A group of archaeologists thinks they may have found Noah’s Ark.

Visualize Lemmy Kilmister

I'm not able to access Michelle's blog anymore. That makes me sad.

Has anybody else seen this movie? I watched it today, and it struck me as something Murel would be into. Anyway, it had a nice surfabilly soundtrack.

UPDATE: Okay, maybe I'll flesh out this post a bit more. The movie revolves around an alternative history, where the Soviets nuked the United States in 1957. America becomes a wasteland, with the last holdout of civilization being Lost Vegas, where Elvis rules as king. After Elvis's death, rockers travel from all around the devestated United States to become the new king, including Buddy, the titular samurai/rocker. Now, Death himself has his eye on that throne, seeking to establish the dominance of heavy metal over all rock and roll, and he individually seeks out and kills off all the rockers making their way for Vegas.

Pretty much the whole movie is Buddy wandering through the desert with an orphan kid he saved (and who he's now seeking to ditch), while assorted villains such as Death's henchmen, random thugs, and the Soviet Army (who haven't had bullets since '57, and are now pretty much just another clan among the many that litter the post-apocolyptic Mid-West) seek to stop him from reaching Vegas. The movie can be overly campy at times, though this is largely on purpose, but overall I would say I enjoyed it. It was definitely original. Oh, and the soundtrack is provided by the Red Elvises (who have a small part in the movie), a band who I only had a passing familiarity with, but whose stuff in the movie I really liked. If you like that rockabilly/surf type music, like the Rev. Horton Heat and bands like that, then you'd probably dig these guys.

And this time he makes the comparison between the now largely forgotten wide-spread support of eugenics within the scientific community, during this very century. Go read it for yourself.

Sort of a continuation of Murel's post, here is a pretty straightforward essay laying out how the accusation of selfishness is just about the biggest con of contemporary society, and I am very much inclined to agree. It even hits pretty close to home with this quote at the bottom of the page

"I'm fed up with "one-size-fits-all" religions and child-rearing guidelines. Shy children should be taught to be more assertive, even as selfish as they can be. Otherwise they could become suicidal. I know; I speak from personal experience. And in my opinion, those who teach unselfishness to shy children are guilty of spiritual murder. It's the bullies who really need to be taught respect, both self-respect and respect and consideration for others. But out of far-sightedness, good will, and an enthusiasm for giving and receiving affection, not out of any fear of any authority anyone can see through; that's obviously going to backfire sooner or later. Usually sooner." -- Rick Gaber

There was also a really great Ayn Rand quote that I think perfectly sums up the real moral issues at hand with the political notion of "compassion"

"Do not hide behind such superficialities as whether you should or should not give a dime to a beggar. That is not the issue. The issue is whether you do or do not have the right to exist without giving him that dime. The issue is whether you must keep buying your life, dime by dime, from any beggar who might choose to approach you. The issue is whether the need of others is the first mortgage on your life and the moral purpose of your existence. The issue is whether man is to be regarded as a sacrificial animal. Any man of self-esteem will answer: 'No.' Altruism says: 'Yes'." -- Ayn Rand

The Martialist fisks panhandling pitches.

Maybe it's not the timeless (and glorious) fro of the recently-departed invincible Billy Preston, but I have to say that the beard of science fiction author Samuel R. Delany is pretty damn mighty in its own right.



Hopefully we'll be forgiven by the guys at the other end of the deep link.

Today on my way home I happened to catch a bit of Michael Savage's show, and happened to agree whole heartedly with everything he was saying. Should I be scared?

Anyway, last night I finished reading Robert Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and I have to say it is easily one of the best books I've ever read. Certainly Mike the Computer has to be one of the greatest fictional characters ever conceived. There's some great moral themes in the book about life/self-awareness, liberty, and revolution, among other interesting themes. The whole book is just very creative and well conceived. It's also very cynical, and a little bit depressing. As far as I'm concerned, though, this is a must-read.

I swear to God, I am the dumbest fucking human being on the face of this planet. I'm not going to get into any specifics, because I'd really prefer that the world not know them, but if there's ever a guy going around offering $1 million to the stupidest person on the planet, I will submit to him an account of the past, oh, week or so. I also have a new theme song.

Actually, and I say this not as an attempt to be humorous, but rather in all honesty, my paternal grandmother is more than likely the stupidest human being on the planet, though I am quite sure at this point that I have sadly inherited the stupid gene.

