To The Metal

What the heck?

So I see these previews – a lot.  Side effect of Netflix, is that I’ll see the same previews over and over again if I watch movies from a similar timeframe.  “A Scanner Darkly” was one of them.  Didn’t notice the plot.  Didn’t notice the acting.  I just noticed some actors I like and some very trippy animation.

That’s exactly what I got.

A bunch of actors I like, sucking.  I should have gotten the hint when I saw that George Clooney produced it.  Perhaps he was drinking a little too much Great American Lager when he signed that check, or he was still in a daze from ruining Batman and conning people into watching Ocean’s Twelve.

The acting, like I said – is horrible.  Of course, I can’t blame good actors for sucking when the actual plot is just plain non-existent.  Ok… I get it, the Government is all powerful, fighting a drug war, watching everyone and everything.

I think I can save you the trouble of renting/buying/watching this movie.  Hold your breath until you see stars, when the stars come, just chant in your head “Bush is Evil.”  When you black out wondering what just happened, and then continue on with your day as if nothing has – congratulations, you’ve just watched “A Scanner Darkly” and have been Karmically bitch slapped for wasting your time in such a pointless manner.

Seriously – I’m sure the effects would be great if there was a plot – oh, and Robert Downy Jr needs to avoid imitating Eugene Levy EVER AGAIN.  Seriously.  If you ever get an offer for a similar movie, strap on some fake eyebrows and fire off some knuckle children into a tube sock.  Keanu?  What the hell were you thinking?  Stop acting deep.  Stop accepting “deep” roles.  This was Bill & Ted become under-cover cops, same acting, same plot, just no George Carlin to save us all by nuking the set.

I officially feel stupid for watching this film… let alone wasting a blog post on it.

Who really fucking cares?

IMHO, Led Zeppelin was no more ground breaking than Poison when CC Deville finally learned how to play guitar.  Sure, they put together some great tunes but there’s a reason that nearly every attempt to reunite or reinvigorate the franchise has failed horribly.  Page and Plant?  Crap.  Absolute crap.  There’s a reason they didn’t play Stairway to Heaven on that tour – they were waiting for the followup LP (where’d that go?).

Who listened to Zeppelin in the 70’s?  Teenagers.  They’re all now headed towards their 50’s.  Ever see 25,000 50 year olds in one place that wasn’t selling arts and crafts?  I’ll be astonished if they can fill an arena let alone some back-street blues club.

Both Page and Plant had some outstanding solo success, they should have just kept it that way and bowed out gracefully.  Instead we get a half-assed reunion every few years where simply put – they display just how dead the chemistry is.  They’re past their prime.  I nearly laughed myself off the toilet looking at the latest Rolling Stone with Jimmy Page looking like Gandalf and Plant resembling the bastard offspring of the Three Musketeer’s and a Shitzu.

There are some dedicated Zep fans out there that’ll gladly pay to get another Les Paul to the head, and more power to them.  Folks like them keep acts like the Rolling Stones, Barbara Streisand, and Gallagher in the black long after they should have gone the way of Ricky Nelson and the Big Bopper.

Don’t get me wrong, I love watching him smash the watermelon with the big hammer just as much as the next guy – but watching our heroes grow old is only worth it if they can still keep up…  Page, Plant, even Jones – they’re nothing without the real Bonzo.  Page should either get back with Coverdale or the Black Crows – or retire.  There’ll never be another Led Zeppelin and if the friggin music industry hasn’t caught on yet – the surviving members of the mighty lead balloon should have the decency to spare their fans another insult to the memory.

I listen to talk radio quite a bit, Wilkow, Hannity, Limbaugh, Levin, etc… They always provide valuable information and to an extent – entertainment.  That said, I don’t know any greater soap-box climber than Hannity.  Some times it is tolerable, other times I find myself shouting at the radio.

Yesterday he had some “ew porno” type on the show and a “hello, reality” type person on the phone.  They were discussing the impact of “pornographic” imagery on the current generation.  The guest recounted a protest where 30 young people got together and one by one entered a Victoria’s Secret store in a mall and asked the manager to take the risque posters down.

