"Oh, I Like A Lotta Lumps...Eeeeeechh!!!"

So anyway, I was thinking of something that struck me as particularly funny, so I'll share with the rest of the class. Wouldn't it be great if there was a parody of the scene from Batman when Jack's in the plastic surgeons office after the big plunge. You know the one where he's in the dark and says, "Mirror...MIRROR!!!". Only in the parody you see a guy sitting in a chair in the dark kind of twitching a bit. Instead of demanding a mirror he says, "Coffee...COFFEE!!!". So the guy hands him a cup and he takes a sip with a long, drawn out slurpy sound. Then just like in Batman he starts laughing manically and the doctor starts to panic, even saying roughly the same line, "You see vat I haf to vork vith hier?". Cut to the coffee machine in the corner...it's smoking and shaking, and sparks are blazing out...the things basically about to explode. The guy in the dark continues laughing hysterically and throws the mug against the wall smashing it into a thousand pieces. He charges up the stairs, still laughing and the camera pans over next to the coffee maker where we see a jar of generic brand coffee with "DECAF" in big bold letters printed on the jar.

I don't know why, but to me...that's good funny!

P.S. 50 bonus Brownie points to anyone who gets the title reference!

That is all.

The Best Nineteen Minutes Ever

So anyway, a long time ago in a posting far, far away we discussed our top ten pieces of music that we couldn't live without. You know, the whole if I were stuck on an island and I could only have...yada, yada, yada. Anyway, I thought I'd throw a new one out there for any and everyone who'd like to contribute:

Name your top 10 favorite individual cues/tracks ever.

"Gee, thanks Mike, that's not going to be challenging or anything". You know, these are the ones that you repeat ad infinitum every time you play the CD (assuming said cue even has a recording available). This doesn't necessarily have to be what you'd pick for the top ten greatest individual cues ever recorded for film, just your ten personal favorites. Of course, one might correlate one's ten favorite cues/tracks as being the best ever, but in this case, that doesn't necessarily have to be the the case. You don't really need to explain your reasoning for every choice unless you want to (I know I'm not). One rule, stick to actual timed cues as much as possible (this can be difficult when dealing with music from the MV guys, I know), we'll discuss Main Themes in my next posting...and then, a real treat (hint: break out your CD's).

So without further ado, here we go:

10: Stealing the Enterprise - Star Trek III (James Horner) - I know, III isn't exactly a fan favorite, but I really love this cue. It takes most of the best elements from II and cranks them way up (better recording too).

9: The Mutant - Total Recall (Jerry Goldsmith) - I've spent hours trying to pick this out at the piano and have yet to get my brain around it.

8: The Ludlows - Legends of the Fall (James Horner) - Ok, so this is essentially a thematic suite timed to the film, but it's still gorgeous.

7: Theology/Civilization - Conan the Barbarian (Basil Poledouris)

6: Adagio and Transfiguration - Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (Elliot Goldenthal)

5: I Could Have Done More - Schindler's List (John Williams) - I still get misty when I hear this...and put it to the film, fuggedaboudit - total waterworks.

4: The Last Giant Piece - The Iron Giant (Michael Kamen) - Goosebumps by the end, all one minute of it...seriously!

3: Wifeing - Conan the Barbarian (Basil Poledouris)

2: The Hand of Fate, Pt. II - Signs (James Newton Howard) - This cue alone was worth the Best Score Oscar...combine it with the rest of the score and... (what were they thinking that year?).

and......

1: The Battle of Hoth/The Asteroid Field - The Empire Strikes Back (John Williams) - Ok, so let's be honest...regardless of how many different ways this has been broken up in the various iterations of the soundtrack album (the original double LP/CD had it in five parts, spread out all over the album, I think), it's still essentially one cue. A hefty 19 minute cue, but one cue nonetheless. Sure the Asteroid Field portion was recorded separately, but in the film, there's no break...so it's one cue, one damned fine cue, maybe one of the best ever composed for film...period.

WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!

So anyway, how's about a two for one sale today. I know that's (the title, that is) a bit of a paranoid alarmist statement, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little concerned about affairs around the world at the moment. I'm sure that the grandparents of people my age expected World War III a long time ago. And as for my generation, I think most of them figured they could just put the war-mongers of the world in time-out before anything serious happened. Honestly I was hoping never to see a major global conflict in my lifetime...but as things are currently shaping up, I'm not so sure that's going to happen. I wonder if any pools have been started as to when this will bust out into all out war? I'm not entirely up on my Middle Eastern politics, but I'm assuming that these Hezbollah rebels that took the Israelis are based out of Beirut...and that's why Israel is seeing fit to lay the holy smack down on Lebanon.

