Claire's blog

This was one of the finest Rocky Horror showings I’ve ever been to. I held onto this blogpost draft for 14 months before deciding to just spooge the fragments out to the world without properly waiting. I mean, I saw Rocky Horror on the same approximate weekend the following year before ever posting this. So here goes… I am not attempting to make any coherent review here; just sharing info. (more…)

• TASERS/OVERLY-HARSH PUNISHMENTS: Another taser-related death: Police shock apparently-handcuffed man with taser after shoplifting arrest. He died.
  Anthony Dewayne Davidson also had bruises on his face and lacerations on his head and hands. Note that he only became uncooperative AFTER being arrested and taken in.
  (tags: politics AbuseOfAuthority OverlyHarshPunishments tasers policeBrutality police brutality deaths handcuffed shoplifting arrests AnthonyDewayneDavidson Statesville NorthCarolina news articles TomAnderson lacerations bruises beatings)
• RELIGION: Typical retarded Texans legalize beating of children — as long as it’s “religious”. Girl held captive during “exorcism” for 2 days, beaten, sued — and lost. Texas sucks. We should have let Mexico have it. Look at the picture of that 17yo girl.
  Does ANYONE really believe that winning this lawsuit would have been unconstitutional? What about suicide bombers? They’re just doing it for religious reasons too, right! Pleasant Glade Assembly Of God and David Medina can suck Jesus’s dick.
  (tags: politics religion idiots Christianity Christians Texas courts legal lawsuits ConstitutionalRights FreedomOfReligion freedom LaureSchubertPearson PlesantGladeAssemblyOfGod exorcisms attemptedSuicides Judges DavidMedina WallaceJefferson FirstAmendment children teenagers Telegraph UK news articles churches torture)
• TASERS: Man tasered *handcuffed* arrestee 9 times – and then he died. Grand jury debating charges. Cop fired, but appealing (they pretty much always get their jobs back on appeal, esp. if a union is involved)
  Remember when tasers were introduced, it was as an alternative to lethal force. So are we to believe that, before tasers, shooting a handcuffed suspect to death is acceptable? I’d like to see Scott Nugent tasered 9 times while struggling. s
  (tags: politics AbuseOfAuthority OverlyHarshPunishments excessiveForce tasers deaths policeBrutality police brutality Winnfield Louisiana grandJuries Officers ScottNugent arrests handcuffed WinnParish lawyers ChrisNevils firings BaronPikes CarolPowellLexing PhillipTerrell WarOnDrugs drugs)
• OVERLY-HARSH PUNISHMENTS: Drive drunk? Run away from the cops? Black? You get shot in the back of the head, apparently. 30 years of police reviews say ALL shootings justified, of course.
  HE HAD A GUN!!! I’M SCARED!! PROTECT ME. Wait. You’re a cop. You’re supposed to be the one protecting. Not shooting unarmed assholes in the back of the head. Hector Jimenez has been a cop less than 1.5 yrs and has already shot and killed 2 unarmed people.
  (tags: politics OverlyHarshPunishments AbuseOfAuthorioty police shootings deaths murders unarmed black drivers drunkDriving Oakland California InsideBayArea news articles DUI autopsies MackWoodfox Officers HectorJimenez JohnBurris AndrewMoppin HowardJordan HarryStern OaklandPoliceOfficersAssociation TomOrloff)
• OVERLY-HARSH PUNISHMENTS: Neurosurgeon arrested for fender-bender IN THE ER, whee he was to peform lifesaving surgery. How does this help? Injured teenager’s surgery delayed 30+ minutes. He died. Cop fired. Police settled.
  I love how when they settle without putting up a fight, they “admit no wrongdoing”. If they thought they were right, they would fight it. Settling and firing the cop IS admitting wrongdoing. If they had actual integrity, they’d admit their mistakes.
  (tags: politics AbuseOfAuthority OverlyHarshPunishments police arrests surgeons neurosurgeons lawsuits settlements deaths teenagers football sports injuries Marietta Georgia BradDalton KennestoneHospital MariettePoliceDepartment CobbCountyPolice cars accidents)
• SCIENCE: 5 Facts About Pain That You Need to Know – 75 million americans suffer from chronic pain. (So why does our DEA arrest patients, and sentence doctors to life in prison for prescribing “too many” legal painkillers?)
  I hope the politicians who put doctors on trial for murder because their patients overdosed end up in untreatable chronic pain themselves. Either way, this list is informative. I hope my brain isn’t 11% smaller–I’ve had chronic back pain for 2yrs now.
  (tags: science lists medical pain backs backPain chronicPain brains LiveScience news articles fromRyanS migraines sex JournalOfGeneralInternalMedicine women animals moleRat rats studies Cephalagia ArthritisCareAndResearch arthritis biology)

I have amassed a few quotes here and there. Some by me. Some by friends. Some famous quotes. Some random quotes. For a long time, simply stored these in quotes.txt.

