Iron Man shows yet again what a superhero movie can be if taken seriously and given over to talented people who actually care about making a good movie instead of a merchandising extravaganza.

Everyone from the top down on screen in this film gets it right, from Robert Downey, Jr.'s cocky and personable Tony Stark to Faran Tahir's villainous Raza.

One of the things that I was worried about going into this film was whether or not the action and the characters would mesh well or if it would end up as two halves that never quite meet.

This is a really smooth movie and doesn't fall prey to the sins of most superhero films. There is no real camp, the progression of the character makes sense and is believable. There is no real forced love story. No one is hamming up their roles. The action and special effects are well done and believable (even the CGI is better done in this film than in many others of the type).

Jon Favreau has done an excellent job of bringing this film together with a kick-ass cast.

Tony Stark is not Bruce Wayne in this film, nor should he have been. If the proposed JJ Abrahms/Tom Cruise version had been made that is probably what we would have gotten. Instead Downey makes Tony a unique character rather than the standard millionaire playboy with lots of technology. He has all the technology because he built it, not because he bought it.

I also liked the subtle nods to the comic book fans such as the obvious S.H.I.E.L.D. references, as well as the terrorists belonging to the Ten Rings which would seem to foreshadow both Hydra and the Mandarin (the logo of the ten rings in the back of the terrorist base looked quite a bit like the Hydra logo and the Mandarin does wear those ten rings).

Excellent film.

Saw this at Brenna's Livejournal:

These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read, italicize the ones you own. The ones you both own and have read, do both.


Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Coppeld
The Three Musketeers


I believe that is 36 owned and 37 read.

Just got a bunch of TNA PPVs on DVD, and thought I would share a couple of quick horribly egotistical screen captures:

Me and BST before a show.

Me and BST shocked by Kid Kash performing a hurricanrana on one of the SATs both Jose and Joel Maximo through a table at ringside.

Extra points if anyone really knows who Jose and Joel Maximo of the SAT's are.

There's been something bothering me for literally days now.

Sunday I was eying a package of single serve kool-aid and the smiling Kool-Aid man pictured thereupon, and I started to wonder (Aloud): "Is Kool-Aid man sentient liquid in a type of pitcher containment suit, or is he a sentient pitcher with Kool-Aid inside?"

Also, is his "face" something formed by the liquid or the pitcher body?

Is he, in fact, some type of kool-aid fueled cyborg?

The Kool-Aid being some type of blood would seem to be the case since he does change colors on the different packaging, but does that mean it is a different Kool-Aid man, or perhaps he just has different powers?

If he is, indeed, as previously postulated, a sentient liquid mass, does that mean that if you drink him he would retain his identity inside you, or, much like the aptly named Spider-Man villain, Hydro-Man, does he have the ability to make any Kool-Aid a part of him, but when it ceases contact it goes back to being just ordinary Kool-Aid that has been touched by the extraordinary?

This doesn't help explain at all.

Neither do the descriptions of his comic book exploits.

My vote tends toward sentient liquid. I refuse to believe that a being with such an obvious hindrance as a completely open top of his head would refuse to at least wear a hat.

This also begs the question of sugar or sugar-free Kool-Aid. Which is he? I'm betting standard Kool-Aid man is Fruit-Punch with TWICE the recommended dosage of sugar.

Is there a giant wooden spoon man? Does that enter into some awkward territory?

Discuss.

From a recent Rolling Stone:

Can the Internet-service providers put an end to file-sharing at the flick of a switch? That's the theory floating around at one major label, at least. "Once the ISPs get involved in content, once they have a stake in it, they'll put an end to downloading," says one executive, whose IT department has suggested that the ISPs can block P2Ps almost as easily as throwing a switch. "Right now the ISPs' foremost concern is getting high-speed internet into homes--that's their business model. And look how they advertise it: 'Quicker to download photos and music.' People don't download music legally." (bold mine)

This quote shows some of the complete and utter lunacy that pervades the music industry. It is irrelevant to me whether or not ISPs can block P2P services easily. It is also irrelevant to the piracy of music because if they shut down one service or file-type such as bittorent another will spring up almost immediately. They can block bittorents as recent AP investigations have shown, but that is not really a way to do anything, it's a bit like burning down the library because people might be stealing books.

But my real issue is with the bold face part at the end and the way that it shows this 'executive' as a fool. Do the millions of legally downloaded and paid for songs from I-tunes or Rhapsody or New Napster or any of the other legal services just magically appear on people's computer's without being downloaded? High speed internet makes THOSE downloads faster too, not just the pirated ones.

