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Awesome?
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So:
1) The cops tased an unarmed Stanley Harlan to death. J.J. Baird shot him at least 3 times – 21 seconds, 7 seconds, 3 seconds. 21s is a LONG TIME to be tased.
2) Officers Gary Breyfogle and Jared Dotson both initially said he was violent and they had to subdue him. Then later, they said he was never violent in a deposition.
3) Both officers admitted to DESTROYING RECORDS on the incident before turning in official report.
4) They had defibulators in case something like this happened, but they didn't bother to take them in the police car. Tax$ paid for them, but they coudn't be used.
5) County coroner Gerald Luntsford ruled it a homicide and requested an inquest–but guess what? It never happened. Special prosecutor Mason Gebhardt says he the coroner agreed no inquest was necessary. SO WHY ISNT' THE CORONER SAYING THAT? It seems like Gebhardt is lying to me.
6) That same special prosecutor decided not to pursue criminal charges. Fancy that.
Here's hoping they all go down.
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Why did the police even come? They called 911 and thought paramedics would come. They stupidly thought their son should go to the hospital because he got too stoned and was acting paranoid. Mistake 1. Then they called 911. Mistake 2.
Then the cops cam and shot him up with pepper pellets 40 times, and hit his mom in the head with a metal flashlight so hard her head had to be stapled, because she thought they were shooting him with bullets, so she tried to take a bullet for him.
Yea. Lawsuit rightfully ensued. $300,000 of taxpayer money wasted because 911 sends thugs instead of ambulances.
This is all because someone smoked a flower and had stupid parents who thought it was safe to call 911!
Deputies Missel, A. Sevilla, and Jon Auer need to get a clue. They should become rent-a-cops instead of real cops.
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Yeah, he was fired. But he was arrested too. For driving drunk. He did the crime. Did he serve the time? No. The Thin Blue Line protected him. "He already lost his job, that's bad enough." So the arresting cop doesn't even show up at a court.
He gets away with no convictions and our tax dollars paid for all of it: His car that he crashed, his job, the job of the person arresting him, the judge — all for nothing.
To the state trooper who let Officers Irving "Rocky" Simmons get away with it: Maybe one of your kids will be hit by a drunk driver? That would be some unfortunate karma, but you probably have it coming. If you don't protect the public, you deserve to not have protection yourself.
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The article brings up some points I hadn't thought of. The RIAA/recording industries methods are akin to inserting a camera into every car to make sure you're not using your car for illegal purposes. It's an attempt to take away our most basic rights of privacy. And they want us to pay for this out of our taxes.
They also make a good point about the pirate bay case — it is NOT the artists who were suing them, nor is it the pirates who were being sued. It was industry suing people for running a filesharing site. File sharing is not illegal any more than calling someone on the phone is illegal!
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Well here's one with ***15*** options instead of 3 or 5. WHOA. Good luck remembering all of this….
April 2009
April 30, 2009
April 29, 2009
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It would be nice to see more organizations follow suit.
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One of the greatest examples of the Thin Blue Line ever.
The police union, as well as 39 retired cops — are all coming forward to protect their drunk-driving comrades (like Officer Michael Couch, who pleaded no contest to reckless driving after being accused of drunk driving) from facing discipline for breaking the law.
Yes, cops want to allow cops to break the law. Wow. One of the people disciplined is the son of a county legislator. Daddy's connections gonna save him?
Police Chief Kevin Nulty is right not to back down. He sounds like what cops hate: A chief that wants cops to actually follow the laws they enforce.
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Wow. He wasn't wearing his seatbelt either.
Not only is he not getting criminally charged, but he didn't show up for a mandatory court hearing — sending his lawyer instead — and is trying to get out of the ticket.
He "doesn't remember" if he was pursuing someone (which would apparently make all this okay?!?!).
Now, how would the situation be different if a civilian crashed 103MPH into a cop and put him into a permanent coma? You can bet that person would be put away for years.
Officer Mark Maupin should be ashemed of himself. Go directly to jail. Do not collect $200. You are a disgrace.
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Cops were caught ON VIDEO assaulting people. When 911 was called, the cops went outside and waved them off, keeping them from filing an official report. That's obstruction of justice — but the judge let them get away with it, because apparently off-duty police are allowed to obstruct justice.
When the court case came, police filled the courtroom. The judge questioned the credibility of the accusers, blamed them for starting the fight, and said their testimony was conflicting. How dare a man with broken ribs go to the hospital 4 days later. When my mom's ribs were broken, she didn't realize right away either.
I think this case stinks, and I still think Sgt. Jeffery Planey and Officers Gregory Barnes and Paul Powers are pigs and thugs. And I think judge Thomas V. Gainer has a conflict of interest, coming from a law enforcement background himself.
This was last covered on my blog at https://clintjcl.wordpress.com/2007/06/12/links-for-2007-06-12/
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This is a disgusting case. It's often state law that an officer HAS to give you his card or badge# when asked. THEY CANNOT ARREST YOU FOR THIS. And the court verified this.
It's pathetic, however, that you have to spend money to have rights. No ACLU + No Money In Your Pocket. = No Rights. No Money = You would have a criminal record for the rest of your life for exercising your rights. ALL HAIL THE GREAT POLICE for serving and protecting our rights (hah!).
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Nano is an open-source replacement for pico, aka "pine composer", the text-editor element of the Unix Pine mail system.
…I'm moving into a new shell account on a machine that doesn't have pine or pico. And like hell am I goig to use vi unless I'm forced to! I'm glad this compiled successfully.
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And fresh after hearing about cop-on-cop brutality, I hear about cop-on-Marine brutality. Their crime? Throwing a loud party. Their punishment? Being tasered "6 or 7 times" in a row without resisting. Being pepper sprayed while sitting down doing nothing. And then being arrested for felony battery against a police officer, which is a fairly standard practice of corrupt police everywhere: Brutalize someone, then charge THEM.
These are *noise complaints*. This is driven by people's right to stop your soundwaves from hitting them. Someone's right to sit in silence overrides the rights of people to make noise as they peacefully assemble. It's something I've never agreed with. If you want silence, soundproof your residence.