Well, I had an idea — Turn quotes.txt into an RSS feed, so that everytime a new quote is added, it can show up in people’s readers.

And that’s what I did. You can subscribe to the “Clint‘s Quotes” RSS feed HERE.

For those still stuck in 2004 (i.e. those who don’t use RSS), the actual text file of quotes can be read HERE. But you’re screwed on updates — which is part of the point of RSS. I guess you can just check it every day for new ones? Ha ha ha, nobody would ever do that! Manually checking stuff is for suckas! That’s why I made this an RSS feed.

RSS is the most important technology since http and email. Go to Google Reader and paste http://clint.sheer.us/quotes/quotes-rss.xml into it for much better results.

WARNING: New subscribers will get an item for EVERY quote. Star them for later, mark them all as read, but don’t come whining to me about filling your RSS box :)

P.S.: To those already using our aggregated/managed feed, this feed was already incorporated several weeks ago. So no action is needed on your part.

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What a scumbag. Watch the video for yourself. This is an annual bike rally *to promot safety* for bicyclists. And Patrick Rogan’s first move after doing this? Arresting the guy for “attempted assault” (bullshit), and the 2 catch-all charges of “disorderly conduct” and “resisting arrest”, which any officer can give any human at any time and have it be sustained in most courts of law.

How was he obstructing traffic if he’s riding in a rally with 100s of other bikers? He seemed to be picked at random. The officer couldn’t have communicated with him prior to shoving him down, because he was on foot and would have been out of vocal range.

Asshole Officer Patrick Rogan had the gall to say that the bicyler tried to run him over. Judging from the video, he certainly seems to be a lying pig:

One bad cop ruins the good that 1000 good cops can do. Better for traffic to be obstructed than any american having a random chance of winning the police brutality lottery. This fucker should get his ass pounded in prison, and should be individual sued with no immunity by the biker. He should have to pay for any injuries out of his own pocket. But of course he wont. He’ll just get a new cop job in another state, like they almost always do. Come back to this post in a few months or years to see how it turned out.

LINK: http://wcbstv.com/local/cop.slams.biker.2.781944.html
BACKUP: http://www.badcopnews.com/2008/07/29/new-york-city-police-officer-patrick-pogan-placed-on-desk-duty-after-brutal-unprovoked-attack-on-bicyclist/
(more…)

• PICTURES: Truth, Justice and Liberty’s Photostream
  A photostream consisting of nothing but pictures satirizing the Bush Administration. I’ve found a new flickr friend! This is bound to entertain for several minutes.
  (tags: media pictures politics satire politicians GeorgeBush GeorgeWBush DickCheney CondoleezaRice KarlRove Iraq WarInIraq terrorism WarOnTerror war economics)
• OVERLY-HARSH PUNISHMENTS: Cops taser unarmed teenager lying on ground w/a broken back “up to” 19 times … Parents were the ones to call 911. No drugs or alcohol found in child’s system.(Not that that would make it justifiable.)Cops say this is just fine.
  Wow. Our police are out of control. They have to taser a 16-year-oldl 19 times? WHILE HE HAS A BROKEN BACK? I know with intelligence tests, they’re forcing cops to be stupid. But are they also forcing them to be weak pussies? HIS PARENTS CALLED 911.
  (tags: politics AbuseOfAuthority police brutality policeBrutality OverlyHarshPunishments excessiveForce tasers children teenagers brokenBack broken backs injuries overpass health incompetenece violence policeState brokenHeel heels Ozark Missouri KY3 news articles DougMessersmith 811 parents noDrugs noAlcohol surgeries delayedSurgery whiteBloodCells OzarkPolie ThomasRousset douchebags OzarkPolieDepartment)

[IMDB link] [Netflix link] Another comedy directed by Bob Odenkirk — I really had no idea that he had a directing career. For some reason I thought this was written by Daniel Waters, the writer of Heathers and Sex & Death 101. But it wasn’t. So this movie was pretty much a complete accident.

PEOPLE: Bob Odenkirk directs, as mentioned before. Michael Blieden wrote this, and stars as Melvin. He also directed Super High Me and had a guest spot in Arrested Development. Maura Tierney (from News Radio and E.R.) is in this too, but not as one of the main 4 characters. The other main characters were Stephanie Courtney (who was also in The Brothers Solomon, Tom Goes To The Mayor, Tim And Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, Blades Of Glory, E.R., Celebrity Deathmatch, Angel, and Mr. Show), Matt Price (who was also in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Legally Blonde 2, and guested on Arrested Development), and Annabelle Gurtwitch (who has guested on various shows over the years, such as Boston Legal, Charmed, Suddenly Susan, Seinfeld, Dream On, Tales From The Crypt, Alien Nation, Murphy Brown, China Beach, and Miami Vice). Despite these people being involved in so many projects I am aware of, everyone in this movie was barely recognizable to me. Except Jenna Fischer (Pam from The Office [US]), who played a VERY minor part.

