9-11-00 So, I haven't updatd in almost a week. There's 11 registered members on my board. Come on, people, get with it! Let's see. Action Figure News: Action Frank has been completed. He has Golden Claws of Death, a purple stick, and a gun. The likeness is exceptional. I'm quite proud of myself. I'll be posting him in the future. I've been on an ongoing quest to find a Chewbacca figure. Would you believe that out of my 110 loose Star Wars figures, only one of them is Chewie? It's the vintage one, and he doesn't stand, so he's hidden in the Millenium Falcon. It's a disgrace. It is for mainly for that reason that I'm looking for the new one, but no luck yet. While on my quest for Chewbacca, I found something special: Battle Damage Skeletor. I got him for $5 from Casey. He's going to get a pirate hat and join Herbert Hoover's Evil Empire. I already have a great back story. I'd never owned a Masters of the Universe figure as a kid, so this is actually my first. Ferndoc gave me all his old G.I. Joe and Star Trek figures too. Jadzia Dax will be altered soon to become Reggie from the CBS series, Becker. She's dating Skeletor. In other news, Dave has a new girlfriend. Her name is Emily. She is a lit major at St. Mary's. Go Dave. And now, the moment we've all been waiting for: Movie Reviews! Let us begin with a great movie called Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. I love this movie. It's about two minor characters from Hamlet discovering and coping with the fact that their entire lives have been planned out from the beginning. They are both a bit dim-witted, but interesting. Rosencrantz (or Guildenstern) frequently makes wondrous scientific discoveries only to be shot down by Guildenstern (or Rosencrantz), whose goal throughout the story is to find out what is afflicting Hamlet and rectify it. Meanwhile, the tragedians, led by Richard Dreyfuss, foreshadow all the major events in the story, including the senseless deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Great movie. Edward Scissorhands is the heartwarming story of a boy and the town who embraced him only to drive him out. Johnny Depp plays the title role. He was created by a scientist who died before he was finished, so Edward had scissors instead of hands. Well, the Avon lady finds him and brings him home, and all the neighbors are impressed except for one crazy lady (who is religious, as all crazy people in movies are) and Winona Ryder's ass of a boyfriend who sets Edward up in a bogus buglary attempt which makes the town lose trust in him. Winona falls in love, and the townspeople drive Edward out of town never to be seen again. I thought the story was sappy and predictable. Johnny Depp got into his role quite well as always, but the story was lacking. I got two overall messages from the movie: 1. Only crazy people believe in God, and it is that crazy belief that causes all the unpleasantness in the world. 2. If an unsavory character moves into your town, the most fective way to get rid of him is to band together and forcefully drive him out, letting him know he's not welcome. Dr. Strangelove or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is a Kubrick movie. Watch it. Last but not least, we have Freeway II: Confessions of a Trick Baby. What can I say about a movie that combines Natural Born Killers, Hansel and Gretel, and teenage necrophilia that hasn't been said? The story is about two girls named (I am not making this up) White Girl and Cyclona escape from juvenile detenion to flee to Mexico. Cyclona is a Latina, played by Marķa Celedonio, who was convicted of murdering her family. It turns out that her father molested and raped her while videotaping it. We find that out later. White Girl, played by Natasha Lyonne, is a white girl who burglarized a few houses and pretended to be a whore so she could rob from men. They hook up and escape. Cyclona kills a bunch of people, they both smoke, drink, and swear a lot. There's a few (unintentionally) funny scenes with David Alan Grier (who is losing my respect by the minute). They meet this guy on a train, kill him and steal his guns (and his crack, which they use to mark a trail so they can find their way back. It was stolen by some crackheads.) They arrive in Mexico and find Sister Gomez, who is played by Vincent Gallo. She promises to help them if they make some money for her ministry. The nun's home has table after table of baked goods, roasted pork, and such. There's even candy lining the house, and the place is swamped with children. You get the idea. Well anyway, White Girl starts playing whore again