"Teachers Are the Greatest Freaks On Earth" --Anne Frank

It's been a really long time since I've spent any time on this clunky old blog of mine, but since I'm contractually obligated to be here for another ten minutes, I'm gonna let loose with a bunch of goings on that have been going on:

Created a facebook account.

Saw a car dodge a cardboard box on I-80 and crash through the median, getting tangled up in a mess of steel cables and dust (I got out of my car to assist, and everyone was okay).

Have been listening to Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity on my drive home and can now say that they are idiots for myself.

Alice in Wonderland was just okay.

Sherlock Holmes was freaking awesome.

Signed up for gamefly (it's like netflix but with video games). Rented Dante's Inferno. Do not recall a gargantuan topless Cleopatra shooting unbaptized babies out of her ta-ta's in the original story.

Musical taste has veered into alt-country folky territory (Mumford & Sons; Elliott Brood; The Avett Brothers).

Have started watching Dexter. It is very awesome. Have added Michael C. Hall to list of dudes that I have a man-crush on.

Purchased and beat Mass Effect 2, but lost three of my crew members in the process. I've never felt so emotionally distraught after a video game character dies as I did when Grunt got carried off by a pack of pissed off alien bats.

Have eaten chicken feet. I do not recommend eating chicken feet.

Am very close to wrapping up the third quarter of my first year teaching. It's gone by pretty fast, but I kind of feel like I've done a good job so far.

That should about cover it. See you in another three months, blogosphere.

Live Free and Twihard!

Lately I've been pimping the soundtrack to New Moon. I am completely aware of the fact that pimping this album might make me some kind of teenage girl, but hear me out. I haven't seen the movie yet, so my judgment is based completely on the collection of songs themselves. Hopefully the movie doesn't waste such good music, but we'll see. Anywho, what follows is my breakdown of the album. Set faces for stunned.

STANDOUTS (The Ones You Need to Own):

1. Meet Me At the Equinox by Death Cab For Cutie: Few bands can express such acute thoughts about both love and nihilism in just one song. Forgoing the typical, "we're in love and everything's gonna be great" motif, Death Cab punctuates every mention of bodies intertwining with the foreboding reminder that "everything ends." It's beautiful and depressing as hell all at once.

2. Friends by Band of Skulls: I recently purchased a pretty decent album by this band (Baby Darling Doll Face Honey). They kinda sound like a British version of The White Stripes. But I digress. This song is a drunk and disorderly tribute to being irresponsible on the weekends. It's going to the top of the playlist that I'm making for my unit on The Outsiders.

3. Hearing Damage by Thom Yorke: I'm not really gonna get into how intricate and complex Thom Yorke/Radiohead's music is, because to be honest, I don't have the cognitive capacity to even go there. All I know is that Yorke makes music like nobody else, and this song is no exception.

4. Done All Wrong by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club: This is a tune in the vein of All You Do Is Talk; a blues-y slow song that drifts into your mind like a cold wind and leaves you slightly more melancholy that you were before.

5. The Violet Hour by Sea Wolf: I've never heard of this band before, but this catchy tune is definitely like the mari ju wanna (you know, like a gateway drug? Heh). I'd describe it as a punchy little number inspired by Belle and Sebastian mixed with a little bit of David Byrne. Coupled with its liberal use of body/nature metaphors, I was caught off guard by how often it pops up in my head when I'm not thinking about anything.

6. Shooting the Moon by OK Go: OK Go sets up some gnarly quirk-rock and bangs it out by beating a big ass drum. This is one I like to crank up in the car to the point where my fillings start to vibrate along with the drum beats.

7. Slow Life by Grizzly Bear: I've decided that Grizzly Bear is a band that you've got to dedicate some time and effort to. Once you've agreed to suspend your disbelief and step into their world, you find something pretty intriguing. On this track, the vocals belong to Victoria Legrand (Yeah, I don't know who that is either), and they compliment Ed Droste's (thanks, Google!) own style. It's slow, pretty, and the more you listen to it, the different musical nuances come into focus.

8. Nothing But the Wind by the Editors: At first, this song was kind of unsettling for me. It's hard to get used to the vocals. But, I gave it some heavy rotation, and it slowly became one of the coolest songs in the world. It's just a dude and his piano busting out some intensely operatic lyrics that make a person want to reinvest themselves in the fight for love!