QUIRKS: On the surface, this movie is simply 4 people talking over dinner and drinks for the entire movie. Melvin only knows the 2nd person at the table, who only knows Melvin and the 3rd person, who only knows the 2nd person and the 4th person, who only knows the 3rd person. [highlight for spoilers]→ Or so we think… There is actually one person who knows another person in secret, and it is not revealed until mostly through the movie. Can you guess who? Also, this movie goes BACKWARDS at times. The chronology is quite scattered, and jumps back and forth in time. Scenes happen, and then previous scenes are played, exposing the motivations in the previous (but occurring chronologically later) scene. It was reminiscent of Memento, Rules Of Attraction, and other such chronologically twisted movies. At least 10% of the movie takes place outside the diner — but that is usually due to flashbacks.

BAD STUFF: There is a LOT of talk, and ZERO action. There was a very moving conversation about ghosts that, while quite compelling, didn’t really seem to belong in the movie. Again: LOTS of talk. And confusion. Time-based confusion, and motivation-based confusion. It’s a mystery of sorts too, in that there is a major twist mostly through the movie. This movie occurs completely in your head. If you want to sit back and watch action, fantasy, and boobies, this isn’t it…

RECOMMENDATION: …But if you like intense conversations with friends over drinks, and enjoy deep meaningful conversations about random topics from the metaphysical, to adultery, to anal sex… Then this movie might be for you. It is actually written quite well, and has some very cutting, edgy dialog. I’m actually surprised that Daniel Waters didn’t write this.

CONCLUSION: This was a lot better than we expected. Carolyn seemed to particularly like it. I want to say she wanted to give it an 8 or 9. Myself, I’d give it more like a 7 or an 8. It was definitely better than the “generic pass” that I give most movies I watch. This movie would actually be interesting to watch a 2nd time, knowing the secret twists and motivations behind all the characters.

MOVIE QUOTE: Joey: “This belief thing kills me. It’s like, all theological concepts are basically unprovable. So they invented faith. Which was genius!”

FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Glen really liked it. (more…)

This post is quite long, but chock full of good recommendations — especially for animation lovers. Plenty of live shows too. If I had time, I’d post each one of these as a separate review. But I’ll never have that kind of time.

I’ve started to move towards listing weirdest/rarest stuff first, and more common stuff later… After all, everyone can guess that I watch South Park…

As far as awards go? Not sure. Best superhero endeavor is definitely Heroes. Best drama is Weeds. Funniest show is Tim & Eric, Awesome Show, Great Job!. Funniest cartoon is South Park — but Xavier:Renegade Angel has South Park completely beaten in ridiculousness, and Code Monkeys has South Park beaten in terms of freshness. As for live comedy, Sarah Silverman is funnier than Human Giant. Barely. But most of the good cartoons were funnier than anything live-action would have to offer.

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• COPS ARE STUPID: New London police are ALL stupid: Legal fight won by police, to exclude anyone from working if they are too smart
  Yup, kids. Don’t study TOO hard, or you wont be able to get a job as a cop. And if you see a cop? Just assume he’s stupid. That’s what this policy says to me. Retarded. Literally.
  And it’s perfectly legal to discriminate against someone for being smart.
  (tags: politics police idiocy stupid tests lawsuits NewLondon NewYorkTimes news articles RobertJ.Jordan testing standardizedTesting CharlesF.WonderlicJr. Wonderlic)
• MOVIES: New Kevin Smith film gets an NC-17 rating, despite being submitted to the MPAA 3 times so far
  Sigh. Yet another movie that wont be worth watching in the theater — get the unrated dvd when it comes out instead. Still, it’s great that the next movie is already ready!
  (tags: media video movies KevinSmith ZackAndMiriMakeAPorno Comic-Con NC-17 MPAA censorship sex pornography porn Starpulse news articles)
• HARDWARE: Why you should not buy an iPod if you own a Nintendo DS. Mastery over personal hardware is financially advantageous. Blog by Greg Z.
  If you’ve already bought a DS, you’ve already paid for a device capable of doing MORE with audio files than an iPod. Why pay Apple extra $ for proprietary, closed hardware that wont even play common formats, when you ALREADY HAVE something capable?
  (tags: hardware software music players iPod NintendoDS Apple homebrew mp3 FLAC OGG fromGregZ)
• RELIGION: YOUTUBE: Anti-Scientology protest by ANONYMOUS drew 9,000 people – SubGenius Rev. Twobeans addresses the crowd
  He compares Scientology to the Church Of The SubGenius, pretty much making fun of Scientology, of course.
  “We’re both based on bad science fiction, but at least ours is funny!”
  (tags: media videos reality protests Washington DC WashingtonDC politics religion cults Scientology ANONYMOUS SubGenius Rev.Twobeans rants)

He doesn’t mind it now, though.