It takes a real asshole to cause a group of people to be brutalized by the police just because they insist on living in an unnatural silence. The natural state of a group of people living in close quarters is noise.
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This is one of the most poetic police stories ever. There's so many things wrong with this.
1) Roadblocks have been found to be unconstitutional, yet police still run them all the time.
2) Cops think they can flash their badge for special treatment
3) Tasers were introduced as an alternative to shooting to kill. NOT for pain compliance. But this is what they've become.Throw all 3 together and we have a cop tasing another cop for getting out of his car and trying to flash his badge to get out of the unconstitutional roadblock.
This is so convoluted that I couldn't make this up if I tried.
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Duh. If you carry around a cellphone, you can and will be tracked — even without a warrant. And even in cases where warrants are required to track you, the government can get around this by setting up a fake cellphone tower (which they do).
Have fun getting your battery out, iPhone users!
April 28, 2009
JOURNAL: CONCERT: Freezepop @ Chief Ike’s., 4/16/2009
Posted by Claire CJS under Audio, Carolyn, Clio, Concerts, Journal, Media, Music, People, Reviews[2] Comments
So, Carolyn, Christian, Parthena, and I saw Freezepop Thursday 4/16/2009. It was Carolyn & I’s second time seeing Freezepop, and Christian & Parthena‘s 1st time. It was the smallest venue I’ve EVER seen a show at. The band was just hanging around like normal people.
They played 15 songs — 3 more than their AnimeUSA show. They played 10 of the 12 songs they played at AnimeUSA, a new song called “Lady Spider”, Tenisu No Boifurendo and Tender Lies from my favorite album of theirs, Freezepop Forever, as well as Ninja Of Love and Thought Balloon.
I basically had my foot ON the stage most of the show… if I’d fallen I’d probably have messed up the performance (haha). They pretty much solely did requests. I requested Freezepop Forever, but they said they can’t do that without Kasson Crooker. I also requested Robotron 2000 but Liz was like “We haven’t practiced that in 3 years!” or something.
After the show, I was interviewed with a fancy huge camera — in part because my T-Qualizer shirt and trippy outer shirt got their attention.
I had to sign a model release and everything! They gave me their card and had recorded 35 hours of total footage so far. They liked my shirt so they said I’d probably make the final cut of their Freezepop documentary. I hope to obtain the footage someday, but I know that’s quite unlikely.
It was also the birthday of one of the members, so there was cake. Which was shared with the audience! (Unfortunately it was coffee cake.)
I also went up and talked to Liz Enthusiasm a bit afterward, and said “Bye Jussi!” to kind of freak her out that I knew her real name :)
I was also caught on video during “The Final Countdown“, the only cover song they play… which seems to be the final song of their performances…
^ You can see Carolyn and Christian at the end. Parthena‘s in there too if you know where to look, but is not recognizable. My shirt sticks out like a sore thumb and you can see me moving around like an idiot. Kind of embarassing, but I was probably having more fun than whoever might want to watch the video and make fun of me was having at the time :)
After the show ended, I took Parthena home and Christian came in and chatted for 45min followed by one of the unaired episodes of the excellent failed adult cartoon Slacker Cats. Carolyn did NOT get much sleep that night and needed a nap after work the next day :)
The full setlist for this concert is posted HERE. Here are Christian’s videos from the show:
Super Sprode:
Tenisu No Boifurendo:
Science Genius Girl:
cake!!!:
To see every concert I’ve ever been to, go to my List Of All Concerts page. (more…)
April 28, 2009
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I have owned this game, by famous game creator Steve Jackson — as well as the Church Of The SubGenius expansion pack cards — for about 3 years. He was raided by the secret service for his game-creating/online BBS activities! And the secret service lost their court case…
I would love a chance to play it, but it requires 4+ people, 2+ hours, and tons of rules.
It hasn't happened yet.
Serious gamers apply within. I MUST PLAY THIS!
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What the hell? A NoMeansNo tribute band that seems almost Microsoft Songsmith inspired? Jazzy, elevator-musicy, country-ish covers of NoMeansNo's punk[ish] originals??!?!?!?!?! Wow. Just… Wow.
And yes, you can rip mp3s out of the profile with FreeMusicZilla, provided you view the page with Internet Explorer and not Mozilla Firefox.
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Yup — we're STILL fighting in the courts for the right to backup and shift the content on our DVDs. Nevermind that we've been able to legally do this with CDs. Somehow DVDs are "different". And the fight goes on. DVDXcopy lost; but RealNetworks has much deeper pockets.
This comment really explains things well:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1211221&cid=27718657Nice choice on judges – the same judge that shut down Napster. Because that stopped piracy (hahaha).
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This guy was not a nice guy… at all. But I still find $2.7M to be a paltry low sum compared to having your legs. Would you sell your legs for $2.7M? No, I didn't think so. And even if you did — that money could be eaten up pretty fast by things like, oh, not being able to find work because you are crippled.
It seems getting arrested frequently comes with the punishment of being denied your medicine. $2.7M is also probably not enough to get a police department to change its policies, either.
They let his body get down to 84 degrees with multiple organ failure!
And, as always, there are comments saying this is the right thing, that he should have gotten worse, that he had it coming to him, etc. If I had magic wishing power, I'd wish those commenters to be falsely arrested so they can get the same treatment they wish upon others. That would be just.
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Merck already has blood on their hands from the Vioxx debacle. You see, the US and New Zealand are the only first world countries to allow direct marketing of prescription drugs to consumers. This creates a huge market to make profit on — and that is more important to a soulless corporation than the damage it does. It is in this exact way that unchecked capitalism can actually make a system worse — and kill people in the process.
