So I sliced my thumb up tonight. It hurts like a bitch. The cut isn’t very long but it’s really deep, but because the skin is flapped over, I’m not sure you can tell that in the picture. Also, all those hairy things on my thumb are pieces of the cloth I was using to help stop the bleeding.
    Basically I got home from campus and was beat. I went to cook dinner. I reached into the silverware drawer. A knife was hidden. I grabbed it and it sliced me up. The stupid cut took 30 minutes to stop bleeding. I’m pretty sure I need a few stitches, but being terrified of needles, I’m not going to get any. If it doesn’t start to seal up in a day or so I’m just going to put superglue on it.
   Class was interesting tonight. I’m too tired to type up how it went. I’ll have a full report about my first two days at American University tomorrow night.

Today is the first day of grad school. I only have one class today and really its tonight from 5:30 to 8, but I have tons of errands to do around campus so I’m heading there super-super early. Tomorrow is my official long day. I have class from 10a.m. till 8p.m. so my postings will most likely be on the quiet side.

    We all know that the Emmys suck. But the intro to this year’s Emmys was AWSOME. Conan O’Brien jumped from TV show to TV show hitting up “Lost” “The Office” “24” “House” and “South Park.” Not only was it funny, but it made me super excited to think that all of these TV show are about to come back.

     One of the funniest moments was when Conan O’Brien says to Hurley from Lost, “I’ve got to get to the Emmys. You want to come with me?” Hurley responds with “We weren’t invited.” Conan says back, “But you won last year. Nothing makes sense anymore!”

    Hahahahhaa! Great stuff.

    Of course people are pissed about the intro because the “Lost” spoof had a plane crash and they just had that one in Kentucky, where 49 people died. NBC even sent out a formal apology for in a press release:

    "Our hearts and prayers go out to the many families who lost loved ones in the plane crash in Kentucky on Sunday, and to the entire community that has suffered this terrible loss. In no way would we ever want to make light of this terrible tragedy. The filmed opening during the Emmy telecast was meant to spoof some of television’s most well-known scenes. The timing was unfortunate, and we regret any unintentional pain it may have caused."

    NBC didn’t cause the plane crash in Kentucky. What happened in Kentucky is very sad, but people are over reacting about the Emmy-intro.

   I’m meeting with Brad Meltzer in a week. Does anyone have any good questions I should ask?
   I’ll be focusing on his newest novel "Book of Fate" but will ask questions about his background, basic writing stuff, and comic books. So if anyone has anything good I should ask, let me know.

This cartoon… which I dont’ remember where I found it, reminded me of Samantha.

Screw the Emmy’s and their horrible system.
Welcome to the First Annual Butt-Groove Awards. The winners of each category are below in bold, but before we get started William Shatner, our host for the evening, has a few words to share:
“It’s an honor—to be here, tonight. I want to thank… my loyal fans. For always supporting me—”
“Mr. Shatner!”
“Of course I need to thank the woman— I’ve slept with. Without them… I just wouldn’t be— William–.”
“Shatner!”
“What?”
“This isn’t an event for you. This is the First Annual Butt-Groove Awards. You’re the host.”
“Good godman… shouldn’t George Takei be… hosting?”
“No. This isn’t a gay thing. This is for TV shows that keep us glued to our seats, causing Butt-Grooves in our couches and chairs.”
“Ever see— the original Enterprise’s captain chair? I made a butt-groove… so fine that none ever… has compared.”
“That’s uhhh… nice, but can you just go ahead and honor those TV shows and actors that kept us glued to our seats for the 2005-2006 TV season?”
“I am being paid—for this?”
“Yes. We got you two Swedish virgins and Rachel Ray to be your personal chef for a month, exactly like you requested. Then, it was harder, but we were able to get a pair of Candice Bergen’s underwear.”
“Excellent— Let’s take this award show… to warp four. Out first category is– ‘Best Hour Long Show…”

(Read on …)

Verizon charges you $1.00 for calling 911. I don’t get that. EVERY cell phone, even ones without any service are still supposed to be able to call 911. So why is it that I get charged a buck for doing so? I’ve called 911 a lot of times from my cell before because of Dad. I’m annoyed I never noticed the fee until now.