• RELIGION: Pictured: The TV rabbit preaching hatred and telling young Muslims to ‘kill and eat Jews’. Tolerance is nice and all, but this is unacceptible.
  As bad as Westboro Baptist Church, Bible Camp kiddies, and other Christian fundamentalists are–I think Islamic extremist culture is far worse. Where are the Christians shows like this? If they had an equal military, it would be bad, bad news for us.
  (tags: politics religion Islam Muslims media video TV shows children puppets violence Jews Assud Farfur Nahoul SaraaBarhoum Israel Palestine inciting)
• RELIGION: Appeals Court: Westboro Picketing NOT Religious Activity – is political
  Speaking of Westboro Baptasshole Church — it’s always nice to see them lose another legal battle.
  (tags: politics religion Christianity Christians WestboroBaptistChurch legal rulings KansasCourtOfAppeals taxes exemptions signs)
• SEXUAL FREEDOM: First Amendment gives us freedom to peacefully assemble. Doesn’t that include the public? What about semi-public? Guess it doesn’t apply if you also want to drink a beer? Remnants of 1920s prohibition still oppresses people.
  We lost prohibition, yet the authorities still use liquor licenses as a form of legal and economic blackmail. Being naked in legal, drinking a beer is legal, but being naked where beer is served? OH NO, CALL THE POPE. Pathetic level of freedom.
  (tags: politics SexualFreedom sex freedom nudity drugs alcohol WarOnDrugs WarOnAlcohol prohibition liquorLicenses licenses art FirstAmendment PeacefulAssembly St.Petersburg Florida TampaBay news articles BillSchramm arrests ErociLounge penises statues battery batteryOnALawEnforcementOfficer bullshit charges JoshuaM.Culotta oppression)
• ABUSE OF AUTHORITY: Chicago Vs. Cripples Continues: quadriplegic man sues Chicago Police for beating him after he didn’t get out of a car when ordered (which he can’t actually do, right?). Comments attached to story make me disgusted to live in the USA.
  Amazing that Judge James Brown convicted Casares of resisting arrest. Considering they were NOT smoking marijuana, no drugs were found, and the charges against the driver dropped–this basically criminalizes sitting around in a car if you are crippled.
  (tags: politics AbuseOfAuthority Chicago police brutality policeBrutality handicapped beatings arrests resistingArrest quadriplegics ChicagoPoliceDepartment DanielCesares WarOnDrugs marijuana charges dropped paralyzed Judges JamesBrown bullshit convictions Officers BelindaBernal changingStories TargetedResponseUnit ridiculousComments)
• TV: Lack of Bandwidth Oversight Damages HDTV Quality – people don’t get what they pay for; providers compress signals to cram more channels in the pipe
  And this is why a scene-released HDTV encode into a full-resolution MKV file — posted on your friendly bittorrent server — will typically offer you better quality than actual service. Considering people already have internet, why even pay for television
  (tags: politics technology video TV HDTV quality bandwidth compression corporations TechnologyWar high-definition slashdot news articles p2p)
• SCIENCE: Stem-cells found to exist in lower-adbomen fat – lucky americans!
  Looks like we can get an inexhaustible supply of stem cells from liposuction? How about free liposuction, paid for by selling your stemsells? A lot of fat americans and people with genetic disorders could really synergisze here.
  (tags: science stemCells Eurekalert news articles fat bellyFat guts abdomen lowerAbdomen liposuction AmericanSocietyOfPlasticSurgeons plasticsurgery surgeries research studies ArlingtonHeights Illinois)
• RELIGION: >50 dissident Catholic groups write letter asking Pope Benedict XVI to lift the church’s ban on birth control, stop blocking family planning programs and condom distributions — Ban helps AIDS spread, literally killing people. Among other things
  The only thing more ridiculous than the logic behind halting condom distribution is the idea that 50 groups around the world need to get permission from one specific man.
  (tags: politics religion Christianity Christians Catholocism Catholics birthControl condoms safeSex diseases AIDS HIV deaths HumanaeVitae 1968 dissidents Popes PopeBenedictXVI Rev.FedericoLombardi PopePaulVI familyPlanning programs AP news articles)

baggy cutout vaginal

pouch rear snazzy? longfellow, ceil longfellow.
sodden conjoint predilect massacre scorpion conjoint, pouch
statesman rear dosimeter success lowland.

mysterious intact. (more…)

