Electronic Entertainment Expo 2009

I'm gonna be at E3 this coming week, so the rest of you are gonna have to step up and hold down the blog fort while I'm gone. Midge, HCP, Cowboylaw ... I'm looking at YOU! Who will step up and end this long streak of Bling blog dominance?

Video of the Week -- Carlton, Breakin' and Poppin'

I don't know what I can add to this, so let's just roll the tape:



Thug life.

Don't buy an old house.

I've had it with my house. It's about 30+ years old, and something is ALWAYS going wrong with it. When I got back from vacation on Sunday night, there was a problem with the circuit breaker box. One of the switches wouldn't stay on, so a part of my house has no power. Apparently, the box is out of date, as the company who made it has been out of business for a long time, and replacement parts are no longer made. So, I have an electrician coming this afternoon and I'm guessing he'll have to replace it (which will be around $3,000, IF I'm lucky).

Then, last night around 2:00 a.m., my girlfriend woke me up to tell me she heard a loud noise in the front yard. Now, she's paranoid, and does this from time to time, and it's usually nothing. It's almost become a routine: I get out of bed, (sometimes with my gun, if I've been playing too much Call of Duty), walk around the house, and find nothing. But this time, she was awake and in the living room, and when the noise happened, both of our cats woke up and ran away scared. So, I got up (sans gun), turned on the porch light, and found that a huge chunk of one of my trees had collapsed. Here it was this morning:


Luckily, it didn't hit my roof or break any windows. There was a thunderstorm last night, but it was probably due to the fact that the tree is in rough shape. Multiple professional feedings haven't helped, and it's probably on it's last legs, so to speak. So, my morning has been spent breaking the tree apart and dragging it to the curb.


As if that wasn't enough, my afternoon will probably be spent bending over and 'accepting' a new circuit breaker box. Guess it's back to the pharmacy for more lube...

UPDATE: Electrical repairs only cost $270. Hoping it holds up.

Video of the Week -- 'Oldboy'

You people really grind my gears. I've been screaming 'SEE OLDBOY!' from the rooftops for years now, but some of you still haven't. It's on IFC every other week, and has been on DVD and Blu-Ray for a while. Still, too many of you haven't taken the two hours to witness its brilliance. Well, here's a trailer, so you can see what you've been missing:



And here's a clip, from what I think is one of the greatest fight scenes in years. Yes, it's all one take.



What are you waiting for? SEE IT NOW, YOU MORONS!

Conference call hell

Have you ever been on a two-and-a-half-day conference call? I'm about to, and I'm wondering which level of Dante's Inferno I've stepped into. Granted, it could be worse ... I could be in San Fran with the rest of my co-workers, trapped in that room, so there's that. I can at least open my office window and get some fresh air. However, they're two hours behind me, and so I'll be on the call until 8:00 each night, IF I'm lucky.

There is light at the end of the tunnel though. The reason I didn't go out to corporate for this quarterly meeting is because I'm taking some vacation, and am flying to Seattle late Wednesday night to see some old friends. I would've only been in SF for 24 hours, so they decided to have me conference in.

Still though, I'm gonna have massive brain drain by Wednesday afternoon.

A good action movie not 'Taken' for granted

'Taken' came out on DVD and Blu-Ray yesterday, and if you like action films, you should at least give it a rent. Luc Besson ('La Femme Nikita', 'Leon - The Professional') wrote and produced it, so that should tell you what you're in for. Plus, the director (Pierre Morel) also made 'District B13', another kick-ass film about which I made one of the first Video of the Week posts. Here's one of the trailers, where Liam Neeson gets to show off his 'particular set of skills':



I've seen it three times now, and it's been enjoyable check-your-brain stuff each time. Neeson brings a good paternal instinct to his role, and he's more than capable with the fight scenes. I do have one question though. What does that girl get her dad for Father's Day? It's not like he's Josef Fritzl. 'Thanks for traveling to a foreign country to kill tons of people in order to save me from being a sex slave. Hope you like this tie!'

Video of the Week -- Motherlover

It's the follow-up to 'Dick in a Box'...



Thanks to Miles for the heads-up.

More on Joe the Plumber....

.... Moron Joe the Plumber.

"I’ve had some friends that are actually homosexual. And, I mean, they know where I stand, and they know that I wouldn’t have them anywhere near my children."

'Friends?' Like, bowling partners? Or fuck-buddies?

"I like Sarah Palin a lot, actually. I just don’t know if that’s where God’s leading her. I just know the Republican Party’s done its best to blackball her. I don’t know what her agenda is. If she ran, would I vote for her? Absolutely. John McCain was the lesser of two evils."

He doesn't know what her agenda is, but he would 'absolutely' vote for her. Wow. And it's nice to know that he feels strongly enough about lesser evil to campaign for it.




But wait! There's more!

"I would love to hear our leaders actually check with God before he does stuff."

Joe, I introduce to you, Epicurus. Also, 'he'? We have women who are leaders too.

"Not right now. God hasn't said, 'Joe, I want you to run (for public office).'"

If he were elected to our highest office, and God told him to push the nuclear button, would he do it?

I hope they keep putting a microphone in front of this clown. People like this need to be allowed enough rope to hang themselves.

EDIT -- There's a great opinion piece about this over at the Huff.

There Will Be Blood (starring Ahnold and Dubya)

Arnold Schwarzenegger in Oscar-nominated THERE WILL BE BLOOD