September 30, 2004
The Steelers game: a photo essay
People have been complaining that I haven't posted anything in a while. Those people can go to hell!
Um, really, there's nothing going on. You don't want to read about my dilemma over where to order Molex pins for fixing up the connectors in my new pinball game. Instead, here are some photos from the Steelers game I went to a few weeks ago in Pittsburgh.
September 28, 2004
Republicans, don't let your daughters grow up to be lesbians
Apparently you can add Alan Keyes -- who called homosexuals in general and Mary Cheney specifically selfish hedonists -- can now be added to the list of Republican officials whose daughters are lesbians. Young Maya Keyes evidently had her own website in which she was quite open about being, well...pro-Bush. (I hate that joke.) And yes, I am aware that I am the last person with internet access to find out about all this.
The list Alan Keyes joins includes Dick Cheney of course, but also probably George W. Bush, if you get a few drinks in the twins. Heck, you could probably get them to make out...
Jimmy Carter, professional mineshaft canary
In his grand tradition of travelling to third world hellholes and helping them run a democracy, Jimmy Carter has travelled to Florida -- poor bastard -- and found that "basic international requirements" are not being met by the state's voting apparatus.
Carter touches on stuff we all knew about, like the effort to get Nader on the ballot; a "fumbling attempt" to disenfranchise 22,000 black voters; and the obvious biases of everyone who works for the President's brother. But it does sort of put things in perspective. I mean, don't we usually send him to other places where democracy doesn't work?
September 25, 2004
Drunken Thoughts that Should Not Be Shared, Part II: Don't Even Ask
So I was reading this article from Slate -- oh, by the way, I'm sure you've figured this out from my last couple of entry titles, but I've had a few too many tonight. As you can see, drinking improves my grammar and spelling, as well as my dart scores oddly enough.
So anyway, the article is about statements Kerry has made leading up to the first debates...statements that suggest the president is -- gasp! -- functionally retarded. Yeah, that's not exactly going to make the front page.
This got me thinking about just how much the current presidential election -- like all things in life -- can be compared to that greatest of Rocky movies, Rocky III. Yes, I know I've written about Rocky more than once, but hear me out...this time it's relevant, I swear!
See, in one corner you have Bush -- who represents Rocky in this analogy, by the way. In the previous film, he pulled off an unlikely defeat against reigning champion Al Gore, and now Bush is the title defender. But Bush is starting to go soft. Suddenly this John Kerry guy -- played in the movie by Mr. T -- shows up and starts talking smack.
REPORTER
What do you think of the President's chances in the upcoming debate?KERRY
Actually, I pity the fool.REPORTER
What's your prediction?KERRY
My prediction? Pain.
Seeing as how my analogy is perfect and flawless and absolutely insurmountably correct in all ways, I offer the following Election Prophecy.
1. In November, Kerry will defeat Bush.
2. Al Gore will approach Bush and offer to train him for the 2008 rematch -- in exchange for an unnamed favor. Bush will accept.
3. Gore will help Bush regain his Eye of the Tiger.
4. Bush, wearing Gore's underwear, will regain the presidency in 2008.
5. As payback for the training and the Tiger Eye stuff, Bush will be forced to sit down with Gore and perform a manual recount of Florida votes from the 2000 election.
GORE
Now, when you beat me, you beat me by five hundred thirty-seven... FIVE HUNDRED THIRTY-SEVEN... votes. Now do you know what something like that does to a man of my intelligence?BUSH
I thought you said you got over it.GORE
I lied.
Drunken Thoughts that Should Not Be Shared, Part I: Joey
NBC's Friends spinoff Joey would be 100,000,000 times better if, instead of whatever dumbass Smashmouth-sounding themesong they went with, they had chosen Concrete Blonde's 1990 hit Joey. It's early-90s and therefore in perfect nostalgia-territory for Joey's key demographic (i.e. anyone who watched Friends before they became wrinkled fat-bags). It's not too late to correct this oversight, NBC. You have my number.
September 24, 2004
He loses...you win
My friend can't cover. If you place sports bets, his site should be the first one you visit.