    OH my god. Samantha drives me absolutely crazy. There is literally no other person alive that drives me as insane as she does. The only solace I get from it is knowing that I make her feel the exact same way.

    Her and I hit up the Maryland State Fair. I don’t know why. We just always do dorky things. I think I’m her only friend she can be “dorky” around so she always makes me do extra dorky things with her.

     We had fun at the fair, we’ve been before, but I was surprised at how much smaller it is from the Delaware State Fair. I think it’s about 30 or 40 percent of the DE fair.

    There wasn’t anything too exciting, but being the manly man that I am, I won her a prize. I played a dart game, popped three balloons and won her a stuffed pug dog. She decided to name it “Bud” since she was drinking Bud Light at the time.

     For the rest of the day and night, I kept Bud in my pocket. We didn’t get many stares when we were at the fair, but later when we went shopping and out to dinner, everyone gave us weird looks.

    It was just really cool to hangout with her ‘cause when we aren’t arguing like a divorced couple I have more fun with her than I do with anyone else.

    I’m also really excited cause it looks like she’s coming here to visit next weekend. I mean her place in Baltimore is only a 40 minute drive so its not like she’s far away or anything, but it looks like she’ll come next Friday and stay for the weekend.

    Other Samantha stuff coming up: She really wants to go with me to the Baltimore Comic-Con since I have press passes. I think she’s hoping to be the only girl there so that she can pickout any guy she wants. I tried explaining that there probably wouldn’t be anyone that would interest her but she doesn’t listen to me. Then in two weeks she’s being my date to Uncle Tim’s wedding so that should be fun too!

    I found this. Who seriously needs a garage inside of their RV? Volkner Mobile RV and pricing isn’t announced yet for it. Even more annoying is that it can only fit small sports cars. Which begs the question, if someone can afford a fancy small sports car, why would they be traveling around in an RV?

    I’ve been living here two and a half weeks and apparently that’s all the time it took for Sarah to give me crabs. …Hahaha I’m such a dork. DUH not gross crabs, but hardshell crabs!
     Sarah went home this weekend for her step dad’s birthday. They had a big cookout and Sarah brought me back crabs plus a ton of other stuff. She is literally the greatest roommate of all time.
     The thing about Sarah and myself is that at times I feel like we are almost “team mates.” We are always watch each other’s back and ready to jump in and help out. Like on Friday, Sarah was upset because she missed a sale on cantaloupe before going home. So when she surprised me with crabs I surprised her with a cantaloupe that I bought for her!
     The other cool thing about Sarah is that she’s the clean. I LOVE THAT. I mean don’t get me wrong. I’m not a super clean-freak, she’s actually worse than I am. But together we constantly put away each other dishes and stuff like that.
    One of the things I HATE doing is sweeping. I’ve always hated doing it and refuse to do it, but it’s cool cause Sarah does the sweeping and then I’ll the vacuuming. It’s little silly things like that, which allow us to balance each other out.
     Another place where we balance is personalities. I’ve been called a “drama queen” at time, but I don’t believe that I am. Other than Samantha-drama, most of the stuff that I deal with happens to me through no fault of my own… all of this leads me to be a more emotional and sensitive person.
     Sarah is more stoic. She’s very emotional but keeps it in. She rarely EVER has any problems or any kind of drama so having me around makes her life more exciting. I also force her to be more open and ok about her emotions and that kinda stuff.
—so SEE, her and I are totally a perfect match! This year is going to rock. I love living with one of my best friends.

   I feel so cultured being a student at American University. I got an email today, telling about the biggest events this week and there were three things on it: a Nationals game, Career Center open house, and a “Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Ally Resource Center Fall Mixer.”

    The world’s oldest person died today. Her name was Maria Esther de Capovilla and she died at the age of 116. The newest oldest person in the word is 11 months younger than Capovilla was.

    I think it would be really cool to be the oldest living person in the world. Or even if I’m not, I hope by the time I’m old that the human lifespan will average like 150 or something.

    It’s not a fear or death or ego that makes me want to live till I’m super old. It’s just that I have sooooooooooo much I want to do with my life and I’m worried I won’t have enough time to do them all.

