I'm Back

   Oh Blogger... I just can't quit you.  That's right folks, after much travelling and searching, I'm back.  The thing is, I don't really like Blogger either.  It's like there are no middle-ground blog sites out there.  It's either a crappy setup that only works half the time, or it's so advanced that you basically have to make a career out of blogging/web design or you'll never figure it out.  Take, for example...
   Wordpress: Wordpress sells itself as a blogger's paradise.  It tops all the lists for "best blog site" that I've ever seen.  But I couldn't tell you why.  I guess I should congratulate them for being so open-source and expansive... if I knew more about web design and was willing to pay, I could probably get a pretty sweet blog going over there.  Oh yeah, did I mention they charge?  It's free for the basic BASIC stuff, but if you want to customize anything, they say you have to pay like 15 bucks a month.  OUTRAGEOUS!  I could MAYBE understand paying if you gave me a sweet editing tool or advertised my blog or something... but Wordpress won't even double-space unless you do some serious html coding first.  And it doesn't indent, which drives me insane.
   Blogger: Another site that I haven't been able to figure out how to indent on.  I want new paragraphs to indent.  How hard is that to do?  I read on one of the Wordpress forums that "indenting really isn't the style for bloggers."  Fuck you, I'll decide what my style is, thankyouverymuch.  And I want my first lines of new paragraphs to indent dammit!  Blogger is nice because it runs smoothly and it has some nice options... for FREE.  FREE WORDPRESS.  The downside (other than the ridiculous spacing bullshit) is that it's a pain in the ass to track my audience.  I have to use Google Analytics, which, while a cool tool, is waaayyy more than I need.  Honestly, both are owned by Google, why can't they implement some kind of simplistic tracking deal into Blogger?  Both are free, it's not like they'd be out of money.  I just don't get it.
   Myspace: And then there's Myspace.  Myspace has been good to me over the years.  It was my bread and butter from the beginning.  It's basic, sure, but at least it indents.  How is it that Myspace got the indent thing right, when these dedicated blog platforms can't?  I baffles me, and I know it sounds ridiculous, but it really does drive me absolutely batshit insane.  The downside to Myspace is that it's a shoddy platform overall.  It's deleted entire blog entries on me countless times (suddenly I'm greeted with "error has occurred" and it's all gone), and the audience reach is really pretty limited.  Don't get me wrong, I loved you guys reading my stuff over there (and I appreciate you sticking with me as I bounce around to different sites), but I'm thinking by moving over to another site I can expand my audience some.  Shameless?  Yep.  Sue me.
   So is this really what it's come to?  Is Myspace really the best blogging platform out there?  I refuse to believe it.  I'm hoping to eventually cancel my myspace account, since, you know, I'm not in high school anymore, and really the blog is the only thing I use it for.  Like I said, if anyone knows of any better blog sites than this one, or if anyone knows how in the name of Pete you indent on this piece of garbage, PLEASE let me know.


   Alright, let's get some business taken care of, shall we?


Global Schmarming
   It's going to snow here tomorrow.  I'm talking big time snow, as in several inches.  This will make it the third year in a row that it's snowed.  That's more (and more consistent) than I've ever seen it in my entire life.  I remember before this, it snowed one christmas a few years ago, it snowed once in fourth grade (kinda), and it froze over once when I was in middle school.  So how in the world is this global warming?
   Well, apparently, I'm not the only one asking these questions.  There's this little thing called "Climategate," which apparently points out some pretty convincing stuff about how Global Warming is a load of shit.  Sure the world is warming, they say, but significantly more than it would have if we weren't here polluting.  These guys accuse people like Al Gore of using something like Global Warming to make money, and I have to say that they might be right.  Would any of us even know who Al Gore is if it weren't for his Global Warming stuff?  I seriously doubt it, other than to make fun of him for claiming to have invented the internet.  It never gets old.
   Is global warming real?  Who knows?  I say, who cares?  In my opinion, we should still be striving to improve our technology and rid ourselves of dependence on fossil fuels.  Not only would it be a great middle finger to all those middle eastern nations who love to screw us, it would just be better for everyone.  Unfortunately, the only way Americans are going to do anything to change the status-quo, is if they think their survival hangs in the balance.  I guarantee you, if some study proved that the world would end next year unless we started recycling and driving hybrid cars, we would somehow have an easy way to recycle, and cheap hybrid cars by next year.  That's just how america works.  So while I seriously doubt Al Gore or any of his buddies got all high on global warming for that reason (as opposed to making shit-tons of money), they do at least serve an important purpose.