April 26, 2009
VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: Chemical Wedding (2008)
Posted by Claire CJS under Carolyn, Clio, Media, Movies, People, Reviews, Video[2] Comments
[IMDB link] [Not currently available on Netflix.] This was about Alistair Crowley, who I’ve probably been intersted in since hearing “Mr. Crowley” by Ozzy Osbourne. :)
PEOPLE: Nobody significant, exceeeept: Bruce Dickinson, singer of Iron Maiden, co-wrote this. And he plays the landlord/blind man (uncredited). First I see Bon Jovi in Cry_Wolf, and now this?! It’s bad enough with Marky Mark being in movies. Singers shouldn’t act. They especially shouldn’t write movies (yes, this applies to Quest For Festeroo too). Please make it stop.
QUIRKS: Oh God please make it stop. Basically, Crowley spends 4 days resurrecting himself into the body of Simon Callow, a university teacher. At one point, he pisses on his class. Actually, there may be TWO pissing scenes.
BAD STUFF: Everything. Confusing and random. The script is poor. The camerawork is poor. Poor acting. They don’t really make it clear that the one character in the beginning is L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the dangerous cult of Scientology. They don’t emphasize what is significant.
I needed a LOT of explaining from Carolyn, who can pick up on character subtleties better than me. Usually movies that confuse me this much are anime movies that confuse me because the characters names are all long Japanese names, and they are animated with perfect facial features that aren’t very distinctive. But I had similar problems with this movie simply because everything was so poorly done.
CONCLUSION: This was the worst movie I’ve watched in a long time. Carolyn sort of disagreed. Sort of. She said she saw the POTENTIAL this movie had, but that it didn’t live up to it. There is a good story, but it was trapped inside the movie, like a sculpture is trapped inside a block of wood until you carve it out.
While that may be the case, currently this movie just SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKS ass.
RECOMMENDATION: Usually in this section I recommend what kinds of viewer should watch something. But this recommendation is for one of the creators, not one of the viewers:
Bruce Dickinson, please go back to making shitty music I don’t like, and stop making shitty movies I don’t like. I already know not to listen to Iron Maiden (Yea, I’m into metal, but hate Maiden. Sue me.), but I didn’t know not to watch this movie because it wasn’t called “Iron Maiden”. Oh the horror.
FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Nobody watched this, but IMDB gave it a 5.2. It is NOT deserving of this rating. (more…)
April 25, 2009
April 24, 2009
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Contra Costa County drug users can be safe in knowing they can possess up to a gram of meth or coke, or a half-gram of heroin, or 4 ecstasy pills — and not even get charged.
If the economy truly goes into the shitter — the war on drugs will be one area in which we can easily save money. There's no point spending money prosecuting people for non-violent victimless consensual behavior.
The police don't like this one bit. They've said they will continue to arrest people, even if the prosecutors don't charge them. So literally, they're going to waste taxpayer money arresting people that wont go to jail.
The police don't seem to understand that their job is to nab those people who would be prosecuted, not arrest people who wont be charged. It's not their decision whether people are charged; that is part of the judiciary branch. They fail at understanding that they are dependent on other branches of the government.
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ABUSE OF AUTHORITY: Parents say police beat autistic boy so hard he had to get 8 staples in his headNice job, cops. Running away isn't a crime in and of itself — especially if you're mentally disabled. This kid was literally in front of his parents when it happened, but that made no difference. Hit with a club in the head so hard 8 staples were needed. "Try asking more nicely", the autistic kid says in the included video.
Of course, anyone following police news knows Chicago has one of the most brutally corrupt police forces in the nation.
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Officials return 12 pounds of medical marijuana confiscated from Visalia man — but it took them 4 months. Including refusing to give it back until a judge clarified how much. ("All", said the judge.) They still took 3 ounces and waited an extra week for no reason.
You gotta love civil rights. Voters vote to enact a law, and 13 years later the cops ignore their own law! These weren't feds, these were local police who are supposed to obey local law.
Personally, I think the officers and prosecutors involved should be summarily dismissed for violating state law. And they should have to pay the legal costs out of their own pockets, because they were following their own will instead of state law. But you know that would never happen — officers have de facto immunity, even when breaking the law.
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That's backwards. You can't search someone without a warrant. You certainly count search them, then run a warrant check AFTERWARD, then make up that there were warrants when there weren't. That's ass-backwards. It's funny how he was so stupid as to not think a COMPUTER CHECK would be logged!
And it looks like the police now consider Officer David Anthony Hernandez a piece of shit liar, and are now charging him with perjury and filing a false police report.
It seems like lately there is a lot of news about police actually getting in trouble for their wrongdoings. That's a good thing. But how many people were harassed and falsely imprisoned by this guy in the past?
Two rights don't correct the wrongs that were done anymore than two wrongs make a right. You can bet peoples' lives were illegally ruined by this man.
You gotta love how the War On Drugs escalated running roughshod over people's constitutional rights. The War On Terror of course has taken things even farther.
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Do our tax dollars really have to go to defending cops pushing down old people on christmas? Jesus. It's true that you don't have to legally stop for package checks at stores. That doesn't mean you can push the people to the ground.
Kenneth Freeman and Edwin McPherson should be ashamed of themselves.
$21M is excessive — except it's the only way police departments can be made to take policy seriously. You don't go around assaulting people. (Unless you're a cop.) And because of the Thin Blue Line, when the cops were called, and came — the assaulting people were not arrested or charged. This isn't how normal civilians would be treated. This is special treatment.And thus, Larry Robbins Jr. and Paul Crosby are now defendents as well.
Hopefully the Wal-Mart caught this on their surveillance cameras.
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So wait…. It's illegal to broadcast a channel? What exactly goes on on the "Hezbollah channel"? Recruitment. I can see this being a "material support of terrorism" charge (which is kind of a b.s.-ey charge open to interpretation–like disorderly conduct), but what does broadcasting a channel really do? Did he produce it? Did he film it? Did he collect the money? Did he recruit terrorists? Did he send his money over to Hezbollah?
This almost strikes me as a free speech/press issue. I can sort of see where the courts are coming from, but a channel is just that: A channel. They don't like what is being said/broadcast on said channel, so it's illegal for someone to sell it through a cable company? Very interesting. I'm sure the channel is full of terrible things, but isn't that for us to judge for ourselves, and not a nanny state?
