It is official: Heath Ledger has in fact been signed on to play the Joker in the next Batman movie. Rumors have been circulating for weeks that this was the case. Personally, I feel he can pull it of. Over the past few years Ledger has proven his acting abilities. I also trust Christopher Nolan. I mean this is the guy who did "Memento." If he says Ledger is right for the part then I believe him.

Official Press Release

BURBANK, CA, 31 July 2006 - As a follow up to last year’s blockbuster Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan is set to direct Warner Bros. Pictures’ The Dark Knight, written by Jonathan Nolan, based on a story by Christopher Nolan and David Goyer. The film will be produced by Emma Thomas, Charles Roven and Christopher Nolan. Additionally, Christian Bale will resume his role as Bruce Wayne and Academy Award nominee Heath Ledger has been cast as The Joker. The announcements were made today by Jeff Robinov, President of Production, Warner Bros. Pictures. 

(Read on …)

     The White Marlin Open is next week, here in Ocean City. I’m not excited about it. In the 16 or however many months I’ve worked for the paper it was by far the worse experience I’ve had (the second worse was the crazy Romanian party with the Romanian ambassador but that’s a story for another day).

    The WMO is the largest billfish tournaments in the world and one of the largest tournaments overall. Cash prizes last year were record setting with like 2 million plus being given out.

    I’m very very very familiar with White Marlins because in the past year I’ve read tons and tons of reports about the stupid fish. The government was considering putting a ban on them so I got stuck with writing about it.

(Read on …)

HOLY CRAP.

E3 is the “Electronic Entertainment Expo” that has been held for the past 12 years in LA. This is the biggest videogame show in the world and where all the big news and announcements come from. 

It seems that the major companies: Sony, Nitendo, Microsoft, etc… have all dropped out of the show because next year it is switching to a smaller format.  This is just shocking.

IGN has a full article on it here.

Penny Arcade also has some interesting comments as well as this cartoon (click to enlarge it):

       A real “Aquaman” movie? It was reported in Variety that “Entourage” may have inspired Hollywood to make an actual “Aquaman” movie.

     On the show, Vincent’ Chase recently stared in the movie which fictionally broke records that “Pirates of the Caribbean 2” did in real life. In the past Aquaman (the character) has always been seen as a joke in Hollywood but buzz around “Entourage” has made it a hot property.

    Even odder is the force behind a real “Aquaman” movie is Ari Emmanuel, which the character Ari Gold (played by Jermey Piven) is bassed on. According to Variety, “The talent agent at the center of the informal Aquaman talks is the real life Ari Gold which could very well result in a real Aquaman movie.”

  
I’m soooooooo getting this when it comes out. It is an adapater that links your cell phone to your Debit/ATM/Credit Cards and you can just use it to pay for things. The best part is that my cellphone is already equiped to handle it so I don’t need to get a new one.

Read the article from CNN.com:

(PopSci.com) — Forgot your wallet? You’ll need a better excuse than that for passing on the check. By next year, you’ll be able to pay simply by swiping your cell phone a few inches from a cash register, with a new wireless standard called Near Field Communication.

An NFC chip in your phone will send your credit-card number — stored on your phone or on the chip — by way of short-distance radio waves.
(Read on …)

Weeked Box Office Gross (estimates):

I’m so proud of "Clerks II" which is on its way to break $20 million this week. I have been a huge Kevin Smith fan since the first came out. I’ve seen him onstage five or six times and have gotten to met him twice. What’s even better is the movie only cost $5 million so they made that back already. If you factor in the international market and DVD sales it means this little sequel is a hit in terms of money!

I’m also surprised "Miami Vice" pulled $25 million. There was hardly any hype built up around it. Even more suprising is seeing Pirates rank in another $20 million! This flick is doing crazy. In a month it’s made more than $350 million. That’s unheard of in Hollywood and proves audiences will go to see a movie in the theater if its the right movie (the movie sucked btw).
 

I had a breaking story that ran in Friday’s paper and I thought I’d re-post it here for easy access:

Personal Attacks and Ethics
By Scott King
Staff Writer

(July 28, 2006) OPA director Janet Kelley was called out of order during Saturday’s Board meeting after repeating obscene language she said another board member directed at her.