and steals from the guys who pay for er services (which she never renders). She starts to wonder what happened to Cyclona, and she starts looking for her and notices that no kids are around. She sneaks into the cellar and finds all the kids. She tells them to leave. Then she sees Cyclona who is in a wierd contraption hovering over the ground. She tells White Girl that Sister Gomez was killing kids, cutting them up, and selling them to street vendors as beef. It turns out Cyclona was there before when her father would rape her. White Girl frees Cyclona, and the two run into Gomez, who turns out to be a guy. White Girl kills off the henchmen (who weren't there before) and stuffs Gomez into the oven, cooking him. At this point, the building is surrounded, and Cyclona knows she's done for. She never wants to go back to jail. She wants to die. So White Girl kills her. The cops bust in, and White Girl makes some kind of deal with them, so she's off the hook (even though she realy should be put away). Now, I have to admit that sounds like a pretty interesting story just reading it, but you have to see it to see how bad it is. The story itself is really good, in my oinion, but the delivery was awful. It started out really slow and stupid. The inmates were all bumemic, and they'd all sneak off together to binge and purge. Fun. The dialog was awful. I wouldn't feed those lines to a dying llama. There were parts of it toward the end where it felt like the movie was getting ready to redeem itself, but any time it came close, someone had to say something stupid. I'd like to see this move remade with a new script, new editor, new actors, and new director. It wasn't good. Kawphy summed this movie up in one word: Unpleasant Other than all that, there's not much to say. 9-6-00 So, I put up a new Action League bulletin board. you can view it by clicking the link. There's basically one rule: don't piss off the admins and moderators. Not much new here. i'm concered about Kawphy though. He's been trying to deal with something for a long time, and I just found out about it. Damn. I love The Fragile. I should really put up a new section purely for movie reviews. Anywho, here goes: Judge Dredd, starring Sylvester (Sly) Stallone (a.k.a. Rambo, Rocky, Judge Dredd, etc.) and Deuce Bigelow. I asked Trent if Deuce dies, and he said yes, so I agreed to watch it. Damn you Trent! You tricked me! In the Future, Stallone still sucks. Anyway, what happens is this: Rocky, the world famous judge (meaning all-powerful law enforcement officer) gets framed for murder, but escapes and ends up with Deuce getting captured by some inbred redneck cannibals. In the Future, only inbred redneck cannibals believe in God. Well, they escape the cannibals by sneaking up behind them. In the Future, no one turns around. There's a big speeder bike ripoff scene which is resolved when one of them crashes into a building, causing 7 stories to explode. In the future, all buidings are made of C4. Rambo redeems himself, Deuce survives, and they defeat the gooey frozen clones. In the Future, they breed humans with popsicles. This was an awful awful movie. Doom Generation. The jury's still out on this one. Basically, Ms. Manson is super mega bitch, and she's dating some guy. Remember Ed from Northern Exposure? He looks like Ed's and Keanu Reeves's love child. Anyway, they accidentally save the life of some guy who's trying to be Jim Morrison. The three of them stop at a gas station to get some food (since they all have munchies), and they end up killing the minority member who owns the shop. They basically run around killig people by accident and having lots of sex. In the end, the three of them are going at it, and Ms. Manson has to pee, so she leaves. Ed and Jim are waiting for her, and they get attacked by a bunch of homophobic right-wing college guys who rape mega bitch and kill Ed. Then Jim and Mega drive off in silence. It's more interesting than it sounds, but its attempts at subtlety were in vain, and the story itself was lacking. It seemed like a ripoff of Natural Born Killers only with a lot more nakedness. On the other hand, the movie starts off playing Heresy by Nine Inch Nails, and that's a plus. Dolemite is blaxploitation at its worst. I haven't seen the whole thing yet. It's best to take it in doses. The main character, Dolemite, is a pimp and drug runner who gets out of jail for no good reason. He spends most of the time having sex, killing whitey, using the word dig, and trying not to look too stoned. He tends to fail at all of these, but that doesn't matter, 'cause he's