• MUSIC: Mark I’s RateYourMusic profile – 2,143 albums reviewed so far
  This is definitely Mark’s greatest online endeavor so far. And he shall start reviewing his albums. There is an RSS feed for his album ratings as well. His username is “HipsterScum”.
  (tags: music ratings friends MarkI RateYourMusic)

• COMEDY: Mouse computer mouse
  Dark. So dark. hahahahahahahahah. Geeks should love this.
  (tags: comedy hardware mouse animals mice Haluze media pictures)
• CARTOONS: Beavis & Butt-head creator Mike Judge interviewed by The Onion at The Onion’s A.V. Club
  I forgot that he has a degree in physics. This explains why he was able to pull off “stupid” so smartly. Good interview from 2004, talks about Idiocracy some too.
  (tags: interviews celebrities animators MikeJudge media video TV shows cartoons Beavis&Butt-head KingOfTheHill Daria Futurama movies OfficeSpace Idiocracy 3001 characters Beavis Butt-head HankHill DariaMorgendorffer corporations FOX MTV Hollywood TheOnion TheOnionAVClub AVClub DVDs censorship GlennEichler)
• CARTOONS: Beavis & Butt-head creator Mike Judge interviewed by Ren & Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi: meeting of the minds! ~10 years before the Onion AV interview.
  Heh. Mike Judge had me laughing out loud in his first response! And John K — he really got screwed. Which is why people should watch Ren & Stimpy Adult Cartoon Party, where he was finally free to do what he wanted for the first time ever.
  (tags: interviews celebrities animators MikeJudge JohnKricfalusi ChuckJones media video TV shows cartoons Ren&Stimpy Beavis&Butt-head Simpsons TheSimpsons ThreeStooges Rocky&Bullwinkle GeorgeOfTheJungle MontyPython corporations MTV WarnerBros WarnerBrothers censorship characters Beavis Butt-head Ren Stimpy Betty Veronica FoghornLeghorn PorkyPig SpeedyGonzales MyLittlePony Smurfs Disney BeautyAndTheBeast Aladdin TheLittleMermaid Mowgli TheJungleBook GeorgeLiquor voiceActors BobCamp residuals actors MelGibson DannyGlover AlPacino JohnGoodman OprahWinfrey Cher JerryLewis TexAvery InThe80s WildCartoonKingdom 1994)
• ELECTION 2008: Inidians, STOP VOTING for Mark Souder – he’s done enough damage already. Eliminate him from his position!
  Stop the madness.
  (tags: politics politicians MarkSouder WarOnDrugs drugs marijuana medicalMarijuana students health medical HEA HigherEducationAct SecondChanceAct PAC SchoolsNotPrisons StudentsForASensibleDrugPolicy SSDP Republicans Democrats StopTheDrugWar news articles elections Election2008 Indiana)
• TECHNOLOGY WAR: Spammer kills self, wife, child, after escaping from prison
  Hear that spammers? Stop spamming! One spammer can incrementally waste hundreds of lifetimes worth of peoples’ time. Too bad about his family, though. But this is still a technopolitical victory for internet users worldwide. You spam? You die.
  (tags: politics TechnologyWar technology internet email SPAM spammers murder suicide shootings deaths escaped Bennett Colorada SeattleTimes news articles EdwardDavidson Denver)
• SEXUAL FREEDOM: What’s tougher to get than a same-sex marriage? A same-sex divorce. Separation of church & state does not exist when a state only defines marriage in terms of one religion’s definition.
  Incl list of benefits heterosexual divorcees get, but gay divorcees don’t. This is discrimination, plain and simple. And calling them civil unions doesn’t work either — remember “Blacks only” water fountains? Separate but equal means broken.
  (tags: politics SexualFreedom sex marriage divorce gay gayMarriage gayDivorce finance taxes penalties discrimination Massachusetts RhodeIsland DavidPaterson Oklahoma California LATimes news articles)
• MUSIC: CELTIC FROST: The Emperor’s New Hairline, by John The Canadien
  Another great blog rant from John — I had no idea that Kurt Cobain was a Celtic Frost listener!
  (tags: friends JohnTheCanadien blogs articles rants music metal blackmetal deathmetal thrashmetal bands CelticFrost KurtCobain Nirvana Anthrax Sepultura Triptykon TomWarrior MartinAin)

[IMDB link] [Netflix link] Yet another movie we’d both voluntarily ignored — for 14 years. But after my ex-co-worker with the most-similar-taste-ever Scott S swore by it, I decided to give it a chance and queued it. A couple years later it finally arrived at our house. IMDB rating is 6.5 so we had higher hopes than we had during some of the recent movies we’ve watched.