Kelley issued her surprising statement after commenting on Director Mark Venit’s speech about other board members attacking him in the print media.

(Read on …)

I finished up fixing the last of the coding problems on the website last night at 1:53a.m. I was just about to put up an away message on AIM when out of the blue Samantha gets on and IMs me. It took me all of a few seconds to realize she was a tad intoxicated. I won’t post the whole convo (which lasted until 3 a.m.) but I thought it would be funny to pull a few quotes out of context.

Samantha (2:05:00 AM): i dont drunk dial
Samantha (2:05:08 AM): i drunk text

Samantha (2:10:25 AM): now u just want me to say ill make out wiht u
Scott (2:10:32 AM): oh u wish
Scott (2:10:44 AM): We could never do that. you’d end up getting your heart broken

((Silly was the word of the night))
Samantha (2:11:36 AM): ur silly
Samantha (2:13:07 AM): u are silly
Samantha (2:14:08 AM): i am always silly
Samantha (2:23:54 AM): thats silly
Samantha (2:27:07 AM): u silly
Samantha (2:32:19 AM): Silly boY
Samantha (2:46:22 AM): ur are sillys
Samantha (2:49:03 AM): silllly dude

Found this a few days ago. Make it big and then stare at it.
The freaky part is that the pic isn’t animated. It’s all an optical illusion.

With the upgrade to the site I also got some stat programs that let me track how often people come to the site and that kind of information. Well this photo was the most popular individual thing on my website. It had been viewed 1,240 times since it was first posted this past winter. Nothing else was even close to that.   So for your viewing pleasure:

 
((This is my little cousin Jordan, Molly’s baby))

My little niece Aubrie has an ego about as large as mine (so we are talking HUGE). She loves the new website-layout and begged (and I mean BEGGED) me to make a post about her.

She is my step-sisters daughter and she’s like a human monkey. I don’t mean in looks I mean in acts. She can climb and does climb anything. I remember like a year or so ago they were worried because her body fat percentage was like 2% or something ridiculously low. I mean the girl has mussels!

Of course if I mention Brie I have to mention her brother Colby. He’s her brother.

Ok back to Brie. Sometimes I worry about Brie because she’s really popular and has all these girly-girl friends. She totally part of the “in crowd” and I get scared sometimes she’ll end up like Jessie (my cousin). Cause Jessie was in the same situation and when middle school and high school happened she went bad-girl. So I really hope that doesn’t happen to Brie. 

Brie just wanted to point out that she says “uhhhhhh I hate the idea of drinking and peer pressure. I’m too cool of that.” …So who knows maybe she’ll be like me and be popular but her own unique person.

She just tapped me on the shoulder and told me I should mention her cat YoYo. For some reason she LOVES the animal, but to be honest the thing is gross and scary!

Anyway, I think that’s enough.

     I’m torn about continuing on with Ocean Life or calling it quits.

     I enjoy writing it and I enjoy digitally making the comic strips. I even have story lines planned out for a total of 50+ strips. However, I can’t stand drawing them.

     I’m a horrible horrible horrible artist. I can’t draw worth crap. The strips come out looking readable because of the coloring and everything else I do to them.

    I already take every shortcut I can with drawing them. I cut down on background. I draw everyone and everything separate so I don’t mess up proportions. I crop photos differently so that I can go from wideshots to medium shots to close ups. But even so, drawing them is a bitch.

     I’m leaving Ocean City Today and going to grad school, so why not stop drawing them? Now is a good time to do so.

    But having them means that I have a piece of fictional work being published on a weekly basis. I mean sure it may only get read by people in the Ocean City area, but still… its just nice knowing I have readers.

    I’ve gotten more comments from people about Ocean Life than all the articles I’ve written. It’s nice to know that some people actually look forward to it and specifically scan through the paper every week trying to find it. Technically that’s why I want to write and do all the things I do. I want to entertain people and give them an escape.

    But GOD I hate drawing the damn strips cause I suck at it.

    Grrrr I’m so torn and I’m just not sure what I’m going to do. I have just over two weeks to decide before more strips are do, so I guess I’ll figure have to decide soon.

