Why they shouldn't ever be "Found"

So, last night (or early this morning, depending on your definition), I had an impulse to go buy the first season of Lost on DVD. I remember thinking the pilot was really good, and I watched most of the season, which was good for the most part. Plus, I'd missed a few episodes, so there was some new material in it for me.
I just finished watching the third episode, and I realized, for the most part, none of these characters can go home.
Take Kate, for example. Jack knew about Kate's background by the end of this episode, but he said that everyone deserves a fresh start. Unfortunately, if Kate gets rescued, the US government will not give her a fresh start. She'll end up in a federal prison somewhere for God knows how long.
Jin, as I remember, was doing some illegal dealings for his father-in-law. Odds are, he doesn't want to go back to that life, especially with Sun being pregnant.
Rose is convinced she'll die and Locke is worried he'll lose the use of his legs if they leave the island.
Hurley has loads of money to go back to, but, since the money's cursed, he doesn't want it.
God only knows what's going through Michael's head these days, but there's not much for him to go back to on the mainland.
Jack's a failure at life. 'Nuff said.
Eko's a legend in his own country, but he's trying to be the penitant man nowadays, so he's pretty happy on Lostland.
I understand that no one really cares about the characters on this show. It's the mystery of the island that brings up back week after week. But, really, if these people ever actually get off the island, they're basically screwed.

Aw, Christ.

I forgot my one-year anniversary on Blogger. Crap. Well, I'm a guy; at least I fit the stereotype.
Life's sucked hard since my last post. Really, all I want to do is go somewhere and yell, "Fuck!!!" as loud as I possibly can.
I was talking to one of my classes today about Beowulf and showed them a bit in Old English. They were amazed at how different it was. Someone pondered what English might be like in 600 years and stated it would contain a lot of text message speak (i.e., people would actually say "brb" instead of "I'll be right back"). I shudder at the thought.

The last, best hope...