9: All I Believe In by The Magic Numbers: This song is actually super cheesy. I mean, it even goes off on a Native American-influenced tangent! But, something about this song is charming, and I couldn't help but dig it.

FORGETTABLE (Songs One Would Expect From a Twilight Soundtrack):
I'm not gonna really go into too much detail here. This stuff is the obligatory filler between the awesome songs listed above. If the whole album was as good as the above songs, the fault lines would crack, and humanity would be pulled into a fiery maw of awesome. Or a mawesome, if you will.

1. Possibility by Lykke Li: Six-year-old, chain-smoking depressed girl song part 1.

2. A White Demon Love Song by The Killers: If this song was on "Hot Fuss," it'd be so good! Why? BECAUSE THAT WAS BEFORE THE KILLERS DECIDED TO START SUCKING!!!!

3. Satellite Heart by Anya Marina: Six-year-old, chain-smoking depressed girl song part 2.

4. I Belong to You by Muse: Muse is kind of starting to follow The Killers on their short bus to Suckville.

5. Roslyn by Bon Iver and St. Vincent: I was so very disappointed with this song. Everything on "For Emma, Forever Ago" is ten times better than this dirge.

6. Monsters by Hurricane Bells: Sheree noted that this song sounded like a Muse song. It does. They play it on a loop at a truck stop called The Suckery in a place known as Suckville.

7. Solar Midnite by Lupe Fiasco: Crap! Crappiest piece of crap that ever made its way out of Crapville, sister city to Suckville.

Even though there are seven mediocre songs (which is about half the album), the nine standouts are extremely good. That's why I'm pimping this album. At the very least, illegally download the nine good songs and pat yourself on the back for maintaining an open mind.

Kick-Ass Kicks Ass

Kick-Ass

Trailer Park | MySpace Video

Convergence

I'll cop to the fact that I've got the song "In Dreams" by Roy Orbison on my iPod. Do you wanna know why? Do ya? Well, sucker, let me tell you. When I was about 13 or 14 years old (the same age as the howlin' mad Tooele Jr. High Roadrunners that I corral day in and day out) I read a very interesting comic book. The first thing that was interesting was the fact that on the back cover of the dust jacket were the words "suggested for mature readers." The second thing that was interesting was that it was a story about Batman. The third thing that was interesting was the opening pages depicted a young boy named Amadeus taking food to his mother who subsequently vomited up a bunch of cockroaches while mumbling the words "I've eaten." There were about three hundred more interesting things that happened as I traversed my way through Grant Morrison's and Dave McKean's nightmarish graphic novel Arkham Asylum. The final pages are what sparked this entry, however. Each of Batman's psychotic rogues have little messages scrawled out at the end of the book, almost like an epilogue to the story. The one that stuck with me the most, and terrified my little 8th grade soul was this quote given by Dr. Destiny (who later became one of Neil Gaiman's most malevolent villain in his Sandman series). He wrote, "In dreams I walk with you..." Something about the three little dots at the end of this statement haunted me...

Flash forward about ten or eleven years. I was in college at that point, and had just made the decision to watch David Lynch's film Blue Velvet. I watched it alone in the middle of the day, and felt my guts twist up into knots whenever Frank Booth was on screen. Simply put, the dude is the embodiment of bestial cruelty, and you were never quite sure when he was just gonna snap and take you down with him. Anyway, there's this scene where Frank has Jeffrey in his nasty clutches and they go visit a dude Frank calls Ben. Ben's apartment is a prime example of Lynchian f***ked up-ness. The lighting is too phosphorescent, there are carney-folk prostitutes hanging around, and overall it looks like someone just puked up a few loads of vintage clothing all over the place. After a brief dialogue between Ben and Frank, Ben cues up "In Dreams" by Roy Orbison. He pulls out one of those floodlights with the bulb encased in a metal grate and starts lip synching the song into the light. Just what in the hell kind of people are these? Immediately following this bizarre performance, Frank drives Jeffrey out into the middle of an industrial complex where he voraciously applies layers and layers of thick red lipstick to his lower face. He boots Jeffrey out, and as he's kicking the crap out of him, he bellows the phrase, "In dreams I walk with you!" Turns out, that's a damn lyric from Roy Orbison's popular hit about "the candy-colored clown they call the Sandman," entitled "In Dreams."

