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The tow truck driver meets his match!

Chick Refuses to Be Towed - Watch more Free Videos

Guns 'N Roses has a new album?

Yes, they do, and their first radio single since 199whenever shows promise. Have a listen!



I'll have a review of their new album Chinese Democracy soon in eleven years.

Monthly break(s!)

My roommate found this old clip from somewhere around WW2. I think we may have stumbled upon the cure to casualties of war, or at least a case for the relative harmlessness of drugs in comparison to the danger of certain sober world leaders.
Look what happens when these trained killers are administered some LSD:



While we're on drug humor, here's something much sillier!

Captured in Fleorgia

I made the 150 minute drive to Jacksonville on Wednesday to see my favorite band Nine Inch Nails. Bored, alone, and awaiting entry into the arena, I was spotted leaning against a light pole by Florida Times Union's Carol Keller. She told me not to move and look into her camera, and poof! I was forever frozen in time.
Aside from that flattering moment, the evening was surprisingly uneventful. There was a really cool looking Carnival/Festival happening across from the arena that I almost decided to ditch the concert for. In retrospect, I wish I had. While I love Nine Inch Nails and still believe they are one of the best live performers of the last twenty years, I'd seen their show only two months earlier, and contrary to advertisement, little had changed aside from the noticeably pathetic turnout and all of their once-breathtaking special effects screwing up and tainting the experience. I came away from the show wondering some things. Has Trent Reznor lost a step? The tech-heavy performance overshadowed the physical passion he used to pour into his shows. Am I getting old? Seeing NIN live was once a priceless experience, but for the first time I began questioning whether I spent too much to be there. Are both true, or was it just an off night for the band and for me? Should Jacksonville really be a part of Florida? It is so close to Georgia, and shares so many of its wonderful attributes, such as toothless McCain supporters, recently released convicts, and churches. Perhaps it was just an off night. I mean, they couldn't even get their logo right. Or perhaps I simply put too much stock in getting out of town for a night, ignorant the forthcoming Georgianess of Jacksonville. In any event, that horizon is gone. The next adventure involves a Theme Park in Georgia. Here's hoping it surpasses a technically challenged concert in the middle of the world's ugliest misplaced city.

Monthly break

Grooms, choose your best man wisely, or something like this could happen at your wedding.


Clumsy Best Man Ruins Wedding - Watch more free videos

Return of The Rock-afire Explosion

I don't ever recall a time that I have felt thrilled, disturbed, frightened, intrigued, nostalgic, and ashamed all at the same -- except for a few minutes ago, when I saw this clip:


For those around my age, you may have grown up around a Showbiz Pizza Place and their Rock-afire Explosion animatronic band. I still remember the smell of the pizza in their nice little nook of a theatre tucked away in that larger-than-life fortress of jungle jim fun. I have mourned for Showbiz and their star band, and I never imagined they would be brought back from the dead, especially not in this form. You can now pay money to have them cover a song of your chosing on You Tube. Here is what they did with Electric Feel by MGMT.



What's next?

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This one's a bit on the lighter side, it isn't from break.com, but it is still quite amusing. Busy times! Enjoy.

Dog On Tramp @ Yahoo! Video

Tripple-take

I had to read this headline three times before I realized it was just an unfortunately titled but otherwise innocent story.

"BOLT, POWELL, GAY CRUISE TO 100 SEMIFINALS".

The writer is excused. He's an AP guy who probably had ten articles to write today. But an editor at some point perceivably saw that headline and decided to go with it. You know they are going to hear it tomorrow!

Batman's vocal overkill

Apparently I wasn't the only one who thought Bale's "Batman voice" in The Dark Knight was a bit too much.



Not a bad Joker! Sign him up for part three.

Monthly break

A hilarious behind the scenes look at the job of the typical IT guy. The voices have been changed to protect the guilty.


