Terry Schindler / Schiavo R.I.P.

Such a sad story. This poor woman has been brain damaged and in a nearly vegetative state for 15 years, had her feeding tube removed twice before, once in 2003 for 6 days, and now this time, for more than 13 days. Slowly starved to death. Bitter feuds going on. Arguing over someone's life relentlessly. Michael Shiavo must be a cold-hearted jerk. I don't know all the details of the case, but the least he could do is let her parents have her body so she can be buried near them. It's hard enough they lost their daughter to 15 years of very little conciousness, but to have him go against every wish for their daughter is downright wrong. At least now she is not suffering. And NUTS to the neurologist who claims she was not suffering in her final days. There is no possible way you could know what she was feeling, or how "conscious" she was. Rest assured, her soul was suffering more than you could possibly know. I'm sure her physical being was also suffering. No matter how brain-damaged you are, your soul still resides in your body, and no amount of court appointed doctor rhetoric can suggest she was too brain-damaged to be alive. May her soul now rest in peace.

The Incredibles and the Lost Art of Living

The critics over at DVD Verdict know their stuff. They are able to delve deeply into any given DVD release and highlight and dissect its inner workings. Periodically, they will do a review of a movie with 5 or 6 of their staff giving their own takes and observations. The recently released Incredibles review included a brilliant commentary on the story and themes of this cinematic masterpiece. Follow the link below and scroll down until you reach the section written by Judge Maurice Cobbs. It is a significantly engaging and expertly written piece on the downfalls of a mediocre society. It proves that today's politically correct views of equality and conformity are the detriment to a progressive mindset. It also proves that The Incredibles is the highly lauded and utterly brilliant film it is. The themes go very deep. They work on every level, and a plethora of levels it certainly has. I am reminded of another Computer Generated film I watched recently: Shark Tale. Although the film is set under the sea, it is about as deep as a child's first wading pool. You don't have to think at all to get its full meaning. Be who you are and don't try to be something you're not. Yadda yadda yadda. Sure, that theme has been beaten to death in so many movies, and Shark Tale is no exception. The movie relies on cheap jokes, big name celebrities and popular urban music to draw in its crowd. Look elsewhere for an engaging story. Namely, The Incredibles.


Follow me to the commentary

Cleverisms

Where do forest rangers go to "get away from it all?"

If a parsley farmer is sued, can they garnish his wages?

Would a fly without wings be called a walk?

Why do they lock gas station bathrooms? Are they afraid someone will clean them?

If a turtle doesn't have a shell, is he homeless or naked?

Can vegetarians eat animal crackers?

If the police arrest a mime, do they tell him he has the right to remain silent?

Why do they put Braille on the drive-through ATM machines?

How do they get deer to cross the road only at those yellow road signs?

What was the best thing before sliced bread?

One nice thing about egotists: they don't talk about other people.

Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?

How is it possible to have a civil war?



"Why do they call them 'Apartments' when they're already done building them? Oughta call 'em 'Builts'."
-Gallagher

That's Incredible!

Bought and watched the two disk special edition of The Incredibles Tuesday. Loved it, and still love it. My boss has the insane notion that the movie is boring. Can't imagine why. I think he is losing his imagination, maybe. Whatever the reason, I am secretly arranging an intervention: a person we'll call "Bob" is going to kidnap him, take him to a motel somewhere in the boondocks, and deprogram him. Soon, he'll know the joys he is missing!

Anyways, the second disk contains a short piece called Jack-Jack Attack which basically fills in the missing events during the movie when the poor babysitter Kari learns of Jack-Jack's true powers, and the ensuing hilarity is not to be missed!! I just love Kari. She is so cute and funny, voiced to perfection by a woman named Bret Parker, who is an actual Pixar animator. Listen to the way she describes herself when asked the very first question by the authorities: "State your name, please". Pure genius.

Oh and by the way, you should not repeat what you've read here, especially the part about the secret intervention...

Prequel Mania!