So I bought that shit on iTunes. Whenever it comes on in my shuffle, I just sit back and replay in my mind the many shades of chaos that these lyrics represent:

"In dreams I walk with you.
In dreams I talk to you.
In dreams you're mine.
All of the time we're together
In dreams, In dreams."

Tales Fron The Con, Episode 3: Constitution

Gosh, we look freaking tired! Here we are at day 3 of the Con, and we had just arrived in hall H to see the Lost panel. It's been a long and strange road, but we've managed to pierce the very heart of geekdom. It has definitely taken a toll on our souls, but such profound awesomeness is worth it. Anywho, I'm not planning on writing all that much because I think the point of these entries is to share our photos. Also, it's late and I'm sleepy. Here goes!















































Okay, the Lost panel was probably the most entertaining one of the entire convention. Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof threw together fan-made videos commemorating the series and a Miami Vice-ish opening credits scene with a song written by some Lost fans. When the q & a opened up, the dude who plays Donny the head page on 30 Rock presented the executive producers with a painting of them with a polar bear. Soon afterwards, Hurley asked a few unanswerable questions about the series only to be interrupted by Ben (kinda scary to be in the same room with the guy). Their routine was a pretty funny scenario about Ben originally auditioning for Hurley's part, accompanied by a video of said audition. Right, the panel expanded to include Richard Alpert, Sawyer, and eventually Charlie! I loved it a lot. Lost is a great show, and I'm sad that it's going into its final season.

Afterwards, there was a panel promoting a movie called Solomon Kane. Before it started, I had absolutely no idea what it was. Upon watching the panel, I discovered that it's an adaptation of a comic book by Robert E. Howard who also created Conan. From what I gather, it's about this Puritan dude in the early 1800's who runs around slaying demons. At first I thought, "lame-ass," but the footage was pretty good. The director stressed his desire to make this movie a throwback to old school '80's fantasy movies like Ladyhawke and Beastmaster, which it kinda was. We'll see.














Next, there was a panel for Mike Judge's new movie called Extract. The trailer's out online, and you should watch it if you haven't already. Up there we have Mike Judge, Jason Bateman, and Mila Kunis. The footage was pretty good, and I think that this one will definitely be on par with Office Space, possibly better. On a side note, Mike Judge talks exactly like Hank Hill. Oh, and Jason Bateman vaguely alluded to an Arrested Development movie, saying that everyone's on board but they still need a script.

Moving right along, Sony Pictures presented a panel for 2012 and Zombieland. 2012 is yet another Roland Emmerich disaster movie. This time, L.A. gets flooded and blah blah blah human spirit. Zombieland looked pretty funny though. It's got that Woody Harrelson fella, along with Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin. It looks like your basic coming of age zombie movie. I'll hit that.

Now, the panel we were looking forward to all day: Iron Man 2! Here's some pictures, and then I'll try and recreate the footage that we saw using my words:










































As you can see, Robert Downey, Jr., Jon Favreau, Don Cheadle, Sam Rockwell, and Scarlett Johansson were on hand to promote the flick, and by damn does it look wicked. The clip that they showed (twice!) started with Tony Stark in full armor (minus the helmet) hanging out inside the giant donut atop Randy's Donuts in L.A. Oh, and he's appropriately eating some donuts. Then Nick Fury shows up and is like, "Get yo' ass down here!" The pair argue briefly about the Avengers, which Stark calls a "super secret boy band." The footage cuts to a scene of Stark sitting before a group of senators on CNN. A senator played by Gary Shandling keeps probing Stark about his Iron Man "weapon." Hilarity ensues as Stark goads the senator into a rant of "F***k you, Mr. Stark." In the next scene, we have some old newspaper articles and magazine covers plastered all over a dingy basement wall. In Mickey Rourke's Russian accent, Whiplash speaks of Tony Stark coming from a family of thieves and murderers. He says something awesome like, "Blood is in the water, and soon the sharks will come." Then, freaking BOOM! Mickey Rourke's all jacked up with his makeshift electro-whips that he flings around as he approaches a downed Iron Man. Then it's a bunch of action clips, some of which feature Scarlett Johansson looking awesome as the Black Widow. The footage ends with Sam Rockwell as rival billionaire/weapons manufacturer Justin Hammer demonstrating some top of the line guns for Don Cheadle (he took over for James Rhodes). After he finishes, it's all:
Rhodes: I'll take it.
Hammer: Which one?
Rhodes: All of 'em.
The footage ends with effing War Machine with wrist-mounted machine guns and a shoulder mounted gatling gun shooting the hell out of everything!
As far as exclusive footage went, this stuff was amazing. It was long, bitchin', and totally got me jazzed to see this when it comes out next year.