PEOPLE: Jim Carrey is one of those people who I think pretty much makes any movie he stars in (though there are exceptions). And Sean Young?! Again?! I didn’t know who she was, and we end up seeing 2 movies with her within a couple weeks. [highlight for spoilers]→ And she plays a woman that is really a man in both movies! And Courteney Cox as well! And… Tone Loc?!?!? WTF?!?!? Remember “Wild Thing”?

QUIRKS: Jim Carrey did his usual extreme-craziness, often with hilarious results. But he still seemed to fall flat in a few places. Sometimes his funniness just came off as annoying — which is not how we usually perceive him. Maybe it was more novel in 1994.

BAD STUFF: Football. It starred a bunch of football people that I couldn’t give two shits about. At least the plot itself did not revolve around the game football — or I would have been severely disappointed. It did revolve around football athletes, however. Yuck. And, as mentioned before, Carrey came off as simply annoying at times. It’s also annoying that the Network TV version has a lot of scenes that the DVD version does not have! WTF?! Thanks, Hollywood. Looks like only the downloaders get the real movie.

CONCLUSION: Despite Carrey providing an imperfect performance (and co-writing the screenplay), it was still laugh-out-loud funny in many points… Especially when he has to convince the psychiatrist that he is crazy (something Carrey is quite qualified to do in real life). It was cool how he was a better detective than the actual police, although [highlight for spoilers]→ it may be that the police were deliberately being bad detectives due to the Sean Young cover-up angle. It seems that a LOT of people have seen this movie, and that was our main reason for watching this despite having no interest. It’s certainly not un-funny; It’s definitely a straight-comedy, which automatically makes it better than pretty much all romantic comedies. Straight comedies are the pinnacle of what we watch, but most are funnier than this. We’ll still check out the sequel some day (in the name of completism), but this one didn’t quite meet my expectations. It might have exceeded Carolyn’s expectations, however, since she kind of didn’t want to watch this movie at all.

MOVIE QUOTE: “Good question, Aguado [who asked Ace to solve the homicide of the roach he just stepped on]. First, I’d establish a motive. In this case the killer saw the size of the bug’s DICK and became insanely jealous. Then I’d lose 30 pounds… PORKIN’ his wife.” [at which point Aguado lunges at him]

COINCIDENCES: This movie and Dr. Jekyll And Ms. Hyde both had Sean Young playing a woman [highlight for spoilers]→ that is really a man! And this movie and The Adventures Of Ford Fairlane both starred Tone Loc! WTF! Tone Loc!

FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Christian D loved it. Benj really liked it. Even Glen liked it (?!?!?). Tatiana liked it. Dad didn’t like it. Ian hated it. A broad spectrum compared to most movies. (more…)

• P2P: Comcast faces class action lawsuit for shitty practices that it denied doing — but then the FCC stepped in and said “Yes you are. Stop it”. BitTorrent Users Seek Compensation from Comcast.
  If you’re a comcast customer, you should look into hopping onto the class action lawsuit. It’s really easy to get free money with these things. EX: The RIAA gave me $12 and I never gave them a cent after that :D
  (tags: politics NetNeturality TechnologyWar Corporations p2p Comcast internet bittorrent RST Sandvine interference RSTpackets TorrentFreak news articles RobbTopolski FCC)
• SOFTWARE: Launchkey 2.01 – command line tool to send fake keypresses to other processes
  Girder 3.0 can’t target Winamp 5.54’s playlist, so my randomize.bat can no longer send a shift-ctrl-r to my winamp to randomize my playlist. After an hour, I found this program and got it to send my shirt-ctrl-r to winamp again. Yay!
  (tags: software programs command-line fake keypresses keys LaunchKey Winamp Girder)
• OIL: US removes oil giant from Burma sanctions
  Yup, we’re quite willing to give money to oppressive regimes, as long as it gets us some oil. SURE it’s not about the oil.
  (tags: politics foreignPolicy USA Burma Myanmar oppression energy oil capitalism corporations Chevron)
• UFOs: Form NASA astronaught Dr. Edgar Mitchell says we have been visitied by aliens, but our govenrments have covered it up
  More fuel to the conspiracy pile. This guy held the record for the longest moon walk, and was on Apollo 14. I’d like to think that gives him a little more credibility than a random person.
  (tags: conspiracy UFOs aliens NASA astronaughts Telegraph UK news articles Dr.EdgarMitchell EdgarMitchell Apollo14 cover-ups)
• SELLOUTS: MTV Remaking The Rocky Horror Picture Show – with Lou Adler’s partnership, even.
  Just great. The home video release caused people to THINK they’ve seen the movie when they haven’t, and now they’re going to confuse it even more with a remake. No wonder people like the crapfest of Hedwig.
  (tags: media movies RockyHorror RockyHorrorPictureShow corporations MTV remakes LouAdler ComingSoon news articles WhatCanPossiblyGoWrong?)
• TECHNOLOGY WAR: Big Six UK ISPs Capitulate To Music Industry – no Net Netrality or Common Carrier Status there!
  Would you want your phone company deciding if what you were speaking was legal, and lowering the quality of your connection if it wasn’t? Considering the RIAA sent cease & desist orders TO A PRINTER, this is going to sweep up a lot of innocent people.
  (tags: politics TechnologyWar NetNeutrality Corporations RIAA internet ISPs VirginMedia Orange Tiscali Sky CarphoneWarehouse UK Slashdot news articles music copyright GeekPolitics)
• TECHNOLOGY WAR VICTORY: The Death of Nearly All Software Patents – good, good, good news. Software is essentially math, and should not be patented. There’s still copyright.
  With a company suing EVERY OTHER COMPANY that has a wishlist (OTHER than Amazon–too big), and with Amazon suing other companies over its “invention” of “1-click shopping” — the madness will hopefully finally be stopped.
  (tags: politics TechnologyWar technology software patents SuddenOutbreakOfCommonSense Slashdot news articles programmers programming)

