Project365 day 121 2007 05 02

Project365 day 121 2007 05 02, originally uploaded by thepetecom.

Ah, man! I LOVE my new laptop! The iSight camera that is built in to this

puppy is BRILLIANT! This is me surfing at the Playa Park during my lunch

hour. SWWWEEEEET!

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Orignal From: Project365 day 121 2007 05 02

Project365 day 120 2007 05 01

Project365 day 120 2007 05 01, originally uploaded by thepetecom.

Me being dorky in the homecube.

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Orignal From: Project365 day 120 2007 05 01

Project365 day 119 2007 04 30

Project365 day 119 2007 04 30, originally uploaded by thepetecom.

TheWife is giving me a massage after a long, hard, soul-crushingly boring

day at the desk....I needed it bad!

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Orignal From: Project365 day 119 2007 04 30

ThePete's PG rated Spider Man 3 Review

SPOILER ALERT: Some mild spoilers ahead! However, [http://thepete.com/thepetes-r-rated-review-of-spider-man-3/|unlike my last post on this film], there are no swear words. Try to enjoy it anyway. OK, so I know I said I wouldn't say much more about this movie, but I felt like I wanted to be a bit more specific and profanity-free. Now on to the review! Uuuum, Spider-Man 3 sucks beyond suckage. It's got 5 subplots and no actual main plot. Sure, Spider-Man is the title character, but the film constantly shifts focus away from him to one of the supporting characters and from them onto another and so on and so on so that every time you start to care for someone you get jerked around to another set of characters. Back on MST3k, Joel/Mike and the 'bots would be referring to each subplot as it's own movie. "Meanwhile, in yet another movie." Of course, each subplot deserved to be its own movie, frankly, since all of the bad guys were definitely interesting enough to merit their own 120 minute spectacle opposite the hero who suffers from more contrived character motivations than the last movie he was in. In the first Spider-Man movie, I found myself 90 percent happy with director Sam Raimi's choices. Over all, I felt that it was a Spider-Man Movie in a proper sense. The spirit of the character and the comic were both captured on screen. The second Spider-Man movie was fine, but it wasn't a proper Spider-Man movie. It was a typical Sam Raimi movie. As I recall, it was filled with a lot of cute screaming girls and scariness with a lot of absurd action and plot directions lacking motivation. Peter Parker has trouble feeling like he's living up to his Spider-Powers so he loses them. It's not Doc Ock that steals them from him, like in an actual comic--noooo! It's his own psyche--makes no sense. When he finally realizes he has to live up to his great power equalling responsibility, he simply decides to make his powers come back. They do and voila, the end of the movie can happen. Idiotic. Likewise Spider-Man 3 is littered with plot devices and plot points that seem to be there solely to keep the plot going and do not exist through any inherent logic. Like the meteorite that delivers Spidey's black costume. For no apparent reason, the costume goes to great lengths to target Peter Parker. Of course, if Sam Raimi had Peter examine