After looking at all the pictures and videos of Scott Pilgrim vs The World, I am convinced this movie is gonna be awesome. Well that and Edgar Wright looks fun as hell to work with. I mean, ok, it's mostly blogs and not actual movie footage, but still looks great. The characters are instantly recognizable, there's little details everywhere that I didn't even pick up on in the comic and they're even shooting on the actual locations O'Malley wrote into the story. A bit apprehensive about the lack of Kieran Culkin as Wallace in all the stuff shown so far. Or how they'll do video game effects and onscreen text in the middle of a movie about a 20-something hipster who shares a bed with his gay roomate and has to fight a league of ex-boyfriends to the win the girl he loves. Even though the quirky narrative and surreal visuals would be right up the alley of Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, Terry Gilliam or Wes Anderson I still have endless faith in Wright.


And in that train of thought, cannot freaking wait till The World's End for him to wrap up the Blood and Ice Cream movies. After the great send up of zombies in Shaun of the Dead and buddy cop shoot'em ups in Hot Fuzz I was just waiting for Wright and Pegg to tackle a science fiction/disaster film.

Yeah I know it's not even filming yet but I'm calling it right now: best trilogy since Evil Dead.

Acquaintance had a birthday so I went with a couple people out on the town. It's pretty much totally against my nature but ended up getting wrangled into it anyway. Went down to the Canning DistrictThird Ward and wandered from bar to bar. There was even a...Cheese Bar. Bar that...served cheese and had a live jazz band. Yep, it's Wisconsin alright.

Of course I was the designated driver which is fine since I'm not big on alcohol anyway. Twas still fun. Though in retrospect a poor decision since I drive just as badly drunk as I do sober. Plus they kept complaining because I swerve between lanes, drive over medians, and cut into traffic. The big babies.


Did see The Men who Stare at Goats. It was an odd but amusing military..or rather anti-military movie. Funny, tragic, lighthearted, occasionally sentimental but mostly enjoyed it because it never succumbed to cynicism. Though lagged at times with the story.

Got those damn wisdom teeth pulled. After the last, very unpleasant, foray into dental surgery I was pretty nervous but it was over quickly and painlessly. And then I slept for 16 hours.

My brother's here for the weekend, which is pretty cool. Despite our arguments we're the only people in the family who still get along. And we always end up doing stupid things. Like cursing for UFOs. Which is basically driving at night without headlights and only the ceiling light on. Yeah, it's stupid.


But mostly wanted to rant because I'm a movie snob. Saw a few reviews for the fantastically stop animated Peter and the Wolf and noticed a theme. People didn't like it because "it had no dialogue". Oooooooy. I can imagine Prokofiev will roll out of his grave and choke a bitch. It was a composition piece written for children. I was probably in middle or grade school when the entire class went to see the orchestral version. You had 8 year olds sitting and listening to classical music. Yet you somehow can't when it's set to animation. There was maybe 6 minutes of ambient sound at the beginning to set up the story (as well as emphasize Peter's isolation and the contrast between the idyllic forest he yearns for against the unfeeling city he visits and harsh life he leads at home). After that yes, there is music.

And seriously, it's less than 30 goddamn minutes. If you've ever watched a Saturday morning cartoon you can probably sit through this without pissing or moaning. I mean, you best be shitting me with this crap.


And umm yeah...Twilight: New Moon made 73 million opening night. That's as much as Where the Wild Things are made...to date.

I guess Harry Callahan/Frank Castle are right, the only justice you make in this world is your own.

By high school you should be able to read stream of consciousness writing by Joyce, recognize unreliable narrative voice in Faulkner and identify allegory from Carroll. You don't "read for the sake of reading" but are expected to display critical analysis. In the midst of this is the condescending attitude that some content may be inappropriate that's a disconnection from the very requirement of having them preform at a certain literary level in the first place. We deem that teenagers need to act like adults but don't treat them as such.

