Yet another great bargain.

One friend calls me a “wheeler and dealer.” I think of myself more as an opportunity taker. I thought I’d pass along this great way to save some money. So you go to the movies, buy your ticket, adult… ok that’ll be $8, maybe more depending on where you live. Maybe you’re a student and get some sort of “discount.” Watch the flunkey that takes your ticket next time, the only thing he looks at is the title of the movie. So here’s what you do, if your in a group, have one person go up to the ticket counter and buy all the tickets, have that person buy only one adult or student ticket, and get everyone else children’s tickets, somewhere in the neigborhood of $5, not too shabby. If you’re in a group of 20 they may get suspicious, unless you’re Michael Jackson, so may want to split it up a bit in such a scenario. Then you hand your tickets to the flunkey, and he/she rips them apart, your in, and that’s the scam. Now, in the very unlikely chance that someone questions you, you just tell them you wanted all student tickets, and say they must have screwed up. They can’t prove anything, so no harm no foul.

Also, if you have some sort of moral quandary with this, think of it this way. Who’s losing money? Tom Cruise? Steven Spielberg? Who cares… they got more than they could ever need anyways.

Mwahahaha... Sweet!

I would say this is a gift that keeps on giving. Click the link to get the full-res wallpaper version. For those not in the know, this is a screen capture from the teaser trailer for Gibby’s new flick called Apocalypto (though I added the Merry Christmas text to spice things up for the holidays). You can watch it at Apple.com/trailers if you’re interested. He actually slipped this frame into the actual trailer… weird. Enjoy.

Merry Christmas!

I’m going to be a stuntman.

Wow… let me start off by saying I drive a 1990 Subaru AWD GL-10. Sweet little number. However, as of yet, it doesn’t have snow tires. This will immediately be remedied.

On a return voyage from the local Walmart with my little brother, on freshly iced over roads, a van, driving in front of me, I’m assuming with snow tires, stopped almost immediately. Ahhhh….. slow down, slow down. Too icy, and although I could slow down, it wasn’t going to be slowly enough, and when I pushed on the breaks more, I just slid towards the van. So I did what Bruce Willis would do, and turned my steering wheel all the way to the right, slammed on the breaks and did a 180. Spun me right off the road in a nice safe field… where I got stuck. Luckily though some other people stopped and helped me push the car back on the road. I guess all those movies I watch come in handy after all. Scary stuff though, could of gotten my car all banged up, and I just got it out of the shop two days ago. Anyway, the moral of the story is, if ever in grave peril, spin a 180, or at the very least drive through a conveniently placed pane of safety glass.

Beat, it's what's for dinner.

Some of you might not know who Beat Takeshi is, but let me assure you, he's awesome. He's one of Japan's most famouse actors, as well as one of Japan's most famous directors. While directing he goes by his real name, Takeshi Kitano, Beat is just nickname he uses as an actor. Some films... he directed and starred in Fireworks, Violent Cop, and Kikujiro, but you may have seen him in Battle Royale as the unforgettable teacher of class B, or more unfortunately you may have seen him as the villain in Johnny Mnemonic.

I submitted this to Threadless today, hoping this one will make the cut.

Oil tastes like candy.

“Syriana is a very real term used by Washington think-tanks to describe a hypothetical reshaping of the Middle East” (Gaghan).

Syriana is written and directed by Stephen Gaghan, the writer of Traffic. What’s different about Syriana? A few things, but most importantly the film doesn’t have a meaningful conclusion, none of the characters problems are resolved, no one really has learned from their mistakes. Some people have died, and some people live, some become richer, some poorer. This can be frustrating to a lot of people who are used to seeing Hollywood’s latest and greatest. Films that are fun for the whole family, films where the good guys always triumph, and the bad guys always fall.

Here there aren’t any good guys… although there are good traits of some of the characters, everyone is a bad guy. The story is about oil, and the conflict between oil politics at home and those abroad. It traces the lives of people in all levels of the industry, from poor immigrants working in an Iranian oil facility, to the top of the top, Texas oil men who happen to also work in congress. George Clooney is the outlier, an ex-CIA operative who does his missions without asking why, that is until he gets blamed for international crimes he was paid by our government to do. Plus we get to see him get his fingernails pulled out with a pair of pliers.