the meteorite as part of a class experiment, the costume leaping from the meteorite onto him would have made sense. Instead, the film has the costume, in its goo form, leap onto the back of Peter's moped as Peter drives MJ home. It remains in hiding for a quite a lot of screen time before it finally jumps on Peter. Elsewhere in the film, fashion model, lab partner to Peter, daughter of the police chief, and MAJOR character from the comic Gwen Stacy, is doing a modeling gig in a sky scraper when a nearby construction crane goes out of control, seemingly targeting her. She is the ONLY person to fall from the building when the crane tears two holes in the 'scraper and no other buildings are harmed by the rabid crane. Spidey saves her and knowing that she's such a major character from the comic, one naturally assumes that she'll be a major character in the rest of the movie. NOPE. She could be any woman. The only reason she is Gwen is because Sam Raimi and his co-writers wanted her to be Gwen Stacy. The few critics that like this film cite the action scenes as being incredible. I beg to differ. While most of them looked realistic, as with the last Spider-Man movie, I found them physically unbelievable. Sure, it's a comic book movie, so it's supposed to be fake, but not fakey. The Spider-Man comic is best known for being very realistically written. Peter Parker isn't Clark Kent. When Spider-Man has to fight crime in a bad rain storm, he can't just fly above the clouds like Superman. He's got real problems too, like rent and his job and his studies and MJ. The whole point of seeing a live-action Spider-Man movie is to see it more real than it is in the comic--not less real. We want realistic action, not cartoon action. Sadly, it's all so horribly fake and out there (but not very clever or interesting) that you just know that things are going to work out so you sit back and wait for them to do exactly that. Then there's the dance number. See, while the costume in the comic only changed Peter's personality in that he was more violent and loved web-swinging more, the movie had to dumb it down. The costume makes Peter evil--of course, Sam Raimi defines evil as basic douchebaggedness and comic relief, too. In Jar-Jar Binks, case, I'd say comic relief characters CAN be truly evil in film, but when you make your hero do simply embarrassing things on top of things that are just absurd, inside the confines of a super-hero action movie, you're violating the trust of the people who paid to see your movie. This is why (and when) I walked out. Sure, action movies can be funny, but don't ask me to like a character that shames himself and don't ask me to like a movie that suddenly becomes a movie I'd have never paid for if I had known it was that kind of movie (a musical). I brought up Jar-Jar Binks for another reason. This film reminds me of Phantom Menace in that it's just horrible. There are snippets of good stuff (as with TPM), but generally speaking, it's atrocious on par with George Lucas' First Big Mistake. As friend of ThePete [http://thefelties.blogspot.com/|Andrew Moore] put it, Sam Raimi Schumachered it, taking an otherwise reasonable franchise and making it so comedic, absurd and cartoony as to repulse any reasonable adults from theater seats.