Dolemite. Well, the white cops are after him, as is the other local black gang. He's able to beat them all by almost hitting them. Can Dolemite make the world safe for his hos? You bet your ass he can. I recently saw the video to Nine Inch Nails's Starsuckers Inc.. Those of you who know the band probably are aware that this is the radio-friendly title. The video was odd. It was directed by Marilyn Manson, and has plenty of interesting moments. The part I didn't like, though, was the editing of the song. The word suckers is a pretty bad overdub, and they mute out half the lyrics, so the second verse, we get Trent singing, "And when I ---- --- ---, not a drop will go to waste. It's really not so bad, you know, once you get ---- --- -----. (---kisser) Starsuckers!" It's not at all good. Kawphy's in my new philosophy class. I switched from painting, cuz I don't want to major in art anymore. I hunger. I finally saw the video my sister sent. For those of you who care, she's been in the Phllipines for a little over a year. I miss her so. It was good to hear her voice again. Well, kids, the first week of classes is finally over. Thank heaven for that. My left nostril hurts. I want to start a band with George and Trent. That would be cool. I just had to walk all the way across campus and back in my broken sandals. I took them off and walked barefoot on the way back. It was pleasant. My nostril still itches. I'm really quite tired. I only got 2 hours of sleep. The toilet's broken. That sucks. I had to pee in the shower. Haha! I've scarred you all for life. (Fortunately urine is sterile. Betcha didn't know that.) Anyway, the mainenece people were supposed to come fix it, but by the time I left for lunch they still hadn't arrived. Speaking of lunch, we went to this great authentic Mexican place called La Esperanza which is Spanish for The Esperanza. It's locally owned, so I encourage you all to come to South Bend to try it. It's great food and really inexpensive. Speaking of living in South Bend, it's that time of year again. That's right, hell season. I mean Notre Dame football season. So, every other week or so, we get to deal with traffic jams, bad drivers from out of state, and all kinds of detours. The worst part is the fans. First of all, you can't drive by Notre Dame without seeing guys on the street corner scalping tickets. (Yes, it's legal here.) And there's people from all over the country thinking they're special because they went to Notre Dame. I hate ND students. For the most part, they're a bunch of whiny kids who have never worked a day in their lives, and the only reason they're going to Notre Dame in the first place is for social status. They drive around in sports cars their parents bought them, they get all the special discounts at local businesses, and everyone here acts like they're the second coming of Christ. Meanwhile, all the students from the other 11 colleges and universities in the immediate area are screwed. You thought I was done, didn't you? I'm not. Then there's the people I meet online, and the moment I mention that I'm a college student in South Bend, they assume I go to Notre Dame. Guess what. There's plenty of schools in this area. I'll even list some of them: Indiana University South Bend Ivy Tech Saint Mary's College Holy Cross College Michiana College Notre Dame Tri-State University Davenport College Indiana Institute of Technology You get the idea. Furthermore, I'm of Irish heritage. In fact, I'm quite proud of my Irish heritage. I used to wear a shamrock pin all the time (until it broke), and people would always see it and assume I'm a Notre Dame fan. Now, I'll let you in on a little secret: The reason they're called the Fightin' Irish has nothing to do with Ireland or Irish heritage. In fact, the name Notre Dame is French. The reason they're called the Fightin' Irish is that many many years ago, they had a different name (at one point it was the Catholics), and their mascot was an Irish terrier. They're named after an effing dog breed. A dog breed for God's sake! Wanna know something else? There's this really nice store right by the campus. It's an Irish import store. They have all kinds of neat stuff like T-shirts, Irish music, Guinness glasses, traditional Irish hats, and that kind of thing. I love that store. What sucks is that they have to carry Notre Dame crap to keep the stupid people happy. Fortunately their supply of that crap is limited. Ok, my rant is over. I have completed my Gandalf figure. I was going to scan him today, but there's too many people around, and I'm kinda supposed to look like I'm