Must see this movie

A little backstory on this one.

We get this channel through DirecTV called HDNET. They show all sorts of different stuff, movies, trailers, sports, etc. in HiDef. We record this show periodically called "Nothing but Trailers." It's a little 30 minute show that is, you guessed it, nothing but trailers. We start to get kind of bored with it though, since most of the shows are the same goddam trailers. Like I have seen the trailer for that new Sandra Bullock movie "Premonition" so many times I want to vomit.

About a week ago, I was watching through the show while John was asleep, and I saw a really interesting trailer. Even though I told myself, don't forget to tell John because this looks awesome, I did. I forgot about it until a few days later when I mentioned that I saw this great trailer and told John he's got to see it.

Well the episode of Nothing but Trailers had been overwritten. John asked me, what's it about. I couldn't remember ANYTHING about the trailer. So for the past week I've been checking the Nothing but Trailers show for the movie - I knew I'd recognize it when I saw it.

So finally, yesterday, it comes back into one of the episodes and I call John into the room.

I must see this movie, it just looks so original and I can't wait for it to come out.

Video Time

I laughed so hard when I saw this... It's fucking brilliant.



From the Sun-Times
Is popular YouTube ad big trouble for Hillary?

March 20, 2007

BY LYNN SWEET Sun-Times Columnist

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- The riveting "Big Sister" YouTube ad attacking Hillary Rodham Clinton -- produced by an anonymous creator to benefit Barack Obama -- launches a new chapter in presidential campaigning.

"This will be the political phenomena of 2008," said Democratic consultant Steve Jarding.

Jarding is not working for any of the Democratic White House hopefuls -- but witnessed the first demonstration of YouTube political power last November while advising Jim Webb in his come-from-behind win to claim a Senate seat. Webb landed a giant break when his rival, now former Sen. George Allen (R-Va.), was caught on tape -- uploaded to YouTube -- calling a Webb staffer a "macaca."

The Hillary spot is a produced piece -- a takeoff on George Orwell's "Big Brother" 1984 theme used in an Apple ad -- complete with zombies rescued by a woman running in a tank top with the Obama logo who smashes a screen where Hillary is droning on. The graphic at the end directs traffic to Obama's presidential campaign Web address.

Obama said on CNN's "Larry King Live" that "people generate all kinds of stuff" on the Internet. "In some ways, it's the democratization of the campaign process, but it's not something that we had anything to do with or were aware of, and that frankly, given what it looks like, we don't have the technical capacity to create something like this."

Internet operations
The spot rocketed over to mainstream media after Matt Drudge splashed on his megasite an article about the ad by San Francisco Chronicle political writer Carla Marinucci.

YouTube -- and other Internet sites where you can post your own videos -- offers a simple, fast and free outlet for do-it-yourself political admakers.

"It's clear it will have an impact. We just don't know how big," Jarding said. He said, "I don't think for a minute that Obama did it," because the negative politics-as-usual hit job would run too counter to the higher road Obama is trying to take.

Campaigns are hooking up with YouTube, too -- but with content under their control. All the major presidential camps have significant Internet operations.

"There is a new kind of media, which YouTube is an important part of, that allows for more and more people to engage and learn more about candidates and politics in general. We have done our best to use this new technology to reach as many voters as effectively as possible," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said.

Kevin Madden, spokesman for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a GOP hopeful, said, "Every campaign has to have a new media plan to combat this" and keep their "market share" focused on what the campaign wants to talk about.

Clinton senior strategist Mark Penn said it's clear that ability to videocast on YouTube is a doubled-edged sword for 2008 contenders. "We don't know yet what role this will play."

Nick Baldick, John Edwards' campaign manager, said the YouTube debut in the 2006 congressional contests was just the start. It will be more pronounced in 2008.

"It will have an impact, and every campaign will have to deal with it," he said.

What's wrong with me?

Yesterday's news made me wonder if there's something wrong with me. You all know that I don't really connect with kids, and if you remember from the Katrina disaster the situation with the stranded pets made me more upset than the terrible things that happened to all the people.

Yesterday there was a news story that made me physically and emotionally sick. I cried at my desk while reading it. I'm tearing up right now as I think about the story to write this post.

From the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

Crystal Brown's therapy dog disappeared. Later, the teen received his severed head gift-wrapped like a present. ... She tore off the paper and ripped open the box. Inside, she found valentine candy and a black garbage bag. And then she saw her dog's face.

Chevy was Crystal's therapy dog, providing stability and comfort to the teen who had a troubled past. The dog's body was found in a park and police suspect the perpetrator is someone who knows the family.

Another story tells of the horrific response the received from the police, saying that the initial officers investigating did not collect any evidence or even treat it as a crime. There are reports of the officers laughing about it as well. There is an internal investigation into the conduct of the officers pending.


The other story I saw yesterday is the reason why I ask the question in the subject.

The body of a 6-year-old boy missing since last week was found Thursday beside a road near the Glynn County Airport, police said. ...The boy's body was found in a black trash bag in plain sight near the airport, The Associated Press reported.

When I saw this headline, it did not upset me nearly as much as the first story. It's a heinous crime, yes. It is a terrible thing, yes. But bring me to tears? nope.

This is true for any story relating to animal abuse. It strikes a chord deeper inside me than just about anything else. But why? I can see not being as upset about crimes involving adult humans, since for the most part, I think people are generally fuckers. But children are innocent right? Both children and animals have similar inabilities to understand their circumstances and to fight back, right?

I just can't put my finger on a reason. Except maybe that since I have critters, I can relate to the story more. But there has to be more to it than that because I felt this way even before I had pets of my own. There's just something more heinous to me about people who abuse, neglect, and kill animals.

New blog feature

I just added a new feature to my template, right under Georgie flippin off the world. If you like, you can add it to your site by going here...