The film’s pretty unsympathetic to all of its characters, except perhaps for the one we hate the most. The Arab oil worker in Iran, who after a merger between two oil companies which he couldn’t even begin to comprehend, is out of a job. When he goes to try to be a soldier for the government he gets the shit kicked out of him by a couple of cops without any merit. The only people that treat him with kindness and respect are these fundamentalist Muslim whackos. The kids not evil, he just didn’t have anywhere to turn. These fundamentalists brain wash the boy into doing things far worse than being beaten by cops or going hungry.

This isn’t that the film is taking sides in all this. It’s equally criticizing American politics, foreign politics, and Muslim extremism. I really don’t understand how oil gets from the ground of Iran to the pump of Idaho and only costs us $2 a gallon, especially when everybody knows it’s running out. After the oil is gone the Middle East’s economy will no longer be existent. What’s nice about Syriana though, besides the fact that it is entertaining, and never boring, is that it lets us follow all these pieces and after the films over we can step back and get a better look at the whole puzzle.

My only real complaint about the whole thing is that, although the movie is beautiful, and the landscapes of the Middle East are mesmerizing, the films camera work, editing, and overall style, doesn’t match that of Traffic, a film written by Gaghan, but directed by Steven Soderbergh. This is not to say that the camera work and editing of Syriana is bad, just that Traffic's was really good. If I was giving this a grade, I’d probably do a B+ or an A-, something around that tune.

…free hostages.

I saw this headline on a news website the other day, Saudi commandos free hostages. I clicked my hand off trying to find where I can acquire some free hostages of my own. Hell, I’d even take some Saudi commandos if they were free. This reminds me of these bumper stickers hippies (I mean pseudo hippies) used to put on there gas guzzling SUV’s back in the 90’s… well, some of them probably do it still. Free Tibet… sounds great. I’d love some. I could really go for some Free Turkey personally or Free Money for that matter, but sure, Tibet, hairbrush, whichever. I mean if it’s free, why not. I’ll take it.

What ever happened to all those Free Tibet bumper stickers? Do we not see them as much anymore because Tibet was finally freed and I just missed the news flash? Or did they just give up? That’s understandable, I mean, it’s a tough fight, putting a sticker on your car… I could see how people would get tired out. Maybe you need to take it off to put on a really witty anti-Bush bumper sticker. Or maybe, and believe me, this is a stretch, it was only a fad to begin with, no one really ever had conviction in the matter, and after the fad wore out, they just took the bumper stickers off. No no no… never mind, that’s just silly.

What I hate most about our postmodern condition.

What a sick fucking pig sty of a world we live in. No good deed goes unpunished and a handful of other clichés vast enough to fill the gap between today and our bleak future.

Not two months ago I had a genius idea. Light bulb, etc. I thought, how funny an article would be that was about “The wrong ways to eat a Reses.” Chop them up, mix them with pig intestines… eat them from the squeezed butt cheeks of a deranged and deformed midget. Yet, to my great dismay, it so happens, many others have already come up with this thought, and posted their lists of wrong ways to eat Reses delectable peanut butter cups online. It’s much like watching a turd swirl away down the toilet. You know it’s shitty, but you still feel melancholic, because you know that you made it, but now it’s gone. Such despair.

A year ago, while contemplating death, as I often do, I thought, why not make an internet cemetery, have shrines for your loved ones online, pictures and video clips, and people can go visit it whenever they want and leave pictures of roses, or little comments. Too late, already done.

Today though takes the cake… cookie… wafer, whatever. While fondling a slimy chicken’s breast I was preparing for grilling, I thought to myself, “Do not lick your hands or stick your fingers in your mouth, for chicken, when raw, is rumored to give humans salmonella.” Light bulb, etc. Salmon Nilla Wafers. Cookies, salmon flavored flaky cookies. Genius idea, witty, smart, congratulations, thanks for the Nobel but I must be off, brick wall. It’s already been written about… not in detail mind you, but on the comment blog of some random cartoonist society one Kevmodee (oh the irony… perhaps it’s me from the future commenting through some internet time machine… who knows) says, “Raw chicken reminds me of those new fish cookies: Salmon Nilla Wafers. (Think about that one, and it'll be funny tomorrow.)”

Tomorrow? If they didn’t get it today they are probably comatose, or that kid who played Urkel in Family Matters (a.k.a. deceased). Seriously though… is it our plight to never entertain a truly original thought in our minds for the whole of our lives? Probably. I guess that’s why we have Prozac and other happy medicines today… because before, when there were original thoughts to be had, we didn’t need anti depression drugs (I do believe they are needed today, however, unlike Mr. Top Gun). Eh… I hope I’m wrong, I hope there are original brilliant thoughts still uncreated, but maybe I’m being too optimistic.