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Orignal From: ThePete's PG rated Spider Man 3 Review

ThePete's R Rated Review of Spider Man 3

PLEASE NOTE: This is not a Pocket Reivew. I'm going to ask TheWife to PokeRev this one because I just have too much to complain about. WARNING: This review of Spider-Man 3 is VERY R-Rated and should not be read by people who don't like foul language, graphic descriptions of unpleasant things (I'm looking at you, Mom!) or commentary that tears Sam Raimi a new one. Oh and don't read any further unless you are looking for a reason not to see this movie or would like to be warned away from seeing it if you'd rather not waste your time on a movie that should really have been much better. OK, here's the review: I haven't walked out of a movie since 1989. Usually I only review films that I've seen all the way through. BUT since I just couldn't stomach the entire thing, I walked out, leaving TheWife behind to sit through the rest of it. Obviously, she's easier to please than I am when it comes to movies. Now, the actual film that was used for the movie was not made of celluloid. The film stock used to shoot this movie was made with a special process that Sam Raimi has, indeed, perfected. Here's how it works. First, Sam Raimi ejaculates onto a metal anvil, like the kind they pound swords on to make them really flat. Instead, the anvil is heated and the semen is pounded on with a hammer until it's a flat, transparent, and very brittle film. Then, thousands of immigrant workers are hired on Raimi's Hollywood estate to poke the sprocket holes into it. Once this process is done, and only when it is done, is Sam Raimi ready to start shooting! However, before shooting can commence, contrary to what many Hollywood producers think, you need a script! Now, to write the script, good old Sam used regular old paper, but the ink (the INK!) was what made the script to Spider-Man 3 different! You see, before printing the script out, he took a wide paint spatula and shoved it up his ass, scraping the decades old left over fecal matter from inside his rectum and then mixed it with more of his semen. He then took the decades old fecal mixture and had it poured (this time by Chinese sex slaves) into ink jet cartridges he then used to print out his beloved script. You want to know how I know all of this? Because the script is shit and watching the movie made me feel like Sam Raimi was masturbating all over me. Now for some actual meat--be warned spoilers abound and believe me, you'll thank me for exposing everything I'm about to expose. Let's see how many subplots there are! 1) Peter and MJ life on the rocks--MJ deals with being a sucky actor and Peter deals with being a successful super-hero. 2) Flint Marko escapes from prison, where he was sent for some sort of robbery, though police now believe he was the real killer of Uncle Ben. 3) Harry, Peter's best buddy from high school is taking over for his dead dad as the Green Goblin, only he's not wearing any cool goblin mask, he's just wearing a kind of robotic, CG ski mask. 4) Eddie Brock, is a sleaze bucket photojournalist trying to muscle in on Peter's turf as the Bugle's official Spidey-picture-getter. 5) A meteorite just happens to crash near Peter and MJ one night in central park and a black little goo follows them home, eventually jumping on Peter, replacing his costume and making him evil, EVIL! Or really just Emo-Spidey--complete with gothy hairstyle and eye-liner. Now, five plots is a lot for brilliant filmmakers to deal with. How much you want a bet that I don't consider Sam to be up there with David Lean? HOLY CHRIST, this movie was a mess. No sooner did you think one character was the lead when another character came along and completely stole the focus away from the previous lead character. In the opening few scenes everything was so idyllic that it was nauseating. Then the meteorite hits the ground just yards away from whom we think are our lead characters. The goo slurps out of the meteorite and for some reason that wasn't explained before I walked out of the theater, jumped onto the back of Peter's moped. Does the costume attack Peter and MJ then? NOPE. Peter drops MJ off and visits Aunt May to tell her he's going to propose to MJ. He gets back on the moped and STILL no black goo attack. Then, literally out of nowhere, the plot takes a violent left turn as Harry, flying on one of his dad's flying snowboards, snatches Peter from the back of his moped. For the next ten minutes we're treated to an absurdly complicated chase/fight sequence that, like the rest of the plot, starts off by focussing on Peter (still out of costume, mind you) but then suddenly shifts to Harry, where it stays for most of the chase. Why hang with the bad guy when we care about the good guy? Beats me. Remember? The script is shit. Then we've got the Gwen Stacy plot stapled in there, too. I'm not sure where it goes, so I'll just jump to Sandman next. So, here's Thomas Haden Church putting in the best performance of the film (or at least what I could stomach of the film). He plays Flint Marko who is a very sympathetic dad who stole money to help his daughter get medical treatment. He has broken out of jail