What a Jackass.

As I do not post much anymore here is a late tag from Tommy:

What music are you currently grooving to?
I have Tak by Sigur Ros and Will the Circle Be Unbroken songs of the Carter Family in the truck right now. And Roxanne and I bought a bunch of new CD's at the Dollar Tree recently that I'm working through, such as Country music sung by Country singers and football players and a disc of children's songs about the Hulk.

What, if push comes to shove, is your all-time favourite album?
Kiss Unplugged or Henry Rollins Henrietta Collins and the Wifebeating Childhaters or Gwar's Ragnarok

What was the first record you ever bought? And where did you buy it?
Cassette Tape-Billy Joel's Storm Front
CD-Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker's Greatest Hits

Which musician have you ever wanted to be?
The one and only Dr. Teeth, or animal.

What do you sing in the shower?
A frighteningly large amount of show-tunes and Wizard of Oz songs.

What is your favourite Saturday night record?
I do not listen to music at night.

And your Sunday morning record?
If this is going for religious, I like Johnny Cash's My Mother's Hymn Book or Ralph Stanley's Sunday Morning, on the way to work I like Gene Simmons Asshole

Rikishi still looks like Rikishi only at 2/3 speed. Little bit of ring rust there, but if they keep using him he'll shape up. Look for him soon in a tag team with Eric Young and Shark Boy where they all dance!

Judas Messias attacks everybody tonight and gets run off by Rhino. He's slow and plodding in the ring and smaller than Eric Young!

Kevin Nash is comedy gold.

I'm optimistic about the second hour of impact. I hope they make good use of it and actually have time to showcase all the titles and angles in one show.

Some random thoughts after this weeks Impact:

Rikishi is now in TNA. Now if they could just bring back Sonny Siaki and maybe get Meng in there they could have a really strong Samoan contingent.

Now I have seen Black Reign. I like the spinning suplex, but I don't think that he'll be able to do that one on anyone over Eric Young's size. (Which, I suppose is fine since 80% of the roster is that size or under) If Eric wanted to save Shark Boy from being hurt, wouldn't it have made more sense to make the save BEFORE Sharky was clobbered with the club in the back of the head, and not just before the rat made an appearance. And, doesn't this mean that Jake the Snake is the logical opponent for Black Reign?

New tights are needed for Judas Messias. The purple Razor Ramon blood style just isn't going to work. They need to think more along the lines of Kevin Thorne. I was soooo hoping that Messias would just be a repackaged Brian Lee or Slash. Maybe he will be impressive, I do not know. If they give him an entrance where he cuts through something on the entranceway and the cuts bleed or something along that line it might be a cool visual, but he's going to have to be able to bring something to the table in the ring. I just don't know how they can effectively push him as a monster when he's the same size as Bobby Roode.

I see on TNA.com that Messias will be squashing Eric Young next week on Impact. Hooray, that means that Messias and Black Reign can team up. I had gotten the distinct impression that they delayed the debut of Messias so as not to conflict with the debut of Black Reign, so now they can be together on screen!

Impact goes to two hours in October, now they can have two hours not to use Raven in!

Sandman is now a free agent again. So is Sabu. So is Eugene.

When is TNA going to bring in Kaz Hyashi for a battle of the Kazs? Does Kaz Hyashi still have the Glacier gimmick he bought from Glacier on Nitro?

When, exactly is Jarret going to return? Angle needs a good ole el Kabong. I don't think Sting will end up Champ at BFG.

I miss Slash and the New Church. Mostly just Slash. Only just Slash.

Doesn't it really just have to be Frank Wycheck that teams with someone to take on Truth and Pac-Man? Won't that match suck? Maybe they could get Dale Torborg for it.

Did the Punisher Andrew Martin even have a real match in TNA?

Can they really keep saying that Abyss is 6'8" with a straight face without inflating Tomko to 7'4" and Matt Morgan to 12'10"?

Enough already.

Labels: TNA, Wrestling

Today as one of my co-workers walked by muttering to herself as she usually does, I 'jokingly' said to myself "I hope one day I can be the crazy guy at work that mutters to himself constantly."

Then I realized that I had just muttered that to myself.

No posting in quite awhile here lately. So a random notes post is in order:

Went to see Modest Mouse with my wife and sister at the Ryman not to long ago. Really good show. I don't know many of their songs, but ended up with what turned out to be their new single in my head for about a week afterward, but it rung out beautifully and I was able to play notes I had never even heard before.