    Article from the AP Wire:

(Read on …)

The internet is buzzing. The photo above is supposedly what Megatron will look like in next summer’s “Transformers” movie. It looks like some insect bug thing. It’s hideous. It looks nothing like the “real” Megatron, which you can see below.

    I’m bummed out. I was really excited to read Age of Bronze Vol 1 & 2, but I couldn’t get into it. I’m well versed in Greek mythology and Eric Shanower’s take on the Trojan War is so different that I spend more time thinking “That’s not right” than simply accepting this is HIS version of the war.

    I first read “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey” in third grade. It was the same year that I first read “The Hobbit” and the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. So it was a BIG year for me and only further validated my love for the fantasy genre.

    Since then I’ve read tons of Greek plays and myths for fun as well as in literature classes. I also took mythology classes in high school and college. …because I’ve read translations of the classic stories I have my own interpretations of how Greek mythology works.

     For example, one of the first things I noticed in “Age of Bronze” is that the Greek Gods are missing! The gods are major characters in the “Iliad.” You see them as flesh in blood manipulating each other and humans on the battle field and behind the scenes. So it’s very hard for me to accept a re-visioning of the Trojan War without the gods. I mean come one… didn’t we see that in Brad Pitt’s “Troy” and didn’t it SUCK?

     In the afterward of Vol. 1 of “Age of Bronze,” Shanower comments on this by saying, “I’ve chosen to downplay the supernatural element in order to emphasize the human element. The only fantastic details I’ve retained are dreams and visions. And when you think about it, these aren’t necessarily as supernatural as they might first appear… but no gods in the flesh.”

     Let me try to put this in more present-day terms. A lot of geeks and non-geeks revere the “Star Wars” movies. Its how a lot of people in literature look back at things like the Greek plays or the “Iliad” and “Odyssey.” So… if “Star Wars” was old enough that it was in the public domain and anyone could do anything they wanted with the characters, how do you think people would react to having it revisioned with everything “force” related (supernatural stuff) taken out of it? ——-see! That’s why I can’t read these books.

    And don’t get me wrong, it’s not JUST the “god stuff” that Shanower has changed. He has people that should be kings being shown as cow herders. With some characters he has them acting completely different than they do in any piece of literature.

    There is nothing wrong with Shanower writing about his version of the Trojan War, but it’s so far from how I see it that I just cannot read his books.

    That’s Josh at the pediatric intensive care unit at Johns Hopkins. Yep, he’s reading a comic book I brought him.

    He’s doing better now. He’s off the ventilator and when I was there yesterday he was turning into his usual smart-ass self. He was talking about fishing and sticking hooks through fish eyes as well as complaining non-stop about a sore throat. The sore throat was his fault. When it came time to take the ventilator out he just ripped it out instead of letting the nurses do it for him.

    One of the funnier thing he was doing is that he’d peel sticky things off his chest and watch a nearby monitor showing that he’d flat line. It was classic.

    Last I heard yesterday, Josh had been moved from ICU to the regular children’s ward. They were doing some test and trying to figure out if the meningitis was viral or bacterial. If it was one it was more severe but could be treated with antibiotics while the other was less severe, but couldn’t be treated. It was going to take a few days to figure out which it was and they weren’t sure how long he’d be in the hospital, but he does seem to be doing better.

    I, for the life of me, cannot get google to truly like my website. My goal is to have it so that when you search for “Scott King” you get my site, but all that comes up are Coretta Scott King related sites or news articles.
     The same problem is happening with Yahoo, but oddly enough, if you search “scott king” with MSN, my site is one of the tops on the list, same with some other smaller search engines.
   I’ve tried everything I can think of to appease the google gods. I’ve added a site map, meta tags, and everything else you’re supposed to do, but it’s not helped.
    Don’t get me wrong. I do get hits from google but they aren’t for “Scott King” which is what I want. Some of the odd key word searches that have lead to my site include the following…
Yahoo: haley joel osment has strict dad
Google: snakesonplanephone
Google: Emily VanCamp and New Mexico
Google: Wrestler fight resume official
Yahoo: SNL Cast Change
Google: The OC and Death
Google: music from larry the cable guy/health inspector
Google: bloody tampon
Google: clerks II box office gross
Yahoo: spiderman 3 venom costume
Google: Ocean City memories
Google: Warren Ellis and No Thanks

     Summer is over. It’s obvious from the box office this week. The numbers are BAD but there are two positive things to mention. The first is that “Little Miss Sunshine” is still climbing the charts. It  is now in 3^rd place and took more money in this weekend than it did last weekend.

