Movie Review - The Happening (I liked it.)

This is an excellent film. Put simply, this is the film that every horror film tries to be each summer, but only The Happening pulls it off.

If you are looking for The Sixth Sense or Signs, you've got the wrong film. However, if you want something truly terrorizing without having to sit through immature teen slasher flicks, this is your film. Also, it's gory. Really gory.

The characters are quite good and rather believable. I kept thinking, this is exactly how people would act in this situation. Also, it's nice to see a director incorporating relevant modern technology, like cell phones and the internet, into the story. M. Night is adept at taking classic horror and sci-fi themes and updating them for our time.

I'm also becoming quite a fan of Zooey Deschanel, who is funny and talented and can play more roles than the typical Hollywood airhead.

If you ever sat in front of your TV watching sci-fi classics like The X-Files, The Twilight Zone, or The Outer Limits, this film is for you.

John McCain - The Nuclear Pioneer

''Great nations don't leave the lifeblood of their economy in the hands of foreign cartels or bet their future on a commodity located in countries where authoritarians repress their people and terrorists find their main support.'' -John McCain

Nuclear power is the redheaded stepchild of the energy crisis. Fear of nuclear power has been fueled by movies and comic books and real-life events that are not well understood. (For example, the name 'Three Mile Island' conjures up images of death and evil radiation, even though it harmed about as many people as Y2K. None.)

In the early 1970s when I helped found Greenpeace, I believed that nuclear energy was synonymous with nuclear holocaust, as did most of my compatriots...[t]hirty years on, my views have changed, and the rest of the environmental movement needs to update its views, too, because nuclear energy may just be the energy source that can save our planet from another possible disaster: catastrophic climate change. Patrick Moore, founder of Greenpeace

Nuclear power is an easily misunderstood thing. On television, if it is not exploding it is giving people super powers. (It's important to note that in the event of a nuclear meltdown an explosion will not occur, the core will simply sink into the Earth.)

Let's look at how dangerous this stuff is. France is currently getting 75% of their energy from nuclear power and no harm seems to be coming of it. On nuclear submarines, sailors sleep with their heads a few feet from a nuclear reactor and suffer no ill effects for it. This stuff is pretty safe.

But, given the current climate of fear concerning nuclear power, which politician can be bold enough to recommend using more nuclear power? Hardly any, except for an independent maverick like John McCain who is proposing 45 new nuclear reactors. This is clean and dependable energy that will reduce our dependency on oil and clean up our environment. I've been waiting for a president who would do something like this. Maybe, now, we can have one.

Today's Supreme Court Decision - Gun Control

Moments ago, our Supreme Court handed down their decision on the Heller case, which is a case to decide if Americans should be allowed to carry guns.

Answering a 127-year old constitutional question, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to have a gun, at least in one’s home. The Court, splitting 5-4, struck down a District of Columbia ban on handgun possession.

This subject gets tossed around, often, and I'm glad it's been settled, at least for now. I'm afraid of a government that wants to disarm its people. This has been a particularly thorny issue in Washington D.C. where the citizens are dealing with maybe the highest crime rate in the United States and have not been allowed to carry guns to protect themselves.

Concert Review - Boston and Styx 6/24/2008 Grand Prairie, TX

A year ago, my wife and I were celebrating our honeymoon by visiting Boston, Mass. This week, we are celebrating our 1st anniversary and last night we watched Boston,the band, in concert. (Next year, we'll read about Boston, or something.) Styx opened the concert and Boston closed, so I'll review each of them separately.

STYX
These guys have still got it. Heck, they've got it in spades. The guitar players were flawless and the challenging four-part vocals were great. The keyboard player wowed us with his singing and his spinning keyboard (which is cooler than it sounds.)

My wife and I didn't really know much of their stuff, just being kids and all, but we became instant fans. They were everything you ever thought a big rock show should be. These guys are legends and it's easy to see why. Their songs are very complex but also very fun and the band performed these tunes in an exciting way. One of the best shows I have ever seen.