Star Wars Episode III Revenge of the Sith. Wow, what a title. Try saying that five times fast. The full theatrical trailer debuted during an episode of the O.C. Blecch! Not even the chance to see the final Star Wars trailer would get me to watch the O.C.! Anyway, I am reminded of the first prequel's trailer. Even the second one. They were both very well done, and got your anticipation motor running. If only the movies had fully delivered. Though, Revenge of the Sith has so much potential. Anakin looks so perfect in this film. His eyes and grimace foreshadow his dark emotions and horrible destructive potential in spades. Darth Sidious lives up to his name too, oozing pure evil and malevolence. What the makers of this film need to realize is that Vader was the most feared of all the Empire's agents. Although Emperor Palpatine had all the ruling power, everyone feared Vader, especially his own collegues, because they knew what he was capable of and that he could get away with whatever he wanted. It takes a lot to get to that position, and this final Star Wars prequel is the last chance to get us to that point. Emperor Palpatine must also get the attention he needs to establish his feared position. This movie needs to be intense and dramatic, and the performances of the actors must be spot-on and passionate. Especially Portman. She is a good actress, and her character is so important to anchor the emotions of the Star Wars story. Face it, she is the mother of Luke and Leia, the wife of Anakin Skywalker, and one of the reasons the Dark Side was faced with so much resistence. Portman's portrayal as Padme in the first prequel was as dry as a bone and as wooden and dull as a log rotting in the grass. Slightly better in the second, but not good enough. Just try to listen to her as she speaks her lines in The Phantom Menace without gritting your teeth and heaving a huge annoyed sigh. She even admitted that she had not seen the original trilogy. While that can be a good thing, she just didn't pour her heart into the role, like the original actors did. But I digress. Anytime I think of the originals as a comparison to the prequels, I always come up very disappointed. It's like comparing the novel Sphere by Michael Crichton to the movie Sphere. If you've read it, and have also seen the movie, you'd know exactly what I'm talking about, and wouldn't think me a weirdo.

A Case for DVD-Based Navigation Systems

They may cost a pretty penny, but a good navigation system for your vehicle could save you much turmoil and anger. Case in point: Sunday evening, March 13, 2005. I am driving along I35, going south from Oklahoma City to Dallas. I am in the last portion of the state of Oklahoma, when I encounter a familiar ordeal: traffic merging into one lane for about 8 miles. This time, it was 10 miles. All the way to the border of Texas. They have done this before, with the same annoying results. I don't even think they did anything at all to the road. Took me a full 2 HOURS to go 10 miles!!!!!! Now if I had one of them cool DVD Navigation dealies, I'd have been able to find an alternate route. Honestly, I could have gotten out of my car, met the person in front of me, and we could have played a nice game of chess. maybe two! Sheesh.

Such a sweet guy

Brian Nichols must be a sweetheart. Here he is, appearing in court for a RAPE charge, grabs a Deputy's gun, shoots him, another Deputy, shoots and kills the court reporter, and the Judge himself. Then he escapes, shoots another Policeman, attacks and pistol-whips a newspaper reporter, carjacks a car, and drives away, no doubt hiding somewhere in the city, most likely with a friend, who doesn't want to get caught up in the situation.

My, how kind of him. A product of his harsh upbringing, and being put down by the Man, is his excuse I'd wager. Or perhaps he's just wanting to get into the Rap business and wants to set up his reputation. Don't worry, he'll be able to shoot his Rap videos in jail. But that's punishment enough.

Fox news is covering the story here

Nicole DeHuff R.I.P.

This makes me sick. This poor girl is misdiagnosed, given medication she no doubt had an allergic reaction to, sent home, and passes away at the tender young age of 30. The sad part is that so many people die each year from misdiagnosis, medication, and simply bad medical care. Know for sure that Gonstead Chiropractic would have helped this woman overcome her condition without the possibility of misdiagnosis or drug-related side effects. What everyone must realize is that the vast majority of all medication only fixes the symptom, not the problem. Gonstead Chiropractic targets the problem, not the symptom. If only people would at least give it a try.


Tragic Story

Here's the story - of a guy named Harry

The cover of the next Harry Potter book has just been released. Including the British adult version, which really means that the cover is just more sophisticated and not cartoony. It even hints just a little bit to the plot, which really floored me and got my speculative juices flowing. You can see them here. I feel a little weird saying this, but I am anticipating the release of this book more than the release of the final Star Wars movie! Blasphemy, I know. I never ever thought I'd say something so drastic about a book. Never in my entire life! I am not really an avid reader, and I pick and choose my books carefully, but this series has got me in the sleeper hold, and I can't wrangle up the energy to get out, nor do I want to.