Ever wonder how close sex offenders live to you? If so then go to:
http://www.familywatchdog.us/

Once there put in your address and your "house" will appear in the middle of the map. All the colored dots show registered sex offenders that live near you. If you click the dots you will get to see a name, address, photo, and details of the offense.

     This is the first look of Venom from "Spider-Man 3." This image was revealed at Comic-Con this past week. I know its super hard to tell, but that’s Topher Grace playing Eddie Brock in the scene where he becomes Venom for the first time! My god I’m excited to see this movie.

     When Samantha was home last weekend we talked about a lot of serious stuff and a lot of stupid stuff because that is how we are. A fairly long conversation we had was about what we want our houses to look like when we “grow up.”

     Samantha’s was pretty simple. Her only real preferences were a Victorian style home with a wrap around porch and then somewhere inside she wants a window seat.

Mine were a tad more complicated.

     See I don’t really have a “house” per say. I have a whole studio I want to own for King Film. Somewhere over the years I came up with the basic layout of the King Film campus and this is what I told Samantha about. The above layout is the basic layout of the campus.

     1&2) Castle/Victorian Mansion that sits on a hill. Part 1 of that is the “West Wing” which will be my residential area. This will basically be it’s own house with several floors and everything a house has. Part 2 of the house will be production studios and computer FX offices. Then throughout the whole place there will be secret passages and tunnel that extend all through the campus!

     3) These are sky tunnels that connect the buildings.

     4) This is the main BIG warehouse/studio. This is where large sets will be constructed for filming.

     5) This is a big pond with a fountain in the center. Surrounding the pond is a cobbled road that stretches from the Victorian house/castle to the bottom of the campus.

     6&8) This center region of campus is referred to as “

     9) This building is the Rec-Center. There will be an indoor pool, basketball courts, running track, racquet ball track, weight rooms, and all that kind of stuff. There will also be large rooms that will be used for meeting spaces and conferences.

    10) This is a big ass parking garage.

    So as you can see, all of this is to create a self contained campus that has everything that I would want on a daily basis and for work.

     I got asked the other day how I’m able to watch so much television and so many movies. There is one main way I’m able to do it. I fast forward a whole lot!
     With TV shows I fast-forward through commercials and that alone turns an hour program into only 44 minutes. Then I fast-forward through action scenes or slow montages where they just play music in the background. So normally an hour show takes me 30 to 40 minutes to watch at most.
Movies are different. My lap top lets me control how fast I’m fast-forwarding when I watch a DVD. So I can watch it two times as fast, 16 times, or even 32 times the regular speed.
     The odd thing is that when I watch it at “2x” it still places sounds so I can hear them. They are just realllllllyyyyyy fast. For some reason I have no problem understanding people talk when they talk twice as fast.
     So lately what I’ve been doing is watching “Deadwood,” which I’m getting from Netflix, and watching the whole thing at “2x” speed. This means I’m finishing a whole show or whole movie in half the time.
     So THAT’S how I can watch so many movies and so many TV shows!

     This is an amazing guy I found when searching the web the other day. He does art on the back of dirty cars.

http://www.dirtycarart.com/gallery/index.htm

    I just think the concept alone is pretty cool, plus he’s good at it! I would really love to write an article about something like this because to me it just seems fascinating.

    The coolest thing about it is that he does it just for the fun of it.

I can’t link to all my old blogs because of how the new system works. But it’s ok. This whole revamp is to make it easier for me to post and to make the blog compatable for people who use firefox and other browsers. Hope you all like the change.