• PHOTOGRAPHERS’ RIGHTS: Photographing thugs ‘is assault’, police tell householder
  Ludicrous! The Technology War attempts to deprive us of legitimate use of our technology. 25% as many cameras in the UK as there are people, and they turn around and tell the people they can’t use their own?
  (tags: politics TechnologyWar Photographers’Rights technology hardware cameras photographers UK police rights FreedomOfPress policeState DavidGreen policeBrutality)
• MUSIC: Mike Patton of Faith No More/Mr. Bungle/Fantomas/etc interviewed at| The Onion’s A.V. Club – first interview there for years
  I did not realize he made all the monster sound effects in I Am Legend! Neat!
  (tags: music interviews musicians MikePatton FaithNoMore Mr.Bungle Fantomas TheOnion A.V.Club IAmLegend movies voiceActing BionicCommando RockBand GuitarHero GuitarHero4 TheDarkness EnnioMorricone Ipecac SuperMarioBrothers Melvins)

NOODLE FIGHT!!!!!

Okay, I came here to post the noodle fight, but here’s some other misc detritus laying around my YouTube account, which is of late mostly a cesspool of videos of Beavis the cat (R.I.P.):
2007-2008 New Year’s Countdown:

Frustrated by spam:

Rocky Horror Picture Show montage:

Kick-ass top that spins for hours:

Chasing ducks:

And finally, some more noodle fight pics:

I had a very strange, long, extended dream involving camping at Elizabeth Furnace, and the Church Of The SubGenius‘s X-Day event. Apparently even Rev. Ivan Stang was too lazy to make it up to Sherman, NY, this year, so he just went to Elizabeth Furnace, where we normally camp, instead. But Elizabeth Furnace was all different — It had many more roads, and fenced off areas you weren’t supposed to go into, because they were Indian (Native American) territory. Somehow Carolyn convinced us to drive some weird way into Elizabeth Furnace, which basically wasted several hours. Our campsite was much farther away, and we were both drunk. Carolyn basically set camp up and passed out, and I was mad that we weren’t going to have the evening together. I started hanging out with Ivan Stang, since Carolyn was passed out. I hopped the fence into Indian territory and explored a bit — they had tomahawks and all kinds of cliche Native American stuff that would never actually be there laying around on the ground. I went over the fence and explored a bit, but alarms and such went off and we almost got kicked out. There was a big concert hall — something that really didn’t belong at a campground. Somehow me and Stang were hanging out, and he was completely trashed. Falling over trashed. Actually, I was stumbling a bit as well. Going to the restroom was an adventure. There were a bunch of normals around the concert hall, for some unrelated event. (And honestly, if this was happening in parallel to X-Day in Sherman, NY — why the hell would Stang be in redneckville Virginia? But dreams aren’t supposed to make sense.) Stang almost got in trouble and I had to help escort him out. I think eventually I stumbled back to the campsite and passed out next to Carolyn. The next day I was talking to Stang, and he kind of imitated something I said, but more like a sample than a human. He did it like 5 times. I was like, “Whoa, you can do the Hour Of Slack stuff in real life?” This dream was long AND odd. (more…)