Yes, that’s right – Victoria’s Secret – not lapse parenting, is the reason that kids are sexually active at ages that haven’t been seen in the state of Kentucky since 2006.

This demagogue went on further to decry Seventeen magazine, a periodical for girls where teen girls ask questions that they would not otherwise ask their parents.  The jackass wanted a warning on the front of the magazine identifying it as pornography!  Now whether it be embarrasing stories, advice on tackling the sexual question, or just general icky girl talk – it’s been in that magazine and to anyone with a brain it is a valuable resource.

No where in this meandering, arrogant, soap-box interview were the parents ever mentioned!  That’s right, society caused the sexual problem, so society can fix it.  My friends, we’ve got a better chance to affect global climate.

Why are teenage girls writing Seventeen and not asking mom?  Maybe Mom isn’t there.  Maybe Mom is too busy working.  Maybe Mom is a dishrag.  Who knows.  Are teen guys getting sexual thoughts in their mind because of Victorias Secret?  Should 8 year olds be seeing the risque window displays and posters?  How come nobody is going after Sears or K-Mart for their underwear ads if this is such a problem?

It’s not the problem – parents are.  They’re willing to tell their kids that Santa Claus doesn’t exist but not to keep their thighs together or keep their little cobra commander in their pants.  The fact is that Seventeen magazine would be out of business, and the slutty displays that are up even at the seasonal Christmas store – wouldn’t make a difference if the guiding hand and wisdom of a PARENT were there in the first place.

So I guess my problem isn’t really with Conservatism – it’s with the religious zealots that hijack it in the name of so called ‘morality.’  Blaming society for the end result of lapse parenting and the inability of modern parents to tackle the icky subject of PUBERTY in time to keep little Johnny or Suzie from coming home with some real bad news.

You want more morality in society?  Teach it to your kids yourself, you arrogant assholes.

Notice all the coverage of the Colorado church shootings on TV?  Me either.

Notice any mention of “hate crime” in any mention of it?  Me either.

Jerks.

Standing outside a restaurant at brunch where the French Onion soup left me particularly gassy… I decided to head outside so I could let one go without embarrassing myself or bothering anyone else.  So I step out the door, walk to the side, and let one go.

It could have been confused for a pair of Raptor’s breaking the sound barrier.

So I walk back to the door and see a pair of smokers looking at me, half disgusted.

“Yes, I know it’s a disgusting habit, but I can quit any time I want!”

Last night my fiancee and I finally got to see Daughtry perform live, up close and personal.  At least that’s how we felt at the Nokia Theater down in Times Square.  The trip down wasn’t too bad, we took NJ Transit trains to get into the city which took about an hour.  Besides a little confusion as to what trains went where, as well as our printed schedules not adding up to reality… We made it.

Everything about the place was top notch.  First, going in, there was no chaos.  Sure there were a few assholes who felt the need to cut in line – c’est la vie.  The line had already looped around 44th and Broadway, but each line in itself was an orderly queue.  Event handlers did a pristine job of funneling the crowd inside.  Once inside?  Plenty of bars – $6 for a mix drink is fine by me at such an event.  They also had decent food which cost about the same as I’d get at a local deli… $8 for a ‘gourmet’ sandwich (aka a little meat, a lot of bread, but plenty of flavor).

Now as for getting into the stage area, there literally is no bad location in the place to watch the show.  We sat 1 row from the back in comfortable stadium style seating and still had a clear view of the performers.  Even standing on the floor, there was plenty of breathing room.  I just hope that nobody at Nokia gets greedy – for the first time I can recall I saw a major act at a small venue and did not feel like a sardine.  The acoustics in the place were the best I’ve ever experienced.  From what I could tell the walls were covered in sound deadening material, as a result the music was LOUD but not distorted.  I left the place able to hear clearly, and even today I don’t feel like I went to a 3 hour concert last night.