IT Guy Vs Dumb Employees - Watch more free videos

Why video is worth 10,000 words

It is so easy to ignore animal rights activists when they are talking, but when they show you what's happening -- well, look.



I'm no tree hugger, but I don't think you need to be to be effected by what you just saw. To learn more about what you can do to prevent this kind of horror from taking place visit peta2.com

The Dark Knight - pros and cons

First let me say I recognize that it is almost heresy to give The Dark Knight a bad review at this point. One look at rotten tomatoes demonstrates the fact that the critics fear Batman as much as the criminals of Gotham. It has become movie-critic-politically correct to embrace the ambitious filmmaking behind the new Batmans, and even more politically correct to hail Heath Ledger as a fallen master. Some of this is fair, and some of it is not. In totality, The Dark Knight is an enjoyable and ambitious rollercoaster ride of a film, but it is also one of those rare productions whose strengths are its weaknesses.

This is not to say The Dark Knight is a bad film. It has a lot of good things going for it. It plays out more like Bond-meets-Godfather than a superhero film, and in many ways this change in formula is welcome. There is skydiving in China, double-cross bank robberies, dead bond girls, mob infighting, and brand new technologies unleashed by Batman's tech-whiz Mr. Fox (Morgan Freeman) to make every new action scene interesting. All of this surrounds the best part of the film: the Joker played by Heath Ledger, whose performance has lived up to and in some ways even surpassed the hype surrounding it. Ledger certainly steals the show, but just barely from an also dominating performance by Aaron Eckhart as Harvy Dent. Dent is like Batman's alter ego, and in this film much more interesting than Batman himself. To say more about his character would be a spoiler for some and painfully obvious to others. Suffice to say he has two character arcs, both of them fascinating and effective. Indeed, Harvy Dent and the Joker could have easily been their own movie, and perhaps should have been.

Which is where we come to the negative. For a Batman film, the filmmakers don't seem to be very interested in Batman this time around. In Batman Begins, the character was given the richest and most effective development out of any of the several attempts. Christian Bale soared as both Bruce Wayne and Batman, and Katie Holmes had remarkable chemistry with both forms as Rachel Dawes. When we saw Bale look at Holmes, we saw a man feeling love, conflict, and pain. This is not achieved between Bale and Maggie Gyllenhaal, who has taken over for Holmes. Gyllenhaal brings little development to the character and simply doesn't seem to fit. This results in the other characters' feelings towards her coming across as unconvincing. Bale himself seems to have missed the mark on this film as well, but a lot of this might be blamed on the decisions made by the sound crew and screenwriters. For sound, when Batman speaks in this film, it sounds like he is trying way too hard to sound tough. He had that menacingly darker voice in Batman Begins, but it was scaled back just slightly, and his dialogue in the original was limited to words that were deserving of so much vehemence. In the sequel, Bale's blaring vocals distract from his performance and dialogue as Batman. It feels artificial, contrived, out of place -- as does his new batsuit. What were they thinking there? The original batsuit was glam-goth gorgeous; the best Batman has ever looked. The new look is not a welcome one. For screenwriting, Batman is given a lot of screen time, but most it involves beating up henchmen and getting involved in car chases. There is not much character involved in these scenes -- just mindless, albeit fascinating, action – or, more appropriately, reaction.

Everything considered, it should come as no surprise that this film's strengths take place away from Batman, which is a shame for a fan of the character (me) and a blessing for people who normally don't care for superheroes. This film explores with much greater interest the psychology of the criminal mind, the road to becoming a sociopath, and the roots of evil. The material in this film is so complicated and thought-provoking that it more than makes up for its other shortcomings. It is much smarter than a superhero film, but perhaps too smart for its own good. After every avenue is explored we still want to see the dark avenger take center stage. In this film, the dark knight is little more than a device to keep the plot moving, a character who is dominated by what happens instead of a character that is defined by his actions. "It's what I do that defines me," Batman said to Rachel Dawes in one of the best moments of Batman Begins. In The Dark Knight, Batman doesn't do much. He reacts to the master strokes made by the enemy, but doesn't seem to have much game of his own. He is lead through a labyrinth of situations in which he is given very little choice. Towards the climax, he finally does make some tough choices -- the toughest -- but the weight of them is bogged down by the fact that his character has so little development throughout this two and a half hour film. The filmmakers obviously recognized this when considering one of the final scenes where Gary Oldman (another fine performance as Gordon) has to explain to his son the gravity and depth of Batman's final choices. Classic case of telling instead of showing. Not something you'd expect from a film with the third best rating of all time on imdb.com

