augiewan.com

GRRR!  I like the theme I’ve been using for the past two months, but the comments don’t work on pages.  As I’ve looked around and played with a few, the comments work just fine but I can’t get the search function to work on any themes but the Black-LetterHead 1.3 I’ve been using.  They all just go back to the blog’s home page whether it’s a valid search word or not.  I like the look of this one and I’m playing with it as I go.  If anyone knows what this search issue might be, I’m all ears!

Finally!   The screenshot images are all uploaded to the webserver.  I’ve added gallery pages for the following episodes and hopefully the remaining galleries will go fast now that the images are all there.

Today we have the addition of Bolognius Maximus, Game Slave 2, The Spectacular of Spooky Doom, Mysterious Mysteries, Future Dib, Door to Door, and FBI Warning of Doom.

Chicken!

UPDATE Jan 3rd, 2009 – Sorry, but after having to completely recreate this site after a porn idiot hacked it, the Invader Zim gallery is no longer here… You can find it here…

Before I went to see Transformers yesterday, I wrote a rant about the New York Times’ review of the Transformers movie written by Manohla Dargis. What the paper is thinking having a snooty avant-garde film critic review Hollywood action movies is beyond me. My basic beef with the review was that her focus was not on the movie itself, but more of a general pan of the genre. It was simply beneath her.

I’m not a movie critic (obviously), and I have no intention of trying to be at this point. So I’ll just attempt to go at it from the general standpoint of the New York Time “review” but I’ll do so from a less “holier than thow” viewpoint and let everyone decide for themselves…

“Big Boom. Big Badda-Boom!”

Those words, made immortal by Milla Jovovich in the movie The Fifth Element, describe the Transformers movie better than I can, which is exactly why it’s not a movie for everyone. If you’re not ready to sit through two and a half hours of constant movement and explosions, don’t go see it. If you think that the idea of giant robots that turn in to cars and jets is lame, don’t go see it.

Transformers was exactly the movie I expected it to be. Anyone who goes to this movie expecting to see Oscar performances is kidding themselves. It’s a science-fiction action-adventure movie staring CGI robots that seem to enjoy beating each other up.

I think it held up well as an action movie. The storyline, which I had read was a jumbled incoherent mess, was pretty easy for me to follow. Big robots lose cube. Big robot bad guys want cube back. Big robot good guys feel obliged to stop big robot bad guys from getting cube. Modern day Earth is the setting and the humans get involved. Throw in a teenage kid who has the hots for a teenage girl, a dozen or so stereotype side-characters (cool army guy hero, overweight computer hacker, etc), lots and lots of explosions and you’ve got yourself a movie!

I grew up watching the Transformers cartoon and I really enjoyed seeing them come to life in CGI. Hearing Peter Cullen reprise the role of Optimus Prime’s voice was a geek highlight for me.

There were two things that bugged me. One was the scene about midway through the movie where the Autobots were waiting outside Sam’s house. This was very out of character and fell short of the laughs it seemed to desperately want. The second was the seemingly slow reaction by the Decepticons to anything in the second half of the movie leading up to the final battle scene. This was a group that acted quickly and strategically at the beginning of the movie and then just kind of waited around for everybody else to catch up.

Bottom line, it was an enjoyable action movie. Don’t expect Shakespeare. Don’t bring your small kids. If your ears are sensitive, bring ear plugs. I won’t be buying the DVD, but I don’t regret seeing it at the theater.

I’m usually not one for reading movie reviews. Most of the time, I find that instead of being honest about what they personally thought of a specific movie, the critics tend to be too concerned with what their readers will think of them. So they spout off about the artistic breakthrough of some horribly tedious movie and then bash on movies that were simply meant to be (as contemptible as it may seem) entertaining.

But during my lunch break a few days ago, I sat down at a local coffee shop and there on the table was a section of the New York Times with a large review of the new Transformers movie. At least that’s what it implied with the large robot image with the subtitle reading “Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots…” Since I’ve been curious how the Transformers movie will be received, I decided to go for it.