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"Which would you choose?", Carolyn asked me.
"For what?", I said.
"If you were on a desert island?"
My kneejerk response: the one on the right. I could fuck it AND eat it with less guilt. I'd feel guilty about eating the mermaid on the left.But really… this is an important topic that warrants much discussion! haha
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[cute filler content of the day]
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And it only took 4 yrs for the truth to come out. Wow. You think it would go so slow if you or me were to rough somebody up? Justice always moves slower if it's against the police. Thin blue line.
Robert Osborne, Jr., Thomas Hardin Sr., and Thomas Hardin Jr. should never be allowed to be a cop anywhere. They can be a bouncer at some redlight district strip club, if that's the kind of people they are. They don't deserve to serve the public. The public deserves better. They fought this for 4 years — being paid with our tax money the entire time.
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Typical.
Yes, releasing the recording is illegal. but the department was basically ignoring what had happened! Gloucester police Chief John Beaudette was acting against the public's best interest (and is probably a douchebag).
Situations like this should fall under whistleblower protection laws. The truth should be an absolute defense. Governor should pardon him if he is convicted.
It's nice to see that Internal Affairs investigations can sometimes be done right!
April 23, 2009
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Typical corporate behavior – they say they want a free market when it reduces government regulation, but when they face competition, they then ask for regulation to stop a free market.
This is somewhat akin to Coca-Cola lobbying Fairfax County [my count] Water Authority for daring to compete with Daisani water [bottled by Coke].
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All Bookabooka does is allow you to list a catalog of what books you have online, and share them with other people. By physically mailing them the book.
This is basically a public library. And they're being sued by the local copylords.
This is what happens with copyright. Everytime you give the corporations a new line, they will overstep it. Similar to how law enforcement behaves.
Remember when the record companies sued VHS and beta? Or when they tried to ban used cd stores? They'll never stop. Flailing dinosaurs will do anything to survive.
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Judges are supposed to recuse themselves from cases if there is a conflict of interest. The defending lawyer is now calling for a mistrial. The copyright industry has really bungled things. Meanwhile, Pirate Party membership in Sweden has skyrocketed after the verdict.
The dinosaurs are flailing again. Flail, dinosaurs, flail.
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I probably could have just viewed this JPG rather than watched the whole Season 1 of The Swan… This pretty much shows what happened. They took so-so to slightly-ugly chicks and made them hot. Yay, hot!
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example: the Edward Scissorhands poster is re-titled "can't fucking MASTURBATE". Good stuff.
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Everyone's seen this chart for Election 2004 — states sorted by IQ, with who they voted for. Virginia being the smartest state to still vote for Bush.
Is there an updated version of this chart for the 2008 election? It seems like it would be easy to create.
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Things you probably shouldn't do to drunk people who are passed out…
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Can we say Thin Blue Line? they denied him medicine AND bail — until an ambulance was called. And he was a cop!
He violated the code of the Thin Blue Line: Don't speak of other officers misconduct.
Many authority-apologists blast the ACLU for defending people who are brutalized by cops. I wonder what they will say about this?
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If I used mousepads… I'd want one of these… Awesome.
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Mmmmmmn
April 23, 2009
JOURNAL: CELEBRITIES: I once blew off the guy who wrote the Cheers theme song… Time to make it up to Gary Portnoy.
Posted by Claire CJS under Anecdotes, Celebrities, Clio, Journal, Live-Action Shows, Media, People, Video[4] Comments
Yes, I blew him off, unfortunately.
Sometime around March 1st, 2000 — a year after moving out of my parents house — my Mom called me to tell me that someone had called looking for me. This had only happened once prior; an ex-girlfriend who I refused to call back. He had, apparently, found my video list online, figured out my last name (which I now try not to mention, but didn’t care bout back then), paid attention to where I lived, and gone through the phonebook and found our phone number. He was the only person to ever use my webpage to call me. But I had moved out, so he talked to my mom. She gave him my email address instead, but pretended that she wasn’t sure it was the right address — presumably to leave me an out if I decided not to reply.
On March 2nd, 2000, I received an email from Gary Portnoy. He had stumbled upon my vhs video catalog and noted that I had taped the final episode of Cheers. Hello. His email said: “My name is Gary Portnoy. I am a songwriter living in New York. I am the writer and the singer of the theme from “CHEERS” (Where Everybody Knows Your Name). / I would very much like to speak with you about a video in your collection, as listed on your web site. / I spoke with your mom. She wasn’t sure if this was still your e-mail address or not, but I figured it was worth a try. (She said she would speak to you within the next day or so.) / If you could, I would really appreciate it if you would call me at 914-666-xxxx tonight (Thursday) or tomorrow morning, or at 212-246-xxxx on Friday afternoon, or back at 914-666-xxxx on Saturday. I realize this is a long distance call for you; I promise to cover the charges. Or, if you prefer, I would be happy to call you. / I hope this doesn’t seem too crazy to you. I hope to hear from you soon.”
I always liked to imagine this being said in the voice of Lionel Hutz (Phil Hartman) from The Simpsons. “Hi! My name is Gary Portnoy! You might remember me from such classic TV themes as Cheers, Punky Brewster, and Mr. Belvedere!”
It actually was a bit too crazy for me. I found out that what he wanted was a copy of my VHS recording of the last episode of Cheers. It was a bit too much for me at the time, so I eventually stopped responding.
By the way, my personal VHS recording of the Cheers Series Finale DOES NOT contain the post-show segment, where the cast comes out of the Cheers bar and seems to be visibly drunk in real life. I don’t think that bit was released on DVD, because Cheers was highly controversial in that it took place in a bar and thus tacitly endorsed drinking, and then sold it to families where children would watch people drink all the time. Bad P.R. Recall that That 70’s Show had a HUGE backlash before episode #1 aired simply because they smoked pot in it. Nothing has really changed…. So anyway, if someone could find that segment and let me know where to get it — I’d love to see it again. In case no one remembers, that night in 1993 was a big deal, as Cheers had run for 11 years:
So this was a weird experience that I figured I should write down before I forget the details. (I had to GREP txt files of old acm.vt.edu email dumps just to figure out what happened to blog this…)
I’d dealt with online people on the phone before — voice verification (to prevent fake/dupliate accounts) in the BBS days was a standard practice. But I’d never had a celebrity called me on the phone. I’d emailed with a few celebrities (April Winchell) and well-known musicians (Bobby Steele, Voltaire) before, but I don’t usually get a chance to talk to them on the phone.