    The other big news is that “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” has made $407.5 million, which means it has surpassed “Spider-Man”  and is the sixth highest ranking film of all time (The top 5 are: Titanic, Star Wars: A New Hope, Shrek 2, E.T., Star Wars: Episode I).

My 13-year-old cousin has been vomiting blood for the past two days. He was taken to the hospital near Annapolis and was diagnosed with spinal meningitis. He was then flown to Johns Hopkins and placed into the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.

Since my father’s health has trained me to be an expert at sitting in hospitals and since I love my family, I’m heading up there to show my support. I’m worried about my cousin, but I want to go and be there for my aunt, uncle, and his brothers and sisters.

Screw the Emmy’s and their horrible system.

Welcome to the First Annual Butt-Groove Awards. These honors goes to those TV shows and actors that kept us glued to our seats for the 2005-2006 TV season, causing butt-grooves in our couches and lazyboys. The nominees are as followed, winners will be announced in the next few days:

(Read on …)

    In a week and a half I get to meet Brad Meltzer. The place we are meeting at is about a 15 minute walk form American University. It’s a small looking bookstore called “Politics and Prose” so I thought it was a weird place for him to do a book signing after our interview.

    But it turns out that the store is a hot spot for authors. It’s one of the prime places if not THE place in D.C. to do book signings. The interesting thing about it is that Neil Gaiman is doing a book signing at the end of September for an anthology of short stories he is publishing. I’m half tempted to try and get a hold of his publicist to see if I can meet him.

   
    Nearly two week later I finally met Sarah and mine’s third roommate, Kat, aka Witch-Girl and I don’t like her.
    It was 10:30 p.m. last night. I was in my pajamas and reading in bed. I hear something tapping on the glass at the back sliding door and I think it’s Bean, Sarah’s cat. Lately a stray cat comes by at night and Bean scratches at him through the back door.
    Well the noise kept persisting and finally it switched to a LOUD banging noise. I go out to the living room and I see Bean staring at the door. I look outside but I don’t see anything. I turn to walk back to my room and I hear another loud bang. I turn again and this time I see a really ugly girl. I realized it was Kat.
   I open the door and say, “Hey sorry. I looked and didn’t see anyone. How come you didn’t just use the front door?” “This is easier,” she says.
    She was standing out there banging for at least five minutes! How the hell is that easier than going around to the front of the building, using your key and coming in the normal way?
    She tells me she is the third roommate that is never here. I say its nice to meet her. She goes into her room and tried to get something out of the closet but it’s pitch black because she doesn’t have a light in her room. A few minutes later she comes out with a dress and tells me she’s going to get rent money and then she’ll be right back.
(Read on …)

    Yesterday was the mandatory Orientation for grad school. Surprise surprise, it sucked.
    It was just pointless. I didn’t gain anything out of it. Maybe if I hadn’t gone to an open house before applying or maybe if I hadn’t gone to “new students day” after being admitted it would have been useful, but there wasn’t anything yesterday that I hadn’t already known.
    The School of Communication’s graduate program at American University has three sections. The first is Speech (this is for like speech writing, PR, or running political campaigns). The second is Journalism and the third is Film.
    Out of like 100 people, like 50 were Speech. The rest was split between Journalism and Film. It was frustrating ‘cause ALL the young (my age) hot girls were in Speech.
    You know what sucked worse? I was the fattest person out of everyone there. Ok let me be a little more specific.  I was the ONLY fat person there! Everyone was stick thin. I’ve never seen so many anorexic looking girls in one place since I met all the women from Miss USA contest last spring.
    So that sucked.

