February 21, 2007

I don’t know if i’ve ever linked this, but

Filed under: Entries,Open — arglor @ 3:36 pm

This is one of the funniest skits i’ve seen in a long time.

awesome little skit.

I must admit that Trey tried to get me to watch Robot Chicken. Robot Chicken is the adult swim show that created this skit. I saw this skit ages ago, but it is only now that i put two and two together and realized this skit is a part of the Robot Chicken show.

Summary of interesting news tidbits.

Filed under: Entries,Open — arglor @ 1:17 pm

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Libby begins to get measured. Yes, the jury is deliberating over Libby’s case.

Libby is charged with two counts of perjury, two counts of making false statements and one count of obstruction of justice. He faces up to 30 years in prison and $1.25 million in fines if found guilty.

I doubt he will get anything clost to the above quote.
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Several NIN fans out there may enjoy this. A new album is coming out and this website gives a lot of the background regarding the album. There are also some mp3 files that have been found in “various” bathrooms across Europe. Those files have been circulating for a bit. They are new songs from his album. – Trey is credited for giving me this information.

NIN is also releasing a new DVD. I’ve pre-ordered mine. It was a damn good concert, and i can’t wait till i get a copy of mine.
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US District Court of Appeals in Washington decided 2-1 that federal courts do not have the authority to hear cases from detainees held at the remote US Navy base in Guantanamo, Cuba. “Federal courts have no jurisdiction in these cases,” the ruling said.

Well then that means those individuals don’t have access to our legal system and so they fall outside the bounds of having legal rights, at least according to our judicial system. This all stems from the Millitary Commissions act that was signed by Bush to “cut” a lot of a red tape and reinforce his beliefs that “enemy combatants” cannot have access to the rights we afford our citizens/illegal immigrants. This article gives a better explanation.

February 15, 2007

The geek in me!

Filed under: Entries — arglor @ 2:55 pm

Patrick Stewart to voice Final Fantasy XII (the ad) !….!……!!!…..!!!!!!!!!

HaHA!

I’m not a big fan of his, but i do appretiate the gesture. Its a shame the ad will advertise in austrailia. I wish he would do the localization for the next Final Fantasy.

Darwin vs. GOD, Round 2007: and… Darwin WINS!

Filed under: Entries,Open — arglor @ 12:15 pm

Kansas. You may remember a while back i posted something about the school board in kansas ruling against teaching darwin without a creationist alternate theory, well now apparently they ruled in the opposite direction.

Such is the progression of the democratic system. Ideas change by election cycles. Now darwin will be taught in school and Crationism Here is a summary quote from playfuls.com.

“The Board recommended the deletion of paragraphs that dealt with the evolution vs. creation problem, and allowed school manuals to include key-terms from evolution-theory that refer to the common origin of life on Earth and random mutations that lead to the appearance of new species. The new standards are said to reflect mainstream scientific views of evolution.

‘There seems to be a pattern,’ said board member Steve Abrams. ‘Anything that might question the veracity of evolution is deleted.'”

This is good news.

February 13, 2007

wow.

Filed under: Entries,Open — arglor @ 1:05 pm

simply wow.

I know there are differences between this and the origional, but the idea is interesting in and of itself… like one comment said, the notes are flat. which makes sense because wind instruments are played with blowing and there is a computer regulating the air which would make the air very accurate… inhumanely accurate… so ..

just thought you may enjoy this… and the fact that our robot overlords will be taking us over soon.

P.S. this is a quote from Engadget. Famous forum quote that is brought up everytime a movie of a robot doing something very human like appears on the web.

P.S.S. I need to start working out. Mary has complemented me several times at looking cute these last few days, but i need to shed a few pounds before the robots come in and take over, they need healthy strong slaves. So i need to get a few weights… maybe some wii weights to make working out a more virtual obsession.

This is interesting…

Filed under: Entries,Open — arglor @ 12:43 pm

and yet I’m still not exactly hopeful as to long term conclusions that can be reached. I suppose I’m cautious. The article isn’t entirely optimistic regarding North Korea’s changes, but I guess progress must be demonstrated in some way.

Bob Woodward

Filed under: Entries,Open — arglor @ 12:20 pm

I like this article.

The question of course is whether Libby lied on the stand. Woodward’s unfortunate testimony is to support the fact that Libby didn’t leak Plame’s information, that in fact the then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage informed Woodward of Plame’s identity. I’m a bit dissappointed about this, becuase Woodward is one of my favorite characters. I like what he has done for the country in terms of journalistic integrety, and I appretiate the fact that he has been equated to what a journalist should be.

It is odd to see him testifying about a leak in the administration in reference to supporting the a white house official. Makes me feel wierd, but then again he would have been subpoenaed no matter what to testify.