You know, maybe if George did what all us Star Wars fans were truly wanting, make the prequels as interesting, engrossing, and timeless, then maybe I'd be more psyched about seeing the final movie. The initial impact was of course thrilling, but after you get past the sweet chocolatey outside, you have to deal with the gooey inside, and after the sugar high wore off, I was left with a bad taste in my mouth. Lucas helped my mood a little with the release of the second prequel, but still there were a few sour spots that brought me down again. The skeptic in me is still nagging, so my anticipation levels are dwindling. After reading and re-reading the Harry Potter book series, Revenge of the Sith just doesn't hold a candle to little Harry Potter. Quite shocking considering I can pretty much quote all three original Star Wars movies in their entirety.

End rant.

More candy, anyone?

(It helps to read this post as fast as you can. You'll know what I mean when you try.)

Helped some friends hook up a new computer yesterday and, let me tell you, I was a kid in a candy store. They were all like "Don't go too fast. Take it easy. You want a soda?" and I was all like "You need to insert your digital camera's SD, that's Secure Digital, card here into the front panel card reader, then use this little program here to upload the photos, then you can email them after you shrink their size, and you can just double click this icon here to take you to the internet." and they were all like "Dude, you just lost me. Slow down!" and I was all like "This computer will need a memory upgrade. You see, it shares some of its memory with the onboard graphics driver, so it is low anyway, but Windows XP requires at least 256 Megs of RAM to work efficiently, so you should add a 128 Meg stick of RAM, but then you can even get a stick of 256 Meg RAM for just a little more money which I would recommend. Of course I would recommend at least 512 Megs of RAM and a dedicated Graphics card." and they were all like "OK. Where can we buy the RAM?" to which I replied "The best place to get RAM would be the internet, but if you don't want to wait we can get it at Fry's." Then I remembered: "This computer doesn't have a floppy disk drive, and I noticed you have floppy disks that you still access. I would suggest that you buy a USB flash drive." to which they replied "What's that?" and I said "Well, since you don't really use floppy disks all that much, you could save some money by buying a flash drive, and using the floppy drive you have at work to put all your personal stuff from your floppy disks into one folder, then plugging in your flash drive, and putting the folder on it and then you can take it anywhere and it is much better than buying and installing a floppy drive if you rarely use it." and I added "I would suggest that when you want to purchase one, look at Fry's newspaper ads to see if you can find a deal on one. They always have good deals like that" But then, I realized that their old computer had data that needed to be transferred over to the new computer and I didn't want to open it up and take out the drive and install it into the new computer and set it as a slave and pull the data over that way, and I told them this, so I decided to try to set up a network between the two computers, but failed the first attempt, so I decided to wait until I could ask someone at work about whether or not I could even do that, before I went the long way and opened up the old computer, took out the hard drive, etc. This I also told my friends. To put it mildly, they were exhausted after my whole spiel.

More candy, anyone?

Bubba R.I.P.

That's it. Bubba's gone! The 22lb. leviathan lobster couldn't handle the trip to the Pittsburg Zoo, and gave up the ghost.

Let the feast begin!!! ...I mean... Sorry to see him go.

Yeah, that's the ticket.

mmmmmmmmm



Read the tragic news here

Pinchy?

bubba
Originally uploaded by Kodiak.

Picture by Keith Srakocic, Associated Press

Meet bubba, the biggest lobster East of the Pecos!!
This 23lb. monster was found off the shores of Nantucket, and boy, is it a hum dinger!!

There once was a lobster from Nantucket...

Could this be the real-life incarnation of Pinchy, Homer Simpson's beloved pet lobster? Such a great story that was: Homer decides to keep the lobster and fatten him up to enhance his eating experience, but grows to love him and decides to keep him as a pet. Little did Homer know that the hot bath he gave Pinchy would be his undoing!! Watch in horrible anguish as Homer eats his beloved Pinchy, crying harder with every bite as he says "That's good Pinchy!"

Jeff Raskin R.I.P.

For those who don't know him, he helped create the first Macintosh computer. He was employee #31 at Apple Computer. He pioneered the design of the Graphical User Interface, one of the most important breakthroughs in computer technology to date. Therein lies the beauty of Apple computers: ease of use. The user is first and foremost, and the interface is so simple to use and learn. Want to install a program on a Macintosh? Simply drag the folder into your applications folder. No setup wizards, no install programs, just a simple drag and drop. The Apple user interface has always been at the forefront of the entire industry.

Jeff Raskin was diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer later in his life. I assume they didn't catch it in time and he was not prepared to fight it. He was only 61. Such a shame how cancer can take your life so quickly.

Read the story here