 On Saturday night Samantha and I went “out out” after getting back from the concert and fair. She really wanted to hangout with her friend Itimar, who we went to high school with. I’ve never been a big fan of him but he and I get along.
     So we are supposed to meet Itimar and his friends at Fishtales. We are almost there and get a call saying they are at Seacretes. We go there and we wait outside for 30 minutes. We get another call and they say they are at Mackey’s. We go there and they are there but after ten minutes they leave!
I was severely annoyed at this point and so Samantha and I just stayed at Mackey’s and Christine met us there to hangout. We were there for an hour before the bar closed down.
      Afterwards Samantha called Itimar and we met up with him and his friends at some weird house in West Ocean City.
     Oh I mean WEIRD.
     The house was being leased by the owner of Marlin Moon Restaurant and living there were four girls and four guys from Mexico.
     We get there and everyone living in the house is asleep but Gary the owner of Marlin Moon is there. He had ordered like six pizzas and went to his restaurant and got five pounds of jumbo steamed shrimp. When we got there he was in the process of cooking them.
     So as we all enter the house we start making noise. All the Mexicans start to wake up and at first they are cranky. I mean how would you feel if all these strangers were all of a sudden in your place in the middle of the night?
      But Garry offered them free food and free beers and literally they were yelling out “Fiesta!”
     It was at this point that I started having major flashbacks to my Phillips Crab House days. During one summer I lived in employee housing and people would party there nonstop. At times it was way too much for me to handle.
     I had a friend named Brittany who worked there and she’s big into other languages and different cultures so she made friends with all the Mexicans that worked at Phillips and when housing was supercrazy we often would leave and go over to the Mexicans to hangout with them.
     So this past weekend I had MAJOR flashbacks. It was actually a lot of fun. I learned some salsa dancing and other cultural things.
Probably the funniest think of the night was realizing words with double meanings don’t always make sense in other languages.
     For example, Gary was talking about how he got a tattoo on his arm. He said the reason he got it was because tatooes are really popular right now, specifically tribal or Asian ones. He went on to explain that he was born in the Year of the Cock on the Chinese calendar and pulled up his sleeve to reveal a giant penis drawn with permanent marker.
      The Mexicans all thought it was funny but they didn’t understand that “Cock” means rooster as well as the male body part. Itimar and his friends spent a good thirty minutes trying to explain it but no one understood.
      The funny part was watching the miscommunication. It didn’t help that the Americans were drunk and the Mexicans were getting drunk. But sitting back and watching as an observer it was just too damn funny.
[Gary learning to Salsa dance]

[The violinist, drummer, and bass player of Yellowcard]
      Awwwwwwww man. Seeing these guys at the Delware State Fair was just awesome!
      They had played at Tigerfest in Towson back in April, but Samantha got stuck working and couldn’t come to the show. Plus I was with Canadian Christine and she honestly had never even heard punk music before. So it was so much fun to go with Samantha.
      We got to the stage and it was weird because they had seats set up. I’ve never ever gone to a punk concert and seen seats. We sat down and it was extremely crowded. My knees were touching the chair in front of us.

 The odd thing about the concert is that I felt so damn old. The majority of people there were not only teens but YOUNG teens. For example there were a group of seven girls that sat behind us and the youngest was 12 and the oldest was 15! I find it shocking that parents would let girls that young go to a concert alone.
     They were also the most annoying girls I’ve ever met in my life. They talked in this weird mix of valley-girl-slang/punk-emo. They also screamed for no reason constantly as loud as they could which defined Samantha and myself.
     The opening act at the concert was The Ataries. I have two of their CDs and I was excited to see them. So was Samantha… but we both HATED them!

The lead singer is going bald and has this hideous come-over. It was so pathetic looking. On top of that he came off as a total dick when he was talking between songs. What made it even worse was that out of the 50 minutes they played they only played one song that Samantha and I knew!
     While they played there were maybe 20 people in the whole crowd who were standing up. Everyone else stayed seated.
     When Yellowcard came on stage EVERYONE stood up. The best part of that is kids flocked to the front of the stage and the audience was almost empty so Samantha and I had a perfect view where we were. Plus with everyone gone from the chairs we were able to move chairs forward and have more room.
     Yellowcard kicked ass. It was one of the best concerts I have ever been to. Not only did they play my favorites out of all their songs, but we knew every song they played. Plus the lead singer comes off as a nice guy and is funny.
     My favorite out of everyone in the band is the violinst. Yes that’s right. The punk band has a musician that plays violin! The guy is just so animated and the concept of “rocking out” on a violin is so funny that he deserves mad props for being able to do so.
[These are the youngest lesbians I’ve ever seen]