(Read on …)

    Kevin Smith said in an interview with “Moviehole” in Australia that he would like his next project to be a horror movie.
    “Next up I want to do a horror movie,” Smith said. “I just think it would be kinda interesting – for me at least – to go left. I’ve made seven comedies, or variation thereof, and some people would argue that none of them are funny. But it would be nice to make a horror movie. An intentional horror movie, not like Jersey Girl. [much laughter]. It’s a genre that I grew up watching on VHS and on cable when I was a kid”, said Smith.
    Here is the full interview:
    Filmmaker Kevin Smith touched down in Australia this week to promote the bejesus out of his comedy “Clerks 2”. Moviehole’s Mark Bennett - an out and out horror buff – was so keen to find out about Smith’s upcoming horror film (announced it a couple of weeks back), that he decided to tie him to a chair, and threatened to play his scenes from “Vulgar” on loop, if he didn’t give up the goods.
    “Next up I want to do a horror movie. I just think it would be kinda interesting – for me at least – to go left. I’ve made seven comedies, or variation thereof, and some people would argue that none of them are funny. But it would be nice to make a horror movie. An intentional horror movie, not like Jersey Girl. [much laughter]. It’s a genre that I grew up watching on VHS and on cable when I was a kid”, said Smith.
    “No jokes and stuff, not like Scary Movie 4. There are people that do that really well, like Edgar Wright with Shaun of the Dead, but I don’t want to make a comedic one, I want to make a straight-forward horror movie.
    “It’ll be a bit of slasher, but I’m kinda looking more at … you remember that movie Race With The Devil? It’s more kind of in that vein. Or Wicker Man. Something in that vein where it’s creepy and unsettling more than gore.
     "Smith says some of his favourite horror movies include “The Shining, Halloween. I’ll pretty much for anything that I came of age watching. You know, the ’70s-’80s slasher genre. The current crop of horror movies not nearly as much. There seems to be a lot of remakes and whatnot. A lot of “Let’s do Texas Chainsaw. Again. And let’s do The Hills Have Eyes again.” I’m sure there’s probably ripe material out there. A lot of things are more horrible than a dude in a mask trying to stab you. [inaudible – something like, You can look it up in the newspaper and pull it out of there]. So I’m kinda going for that. The one thing I’m happy about is the idea that I have, I haven’t seen it done before.”

Sarah’s gone home for the weekend. I miss her. Bean, her cat, does too, but I think we are using our missing her as a way to bond either further and become better buddies.

I have my mandatory orientation tomorrow for American University. It starts super early, lasts alllllllllllll day long, and then there is traffic to deal with, so my postings will be quiet.

    I got my press kit in the mail today for “The Book of Fate,” Brad Meltzer’s newest novel, which comes out NEXT week. It was delivered 2-day mail from Florida… Man I feel special!
    Basically, the kit consisted of a folder with press releases and background info on Meltzer and the book. I also got a regular copy of the book itself, which is odd ‘cause I thought I was going to get an ARC Proof copy, but that’s sweet because now I have a real copy and proof copy instead of two proof copies.
     I’m just about finished the book and it’s odd because even glancing through the press kit I feel like Warner Books is trying to market the novel as a “DaVinci Code” style book, when it isn’t. This book is a Brad Meltzer thriller–no question about it. Maybe there is a big puzzles or something that comes in the last 63 pages, but if not I feel like they are doing Meltzer injustice.
    I’ll have to add that to the things to talk to him about during our meeting in two weeks. Actually, now that I think about it, I really should start comming up with my list of questions and topics I want to talk about with him.

(click to enlarge)
    Since I no longer live in the boonies, I’ve been walking to places as much as possible because I enjoy it.
    OK. I admit it. That was a lie. It’s hot and gross outside. I hate walking places. I only do it because Sarah makes me. I’m not joking. There are only two people in the world who power over me: Samantha & Sarah. But because they love me, they don’t ever use that power… until now! Sarah makes me walk around the lake or walk to and from one of the places I have marked on the map.
    The big red trail is the basic walk I do in the mornings. It goes around this big lake we have behind our neighborhood. Sarah loves to run around it or ride her bike around it. I have no idea how far it is distance wise but Sarah says it takes us 26 minutes to walk around it.
     The purple path is how I get to Safeway when I walk. Sarah and I did that last night so that I could buy some bananas and a few other odds and ends that weren’t heavy to carry. I don’t know the distance for this either but Sarah says it takes 12 to 14 minutes to walk there and the same to walk back.
    The green path is how I walk to the library. I’ve been going there about every other day because I’ve been getting so many non-fiction books and graphic novels.
    The blue path goes to a co-op. It’s basically a grocery store, but with more organic and natural stuff. Then right next to it is an artsy movie theater. Right now, “Little Miss Sunshine” is playing there. I’ll probably walk there this weekend and see it by myself since Sarah is going home and I’ll have nothing to do.

