Short Story update

Got an email from the publisher that basically said that he had received so many submissions of sufficient quality, that it he had not been able to read all the submissions yet and apologized for any inconvenience. Which might just mean that he's already read mine and it's being considered. I'm going to look at this optimistically and hope mine is one of the high quality ones he mentioned. That way, even if my story isn't ultimately included in the anthology, he already thinks of my writing as high quality, which gives my novel an even better chance than before. This could be very good news for me. :)

Ron Paul: the Mother Fucking MAN

Listen to Ron Paul make more sense than anyone else talking these days:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbHUjMFzr-c&eurl.

Why the fuck are we even listening to those other Republicans talk anymore? Ron Paul is the only one who gets that the economy is failing, Iraq is a mistake, and that we need to actually make a smaller government to have the changes in government that we want to happen really happen. He may be half crazy, but still, Ron Paul 2008 would be the best thing that could happen to this country.

movies I'm not going to spoil

Cloverfield and No Country for Old Men.

Monsters first. I liked Cloverfield. It was more or less exactly what I was expecting, which is good on the one hand and bad on another. My biggest complaint about the movie is that the trailers they showed on TV gave away far too much about the movie. Far, far too much. If you haven't paid much attention to the trailers, or missed them entirely, go see the movie. You'll probably enjoy it a bit more than I did since you won't be watching waiting for the next scene from the trailer you haven't seen yet. But still, all in all, it was a good movie.

Also, everything they said about motion sickness, probably true. If the Blair Witch Project made you woozy, this will be far worse.

Now for the quiet movie. I think the biggest thing I took away from No Country was that it was a remarkably quiet movie. There really isn't a lot of dialogue at all. This, however, does not detract from the movie. The only thing that can detract from a movie that forces you to carefully listen to everything that's going on is the other people in the theater with you who think you can't hear them talking incessantly who you strangle and leave for dead in a bathroom. Now the end of the movie, I felt, was lacking something. I'm not sure what, but the end could have had something more. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed the movie. There were bits that were bloody awesome, and the everpresent feel of the movie, the quiet and intensity created thereof, was well worth a slightly lacking end. I definitely understand why it would be nominated for best picture. I imagine it's got about a snowball's chance in hell of winning, but I totally get why it's up there.

In conclusion: if you don't have motion sickness, go see Cloverfield. It's harder to suggest people go see No Country, as it is very Cohen brothers to an extreme, but if you like the Cohen brothers, it's worth a shot.

The only question now is, what movie do I go see next? Rambo? Maybe...

anonymous strikes first

You may not be familiar with religiousfreedomwatch.org, but it certainly sounds like a group interested in protecting constitutionally guaranteed religious freedoms, right? Wrong. The site is a thinly veiled attempt by the Cult of Scientology to pretend they care about all religions, when in fact it is a site devoted, apparently, to bitching about and slandering the enemies of Scientology. Why do I say apparently? Read on.

My post yesterday about the anonymous group interested in destroying Scientology was more than just an idle threat on YouTube. The Cult of Scientology posted a $5000 reward (a likely broken link to that reward) in response to that video. The reaction from anonymous was simple: DOS the site. DOS mean Denial of Service and simply floods the target site with so much traffic that it brings the webserver housing the site to its knees. Everything I was able to learn about "religiousfreedomwatch" was through Google's cache and Digg comments because anonymous has already struck a blow to Scientology by wiping this web-site off the Internet.

Maybe I'm getting a little dramatic about it, but if anonymous continues this attack using the tactics they espouse in that first video, the Cult of Scientology is doomed. I, for one, won't miss them.

more Scientology cult stuff

After posting that creepy anti-Scientology video ("we are anonymous. we are legion."), I decided I should check out a recent BBC report on Scientology from the show Panorama, called "Scientology and Me". You can find it here or on YouTube, and I highly suggest you watch it. Now, I knew before I saw this video that Scientology is a cult, is creepy, and is theoretically dangerous, but now, after watching their tactics as reported by that show, I understand where that first video is coming from. I get why an anonymous group would feel the need to get down and dirty enough to take on the so-called Church of Scientology. The Cult of Scientology needs to be destroyed.

Now I have neither the time nor the inclination to go try to infiltrate the Cult of Scientology in an attempt to bring it down from the inside. I, also, wouldn't be very good at pretending I wasn't disgusted or just entertained by their ludicrous actions, so they'd probably see right through me anyway. But I will do my part, however small, in fighting this underhanded and evil cult, by spreading the information I have seen and read. Here is more information on the Cult of Scientolgy.

Watch, read, and listen. Then tell someone else. I am not anonymous, nor am I legion, but I am behind their cause. I hope you are too. Let's bring this ridiculous, immoral, and evil Cult to its knees.

Scientology

Is this the end of Scientology? If nothing else, it is a creepy video.

Rock Band

I have purchased Rock Band. Lacking friends to play it with, I've played some tutorials, songs and what not, and gotten a feel for the game. That feel? Depressing. Rock band is not designed for the single player, it is designed for the multiple players. Which means I need friends to play with, rather than the depressing playing alone wacking on drums with no one to make snide comments to.

Guitar Hero III is very much a single player game; it's difficult, rewards hard work, and gives nearly inacessible goals to reach for. In short, it's a challenging and fun game. Rock Band, on the other hand, is a multiplayer game aimed, not at gamers, but at everyone. Therefore it's not very hard. Case and point, I picked up the guitar controler (which is cheap and crappy compared to the GH III controller), put the difficulty on Expert on a song I wasn't very familiar with, and got a 98% on the song. That's just lame. Drumming is harder, yes, as is singing (which is more fun than instruments alone IMO, but still depressing), but still they don't encourage one to play more. The just make me wish I had other people plyaing, even just one other person.

So what's the subtle undertone hidden in this blog post? Heh... I should think that obvious. I need band mates!

wacky spinning lady

Here's the wacky spinning lady.

If you don't feel like listening to the girl explaining things, here's the deal. When you first look at the lady spinning, she will clearly be spinning in one direction. However, and I have managed this several times so I'm not completely nuts, you can actually change the direction in which she is spinning. Say what? Seriously, try it and help convince me I haven't lost my mind. I found the only way to get her to spin in the other direction that being counter-clockwise, was to stare at the reflection of her foot and start to convince my brain I was seeing the opposite. I've seen her spinning left and right. Can you mangage the same feat?

Fuck, this is creepy.

Bwahaha!

Any comic like this is likely to get a laugh out of me. Does it make you laugh too or do you just recoil in horror? :)