Poor Luke

via graphjam

And for all you even huger nerds out there: I guess all Luke can say is "Thank God (the force?) for Mara Jade." Am I right or what!??

/kills self

no. no.. no...

/encases self in carbonite.

ok, now

/kills self

Coming to terms with your childhood being ruined before your eyes: Comic Book Nerd Edition

A couple of sources have said that Gambit(among others) will be making at least a cameo in the Wolverine spin-off movie coming out in 2009.  Part of me thinks this is awesome, but then I remember the part of me that was excited for the Daredevil movie to come out.  

It's weird to try and come to terms with this stuff...  It was always such a pipe dream when I was a kid.  Real life movies of my heros?  Batman was one thing. I mean, the guy has no super powers.  When the movie came out in '89, it made sense.  No serious special effects needed, no major letdown.  Can you imagine if Wolverine's claws had been like, glued on and there was stop motion to make them retract and shit?  Or if Spider-man had been made before the technology....oh.

Anyway, X-Men and Spider-Man were always my two favorite comic books growing up, so I take exception to both franchises making two exceptional movies and then a third movie that sucked harder than .  Anyway, the Wolverine spin-off could be excellent.  I'm sure it won't be though... I'm hoping for death and lots of blood and Omega Red and all kinds of awesome back story too stupid for me to get into at this point, in case anyone still has any respect for me.

So the point I'm driving at is that, even though these movies are all being made now, they aren't really being made for me, or my age group.  This is why they're going after PG-13 ratings, and this is why I have resigned myself to seriously lowered expectations.  

Do I still let myself get worked up into an orgasmic frenzy over certain things?  Of course, I backslide and revert and can't help myself.  The Dark Knight looks good enough to fuck the celluloid.  Iron Man looks full of potential, The Incredible Hulk is starring Ed Norton, whom I would personally do, so, well... there's that...  Anyway.  

Gambit was always one of my favorite X-Men, that accent, that attitude, the way he treated women, it was all great!  But, to be honest, I don't remember much about him other than that he had an accent, had an attitude, and treated objects like women, man.

So part of me is resigned to the fact that these movies are not for me, as much as I want them to be.  

The other part of me, however, is filled with murderous rage because they ruined Rogue, Angel (unless they work in Apocalypse, and also go back in time and uncast Ben Foster), they killed off three insanely pivotal characters... I could go on... and that's just on a franchise I liked!  I could spend at least ten hours ranting about Spider-Man 3 and how awful it was (I won't).  Daredevil I only saw the one time, and that was like, a hundred times too many.  I've never even made it all the way through the Ang Lee Hulk movie.  I liked Superman Returns probably more than I should have.  

It all boils down to this: I think there is a reason grown-ups don't like comic books.  And as soon as I  figure out that reason, I will apply it to my life, and stop weeping like a little bitch every time one of these movies comes out and stabs my childhood in the dick.

It's in Italian, but it was the only clip I could find:

Captain America... I remember losing my shit when this came out.

Nerd Alert: Star Wars Prequel Bitching

Don't worry... honest. This isn’t about how stupid it is that Darth Vader was an obnoxious little kid, or any of that shit. This specific rant is because last night I watched a decent portion of Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

This is generally considered the best of the three prequels, which is equivalent to saying "Well, chlamydia is at least better than syphilis or AIDs!" It might be true, but it's still fucking gross and a stupid thing to say. Anyway, George Lucas of course claims he wrote all six episodes at the same time and the story had all been planned out, and I think there are enough gaping holes in the prequels that a single rewatch of the original three shoots that idea to hell. The problem I found myself with last night, or I guess I should say the biggest problem, was that at the end, Obi-Wan has the opportunity to kill Darth Vader, and he doesn't. One might argue that this is because they were friends, brothers, lovers, etc. Obe's couldn't bring himself to do it. He just could not and would not kill his friend. This argument would be a good one, if only Darth didn't slip towards lava and catch fire. For whatever reason, Obi-Wan just sits there and watches while this "brother" of his writhes in agony with a flaming head and de-limbed body.