Read the whole damn thing. Not half, not the first few lines. The whole fucking thing. It's that important (well, maybe not the Kenny Rogers stuff).
So, it's been a very politcal past 24 hours. I saw V for Vendetta, which I'll describe in a bit. I also saw Jarhead last night. Some of the views put forth in the movies were good and relevant, particularly given what today is. It's the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Three fucking years. Shit, man.
So, my boy woke me up at 4:45 and wouldn't let me go back to sleep, so I'm running on two hours of sleep; as people who've ever run on that amount of sleep knows, I'm fairly grouchy.
I tuned in to CBS Sunday Morning, which is a pretty good morning news magazine show, covering a range of topics, including an interview with Anne Rice and something on Kenny Rogers in a bit (damn, Kenny's released 63 albums. Damn, and he's on his fifth wife. Heh, and they showed some footage of Kenny and the First Edition singing "What Condition My Condition Was In"). However, it led with a piece on Iraq, as should be expected in this day and age.
First, it ran down exactly what three years has brought us, and them, too. For us, 2300 soldiers dead, 17,000 soldiers wounded, $230 billion gone (6.4 billion a month. Imagine what good that would do actually in America, or, specifically, in Katrina Land), and 70% of Americans think Iraq's been handled wrong. Fun numbers. For them, the bad is 30,000 dead, untold wounded, oil production (which was thought to be able to sustain them and rebuild them) is way down, electricity in Baghdad is on for eight hours a day. On the good side, millions have phones (cell phones, to be exact. Yay, Nokia.), a load of new schools have opened up, kids are getting vaccinated, the rest of Iraq is getting about 12 hours of electricity (which is way up from before the war started), and some of Saddam's horrific SOPs are no longer being carried out. So, yeah, some good news, some bad news for the Iraqis, pretty much all bad for the ole U.S. of A.
That's not what got me.
This is.
They then had pre-taped statements first from Dem. Rep. John Murtha and then from former drug czar and Sec. of Education William Bennett. Murtha went through the long list of bad stuff we know about Iraq. Fairly good, fairly strong (actually, he said a fact I hadn't heard before: the first-ever survey of troops in Iraq found that (approx.) 74% of soldiers felt America should leave Iraq within a year), but the man said nothing to write a blog post about.
Then Bennett started up. God damn.
First, some background. Dwainker, read this and understand why the job is so fucked up. Bennett believed in the following things and backed them while working for Ronny Reagan:
# Competency testing for teachers
# Opening the teaching profession to knowledgeable individuals who have not graduated from "schools of education"
# Performance-based pay
# Holding educators accountable for how much children learn
# An end to tenure
# A national examination to find out exactly how much our children know
# Parental choice of schools
That actually comes from his book De-Valuing of America, published in 1992. Anyway, that was just a personal aside. In my opinion, the man's a fucktard. He graduated with a philosophy degree (which, behind business, is the field you go into if you've no fucking clue what to do with your life. English is third). He then got a law degree from Harvard. I can find no record of his ever having been a teacher, or in education at any level. He worked for Reagan as chairman for the National Endowment for the Humanities for term one, and then as Sec.Ed. for term two-the sequel. Never a teacher, just a thundercunt (that's a shout out to my homey De-Wain. Yo yo yo).
So, anyway, back to my bitch session. There's Bennett on Sunday Morning, giving stats on how fast people died in WWII (dude, I did that months ago) and blah blah blah. He ended with the following:
"You know, it's true that [America is] the last, best hope for Earth."
"You know, it's true that [America is] the last, best hope for Earth."
I heard that and my stomach seized. I had to fight back vomit. This isn't just some trite little statement. This is too fucking far.
"Last, best hope?" First, that's from fucking Babylon 5. Don't fucking steal a line from fucking science fiction. Reagan tried naming his space defence initiative Star Wars and it got laughed out of Congress. Don't fucking try that, dumbass.
Second, don't you think we need to get our fucking act together before you say that?
Third, for a political figure, even a former one, to say that, that's fucking Nationalism, man. That's not being part of a world community. That's not even being the world's policeman. That's fucking elitism. That's fucking national purity. That's fucking Nazism, man. You fucking started a speech talking about defeating Nazis, and then you end it by basically becoming one yourself. Dumbass motherfucker.
This past week, Bush started ramping up the rhetoric about Iran, stating that parts for the roadside bombs are coming from Iraq's friendly neighbor to the north. Sure. So? Parts of those fucking things are from fucking US! US! Do you honestly think that they're not taking technology we sold them and are currently giving them and using it against us? Goddamn it.
i just want to scream all day
i cant take it anymore
There was a line in V for Vendetta that struck a chord with me. I'd actually been considering leaving the country and not coming back for a few years. Seriously, it's gotten to that point for me. There's Canada (seriously, what big, bad issue is Canada facing) or Great Britain to start with ('cause they speak my current lingo) and then figure out where from there. The last week has made me seriously consider it.
So, today, I'm watching V and Portman's character is talking about her parents and that her mom wanted to leave the country at one point (which wasn't an option in the book). The dad tells the mom that they can't do that, because then the government would win. The decision eventually leads to the parents' death.
That's right. That's why I can't leave. Even if it costs me my life (which I doubt it will), something needs to happen. It needs to fucking change. People are way too laid back about this fucking situation. Iraq, Iran, torture, wiretaps, Patriot Act, hurricane relief, Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney shooting somebody, No Child, gay rights, immigration, socail security, energy and oil. The list goes on and fucking on. You can fucking poll people all day to find out their opinions on this or that, but that doesn't change jack-fucking-shit. Vote in the damned midterm elections. Vote every fucking Representative out of the House. Replace the whole damn lot. Do the same with the senators up for election this year. Change the system by using the system. Get career politicians out who vote along party lines and accept golf trips to the Bahamas from lobbyists. Get rid of fucking assholes who threaten to use the "nuclear solution" against the party that's just fucking doing their jobs. The two parties are supposed to fight and differ on issues and filibuster if they fucking feel it needs to be done. That's why it's fucking possible. Eliminate lobbyists. The system needs to change. The system needs to change.