A Public Service Announcement
This one's for Pup:
"So you've decided to move to Canada."
September 23, 2004
Your vote still doesn't count
Today, Electoral Vote details a nightmare scenario in which Kerry wins the popular vote and the electoral vote and still manages to lose the election.
According to the Votemaster, if Colorado passes a popular referendum to split up its electoral college votes proportionally...
If Bush is 1% ahead in Colorado, he would get 5 votes in the electoral college and Kerry would get 4, changing the score to Kerry 269, Bush 269. If West Virginia Bush elector Richie Robb votes for a Republican other than Bush, as he has threatened, then the score becomes Kerry 269, Bush 268. [Because 270 votes are required to win the election, i]n both cases the election is decided by the new House with each state getting one vote. In all scenarios, the Republicans will control the majority of delegations in the new House, so the House will elect Bush.
D'oh!
Depending on who controls the Senate, Cheney or Edwards becomes vice president. Could go either way.
Hey, that sounds like a sitcom waiting to happen. In each episode, Bush whips up some cockamamie scheme to maim Edwards, but then at the last minute Bush is won over by Edwards's charm and decides not to spring his trap. But then he forgets about the trap and gets caught in it himself! And then he tries again next week. Laughs for the whole family. Oh, but wait...
If the Democrats hang onto the Louisiana Senate seat, as they have for over 100 years. there is a good chance the Senate will be split 50-50. In that case, Cheney gets to cast the deciding vote.
The system works!
September 22, 2004
Television not rotting your brain enough? Try radio
I've yammered before about how political discourse is stone cold dead in this country. I'm starting to think it was slowly choked to death in the iron grip of Local Morning Talk Radio, through a steady process of misinformation and polarization.
This morning during my commute I was subjected to some Morning Zoo!!!!!, during which two political commentators -- one of whom was, of course, completely racist (he suggested, for example, that Muslim men sometimes castrate themselves to avoid having sex with their sisters) -- debated how America should treat people who donate funds to "terrorist organizations." The slightly-less-racist commentator argued that we don't treat the Body Shop -- smelly mall store of girl soaps -- any differently, even though it gives money to, and I quote, "Arab organizations." When Slightly-More-Racist guy asked if these Arab organizations were also "terrorist organizations," Slightly-Less-Racist guy kinda mumbled something in a high-pitched voice: "Well, you know, yeah."
Now, anyone listening to that program would come away with the distinct impression that the Body Shop has been donating funds to organizations that hope to explode our buildings. Anyone listening to that program and still possessing half a brain would realize how completely ludicrous that is. But only an information addict like myself could tell you that "donations" means "a humanitarian award in 2002" and "Arab organization" means "Palestinian right-of-return group."
The Body Shop does not have a position on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.The four winners of the 2002 Human Rights Award, including the National Committee for the Defence of the Rights of the Internally Displaced, were chosen by an independent jury, including international human rights experts, for being the best examples of peaceful grassroots activism on the issue of housing within a human rights framework, regardless of their religion, ethnicity or nationality.
Sounds like terrorists to me!
Rassa-frassum. Okay, I just had to get that off my chest. Go about your daily business.
September 20, 2004
Random Furdells... ON THE MARCH!
DATELINE! Somewhere in southwestern Florida.
? April Etzold will coach the North Fort Myers Red Knights, who will be led by senior captain Eselina Sepulveda and junior co-captain Lauren Brod. Juniors Kayla Campisi, Taryn Glynn, Gina Dibagno and Misty Furdell also will contribute.
Way to go, Misty!
I have no idea who you are, but presumably you are related to me. Sooo... way to... contribute. With the swimming.
Only the CIA knows for sure
It's high time the intelligence community came clean and told us exactly what was the last film John F. Kennedy saw before his assassination.
According to many sources, including its own DVD packaging, that honor belongs to Tom Jones, starring Albert Finney as the title sex bomb. The movie was so popular that they later added an exclamation point to the end and made it a musical television series, this time starring Tom Jones as himself.
