Subtle Bluntness

Here’s some things I’ve done lately:

Rest.

Go through a mini-quarter-life crisis/turn 29.

Think up 10 possible new faces for The Expendables 2.

See Dinner For Schmucks.

See The Sorceror’s Apprentice.

Correspond quite a bit with the more-successful, less-bearded version of me.  (It’s very strange to meet your Google shield.)

Spend most of the summer working with a Mac computer.  Realize that the evangelists are just nuts, because the Mac’s programs crashed as often or more often than the PC’s do.  Learned to hate the lack of a right click button.  Learned to hate using the stupid Command key for everything.  Learned to super-hate training myself to do Mac keyboard shortcuts at the cost of miskeying my Windows keyboard shortcuts.

Put into place a complete life-changing plan in an effort to make myself more fit, more well-rested, more content, and more productive in general.  Not sure it’ll work, but I’m gonna make a go of it.  Despite doing my best to watch my calories and restrict myself, I’ve found that I’m now closer to 200 pounds than I am 185; this will not do.

Started a new project:  Cinema Narcs.  (This has been worked into my complete life-changing plan as something that merits a review a week from myself, as part of my general desire to do something that’s just enjoyable for myself.)

And oh yeah, write this post to prove I’m still alive.  As Bartles & Jaymes once said, thank you for your support.  And if you don’t support me, you can take a musical cue from the following tune.

“And now look at me:  half-crazy with fear, driving 120 miles an hour across Death Valley in some car I never even wanted.  You evil bastard!  This is your work.  You’d better take care of me, Lord . . . because if you don’t you’re going to have me on your hands.”

Happy belated 73rd birthday to the late Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.

Tags: belated birthdays, birthdays, celebrities, famous dead guys, fear and loathing in las vegas, HST, Hunter Thompson, quotes

Some people are retiring FGF because it’s blog laziness.  I love laziness, so I’ll probably be the last one to keep the meme going.  Not that I’ve done it lately, but I’ll do it now.  I saw these guys, The 23 String Band, at Forecastle Festival on Friday afternoon.  They were awesome (and nice guys, as I talked to the lead singer later on in the day).

It’s Friday, enjoy it.  That’s what it’s here for.

Tags: 23 string band, bluegrass, feel good friday, forecastle festival, Music, youtube

Well, Twilight is back and so am I, having forced myself to head to the theaters and disembowel one of the most successful movie franchises of all time yet again.  Sometimes, hate can be fun, and there’s little hate more fun than Twilight-based hate.  Thanks to the cliched characters, terrible (and predictable) dialogue, and of course, lots and lots of padding shots of characters grimacing and eyeballing one another between heaving sighs.  Here’s my review; enjoy yourselves.

I’m not sure there’s ever been a movie series with such an unappealing lead before, or a movie series in which 9/10ths of the cast are obviously there to cash their massive paychecks and fulfill their contractual obligations.  And I saw Superman IV: The Quest For Peace!  But, it’s okay.

There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, and that light is the most hysterically bad pregnancy/birth scene in movie history (if they do it like it was done in the book), completely with werewolf pederasty.  Exciting!  I can’t wait for Renesmee to take The Twilight Saga from bad to unspeakable horror inflicted on an entire generation like a vampire Caesarean.

Tags: bad teenage romances, Eclipse, movie reviews, sparkly vampires, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, twilight

Sara Bareilles has an Adrien Brody nose and I’m not sure about this new guitar-less Rivers Cuomo, but the show tonight should be awesome nonetheless.  I haven’t seen them since they toured for the Green Album and I drove down to Nashville with my old Japanese roommate Junya and Jess, the biggest Weezer fan I know.  We missed the opening act entirely because I got lost on the back streets (thanks, 2001-era Mapquest!).  I know they haven’t put a really great album out since Matt Sharp left the band, but they’ve put out some good albums and so long as they play some Pinkerton, I’m good.

We’re deep in the heart of the busiest season of my Den of Geek year:  summer blockbuster time!  It’s like sloe gin time, but without the associated KISS song.  Anyway, I’ll be seeing pretty much every movie that comes out in June, and summarily (eventually) linking to my reviews here.  So yeah, without further stalling for time, here’s some links!