Heh. This is perfect for #50

So, look, I'm not really politically correct or uptight on this blog, so I must share this bit.
I've got Wheel of Fortune on in the background (it's on after the news and I'm too lazy to switch the channel), and Pat's introducing the contestants. The first is a burly guy who I don't care about. Next is a little Asian woman who is one of the most odd people I've ever seen. She's a major Wheelaholic, speaks somewhat broken English, and is extremely excitable. That's not why I'm writing this, either.
The final contestant's a woman in her late 30s, maybe early 40s. Pat introduces her as Tina Slutzky, and it's pronounced just as one would expect. I'm sure they talked, but I, unfortunately, could do nothing but laugh for a minute afterward.
Now that's a reason to post a 50th blog entry.

Heh. Suck on that, Brokeback

Sorry, but it just seemed appropriate.
Also, I have to say I'm glad that Crash won solely because it's a film that came out in May of last year and bucked the tradition of waiting until the last few weeks of December to come out to be "fresh" in the Academy's mind. Look, if a film deserves to win Best Picture, it's going to stick because it's that damn good. Million Dollar Baby came out in limited release on December 15, 2004. It didn't open wide until January 28, 2005. Yet it won BP for 2004. Seriously, that's stupid. Crash was at a film festival in late 2004, opened in limited release in April of 2005, and then wide in May. That's how a BP should be, not like Million Dollar Baby, Return of the King (December 17, 2003, although it was following the trend the other LotR movies had), Chicago (December 27, 2002), or Beautiful Mind (December 21, 2001). Gladiator came out in May of 2000, but did anyone really expect that to get BP? I mean, really? It was supposed to be Traffic's year, which premiered in, can you guess? December 27, 2000.
Speaking of Oscar winners and such, I found myself watching Shakespeare in Love today. I only caught the last half-hour or so, but I actually enjoyed the production of Romeo and Juliet in the film. Also, Judi Dench fucking ruled as Elizabeth. The woman was in the film for six minutes and totally deserved the Oscar she won. I'd also forgotten how many great actors were in the film, including Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush. I'm debating on whether or not to watch the film entirely or not. I mean, the end part was good, but I vaguely remember the other hour and thirty-three minutes sucking hard.

Oops...

Wow, I know Feb.'s a short month, but I didn't realize that I'd neglected this for almost a month. So, again, oops.
I just had to post this, because it's absolutely classic and absolutely correct:
"Women, learn to work the toilet seat. You’re a big girl. If it’s up, put it down. We need it up, you need it down. You don’t hear us complaining about you leaving it down."
Now, the other thing I wanted to say was that tonight's SNL was absolutely great. The past couple of seasons have been shit, but tonight's with Natalie Portman was friggin' great. The intro with Bush was fairly good, except the segue to "Live from New York" was weak. The monologue with Portman answering Star Wars questions was magnificent. Just perfect. The Jamba Juice sketch was alright at first, but awesome when the woman didn't want a boost and everything just froze. The Needlers sketch was shit. Yeah, that one sucked hard. Speaking of, the bit with Dennis Haysbert and Black History Animated Moments was fucking awesome. Wrong on so many levels, but great, still. Wow. The Larry King segment was meh. I missed most of Weekend Update. However, the Natalie Portman rap was brilliant. I mean, that was just bam--out of left field. The last bit, an infomercial for fire alarms that played 80s music instead of beeps was pretty funny, too. Overall, it was as close to an old school Will Ferrell episode as you're going to get there days. Definitely one to catch in reruns in you missed it this time.

Two quick things and then I'm shit-faced

Well, three. First, is it shitfaced, or shit-faced? That might be handy to know, actually.
Second, a student was complaining about scheduling the other day and I overheard her tell a friend, "Why do they want me to learn to speak Spanish? I can barely speak English." I kept a straight face, but that's probably my favorite line from teaching thus far.
Third, so, I bought Elizabethtown on DVD today and popped it in the ol' player. There's this one great bit where Alec Baldwin is describing an event in the movie as "shit hitting the fan, globally." I had forgotten to turn off the captions on my TV, so it was quite funny that when Baldwin made the sound of shit hitting the fan, the captions literally said, "Imitating shit splattering." I laughed a few seconds before my sore throat caused me to cough for about a minute. Ah, it's the little things sometimes, right?