At least my miserable, retarded ass has the Adventures of John and Dave to cheer me up.

Check out what they've got for Tommy Iommi's guitar-and-amp rig at GuitarGeek. Ten one-hundred-watt amps? Does he have enough hearing left to decipher human speech? Earplugs wouldn't help much at that volume, they'd just melt and the plastic would harden in your eustachian tubes.

Monster trucks or dinosaurs?

Maybe you've seen this already, but National Review put a list up of the top 50 conservative rock songs, and followed that one up with another 51 conservative rock songs. Some of them seem kind of questionable, but I'm very happy to see that the Dead Kennedy's 'Holiday in Cambodia' made the second list.

I'd bet most of us could think of plenty of songs that meet their criteria which didn't make the list. Okay, they said they tried to avoid more obscure bands, but I think the very anti-communist 'Forced Labor' by the Circle Jerks, or the very pro-American 'America Rules!' by Murphy's Law, or the very pro-2nd Amendment 'Guns' by D.I, have more right-wing messages than anything on there. And peronally I'd love to see 'Kill the Hippies', 'French People Suck', or 'Camel Jockies Suck' by the Meatmen on that list. Also, it seems like given what I understand to be Handsome Dick Manitoba's personal politics, there's gotta be a few Dictators or Manitoba's Wild Kingdom songs on that list. Besides that, there's a bunch of Vandals songs that could be worthy (and considering the Vandals were assaulted by a large crowd of European leftists for performing for our soldiers in Iraq, I'd say they're far more deserving than any of the other bands on the list), like 'A Gun for Christmas', 'Sorry, Mom and Dad', 'Too Much Drama', 'People that are Going to Hell', 'Join us for Pong', 'Pizza Tran', 'My Neck, My Back', 'Don't Make Me Get My Fat and Lazy Ass Off This Couch', 'Allah', 'Kick Me', 'Shi'ite Punk', and 'Kill My Tenant'. They also played 'America, Fuck Yeah' (why wasn't that on the list?) for our soldiers in Iraq. Okay, yeah, I have a Vandals obsession. Anyway, what are your conservative rock songs?

Hat tip to Right Hand of God.

So, it's the most horrifying date on the calendar since June 6, 1906, and June 6, 1806. Apparently the world is ending again, today. Whatever. I speant the whole day playing video games on my Super Nintendo emulator. I have no regrets. Anyway, see you all in hell, I guess.

P.S. Happy birthday to my aunt and my cat. Also, since we've had all this talk about Band of Brothers lately, I do believe it's the 62nd anniversary of D-Day.

I've heard it said that particular foods don't make you dream, but I have to wonder. Last night I made some octopus salad - I'd rather have an Everest-sized pile of junk food and baked goods, but that's what dieting does to you - and it did something weird to the chemistry of my brain.

It made me dream of riding in the passenger seat of a car while Mike Farrell drove, recited bad socialist poetry to me, and, for no reason I could fathom, stripped naked. I had to look at his junk.

Please spare yourself. Say "no" to octopus salad. Or if you're in Code Pink and want to have this dream, I'll send you the recipe (and use the address you send me to inform on you to the House Un-American Activities Committee, even though I don't think it exists any more, and they'll punish you by putting you in a car where Mike Farrell drives while reciting bad socialist poetry and showing you his junk).

My weirdo friend who I've mentioned in several of my most recent posts went back to Columbus, but as usual, while he was in town he made me watch a lot of movies, and also as usual, many were movies I never would otherwise have seen and my life would be in no way any more worse off.

X-Men 3: I saw this one today, after my friend was already in Columbus. Anyway, it rocked, and I'm tempted to call it the best of the X-Men movies. Definitely the most bad ass fight scenes, at least. Wolverine is an ass-kicking machine here, and the movie does not pussy out when it comes to killing off the legendary characters from the comic books (though, if you stay for a scene after the credits, it seems one of these characters may have survived in some form). Oh, and the girl who plays Kitty Pryde in this film is such a cutie! I think I'm smitten.