[killing an icecream cone from the buffet]
    Samantha and I headed up to the Delaware Fair this past weekend. We were went to go see Yellowcard who was performing, but we got there a good four hours early so we could enjoy the fair.
    It was really weird. Her and I have gone to the MD-state fair several times but this was so much different. It was like 10 times bigger!
    The first interesting thing is that when we got to the fair we found out you have to pay $6 to get in. We had tickets for the concert but that didn’t cover the cost of entering the fair. But you literally had to enter the fair to get to where the concert was held.
     So this woman explained it to us and I pulled out the “I’m a reporter” line. I flashed her my camera and went to pull out my non-existent press pass. She just smiled and said “oh ok. You can go in.” So that was cool that Samantha and I got into the fair for free.
     The first thing we had to do was find Samantha a toilet because she realyyyyyyyyyyyy had to pee. We walked halfway across the fairgrounds when we finally found a bathroom.
     She went to use it while I snooped around a TV-Station remote location setup. The interesting fact about this is Stacy Sakia was there! She’s an anchor for WMDT. I always see her when I watch “Lost” and “Grey’s Antimony” because during commercial breaks she does the “Tonight at 11….” Speech.
     The interesting thing about her is that Sarah and I are baffled by her. We can’t tell if she’s white, black, Hispanic, Asian, or what! I mean one day she’s got a fro and is totally black looking. The next she looks like the whitest white girl I’ve ever seen. Then the next day she look Hawaiian!

     So I found it very interesting to see her in person. I realllyyyy wanted to ask what she was but by that point Samantha had finished peeing and flat out told me I wasn’t allowed to ask something like that.
     After leaving that building we walked around the fair grounds and made our way to the animals. It was kinda gross to be honest. There weren’t any baby animals! It was big fat stinky ones!

    From there we sort of started walking toward where the rides were but somehow ended up entering Midway Slots. It was sooooooo strange in there! It was like a mini-mini-mini-Atlantic City, but it was ONLY slot machines! The other interesting thing is that I swear to god there wasn’t one person (other than us) under the age of 50.
     Being the Wildman that I am I talked Samantha into gambling. We sat down and since I pretend to be her sugar daddy I gave her a one dollar bill and we spent the whole thing on a 2 cent slot machine.
      It actually took us about 10 minutes to spend a dollar each on the 2 cent slots. So it was kinda cool, but I honestly couldn’t spend more than that. I just have a problem with gambling. I don’t like it. The idea of just giving away money when you don’t know for sure if you’ll get anything from it… the concept just seriously bugs me and I can’t do it.
      At this point Samantha was getting hungry. I know what your thinking… “Samantha, craving food? NEVER!” hahahahahahaha. She got super excited because she say a sign saying that International Buffet at Midway Slots was only $5.99. She convinced me that we should eat there because it would be 100 times cheaper than buying like a pretzel and soda outside at the fair.
      We get in line and are surrounded by old people with canes and walkers when Samantha realize that the buffet is only $5.99 between the hours of 11p.m. and 2a.m. The real cost was $12.99. Well even so she talked me into doing it and we did.
  Our waitress was real nice, the food was uhhhhh interesting and after we ate it was time to go to the concert.  
[it looks like a statue but it is a real person]

Wooo Hooo! Samantha was home last weekend and it was awesome!
The craziest part of the whole thing… ok one of the craziest parts is that she actually got me to go to the beach. I never ever ever go to the beach.
My problems is that I don’t like to be sandy. I don’t like to be hot and I hate tourist. So normally the beach and I just don’t click. I’ve not been in 2 or 3 years. I don’t even own a bathing suit.
However she gave me that Samantha smile and said she really wanted to go and I couldn’t tell her “no.”
We were only on the beach for an hour and a half so it wasn’t too bad. The problem I did have is that when at the beach I LOVE to swim. I can literally get in the water and stay there all day until I leave. But Samantha said the water was too cold and she really didn’t want to get into it for more than like 15 minutes.
So after an hour and half of being on the beach without getting in the water she started to get hungry and suggested we go back to her house, get food, and then swim in her mom’s pool.