Tiger Uppercut
   Unless you've been hiding under a rock somewhere, you've heard all this fun stuff about Tiger Woods and his family issues.  Great, great stuff.  I guess even Mr. Squeaky Clean gets bored sometimes.  His wife's definitely not bad looking, but judging by the new reports that she may have been chasing Tiger with that golf club instead of trying to save him say to me that she must be pretty scary.  But still, come on Tiger, she's your wife.  You can't handle that?  You're going to run off like a baby when she gets mad?  You're no doubt more skilled than her with a golf club... why not have a golf club sword fight and call it even?
   I don't feel sorry for Tiger.  Not one bit.  Not only because he's rich off his ass and has it pretty good, but because he screwed up.  I may be a lot of things, but I'm not a cheater.  Well, I kinda did once, in middle school, but come on, that doesn't count.  And besides it really screwed with me even back then.  Okay anyway, not the point.  The point is, Tiger should have known better, and the fact that he didn't makes this whole thing kind of ridiculous.  I haven't heard anyone stand up for Tiger yet, but I have seen that his sponsors are "sticking with him" during these tough times.  Well what does that say about you, sponsors?  That you'd rather make money than stand up for what's right and teach our kids that doing this kind of stuff is not good?  The sponsors should drop him, the PGA should reprimand him, and we should all send a nice facepalm his way.
   For shame, Tiger.  For shame.


Afghani-who?
   President Obama went to Westpoint this week, to explain to a bunch of eager young kids why he was going to put them in a place where crazy religious nutjobs were more than happy to kill them.  That's right, Obama is going to send something like 30,000 more troops over to Afghanistan.  The question I have is, why?
   I could understand why we still have troops in Iraq.  That was a stupid war, but we really screwed things up for those guys and we kinda owe it to them to help them fix it.  But Afghanistan has been screwed up for AGES.  It was messed up even before the Soviets went in back in what, the 80's?  That whole part of the world is off the chain, and while I can understand why we went in there (to get Bin Laden, remember that guy?), there's really no reason for us to be over there now.
   Think about it.  What does Afghanistan have to offer us?  Natural resources?  Not really.  Nice scenic tourism?  Nope (the scenery may be there, but so is animal poop and crazy animal-like tribes of people who forgot that the world is modern now).  The reality is that Afghanistan/Pakistan really have to offer us is a nuclear weapon, which they could potentially ram down someone's throat.  I believe that's the real reason why we're over there.  There are just enough smart people in those countries to build a nuclear weapon, and plenty of stupid people to steal it and do something really crazy with it.  So we're over there kind of like "hey you know what?  You can drop that nuke all day, but we're still gonna be here to kick your ass if you do."  If they didn't have that nuke up their sleeve, I don't think we'd still be over there.
   There really is no way to "defeat" terrorism, other than to just keep them out of our country.  Obama wants to pull out in 18 months.  Good luck.  The terrorists aren't ALL stupid, they know if they can just last until we're gone they can start building again.  It's kinda like mowing grass... you can mow it really short, and it'll take longer to grow back, but it's going to grow back.  As long as there are religious nuts out there hating america, we will have to deal with terroristm.
   So what's the answer?  Ron Paul had it.  Pull out of Afghanistan, now.  Pull out of Iraq as soon as humanely possible.  Pull out of Germany (why are we even there), pull out of Europe, and bring our guys home.  Diplomatic relations are great and all, but why should we have a military presence anywhere in the world?  How would you feel if Germany came over here and decided to open a military base in, say, Georgia?  That would be nuts... it would never fly.  So what gives us the right to do it over there?  We take pride in saying that we keep the world peaceful, but I would argue that we do nothing but raise tension around the world.  Pull out of everyone's countries and they can relax, because "Big Daddy" isn't sitting over their shoulders all the time.  Sure you can look at it as a step back, but would it really be bad?  We'd have more people here to protect our borders, build our infrastructure, and the rest of the world would be thankful that we're willing to play on the same level as they do every single day.  Sending more people over there to die?  Not the answer.  In my opinion it's an even worse answer than Iraq.