However, certain fringe groups claim that Kennedy watched From Russia With Love, the second James Bond film, a full three days later. The James Bond novels had gained a great deal of popularity several years before when Kennedy listed From Russia With Love as one of his top ten favorite books. Coincidence? No!
Bonus: Can you name more movies that claim to be JFK's last? If so...do it.
September 19, 2004
Everything's coming up Milhouse
The gods of pinball fortune, if there are such beings (and clearly there are), have smiled on me once again. Not only did I win a tournament and a league this year, but now I've won...
wait for it...
my very own pinball machine.
Ridiculous, but true. At the pinball league party last night, everybody who played during the past year got an entry into the raffle for a 1979 Bally Star Trek. Improbably my 2-in-82 shot came in... the game is now mine.
I still have to move it out of the Schobers' basement, and somehow figure out where to best squeeze it into my apartment. (Aside: Kimberly is the best wife in the world for allowing this. When I told her, she said, "I can't deny you a pinball machine," while laughing hysterically. Kimberly, I love you.)
And even after I do that, it needs a little bit of work... there are some lights that won't come on, and some... capacitors? that are blown? Or something? That's the other thing; I know a lot about software, but very little about electronics. So taking care of my own game is going to be a bit of an education. But, of course, I'm really looking forward to it.
MY OWN PINBALL!!! WOO-HOO!!!
Star Trek, by the way, is one of the earlier "solid state" games. That is, rather than being entirely electromechanical like older games with scoring reels (generally pre-1977), it's controlled electronically by chips and transistors and software, and the scoring displays are electronic (but numerical-only). So, there's a bit of boring history for you.
September 18, 2004
Nooooooooo!
It's bad enough that, every time I pop in an action movie, and some pinball machines show up in the background, they inevitably get smashed. I'm all, "No, Jackie Chan, don't throw that guy into the pinballs!" but he does anyway.
It's bad enough that I have to watch David Letterman drop a vintage Spider-Man machine off a roof on the Late Show, to see what happens when it gets smashed.
But now, the final straw: I have to look at photos of a flood-ravaged PAPA headquarters.
Heartbreaking. Turns out those things don't float all that well. And they really, really don't respond well to water.
We're having the FSPA party today, so I'll definitely be pouring some malted beverage out on the curb for PAPA.
September 16, 2004
Dream one-liner, come rescue me
Occasionally, I have very funny dreams. I mean, they have set-up that quickly leads to a really good punchline. I'm not that great at crafting elaborate story-jokes when I'm awake, but oh man, when I'm asleep...
Last night was not one of those nights; I had one of those dreams that takes a half-hour to explain properly and that makes no sense. But there was one excellent one-liner in there that I invite you to use in everyday conversation.
The context: some random chick is yelling at me again and again about something really trivial. As an added bonus, I appear to be at some kind of religious function.
The one-liner: "Hey, lady. Why don't I go get my cross and nails, and we can do this thing properly? Huh?"
September 15, 2004
Classic pinball backglasses: a photo essay
Some of the old games I saw at PAPA were truly hilarious. It's pretty clear which target demographic the designers are shooting for -- socially maladjusted adolescent boys -- once you see the overriding of theme of most of these games, which tends to be: hot women in bikinis show up in the strangest places.
Lesson 1: Historically speaking, women could be pirate captains. Here's the backglass art to prove it:
Not only that, but women pirate captains could apparently even wear poofy hairdos, wide collared pink blouses and flared boots, and still manage to command the respect of a grizzled all-male pirate crew. Even those guys in the corner loading the cannon, despite being forced to wear pink vests and pink do-rags, don't seem to mind too much.
And, of course, the crowning touch of historical accuracy is the ship's pink skull-and-crossbones flag.
Lesson 2: Science fictiony human-hybrid characters should always be women, because that's totally hot.
I don't know what's going on here. There are some butterfly women with lots of eyeshadow, beehive hairdos, and, crucially, of course, enourmous breasts, flying over some canyon in a desert. They don't have arms or feet, but they do have huge eyebrow-antennae thingies. So, whatever the artist was smoking: I want some of it.