Boston
I was very sad when Brad Delp passed away. I don't really care when celebrities die, but when the lead singer of Boston killed himself I was actually depressed. I also thought I would never get a chance to see them live, I was wrong. Michael Sweet of Stryper has joined them and he is a great addition to the band.

The stage was set up like the inside of a UFO with three 'windows' behind the band adorned with geeky lights and electronics that made it look as if we were all in a large UFO watching the concert while outer space scenes on the 'windows' made it look like we were flying. Very cool.

The main attraction, however, was Tom Sholz, the only surviving original member. He is an MIT grad who invented new guitar gadgets that were widely used in the 70's. He is known for being a good basketball player and he built Boston's recording studio from the ground up. Oh, and he is one of the best guitar players and organ players in rock music. He was fantastic. We saw Van halen earlier this summer and this guy can shred with Eddie. He's great.

This show was very emotional. They referenced the departred Brad Delp and played some songs in his memory. Hearing the guitar solos to More than a Feelin' and Foreplay/Longtime was amazing. It was tough to go to a late concert on a Tuesday night, but it was well worth the trouble to see these guys.


At one point, the lead singer of STYX decided to sing a war protest song and introduced it by making an immature jab at President Bush. Conversly, when it was time for Boston to start their set the only political reference they made was getting the crowd to rise to their feet when they played the Star Spangled Banner. Even though a few of the guys in Boston campaigned for Mike Huckabee, they kept their politics out of things. It was appreciated.

1st Anniversary - Paper

It's been one year. One perfect year. And, depending on who you are, it's going to get better, or worse. Or stay about the same.

Anyway, today marks my one year anniversary of being married to Christine. It's been great. We only dated for 5 months before the engagement and some people were totally caught off-guard when it happened, but we knew it was the right way to go. I knew it was what I wanted the first time I saw her. I'm not usually the sappy type (I think it's boring when Old Yeller dies) but I fell for Christine the moment I saw her and every morning when I see her beautiful eyes I know that I am lucky.

We spent our weekend in Denton, TX; a mini-vacation where we checked out the interesting stores and spent time at a nice hotel. It's tradition to give a gift of paper for the first anniversary, this year it took the form of hotel room tickets. (Here's a list of anniversary gifts for every year, in case you are interested.)

Some have told us that the first year is the hardest, others say it is the easiest. When I tell people that we don't fight, people often say, 'you will' very smugly. I suspect that they are jealous of my relationship. Either way, the lesson here is that this marriage thing is not the same for everyone, but by working hard and putting the other's needs before our own we have had a very fun and fulfilling year. I know that I am a better person for it.

I haven't seen The Dark Knight, yet. I hope it doesn't go like this...

Comic book movies are predictable. Take, for example, Batman Begins. I know, everyone loved it, but I found it to be very predictable. It seemed to use every action movie cliche in a dragged out way that reminded me of someone's grandparent trying to use slang words at the mall. Each step of the way felt like a boring rendition of this action movie formula:

1. Include tedious back story for hero
2. Hero's parents die, he grows up an empty shell of a man who likes to fight.
   
3. Let the hero be trained to fight by someone who invokes the hero's own daddy issues during a training montage (even though the hero can already fight, anyway)
4. Allow hero to make mistakes during his early crime fighting, but use another montage to show him getting better and improving his costume. Even though he beats people up every day and has been trained as a ninja, he needs to start over when fighting deadbeat criminals. (Hint: It's OK if your film is a montage of these montages)
   
5. Use lessons learned in previously mentioned training montage to fight an enemy at the end of the film who falls to his death, ensuring that anti-death penalty viewers will understand that the villain's death was not the hero's fault.
   

There's the formula, and Batman Begins exploited it to death. Now, here are some things that comic book movie sequels always do, and I hope this new film avoids them.

1 - Have the hero expose their secret identity - We saw this in Spiderman 2 and Superman 2. The secret has to get out. Apparently.

2 - The villain invades the hero's secret lair - Found in X-Men 2 and Superman 2, I hope the Joker doesn't wander around in the Batcave in a move that Christopher Knolan will try to make original.