We ended our day with a trip to the exhibition hall, where I picked up volume 8 of The Goon's trade paper back exploits which I later got signed by Eric Powell. Here's a picture of Sheree with a fake Jason Bateman, because we didn't actually get to meet the real Jason Bateman:

Huzzah!

Tales From the Con, Episode 2: Conversations

Ah! Hello again, readers! Our dude and lady have missed you during their raucous exploits at day 2 of the Con. Now, without further delay, let us resume our journey with this blisteringly attractive couple of adventurers.

Hall H was our adventurer's first stop. Warner Brothers was promoting some of their upcoming releases, along with unreleased footage. The panel started with three scenes from Spike Jonze's adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are (Not much to photograph, unfortunately. They bust you if you record any of the footage). Verdict: Truly beautiful filmmaking. The music, the creatures, and the setting completely evoke that which was awesome about Maurice Sendak's book. I'm very much looking forward to this one.





















Above, you'll see Gary Oldman, Denzel Washington, and Jackie Earle Haley. The first two were promoting a film called The Book of Eli, which is some kind of post-apocalyptic action fest directed by the Hughes brothers (Dead Presidents, From Hell, and some other stuff). The verdict: Dollar movie worthy, or perhaps just one to watch on cable. Mr. Haley was there promoting the extremely superfluous remake of Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street. Verdict, anyone: The whole idea that someone is remaking this movie bugs me a lot. The director even stooped so low as to call it a "reinvention," and compared it to the relationship between Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins to Tim Burton's Batman. I call bullshit on that!
















Next up, we have Megan Fox, Josh Brolin, Cameron Diaz, and James Marsden. The Fox/Brolin pair were promoting Jonah Hex, which is adapted from a comic book about an ugly ass cowboy and his bad temperment. Verdictus Maximus: Looks a hell of a lot like Ghost Rider, and Ghost Rider was damn near unwatchable. Maybe go see it as an ironic joke. Diaz and Marsden were there for a movie called The Box, which is another flick from the dude who directed Donnie Darko. Do I Smell Verdict? Hard to call. I guess the footage that they showed intrigued me enough to see it, and the dialogue surrounding the 1976 setting was very mysterious. I freaking hate Cameron Diaz though.















Oh ho! Who are these handsome celebrity folk? It's Robert Downey, Jr. and Rachel McAdams, on hand to show us some footage from Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes. El Verdicto: Balls to the walls. When I heard about the cast and Guy Ritchie and all that good stuff, I was really excited. After seeing the footage, I nearly puked my pants.















Later on, there was a panel for this kinda cool-lookin' movie called 9. It's an animated flick, and Elijah Wood and Jennifer Connely were there because they do voices for it. Oh, and that's Tim Burton! He was one of the producers. At this point of the Con, I decided to take the opportunity to ask a question of Timur Bekmambetov (he directed Wanted and some sweet Russian horror movies called Night Watch and Day Watch. He's also producing this movie):

























Me: Um, excuse me? Mr. Bekmambetov?
Timur B: Yes?
Me: Uh, I was wondering, um, if there is going to be a Dusk Watch film to finish the Night Watch trilogy?
Timur B: No.
Me: Oh. Drag. Kay, bye.