V for Vendetta: Imagine if instead of a crazy, homophobic Christian fundamentalist, Jack Chick was a left-wing comic book geek. He would be the Wachowski Brothers, and his retardedly over the top Chick Tracks would be V for Vendetta. You know how you felt embarassed for George Lucas because his jabs at George W. Bush in Episode III were so clumsy and heavy-handed? Well, I think the Super Wachowski-O Bros. are even more lacking in subtlety. Like the Matrix movies, they try to be all pretentious, but Vendetta almost makes the second and third Matrix movies look not dumb and boring. If you must see this one, then I recommend that every time a character is killed in the film you shout out "Vendettaaaa!!!" in the movie theater, to keep yourself from becoming disinterested.

Phantoms: I slept through most of this one, and couldn't tell you what it was about for the life of me. Then my friend made me drive him to get cigarettes before it ended. Instead of finishing the movie, I went home afterwards.

Lucky Number Slevin: This movie has been panned by a few critics as being an inferior Tarantino rip-off, but I hate Tarantino movies and I actually kinda liked Lucky Number Slevin. Some of the aforementioned critics said the movie tries to be too clever for its own good, and that's kinda true, but still its an entertaining and mildly humorous movie, depicting a sort of cartoonish gang war between an all-black gang and an all-Jewish gang. I saw it at the cheapie theaters, and it was worth the buck I paid.

Dickie Roberts: Meh. I didn't dislike it, but not as many laughs as I want from a comedy (though it's rare that any Hollywood "comedies" deliver in the funny department, as far as I'm concerned)

EuroTrip: This one actually got some genuine laughs out of me. Not a whole lot, but I'm pretty soured on the whole teen sex comedy genre, so this was actually better than I expected, but still very much a dumb teen sex comedy. Also, this movie has more penises in it than I ever really wanted to see in my entire life.

Dodgeball: Meh. It was alright, a few laughs, but nothing worth writing home about. The best part about the movie is that it has Wash from Firefly.

Holes: This movie was awesome. I had no idea what to expect going in, but it turns out it's based on a book by Louis Sachar (who also wrote the screenplay), who wrote the brilliant Wayside School childrens books, which I loved as a kid. I guess that explains why the movie was really unique and quirky. Both Jon Voight and Sigourney Weaver have major parts in this movie, and I didn't recognize either of them.

Elf: So-so. A good laugh here and there.

The Butterfly Effect: My friend made me break my vow to myself to never watch anything with Ashton Kutcher in it. Another so-so movie. It was one of those movies that feels like it probably sounded pretty good when it was written, but wasn't executed as well as it could have been.

Shaun of the Dead: I actually saw this one back when it was in theaters, but I saw it again and it's still awesome.

Hostel: The first half was pretty much just pornography. The second half was pretty much just gore-nography. Plus, some clumsy writing throughout. It's one of those movies that feels like it was written by a high school or junior high kid, but it was actually written by a friend of Quentin Tarantino's. The only redeeming thing about this movie was that it does kinda make you want revenge on the bad guys, then gives it to you.

United 93: I reviewed this one already on the blog, so I'll just tell you to go see it, and add that it kicks ass, and was every bit as well handled as a 9/11 movie could have (and should have) been. This should be mandatory viewing for every American.

Silent Hill: They captured the atmosphere of the game pretty well, but overall I can't really vouch for this one. The only memorable part of the movie was the violent, gorey retarded-fest that was the last half hour or so of the movie.

Watch for updates, in case I remember any more movies I saw that I didn't post here. Most of these movies my friend either dragged me to, or made me watch his low-quality, pirated copies on his computer when we didn't have anything to do, hence the abundance of mediocre. Of course, it's rare that I get excited about a movie coming out, but I am psyched that they're making a Reno 911 movie. Can't wait for that one.

Does it seem like it's too easy to impersonate a veteran because so many folks have no contact with real veterans - especially the kind of folks who want to believe the worst of veterans?

Do the veterans you've known:

1. Go out of their way to be seen in military garb and decorations after completion of their terms?


2. Brag about the prestige of their assignments?


3. Remind you about their status as veterans as a way of foreclosing debate or contradiction?


4. Hang out with people who hate veterans who haven't publically recanted?


5. Look either too scrawny or too obese to have been soldiers (though aging can bring either physical quality on)?

I've seen these behaviors in one or more wannabes - generally posers with no political agenda behind their behavior - but in a family full of veterans I can't really recall seeing any of these, with the exception of the last one - and that after the long passage of time and/or the onset of health problems.

Any of you out there have other indicators that strongly suggest that one is beholding a poser, wannabe or hoaxer rather than a veteran?