3 - Superhero loses his powers - I know, Batman doesn't have superpowers, but there is bound to be an equivalent plot device, like Bruce Wayne hanging up his batsuit because it's just not working out. Like it the Fantastic Four:Rise of the Silver Surfer, Superman 2, and Spiderman 2.

4 - Multiple Villains - Like in Spiderman 3, Superman 2, X-Men 2, Fantastic Four:Rise of the Silver Surfer, Batman Returns, Hellboy 2...for some reason, we don't want to see our hero fight just one guy, anymore, it's got to be more than one villain. I really don't know why.

That's it. I really hate Batman Begins because it's as exciting and predictable as watching a Van Damme flick. I hope the sequel does better.

I watched Juno. I was bored.

Juno was a boring, annoying film.

Sure, Ellen Page is a fantastic actor. Also, having a baby and finding a good home for it, even though you are in high school where such things are not done, is very cool.

But I was bored and irritated. At the start, I was met with blaring 'indie' music. It was minimalistic and repetitive. The singers were bad and the music lacked dynamics and melodies. (Yes, I know that it is the 'style' but it sucks.) It was like I was walking past a Starbucks and some anti-government indie snob with a 'keep Austin weird' shirt was shoving his Chai Latte in my face and yelling, "I'M AN INDEPENDENT FILM!!! PLEASE LOVE ME FOR MY COUNTER-CULTURALISM!!!"

Then we enter a world where teenagers call each other 'home skillet' and so called 'interesting' characters have boring attributes like being on the track team and enjoying orange tic-tacs. And I thought Kayzer Soze was interesting. Nope, it's this loser. I know teenagers and I don't know them to talk like the ones in this film. Not even close.

Honestly, it's like someone wanted to take the horror that is Napoleon Dynamite and make it into something like Garden State, so they went to Google and typed in something like, 'words teens use' and 'hip sayings for young people' and stuck them into the dialog. And every five minutes the worlds worst music blares at you, lest you forget that you are supporting an indie film and not some big budget corporate flick.

I'd rather be watching Star Wars any day. If you want a good independent film, check out Empire Records. (Also, it boasts an excellent and relevant soundtrack.)

I need to take guitar lessons from this guy...

I'm blogging from the Opening Bell Coffee House in Dallas where a few songwriters are on stage taking turns playing their songs. Christine and I showed up because two of the songwriters are musicians we have met and shared the stage with twice before.

Lisa and Bruce (who just got married) are really good and if I ever get to be half the guitar player Bruce is I will consider myself to be pretty good. Here's a video so you know what I mean:



See? He's way better than me. Actually, I've watched him a few times now and I'm pretty sure he's the best guitar player I know. And I know some pretty good ones.

Anway, it's a good show, as always, and we're excited that we get to play here, tomorrow night! (Thursday, June 19 at 8...)

Here's the band's we're watching tonight, it's BROKUS & PATTERSON and our friends, MARKLEY & BALMER.

Life in Outer Space. I'm Serious.

In 1969, a meteorite that had partially broken up in the atmosphere landed on the ground in the town of Murchison, Australia. More than 200 pounds of the meteorite (cleverly called the 'Murchison Meteorite') have been recovered and it's contents have been shocking.

92 amino acids were found to exist on these space rocks, which may have come from a comet, and only 19 of the 92 amino acids were from Earth. So, where did the other 73 originate? They could only have originated in space.

This has been a highly debated subject for decades because it has been contended that the 73 mysterious amino acids are a result of earthly contamination. However, in today's news...

...the team of research scientists from the US and Europe have demonstrated that uracil and xanthine are present in fragments of the Murchison meteorite and are not terrestrial in origin.

This isn't the first time we have found stuff like this, apparently, but it seems the be most high profile case. Oddly, more people are using this to try to back up their own theories of the origin of life than simply pointing out how cool it is that there could be other lifeforms out there.

Killing People Who 'Might' get Sick.