I weep for the future. Well, not really.

America is doomed. We're fucked. It's been sliding downhill for a time now, but I think we're gonna hit "game over" in the next decade or so.
The main problem is that we are so focused on crap. A probe was shot off to Pluto today. Fifty years ago, that would have gotten a lot of attention and captivated the general public. Today, nothing. Instead, the big issues I see online are either the new Bin Laden single (understandable, but it doesn't really have a beat you can dance to) and that Reese Witherspoon wore the same dress as Kirsten Dunst did a few years ago. So? I mean, really, so? No, that's actually all I can say, so? Why's it matter?
We're so focused on the everyday adventures of Brad and Angelina (I can't bring myself to use the popular conflation [or portmanteau, depending on how French you want to be. By the way, portmanteau is not an oddity to Blogger's spellcheck, but fucked is.]) that we neglect focusing on important issues. Escapism has become the focus of our culture. I'll admit, I know a lot about movies, tv, and music. I also like to stay current on events in the world, politics, medicine, etc. About the only thing I don't give a damn about is sports, the world's most ancient form of escapism. However, a majority of people like to focus on their little corner and nothing else. In their spare time, they seek escape. Most people don't give a damn about terrorists as long as they don't attack their little corner. Really, I don't remember any public outcry over the London bombings last July, or over the Spanish train incident in 2004, or the constant violence in the Middle East other than, "Can it happen here?" Nothing along the lines of "How dare they," or "How can we help." No, just our little corner. Sometimes Americans forget that the British, French, Spanish, Palestinians, Ugandans, Chinese, Russians, and Saudi Arabians are people, too. They feel pain, worry about their own safety, have hopes, dreams, motives, and the like. If we prick them, they do bleed. Instead, we're so focused on ourselves that we miss that. That's going to end up costing us.
New Year's Eve, I ended up having a discussion with my father about the Roman Republic/Empire. It's a facet of history I've been fascinated with for a time now. The discussion was more of a lecture, me giving my dad long diatribes about Julius Caesar, the Republic-to-Empire debate, and the endgame. There came a point near the end where the Empire was too big, impossible to properly govern because there were too many issues for one central government to try and manage, and the borders were weak. There came a point where the Empire began buying off some of the barbarian tribes to protect the borders for them from worse hordes (such a nice word, hordes. No evil connotations there, huh?). Eventually, it all broke down, with the hordes who were in charge of those outer regions setting up shop in the areas where the Empire had asked them to protect. The Empire created its own replacement.
Anyway, it was that night that it really clicked for me that America is the new Roman Empire. We've a government that has no real focus other than snipping at the "other side" (if I prick a conservative, will he or she bleed less than a liberal?). We're trying to run the world to protect our interests. Honestly, isn't "freedom" a euphemism for "the way America does things?" We're spreading ourselves thin. Finally, we've been buying off the world for over fifty years now, trying first to keep nations from falling to communism, then just to keep us on their good or neutral side. Looking at this chart from a US report on its foreign aid spending, it's fascinating to see not only how well we've bought off the world, but how it's changed over the years. We've started putting a little more into China, which makes since. We're starting to buy off our replacement, which we kind of helped create, anyway.
See, if people were more interested in the world around them and what happened to get us here, they might notice. So many people are afraid of the US losing its superiority, of what might happen if we lose our dominance in the world. It's happening right now. Day by day, the old US is going downhill. Welcome to the bad days, the all-or-nothing days. There's no choice left. America needs to reinvent itself, find something that we can focus on that will unite the nation, get rid of partisan bickering, create jobs, etc. We need either a real war or a new Moon. The war would have to be against a real army not some puny-ass war against an army who can't hold a candle to us but can kick the snot out of us in some insurgency. [cough]Iraq[cough]. By the way, it's important for people to remember that this country was founded using the exact same tactics the Iraqis are using. Now, look, I don't really want to be in an all-out war. I'm just saying it's one of the few options that are on the plate. War's nasty, brutal, and takes more lives than what it's really worth. As for a new Moon to shoot for, there's Mars. It would take a total revamp of everything to get there, but it might be worth it. We'd have to do it by ourselves, no international effort.
Otherwise, unless there's some massive devastation that ruins China's economy, or we find out that Alaska actually has the largest oil reservoir on the planet, we're screwed. God, don't the future just seem grand?