Star Trek
   When I was a little boy, like maybe 8 or 9, my dad used to watch "Star Trek: the Next Generation" every single night.  I'd lay there and watch it with him, and while I didn't understand any of it, I did become a pretty big fan of the show.  Really I'm a fan of Patrick Stewart, and he happens to be Picard... but really the show was pretty good for its time.  It's laughable now, but the world was a MUCH different place in the 80s.  The one big complaint I've had about the Next Generation crew is that their movies are pretty weak sauce.  "Generations" was good, and "First Contact" was alright (coulda been a LOT better), but the last two have just been kind of like glorified TV episodes.  Anyway, here comes this new "Star Trek" movie, a complete relaunch of the franchise, and I'm pretty pumped... until I remember that Kirk came before Picard.
   I could sit here and do some sort of Kirk Vs. Picard crap, but I'm not that big a nerd.  I really don't know much about Kirk.  I've only seen a couple of the old Star Trek episodes, and I thought they were absolutely stupid.  I know the 70s were even more weird than the 80s, but I don't care.  Going into this new "Star Trek," I thought the biggest mistake they could make would be to use Kirk and crew instead of Picard and friends.  I was wrong.
   "Star Trek" was a very good movie.  I mean VERY good.  Maybe not the groundbreaking holy hell good that people told me it was, but I did enjoy it a lot.  It's exactly what the series needed, it completely validated it, and in my opinion it by far kicks the ass of any and all the new StarWars revamps.  What I liked best about it was that it was able to fit in a typical Star Trek story (time travel, mistaken identities, etc) without being completely ridiculous.  The special effects were top-notch, and the writing was actually pretty good.
   How can I not recommend this movie?  It really was a good one.  Watch it on Blu-Ray if you can, and jack the volume WAY up.  Great sound effects and music all the way through.  Here's hoping they make a few more of these bad boys...


Max Payne
   Another movie that surprised me with its writing... Max Payne was actually pretty good.  I would have never guessed it was based on a video game... if I hadn't heard of the videogame, that is.  Mark Wahlberg is usually a pretty big tool in his movies, but he fit this role well.  I don't know what they did differently... maybe they said "hey just be angry all the time" and that did it, I dunno.  Whatever it was, I actually believed Wahlberg for once, and that's saying a lot.
   The story here really isn't anything new, it's pretty predictable.  Lots of twists and turns, but nothing really surprising.  Completely over-the-top and unrealistic action, at times it seemed like it was trying to rip off of "Sin City," but I never felt like it crossed the line.  I never played the video game, so there might have been a few things that I didn't catch, but overall I was pretty happy, especially with the writing.  The dialogue was snappy, not cheesy like you so often see.  The violence was definitely there (especially in the unrated director's cut), and there were plenty of hot chicks to look at.  All of those things make up a good movie in my book.
   Should you see this movie?  I'd be interested to hear what someone who played the videogame has to say, but I for one really enjoyed this movie.  It's no "Star Trek," but I think it holds its own against the likes of "Sin City" or pretty much any cop movie.  And if you've given up on Mark Wahlberg, give this one a shot... you might be surprised.


Pride and Glory
   Speaking of cop movies... here's one that also surprised me in the quality department.  Colin Farrell was teetering on douche-dom, but he's officially saved himself in my book.  He's one sick bastard in this movie, and while Edward Norton may not be anything special, he also fit his part rather well.
   What I liked most about this movie was that it was a mystery thriller, but as an audience member you were in on all sides from the beginning.  You knew who the bad guys were, but watching how the good guys reacted to them and their stories was actually a new and interesting take on this kind of movie.  I mean, come on, cop investigates corrupt department, discovers friend may be dirty... predictable.  But I can't remember ever seeing the story told this way.
   I think this movie must have been greatly under-rated, mostly because I'd never heard of it before it showed up on my Netflix recommended list.  How can that happen?  How can fuckin' "New Moon" get into theatres, but a well thought out, near ground-breaking story like this gets passed over?  Do us all a favor, buy this movie instead of seeing "New Moon" for the umpteenth time.  Do your part to get crappy movies out of cinema forever.


Alright y'all, the holidays are almost here.  I've already had my first celebratory nog... when you have yours, toast it to me.  Until next time...