Monthly Archive for July, 2006
We made it back from Milwaukee. We left Milwaukee around 4pm Friday because their zoo was pretty big and not bad. Not as good as the St. Louis zoo in a lot of respects, but still not bad. Besides the zoo, we went to a brewery called the Lakefront Brewery. Sadly it wasn’t actually on the lakefront, but it was still cool. The tour was pretty lame, but you can’t argue with 4 pints of beer for $5. Don’t worry, we didn’t get drunk at all and we pretty much walked every where we went. We went to the Milwaukee Art Museum where they had an interesting exhibit on comics. It was really interesting and full of older comics from artists that defined the genre. I even saw a Silver Surfer comic that my mom has. We went the Six Flags Great America, the one close to Chicago. Milwaukee, it turns out, is about 45mins from Chicago, though we pretty much stuck to Milwaukee the whole week. The Six Flags up there is a lot like the St. Louis one and even though I’ve been to the StL Six Flags so many times, I still had a lot of fun. They have a lot of rides that are very similar. There was this one new ride called the “Superman: Ultimate Flight” that scared the pants off me. You know I don’t like heights, well this roller coaster took it’s sitting riders and turned them so the backs of their seats are pointed up. So you are riding through this coaster facing straight down so it feels like you are flying like Superman. It was a lot of fun. Check out this video to get a better idea of what I’m talking about. http://streams.sixflags.com/video/superman.wmv. It’s kinda loud so turn your speakers down. I also found out that I have an love for the sea too. We went sailing on a 16 foot sailboat with the Sea Scouts. The Sea Scouts are like the Boy Scouts on the sea and are even affiliated with Boy Scouts of America. We got to go out for free because Tim is an adult leader. He’s still learning all there is to know about sailing, but he knows more than I do. I really liked sailing and I really want to learn more and maybe start sailing myself. I even got to take control of the tiller (rudder control) and take the boat back into the dock. I didn’t even break anything.
So, you can see we had a fairly full week. We had a lot of good food, had a lot of fun. We had to pay for Lexy’s two younger siblings all week, so now I understand what it was like for my parents to take my sister and I on vacation or anywhere out to eat and all I can say I am SOOO sorry. I mean, we spent $54 at a Bob Evans on the way back. Gas in Illinois and Wisconsin was around $3.10 a gallon. So, if you think we in MO have it bad… yeah. Well, that’s all I got.
Pretty damn funny.
In case you guys didn’t follow the World Cup, Italy defeated France and Germany won third place over Portugal. I hate Italy and Portugal a lot as they cheat and cry like little babies. Anyway, here are a couple of videos that are, in my opinion, the greatest moments of the World Cup.
The first, I’ve already talked about. The Rooney Red Card. In the quarterfinal match England vs. Portugal, Wayne Rooney was booted via red card for doing this:
Rooney Stomp
The second happened in the Italy vs. France finals. Retiring after the World Cup, French “great” Zinedine Zidane lost his temper and did this to Italy’s Marco Materazzi.
Zidane Head Butt
The reason for this is, reportedly, Materazzi called Zidane “the son of a terrorist whore” before adding “so just fuck off” for good measure. Apparently, though, Materazzi said, “I did not call him a terrorist. I’m ignorant. I don’t even know what the word means.” However, he was speaking to Zidane in Italian, a language Zidane knows due to his time playing for Italian club team Juventus F.C., so I’m sure he did say something along those lines to rile up Zidane and try to get him off his game. I don’t care what Materazzi said to Zidane, it was a fucking fantastic head butt.
Remember the Rooney Stomp pic I posted? Well, here’s an animated gif of him stomping.
Check it.