working. I also made my Mara figure a cape, but it didn't work, so I destroyed the cape and let Mara be. She does have a neat purple bladed lightsabre, though. Moday is labor day. That means I get a day off. Woohoo! I don'r have anything else to say except that you should all visit my Action League board. I'd link to it from here, but I forgot the URL. You can get to it from the main page. And my nostril still hurts. So, I decided to change my major again. This time to philosophy. I like to think. I also like to prove people wrong, especially people who say things like, "there is no right or wrong" and "that's your truth". You know, idiots. I'm having a really hard time trying to remember one of the more recent sponsers of Campaign 2000 on the Late Show with David Letterman. It's bothering me. I need to get my oil changed. I'm really low on gas too. As many of you may know, U2 is releasing a new album in October. The title is All that You Can't Leave Behind, and the first single is called Beautiful Day, which you can download by clicking on wherever it says Beautiful Day. I gave it a listen and put it on my school page. Call it a gift. Tina's back was in a lot of pain today, so she stayed home and slept. Poor girl. I love my Tina. Clerks is a great movie. I posted the endings to Supernova and Double Team, but Netscape shut down on me before I could save it. They were both pretty predictable, and I don't wanna type them out again. Damn Netscape. I still get PopMart withdrawal from time to time. Remember Construx? Weren't those just the coolest? I used to love playing with those. I still have a set. They actually still make them Can you believe it? I'm almost done with my Gandalf figure. I just need to bake him and give him a coat or two of grey paint. Last night, I started working on a Mara Jade. She's modeled after the one that was on the cover of Star Wars Insider. She's turning out really nice. I haven't decided whether to give her a cape or not. If not, she's already finished. If so, I'll get right on it. Speaking of action figures, you should vote in my new Action League poll. In other news, um, there is no other news. I do have to pee though. Well, kids, it's the first day back at school. You know what that means. All in all it's been a pretty good day. George is in my thinking and reasoning class, which rules. Now we can both make fun of the stupid people. Honestly, I'm way beyond that class. I've taken plenty of philosophy courses, and this is the most simple thing I've seen. Not that I'm complaining. It's kinda funny, though. Since I've been going to college, I've taken 5 philosophy courses, and all of them have been in the same classroom. I'm listening to the Californication CD. It's pretty good, but it hasn't grown on me yet. Tina doesn't like it, mostly because she's not into the Chili Peppers, and every line in the song Californication ends in -ation. I still think it's good. What sucks about this semester is that I won't be able to spend much time with Tina. That's gonna be pretty damn hard for me, I think. At least we'll have weekends and possibly the occasional lunch date. As for bad movies, I saw a couple. Here we go: Glen or Glenda: Yeah, the old Ed Wood classic. In my opinion, Johnny Depp as Ed Wood dressed as a woman looks better than Ed Wood himself dressed as a woman. The movie itself is done as a sort of documentary, only with worse acting and way too much stock footage. There's a 20 minute sequence in the middle of the movie that revolves around a sofa, and it has nothing to do with the rest of the movie. It's odd like that. All in all, it was pretty dull, but it has its moments. Supernova: I'm taking this one in doses. I'll probably finish watching it tonight. So far, what has happened in this movie (the special R-rated version) is that these people are on a big space ambulance when they receive a distress signal from some far-off planet. They all have to get naked to make the hyperspace jump (or whatever they call it in that universe), and the only reason I could see for this is so that we could all see Robin Tunney's boobs. (I think that's her name.) Anyway, we learn that she and Riche Valens are an item, which means they have a long-term sexual relationship. They want a baby, and she seems obsessed with having sex. She later does it with the bad guy. Anyway, they get to the planet and kill time Boob lady does it with Richie Valens, while Tina Turner does it with the captain. The other crew member (a Geordi LaForge ripoff) plays chess with the HAL-like computer. Eventually, the bad guy comes aboard and he