Another good example of this theme could be seen in the backglass for Embryon, which features a space explorer happening upon a cadre of cocooned alien-hybrid women, who are, of course, totally hot.
Lesson 3: When using women as symbolic representations of abstract concepts, it is essential to make them, and I can't stress this enough, totally hot.
Check out the backglass for 1976's Lady Luck:
Again, not sure what's going on here. OK, obviously, the three hot, skimpily dressed women represent fortune, good luck, and bad luck. Then, there's a Magician Guy on the stairs, and a group of people sitting at the bar watching the show.
But then there's... stairs that go up to a building in the clouds? And all this is happening outside, in the middle of a cityscape?
I don't know about that. I do know that I love how Bad Luck Girl is dressed in a black catsuit like Catwoman, but with a giant "13" on her forehead, just to make it perfectly clear to you that she's Bad Luck. And also, Good Luck Girl is wearing an enormous horseshoe on her head. Hilarious.
Lesson 4: If you are half-man and half-motorcycle, you will have no problem attracting smoking hot chicks wearing skin-tight leather.
I mean, duh.
I think that was my problem in high school... I just wasn't motorcycley enough to get the chicks.
Lesson 5: If you're going to go through the trouble of rescuing prisoners from a gloomy medieval dungeon, they'd better be smoking hot chicks wearing bikinis, my friend.
This really is the ultimate "chicks in bikinis show up in strange places" scenario. I guess you could call it Princess Leia Syndrome. Notice that the guy doing the rescuing, having already rescued one bikini-clad lass, is focused on the hot nearly-naked chick on the right wearing the metal bikini. However, he is conveniently ignoring the hands reaching out to him from behind the bars of a cell containing a decidedly non-bikini-clad (male) prisoner on the left.
Another great thing about this game is the inappropriate use of a computery voice. This was all the rage in early '80s pinball: no matter what the theme, no matter whether it made sense, all games had to have a computery robot voice.
[During playtesting:]
"This game is great, Hopkins, but... where's the computery robot voice!"
"But boss, this game's about a medieval prison!"
"Install the computery robot voice, Hopkins! STAT!"
My good friend Sgt. Chris Newsom recently bought an early '80s game called Volcano. Despite the fact that the game is set in that totally historically accurate time period when cavemen lived among the dinosaurs (and also, of course, hot fur-bikini-wearing cavewomen)... it features a computery robot voice.
"Vol-can-o! E-rup-tion!" Comedy gold.
Lesson 6: Even mundane things are cool... IN THE FUTURE!
We're counting down now to my favorite backglass in the whole practice bank. I'm speaking, of course, of 1979's classic... Future Spa.
It's a spa.
It's in the future.
It's Future Spa.
That is AWESOME.
It is, quite simply, the ultimate combination of science fiction and fitness. You're never going to see a better representation of those two themes combined, until somebody finally options my screenplay for Slim Goodbody vs. Predator.
First, front and center, you've got a very '70s looking couple running on the space track, in their space high-tops. She's got Bo Derek in 10 hair, appropriate for the time; he looks a bit like a too-well-abbed Chuck Barris. How they've managed to jog in the vacuum of space without their faces exploding is not made explicitly clear.
On the left, you've got a almost completely naked chick doing... what is she doing? Holding up the Player 1 score display? I guess it's heavy or something. Oh wait, she's doing some kind of exercise with her leg. But just her left leg. Hmmm. Underneath her, you've got yet another nearly naked chick enjoying the space whirlpool, with another too-well-abbed guy whose body doesn't match his head.
Then, on the right, it's my favorite guy: space weightlifting guy. Like the other two guys, he's got a bushy mustache, because that was popular in the '70s and, thus, must also be popular in the Future. He's lifting what looks like a bar of plutonium on the hydraulic space Nautilus machine, while wearing the required space weightlifing equipment: cool shades and a big metallic backpack thing. Judging by his biceps, he's also been hitting the Soylent Creatine pretty hard.
That's all well and good, but you know what I'm really thinking:
"Future Spa?!"
Seriously, I want a tape of the meeting where Bally decides to create a game called Future Spa.
