Piranha 3D

Just got back from Piranha 3D and I am not going to say it was a good movie. I am going to say four words however and, after those four words you will know if this is the movie for you or not. Are you ready? Those four words are:

3D UNDERWATER NAKED BALLET

You haven't left for the theater yet? Tough crowd. OK. How about this:

The movie starts with Richard Dreyfuss dressed as he was in 1975's JAWS, singing "Show Me the Way to Go Home," while drinking Amity Beer in the middle of water.

Still here? I didn't think so.

Go turn off your mind and have a great time full of gratuitous 3D breasts, random detached body parts, and killer fish. It was a blast and I will probably go again very soon.

My (Short) View of Faith

Here (once again) is my explanation for different faiths, but still the same G-d.

We are all different. We have different understandings of things and different motivations for doing them. Some of us require reward to motivate us while others need a fear of punishment. Some can live life with few rules while others need structure to feel secure. G-d understands this which is why there are so many faiths. Don't look at the various texts- G-d is not an author.

You know right and wrong: it is the playground rules.

Don't hit
Share
Treat people as you want to be treated
Be honest

The rest is man added fluff.

Naming Places of Tomorrow....Today!

In honor of Obama Elementary school opening up, I have decided to list some other places we really need opened and soon. Most are funny; some are stupid; and some are in really poor taste:

The Don Rumsfeld Center for Strategic Planning

The Florida School of Counting

The Newt Gingrich Fidelity Center

The Rush Limbaugh Institute of Drug Research

The Dr Laura Race-relations Outreach

Dan Quayle Airporte

George H W Bush High- Read my Lips: NO NEW GRADUATES

Clinton University- ask about our internships!

George W Bush College- Our sports teams suck, but boy can we cheer!

The Gerald Ford Gymnastics team.

George W Bush International Airport: planes take off for Saudi Arabia but end up in Iraq.

Billy Carter Rehab facility

Bristol Palin Abstinence center

Ronald Reagan Memory Center

The George Bush College of Pronuncication and Speechifying.

New...the Monica Lewisky Cigar Humidifier!

G-d Loves the Stupid; He Made So Many

There was a massive protest at the place the proposed Mosque is to be built in New York yesterday. I am not going to get into the details of it, that can be found here: THE PROTEST

What I am going to talk about however is this one sentence that stood out to me like a glaring beacon of stupidity:

Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" blared over loudspeakers as mosque opponents chanted, "No mosque, no way!"

Have they ever listened to the song "Born in the USA" by any chance? It is quite far from a "pro-America" song and really not the song they want to bring up in regards to this situation.

Born in the USA tells the tale of a man who is born in a poor town and shit on most of his young life. He is then drafted for the Vietnam war and sent over to fight. While there, a friend of his has a child with a local girl, is killed, and the speaker returns home with only a photo of the man and his child to remember. He find the economic situation at home horrible; is unable to find a job; and finds even the VA unwilling or unable to help. The man looks at all this happening to him and thinks "I was born in the USA." In the end, he goes to prison for 10 years and is released homeless.

It is endlessly ironic to me that these people, who think they are showing pride in their country by showing religious intolerance are playing a song about America not living up to its name.

BORN IN THE USA lyrics

Born down in a dead man's town
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
You end up like a dog that's been beat too much
'Til you spend half your life just covering up

[chorus:]
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.

I got in a little hometown jam
And so they put a rifle in my hands
Sent me off to Vietnam
To go and kill the yellow man

[chorus]

Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man says "Son if it was up to me"
I go down to see the V.A. man
He said "Son don't you understand"

[chorus]

I had a buddy at Khe Sahn
Fighting off the Viet Cong
They're still there, he's all gone
He had a little girl in Saigon
I got a picture of him in her arms

Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I'm ten years down the road
Nowhere to run, ain't got nowhere to go

I'm a long gone Daddy in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.

As you can see, Born in the USA is far from the "American Pride" song most people seem to think it is. It shows the ironic double standard of America and how the land we think we live in is not the land we live in.

To me, this is like advertising the movie IRON MAN with the Black Sabbath song of the same name: did the makers of that movie look at the song beyond the title? Did they catch "Kills the People He Once Saved?" Not very heroic.

Pre-show

Ever feel like you have front row seats to oblivion and the entire thing is just waiting for you to give it the go ahead? The entire self-destructive implosion of reality is at the gate just patiently waiting for you to say "yeah, I think I am ready now?" I didn't, but I am starting to think I do.

To quote a great Tool song:
I sure could use a vacation from this stupid shit.

Let the show begin!

Praise for a Big Company?

I bash the "Big Boys" so often that I felt it was time I shared a story of the "Big Boy" taking my side over the "Small Player."

My Samsung TV is dying. It turns itself off and on at least 3 times when I try to turn it on and takes an average of 2 minutes to show a picture. To give you an idea, my computer turns on and loads Firefox faster than my TV shows a picture. The worst part is that it is a little over 3 years old. My old TV lasted 15 years and I treated it like crap. I dust my Samsung daily.

So anyway, I went to the forums in search of others with my same problem and I found thousands of us: basically everyone who bought my TV around the same time I did. The forums warned of a fight with Samsung to get them to fix it, but they would if you fought hard and long. I prepared myself for a fight and called Samsung.

Samsung, it turned out, was not prepared for a fight and was, instead very helpful. They asked for my TV's serial number and then confirmed it was part of a series that were made with a Power Supply defect that they would fix at no charge. Even better, I did not have to ship my TV to them; they would pay to send someone to me. I was happy and awaiting my call from the local Samsung repair center.

Today, Monday, I got a call from Lakes Electronics, the local Samsung repair outlet, and they informed me that they would not be repairing my TV. They said they were behind in the payments from Samsung and refused to honor any new contracts until they were paid by Samsung. I was shocked; mainly because this was none of my business. I called Samsung immediately, once again prepared for a fight, and once again Samsung disarmed me.

Samsung was shocked that Lakes Electronics would refuse service AND that they would give the excuse that they did. Not that it was or was not true, but that it was none of my business as a customer of both parties.

I asked the Customer Service person what my options were as it was out of Best Buy's warranty and nobody was willing to repair it. She checked and saw that Lakes Electronics were the only option for me. I sighed. They placed me on hold and then returned with the news of "we will repair your TV with our repair people or we will replace it for you, but you will not be charged and we are so sorry this has happened."

How can I be mad? I may have just become a Samsung customer for life.