It's quite humbling to see your ugly mug up on that huge screen, knowing that literally thousands of people can see you and are judging your coolness based solely upon what kind of question you ask. I had to go to the bathroom after I finished. Oh, Verdicto Finale: 9 could be cool, but the footage they showed was veeerrry boring. That makes me think that they're relying too much on how things look, and that tells me that it might suck.
Oh, this is just Peter Jackson in his very first Comic-Con appearance. No big deal. But seriously, it is a big deal. He's producing a movie called District 9 that is about aliens that are being kept in a ghetto by us nasty humans. What's That? Oh, Just A Verdict: I'd place District 9 just under Sherlock Holmes and Where the Wild Things Are on the list of movies that I'm very much looking forward to. There was also a panel for some movie called Legion about militant angels or some dumb thing like that. It looked like a fried turd that had been left under the radiator for three weeks.














Here is where our journey takes a strange turn. Eric Powell (creator of The Goon) was on hand to celebrate Goon's tenth anniversary. Along with him were Thomas Lennon, Robert Garant (otherwise known as officers Jim Dangle and Travis Junior of Reno 911!), and a little boy dressed up like Nacho Libre. Lennon and Garant were posing as Powell's older, white trashier brothers. I don't know what the hell the Nacho Libre kid was doing there though. Towards the end of the panel, they showed some footage of an upcoming animated feature that is being helmed by David Fincher, which was pretty rad. Un-rad, however was Eric Powell himself. He seemed a lot like the quiet kid at your school who is secretly a dick. Oh, and the Reno 911! dudes were very funny for the first fifteen minutes of the panel, but the schtick couldn't sustain itself for the full hour. Meh.

That pretty much concludes day two, readers. Can you handle two more days? Can you? Answer me!!!

Tales From The Con, Episode 1: Consecrations

This tale begins much like any other. It starts with a dude and a lady (pictured above) who take a journey deep into the heart of California's cultural wilderness. While on this journey, the pair encounter many encounters, both terrible and profound. What follows is a serious of photographic examples of said encountered encounters. Please, try not to go insane. Thank you.
After spending many days wandering through Disneyland's many wonders and terrors (side note: I'm 99% sure that I saw Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins whilst waiting in line for the Matterhorn. Alas, I was too chicken to find out for sure), we found ourselves in Hollywood. Here's a picture of said dude with R2-D2's and C-3PO's footprints. After some time journeying, the pair ran into another pretty awesome pair of journey folk. Behold their triumph as they stand upon the shores of Laguna Beach!But what's this? The pair's surroundings have changed in no small way! They pose within the bowels of the mighty exhibition hall of the San Diego Comic-Con! Though this picture is quite awesome, it still does not manage to capture the complete pandemonium of the exhibition hall. That is one fine lookin' couple though.
















Okay, here are a few pictures from within. On top, you'll notice our dude with Snake Eyes and Storm shadow. We took this picture specifically for Ryan, so he could see a small fraction of the overall coolness he missed while not attending. Then there's our dude being a dork in front of a Dark Horse/Star Wars display. Finally, a set of Iron Man prototype suits, courtesy of Stark Industries.














On to the panels! First we have Eliza Dushku, Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana, and Elizabeth Mitchell talking about what it means to be a woman in the sci-fi world. It was pretty interesting, except for the parts when Eliza Dushku talked. The second picture we have is from the Kick-Ass panel (it's a sweet comic book that they're making into what looks to be a sweet comic book movie). Left to right, there's Matthew Vaughn (director), Jane Goldman (screenwriter), Mark Millar (comic book writer), John Romita, Jr. (comic book artist), Clark Duke (plays a dude in the movie), and Christopher Mintz-Plasse (plays another dude in the movie, also known as McLovin). Oh, and later on Chloe Moretz (plays a little girl assassin) showed up. Nicholas Cage is also in the movie, but he copped out like a chump. They showed some clips, and it looks like a very special kind of rad. If you haven't read Kick-Ass, rectify the situation! Now!
But wait! Who's this with our dude? Do you recognize him? No? Well! That, my friends, is Mike Mignola (creator of Hellboy). On a final run through the exhibition hall, we chanced upon him as he was leaving. I was unprepared for this, but was glad to have gotten a pic with him. Oh, and he signed my Dark Horse preview book. Thug life!














To conclude episode 1 of our tale, here we have our lady and dude exiting the premises to find sustenance and end their first day of the Con. But do not despair, dear reader. There are three more days of Comic-Con action upon which to expound. Keep it tuned here for more from the heart of geekery. So say we all!