The Yawn that Roared

(CNN) -- Former Sen. Fred Thompson on Tuesday ended his run for the presidency, coming off the heels of a disappointing third-place finish in South Carolina's GOP primary and heading into the showdown state of Florida next week.

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Wasn't Thompson supposed to be the next Ronald Reagan? A "real conservative" who was going to energize the party? All that "will he or won't he?" run stuff seems a little silly in retrospect. All that buildup and the only payoff was repeated clips of The Hunt for Red October. Media pundits must get paid by the word (or cubic foot of hot gas).

He swept in like a lazy old man and left like a sleepwalker.

He Had A Dream

I wonder about this past weekend.

I wonder how many kids shot down other kids in the cities...on or near a street named Martin Luther King, Jr Boulevard.

At The Movies

A few films I've seen recently...

1) The Orphanage (El Orfanato)

A foreign language film from Spain produced by Guillermo del Toro. It's about a woman (and family) who buys the orphanage in which she grew up to re-open it as a school for handicapped children. Strange things begin to happen...her sickly child begins to talk to unseen people...things go bump in the night...a strange woman appears and a series of murders years before is slowly revealed.

It's basically a ghost story but with much deeper subtexts of love and loss. And it works on both levels. There's a minimum of gore (only one scene really) and at least a half dozen moments that will make you jump. But there's a general overall creepy feel to the movie that makes the story more disturbing than at first glance...particularly as more and more plot points are revealed.

If you saw and enjoyed Pan's Labyrinth or The Devil's Backbone...you'll definitely enjoy this one. The same themes of human cruelty and bittersweet loss pervade it.

2) Sunshine

A sci fi film by Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later) about an international group of astronauts and scientists (Cillian Murphy and Michelle Yeoh) on a mission to re-ignite our dying sun by firing a massive fission bomb into its core.

Sounds like standard sci fi fare, right? It differs though in visual style. Boyle has a distinctive look that sets this film apart. It's possibly one of the finest looking films of the genre since 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The story has the genre standards of mission failure and how the crew adapts to survive and save themselves and continue their mission in the face of almost hopeless odds. Where it takes a twist or two is when they seek out another spaceship that had the same mission as theirs but disappeared. They detect a slight signal from it and proceed to try and salvage some parts so they can complete their own job. Things get a little creepy then.

The story also interjects the aspect of the crew's mental states...when they know that some of them will die...and how it hits each of them. Some react in a resigned way, some heroic...some almost have mental collapse...some angry...and at least one decides that perhaps they shouldn't succeed at all...that maybe it's god's will they are going against.

If you like above average sci fi with an emphasis on the human rather than the technological...you'll like this film.


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I find that my patience for that other blogging site is wearing thin. I keep trying to make the best of what it is...because, you know, it is what it is. (or something) But it's becoming increasingly more difficult to avoid the vast annoyances.

And that's too bad. Because I really like some of my acquaintances from there. And I love seeing them riff on my silliness. There are some truly funny people there who take some black humor and just run with it.

And then there are the gems. Those are the people who have sent me private messages about certain posts...offering help, etc. I had someone from there send me a huge package of photography materials when I was first encouraging my brother to take it up as a hobby for both our benefit. This person sent rolls and rolls of film, frames, photo albums. I almost cried with gratitude. They didn't have to do that. And wouldn't take no for an answer. Someone else offered to send me several old cameras they no longer used. Yet another person offered to perform fund raising for my work so my Iraq vet won't have to move out for lack of money.

They didn't have to do that...they are just a few people who care.

Unfortunately, they are vastly unnumbered by the scuzzy assholes, the preeners, the attention whores, etc...who seem to multiply exponentially. It's nearly impossible to cruise the blogs now without major annoyance.

At best...I guess I can beat a tactical retreat into my own blog and only read those who come to me.

I'm just tired of the silly attempts at manipulation. Particularly of the ranking lists...that long standing bone of contention for some and Holy Grail for others.

For fuck's sake...I hate going through the daily lists of new bloggers looking for interesting new posts (and possibly people who haven't been tainted) only to find that a certain few bloggers have been there before me...leaving little messages not related to the posts but rather to get the attention of people who can provide them with an increase in their unique comment counts. It's always the same two people. Always the same two messages no matter what the blogger has written an an intro. "Hi, nice blog! ~wink~" or "Hi, welcome to the blogs!"

Alt really should dump that whole ranking system. Maybe it would relieve my sore eyes of of cruising past boring blogs designed as nothing more than comment catchers. Christ...some of them sound like five year old children. "Why is the sky blue? Why is grass green? What's your favorite heavy metal song?"

Maybe if they dampened the child-like bloggers...the rest of the adults would act like...grown ups?

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I'm feeling so beaten down over there that I can't even raise the energy to call someone on plagiarism. I became suspicious when someone had a few things in their blog that seemed too polished...and sure enough...found they had been lifted whole from a web site. I couldn't be bothered to bring up ethics when weighed against the shit that would be raised...because the person was a popular, front page face. And we've all seen the shit caused by slavish devotion to personality even in the face of evidence there, right?

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That site is what it is. A blogging section on a hook up site. Maybe I created too large of a series of expectations for it. No, that's not exactly correct. When I first joined...I learned a lot. The earliest group of people spent a lot of time writing great pieces. Then came the rankings system...thrust upon a population overrepresented by fragile egos and over sized egos...and the rest is history.


It just gnaws at me that a lot of great writers who put out fantastic, emotional, enlightening posts...get overlooked...no, more than that...shunted aside in the stampede every time some Pretty Young Thing arrives on the blog scene and cyberly shakes her tits. The herds of horndogs are usually comprised of all the same dumb fuckers. Sigh...but at it's heart it is a dating site...and I got to expect that most of the population (being male) will flock to where they believe the pussy is.

I guess I'm just disappointed that only a small percentage of the population can rise above that.

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Whatchagonnado?

Steven Seagal: Lord of the Cheese

It's a Sad State of Affairs....

when Geraldo Rivera starts making sense.

I was kinda hoping when Billo's bellowing commenced he wouldn't be able to turn it off...and his head would go like that guy in the movie Scanners.

It's ain't exactly the Lincoln-Douglas debates...but it's entertaining in a guilty pleasure sort of way.

More Video Difficulties

Allegedly...one can load video directly from their computer to these posts. In reality...it does not work for me. I figured out the YouTube thingie (thanks to Trinity) but I'm still baffled by the inability to load my own film clips.

You see...I received a digital camcorder for x-mas and have been making short film bits. I was hoping I could also use this as a visual diary...maybe show some parts of Boston, etc.

I don't know...the goddamned clips just won't show up after I load them into the post.