Yeah, when you go to the kitchen and see someone standing there with a frying pan in flames from overheated oil and they ask "do I put water on it?" you know it's one of those days.

That and somebody should've really warned me how goddamn adorable Son of Rambow is. I usually hate nostalgia movies but that was fantastic. Getting this and watching it every time I'm depressed.

Also ate some meatballs that could've used about 20 minutes more cooking time so I'll just lie down over there.

Professor shared a funny anecdote. Back in his college years he got to work with a mechanical pipette for the first time, which you can adjust to only take the volume of liquid you want. The old glass ones need you to actually measure as you draw up anything. It makes things seriously easier and you can set your brain on autopilot. So he's running through and doing everything when a TA walks up

TA: Everything going good.
Him: Yeah.
TA: Haven't run out of pipette tips?
Him: What's a pipette tip?

*FACEPALM*
Wouldn't want to trade places with him at that moment. It probably doesn't sound as funny unless you've done a lot of bio but mechanical pipettes have tips which hold what you're pipetting, otherwise the stuff goes into the pipette itself and gunks it up. And those things are not cheap. I'm talking a couple hundred dollars each. Though people still use glass pippetes. It's not like doing polymerase chain reactions by hand or using a sliding ruler to calculate logs which now are mostly just stories teachers use to scare undergrads.


So yeah, Kick-Ass, comic by Mark Millar, is being made into a movie. Can we say no to any more Mark Millar based movies? Yeah I know it's just Wanted so far (which was the biggest violation of physics since Hawking radiation) but it's pretty much just going to get dumber from there when your movies are from someone who barely manages at adequate writing of the cartoony violence that's kept his career going. He doesn't have near the story telling abilities of someone like Tarantino to play the "ironic parody violence" card.

Here's an idea, how bout a movie for Checkmate or Animal Man or Young Blood..ok maybe not that. I heard Suicide Squad and Doom Patrol are considered as possible movies which would be pretty awesome since the basic premise leaves a lot of freedom on how to write it. Though now that comic movies are still big they're probably throwing out anything to see what sticks so it may just amount to nothing. Mostly hoping it doesn't end up like Fantastic Four or Watchmen or any number of other terrible comic movies.

But you can just stop having Millar write at all, I'm down with whatever. Because when Warren Ellis thinks the guy licks goats who are you to argue?

Best review blurb evah

"In short, The Fourth Kind pisses on your leg, tells you it's raining, and then tries to sell you a raincoat made of dog hair and corn chips."

The whole review was pretty lulzy. I hate Fourth Kind largely on principle. Principle that a movie which creates a fake medical journal and website to provide evidence for what it presents is insulting. X-Files was terrible in it's later season but at least Chris Carter never created a New Jersey Board of Veterinary Science website to convince me that David Duchovny can act.

Fact that everyone who was abducted saw a white owl makes me think it was just everyone's favorite memetic molester. No not Spanner. Or Gamma. Or Yamamo..you know what it's Mukuro ok.



Also, Congressional Representatives Paul Ryan and Jim Sensenbrenner are the worse thing to ever come out of Wisconsin. And it includes that outbreak of dysentery from water contamination in '93.

The Onion apparently wants Glenn Beck dead. They've made some dark stuff before but damn.
I know the point of this is how people overreact about Beck and his show but that was cold even for them.

Another runner up article: Finding a Masculine Halloween Costume for your Effeminate Son. Cure your son of inappropriate faggy behavior by encouraging the violent behavior you complaint is on television.
This is what Ambrose Bierce would write if he was still alive.


On a less angry note, more movies based on children's books: How to Train Your Dragon. Never read it but the trailer is ulcer inducingly cute. Way his dragon mimics him was great, even doing a sarcastic half-opened eye stare. Also like its more salamander look, they kinda went with a different style of monster. The girl's skirt with little skulls on it was a nice touch. Jay Baruchel's whiny, nasal smart-aleckiness will probably grate on people but I think he has an endearing nerdy quality (ok I liked him in Tropic Thunder). Probably the standard hero's journey fare where everyone learns a lesson at the end but seems to at least be fun. I'm also a sucker for "A Boy and his dog/dragon/iron giant" movies.