TNA is getting beter and WWE is getting worse. WWE is suspending half their roster and firing some others for substance abuse. I can only hope that this will end up with Chris Masters and Randy Orton being fired and NOT ending up in TNA.

Warren Ellis' new book Crooked Little Vein is exactly what one would expect from a Warren Ellis novel, if one knows what to expect from a Warren Ellis novel. If you don't know what to expect, then I imagine it might be a we bit shocking. Unless you watch Nip/Tuck.

Possibly still shocking anyway.

Roxanne, Tommy, Katy and I are minutely visible in the TNA Slammiversary DVD. Find us when Kurt Angle is on top of the ladder celebrating, or when the show is just starting. Extra credit if anyone spots Chicken Hat at ringside.

Tommy, Katy, Roxanne and I took a trip up to Nashville last night to attend TNA Wrestling's Slammiversary.

Before the event we stopped at Toot's in Cookeville, which is the Bizzaro world version of Toot's in Murfreesboro. Instead of MTSU memorabilia, there was Tennessee Tech stuff all over. The food was the same though. I love me some fried dill pickles.

We headed up to the show through Crossville to avoid the traffic from Hippie Jam Band Festival Bonnaro in Manchester. On the way back we did get to experience actual Hippies at a truck stop called Love's. It was Christmas and New Years all rolled into one for police along the interstate last night as they seemed to just be pulling over any of the many many VW microbuses on the road.

I must mention the quite possibly insane parking guy that we paid at the Municipal Auditorium and the fact that he would not stop talking and mumbling to himself and seemed slightly ill equiped to deal with all the traffic!

Now, on to the show:

The first match of the night was Ms. Brooks vs. some DJ Guy. The DJ Guy got his jollies feeling Ms. Brooks up and almost broke his neck doing a second rope moonsault. He lost and got kicked for his trouble. This was a throwaway, but no real horribleness.

Next we were 'treated' to a mini-set by the band of the evening the Lo Cash Cowboys. Aparantly they didn't get the memo that if you have two lead singers you might not want them both to look and sing exactly the same. The drummer and the Bass player fought a very passive battle over who could look more bored. The singers tried to pop the crowd by mentioning that they were influenced by "ZZ TOP! GREAT WHITE!! LYNRYD SKYNRYD!!! AND ABBA!!!!" in a way that reminded me way to much of Goldylocks pandering that people said she reminded them of a female Kid Rock.

The band played a medly with the Georgia Sattleites "Don't Give Me No Lies" in it, and managed to make at least seven people in the crowd dance, including Chicken Hat.

Did I mention that Tommy spotted Chicken Hat in the front row? Those were $150 tickets, those were.

Also we got to experience the Drunken Frat Boy Experience, as there were at least four very drunken fellas right in front of us who really liked to stand up all the time!

On to the matches:

RHINO & SENSHI VS. THE LAX--Good little match that saw Hernandez throw LowShi around the ring like a rag doll and Konnan and Hector Guererro do almost nothing. The guys in the ring really busted ass on this one, especially LowShi and Homicide.
Rhino and LowShi win with the outside interferance into a Gore.

X TITLE MATCH: CHRIS SABIN vs. "BLACK MACHISMO" JAY LETHAL--Lethal has the macho schtick down and pulled out all the classics as well as his own moves in this one. Really good match.
Machismo wins the title with the Elbow Drop.

FRANK WYCHECK AND JERRY LYNN VS. JAMES STORM AND THE TRUTH--Wycheck didn't kill James Storm with the pile-driver that won this match. Jerry and Truth worked hard and so did Storm. I just hope this doesn't mean Wycheck is going full time for TNA.
Wycheck wins with a pile-driver.

MR. BACKLUND VS. ALEX SHELLEY--Better match than it had any right to be on paper, and Backlund did his part well. It is odd that I find Backlund way more entertaining now than at any other point in his career and he worked well with Shelley.

STIENER/ANIMAL VS. DUDLEYS--Better also than it had a right to be. Animal got a huge pop and worked as well as Scott would have. Dudley's win.

ABYSS VS. TOMKO--Before the show I commented to Roxanne and Tommy that someone would be jumping off the top of the entrance ramp, since there were two large ladders going up either side of the stage. During this match, both of the men went off the top. Good brawl with Abyss winning.