The word for the day boys and girls is escalation...can you say escalation? This is just going to get worse, I can feel it. The trick will be to see just who will get involved over the next few days and weeks. I can't help but think Egypt may actually have enough collective sense to stay out of it at all costs, lest them silly Jews smack'em 'round like bitches again. The Iraqis are currently too busy slaughtering themselves right now to get in on the action. The Iranians, I would imagine, are now really in a rush to get "the bomb". The Saudis will probably stay out of it or risk losing all that oil moolah from the U.S. And as for Syria, Jordan, and Libya, only Allah knows what they're up too!

I don't know. I'm something of an incurable optimist so I'm hoping this will end swiftly and quasi-peacefully. But I'm also a cynic, which means my realist tendencies are trampling all over my positive Chi and telling me that I have a very bad feeling about this.

Thoughts?

That is all.

Practical Physics

So anyway, something funny happened to me the other day. I was coming out to my car from work thinking my week couldn't possibly get any shittier. Alas, the Lord had greater plans for my day. I park in a garage across the street from the building I work in, and, like most downtown parking garages, it's poorly lit so I couldn't see the, ahem, problem from outside the car. I get in and a glimmer catches my eye. On the dashboard is a fragment of orange plastic. If you were me, about that time you'd likely be saying, "What the fuck?!?!". I toss it away only to see a spray of little orange remnants all over the dash, console and passenger seat. Again..."What the FUCK?!?!". It seems that at some point prior in the week, my mother left a cigarette lighter on the dash of my car. Said lighter, after an afternoon in the sun, became pressurized or heated (or likely both) and exploded all over the front of my car. The force of said explosion combined with projecting the one metallic component of the lighter (the top) CRACKED MY FUCKING WINDSHIELD!!!

Actually, it is really pretty funny...I mean come on, what are the odds?! I suppose I should just be glad I wasn't in the car when it happened. As it turns out, the force of the blast was powerful enough to wedge a couple of pieces of plastic between the glass and the interior portion of the windshield frame directly in front of me. I swear, I'm always fixing something on that goddamned car!

So...who wants to blow up some more shit? (I do, I do!!!)

That is all.

Ignorance is Bliss

So anyway, he did it again. I'm actually kind of bitter really because it seems like anymore the only time I have something to blog on is when Dubya does or says something completely stupid. Case in point...go here. It seems yesterday in an interview with Larry King, Fearless Leader stated that he would "...rather be...correct, rather than being popular". Ignoring the alert for the redundancy police (how many times can a person say rather in a single sentence?), that may be the single most mindless bit of rhetoric I've heard...ever.

This of course comes in the wake of the most awful public approval ratings of his stint in orifice (that was intended, btw). While it's true that history has occasionally shown that doing an unpopular thing (Hiroshima, or turning that "ugly duckling" into the prom queen on a bet, for instance) was still likely the right thing to do, more often than not being so despised by a full majority of your people (even some of the ones that voted for you) is usually a good indication that you are, in fact, not doing something right. Mutinies and military coups (sp?) start this way you know!

Currently, his approval rating is sitting at or just below 30%. Roughly translated, that means that about 50% of the people in this country think that Bush could fuck-up wiping his own ass. While another 20% or so believe he could manage it as long as Cheney was gentle in removing his fist. The remaining 30% don't believe his shit stinks to begin with (many of these are likely the same type of people who would like to see cow tipping added as an Olympic event and find nothing wrong with marrying your cousin/sister/mother so long as she's purdy and puts out). Luckily for him (not so much for the rest of the world) he has some of the best (or perhaps worst, depending on your point of view) spin doctors money can buy making it look like an Iraqi Al-Qaida cell was attempting to hide WMD's in the President's ass thereby preventing the toilet paper from making good, solid contact. On a side note, remember the one about the American Indian trying to buy toilet paper from the General Store...you know, where he gets the cheap stuff and brings it back saying "This'm toilet paper like John Wayne...it rough and tough and don't take'm no damn shit off'm any Indians!". Anyway...

Just venting a little...so what does everyone else think?