Stupid talk show hosts should not be allowed to breed

So, the Dwainker pointed me to a video of Bill O'Reilly and David Letterman having a discussion on Letterman's show the other night and all I can say is "Oy." Letterman was trying to nail O'Reilly without any real footing. O'Reilly was just a fucking prick. I mean, come on! The man used to host an entertainment show himself. How can he really be seen as a serious news man. He's the Rush Limbaugh of Fox News. He has no real experience in political news. He's just a prick that a certain politically-aligned part of the country listens to. Okay, my favorite flub of the interview had to be on O'Reilly's part, when he referred to the British Intelligence agency as "M-1-6," which is actually the rifle made by Colt that's been used by the majority of our soldiers have used for the past 30 years, the M-16." He meant MI6, which pretty much anyone who's seen a James Bond movie could tell you. How can you host a polically-minded talk show that is bound to have talked about MI6 once in the past couple of years (due to their involvement in the Iraq Intelligence fiasco) and not know the correct name for it? If Letterman got it wrong, I'd say he was a moron, but that he doesn't really need to ever talk about MI6, so whatever. But O'Reilly? Dumbass who I think Letterman was pretty close about on the percentage of crap in O'Reilly's show. Sixty percent sounds pretty close, but I can only watch about five minutes before I have to puke, so it's difficult to say for certain. Whatever.
Also, I saw The Producers last week and really liked it. However, before the movie, there were trailers for two movies that I really want to see. The first was Thank You for Smoking, which has so many name actors in it that I'm surprised I haven't heard about it before. It looks really funny in that black comedy way. One part that really stuck with me was when the cigarette company representative defended his company to a mother who claimed that their product was killing her son. The line was something along the lines of, "It doesn't make sense for us to poison your son. We want him to live as long as possible so he can continue using our products." Beautiful.
The other movie was American Dreamz, which looks to be a satire of American Idol, George W, and terrorism. With Hugh Grant as the Simon Cowell part and Dennis Quaid as W, it looks really funny.
Well, time for sleep. I could go on, but it's going to be a long 48 hours once I get up in the morning, so I'd better rest up. Yay!