Unfortunately, what I proceeded to read was not a movie review at all. No, what I read from Manohla Dargis was a jumbled mess that started as a brief historical review of the Transformers line and a few common facts about the movie, a grade-school level “boys are stupid” review of the summer action movie genre as a whole, and a list of people who worked on the Transformers movie with mentions of the other things they had worked on that she didn’t particularly like either. She then complained about things like female leads having large breasts and obvious product placements as though those aren’t common fixtures of most Hollywood movies and she was stunned to see them here.

In fact, based on the absolute lack of any detail as to the actual movie outside what anyone could have found in previous write-ups and in the trailer, I have a hard time believing that she didn’t have at least the majority of the review written before she ever saw the movie.

I personally don’t care if she disdains the very thought of a big-budget action movie being made, but that’s not what a movie critic is supped to let us know. A good critic should be able to cross the lines of genre prejudice, and watch each movie for what it is. Transformers may very well be a horrible waste of film, but I want to know that based on the notion that the critic actually opened there mind to who and what the movie was made for.

I have no idea what I’ll think of it myself, so I’ll at least add a comment to this article once I see it. For reference, I’m not a huge fan of summer action movies myself in general, though I do like some. I think a lot of them are indeed a waste of film including everything else Michael Bay has even directed. Some of my favorite movies include The Spanish Prisoner, Much Ado About Nothing, The Sound of Music, The Fifth Element, The Princess Bride, Adventures in Babysitting, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Gattica, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Men in Black, and just about everthing Pixar has ever created. I like cartoons, mysteries, documentaries, musicals, sci-fi, you name it. They all contain good and bad movies and I refuse to listen to those who would bash an entire genre.

Rant over…

I still remember the first time I had to do it.  Sheila was sick, she was out of pads, and I had to go to the store to get them.  Trust me, after growing up with four sisters, it wasn’t a completely foreign concept.  I got married with a leg up on most young guys.  I knew the difference between pads, liners, and tampons, which at least when I was younger was better than most guys.  I knew this was going to eventually happen and I was determined that it wasn’t going to be a big deal.  I would simply walk up to the isle, find the appropriate product, and be on my merry way.

I walked up and scoped the layout.  It all looked very organized at first, and I continued to believe that it was going to be a cake-walk.  What in reality happened was just short of a panic-attack.  Playtex, Kotex, Always, Pink, Blue, Long, Light Days, Regular, Wings, Scented, Unscented, Overnight, Big Boxes, Small Boxes…

All I wanted was to grab the specific product that Sheila wanted, purchase it, and leave.  But I couldn’t find it!  I could feel every woman in the store looking at me.  “Poor guy doesn’t know what he’s doing”, “He looks completely lost”, “Would you look at that kid fumbling around?”.  I could hear them all in my head and it was just as distracting as all the choices.  The room was spinning, my heart-rate was through the roof, I couldn’t concentrate, and I finally just grabbed something.  To this day I still wonder if I got the right stuff that first time.  I didn’t ask.  I just went in the other room to suck my thumb and lick my mental wounds for a while.

Fast-forward 14 years…  Now that I’m picking the stuff up for my daughter as well, you’d think it would be as second-nature as picking up some toothpaste, but the game never stops.  I thought at first that it was just something to get use to, but that wouldn’t be fun.  No, the various companies seem bent on the idea of making it an ongoing challenge.  I swear it seems as though the stinking packages change every couple months.  The names, terminology, package designs are ALWAYS changing, keeping every man on his toes to remember what it is they’re supposed to pick up.

So there I was last night at Wal-Mart, staring at the wall of products and I realized that it’s all an insidious plot and all men are doomed.  But seriously, why does it have to be so difficult?  Other types of product that could potentially be confusing are made simple for the consumer.  Have you ever picked out printer ink?  You don’t have to know the cartridge size, ink level, consumption rate, or any other details.  You just need a number.  So why can’t the makers of these feminine hygiene products catch on and make it easy for us guys?

“Oh sure honey, I can grab those. That’s a G72 package right? No problem!”

But I guess that wouldn’t be fun, now would it?