KING OF THE MOUNTAIN--CHRISTIAN VS. AJ VS. JOE VS. ANGLE VS. KITTEN--Great match with lots of high spots and convoluted rules. Kitten held his own ring wise, but still isn't quite up to the main event spot. Everybody worked really hard and didn't die. Angle wins.

See our pictures below that Roxanne took.

Pictures from TNA Slammiversary 6-17-07, by Roxanne

Marion Cobretti

Marion 'Cobra' Cobretti is down on his luck. Once viewed as the only man harder than Dirty Harry, now he's forgotten and living by day as a Denny's short order cook and by night as a bouncer at a hotel bar.

Until the night he witnesses a Senator murdering a prostitute with a new, powerful drug cocktail called Smark. Teaming up with the sassy black waitress Kaneesha, Cobra returns to his crime fighting roots and takes it all the way to the Senate floor where he violently assaults the perpetrator and fills him full of his own drug.

"Just say no."


The Guy From Over The Top

The Guy From Over the Top--TGFOTT is down on his luck. Once viewed as the only truck-driver/arm wrestling champion to be able to overcome all the odds and win his son's love and the championship, now he's forgotten and driving a manure truck. His only companion is a sassy orangutan named Zeke who is now the only 'person' willing to arm-wrestle him. Fortunately Zeke's forearms are superhumanly strong and even out of the game TGFOTT's arms are bigger than Popeye's.

An evil trucking firm threatens to buy out the family owned company TGFOTT drives for and he reluctantly enters the world arm wrestling championships to try to make the money to save the company. He trains hard with Zeke, but when he finds out that his son (who he has not seen for ten years) is also in the competition to try and make enough money to save the Orphanage that he runs from being bought by greedy developers he almost loses his nerve.

Zeke convinces him that the money will be enough to save both, and reminds him that at the very least it is just a shit delivery company.

Later it is discovered that TGFOTT's son is not his son at all, but an impostor and that Zeke was his son all along.


Frank Stallone

Frank Stallone (Sylvester Stallone) is a down on his luck actor who can't get more than bit parts, even in his own brother's movies (Sylvester Stallone, played by Frank Stallone). He lands the part of Zeke in The Guy From Over the Top, but loses it at the last minute when he fails monkey school.

Hilarity of course ensues.

Steve Guttenberg also has a role as a talking panda bear named gus.

And someone gets their head punched off into a wall of molten lava. Possibly by Bolo Yeung.

I found the greatest crappy food item ever today at Big Lots. Even greater than Nascar Hamburgers. Even greater than Jeff Foxworthy Ham Jerky.

I give you Rap Snacks



Here we have Lil' Romeo Bar-B-quin' with my Honey and Dirt McGirt Sour Cream and Onion.

Romeo urges you to stay in school and Dirt says think responsibly.

I-have-no-more-words.

Here's the beginning of a new story.

For every Hulk Hogan there are a hundred Tony Atlases, and for every Tony Atlas there are a thousand Gypsy Joes.

I'm not even a Gypsy Joe.

You don't remember me. It's o.k., nobody really does, except my Ex-Wives and the IRS.

I've been around the world and back again, from the gutter to the Penthouse and back to the gutter more times than I can count.

I've had more names than I can count too. In Indianapolis in '72 I was the Mad Mook; In Philly in '76 I was Jimmy the Retard; In Atlanta in '77 I was Kruschev the Killer, and then ten years later under a hood I was Mr. Midnight #2.

But I started out and I'm gonna end as Leonard Bergeron Chapek.

I didn't expect it to ring a bell.

I've been a grave-digger, a short order cook, a tobacco farmer, a janitor (twice) and a bunch of other shit not worth mentioning. But the only thing I was ever good at was wrestling. Some people might argue with that, but the promoter's knew what they were doing when the brought me in.

If they needed a Heel to make their Babyface, I was the man to do it.

There've been plenty of guys that they say could get a great match out of a mop if they tried, but I didn't even need the mop. In Birmingham in '74 as Uncle Rascal, I convinced the marks that there was an invisible grappler called Tim Spook and managed to work for three months without even having an opponent.

I know the business better than most. I know how to squeeze pennies until they turn silver. I know the look in a promoter's eye that they get when they're going to short you. I know how to milk any hint of fame and I know how to dig through the garbage.

Put me in the ring with your Babyface and I will make him. Put me in the ring with your top Heel. Put me in the ring with your son.

Hell, put me in the ring with your dog and I will make it a star.