 
[wicked sunburn samantha got only on her knee]
Now I wasn’t sure how it would go once we got swimming but we had a BLAST in her mom’s pool. First we spent like 20 minutes fishing out these scary ass beetles and spiders.
Then we played SilentMarcoPolo!
Oh my god we had so much fun doing something so stupid and simple like that. The way the game works is that it’s just like “Marco Polo” only instead of calling out and listening to where someone responds you do it without saying anything.
It sounds hard but it really isn’t. You just need to not only listen for when the other person makes any sort of splash but also for water moving.
We played the game for almost an hour and at one point Samantha’s stepdad came home and he got a kick out of watching us play.
Normally what happened is that we would play and lets say I was it with my eyes closed. Well I’d be feeling around the pool trying to find her and it turns out she’s literally right next to me, but I have no idea. Only because I’m so close and can’t find her she ends up bursting out laughing.
So between the beach and the pool we had a fun time.

    Does anyone know anyone with connections in D.C.? I need a job.
In about two and a half weeks I’ll be unemployed and needing a source of income. I’ve searched all over the internet and through newspapers and I’m having a hard time finding something.
     A big problem for me is that a lot of the more serious or professional jobs want someone who can work an 8 to 5/40 hour a week job, but because of school I can’t do that.
   My goal would to be able to get a part time job at a newspaper but only one or two are looking for staff writers and they are looking for a full time employee.
     I really do not want a retail job or to go back into the food industry. When I quit Bahama Breeze over a year ago I made a promise to myself that I would never ever work in a restaurant again. That’s how much I hate waiting tables. So I really really want to stick with that promise.
     So if anyone knows anyone and has any type of connection, please let me know.

     The other day I downloaded the photos form my phone onto my computer and amongst them were several from when dad was in the hospital. There were three photos one after another that when lined up looked like a dolly movement that a film-camera makes.
    This got me to thinking because in a sense the photos looked like a storyboard or a comic book. I started looking over my other photos. I did some google searches. I sent emails out to a few comic book professionals I know.
    So now, a few days later I’ve decided that I’m making a documentary-comicbook about Dad. It’s going to span from two days ago until its time for me to go to graduate school.
     I know it sounds odd but non-fiction books have a strong following. Lookup “Maus” or “Mom’s Cancner.” Both are amazing graphic novels.
I talked to mom and dad about my idea and both were willing to be my film subjects. I’m shooting it just like a I would a documentary on film, only instead I’m using a regular camera and am dealing with still images.
      I’m really excited about this and I think its going to work out well. On top of that I think Dad’s story is an interesting one and one that I want to tell. I also have some emotional stuff I’m trying to sort through and I think this will be a good therapeutic exercise for that.

    I know I haven’t updated but its been a crazy ass week here. Dad is home from the hospital. He was there five days or so and he had “aspiration pneumonia.” This happens due to acid reflux or having food go down the windpipe when eating. What happens is that the food or stomach acid gets into the lungs and quickly causes pneumonia.
     Since dad normally has pneumonia anyway, the aspiration just made things a billion times worse. He was coughing up this nasty black junk that was oily and gooey.
     They had him on antibiotics through an IV for several days and once he was good enough to be taken off that and put onto pill-form-antibiotics they did so and kicked him out of the hospital.
     He’s home now but still doing rough. Part of the reason I think is because he’s so damn stubborn. Instead of resting like he should until he is healthier he constantly tries to do things around the house.
     The other morning I was writing articles for work (I was kicked out of the office because the new woman started and they are short on space… but hey I’m happy about being able to work from home!) and I kept hearing loud noises. I go into the kitchen and dad was doing dishes. I had to explain to him that I was going to do them later after I finished writing my articles.
    About ten minutes later I hear a crash. I go into the kitchen and dad had falling because he was sweeping or something else silly. I had to help him up, get him to bed, and then clean up the mess. He promised me he would lay down and rest.
     About fifteen minutes later I hear a thumping sound. I search the house and find dad fallen in the bathroom. He had decided he wanted to do something in there before he laid down again.
     It’s soooooooo frustrating!
     I understand that its hard for him to be confined to bed or to be told he just needs to lay down and rest, but he sincerely always tries to push himself and do more things around the house whenever he is the sickest!