So. That’s it.
For reference, Gary Portnoy co-wrote (with Judy Hart Angelo) and sung not only the Cheers theme song, but the Punky Brewster theme as well. He also composed the music to the Mr. Belvedere theme. In 2007, Gary released a new album, Dynasty, with a “full” version of Mr. Belvedere, sung by himself. Purchase that version DRM-free HERE for 99 cents. You can also get the full two-verse version of the Cheers theme song HERE. If those links fail to work, this is the link to Gary Portnoy (in general) on Amazon: LINK. It’s quite strange hearing Mr. Belevedere sung in his voice, instead of the goofy voice NBC chose to use. (more…)
April 22, 2009
JOURNAL: SUBGENIUS: X-Day: Dr. Hal’s answers to my “Ask Dr. Hal” questions
Posted by Claire CJS under Audio, Camping, Carolyn, Clio, Hobbies & Activities, Journal, Media, People, SubGeniusLeave a Comment
While at X-Day last summer, I had the opportunity to participate in “Ask Dr. Hal”, where people wrote down a question for Dr. Hal to answer. He is very good at giving 3-minute answers to 3-second questions. I cheated and slipped in a “two part question”, that was really 2 questions.
1) Why is the sky?
2)Why does The Conspiracy value cleanliness so much?
Awesomely, Dr. Hal managed to talk for six minutes to answer these 2 questions. Eventually, the Hour Of Slack radio show broadcast my answers. I extracted them and re-hosted them for my personal posterity. Now presenting: Dr. Hal Answers Clint’s 2 Questions:
April 22, 2009
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…In other words, the government can limit behavior between consenting adults if it determines said behavior to be harmful.
A shutdown like this has two components: The Democratic mentality of a nanny state where adults can be regulated against their will, and the Republican mentality that sex, sex clubs, and non-traditional activities are bad. Combine both parties and you get a recipe for taking peoples' freedom away. Libertarians and Independents wouldn't stand for this.
But hey. Keep voting 2-party. Maybe you'll eventually get that "Change" and "Hope"? Hah.
Nevermind that the owner of a private establishment can't let adults do what they want in his own establishment. This is the same mentality that smoking bans fall under. Nobody is going to the club that isn't willing to take the risks that happen at the club.
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This is huge. Never consent to a search — even if you have nothing in your car. We all must assert our rights to protect each other. If only criminals assert rights, asserting rights will become suspicious. And that's very dangerous to freedom.
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This guy's a hero, but also a perv (by American legal standards) for getting a blowjob from a 17-year-old girl. He is also being sued by another woman for allegedly molesting and harassing her during an arrest.
How many people think he deserves a lesser sentence because he's a cop who saved someone? Be careful how you answer. If a pedophile who wasn't a cop went on trial, do you think having saved someone's life in the past should lighten his sentence?
Or is that only if he's a cop.Amazingly, he will be allowed to leave jail and work as a cop during his sentence.
Wow.
You gotta love people like Stacy Hanson. Because this cop saved his life, he thinks the cop should get a lesser sentence. Does that mean firemen and anyone else who saves a life should be allowed to molest children and get away with a tiny sentence?
Will officer Hammond have to register on a sex offender list? It's not mentioned in the article. I'm leaning towards no.
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Neat stuff. A lot more sciency and a lot less comedic than your average Cracked list
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neat!
April 21, 2009
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[sarcasm]…because digging up the graves of your ethnic enemy is a great lesson in tolerance.[/sarcasm]
Wow. Par for the course for Israel, however.
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Turns out our brain creates proteins that act like marijuana at specific receptors in the brain itself. Further proof that the process of getting stoned is a natural one, unlike alcohol (drunkenness == the feeling of brain damage). This also might explain why some people are predisposed to smoke marijuana to regulate their moods — perhaps their brain is not making as many of these proteins as others.
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Bohemian Rhapsody performed with old computer equipment. Excellent music hack!
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Hahahahaha.
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But the Bush Administration decided to let her off, because they wanted her to defend the warrantless wiretapipng program — which she would not have done if she was busted by it.
Amazing stuff. Shows just how much influence the Israel lobby has, as well as just how far the warrantless wiretapping and the NSA went. Shows how hypocritical the Bush Administration was.
And I didn't realize the New York Times was sitting on the wiretapping story on the eve of the 2004 election. You think that wouldn't have influenced votes? Looks like the blame for another 4 years of Bush lies squarely on old media and the New York Times.
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Last I checked, we had freedom of press in this country. And that means covering events as they unfold.
I love that there are comments on the original news story that he was "interfering with a police investigation". The officer that arrested him had to jump a fence to do it.
It's no wonder they released the journalist "within minutes" of being transported to the command center.
I would hope the local ABC this guy works for would sue the local police department for violating their freedom of press, but I doubt they'd have the gumption.
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View here. Yes, I had to read all 113 of the alternate captions
April 21, 2009
VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: Joe’s Apartment (1996)
Posted by Claire CJS under Carolyn, Clio, Media, Movies, People, Reviews, Video[3] Comments
[IMDB link] [Netflix link] If anyone watched the 2007 film Bee Movie… This is where it *seems* they stole their ideas from. (In reality, they probably didn’t steal anything — there’s only so many ideas, and everything has been done.)
PEOPLE: Directed by John Payson — a nobody. Except that he directed The Residents Icky Flix DVD, something that ranks in the top 10 strangest things I’ve ever seen. (John The Canadien will agree, and we both have Mark to thank for forcing this on us.) And he was a producer for MTV’s Liquid Television. Which explains how the original “Joe’s Apartment” short that this movie is based on made it to MTV in the first place.