He was not supposed to be born, but there he was on the ultrasound defying the couples' birth control methods. But there was more, this child was likely to inherit a birth defect that would cause him to die an early death. Jodie Percival of Nottinghamshire, England, had been through this with her previous child and did not want to deal with the pain of watching another child die, so she had an abortion performed.

Or, so she thought. When she was 19 weeks pregnant she noticed 'flutterings' in her stomach and her doctor told her that she was still pregnant. Baby Finley was born in November and the kidney troubles he experienced are not expected to cause any serious problems. In fact, he is expected to 'live a normal life' according to doctors.

Murder is murder, even if the person you try to kill might die some day. Even the very sick deserve a chance at life.

Self Replicating Robots - Science Fiction is Here

The people at RepRap have succeeded in imitating science fiction by creating a self replicating machine.

[they] made on a conventional rapid prototyper, and the first complete working child RepRap machine, made by the RepRap on the left. The child machine made its first successful grandchild part at 14:00 hours UTC on 29 May 2008 at Bath University in the UK, a few minutes after it was assembled.

The picture at the link doesn't show anything that looks like a robot or a smart machine, at first glance, but it's still very impressive. And, creepy. Keep it up.

10 Reasons to Vote for John McCain

(If anyone cares to write a list of reasons to vote for Hillary or Obama, send it to me and I'll link to the first good ones I get, just to keep things open minded.)

1 - Tax cuts. McCain supports the current tax cuts and only opposed them at times because they lacked certain measures to keep people from abusing them. These tax cuts have made a noticeable impact on the amount of money I have on April 14th and I want to see more of this.

2 - He is against abortion and has been for some time. "According to NARAL, McCain has voted pro-life 123 times out of 128 votes, for a 96 percent pro-life voting record." Don't buy the lie that he has recently changed his mind on this issue, it is not true. McCain understands that murder is murder, no matter how small you are.

3 - He's the most outspoken opponent of government waste I can think of. I first heard about government spending abuses from listening to him and he has been consistent on this message. I can think of very few people in Washington who oppose these loopholes that congress exploits to give themselves payoffs, and that worries me. John McCain wants to put an end to it and put that money back in our pockets where it belongs.

4- We can trust him with our soldiers. John McCain shows great concern for soldiers and veterans, for obvious reasons. He has opposed military actions that put our troops in unnecessary danger and I believe we can trust him to use the military responsibly.

5 - He is already active in international politics. He seems to be able to go anywhere and meet with anyone on good terms. While he opposes terror groups in the Middle East, he does not seem to do so in an inflammatory way. Remember, Obama's comments about invading Pakistan caused anti-America riots in that country. (Hopefully, one of Obama's staffers reminded him that Pakistan is on our list of allies.) John McCain has a good handle on foreign affairs.

6 - He is actively seeking solutions to the energy crisis. This is an area where I find myself disagreeing with McCain, quite often. However, while some senators/congresspeople are rubber stamping every energy related bill that comes along, McCain has shown initiative numerous times to find and propose solutions himself. It's better than just filling a seat and I really like what he is saying about nuclear power.

7 - He takes care of veterans. He has expressed a desire to reform VA hospitals and I can't imagine anyone questioning his integrity on this issue. And, unlike Obama, he hasn't had to apologize for insulting our soldiers. (more here)

8 - He seeks plausible solutions to border problems. Open borders won't work and don't make sense. On the other end of the spectrum, trying to kick millions of illegals out of our country isn't possible. The answer lies in the middle, somewhere. McCain is one of the most vocal advocates of finding a solution that is realistic. (Which means that it may not be perfect, but at least it can accomplish something.)

9 - We know what he plans to do. Some candidates say they want to take the country in a 'new direction', others say it's 'time for change'. McCain, on the other hand, has told us many specific things he plans to do and has not been shy about outlining his plans rather than recycling sentences from inspirational posters.

10 - He loves his country, not his party. McCain will be the first one to tell the GOP when he thinks they are wrong and will do the same for the Democrats. He can't be counted on to vote along party lines and that is great. He's a real independent thinker and not a political automaton. He votes his conscience.