King Kong Sucked

Look, I'm not going to beat around the bush on this one: Kong sucked ass. It sucked way too long, and way too hard. I went in with low expectations because it was King Kong, a story I'd never really cared for. I figured with low expectations, the movie would easily surpass them. Wrong. No, it sucked.
Let me start from the beginning. Yesterday, my roommate asked if I was interested in seeing the midnight showing of Kong. Sure, why not. I had a free ticket due to a recent DVD purchase, so it wasn't really going to cost me anything. And I'm a midnight movie kind of guy, so I was alright with it.
So, we get there, get seats in a theater that ended up being only about half-full, and I proceeded to get popcorn and a drink. Now, I'm going to rant about the food a bit later, but let's continue with the story.
Previews come on and they're pretty so-so. X-Men 3 looked cool, yet another "Coach comes in and unites a team of players to get into the big game" movie is on the horizon with Josh Lucas starring this time around, and The Da Vinci Code's new trailer was shown (which, incidentally, caused me to do nothing more than groan).
Then the movie started. Naomi Watts is a vaudeville performer and she's kind of cute with it. Then Jack Black comes in. People in the audience found every fucking thing he did hilarious. I can't fucking stand the fucker. I've never liked him. Not in High Fidelity, not in School of Rock, I hate Tenacious D, I just hate the man. This movie did nothing to redeem him in my eyes. In fact, every frame of the movie with him in it gave me ADD; I started looking at everything but the screen while he was on it.
Kong showed up about an hour into the movie. Worthless. Later, at about 1:45, I was ready to claw my eyes out. At least the original had the decency to stop at the hour and a half mark.
The movie was three fucking hours long. It felt like six, but I was assured that it was only three.
Some people like to think that Peter Jackson is a directing god. The dwainker has always stated otherwise, and I've always known that he wasn't a god, but he was pretty damn good. I felt he deserved the Oscar for Return of the King because of the effort that went into not just that film, but the whole LotR trilogy. It was a whole long process that showed dedication, thought, and, well, balls. He made some mistakes, sure, but who hasn't? I mean, even Spielberg's record isn't perfect (from 1941 to War of the Worlds, he's slipped every now and then). So, Jackson could at least take on the story of Kong and make it look good, right?
No. There was so much soft focus in the damn movie that I'll be seeing blurs for the rest of the month. Naomi Watts looked cute and kinda sexy, but meh. The effects in the movie didn't really blend with the real stuff all that well, either.
There was also this sequence that was cut out of the original version, the spider pit. Several of the heroes fall down into this pit and are devoured by several different kinds of giant insects and spiders. It was completely, absolutely pointless. It only existed to gross out the audience, which it did. It didn't do anything for the plot except kill of characters who didn't need to die. Fucking worthless.
So, yeah, Kong sucked to me. Everyone will have a different take on the damn movie, that was mine. It sucked. It was worthless.
Now, here's my take on why movie theaters are going to go out of business sometime soon:
1. Prices are ridiculous. The tickets normally cost $8.50. Now, for twice that amount, you can buy the DVD when it comes out and watch it however many times you want. If you're on a date, you're going to pay that same amount anyway for two tickets, so you're not really losing anything.
2. Prices are ridiculous, part two. So, I bought popcorn and a drink. I looked at the prices and then saw they had a medium popcorn and medium drink combo. No price was listed for the combo, but I decided to go ahead and get it. It was $9.50, which, coincidentally, is the exact same price as ordering the same size popcorn and drink separately, so the combo had no value. About 50 minutes into the movie, I was out of popcorn and almost out of drink, so I decided to get a refill. The girl behind the counter said that they normally don't do refills on those sizes. Look, if I pay $9.50 for popcorn and a drink, how can they justify not refilling that at least once. Seriously, it's like 50 cents worth of stuff. The fuck? The girl went ahead and refilled it anyway since it was late and she really didn't care, but still, what the fuck? It wasn't posted anywhere, and the standard over the past several years has been free refills. They honestly can't justify that insane price anymore. Viva le revolution!
3. Prices are ridiculous, part three. This actually deals with movie making prices, which in turn affects ticket prices. Movies are made with insanely high budgets anymore, making it harder and harder for them to earn the money back. So, I watched The Island today, which also totally sucked ass. Here's the situation: The Island was made for roughly $122 million. Movie theaters have to pay a certain fee to show those movies. In order to recoup some of the money immediately, the studio charges some extra fee money. The cinema theater then raises its ticket prices regularly to cover those extra fees. So, some poor sap paid, what, $8 to see The Island and then ended up seeing a crappy movie. Then, because The Island only ended up making about $36 million dollars, the studio had to increase what it charged the theaters for their next movies to cover some of the losses it suffered from the crappy business of The Island. The theater then turns around and increases what it charges. Thus, the insane amount of money to make shitty movies affects everyone.
4. Stop with the damn special effects already. Look, stop making it so that you're constantly "pushing the envelope" with visual effects. They look nice, but I'm so damn tired of them. After Episode III, I really stopped giving a damn about visual effects. Make a damn film without using a damn computer sometime. Damn. I seriously hope that everyone out there comes around to the idea that a story and actual acting is more important than digital images, but I kind of doubt it. This is a problem affecting the entire film world, but probably isn't going to cause any theaters soon.
5. The home sound system has taken over, we don't have to do to a theater anymore to get "awesome" sound.
6. Other people in the theater are obnoxious, loud, and annoying. Here, at my place, I don't have to listen to people laugh at Jack Black's every move.
7. There are no new technologies on the horizon that will improve the theater experience. Theatre evolved when cinemas came about. Unfortunately, cinemas aren't evolving to react to DVDs and home theater systems.
So, yeah, those're my thoughts on the death of the cinema. Maybe it'll happen, maybe not.