and when cops chase him, he "accidentally" stumbles upon some random, completely unexplained physics experiment that turns him into sand. The scene where he rebuilds his body out of sand was really neat, actually. Sadly, it was such obvious plot machinery (it was only there to make the plot go and was never adequately explained) that I just shook my head. Luckily for the movie, I now cared more for Sandman than I did for Peter, or MJ or Harry. Meanwhile, Peter has brought Harry to a hospital for treatment after Harry bonked himself on the head during that Harry-centered chase sequence. Harry now has amnesia and can't remember that he hates Peter or that Peter is Spider-Man. Harry smiles, he is happy for the first time in a movie-and-a-half. His smile makes the audience I saw the movie with laugh nervously. OK, now I can't remember what happens next--as you can tell, there's no real throughline. At some point, Aunt May and Peter are called to the police station to be told the news that it turns out the guy who Peter thought killed his Uncle Ben didn't, it was Sandman. This causes Peter to start having nightmares about the guy who really killed his dad-figure. Forget the concern that if this is true it upsets the very core of why Peter Parker is Spider-Man. (See, Spidey let a thief get away with money. The thief would later kill his uncle--Peter had the power to stop a bad guy but didn't. Of course, if that bad guy didn't kill his uncle, then his choice to not get involved in stopping the thief wasn't as bad a choice as it initially was, taking the steam out of him being a hero). So, while Peter's having nightmares (he's sleeping in his costume for some reason), the black goo from the meteorite makes a return appearance. We watch as it leaps on top of him and slowly slithers all around him. Finally, he wakes up, hanging from a building in a costume that looks like a gray version of his regular red-and-blues. This costume is the least cinematic costume of all time. There's nothing less inspiring than watching a gray blob swing from webs around New York City. The thing is, when he wears the black costume it changes his personality. In the comic, it just made him more aggressive, in the movie, it makes him a douche bag. Literally, he starts coming on to every chick on the street, he's randomly dancing around on the sidewalk, and he's got an emo-hairstyle. OH and he's got eye-liner on now. Think Superman 3, only less realistic. OH yeah and then there's his lab partner in college, Gwen Stacy, who just happens to be a model that Spidey saves (earlier) when she falls from a skyscraper. Turns out her dad is the chief of police and so the CoP decides to give Spidey a parade and the key to the city. However, once Spidey has his black costume on (even though it's really gray), he goes after Sandman whom he defeats after an absurdly unrealistic fight scene culminating in a blast of water that washes Sandman away. Gee, Sandman's weakness is water. I never would have guessed. Meanwhile, Harry's gotten his memory back and tells MJ that if she doesn't break it off with Peter he'll kill her and Peter. She does what he says and dumps Peter. Now in the black costume again, he decides to be really slimy and asks out Gwen and takes her to the jazz bar MJ works at now as a sing waitress. See, he's being a dick. In the jazz bar, MJ is asked by one of the members of the jazz band to come up and sing. Before she can emit a single note, Peter jumps up and starts playing music and singing. Then he's dancing. This is where I walked out. This movie is utter shit, through and through. Sam Raimi should be ashamed of himself and he should be forced to go back to film school. He used to be a good storyteller. Hell, I really liked the first Spider-Man film. While I didn't care for the second Spidey film, this new one makes Spidey 2 look like The Bridge On the River Kwai. It was such a total mess and the plot machinery was so incredibly obvious and overt I was embarrassed for the people who made this movie but somehow didn't get that the movie was so unbelievably retarded. Seriously, the plot machinery was so bad--from the meteor landing and chasing Peter home but not doing anything until the plot called for it to do something, the random calls from Doc Conner explaining what the goo is, to Sandman showing up at just the slow moments in the plot. OH damn and I totally forgot to mention how insipid Topher Grace was as Eddie Brock. I mean, what the hell? This guy was a total sleaze bag loser. And, compared to Sandman, I wondered why/how he could be such a weak character. But I didn't care. This movie had Peter Parker singing and dancing and being a general douche to people. That, on top of the multiple plot lines that made Short Cuts seem tight and concise, and the random, out of place, humor (which I forgot to mention), this movie is just shit. I go so far as to say it's shit with corn in it. Stay away from this movie. Don't even watch as much as I did. You'll need a whole box of Kleenex to get the cinematic cum off of you. Bleh... gross... I'm going to go shower and tomorrow I'm going to go down to the LA Free Clinic and get tested--I want to make sure I didn't catch any STDs from Spider-Man 3.