Also, Billy West (aka Stimpy from Ren & Stimpy and Fry from Futurama; also the star of Comic Book: The Movie) is the voice of Ralph Roach. However, in typical MTV tradition, most voice actors are not known voice actors.
Otherwise, the movie is mostly full of nobodies. Except Moby.
QUIRKS: Cockroaches. Thousands–perhaps millions–of swarming cockroaches. That you can’t control. That fall onto you. And your date.
And… The first ever feature film produced by MTV Networks.
Also, there was one moment that made Carolyn LAUGH HER ASS OFF. I had to rewind and play it a good 10 times until she built up a tolerance to it. It’s really just a 2 second special effect that words can’t put justice too. But that moment was at least memorable for it’s affect on Carolyn! :)
BAD STUFF: Some songs? That try to be cute? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. They’re bad enough that if you are previewing the movie before watching it… And run into these… They very well may scare you into waiting 2 or 3 years before finally summoning up the strength to go though with watching this. There are *TWENTY-TWO* songs on the soundtrack. But this isn’t a musical. There’s only a few songs that take over the movie. The rest of the soundtrack is probably background music being pushed on people by MTV.
CONCLUSION: Not the most memorable movie (I wrote this review 2 months later). I don’t really remember a lot of the particulars. I do remember DREADING watching this movie. It was at the bottom of our watching list for a few years. We finally watched it on a Monday night.
I think it might have exceeded our expectations — but only because they were *extremely* low. Still, it’s nice to not be let down. The movie was alright.
RECOMMENDATION: If you liked Bee Movie, you should watch this just to see the similarities. If you were a fan of the original “Joe’s Apartment” MTV sketch, then you might want to watch this for the sake of completism. If cockroaches make you cringe (as they do I) — you might want to watch this just to see something you hate being played off as “cute”. It’s an interesting juxtaposition.
However, if you want a great movie, or even a really good movie? This isn’t it.
And despite there being cutsey songs — this movie has profanity and such. It’s not for kids. If you want a cute movie — this isn’t it. If you want a disgusting movie masked as a cute movie — this is it.
MOVIE QUOTE: [Walter Shit, performance artist, has been lying in a pool of blood, pretending to be dead for 2 days]
Walter Shit: “I wanted to express how cold, how pitiless this city really is.”
Joe: “Nobody touched you for two days?”
Walter Shit: “Spitting doesn’t count.”
COINCIDENCES: (Bee Movie, Joe’s Apartment) Within a week, watched 2 movies that had insects talking to humans, where a human saved an insect’s life, creating a interspecies diplomatic breakthrough, where later there was a flower parading.
FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Benj liked it.
(more…)
April 20, 2009
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It was bound to happen, right?
Funny how they don 't name the other officer.
April 19, 2009
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This is the 24-year-old mentally impaired son whose parents have repeatedly had to call police on him to calm down. Being mentally impaired (craaaazzzzyyyy) is not a crime for the state to execute you for. The parents were the ones who called 911, and their son is dead because of this.
Tasers were originally deployed with the intent that they would be used instead of guns to keep people from dying as much. But instead, they’re used in place of wrestling a suspect down (or just beating him with a baton), causing extra people to die instead of saving people.
And the situations where cops shoot people? They still get shot and killed. All tasers really seem to be doing is increasing deaths, and increasing violence from police officers.
Too bad there’s no “811” where you can call mental health workers. They don’t shoot their victims. They’re far braver than cops.
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It’s amazing that the word of police officers alone can be used to turn a $90/hr IT professional into a homeless criminal. Why would someone making $90/hr be selling crack?
Nevermind the fact that one of these officers was fired for dishonestly in relation to a drug bust. Gee, that couldn’t possibly have anything to do anything, could it? James Schrimpsher should not be able to ruin peoples’ lives with his word. We still have racists and liars in this country, and they can and do become cops.
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haha, he was so fucking smug about what he did — tricking people into sending naked pictures, then posting them online. Revealing private sexual practices of married couples (i.e. that they were swingers). All by pretending to be someone he wasn’t, posting a personal add, then revealing everyone’s information to the world.
He was so fucking smug about it, even acting like he’d done nothing wrong.
Looks like he finally got his comeuppance for immorally fucking with many peoples’ lives…I’m gonna go leave another comment at his blog http://rfjason.livejournal.com/ where I was previously blocked when this first happened. He’s a dick and deserves your nasty comments.
Maybe Jason should have showed up to court?
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So, did you hear about this?
Or did you only hear about this when Michael Vick did it?
Now who should be held to higher standards and scrutiny? Sports stars, or the police? Who’s actually more important to society?I’m somehow doubting that it will be national news when a *COP* runs a dogfighting ring. Because in America, the diversion of sports seems to be more important than reality.
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This is a 130 lb man who was NOT drunk, but having alcohol withdrawal. After getting out of jail for public intoxication, he went in the back of a pickup truck. Cops encountered him, & used knee strikes to subdue him.
8 ribs broken.
Lung was punctured.
Put in jail and denied medical treatment until he died 5 hours later.Can you imagine what your sentence would be if you broke a cop’s ribs, and left him somewhere to die? I’m thinking 20 years at least.
What did the jackboot thug officers Jason Buckaloo and Christopher Jones get for killing a tiny man? Acquitted on all charges AND cleared by internal affairs as violating no policies. Yup – cops can break 8 ribs and leave you to die and it’s in policy!
Now all they face is a civil lawsuit, like O.J.
Can we say Thin Blue Line?
And of course we have our anti-being-on-a-substance mentality for all this. I seriously doubt he was harming anyone laying in the back of a pick up truck, but because being drunk is bad, he is now dead.
April 19, 2009
VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist (2008)
Posted by Claire CJS under Carolyn, Clio, Media, Movies, People, Reviews, Video[8] Comments
[IMDB link] [Netflix link] One of those movies I first heard about via some stupid rag magazine that was sent to my house inexplicably for a year (Nylon).