Is The Dark Knight worth watching? Absolutely. With so much crammed into this film it also has the potential to be much better on a second viewing. For now, I feel like I watched a great movie that had Batman in it, rather than a Batman movie with a lot of great supporting elements. Maybe this will change on a second viewing, but for now this will have to suffice. Don’t get me wrong, I liked it, but with all the Batman orgies going around I just figured I'd publish this counterpoint for good measure.

You've probably seen the trailer too many times already, but just in case you haven't:

Monthly break

Some college kids decide to make their own Saw movie trailer, but it does not go as planned. Don't ask me why I find this so hilarious, but it kills me every time!

Brand New Saw 4 Trailer - Watch more free videos

Happy 4th!

George Carlin "passes away"

My favorite comedian and entertainer George Carlin is dead. If you want more details about his death click here. I'm not all that interested in his death, but rather his life, and how many times he brought me joy and laughter while at the same time introducing me to a new perspective of the world.

Below is my favorite performance by Carlin, one of his most famous, but for those my age or even younger you have probably never seen it and maybe never even heard of it. It was so groundbreaking for the time that HBO had to release a 2 minute disclaimer followed by a 2 minute interview with Carlin just to cover their asses and try to show the conservative cowards of the time that George Carlin was not Satan. This is also the period where Carlin was inventing his routine as he went, and besides, you have to love the 70's look and feel of the show. This is the show in its entirety, so pop some popcorn and enjoy. The performance itself begins about five minutes in if you don't care for the amusing disclaimer.

Enjoy.




Thanks for all the laughs, George.

Disney blows Universal out of the water via spring-action shooter mania!

It is June, and both Disney World and Universal Orlando have new rides to offer this summer. One is mindless fun, the other is a well-filmed but ultimately lame ride. The former is Disney's Hollywood Studios' Toy Story Mania, the latter is Universal Studios' The Simpsons Ride. Where did one go right and one go wrong? Let's take a look.

The Simpsons Ride at Universal Studios Florida
It seemed like an idea that couldn't miss. Well, it missed. The Simpsons Ride is little more than Back to The Future (the building's former tenant) with a different film. Granted, the film is amazing, but the motion simulation is so poor that one can barely enjoy it. This attraction would be more at home in a 4D theatre, perhaps one with partially moving seats like Universal's much more successful Shrek 4D. As a motion simulator ride, the motion is far too out of sync with what happens on screen, and there is so much hilarious stuff happening on screen that you'll get motion sickness trying to look around while being yanked in seventeen different directions (not to mention receiving repeated blows to the back of the head if you sit in the back row and are more than four feet tall).

What it looks like is The Simpsons writers and filmmakers more than held up their end, but Universal dropped the ball on the ride itself. The film is filled with that distinctly Simpsons humor and charm, most of it taking shots at the Theme Park culture that geeks like me just gobble up. The 3D graphics of the film itself serve as a bold departure from what makes The Simpsons The Simpsons, but it works. It's gorgeous and deserves a better forum to be witnessed in.

Here's hoping that one day it winds up in a different park or a different theatre better equipped to let the film be enjoyed without any barfing or concussions in the process. Good for one ride, but very little re-ride value.