Besides...it has vikings. And dragons. And one of the Vikings is Scottish. So yeah. 

Usually don't make posts to rant about one damn episode but...Venture Brothers

Leatherface, Waco stand-off and a psychedelic journey. A+ episode.

Best part was the prog, since I nerdgasm as the sound of pretentious, overdone music. No seriously.

Thaddeus Venture may be an evil, evil man but he has damn fine taste. Also like how they manage to focuses on small things, even just showing what a characters likes to listen to.

Well I'm still screwed apparently. After some considerable pain while they where coming in a nice thought occurred that I was finished with wisdom teeth. Everything turned out fine so figured there was no complications. Now there's pain again. Guess they got impacted and I'll need surgery anyway. When I'll actually have time to schedule it is another matter. I'll see if I can squeeze into a Friday lab the week before so I can get them removed on the 24th and recuperate on Thanksgiving break. Still need to get a ride after being knocked out by anesthetics. Though I'm not sure what would be worse, the actual tooth removal or 2 4-hour labs in one week.


Anyway, there's trick-or-treaters already. Kids running around asking for hand outs. Future Democrats more like it! Though I may be in the minority who think it's great there's a holiday for kids to just run wild. Of course Halloween in Wisconsin means everyone in the 1518-35 category is going UW-Madison to get smashed.

Mostly this is a transition to another rant. Some person came to the house to talk about religion. I usually smile and nod till they leave. But did you really have to come with two 8 year old kids? At one point they where jumping up and down the steps and she yelled at them to stand still. They're 8 freaking years old. It's what they do. I doubt either of them knows what's going on. Was this something so important you couldn't have left them at home? Honestly if you're campaigning for God or a politician or a ballot initiative or hell against God (I'd love to see door-to-door agnostics "BELIEVE IN GOD, or don't, you know...whatever"), just leave them at home.

Did sign up for Netflix. It's pretty cool. I'm not a movie person and felt I've missed on a lot of great films so now I can make up for it. It's funny to see the low ratings people have given Wes Anderson films. Yep, very much Love It or Hate It director. I enjoy quirky movies though, even if it took me a bit to warm up to stuff like Life Aquatic.

Gonna go watch Lord of War to cheer me up and help me feel better about the world.

Saw Where the Wild Things Are (well...again) and had a huge post written out about it. Then I came upon this opinion column in New York Times which sums up everything way better than I did.

Basically, people have been associated with traits. Some are courage, some are cowardly, some good, some evil. But psychologists challenge this. Not everyone acts the same way at home as they do at school or with one set of friends than another. There is no one personality, the situations we are in constantly change and shape how we interact with each other. There is set characteristics but also a wider window on how we express them.

This is what Where the Wild Things Are is about. The struggled between these personalities, no matter how old or young you are.


That's also why I feel the movie has scored low with critics. People wanted to go in and feel the way they did when they first read the book or reconnect with a perceived view of childhood. Jonze defied that with an emotionally charged movie about the confusion and pain of youth without ever becoming cloy or trying to appease audiences. It's uncomfortable and off-putting but a serious look at how we feel and forge relationships with each other in a way I don't think has been done before.

Regardless of the state it leaves you, a must see.

Venture Brothers Season 4! Ok, that was strange but Publik's blog states he wanted to confuse the hell out of people. Didn't get the meter at first and the new group they introduced threw me off till I remembered a certain fake OSI recruitment video (also ironic considering it's composition). Well at least it's gone back to the tone of the first 2 seasons and the story is handled more loosely so it doesn't really walk all over the jokes. Also, an ACTUALLY superpowered character next time! Sure there's been a few, but up to this point I don't think any have been a Superman proxy.