    Today marks day 12 that I’ve been in the new place and I have still not meet or seen Kat (“witch-girl”). Sarah says Kat hasn’t come back to our place in over a month now. Sarah was a little worried so she decided to give Kat a call.
    Kat just said she likes being with her boyfriend every night and that she tries to bring him back to our place but he refuses to because of the creepy altars she has in her room. But apparently she’s going home this weekend for a wedding and has to come by here to get a dress. So I guess I’ll get to meet her tonight or tomorrow.
    She may be weird but she’s a pretty good roommate. She’s literally never here so she never takes up room in the fridge, doesn’t leave messes in the living, or anything else that an annoying roommate would do. Sarah and I love it because we feel like we are living by ourselves.
     Bean has pretty much taken over Kat’s room. I think he thinks it’s his room now. He rarely sleeps on the bed though (remember it’s an inflatable air mattress ‘cause she doesn’t have a real bed and a frame Sarah lent her). Normally, Bean likes to sleep underneath it.

      Like a scene from a bad reality TV show, 2,500 astronomers from 75 countries voted Pluto out. The sphere, named after Mickey Mouse’s dog, is no longer considered a planet.
    The once-planet was discovered in the 1930’s and was disqualified from being labeled a celestial body that orbits the sun because it’s orbit overlaps with Neptune’s.
    Man, think of all the text books that have to be reprinted.
    Full article from AP wire:
(Read on …)

     “Snakes on a Plane” got a real life spin-off when during a screening of the movie in Arizona two snakes were released into a movie theater. They were two very poisonous diamondback rattle snakes. God, people are stupid.
    Here is the full article about it:

 (Phoenix) - A prank at an Arizona theater was anything but a laughing matter. Someone released two poisonous snakes in a theater that was showing the new movie, "Snakes on a Plane."
    Authorities said pranksters released the young venomous rattlesnakes in a dark theater at the AMC Desert Ridge near Tatum and Loop 101 in Phoenix.
     Snake wrangler Tom Whiting was called to one theater twice in one day to collect the diamondback rattlesnakes. He says all a moviegoer would have to do is startle a snake in the dark and it will attack.
    "It was in the theater, and that to me that’s very scary," says Whiting. "I’d hate to be in a movie about snakes and have a rattlesnake bite me."
    No one was bit during the incident.
     This thing is under someone’s chair and they go to sit and they just push your foot in the air and startle it — obviously all they got to do is startle this thing," Phoenix Herpetological Society spokesman Daniel Marchand said. "It’s dark. They can’t see you, you know that well. If it’s scared, boom it strikes."
    The snakes were released into the desert.

JimSmash, one of my favorite blogs to read, posted this:

If you haven’t seen yet, check this out - its the trailer for the upcoming video game ULTIMATE ALLIANCE (starring Marvel characters).

Click here to watch.

Now forget the whole game aspect… Instead of Marvel pumping out lame live-action movies, they should be doing full-length 3D animated movies similar to the look & feel of this. Smooth out the animation, tweak the modeling and amp it up slightly and they’d be golden. With animation, you’re not as limited with budgetary constraints and over-priced actors as with live-action. The skies and imagination is the limit! Imagine the Dark Phoenix Saga done this way, but with the art direction looking like Byrne’s artwork!! Oh man!!!