Isn't that insanely more cruel than putting him out of his misery and, in turn, coming that much closer to destroying the Sith? And, certainly when he walks away he thinks he is leaving him for dead, no? The Emperor shows up way later to save him. Shouldn't then Obi-Wan and Yoda be surprised to find out he's alive? Shouldn't there have been a conversation between Yoda and Obi-Wan that got real awkward real fast about Annakin's status?

And if anyone had stopped for one second to bring up this point in production, it could have been the easiest thing to fix. There is a scene in Thank You For Smoking where Rob Lowe talks about how smoking in space is an easy fix, despite the all oxygen environment. "Thank God we invented the... you know, whatever machine." This is essentially how George Lucas went about trying to correct his mistakes towards the end of Episode III. "Oh, Obi-Wan, by the way, your old master discovered immortality, I'll show you how to talk to him" "Erase that droids mind, so that he has no idea how implausible this story is" etc. And this one glaring problem that I've been ranting about like a pimply fat kid on break from a game of WoW is the most easily fixable one! Have the Emperor show up as Obi-Wan is about to do him in or something. Whatever, it takes two seconds. UGH.

To make me feel better, I'm posting a bit of Robot Chicken Star Wars

Monday Morning Myth Busting: Baseball

So Yersterday there was some kind of sports contest on at some point during the day. Anyway, leading up to the Superbowl, I was hard pressed to find something entertaining to watch on television since Sunday's are generally rot-days in the Pemulis household. I wear clothes that no self respecting person would wear in public, just to have an extra incentive not to leave the house. I plant my rear firmly in the recliner with the intention of moving only to and from the bathroom and kitchen and only when absolutely necessary. Since I had no desire to watch six hours of nonsense about why Michael Strahan is something something about the something bowl, I spent a good part of the day hitting the 'fav' button on the remote, desparate to find something entertaining.

Thankfully, Discovery Channel was running a Mythbusters marathon. Unfortunately, I've seen alot of episodes, including several of the ones aired... But, there was one I hadn't seen. It was all about baseball myths, which sounded like it could be really awesome. Turned out to be a mixed bag of pretty cool and kind of stupid.

One myth was about whether or not corked bats actually provide any sort of boost, in terms of power hitting. Surprisingly, they determined that though the bat is lighter, which makes for a faster swing, the cork inside acts like a sponge, and soaks up alot of that enery. This in turn makes the ball leave the bat at almost half the speed of an uncorked bat hitting the same ball.

Here's a behind the scenes video of the experiment:


Another interesting myth they tried to tackle, but kind of fucked up, was whether or not sliding into a base (that you aren't allowed to overrun) is faster than just running and coming to a complete stop. This means they tried running from first to second and just stopping at second base, and then tried again - this time sliding into second. While the results proved that sliding into second was a tad faster than just running and stopping; I think this experiment kind of missed the point of whatever question the fan may have sent in to be tested. I would imagine that one of the bigger reasons to slide into a base that can't be overran (ie 2nd and 3rd) is to try and avoid a tag, as well as not to completely fuck up your ankle trying to come to a sudden and complete stop from running full speed. What I think would have been much more interesting would have been to see whether or not running to first (which you're allowed to overrun) is that much faster than the head first dive into first that we Mets fans see Jose Reyes do so often. I want to know if he should be bonked on the head and slapped repeatedly or if it doesn't make much difference. Anyway, the best part of the segment might be that all these mythbuster guys are complete nerds who don't know thing one about baseball, let alone how to slide. Also, Grant (the Asian guy) refers to robot combat as a sport, and after failing to complete a slide, suggests that he could build a robot that could slide. Also built by Grant, for Grant: robot for sex, robot for snuggling, robot for bondage, and robots for combat (I'm pretty sure he actually competed and one on that short lived show Battle Bots).



Other myths busted: it's impossible to knock the hide off a baseball, there's no such thing as a rising fastball, and humid balls do not travel as far as dry balls. Blue balls, on the other hand, never seem to make it past second base, regardless of the humidity.