I had to shrink it down a little to fit in the sidebar, so it's a little hard to read down there... so in full size:

Great Firewall of China

I have finally gotten around to catching the cold that everyone else around me has had for the last month. I guess I consider myself lucky that I held out this long. I usually catch stuff when the seasons are changing. Go figure.

Anyway, hopefully I feel better soon. I already had to cancel my appointment for getting the coloring added to my tattoo. I just can't imagine being able to sit still while choking back the urge to cough uncontrollably. Oh well.

For now, enjoy this... The Great Firewall of China... it's quite fascinating.

As much as I think Google has expanded the tools for making the Internet much more accessible for most people, I really fucking hate them for playing ball with the Chinese government and censoring the web. Just because they want the profits from the deal.

Movie Reviews: Hustle & Flow, Zodiac

I've been meaning to see this for a while and never got around to it. Turns out it was on HBO a few weeks ago so we recorded it.

I did not expect to like this movie nearly as much as I did. First off... a movie about a pimp who wants to break into the music industry with songs about pimping - generally, not a winning story for me because I find a lot of hip-hop (at least the gangsta/pimp variety) overly misogynistic already. Political hip-hop is a different story.

This is the story of Djay (Terrance Howard), a pimp, petty drug dealer, and aspiring rap artist in Memphis. He lives with three women, one he is actively pimping, the other works in a strip club, and third is pregnant with his baby. He learns from an owner of a local club (Isaac Hayes) that Skinny Black, a local kid who hit it big in the rap industry will be back in town at this club and Djay arranges to provide weed for the party in hopes of giving Skinny a demo tape. He then proceeds in hustling everyone around him into helping him set up a recording studio in his apartment.

I surprised myself by actually feeling sorry for Djay at times, until, that is, I remembered that he was basically a misogynistic bastard who used everyone around him. As good as I think the film is, I can't get over the fact that the movie seemed to simply glossed over the ugly parts (except of course, when it wanted us to feel sorry for him). That's not to say I wanted some kind of judgement from the film of the character, but I can't root for a character just because he's downtrodden. There's plenty of other things he could have been doing to earn money that didn't involve abusing (and ironically selling) other human beings. I'm not saying every movie has to have some feel-good message - certainly not. But that doesn't mean I'm going to suddenly forget what a horrible person Djay really is and jump up and say "Horray for pimps!" I mean, the first song Djay records in his house is called "Whup that trick" (because "Beat that Bitch" wouldn't get radio play)... oh, that's much better.

That said, the acting was truly great and the characters were engaging. I think the only reason why I liked this movie as much as I did is because Terrance Howard brought a deeper sense of humanity to a character that, played by anyone else, would have simply been loathed by the audience. This, by no means, makes him a 'likable' character for me. Too many things that he did in the movie turned my stomach. It is a credit to the cast that their acting made their characters palatable, even likable.


We went to see Zodiac this past Friday with LemonFreshMoxie. I love criminal suspense movies (Silence of the Lambs, Seven) and this did not disappoint. Unlike other movies based on unsolved crimes (ahem, Black Dahlia, ahem) Zodiac did not put forth its own retarded conclusion for who the Zodiac killer really was. Yes, the movie does leave you with some likely theories, but it leaves them as theories.

Zodiac is based on the actual case of the 1967-1974 Northern California serial killer who taunted the press and police with cryptograms and called himself the Zodiac. The murders were never solved, and there are several murders attributed to Zodiac that many think were actually copycats or random murders that the Zodiac took credit for in his letters to throw police off his trail.

The story focuses on Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.), a San Francisco Chronicle reporter, Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) a cartoonist at the Chronicle who became obsessed with the case and went on to write two books about the Zodiac, and two SanFrancisco police detectives Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and Armstrong (Anthony Edwards) who were involved in the case after a murder occurred in the city. The story not only chronicles the events, but also the difficulty of solving the case due to media involvement (some investigators think the Zodiac used the press to throw the police off track), bureaucracy and bad communication between various police districts in California. Several murders happened within different police jurisdictions, several of whom, did not know they were connected until Zodiac started contacting the press. Different investigation styles, different technologies - all led as the movie/Graysmith argues to the botching of the investigation. The audience is left to make its own decision about Graysmith's eventual theory for who the Zodiac was.

In the end, this is an excellent crime thriller/suspense film.

Men = doofis

Why is it that men complain that too many women are 'bitchy' or standoffish, but when we're nice, they assume we want their number? Seriously! Maybe, fellas, the reason we seem 'bitchy' to you is that we know you're too dumb to tell the difference between 'friendly' and 'flirting' and simply don't feel like getting hit on at 7:30 in the God Damn morning?! Those of us who are 'friendly' obviously haven't figured this out yet. Give us time, we'll turn 'bitchy' once you treat us like a piece of eye candy.

Every morning, I say 'hi' to one of the attendants at the CTA station I go to. I thought I was being nice, you know, because it's polite. Apparently, he assumed I wanted to give him my phone number. Um, No.

Here's a hint fellas: Just because we say hi to you and smile, doesn't mean we have "Fuck Me" tattooed on our foreheads. Learn to tell the difference.

I guess what pisses me off about this situation is that it's not some random guy someplace. This is now a guy I have to see every day and now I'm uncomfortable. Now rather than just being nice, I know he's been ogling me, and that feels uncomfortable. If it was some random guy, I could simply say 'thanks but no thanks' and that would be that. Now I have to wonder, if I say hi, is he reading into it? Also, context is key. I don't like being caught off guard at 7:30 in the morning on my way to work. And I don't like the fact that politeness is all too often mistaken for sexual advance.

I guess I'm glad this coincides with construction on the north side tracks, since I'm going to probably take a bus to work starting in April.