February 12, 2007

Pan’s Labyrinth

Filed under: Entries — arglor @ 3:03 pm

Let me begin this semi-professional review with a discourse on reviewing etiquette. If you don’t like political dramas, then by all means do not review movies like “The Last King of Scotland” and “Syrian”. The material can’t compare cross-genre. It is my feelings that force me to confront my own personal biases when reviewing movies like Pan’s Labyrinth.

I hate horror. I have despised the genre from the beginning. I am a firm believer in the idea: “Just because technology gives us the tools to demonstrate things of a egregious violent nature, does not mean we should indulge in their uses.” Let me begin by listing what I believe to be the major flaws with the film,

A:) The movie was exceptionally blatant as to its plot progression. This isn’t a horrible flaw. In fact it is a flaw that most fairy tales suffer from. You know what is going to happen in the story far before it actually occurs. For individuals like me, it gives you a massive power to know when exactly you should avert your gaze. I think this has to do with the fundamental plot points that must happen to maintain fairy tale status. You must have points A, B, C, an D in order to have a plane, and so you must have a standard plot progression to have a fairy tale: usually originating from the real and moving to the super-natural/fantastic.

B:) Visual Assault. I read several reviews before watching the film, and to be honest this feature was one of the major reasons I’ve put off watching the film. There are a lot of scenes that made me so uncomfortable as to want to stop watching the film. I endured through the film, but it was tough. Of course everyone has their own definitions of what thresholds exist as for violent content and gore.

C:) Mary pointed this out, the translations we saw were slightly eschewed and made me wonder how the original language interpretation differed from the story. You see even the title invokes a possible perception alteration. I know a lot about Pan and how the image of Pan has been distorted during the Christian “indoctrination” and “re-definition” of religious artifacts. minor primer: Pan was not evil originally and in fact a lot of the negative interpretations to his character was adopted to give the religions that used Pan as a figure would be discredited as worshipers of a false (evil) religion. This led me to automatically distrust the Satyr/Faun. Which wasn’t necessarily wrong in retrospect, but could have given a very distorted view of the story. I also would like to interpret the “ending” of the movie in terms of Christian stories. The father looks very god like on a beacon in the center, whereas the mother has the suckling babe in her arms which is exceptionally iconic of the Virgin Mary to his left. And where is Christ’s seat? at the right hand of god. at least Christ was female in this story.

Ok so the above points are not all necessarily negative. The movie is gorgeous by far, and the acting is as dead on and passionate as I could ever expect. There were no suspension of disbelief issues, and the story itself was very beautifully written. I certainly don’t regret seeing the movie, I just have my own personal issues with the film as a whole.

February 11, 2007

The Last King of Scotland

Filed under: Entries,Open — arglor @ 6:25 pm

I always have problems rating movies like these because i tend to give them more credit then they should possibly get because their subject matter is so incredibly relavent to our culture. Let me begin by saying that the movie was not as disturbing as I thought it would be. They case a light on Amin (dictator, played by Forest Whitaker) that gives him a very human and very real personality. His character is defined in such a way as to give an understanding behind his actions that I find difficult to contradict.

In fact that is the biggest success of the movie, defining the situation in such a way as to make the horror seem secondary. I think the main character (played by Nicholas Garrigan) was written and played very well. The character was necessary for the story to be told as it was told. You see that is the beauty I have been hinting at. Without ruining the movie, i guess i can simply say that the situation is constructed in such a way as to teach everyone about the Ugandan situation. Like father, like son. As Britain, so America.

February 9, 2007

The Golden Lie… or not quite so.

Filed under: Entries,Open — arglor @ 5:15 pm

Here we go. This is what I want to see. Could this blow up in the administration’s face? I’d love to find out Bush mechanistically puppeteered (sp? word?) this entire facade from the top. Its not going to happen, but it would be nice if they at least got Cheney on the stand and he testifies that “We do what we do to keep you safe…. you want us in the oval office… you need us in that oval office… You sleep better at night knowing men like me have.” Perhaps he will even throw in a “YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!”

SO!

Libby lied under oath… that put a young woman’s life in danger… in protection of a war… that is still going on… and is still unfounded as it was when the war began. I love it. I only wish the government would begin investigation proceedings for potential impeachment. I wish Libby would confess that “It isn’t my fault, I did what I was told to do.”… I just wish that the war would be Bush’s Monica Lewinski. I forgot that Clinton got impeached. He was officially impeached.

Only after he was successfully impeached, was he acquitted.

I’m so confused as to what the president’s job is. Protect and serve the populace in honesty and clarity of action, or maintain fidelity to his/her wife/husband. It has been said before a million times, I am more afraid of a person who lies at his job then a man who lies about his personal life.

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