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Orignal From: ThePete's R Rated Review of Spider Man 3

STUDENT REMOVED FOR VIRTUALIZING SCHOOL GROUNDS

So, this kid, he's a bit of a software/video game geek, right? And he's thinking it would be cool to re-create his high school in a virtual world.

What do you want? He's a nerd! I think this way, too. Only I think it would be cool to squeeze a PC into my toy R2-D2. Anyway...

So, this kid uploads a digital version of his campus and let's people explore it online. Let me let [http://www.joystiq.com/2007/05/02/student-arrested-for-making-a-map-of-his-school/|a May 2, 2007 post] at Joystiq.com explain the rest:

A Chinese student was removed from Clements High School in Fort Bend, Texas after parents complained he had re-created the school grounds in a game and uploaded the map for his friends to play. The boy was placed in the district's alternate education school and later arrested, as the police considered him a "terroristic threat".

The post goes on to explain that while no charges will be filed the kid won't be able to attend his ! graduation.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention before the excerpt that he's a Chinese student. I have no idea why that is relevent. The point is, he was assumed a criminal, a "terroristic" person, just because he translated his school campus into ones and zeroes.

Can someone PLEASE tell me how this could be viewed as a "terroristic" threat?

Did they think he would do a virtual dry run of a VT-style massacre inside the cyber-school? What's to stop EVERY student from using the real school to do the same?

This is just a classic case of people letting their fears get the better of them.

It is this kind of moronic behavior on the part of the "concerned" parents and school officials that is exactly what FDR warned us against when he said that we have nothing to fear but fear itself.

Come on, folks. Grow up and smell the fact that you are SERIOUSLY more likely to die in your car today than you are to be killed in a high school massacre.

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Orignal From: STUDENT REMOVED FOR VIRTUALIZING SCHOOL GROUNDS

09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0

09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0

Just saying:

09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0

And, uh, also:

09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0

Did I mention, "09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0"?

Oh yeah and HD-DVD stands for "High Definition Digital Versatile Disc" and the creators of this format of disc say it is perfectly secure from digital pirates.

Arrrr!

09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0

Not that I'm a digital pirate. I wouldn't know how to use a bunch of numbers and letters to crack encryption. I'm much more low rent. If it doesn't have a GUI, I'm useless.

09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0

For instance, that number just right there, above, (here it is again in case you missed it: 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0), I wouldn't know what to do with a number like that.

Of course, the government doesn't want you or anyone else to see the number "09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0".

Now that you've seen it, don't you feel dangerous?

Can you feel civilization falling apart?

I can.

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Orignal From: 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0

BUSH SUPPORTING THE TROOPS IN HIS OWN WAY

Haha... this is funny. So, Bush goes on and on about how anti-war folks are not supporting the troops. Yet, when the Dems pass a bill that gives troops more cash, Bush vetoes the bill because it has a non-binding date for the troops to start pulling out of Iraq.

That's a pretty funny way of showing support for the troops, Bush.

You want to give them money, but you don't want them out of harms way.

Good plan, George. Can you at least tell us how many American GIs will have to die before you change your mind?

My kingdom for a reporter who would ask that question of him!!

Seriously, I'll give this month's rent to the person who asks that question to Bush's face and gets some sort of response.

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Orignal From: BUSH SUPPORTING THE TROOPS IN HIS OWN WAY

Project365 day 113 2007 04 24

Project365 day 113 2007 04 24, originally uploaded by thepetecom.

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Orignal From: Project365 day 113 2007 04 24

IMPEACHMENT BACK ON THE TABLE!!

WAHOO!!!

The following comes to us from [http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Murtha_revises_Impeachment_on_table_0430.html|an April 30, 2007 article] at RawStory.Com and it is hopeful, if not good, news:

Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) revised the much publicized statements he made yesterday and told National Public Radio late on Monday afternoon that impeaching President George W. Bush was "on the table."

"I'm just saying that's one of the options that Congress has on the table, I'm getting more and more calls from the public about impeachment," the long-time Congressman, who is a veteran of the US Marines, told NPR's Melissa Block on the program All Things Considered.

I know it doesn't sound like much, but THEY SAID THE "I" WORD!!

SWEET!

And check it out!! PEOPLE ARE ACTUALLY CALLING MURTHA ABOUT IMPEACHING BUSH!!

NICE!

Do you live in Pennsylvania? CONTACT MURTHA, DAMMIT! Do it by clicking below:

http://www.house.gov/murtha/write.shtml

Not living in PA? Well, contact your local rep!! Check out the link below to do it now and tell your local rep that you want to see Bush IMPEACHED:

http://www.house.gov/writerep/

After ALL of the lies, it takes so little effort to express your frustration and help save the planet Earth from any more of Bush's mess!

If you do it, I'll thank you! Your country will thank you and probably most of hte world will, too!!

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Orignal From: IMPEACHMENT BACK ON THE TABLE!!