has a wierd glowing orifice with him. The bad guy is bad because he wants to keep his orifice, and tries to kill the captain when the captain tries to get rid of it. It turns out the orifice is a bomb. Then I stopped the movie to go to class. The movie, as a whole, is a lame excuse for special effects. Then there was Double Team: This one has Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dennis Rodman in it. I knew it had to be bad. We stopped this one short because we had to do dishes (Yes, it was that bad). Jean-Claude is a retired cop whose arch nemesis is still alive. You can see where this is going. During the first showdown, the bad guy's girlfriend and son get killed. Why this guy would bring his family to the big shootout is beyond me, but he does, and they get killed. He blames Jean-Claude and swears revenge, which is appropriate because guess who's pregnant. That's right, it's Van Damme's girlfriend. So, Jean-Claude loses the second big fight, but he survives and is somehow found by this global anti-terrorist organization who takes him captive and forces him to fight terrorism for them from their secret island. Evidently, there's supposed to be all kinds of security measures that will keep people on the island, but Jean-Claude Van Damme, being Jean-Claude Van Damme, figures out a way past all of them Something that never would have happened if they simply installed security cameras in the place. So, sadly for the rest of teh world, Van Damme escapes and hooks up with none other than Dennis Rodman, who acts almost as well as Jean-Claude. The two met earlier to buy and sell guns. Well, they hook up to save the girlfriend and kid which I assume happens, and I'm willing to bet that The bad guy gets killed after a long hand-to-hand fight sequence like in every Van Damme movie. Throughout the whole movie there's all kinds of really bad basketball metaphors, none of which really work. In fact, they all sound stupid. Casey almost hit Jay. 8-25-00 It's been a while since I updated, and a bit has happened. I celebrated my birthday on Sunday of last week. For those of you who are concerned about what people gave me, here's a list of gifts and givers (like it matters to you all, but, I guess it does): Tina: Clerks and Chasing Amy. Could I love her more? Kawphy: A Y-Wing (cmpleting my rebel fighter collection.) Steve: Cantina Showdown 3-Pack Noel: Army of Darkness, a Jar Jar pin and key chain, and pistachios. Mom and Dad: 2 Old Navy T-shirts, a Planet Hollywood T-Shirt, a blue pair of lounge-around-the-house shorts and matching T-shirt, a red pair of lounge-around-the-house-shorts and matching tank top, a pair of black shorts, blue jeans, a giant bag of pistachios, a camera and case, 5 packs of Sculpey, acrylic paints, Nine Inch Nails - The Fragile, and a bumper sticker. Joe: A Star Wars T-shirt George: A Naboo Royal Starship playset (it goes great with the other one I have). Trent: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication Thanks to everyone! I just saw Timecop the other day, which means only one thing: review. In a nutshell, here's what happens: Jean-Claude Van Damme is a cop who moniters people who travel thru time. No biggie. In the beginning, his wife hets killed right before she can tell him she's pregnant. 10 years pass. Some corrupt politician is using time travel to get money to work on his campaign, which is illegal, blah blah blah... The politician, it turns out, is responsible for the death of the wife. In the end, Van Damme wins by kicking people. And now, the fun parts. One of the important parts of time travel is that you can't travel into the future because it hasn't happened yet. However, if you're in the past, you can return to the present. But if you're in the past, the past becomes the present, and the present becomes the future, and everything you do will have an impact, thus making the future different. That means that the altered future hasn't happened yet. Another thing they keep telling you is that the same matter cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Ok, I can deal with that. The problem is that they seem to think that if a person touches a past (or future) version of himself, they're occupying the same space. NO! They're not! They're just really close. Anyway, it doesn't matter because over the course of ten years, the matter in a person's body will change. But I'll let that one slide, I guess, for the purpose of storytelling. Now, at the end of the movie, the house is filled with C-4 and is going to blow up soon. The reason for this is that the politician went into the