Toy Story Mania at Disney's Hollywood Studios
Ironically, Toy Story Mania was the ride I didn't want to like. I am usually against the "glorified arcade game" rides, loathing Magic Kingdom's Buzz Lightyear for destroying one of my previous favorites, Dreamflight, and only now after years just beginning to warm up to Universal's Men in Black. But this time the arcade game ride has been done right. Disney accomplishes this by never pretending that this ride is anything more than a game. The ride is themed after one of the many carnival style midways that are normally filled with toothless guys who need a shower and probably have a criminal record. Instead the games are staffed by friendly Toy Story characters. Better yet, the games are free! Better still, you get to ride from game to game!
There is something so simple and innocent about this experience, and the games themselves are so addicting, that I could easily spend an entire day riding this thing if not for the beefy line it boasts and the sore hand that develops very quickly after pumping the attraction's spring action shooters for five minutes. I've already taken two trips to the park with two vastly different groups, and have witnessed people from ages 3 to 78, gay and liberal to straight and conservative, absolutely loving this ride. Is it simplistic? Yes. Mindless? Absolutely. Fun? Tons!

Disney has a hit on their hands, and it is in the perfect place. Disney's Hollywood Studios so desperately needed an attraction like this, and so did Disney's California Adventure, for that matter, where it has been cloned.

It looks like Disney has won this round. Universal has a lot more in the works, though, which should hopefully make things more interesting in years to come. So does Sea World, for that matter! But that's a whole different blog.

Monthly break

This one may start a little slow, but the rumble in the jungle that follows is well worth the wait! Make sure you stay tuned for the surprise ending!


A Brawl In The Safari - Watch more free videos

Published, Accepted, and Upwardly Mobile

In one trip to the mailbox my life took a sudden and very positive turn. In one package was a copy of The Alchemist, Valencia's Osceola Campus Literary Magazine, in which my short story "Receding" was recently published. In another package was my acceptance letter to Florida State University. I did a small dance that nobody saw.

Quitting my job July 31st. Moving to Tallahassee August 20th. After months of feeling like my life was going nowhere, finally a small return on my large investment has been received. I'm now more encouraged to continue my writing and finish these last couple summer classes. Full speed ahead!


ps. I have movie reviews, ride reviews of the new attractions at MGM and Universal, more fun from break.com, and a whole lot of other stuff to blog about, but time has been a crunch lately. bare with me and stay tuned!

Monthly break

I have become addicted to the site break.com for more reasons than one. It is like You Tube without the cesspool of idiots who should have never been given a webcam. I have been dying to share so many hilarious videos here, but if all I do is post stuff from break.com then I'm not really offering anything new, so instead I'll just show the funniest/scarriest/wrongest thing I find there each month.

For May check this out. This is the mom from hell on the ride from hell. This poor chubby little kid!! I don't know whether to laugh or cry. You decide.

Kid Almost Falls Out of Ride - Watch more free videos

Boston Dynamics aka Cyberdine?

This is pretty impressive, and also quite creepy. I would not want to see this thing trotting down my street.



There was something eerily familiar about this. My first impulse was to think Terminator, but then it hit me. It's an early version of the Ed-209!

Ghosts indeed

Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor blitzed his fans and the recording industry at large this week by unleashing Ghosts I-IV, a 36-song instrumental double-album that no knew was coming. He was able to pull this off by releasing the album via his website, effectively elmininating the middle man, which also allowed him to sell the album as soon as it was done and for dirt cheap - a measley five dollars for nearly two hours of new Nine Inch Nails music.
This is a pretty major move not only for the band but for the record industry as a whole. More and more big bands are giving the record companies the finger and selling their music on their own. Going by the fact that NIN's servers have been crashing all week due to the overwhelming response, I'd say the greedy record labels are one step closer to becoming ghosts themselves.

So how is the album? Personally, I am loving it. Ghosts I-IV is the album I always hoped Nine Inch Nails would one day make. In place of the usual post-adolescent angst is an atmospheric daydream that is so easy to get lost in.