So, I was surfing the ol’ cable TV looking for something decent to watch. It turns out that it is actually very rare to find an interesting movie on all the damn movie channels we have. Anyway, it turns out that if there was a 5-10% drop in gasoline consumption, prices would drop significantly. That’s what the guy on CBS said anyway. He was saying something about how the government has been calling for US consumers of gasoline to start cutting back. I’ve even heard of Congress placing HIGHER tax prices on oil-based products to help “ween the American consumer off petroleum.” What the fuck? Ok, I admit American gasoline consumption is terrible, but I think that the two people in my household (myself and Lexy) do just about as much as we can. We both drive high MPG cars, well technically we are driving my car as her Beetle has this problem with a horribly designed brake light switch. So that’s even better. You wanna know who the fucking problem is? Car companies who make SUVs. Every fucking car company touts their new SUV and how good with gasoline it is. They never tell you HOW good, but that it is. Well, I don’t consider 14 MPG good. I consider 28 to 33 good. You know what needs to happen? The US government needs to deliver an ultimatum to the gasoline and car companies. This ultimatum should go along the lines of this: Car companies, you should deliver at least two hydrogen fuel cell vehicles PER COMPANY to the market by 2010. Oil companies, provide at least one hydrogen pump to all corporate-owned gas stations by 2010. This ultimatum should be do these things or we fine your company 2.5 billion dollars. You wanna know why the US consumer hasn’t lowered their consumption of oil? WE DON’T HAVE ANY OTHER FUCKING CHOICE YOU FUCKING DOUCHEBAGS!! All these fucking idiots driving their damn SUVs around for minor errands are the real criminals. Don’t blame the Middle East. They are pumping oil at above their safe barrel per day limit and we are consuming it faster and faster. It’s not your everyday consumer who has a decent car, it’s the car companies frontlining their SUVs and trucks and the gullible fucking American public buying them up like candy thinking they need them. I’m not a hippy, as everyone knows, so I’m not about to switch over to bio-diesel as I don’t have a diesel power vehicle. Electric power isn’t good for Midwest drivers, but hydrogen fuel cells are where it’s at. Especially if you do a hydrogen/electric hybrid. Hell, if Germany can run their new submarines off diesel engines for surface travel, electric engines for a day or two underwater, and hydrogen/oxygen fuel cells for up to two weeks underwater, I think they can take a 1200 pound car and make it run off hydrogen and electricity. We need another choice in order to lower our country’s dependency on petroleum. We can’t just stop using the mode of travel our country has been depending on for almost a 100 years. Now, if we take that same mode of travel and “reinvent” it, then ok, we’re good. I’m sure some of you know my reasons for wanting hydrogen fuel research pushed to the front of the line. In case you don’t, well, there’s something to be said about fueling vehicles off the most common and abundant element in the UNIVERSE. If you run a world of vehicles off hydrogen and fund more space exploration research to find and gather rich sources of hydrogen, we will NEVER run out of fuel. Or we could start fueling cars off water by running the water through electrolysis to split the hydrogen and oxygen and burn that. It would be relatively simple to split the two as the hydrogen and oxygen coming off would be have ionic charges. There are so many options we could be taking advantage of to help relieve the stress off the oil fields. I guess I’m turning into one of those conspiracy theory nuts, but hey, I’ve uncovered a couple that are totally plausible. I won’t go over them as most of you who read this already have heard them and besides, I’m in the process of watching another one take place. We’ll talk more on that later.
So, I just got back from see Superman Returns at my local theatre. Regardless of the 30 minutes of commercials and crappy movie trailers, the movie was actually pretty good. The acting on Brandon Routh’s and Kate Bosworth’s part was… ok. With a little more practice and a little more emotion he will make a good Superman. Hopefully they greenlight the sequel and he gets another crack at it. Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor was pretty much the best decision the casting department could have made. He was excellent. A lot of people say that this movie was “boring” and “emotional.” Well, I say, “Uh… what?” How can you have a story about a superhero and not add a dimension of emotion. A lot of people complain about one scene in particular, but I won’t tell you what it is because it’s kinda a big part of the latter half of the film. I think this part really shows the weakness Superman has to kryptonite. You need to show that a superhero has weaknesses and a good villain will exploit this weakness to a large scale. Another complaint is Lex Luthor’s “Evil Plan” of which I will not tell you. I’m not one of those stupid reviewers who tell you the whole movie… I hate that shit. Lex Luthor is the self-proclaimed “Greatest Criminal Mind of our time.” (See Superman I) That means he’s crazy, so yeah he’s gonna have some hair brained ideas. He’s a fucking rich, evil, insane supervillain. Come on people, this is Superman Returns not a documentary about real life. The thing that I really liked about this movie was how they didn’t extremely overpower Superman more than Superman was already overpowered by his creators. The couple of things that I think they should have done are Superman’s suit should have holes in it when he gets shot, his skin should depress when the bullets hit him (I don’t have any problem with him being bulletproof, just add a little realism), and Superman should actually have to look like he has to exert himself when he’s lifting very heavy things in awkward manners. When you see the movie, you’ll know what I mean. The graphics in this movie were very, very well done, the flying and other superpower effects were very excellent. So, I’ll give graphical effects and audio a 4 of 5. Plot a 3 of 5 and acting a 2.5 of 5. Overall, without doing the math, I’m gonna give this movie a 3.5 of 5 just because. Oh and if you guys wait through the credits to see a little EE at the end, don’t bother there isn’t one.
In case any of you were wondering about the Rooney Red Card in the England/Portugal match, here is what it was for. See? Right on the sack.
I just don’t fucking care anymore. I mean, c’mon. I’m constantly disappointing Lexy because I don’t feel like doing things she wants me to do. I mean, I practically do whatever the fuck she wants (and she for me), but as soon as I decide there is one thing that I don’t feel like doing, she gets mad at me. So, I still love the shit out of her, but I’m just not going to care about getting her upset anymore. Hell, apparently I all of my fucking friends like to fuck each other over. Steve and Lacey got drunk and did something that made Dawn mad at Adam’s party. I’ve notice a lot of people in my life like to talk shit about other people they and I know. It just makes me think about what people are saying about me behind my back. I don’t know what it is, but I can just sense that there are people talking about me. It makes me way the fuck paranoid. I’m so damn tired of worrying about how other people feel when most everyone else fails to extend me the same courtesy. Well, I’ve made my statement. I’m fucking done.
