Wednesday, February 14, 2007
I had to post this article for the title alone. But it also has some good writing discussing the fact that it's deemed okay in society to eat one kind of meat but not another. Brings to mind the Denis Leary bit on how we only want to save the cute animals. The last paragraph (basically everything on the second page) is the best part. Of course, I can picture a pig or cow while eating bacon or rib eye. The article does makes me curious to eat horse, though.
For those unfamiliar with the Denis Leary reference, here it is courtesy of YouTube:
(Warning: it is Denis Leary, so there's adult language.)
After writing this, I looked over the Time article again and realized that the article title should have been "They eat horses, don't they?" Then again, maybe that was too obvious.
For those unfamiliar with the Denis Leary reference, here it is courtesy of YouTube:
(Warning: it is Denis Leary, so there's adult language.)
After writing this, I looked over the Time article again and realized that the article title should have been "They eat horses, don't they?" Then again, maybe that was too obvious.
Labels: comedy, Denis Leary, meat, video, youtube
Monday, February 12, 2007
This weekend, I got nothing practical done, but I did relax. I also got a few movies in. My yearly total is now up to 22.
#19 Crank: Ever since discovering The Transporter on cable, I've been a fan of Jason Statham as a action hero. He was also great as Handsome Rob in The Italian Job and, although The Transporter 2 wasn't as good as the first one, Statham still kicked ass. So I wanted to see this movie in the theatre. I didn't make it. I got it from netflix the past week. First of all, the movie has a gimmick of a plot. The movie starts off with him watching a video of a bad guy telling him that he was injected with something that would stop his heart painfully in a short period of time. Apparently, adrenaline pumping delays the death. So he has to find out who did this and get revenge and the antidote while keeping his adrenaline up. The movie makers defines many ways for him to do it, including fighting, sex, caffeine, pills from a hospital, energy drinks, and electric shock. Since the movie starts with him already drugged, the backstory is squeezed between action, so it doesn't get a full explanation. Amy Smart plays his girlfriend, although that's as much as you find out about her. She's really only there to facilitate the "sex" part of the adrenaline burst. Fans of Napoleon Dynamite might get a kick of Pedro as a cross-dresser. Anyway, if you're a hardcore action fan, this movie is worth paying for a rental. Otherwise, catch it on cable.
#20 X-Men: The Last Stand: This doesn't stand up to the previous two X-Men movies, but it's still a really good comic book movie. The one problem I have is that they've now made Magneto too powerful. If he can bend and move the Golden Gate Bridge, he can pretty much dominate more than he does. In a world, full of metal objects, he could hold cities for hostage. Anyway, I saw all the X-Men movies multiple times in theatre and have no regrets, so this movie gets a multiple-viewing movie rating.
#21 Smokin' Aces: This movie is about a Vegas magician-turned-gangster-turned-snitch who is in hiding (not very well since everyone knows where he is) while his lawyer makes a immunity deal with the FBI. During this, a number of teams of hitmen are out to get him for the million-dollar reward. The back-plot is complicated and stretches reality, but it doesn't matter because this movie is all about the action sequences. Afterwards, I compared this movie to what the new Ocean's Eleven would be if directed by Tarantino, only this movie wasn't done with Tarantino skill. Between the FBI, the assassins, and three different group of mobsters, there are alot of characters which allows for a lot of roles for recognizable actors. Alicia Keys did a really good job in her first real acting role and Ryan Reynolds managed to be respectable in dramatic scenes, which is an accomplishment considering he was Van Wilder. I saw this movie at a pre-noon showing which means it was even cheaper than a matinee (which also means it's about the same price as a full-price ticket when I was in high school). It was worth more than that price. I give it a pay full-price at the theatre rating.
#22 Beauty Shop: This movie I only watched because I wanted to watch a comedy on tv and this was the only thing on. I think it's a sorta spinoff of the Barber Shop movies. It's a watchable movie. Has some kinda funny moments. The Kevin Bacon and Alicia Silverstone characters, though, are painful to watch. If you like cultural-and-gender stereotype-based humor, this is not a bad movie to watch, but I wouldn't pay for it. This is definitely a watch-on-cable movie.
I've also been watching a few tv shows in mass on dvd, recently. I watched the entire second season of Numb3rs and the first two discs of the first season of Bones. Both really good detective-crime-solving-with-a-twist show. The former uses math and the latter uses dead bodies and science. I got a little laugh that the titles of the episodes describe the body. For example, two episodes titles are "The Boy in the Bush" and "The Man in the Bear". (Yeah, you read the second one correctly.)
The other tv show I've watched in mass was My Guys, which had a marathon last sunday of its entire first season. I recorded it on dvd. It's a pretty good sitcom about a woman who hangs out most of the time with a bunch of guy friends. It's worth watching if you can avoid getting annoyed by the relationship-as-sports metaphor in the voiceovers. They were good after the first episode, got tiresome fast, and ventured into the vicinity of annoying around episode nine.
#19 Crank: Ever since discovering The Transporter on cable, I've been a fan of Jason Statham as a action hero. He was also great as Handsome Rob in The Italian Job and, although The Transporter 2 wasn't as good as the first one, Statham still kicked ass. So I wanted to see this movie in the theatre. I didn't make it. I got it from netflix the past week. First of all, the movie has a gimmick of a plot. The movie starts off with him watching a video of a bad guy telling him that he was injected with something that would stop his heart painfully in a short period of time. Apparently, adrenaline pumping delays the death. So he has to find out who did this and get revenge and the antidote while keeping his adrenaline up. The movie makers defines many ways for him to do it, including fighting, sex, caffeine, pills from a hospital, energy drinks, and electric shock. Since the movie starts with him already drugged, the backstory is squeezed between action, so it doesn't get a full explanation. Amy Smart plays his girlfriend, although that's as much as you find out about her. She's really only there to facilitate the "sex" part of the adrenaline burst. Fans of Napoleon Dynamite might get a kick of Pedro as a cross-dresser. Anyway, if you're a hardcore action fan, this movie is worth paying for a rental. Otherwise, catch it on cable.
