle of Waterloo.

Only about a thousandth of Vin Diesel's mass is expressed in the three dimensions we can perceive.

His intestines can hold 13% more bacon than mere mortals.

Vin Diesel once used a 3 year old child as a baseball bat during softball practice. That child was Bjork.

Vin Diesel was once asked if he believed in the idea of reincarnation. His response was simply "I used to be a plate of pancakes."

Not only can Vin Diesel comprehend infinity, he can express it in terms of pi.

He starts his day by arguing with a bowl of green apples.

Vin once went sledding in New Hampshire and broke the sound barrier by turning his head around and blowing forcefully. As a result of the shock waves, several children died. Vin ascended to heaven and repeatedly punched God in the eye until he brought them all back to life. Every single one of those children are now scientists.

Vin Diesel can cut 2" thick steel piping using only his rectum and Beatrice Arthur.

Vin Diesel is the only man to run around the Earth at the equator and kill a wolverine in the same day.

If you whisper Vin Diesel's name to a newborn penguin, he will attempt to suckle your teat.

matt damon

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around...Vin still hears it.

Vin Diesel wrote the book of Mormon because he wanted to beat up the people who thought it was real.

Vin Diesel once sneezed so hard a nearby building exploded. Upon seeing the explosion, Vin Diesel flew around the world counterclockwise fast enough to reverse time. After he had reversed time for 10 minutes, He went back to the building and went inside. He then punched Stalin in the face. Thus, Communism fell.

Bruce Campbell is the only being in our dimension capable of killing Vin Diesel, but the vacuum left by his absence would collapse the universe. To this day, the actors refuse to be wthin a thousand miles of eachother's presence.

Vin Diesel sometimes accuses acorns of being lazy.

Vin Diesel once faked his own death after a sheperd boy hit him in the head with a rock from a sling.

Vin Diesel has a black belt in pudding, which is not a martial art. He's just that good at it.

Vin Diesel can drink a packet of Swiss Miss chocolate mix and urinate a steaming cup of hot cocoa. Interestingly enough, this only works with the Swiss Miss brand, and is now one of their main selling points.

Vin Diesel is the only person to ever beat Battletoads without dying.

Every time Vin Diesel kills god, a kitten masturbates.

When Vin Diesel is sad, magical puppies appear to cheer him up.

Vin Diesel enjoys clapping babies together like erasers. He calls it blapping. *I think this one is my favourite*

Vin Diesel defied MC Hammer and touched it.

Vin Diesel doesn't actually have bones or internal organs. Underneath his skin is another slightly smaller Vin Diesel and underneath that is yet another even smaller Vin Diesel. After the third layer his body is filled with rich, creamy nougat.

Vin created belt buckles to prevent his waist from shooting lasers.

For Halloween, Vin Diesel cuts down a tree, scoops out the inside, fills it with candy, and then stabs anyone who rings his doorbell. He then eats the candy-filled tree.

"Vin Diesel" can be rearranged into "I Send Evil." And he does so, in the form of flying monkeys.

Vin Diesel once killed a man in Reno just to watch him die. He then
summoned Jesus to bring the man back to life, at which point Vin killed
them both.


Well, this is one of my longer posts. I went on a bit longer than I meant to. Sorry about that.

...and now a random fact about Vin Diesel:

I'm lazy: Link

Old Timey Music

This is where I type some regular text to better differentiate between the title above and the link below. I should have done this for my House of Cosbys post. It's a House of Cosbys. But, no, it's not. Not this time. This time it is:

Kinda lamely cool

Fucking Ducks

I like ducks. They are one of the few species of birds that don't have scary eyes. Have you seen the eyes of a chicken? Then you have seen the eyes of madness. But ducks are okay in my books. But I can't say the sight of them having intercourse is all that pleasant.


Well now, these are a couple of fine looking ducks.


This may look like a picture of just one duck, but I assure you it is not. The male, when he starts his 'bidness' (that's the scientifically correct term), forces the female to stay submerged.


Every once in a while, the female will poke her head above the water and the male pecks at it. That ain't cool.

Unless you're in to that kind of thing.