How Did Disney Piss off the Critics?

Though bashed by the Critics, Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest, is an excellent movie. It's pure action movie entertainment. My own local paper gave it a D+. Did you even watch the movie, Mr. Critic?

Rush Limbaugh Wanted to Make One Teeny-Tiny Point

Rush Limbaugh's Viagara incident:

http://thecelebritycafe.com/features/6481.html

 

My bullshit meter is pegged on that story.  He saw a drop in his ratings and needed a sympathetic audience to bring his numbers UP (*ahem*).  It seems like he staged the whole thing so that the "liberal media" he's so paranoid about would report it.  It would be as easy as making the pill bottle conspicuous to the baggage inspectors at the security gate.

 

Come on, Viagara + Limbaugh + Previous Addiction is pure comedy fodder.  What news media wouldn't take the bait...oh, THERE it is!

Let's Give It Up For Maturity

I've talked about maturity being more of state of being than enacting a certain code to be "mature."  Let's face it, we all need fun, and fun is a very child-like concept.  That doesn't turn you into a child.

 

I mused just today that a great way to self-check your own maturity is to think of all the concepts that you held dear and gave up for good reasons.  A major one is good vs. evil.  There are more than two sides, and varying degrees of how good or evil they are.  The difference is ultimately ruled on how practical it is to punish the evil.

 

Giving up these concepts (whether believed or not) are mature ideas:  religion, political platforms, equal rights (mentioned mainly because no one ever has the same rights as everyone else), and that the world wants peace.  The key is that reality is not that simple.

 

I'm sounding a little Hagel here, but modifying these concepts to match reality is the best you can do.  Look out for absolutes and superlatives, as they're almost always wrong.

I'd Be Perfect for This Show

I watched Treasure Hunters premiere last night.  I'd be really good at that show.  I instantly new what the tube was for!  I've seen that kind of art before, and I'm a puzzle-geek.  If I had been on a map team, I would have figured that a decoding reflective tube would be needed to decipher the artwork.  Once they teamed us up, I would've had the answer in seconds!

 

I was very impressed by the Miss USA team.  They got off to a very bad start, and the other people (except the Browns) were mean to them.  On the second half, they shined!  They deduced the solution of every clue and be the "Geniuses."

 

Overall, the game seemed more like The Amazing Race.  I hope the challenges get harder!

Slacker Nation

Apple is swift.  They know their demographic and embrace it to sell computers.  Unfortunately, it shows the sad state of American business-ethic and responsibilities.  Representing Windows-based PCs, a clean-cut and well-dressed plump version of Bill Gates, and representing Macs is the sarcastic loser, who is considered cool.

 

So we idealize the slacker? The guy is not clean-cut.  His hair hasn't been cut or styled--actually, it's been styled to look unstyled.  Hint:  if you take a stab at cutting it yourself it will look awful, just like it was styled that way.

 

He's sarcastic.  He hides his ignorance is snappy comebacks.  Wow!  I'm so unimpressed.  I like good sarcasm, but its not good on the commercial.  Meanwhile the Windows guy is very book-smart, and would win in the physics bee.

 

He's artsy-fartsy.  Supposedly he likes the Macs audio and video capabilities.  Well, yeah, but the Slacker drops out of college after 3 semesters studying engineering because he's discovered booze, pot, and loose women.  There's not enough time to be a good musician when you're passed out half the time.  The Window's guy is working on his PhD.

 

He's young.  Windows-guy is middle-aged.  Everybody knows that younger is "smarter."  Actually, the guys a pleasure seeker, so "smarts" won't help since they're not applied.

 

He's single and freewheeling!  Windows guy has a wife, a dog, a kid, and one on-the-way.  He's very busy, but he also has a home theater with an HDTV, three cars, insurance, a nice home, an in-ground pool, and has a stock portfolio that will ensure a nice retirement bonus to his 401K.  Don't get me wrong, Mac-guy has the same TV, but it's hung on the wall in his room at his parents' house.  And he'll pay them back for the TV soon, when he can find work that doesn't involve dropping fries.  Luckily, he can commute to his job on his bike.

 

Bottom line is, these stereotypes boil down to "cool" and "uncool."  "Cool" doesn't pay the bills, baby.  Besides it's not PC vs. Mac, in reality.  It's what software you use and how.  Mac is probably a better PC for now, but without Bootcamp, you are limiting your software.

 

 

Good Thing We're Better Than Muslims!

American's got all self-righteous when a Dutch Cartoon spoofed the Muslim religious icons.  Why would they get that upset over a cartoon?  It's not even real.  I personally felt they shouldn't get that upset over a cartoon, but the Dutch newspaper also lacked the good sense to just stop printing them.

 

Hold the phone, Oral Roberts!  American's are now equally upset over the DaVinci Code movie.  Why?  The exact same reason as the The Last Temptation Christ.  Ron Howard said this about his movie, "it's fiction."  That's the way I feel about it.  Why get upset over fiction?  It's not even as bad an offense as the political cartoons which INTENDED to lampoon.

 

If there had ever been a time to paraphrase "those who forget history are doomed to repeat it," it's now.  They fought this battle almost thirty years ago and the net result was a fictional movie that faded into obscurity that most Christians feel is a pretty good movie.  We also had a gas crisis, skyrocketing inflation, copyright battles over VCRs, and a war that people didn't understand.  Welcome to the 70's, dumbfucks, we wondered when you'd be back!

 

Next thing you know, they'll be protesting the fictional Harry Potter books as representing a society where people commonly practice demonic and satanic rituals.  Oh, wait ....

 

Stupid people pick the wrong battles.  If they spent as much time and detail examining the school system and the horrid textbooks as they do frame-stepping through a Disney cartoon looking for "FUCK," "SEX," and penises, the USA might be educated enough to realize how hypocritical these superstitious, I mean religious people--same thing--truly are.

 

After all, who DIDN'T enjoy finding the topless woman in The Rescuers?  Avadra Kadaver!

 

Coke 'Rewards'

Coca-cola has this red-cap collect points and win prizes contest going on.  They even "sell out" of things.  At first, I was going for an acoustic guitar for 400 points.  At about 360 points, they made the guitar 565 points.  So I'm off to earn 24 12-pack cans of diet Coke called "A Year's Supply of Coke."  Suddenly, they're all gone.  "Sold Out" they say.  How do you get sold out of a product that you produce while you're still producing it?  One grocery store has tha much.

 

It's a coupon book.  You can't sell out, you print more.  Somebody's yanking my chain.  Everytime you approach a goal, the goal prize magically raises in cost or the prize disappears altogether.  That's called a rip-off.

 

The only prizes left are generally the "buy item at discount, get something free."  Useless.  And the Coke swag is awful.  Is that the best you could do?