   The photo to the right has last year’s cast of "Saturday Night Live" and if Zap2it is right a lot of the big names won’t be returning.
   Tina Fey announced this summer she was leaving to run her sitcom "30 Rock" and rumors are now swirling that Chris Parnel, Horatio Sans, Kennan Thompson and mabye even Darrel Hammond are leaving too.
   Continue reading to see Zap2it’s full article…
(Read on …)

      Sarah was VERY appreciative for me fixing her computer (see previous post). As a result she made me dinner and took me out to a movie! For dinner we had steamed cabbage, roasted red peppers stuffed with black and mahogany rice, and this really good tofu-loaf(meatless meatloaf). We then went to go see “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.” 
     OH MY GOD. It was horrible. Well it wasn’t horrible. It just wasn’t good. Both of us were really excited to see the movie. We’ve been talking about it for weeks. It has gotten good reviews and even “Rotten Tomatoes” had its percentage as 72 percent positive.
     I’m a humorous guy. I also love movies from all genres. Two of my favorite movies from last year were “Wedding Crashers” and “40 Year Old Virgin.”  I also enjoyed “Old School” and “Anchorman,” though they weren’t as good. 
    So I went into “Talladega Nights” expecting the same kind of humor and movie that was on par, maybe that was mine and Sarah’s mistake.
    There were moments in the movie that made us laugh. Stupid one liners like “Don’t snort the Lucky Charms” or “I can’t think cause there is a pretzel inside my head.” But instead of the dry humor from most of Will Ferrell’s films, the movie had stupid humor that you’d expect from a Rob Schneider film.
    Adding to the problems, was the fact that none of the characters were relatable or that likeable. Both things could have been forgiving if the movie was funny, but the hardest we laughed was during the credits when they had bloopers. 
    Making the situation worse was the fact that the movie was beyond predictable. Within ten minutes Sarah and I had figured out the entire structure and major plot points of the film. Again, this could have been forgiven if the movie was funny, but it wasn’t.    THEN of course there are plot holes. A lot of the stuff just doesn’t add up or make sense. It’s like plot, story, and depth were given up so that brainless “Deuce Bigalo” fans (white trash nascar freaks and pot heads) could enjoy the movie.
    I was very disapointed with it and have been lately with all of Ferrell’s movies: "Kicking and Screaming" and "Bewitch." We should have waited to see this on DVD.

     Sarah’s laptop got infected with Winfixer. She has the most recent version of Norton but it was doing jack to fix the problem. No programs were doing anything to help. At Norton’s website there were instructions on how to remove Winfixer from the registry but they were 10 months outdated.

     I knew what the problem was. I knew Winfixer was in the registry but I had no idea about how to find all the pieces on my own. I decided to call Norton’s help line and ask them if they had an updated registry map with where all the Winfixer pieces were.

     After waiting for 39 minutes I get a guy on the phone and he tells me his name is Bahrita. I’m not joking. He said the name, I couldn’t understand him, so I asked him to spell it. Then since I just watched “30 Days” episode about outsourcing I flat out asked Bahrita if was working an outsourced job.

    He told me he was and that he’s in India. I complement him on his fake English accent and having him warmed up we begin talking about Winfixer.

(Read on …)

The Emmy’s are this weekend (Sunday on NBC). A lot of people are upset about them because they tried a new nomination system and it backfired. Normally there is a panel that goes through and decides which shows should be nominated. This year members of the academy voted and a panel narrowed down the final list.

The result of this year’s nominations were a slap in the face to many people. The new system was supposed to help underdogs like Lauren Graham (“Gilmore Girls”) get nods, but for some reason the final panel made some bad picks. They decided to honor long time actors for life time stuff as opposed to the things they are doing now.

Instead of going through and sharing who I think will win like most people seem to do, I’m going to go through and select who I think SHOULD win. I know you think that this sounds like the same thing, but it isn’t.

You see when guessing who will win you must take into consideration that The Emmy’s (like the Oscars) are a popularity contest. So when making a guess you need to think about who the members will vote for as opposed to who actually deserves it.

My list of who SHOULD win of the nominated people (My picks are in bold):

(Read on …)

    Vice President of EA games, David Gardner, has said that he thinks Nitendo’s new system, Wii, will sell for around $170 US dollars!

     "I’ve heard when in Japan that the North American price is about $170, but I don’t know if the price has been set in Europe yet," Gardner said. "They’ve made a choice which is great for the consumer. Now we’re going to have a choice whereby consumers can buy a Wii, plus one other console."