Splice

Get Him To The Greek

I’ve also spent most of this week working on my car.  At the movies on Sunday, the car started, then abruptly decided to not start again.  So I was stranded there until midnight or so on Sunday night, scraping the crap off the battery contacts and getting a jump from my dad.  Turns out you have to actually clean the contacts on the battery cables if you want the car to keep the battery charged.  Who knew, right?

Then on Tuesday, coming home from work, my driver’s side window went out.  Like the motor caught and died, the window was stuck down in the body of the door.  It was a real mess.  If you’ve never taken apart a car door, you’re missing out, because it’s a lot of fun and the parts are completely overpriced.  It took literally six hours (over two days, not all at once) to get the door torn down, the parts replaced, and then the door put back together.  But now I’ve got a new driver’s side window regulator AND I’ve had the pleasure of seeing what the inside of the door looks like.  It’s good times*!

*Author’s note:  It’s bad times.

Well, it’s that time of year again.  Namely, it’s the time of year when Quirk Classics puts out another literary mash-up novel.  This time, it’s Android Karenina, a mash-up of steampunk, aliens, 1870’s Russian aristocracy, romance, and robots.  They were goodly enough to send me a copy of the book, and I have to say it’s the cream of the mash-up crop.  I gave it a glowing review, both at Den of Geek (that’s the longer review) and at PopFi.

As always, they’re giving away a really sweet prize package that I wish I was eligible to win, so click on this link here, sign up for the forums, and let them know you read my review at either/or/both places.  It makes me look good, and it just might win you an awesome Quirk Classics/Irreference prize pack.  What are you waiting for?!  Get clicking!

Tags: Android Karenina, Anna Karenina, Ben H. Winters, blogsplosion, books, Leo Tolstoy, Quirk, quirk books, Quirk Classics, Sci-Fi, steampunk

Blame this one on PopFi and a road sign hacker in Stephens Point, Wisconsin.  Featuring the supposed-vocals of one Jack White.

Tags: danger! High Voltage, ear worms, Electric Six, feel good friday, Jack White, music videos, weird videos

Well, that was an unexpected hiatus.

Hello, I’m Ron.  This is my blog.  Do you remember who I am?  No?  Well, that’s okay.

I didn’t deliberately set out to just not post in my blog for like three weeks.  These kinds of things just happen when you self-host your blog, have to change your password more often than a Frenchman changes his underwear, and then completely forget whatever your password was changed to.  But hey, at least you got to watch that Here Come The Mummies video a lot.  That was cool, right?

Whilst I’ve been negligent in blogging here, I’ve been dilligently blogging everywhere else.  For example, at Den of Geek this weekend, I reviewed Shrek Forever After, MacGruber, and did my usual weekend box office report.  I’ve also reviewed the entire first season of V (which is coming back, huzzah [also, I'll put that all together in a single blog post at some point in the future because I know no one cares]).  Nature abhors a vacuum, and I tend to do a great job at keeping busy most of the time.

Also, I bought an XBox 360 over the weekend.  I only have NCAA Basketball 2010 so far, but it’s definitely a fun game.  Anyone know of any games I definitely need to get?

Tags: action movies, Animation, comedies, Den of Geek, dreamworks, macgruber, movie reviews, Movies, Shameless Self Promotion, shrek forever after, V

At what point does a group go from “good for a comedy band” to just plain good?  Is there a certain threshold?  I don’t know.  I’m sure there is, but I think it’s something that can’t really be quantified.  I just know that if Here Come The Mummies didn’t sing anything, I’d still love this song.

I’d expound on it more, but I think I may make it an article for Den of Geek.  We’ll see how rough my weekend of coding madness turns out to be.  I’ve got some serious work on the horizon, both at this particular little blog and at my Big Important Blog.  If all goes well, you won’t notice any real changes.

Tags: attack of the weiner man, bob and tom, comedy music, feel good friday, funk, here come the mummies, Music