"Boss, dig this crazy idea I just had for our next game! It's a spa... but in the future!"
"Well done, Hopkins! Print the flyers. Now, about getting a robot voice in there..."
As a bonus, here's a shot of the playfied, featuring, you guessed it, scantily-clad women.
Conclusion
In conclusion, breasts.
Oh, here's one more photo of a game that I played, for Andrew:
This game is hard. As I lost my fourth consecutive game without a replay, I felt just like Peter Parker: a hard-luck Charlie.
Are comic book movies held to an unfair standard?
During a recent viewing of The Punisher, I kept thinking about the reviews, which were almost universally negative. I can't figure this out at all. It's a really solid action movie, with pornographic levels of violence. Arrows get shot through necks! Knives get jabbed into people! Hot water is thrown in faces! And guns, guns, GUNS!!!
It even has great action movie dialogue:
THE PUNISHER
(extra gravelly)
God's gonna sit this one out.
YOU
(watching the movie)
Yeah, motherfucker!!! DESTROY!!!!
If The Punisher isn't awesome, then no action movie possibly can be -- and we know that's not the case. So why do so many people pretend to not like this movie?
Is it because comic book movies are judged on a different scale from movies with other source material? Why do the effects-laden Lord of the Rings movies deserve multiple Oscars, while the in-my-opinion-better Spider-Man films don't get so much as a nomination? Why is Daredevil -- an entirely passable movie with some good villain performances -- given worse reviews than the unwatchable Resident Evil: Apocalypse?
September 13, 2004
You pays your money, you takes your chances
Nope, couldn't quite crack the playoff barrier at PAPA.
Honestly, the tournament format doesn't favor the James style of play, which is to have a couple really great games and then three not-so-great ones. At PAPA, one bad game out of five will kill an individual entry, and with the level of competition present, I just don't have the consistency to score high enough.
The second-highest score on Addams out of 228 plays, however, is more than a moral victory. I'm definitely happy with that. And the one player who beat me, Brian Dominy, is a good friend of mine; we used to meet up every weekend in Atlanta back in the day for pinball. And he's a very good player.
Overall, I had a great time in Pittsburgh. I almost had more fun playing a lot of the games in the practice bank, many of which I hadn't seen in years, if at all. I've got some great pictures of old backglasses (women in bikinis pop up in the strangest of places), as well as from the great Steelers-Raiders game yesterday, which I did manage to score a ticket to.
Hopefully, later this week, once all the Yuengling is out of my system, I can post some of the better photos.
September 12, 2004
James Pinball Update
I just got a message from James in Pittsburgh. Sounds like he's having a good time, but apparently his pinball showing left something to be desired; at 23 out of 60, he will not be progressing to the finals, alas. This, even though he scored the second-highest score in The Addams Family!
Naturally, we demand a recount. However, in the meantime we hope that on James's return we will be regailed with accounts of what, exactly, goes on at a pinball tournament anyway. 'Cause I sure don't know. Probably just a bunch of dorks.
September 8, 2004
An 8,000-word treatise on "Unskinny Bop" by Poison
OK, it won't be that long an entry. But I did receive some new American Top 40 countdowns in the mail yesterday, and popped in one from July 1990, and there, in all its glory, was "Unskinny Bop" by Poison at #35.
Is it too late to go back and update my worst songs ever list? Because this one should definitely be on there. The fact that this song could even get radio play is infuriating. Just to refresh your memory, here's the lyrics from the chorus:
Unskinny bop;
Just blows me away.
Unskinny bop bop.
All night and day.
Unskinny bop bop bop bop.
She just loves to play.
Unskinny bop; nothin' more to say.
Au contraire, Mr. Bret Michaels. I think there is something more to say, such as... what the fuck are you talking about?!?!
OK, granted, if you look at some of the other lyrics, the song is clearly a description of some sort of sexual escapade. But the details are fuzzy; what the hell is an "unskinny bop?"
At long last, the truth can now be revealed!
You know, I never knew what an "unskinny bop" was until you guys said it. Did you guys coin that phrase?