#20 X-Men: The Last Stand: This doesn't stand up to the previous two X-Men movies, but it's still a really good comic book movie. The one problem I have is that they've now made Magneto too powerful. If he can bend and move the Golden Gate Bridge, he can pretty much dominate more than he does. In a world, full of metal objects, he could hold cities for hostage. Anyway, I saw all the X-Men movies multiple times in theatre and have no regrets, so this movie gets a multiple-viewing movie rating.
#21 Smokin' Aces: This movie is about a Vegas magician-turned-gangster-turned-snitch who is in hiding (not very well since everyone knows where he is) while his lawyer makes a immunity deal with the FBI. During this, a number of teams of hitmen are out to get him for the million-dollar reward. The back-plot is complicated and stretches reality, but it doesn't matter because this movie is all about the action sequences. Afterwards, I compared this movie to what the new Ocean's Eleven would be if directed by Tarantino, only this movie wasn't done with Tarantino skill. Between the FBI, the assassins, and three different group of mobsters, there are alot of characters which allows for a lot of roles for recognizable actors. Alicia Keys did a really good job in her first real acting role and Ryan Reynolds managed to be respectable in dramatic scenes, which is an accomplishment considering he was Van Wilder. I saw this movie at a pre-noon showing which means it was even cheaper than a matinee (which also means it's about the same price as a full-price ticket when I was in high school). It was worth more than that price. I give it a pay full-price at the theatre rating.
#22 Beauty Shop: This movie I only watched because I wanted to watch a comedy on tv and this was the only thing on. I think it's a sorta spinoff of the Barber Shop movies. It's a watchable movie. Has some kinda funny moments. The Kevin Bacon and Alicia Silverstone characters, though, are painful to watch. If you like cultural-and-gender stereotype-based humor, this is not a bad movie to watch, but I wouldn't pay for it. This is definitely a watch-on-cable movie.
I've also been watching a few tv shows in mass on dvd, recently. I watched the entire second season of Numb3rs and the first two discs of the first season of Bones. Both really good detective-crime-solving-with-a-twist show. The former uses math and the latter uses dead bodies and science. I got a little laugh that the titles of the episodes describe the body. For example, two episodes titles are "The Boy in the Bush" and "The Man in the Bear". (Yeah, you read the second one correctly.)
The other tv show I've watched in mass was My Guys, which had a marathon last sunday of its entire first season. I recorded it on dvd. It's a pretty good sitcom about a woman who hangs out most of the time with a bunch of guy friends. It's worth watching if you can avoid getting annoyed by the relationship-as-sports metaphor in the voiceovers. They were good after the first episode, got tiresome fast, and ventured into the vicinity of annoying around episode nine.
Labels: 2007, goals, movies, tv
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
I got the movie Employee of the Month (#18 of the year) from Netflix. I had extremely low expectations for this movie, so this movie could only meet or exceed expectations. It did exceed expectations, but not by much. Best case scenario would have the movie being to warehouse club stores what Office Space is to offices or Waiting... is to restaurants. It wasn't.
There's a number of people in this movie who are usually annoying but manage to not be annoying. Even Andy Dick wasn't annoying, which might be a first for him. The only truly annoying character was the main bad guy and it kinda worked. Dane Cook was actually not bad of a lead actor. Jessica Simpson was given very few lines, so wasn't really required to act at all. The one time where she had to do any real acting, she did a competent job. A great actor would have done more with it, but a great actor wouldn't go see this movie, not to mention be in it.
Anyway, the movie had a few funny scenes, one that almost borders on inspired. But when the funniest moment of a movie involves a prized Honda hatchback that looks like something Bill would have driven in high school, you're not talking great comedy. But I did kinda like it. I give it a rating of worth watching on cable, but don't pay any extra money for it. The only reason to watch it on dvd would be to see the alternate beginning special feature that not only is funnier than the real beginning, but establishes the story alot better and has Eva Longoria, who isn't in the actual movie.
There's a number of people in this movie who are usually annoying but manage to not be annoying. Even Andy Dick wasn't annoying, which might be a first for him. The only truly annoying character was the main bad guy and it kinda worked. Dane Cook was actually not bad of a lead actor. Jessica Simpson was given very few lines, so wasn't really required to act at all. The one time where she had to do any real acting, she did a competent job. A great actor would have done more with it, but a great actor wouldn't go see this movie, not to mention be in it.
Anyway, the movie had a few funny scenes, one that almost borders on inspired. But when the funniest moment of a movie involves a prized Honda hatchback that looks like something Bill would have driven in high school, you're not talking great comedy. But I did kinda like it. I give it a rating of worth watching on cable, but don't pay any extra money for it. The only reason to watch it on dvd would be to see the alternate beginning special feature that not only is funnier than the real beginning, but establishes the story alot better and has Eva Longoria, who isn't in the actual movie.
Saturday, February 03, 2007
This is the amazing goal that I was talking about in my last post. You can almost see me, even. I was right behind the penalty box and the camera moves over so just the end of the penalty box can be seen.
Bydaway, I caught a puck at the game. Granted it was after the game was over and one of the guys running the penalty boxes was tossing out the extra pucks to the fans nearby, but it's still kinda cool.
Bydaway, I caught a puck at the game. Granted it was after the game was over and one of the guys running the penalty boxes was tossing out the extra pucks to the fans nearby, but it's still kinda cool.
Labels: hockey, vacation, video, youtube