HAIKU REVIEW: Musical soulmates,
Looking for a secret show,
Find themselves instead.
PEOPLE: Michael Cera (Arrested Development, Superbad, Juno, Extreme Movie [which we’re watching tonite]) plays his standard awesomely awkward role as leading man, with the lovely but big-lipped Kat Dennings (aka daughter Marla from The 40 Year-Old Virgin) playing the leading lady. I’m not the only one who thought she looked like she could have played Bella from Twilight (aka Kristin Stewart). Compare the two of them: [1] [2]. She also reminded me of Ellen Page from Juno, but maybe that was because Michael Cera was standing next to her. They’re all good looking brunettes.
Ari Graynor plays super-hot-but-drunk Caroline, Alexis Dziena plays hot-but-bitchy Triss.
QUIRKS: Based on a book. Very musically-themed and music scene-themed. Michael Cera (Nick) is the only straight kid in a gay punk band. He’s the too-sensitive guy who just got dumped by a manipulative cheating bitch who happens to be friends with Norah, who happens to want to pretend to have a boyfriend — who happens to be Michael Cera. Hilarity and antics ensue when a drunk Caroline complicates his gay friend’s plan of hooking the two of them up.
Does anyone know what Nick’s ringtone was? Is that a Dinosaur Jr. song? I recognized it, and didn’t see any song in the soundtrack listing that seemed to match it.
BAD STUFF: The story of Caroline’s chewing gum? Sooooooooooooooooooo gross.
CONCLUSION: This was a really good teen romance/adventure movie! Nothing particularly ground-breaking or ultimately special or gimmicky — it was simply executed well. All the fun of a typical Saturday night teen caper style movie, yet with a deeper sentiment than the standard “kids just want to get laid” that you get from most caper movies (i.e. Detroit Rock City, Sex Drive, The Sure Thing).
4/5 stars on Netflix, 8/10 on IMDB (rounded up from 7.5 because Carolyn gave it an 8).
RECOMMENDATION: If you want to watch an adventure that is also about “musical soulmates” … This is a good teen romance adventure comedy film. By having well-executed aspects of both romance and adventure, this movie succeeds on several fronts simultaneously, making it quite refreshing.
SIMILAR MOVIES: Detroit Rock City is probably the most similar to this — but it has no real romance. This does.
MOVIE QUOTE: Thom: Would someone mind telling me where we’re going?
Norah: You know how some people like to eat at the same places?
Nick: Yeah.
Norah: Well Caroline likes to barf in the same places.
FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Ian realy liked it. Glen liked it. Lauren W said it was cute. (more…)
April 17, 2009
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Roger Cooper II of Ethel maintains he was strong-armed by troopers without justification: The suit alleges that troopers Williams, Wellman, Seacrest choked him to force him to sign a form giving them permission to serach his house. They then took off his handcuffs and told him he was either going to fight, or would be beaten. They then broke his ribs, and canceled an ambulance someone else called for medical treatment. Williams threatened to kill his wife and children. They moved to another county, but he drove through the original county — and they arrested him for possession of pain medication for which he had a prescription, arrested him again, and beat him again.
Wellman, Williams and Moore are each named in at least one other suit. In one suit, a dancer at a strip club alleged that troopers pepper-sprayed her genitalia after she was arrested following a fight at the club.
This is America. Hope you like it. They couldn't even name the cops' full names!
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Wow. This guy was the police *chief*. He booted a guy in the head, hospitalizing him. Then he seems to have fucked a 14 year old girl, getting away with an aggravated assault charge instead of the normal charge (Thin Blue Line?).
And there are STILL comments defending his actions!
Is there a place I can move to that isn't full of assholes? (Antarctica, I'm looking at you!)
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Nothing illegal was found. Some were charged with unlawful assembly, despite the fact that the First Amendment gives us the right to peacefully assemble. Some were given the catch-all bullshit "disorderly conduct charge".
16 of these 33 kids sued. Those charged just got a nice $20,000 payout — your tax dollars at work — while those only detained got $9,000 each. That's at least $156,000 of taxpayer money, probably much more.
All to finance a police state
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Guess which administration's lawyers opposed this change?
On March 9, President Obama issued a memorandum to all executive department and agency heads saying: "The public must be able to trust the science and scientific process informing public policy decisions," and calling for "transparency in the preparation, identification, and use of scientific and technological information in policymaking."
Obama's so far proving that he can spout bullshit lies as much as any other president.
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It's amazing that police departments can publish pictures of people arrested for prostitution BEFORE THEY ARE DECLARED GUILTY in newspapers, yet when they *shoot* someone, their names are protected.
Can we say double-standard? The police union is pretty damn powerful.
It sounds like the shooting was justified (though I don't know that they needed to fire ELEVEN times), but that doesn't mean the public doesn't have a right to know who was involved.
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Wow. This is big. They'll probably appeal it though. And The Pirate Bay wont go anywhere. Prohibitions don't work. This may be the beginning of the end for bittorrent, however. But probably not. Hell, people still use gnutella.
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Carolyn's graduation ceremony…. Tho we started taping mid-way through.
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The entire 1-hour graduation ceremony for … me … is posted here.
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"It is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the department of justice that they will not be subject to prosecution," he said in Thursday's statement.
Last I checked, just following orders shouldn't excuse you from a crime. See also: Holocaust prison guards, Nuremberg trials. "Just following orders" isn't a free get out of jail card.
Unless Obama or Bush are involved…
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No shit! In these "trying economic times", it's becoming more and more important to only spend money where it makes SENSE to do so.
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What would the cookie monster do?
April 16, 2009
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"What did your industry counterparts do within the last 24 hours?"
Good point, good point. I'm definitely following the police misconduct Twitter feed mentioned in this article!
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What kind of useless sack of shit buys into this crap? Thank you Wikileaks! The only free voice left in the world(?).
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Of course *I* have all the episodes already, but getting them in dvd quality will be just swell. You can't keep these episodes caged up like some kind of manimal!