The Talisman. Yes, they're making another graphic novel based on a Stephen King book. Which is good because I loved both Stand and Dark Tower. I've already been waiting for them to make a Talisman movie for the past 10 years since I've read it and 24 years since "soon to be a motion picture" was put on the back cover in 1985. But since they don't even have a script done this is basically as close as we'll get. So, the thing itself. It starts in the flashback from the middle of the book!. Yeaaaah. The art kinda ranges from blah to oh kill it with fire. I think the alternate cover by Mike Krahulik was way cooler. Morgan Sloat is now apparently based on Dr Phil so there's that.

Well a certain webcomic started a new story line where it finally introduced the main character's father. And oh look, it's Anderson Cooper and he's dating Neil Patrick Harris. Ok, they're based off of NPH and Cooper. Though somehow that doesn't make it anymore hilarious.

And yeah, apparently the harem in KHR has gotten so big it's starting to break off into mini-harems. I was surprised Gokudera didn't go with Yamamoto's group but I guess with Bianchi already there it'd get kinda weird. The cast is kinda getting unwieldy in size...

Also in the course of the week so far Republicans have:
Voted against a bill to prevent companies from escaping liability if a worker is raped (and this was after their contractors raped a woman and left her in a box).
Made anti-Semitic comments.
Wanted to investigate Muslims working in Congress for terrorist ties..due to them being Muslim.
And it's only goddamn TUESDAY. These people make Wolfram and Hart look respectable.

I freaking love Keith Olbermann. You can listen him talk about how fucked up the health care system is in the United States.

"Only now he could send you a bill and you could have insurance pay you back for it, so your mother and you will know, when the time comes, exactly what each choice would bring.
And some buffoon decided to call that a "death panel." On the list of preventable deaths diabetes, stroke, ulcers, appendix, pneumonia we are 19th. Canada is 6th, England 16th, we're 19th. Portugal is 18th. You're better off in Portugal.

Death panels? We have them now. They're called WellPoint and Cigna and United Health Care and all the rest. Ask not for whom the insurance company's cash register bell tolls. It tolls for thee. What you and I might able to do about all this, when my Special Comment continues.

So far we've covered our collective unwillingness to admit that this isn't a health care debate. We are talking, ultimately, about pain, and life and death. I've recapped my own father's trip through our health care system. And we've looked at the horrible statistics that this country is 19th world-wide in preventable deaths, worse than Portugal. And how, if the current gap between the insured and the uninsured continues to grow, at this pace, by the year 2020, the uninsured will be 53 percent more likely to die than will the insured, a number that matches exactly, the increased mortality rate for the poor in the England of Charles Dickens."

Yep. You make enough money to afford vastly over-priced insurance, provide profitable enough (read: don't get sick) to stay on then eventually contract an illness, get thrown off under a pre-existing condition and die or you don't make enough, never be able to afford insurance become sick and die.

But don't tell anyone because we have the best health care in the world!

And yeah, Scientific American, I enjoy my subscription, I really do, but that article written by an oil company vice president? Bad form. Misleading and far too speculative, painting a rosy picture of peak oil. Between this and the Ardi­pithecus ramidus hissy fit, I'm disappointed in you.

Gotta give it to Stargate Universe, I am amused by the glee they take in shamelessly ripping off Battlestar Galactica. I mean, not even counting the aforementioned morally ambiguous scientist, the camera, dim lighting, and even improbable acts of heroism that could've been solved with a facepalm level of common sense. Dr Rush is of course channeling Baltar with all his might (though there's some Dr Smith in there). He is sharp and I enjoy how he manages to manipulate people and situations to his advantage, especially in immediately establishing himself as the voice of authority. The two younger actors kinda annoy me though I laughed at Senator McImportantPants pulling rank.