     This is crazy. Let me put it in perspective for non gamers. The X-box 360 is at XXXX and the Playstation 3 is expected to be sold for around $600 because of the blu-ray player. For past systems the SNES (“Super Nitendo”) sold for $200 fifteen years ago.

     Nitendo has been quiet on announcing a price for Wii and hasn’t even announced a date for when the system will go on sale. The only thing it has said is that Wii will cost less than $250 and that they plan to sell 6 million units by next March.
     I have yet to truly decide which game system I’m going to go with, but if the Wii is so cheap, I don’t see how I can pass it up.

    The ratings are in for Monday night. Its so exciting to see the first set of stats for the this year’s TV season! ((Anyone of you reading this and making fun of me can shut up because you all enjoy things like sports statistics or comic book continuity problems which are just as dorky)).
     Estimates for Monday night say that the season premier of “Prison Break” hit 9.3 million viewers. That’s not TOO bad but the series premier a year ago did 10.5 million. That’s an 11 or 12 percent loss (you do the math, I don’t feel like it). 
     “Vanished” wish premiered after “Prison Break” brought in 8.7 million viewers. The two shows were enough to give Fox a win for the night, but you gotta remember that no other major network had new shows on the air.
      Of course these numbers are household numbers. In the VERY VERY important 18 to 49 year old demographic (this the demographic that pays the most for advertising) the shows did horrible.  “PB” did 3.8 million while “V” did 3.0. Those numbers are so low that during the regular TV season, WB easily had numbers that beat that.
     So looking at this there is a chance “Vanished” may not be sticking around for too long. Also, “Prison Break” could see an even larger loss in viewer ship once all the other networks launch for the season.
     Updated @ 8:35a.m.: I just got an email from someone asking where I get my ratings information. I figured since it was a good question I should post the response.
     I worked as a newspaper reporter between college and graduate school. Durring that time I wrote several articles about TV becuase some reality TV shows filmed in Ocean City, MD. To back up my articles with facts I contacted Nielsen and was given a press pass to their online research. It’s where every major media outlet goes to find out ratings. So it’s cool becuase it makes me just as legit as anywhere else you see that posts TV ratings.

     “House: Second Season” came out on DVD today. Because of my TV watching (almost every show on the major networks) I sometimes wait for new shows to reach DVD before I start watching. I watched the first season of “House” last winter and was moved.

     I LOVE this show, but it’s all because of House (the character) and the amazing job Hugh Laurie does with him. House is one of the best characters I’ve ever seen on a TV show and one of the best written.   You NEED to watch his show for the characterization. There is so much a person can learn about writing from watching just one episode.
     Basically, for those of you uncultured, “House” is a medical version of “CSI.” Only it is ten times better. House and his team come across people with weird medical conditions and spend the show trying to figure out what is wrong with them. Sometimes they save the patients and sometimes they don’t. Part of me almost wishes House were a real person and we could take my dad to see him, but he’s not.

     So I’m cramming in the whole second season so that when the third season launches on Sept. 5 I can watch it. To compensate, “CSI: NY” and “CSI: Miami” have both become shows I’ll watch once they reach DVD.

I love the AP wire! I just read this article about how hobbits were just discovered in China. Well its a new species of human ancestors called hominoid, but nicknamed "hobbit."
Read the full article:
    HONG KONG, China (Reuters) — Skeletal remains of a hominoid nicknamed "hobbit" and found in a cave on a remote Indonesian island are from an ancestor of human pygmies still living there today, scientists say.
    Previous researchers concluded in 2004 that the remains on Flores island represented a new species of human, "Homo floresiensis", which was about 3-feet tall with brains roughly the size of grapefruits.

(Read on …)

   I am a dork, but we all know that. I’ve spent my morning sending phone calls from Samuel L. Jackson to people. I’m serious. As promotion for “Snakes on a Plane” you can go to their website, fill out some info and then a pre-recorded phone call will be made to whomever you want from Jackson.

     The first one I sent was to Samantha. It was cool because Jackson says her name and I made it so that the message applies to her. He told her she needs to stop sucking up to her boss at her new job, stop going out drinking, and go see his new movie.

     Hahahaha isn’t that great?