April 16, 2009
VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: Wanted (2008)
Posted by Claire CJS under Carolyn, Clio, Media, Movies, People, Reviews, Video[7] Comments
[IMDB link] [Netflix link] A generic action movie in high definition? Okay… And oh, it’s based on a comic book? I did not find this out until after watching it, but now things make a bit more sense, as this has a superhero angle of sorts.
HAIKU: Wanted brings action;
Non-stop ridiculousness.
Crank is still better.
LIMERICK: There once was a movie named Wanted.
Whose level of action was quite vaunted.
Inspired by Crank —
That’s who they should thank.
Overly-serious viewers may be daunted.
PEOPLE: Angelina Jolie. And I daresay she looks hotter in this movie than in 90% of movies she’s in, due to her hair style and such. Tho going from “super frickin’ hot” to “super frickin’ hot plus better hair” isn’t much of a difference when you’re talking about Angelina Jolie. And we also have Morgan Freeman in a prominent role. And The Russian director? This is his first American film. The main character is played by James McAvoy, someone unknown to us. He reminds me of Toby MacGuire from Wonder Boys or something. He is a VERY UNLIKELY superhero, which is why he was well-casted for this movie.
QUIRKS: Based on a comic book. This movie… was also a broadway musical?!?! WTF?!?!?! And of course, 2 sequels are in the works already.
The main quirk is that he has a superhero power of sorts. It’s not easily describable other than “killing really good”. He can shoot the wings off of a fly.
The beginning of the movie, where he is just a normal person, is quite awesome in that they do a really good job(with voiceovers–something people seem to be against? but they are good for rapid characterization!) establishing just what a weasily neurotic loser the main character is. And they had to do this fast, because the movie ended up being 2 hours… And the egronomic keyboard used as a weapon is the greatest thing ever. (In a keyboard fight, one with an ergonomic keyboard would totally kick the ass of one with a non-ergonomic keyboard — not that that’s what happened in the movie.)
BAD STUFF: Completely unrealistic fight scenes. At least The Matrix used the excuse of… A matrix / false reality. But the unrealistic fights that go on here happen in OUR reality. Smashing a guy in the face with a keyboard, only to have bloody keys spelling out “FUCK YOU” flying at the camera (one of the AWESOME scenes in this movie) is actually more realistic than some of fighting scenes. These guys, somehow, caused bullets to bend around things. This was never explained in detail, although apparently these may be special bullets. A lot of stuff is never explained.
And the movie itself doesn’t really come to a SUPER-satisfying conclusion. Of course there is your usual triumph over adversity, but I think perhaps they didn’t want to close things out as much as they could because they were expecting a sequel. It reminds me of what happened with The Golden Compass…
The movie is also somewhat reminiscent of Mr. And Mrs. Smith, “except it wasn’t a piece of crap”, adds Carolyn. (Out of the last 300 movies we’ve watched, Mr. & Mrs. Smith is in the top 5 for us disagreeing. I loved it, she hated it.) But anyway — assassin guilds. Ruthless. In both movies.
CONCLUSION: 3 stars / 6 on IMDB. These ratings “feel low”, though. That is my “generic pass” rating, and this was a bit more than generic. I’m tempted to give it a 7 on IMDB.
As an action movie, this one definitely delivers some GREAT action. And since they make it plainly clear that they’re not aiming for realism here — the action is indeed a bit more unique than your average action movie. I look forward to the other 2 movies; maybe the franchise will grow on me.
RECOMMENDATION: Action lovers? See this. Angelina Jolie lovers? See this. If you’re not in control of your life, and you feel insignificant? You may just identify with the main character and REALLY like things.
MOVIE QUOTE: [first lines] Wesley: [voice-over] It’s my anorexic boss’ birthday. This means there’s a certain amount of inter-office pressure to stand around the conference table, eating crappy food and pretending to worship her. Acting for five minutes like Janice doesn’t make all our lives miserable is the hardest work I’ll do all day. My job title is account manager. I used to be called an account service representative, but a consultant told us we have to manage our clients, and to not service them. I have a girlfriend who I neither manage or service. That’s my best friend Barry fucking her on an Ikea kitchen table I picked up for a really good price. I’m finding it hard to care about anything these days. In fact, the only thing I do care about is the fact that I can’t care about anything. Seriously, it worries me. My name is Wesley Gibson. My dad walked out on my mom when I was seven days old. Sometimes I wonder if he ever looked into my baby blue eyes and asked himself “did I just father the most insignificant asshole of the twenty-first century”?
COINCIDENCES: Much like Hancock, this movie dealt with a “real life” super-hero in *our* universe. And the hero was quite unlikely. Though this time, he was a spineless loser instead of a drunk asshole. But both movies coincidentally hinge on the premise of an unlikely hero transforming into a real hero. Plus, we watched both movies in 720p :)
FRIENDS’ RATINGS: A few of queued it, but nobody has rated it yet. (more…)
April 15, 2009
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So now they want to make using TOR, proxies, and other anonymizers an aggravating factor in crimes? BAD IDEA, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation correctly agrees that this is bad. People need privacy. Criminalizing privacy, even if it's only in the context of committing other crimes, still constitutes an erosion of rights. How long until using one of these services is considered probably cause for being searched or wiretapped?
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This must be that change they're talking about…
Democrats == Corporate shills.
Republicans == Corporate shills.Obama appointees who had to resign, the list so far:
* Bill Richardson: grand jury investigation for influence peddling
* Tom Daschle: tax evasion
* Nancy Killefer: tax lien on home for failing to pay unemployment tax for household workers
* Judd Gregg: political differences over stimulus plan
* Annette Nazareth: reason unspecified
* Caroline Atkinson: reason for withdrawal not specified
* Sanjay Gupta: reason unspecifiedPeople who haven't withdrawn, but have had major issues:
* Hilda Solis: husband has 16 years of tax liens against his business
* Tim Geithner: tax problems
* Gary Locke: potentially-suspicious fund-raising history [michellemalkin.com]
* Ron Kirk: failed to pay $10,000 in back taxes
* Hillary Clinton: Whitewater (which apparently she is above the law on).
Claire's blog 