past with his henchmen and planted it in the house. Jean-Claude kills the politician by throwing the younger politician into the older politician, killing both. Since the younger politician is killed, the older one can't exist, which means he never would have gone into the past and, pay attention because this is important, the house would never have been blown up. Jean-Claude and his wife narrowly escape the explosion nonetheless, changing the future. When Jean-Claude gets back to his own time, he asks his boss something about the politician, and the boss looks at him like he's crazy because the future has been changed and, of course, no one else noticed it. That's to be expected, but you'd think that these people who work with time travel every single day would come to expect their agents returning and talking about things they changed (or kept from changing). So, anyway, Jean-Claude goes home and is greeted by his now-living wife and his son. Evidently, since he fixed the future, he raised this kid and spent many years with him, but for some reason has no recollection of it. Now, if altering the course of time will alter a person (as is illustrated when young bad guy gets cut and old bad guy suddenly gets a scar), wouldn't his memories alter? Bad movie. My Grandma's ill. She's probably not going to live much longer, which sucks because I just lost my other grandmother earlier this year. I watched Clerks yesterday. What a great movie. I've always identified with Dante on many levels, but lately it seems like I relate more to Randall. I'm content with where I am in life. Sure it could be better, but I'm happy where I am. I just wanna hang out here for a while. My watch band is digging into my wrist. I need a wrist pad. I finally got a King Missile CD. It's the self-titled one. I haven't actually listened to it yet, but I have it. Tina's been in a funk lately. I'm concerend for her. I want her to be happy, but it seems like anything I do just bothers her. I'm running out of ideas. I think maybe she's just adjusting to working full-time again, and dealing with the fact that the people she works with are readjusting to her. Kawphy got an apartment. That's pretty cool. Classes start next week. I'm not looking forward to it at all. For those of you who are interested, I'm taking Medieval Art, Painting, Logic and Reasoning, and Script Writing. You can't prove Free Will. You'd like to think you are, but you really can't prove it. Unless it's proven it could be wrong. Truth is absolute, stupid!!! Well, I'm almost out of room here, and I know I'm out of things to say. Oh, hey, I just added more Action League figures. Go there now! Thank you. Drive through. 8-16-00 I've decided to start putting a date on each entry. I'm not sure why. I've recently been really interested in He-Man. I'm not sure why. The cartoons were bad. The movie was horrendous. (Evidently the movie Cyborg was a sequel to Masters of the Universe, but they cut all the references since He-Man was out). I never even had any of the action figures. I have a bit of a cold. It really sucks. Fortunately, it seems to be going through my body pretty quickly. That's good. My birthday's in two days. Kawphy bought me a Y-Wing. He rules. Steve got me a Cnema Scenes 3-pack (Cantina Showdown). I already had one, but it's out of the box, and Obi-Wan is in several pieces. I sincerely doubt that George Lucas and Harrison Ford signed my guestbook. I haven't seen any movies lately, so no new reviews. I'm trying to find the lyrics to this obscure song that I have on a mix tape. As far as I know, the band is called Bongwater, and I believe the title of the song is Folk Song, although I could be wrong. There's a part where she talks about Pretty Woman. It goes something like: ...Or watch Richard Gere follow the Dalai Lama around the world, and then make those oh-so-zen-like movies with those oh-so-zen-like messages, like, "Hey, it's fun to be a prostitute. I cant wait to spread my legs across Hollywood Boulevard in hopes that some rich, handsome billionaire in a Jag will take me shopping on Rodeo Drive, 'cause that's what being a woman's all about... It goes on from there, but this is trying to be a PG page. I got this tube of gum from Walgreens. It's called Bungee gum, and it comes in a toothpaste tube. You know that flouride the dentist gives you that's supposed to taste like bubble gum? I think this is the gum it's supposed to taste like. I'm actually content with my life as it is. I've got my mojo workin', and I don't work for the rest of the week. Woohoo! I like chocolate milk. I miss my sister.