But I'll stop there for two reasons: One, I'm not that great at writing about music; and two, thanks to Trent Reznor I don't really need to be. The "Ghost player" below allows you to hear it for yourselves.

Shamu Oh Akbar?

A reason to visit South Africa

Ever wanted to fly, or jump off a mountain without dying? Now you can.



I am so there.

The real thing

To this day, only two college classes have really educated me, and in both cases the instructors were adjunct -- meaning only part-time, taking a break from their day jobs to share their real world experiences with students. Timothy P Werhner, an astronomer teaching astronomy, was one, and Carol Chiodini, a director and screenwriter teaching screenwriting, was the other. While Werhner has fallen off my map (not surprising, as I recall him missing our first week of class due to being stranded at the South Pole!) I found a nice clip that one of Chiodini's students put up on You Tube. It briefly and accurately sums up what she's all about, and I think it is worth sharing.


I've sat through so many different classes with instructors who barely even hide the fact that they are only there for the paycheck, who don't care about your grade or what becomes of you after you leave the class. After great classes like Werhner's and Chiodini's, instructors who merely go through the motions stand out horribly. It almost feels like being taken backwards.

We desparately need more Timothy Werhners and Carol Chiodinis. I may not even write another screenplay, I'm more of a novel guy, but Carol's passion is something that has and will continue to inspire me to work hard at what I love to do because, like she said, if you don't you will never make it: The most important lesson I've learned to thus far, and a lesson that most of those other instructors are probably learning too late.

Radio done right

It started out as something called The Music Genome Project: a collection of self-proclaimed "music-loving technologists" who wanted to find a way to link different types of sounds together in an effort to help people more efficiently discover the music they love. I can't speak for the whole project, but for me it has become the go-to place for letting good new music find me. Now known as Pandora Radio, this is the easiest, best, most diverse and non-corporate radio station I've ever heard. There are no commercials, no fees; you don't even have to download a player. You just go to the site, it asks what your favorite band is, and within seconds it is playing high-quality music not just by your favorite band, but also by other bands that have a similar sound. The more bands you enter in your favorites category, the more diversity you will find in the music being played.

My favorite part, and what makes this unique from any other radio program, is that if you hate the song playing you can give it a "thumbs down." The music stops instantly, the program recognizes that you don't want to hear that type of sound ever again, and it immediately fetches another song closely tied to your favorites. In this way it is truly your radio station.

Now if they would just realize what an awesome thing they have on their hands and find a way to bring this to satellite radio, they would find themselves at least one willing subscriber in myself.

You can thank me later. For now just have some fun and check it out.

My name is Jason, and I am a movie hopper

I paid for one movie and saw three on Saturday. God bless "Movie Malls" as I call them. They are too big to be able to hold any kind of order in terms of making sure punks like me don't spend the whole day hopping from one film to the next. I won't say which one I paid for and which two I didn't, but I will say that all three were satisfying. Here's some short reviews of the three I saw, and some attached previews for those who are interested.


CLOVERFIELD

Currently #1 at the Box Office and deservedly so, it has been a long time since a movie carried this kind of hype, and even longer since a movie lived up to that hype like Cloverfield does. From start to finish, it is nearly impossible not to be into this movie. The first person perspective is a huge part of that, of course, and for that reason you'll find many a critic who will instantly want to compare this to The Blair Witch Project, which is partly unfair to both movies but also partly effective in that Cloverfield revitalizes the monster movie just as Blair Witch did for horror. Because so much of this movie is tied in with "the experience" of seeing through the protagonist's eyes, saying any more would ruin it. Suffice to say I highly recommend this 84-minute groundbreaker.


CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR

Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman strut their stuff to the tune of Charlie Wilson's War, Mike Nichols'(Closer, Primary Colors) semi-serious film based on a true story about a Congressman who defeated the Russians single-handedly in 1980's Afghanistan without raising any kind of noise outside of Washington. The story itself is highly generalized, but it doesn't matter with a cast this good performing together. Hanks is awesome, and Seymour Hoffman is hilarious as the foul-mouthed CIA spy. This is just a good 90 minutes at the movies, especially for fans of the actors involved.


THERE WILL BE BLOOD

Paul Thomas Anderson returns from a five year hiatus to give us There Will Be Blood, something completely different from his earlier work. In Boogie Nights, Magnolia, and Punch Drunk Love, Anderson's fingerprints were easily noticed, whereas here it seems like the director has resided to let the cameras roll while Daniel Day-Lewis puts together one of the best acting performances since the turn of this century. Playing Oil Tycoon Daniel Plainview, Day-Lewis takes what was good about his Bill the Butcher (Gangs of New York) and lets it run wild here. Plainview is the character you love to hate. He is self-made man, a liar, a murderer, a thief, a manipulator, incapable of love, or at least admitting love, for anything but oil and himself. Lewis is winged by a solid performance from young Paul Dano, who plays a different kind of fraud from an equally powerful industry: religion. Watching the two frauds as they try to conquer the world with their different means to different ends makes this a fascinating and symbolic case study, but one that may fall just short of full realization. What makes this movie worth seeing is the performances of Dano and especially Day-Lewis. Their final scene together, and the final scene of the film, may go unnoticed right now by the mainstream, but mark my words: Thirty years from now it will be remembered as one of the landmark scenes in cinema history. Give Paul Thomas Anderson, one of the most talented directors of our time, full props for realizing what was happening and standing back to let it live itself out on the screen.


And all of this for nine bucks. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday!

What Disney does for us

There are a lot of Disney geeks out there, and although I try to pretend I'm above that sometimes, there's no denying I am one of them. I have grown up with Disney movies and theme parks and love them like family, which means I'm ecstatic when they do something wonderful, and personally wounded when they screw up.

Now there are different types of Disney geeks to be sure. Some suck up whatever Disney spits out as gold, some treat Disney like a drug and have their homes decorated with Disney themes, one for each room (I've seen this!), and then there are some who quietly enjoy the Disney brand. I'd like to think I am somewhere in the middle, and I'd also like to think the author of this excellent little essay is as well. Check this out. He talks about his childhood memories of Epcot Center's now-endangered-to-be-if-not-already-extinct Wonders of Life Pavillion, and a recent and probably final trip to see it as an adult. He really puts his finger on what a positive impact growing up with Disney can and often does have.

Am I missing something?

What's up with the press photos with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton lately? Is the press putting together a collage just in case a love affair sprouts up in the near future? Every other picture is a close-up of one, with the other looming behind them, partially out of focus, scowling like a creepy stalker ex.

I confess I haven't been watching the debates, but surely nothing was said to ellicit what these photos seem to be suggesting. These two might even be working in the same administration in the near future. Or is that just it? Plenty of photos to turn to when the first bogus rumor pops up that the male President and female Vice President are doing it dirty in the oval office? Jeb Bush will be there four years later preaching about returning integrity to the presidency, waving these photos in the air, and around and around we go. Oh God no.

In all seriousness, the press needs to give up trying to glamorize these debates. At the end of the day these two are on the same team, they're not in a relationship, and neither is stalking the other. This is kind of like the photo journalistic version of a sound bite. Cheap tricks, fellas. Photograph what happened and show as much as you can. Leave the interpreting to us.

"Is she back there? Don't look! Just tell me if she's there."

The Winter Classic

On New Years Day the NHL held their second ever outdoor Hockey game, this one at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Buffalo, NY -- normally home of the NFL's Buffalo Bills. While I didn't get to watch the full game, just going by the highlights I have to say this is the coolest thing I've seen from the NHL since they did this in Canada in 2003. It really makes me miss living up north. Have a look at the highlights, and make sure you stay tuned for the dramatic shootout finish.