Now the opening acts?  Made me wish I took a later train and arrived just in time to see Daughtry.  Don’t get me wrong, there was some pretty good talent there – but…  Death of Fire opened, the music was great but the singer seemed to be overextending himself.  When he sang like normal, he did ok – when he broke into this raspy howl it was just painful to watch and hear.  By the end of the 2nd song his voice was already shot.  Daughtry came out on stage during their performance to throw an assist during the 3rd or 4th track which seemed to reinvigorate things on stage.  The next act though… that one threw us all off.

“The Middle States” I think they were called.  I’m not sure who booked them on this tour, but within 15 seconds of their first song every single person in the venue had the same look on their face…  Something like “Daddy just slapped Mommy at the restaurant… and we don’t know what to do.”  Again, the music was pretty tight – albeit far too laid back and the vocals just screamed “I’m not emo enough to be emo, someone please kill me.”  One song after another seemed to send out waves of depression – The Middle States were like a stiff cocktail of Prozac and Valium.  The kid could play the piano, but honestly the band had no place in the night’s performance.   Death of Fire – Hard Rock.  Daughtry – Hard Rock.  Middle States – justification for the PMRC to reunite and save us from the grasp of crappy Emo.

As for Daughtry – holy crap folks.  The guy just has stage presence and a seemingly unending talent.  He ran through the catalogue of his first album along with some Alice in Chains, Johnny Cash, Ozzy Osbourne (the reggae version of Crazy Train sung by his guitarist was hysterical) as well as some new material.  Crowd participation was at a peak all night, every time the microphone was aimed at the crowd, Chris got to hear his songs sung back to him by throngs of adoring fans.  The show didn’t really slow down for a moment, and each component of the band performed better than I’d ever seen at a live show.  The focus of course was on Chris for most of the night, he fills the seats – but the whole ensemble keeps them there.

Outstanding performance, outstanding venue, I’d highly recommend it to anyone.  Speaking of which – Queensryche is playing there in February, anyone interested? 🙂

I’ve finally decided to call it quits with the MMO.

My poison?  World of Warcraft.

My reason?  It’s a waste of time.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love video games and World of Warcraft is quite possibly the king.  That said, I’ve been playing this game for YEARS.  I spend hours upon hours running through the same quests over and over again – that is “kill X number of these” or “collect X number of these” so I can move on to kill bigger and badder things.  Along the way I get spiffy looking visual upgrades and a monthly charge of $15.

In the mean time, all I’m doing is playing WoW.  Blizzard has made it exceedingly difficult to do other things while playing.  You can’t eliminate the tedium by using a bot (yes, this is cheating, but after creating my 8th character frankly I don’t want to do the same crap over and over again for weeks/months before I get to the good stuff).  You can’t buy gold – well you can – but Blizzard’s enforcment is just plain random.  I still haven’t ever bought gold, but if the option is there I should be able to throw Blizzard a few extra dollars and at least get a virtual loan.

I’ve been feeling this growing urge to give up on the MMO for months.  Trying to re-inspire myself by creating new characters was a practice in futility.  When it comes to video games I like to get immersed into something, accomplish the goals, then be done with it.  While I’ve played hundreds of games, very few actually earn enough praise for a repeat performance.  Still, I could likely throw in a game like Crackdown, GTA, or Forza and run through it to completion for the umteenth time and be satisfied.

With WoW, each time I started developing a new character – I just got more bored with the entire experience.  Sure, there are new skills to learn and new bad guys to kill…  But they’re pretty much the same bad guys I’ve killed before just with different names and colors.  For lack of a better description, World of Warcraft is Super Mario Brothers, only it would literally take years to explore the entire game.  I’m done.  There’s a reason I couldn’t beat SMB until I was 18 and there’s a reason I’m quitting WoW…  I want to pay for entertainment, not monotony.  I want vivid, dynamic environments, I want a bloody machine gun.  I want to be able to finish a game in a week or two, not still be trying to reach my maximum level for months if not years, all the while so bored with my current character that I waste more time trying to discover something else in that MMO world to excite me.

Blizzard has made a fortune off of its graphics and gameplay, and more power to them for it.  They’ve got a formula that works, and some people probably don’t mind doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different experience.

Personally, I think it’s insane and I’m f**king done with it.

Anyone interested in my level 68 rogue along with its cabal of characters and fat bank account, drop me a line.