• WAR ON DRUGS: Heartless cunt Texas District Attorney Susan Reed and idiot Attorney General Greg Abbott prosecutes needle exchange program volunteers for paraphanelia possession; ignores many studies, all of which say needle exchange lowers HIV infections
  Texas: your tax dollars at work: Making sure AIDS spreads. You can thank District Attorney Susan Reed for increasing AIDS. I’d say “Only in Texas” but this goes on in a few areas. Pure fucking idiocy.
  (tags: politics WarOnDrugs drugs harm reduction heroin addicts needles needleExchange assholes DistrictAttorneys BexarCounty Texas SusanReed drugParaphanelia syringes Chron news articles BexarAreaHarmReductionCoalition harmReduction DavidMurray OfficeOfNationalDrugControlPolicy ONDCP AIDS HIV SanAntonio RuthJonesMcClendon Democrats AttorneyGeneral GregAbbott myopic JonesMcClendon diseases prevention health medical dirtyNeedles)
• TECHNOLOGY WAR: FBI fights testing for false DNA matches — Interested in convictions, not accuracy. DNA match that would pass muster to convict in courts ends up matching a black man and a white man!
  Obviously DNA matching is not as good as the statistics say. “1 in 113 billion” odds should not match a black man and a white man. It’s no surprise that the FBI is completely uninterested in justice, and is fighting further investigation of this.
  (tags: politics TechnologyWar technology DNA testing DNAtesting FBI justice negligence statistics Arizona LosAngelesTimes LosAngeles California news articles CODIS science)
• RELIGION: My half-aunt’s new book: A Prophet’s Daughter: My Life with Elizabeth Clare Prophet Inside the Church Universal and Triumphant
  All about the cult my grandad started, and what it was like to grow up inside of it. She was supposed to have God talk directly through her, but stepped down when the imaginary sky fairy failed to show up.
  (tags: politics religion cults ChurchUniversalAndTriumphant SummitLighthouse CUT media books MarkProphet ElizabethProphet ErinProphet Amazon)
• RELIGION: REVIEW: My half-aunt’s new book: A Prophet’s Daughter: My Life with Elizabeth Clare Prophet Inside the Church Universal and Triumphant
  A childhood friend’s blog post about my half-aunt’s new book, A Prophet’s Daughter.
  (tags: politics religion cults ChurchUniversalAndTriumphant SummitLighthouse CUT media books MarkProphet ElizabethProphet ErinProphet Amazon)
• “SCIENCE”: What’s The Harm?
  A site listing examples of people harmed via alternative beliefs. Acupuncture? Caused 3000 people to need HIV tests in Canada. Ghosts? Caused people to get sued for breaking their lease. etc etc etc
  (tags: alternative information science psuedoscience dangers harm medical supernatural paranormal religion misinformation conspiracy conspiracytheories ghosts acupuncture scientology dowsing hypnosis numerology GPS terrorism chiropractors holistic osteopathy health medicine psychology fromDaveO)
• COMEDY: Bathtub kitties!
  The great thing about trolling this Romanian site is that you see the same type of shit you would see elsewhere — but with different items. I’ve seen schloads of bathtub kitties, but none of THESE ONES.
  (tags: comedy animals cats water baths bathtubs Haluze)

[IMDB link] [Netflix link] Why not watch this? We never saw the original (or the 8 sequels), and kind of wanted to know the story without having to watch old movies from before 1980. That leaves this as a logical candidate. It actually got a 5.8 on IMDB, which is actually higher than the average rating of the last 5-10 movies we’ve watched. The rating was higher than Night Of The Living Dead 3-D, the last “big horror remake” we watched. And the movie was definitely better than NOTLD 3-D as well.

CONCLUSION: This wasn’t anything spectacular, and purist fans of the original no doubt agree. But it was nice to finally learn that aspect of American horror culture, and to be able to learn it in a modern movie. I’m sorry, but 1970’s horror doesn’t cut it for me. Old horror staples like Frankestien or Dracula just aren’t scary to me; they’re ridiculous and make me laugh at a culture that would have ever found them “scary”. For horror movies to provide any real thrill for me, they must exist in a world that I can relate to. Which is, for me, a world I have lived in. The world of 1980 (when I was 6) to the Present. I have a feeling that if you held a gun to my head and made me watch the original — That I’d like this one better. No doubt tons of people disagree with me, but I don’t like old movies. Or old anything. I’m a modernist for most part.

RECOMMENDATION: If you don’t like old movies, and are a modern horror fan — see this so you can learn the Amityville story, which is no doubt a major influence in modern horror. It’s allegedly based on real-life events, and the actual people who were involved in real life supposedly worked with the filmmakers of this 2005 film. However, George Lutz (the real-life dad) denounced this version as “drivel”, and was suing the filmmakers at the time of his death in 2006. Perhaps the filmmakers ended up changing things that they should not have, but NOT KNOWING the original movie, I couldn’t care less. A story was told, we were entertained, and the ending was a “twist” compared to most modern horror movies — [highlight for spoilers]→ everybody lives! Weird!.

FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Ian didn’t like it. I’m hoping for a comment explaining why, and maybe some info on this movie as it compares to the original.

COINCIDENCES: (The Signal, Amityville Horror 2005) Two movies within a month or so that had a [highlight for spoilers]→ bearded patriarch of a couple/family go crazy and kill people, especially after seeing something on a TV screen that heightened his craziness.
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