Ok ok, it's not fair to call it a BSG rip-off as it borrows liberally from ST:Voyager, Lost and even other Stargate series (beginning being almost a remake of first arriving on Atlantis). But it's going to take a while before SGU manages to get it's legs and finally avoid the claims of it being just a derivative like Star Trek Deep Space Nine finally got out of Babylon 5's shadow and Fringe/Supernatural/ect would stop being considered Lost clones. But if this helps starts a whole sci-fi trend I'll be pretty damn happy. And let's be honest, there is nothing new under the sun.


Yeah ummmm....Where the Wild Things Are looks fantastic and I'll enjoy being that guy who's embarrassingly too old to be watching it.
"I'll eat you up, I love you so"
GAH! Too freaking cute.

A TA asked me if I was Russian which really just amuses me because most people actually get it right on the first guess. Well as it happens I sat by and was lab partners with another Polack and the TA asks we always hang and stuff. The second hand embarrassment was palpable.

In more stupid stuff, don't know why I'm taking parasitology. Thought it'd be cool and stuff, but good lord the microscopy. There's an entire part of the grade based on identifying stuff under the microscope and at 10 micrometers it all might as well be indistinct blobs in an indistinct blob factory.

The seasonal cooling is also working out great. It's barely fall and I'm already down with a cold. It would probably help if I slept for more than 2 hours a night.

In other news, fuck Roman Polanski and Poland has the DUMBEST GOVERNMENT OF ALL TIME. Plus the SLD is too incompetent to mount a successful campaign. I don't know know how you lose seats when the coalition government falls apart.

That being the tale of Orly Taitz. From her humble background as an immigrant who could come to this country to accuse others of not being American to fulfilling the dream of becoming an internet lawyer. After being punk'd with a fake certificate she managed to find another one which still doesn't correctly identify that part of Kenya as being Zanzibar at the time. Finally a judge threatened to impose sanctions, WorldNutjobDaily started losing faith and her own client filed a complaint against her. I hope this goes down Jack Thompson style and she totally loses her shit. Though I'll admit, deep down inside I'm going to be disappointed once she's disbarred.

Speaking of which, after being disbarred himself, Jack Thompson officially stated he's not disbarred and dares the Florida Bar to stop him from practicing law. Thompson now refers to himself in third person as well. lulz

Also, my brother called.

He's drunk.

Just wanted me to know.

2 hour dental appointments are exhausting. Though my dentist is pretty awesome. I do feel sorry for him since I'm extremely twitchy and tense when things are rotating in my mouth at 500,000 rpms. The worse part is getting use to dental alterations. It's goddamn maddening when your entire mouth feel is suddenly different. Must resist temptation to file down teeth.

I'm also wondering how Whiteout will be. The graphic novel was enjoyable and not just because I'm a Greg Rucka fanboy. Or maybe because of it. But movie adaptation of comics tends towards terrible. It's not encouraging the director's other films consist of Swordfish and Gone in Sixty Seconds. I mean, it was an entertaining movie but mostly because of Vinnie Jones as Sphinx.

Oh, and my car brakes stopped working while on a highway.

Anyway, off to Colorado to spend Labor Day Weekend with altitude sickness.

Rob Liefeld having any kind of career in the comic industry
Glenn Beck's descent into madness
The making of Duke Nukem Forever and subsequently the people who still believe it'll be released
Amount of porn inspired by Hitman Reborn
An electoral system where you can get more votes and lose
Mystery Science Theater 3000
Aaaaaaand
Shep Smith for still not being fired by Fox News

Bryan Singer is doing a reboot movie of Battlestar Galactica. Yes, a reboot of a rebooted series. Besides everyone wanting to know exactly why or is this even a good idea, seriously another reboot? Is BSG now the DC Universe of franchises?

And man how condescending is it when you take your dog to a vet and he explains local and systemic reaction to vaccines like I couldn't tell an immunogolublin from major histocompatibility complex.
But I guess they can't be blamed since most people have actual knowledge like being able to fix their cars instead of pissing away time reading Scientific American articles on the Higgs boson.

Oh, and there's some new news about Brett Favre but I can't even bring myself to care anymore.