I don't know. We still don't know what "Unskinny Bop" means. When we were in the studio, I would write the music, and usually if Bret didn't write lyrics yet, I would try to think of something that would just fit phonetically. And I guess "Unskinny Bop" became something like that. It wasn't meant to be a song. They were just working lyrics. And then when we played it for the producer, who was Bruce Fairbairn, he goes, "That's marvelous. I don't know what an 'Unskinny Bop' is, but whatever it is, it's perfect."
They were dummy lyrics! Dummy lyrics!!!
It's a cookbook! A cookbook!!!
Clouds of teenage-era confusion have been lifted from my brain; I am now at peace with the world.
NEXT TIME: A 12,000-word dissertation on "We Like The Cars (The Cars That Go Boom)" by Tigra and Bunny.
Just a steel-town James on a Saturday night
It's snap-decision travel time! This weekend, I'm making a quick getaway from Washington and heading for Pittsburgh, home of PAPA. PAPA, of course, being the Professional Amateur Pinball Association's World Pinball Championships.
Yes! This year, after a six-year absence, the annual Pinburgh contest has become PAPA 7, and hundreds (yes, hundreds) of people will flock to the Steel City to compete in three divisions, as well as in mini-tournaments such as One-Handed and Split-Flipper. Fun!
I, oddly enough, seem to be on a pinball roll lately. First I won the P3 Tournament in Earlington, Pa last July. Then, a couple weeks ago, I shocked the local pinball community (and myself) by taking home first place in the John's Place League of the Free State Pinball Association. (I don't think it made the papers.)
Improbably, I somehow managed to squeak out a victory against my good friend Sgt. Chris Newsom, who not only owns all the machines we played in the playoffs, but is a top A-division player in his own right. Previously, I had finished second or third to Chris in the playoffs four times. In fact, I think Chris had finished as the top champion in every season he's played in any league, until I pulled off the upset.
My victory does have a bit of an asterisk to it, because in our first game of Star Trek:TNG, Chris was well on his way to crushing me on the first ball when the machine power-cycled for no reason. That meant the game didn't count and we had to play again; I still played lousy, but Chris somehow managed to undercut me. I had taken first on the first two games I played, both on old favorite World Cup Soccer, and finished just well enough on the last game, Addams Family, to hold on for the victory.
So why all the en fuegoness? I have to attribute it to better catching, which I've been working on more lately. By trapping the ball, rather than just trying to hit it on-the-fly all the time, I've been able to more easily set up good shots and keep the ball under control. Plus, by playing in leagues, I've also gotten a lot better at adapting to the nuances of different machines. It's kind of like sight reading music; the more you work in unfamiliar territory, the quicker you become to adapt.
So anyway, the plan is to try to ride my recent wave of success into the B Division playoffs at PAPA 7. I plan on arriving in Pittsburgh on Saturday morning; you should be able to track my scores via the PAPA web page. Last time I played Pinburgh, in 2002, I finished about in the middle of the pack in the B division, and didn't qualify. This time I'm hoping to at least make the playoff round.
Will James make the playoffs? (And, if not, will he be able to scalp a ticket to the Steelers-Raiders game on Sunday afternoon?) Stay tuned!!!
September 7, 2004
Plug!
Download my friend's book, Poker Without Cards.
Did you travel to Vegas with the Furdells? Then you may have met Ben. Perhaps at brunch, as we eyed bikini-clad womens. Well, now you can read his book.
September 3, 2004
Where's liberal bias when we really need it?
I saw John Stewart on Nightline complaining about how the press is giving equal gravity to both John Kerry's supporters and the Lying Swift Boat Vets, apparently out of objectivity. Bob Nightline made an analogy that, if George W. Bush accused Bob Nightline of being a pedophile, even though it isn't true it would be newsworthy (which surely begs the question, "But wouldn't it also be newsworthy that Bush was making those accusations without any evidence, and that Bob Nightline is surely not a pedophile?).
In any case, there's a link-heavy segment at the end of Slate's Today's Papers that I think more people should see, so I'm reproducing it here.
The papers' stories on Kerry's charges of distortions seem to be missing one thing: the truth. There are plenty of examples this morning. Take the effort by the Post's Lois Romano and Howard Kurtz. The story begins, "John F. Kerry came out swinging Thursday night, denouncing the Republican convention for its 'anger and distortion' ...." The article goes on to quote Kerry, the Bush team, and then ponders the meaning of it all ... and somehow skips any facts to help readers evaluate if the "distortion" charge is accurate. (It is.)Reporters often assess the veracity of leaders' statements ... when it's the leaders of foreign countries. Is there some mutated notion of objectivity stopping them from doing the same here? Or as one media reporter put it yesterday, "Isn't it part of the journalistic mission to provide a reality check?"
September 2, 2004
Rocky on DVD: My Latest Bad Beat
About a month ago, I purchased a five-disc DVD set of the Rocky movies. As my attourney Kurt cautioned me, this went directly against my third law of DVD purchasing: "people who buy DVDs of movies they haven't seen yet, are completely retarded."
You see, I had only seen four of the five pictures; I had not yet seen Rocky V, generally considered the worst of the bunch, and specifically considered so by Kurt. (Not that his opinion counted for much, since he -- to this day -- refuses to concede the extreme awesomeness of the third and best Rocky film.)
I proceeded to explain to Kurt, using a series of complicated algebraic equations, that the Rocky set had good odds. I had an opportunity to purchase the set for $41, whereas getting Rockys I-IV individually would have cost about $38. That means I could get the fifth movie for just an extra $3, which represented a savings of $6 or about 65% (in the event that I later saw Rocky V, realized I liked it too and needed it to round out my Rocky collection, and purchased it at full price). Plus, I would get the shiny red packaging!
Now, most people hate Rocky V. IMDB rates it at under 4 stars out of 10, which, for IMDB, is pretty bad. On the other hand, most people don't like Rocky II-IV either, and I thought those movies were freaking awesome. I figured that, to buy the set, I would need around a 30% chance of liking Rocky V (when factoring in the shiny packaging), and that my actual chances of liking Rocky V were around 35%. Therefore, I couldn't afford not to.
As it turns out, I only about 35% liked Rocky V, which is ironic (maybe?). It wasn't as awful as I had been led to believe. But that's beyond the point. In my in-depth calculations, I neglected one important factor:
The heretofore-unknown six-disc Rocky Anthology that will be released in December.
Arg. Kurt, you may take this moment to laugh at me as a hang my head in sad shame. In my defense, if I had considered this possibility at the time, I would have given it only a 2% possibility of occuring. That 2% would have applied to the overall set, though, and would have meant I would need around a 39% chance of liking Rocky V to make the set a good buy. But even then I still would have bought the set, because I'm stubborn.
Beaten on the river...by Rocky.
Life imitates Stone
Tom Leykis, a talk radio host, was beaten up in Seattle, apparently by a caller he had insulted on the air.
This immediately made me think of the Oliver Stone-directed movie Talk Radio, in which Eric Bogosian plays a shock jock who is assaulted by a listener. Turns out that, for the role, Bogosian studied and mimicked the on-air production style, speech patterns and mannerisms of... Tom Leykis.
Circle of life.
This should totally make Kimberly's day
From a forthcoming DVD cover:
Voting: Unpatriotic
From Zell Miller's speech last night at the RNC:
[1940 Republican presidential candidate you've never heard of Wendell Wilkie] made it clear that he would rather lose the election than make national security a partisan campaign issue.Shortly before Wilkie died he told a friend, that if he could write his own epitaph and had to choose between "here lies a president" or "here lies one who contributed to saving freedom", he would prefer the latter.
Where are such statesmen today?
Where is the bi-partisanship in this country when we need it most?
Now, while young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrats' manic obsession to bring down our Commander-in-Chief.
What has happened to the party I've spent my life working in?
I can remember when Democrats believed that it was the duty of America to fight for freedom over tyranny.
How dare the Democrats nominate a candidate for president! This election is weakening Democracy, I tell you!!!
Also, lack of bipartisanship? Totally the Democrats fault. They started it. Or...something?