King Arthur was a
movie that I had no real intentions of watching.  The primary
reason is because of the obvious use of Keira Knightly as the sex
object by the marketing team.  I mean what's the deal with her
"armor" being something more similar to a bikini than anything else?
Okay, besides all that I did see the movie because I was curious as to
this supposedly "more historically realistic" version of King Arthur's
legend.  Turn's out that it's moderately entertaining by itself,
but hardly a memorable film.  The character's don't really stand
out that well and fall under "epic warrior cliches."  Clive Owen's
Arthur wasn't bad, but it wasn't that great either.  Keira's
Guinevere was just bad bad bad, with her always pouting, always looking
pissed off acting that's more distracting than anything else.
The story on the other hand ended up just becoming your typical "few
warriors against impossible odds" type.  That's where the
"moderately entertaining" part came from.  The movie's take on
King Arthur's legend is more or less exceptable, but I just didn't find
the film that engaging.  It definitely could have been better, so
I'm giving it a C+

-----------------

InuYasha movie 2 : The Castle Beyond The Looking Glass
was as generic an Anime movie as they come. This one definitely cater's
mostly to it's fans, but I did find it amusing when each character
would toss in a line out of nowhere just to explain some story
backgrounds to appease the casual viewers. Compared to the first movie,
this one seems to have a lower budget in the animation and it really
does feel more like an extended episode of the TV series than a full
blown film. With it's underachieving production value plus the fact
that my being a fan actually caused me to enjoy it some, I will have to
give
this film a C

Anthrax - "sound of white noise"
is one great heavy metal album.  It is just full of thick riffs
that feels dark and heavy.  Top that with John Bush's first vocal
effort with the band and you got a combination of pure heaviness. 
This is actually not as thrash metal as their '80s albums but a cross
between that and hard rock.  As for the songs, unfortunately I
would have to say that while these are stellar work, there's not many
here that really stands out as pure on classic metal songs besides a
handfull of them. But listening to the whole thing as a whole is a
great experience overall.

1) Potter's field
2) Only
3) Room for one more
5) Hy Pro Glo
6) Invisible

----------------------

Natalie Imbruglia - "White Lilies Island" is the album that really showed how much her sound has matured from her debut album.
As always, her vocals really carry you through her songs really
well.  Unlike her debut album that played around with a lot of
different song styles, this one chooses the style of her strongest
songs from the first album and mostly sticks with that.  The
result is a much more fluid and better produced work, and dare I say
that it's much better than her more popular debut album.  I would
still consider this a pop album, but this is far from the usual drivel
common in the genre. Re-listening to this album again after well over a
year made me realize that I'm really going to have to consider myself a
fan of her work.

1) That Day
2) Beauty On The Fire
5) Wrong Impression
7) Everything Goes
11) Butterflies

-----------------------

Suzanne Vega - "99.9 F°"
is a pretty likeable album.  The sound is a great mix of
alternative rock, industrial noise, and guitar folk tunes.  There
is a great emotional sound behind her vocals and the lyrics also
reflects that.  My only concern with the album is that it feels
incomplete to me.  Some songs like "Blood Makes Noise"
is very likeable as it goes along, but then it just stops.  This
trend happens often throughout and it leaves me with an empty feeling
at times.  Still, definitely worth a listen.

1) Rock in the pocket (song of david)
3) In Liverpool
5) Blood Sings
10) When Heroes Goes Down
11) As Girls Go

----------------------

Fastball - "All the pain money can buy" was made popular by the hit single "the way."
The whole album in itself evokes that feeling that you are driving in
an empty highway through the desert, which isn't too surprising I
suppose coming from these Texan rockers.  While there aren't that
many stand out tracks, they are still able to make each song catchy in
their own right.

1) The Way
2) Fire Escape
3) Better Than It Was
7) Slow Drag
10) Out Of My Head

---------------------

Poe - "Hello"
has proven in time to be quite a great album.  From the great
musical stylings of rock, folk, and even jazz, to the amazing angry
voice, you got yourself a killer album. This album has some really
catchy songs in it but is more or less far from being broadcast radio
friendly in the traditional sense. Songs are quite sing along inducing
which is a good testament to me, especially when you enjoy singing a
line like "you can't talk to a psycho like a normal human being." This
album is for those people who like to listen to an angrier Alanis Morisette.

2) Trigger Happy Jack
5) Angry Johnny
6) Dolphin
9) Beautiful Girl
11) Fly Away

p.s. - as of my posting this, it looks like hot linking amazon.com's
sample music has been disabled or something because I can't get it to
work. Or it could be the laptop that I'm using right now.

greatest home brewed handheld game consoles (link)

NBC's first ever color special (video)

microlife game (flash game)

wholesome swim wear? (link)

poker chip tricks (video)

big hands (pic)

world beard and moustache championships (link)

martial arts teacher beats up students (video)

astronomy picture of the day (pic)

Star Wars fans standing in the wrong line (link)

plane crash lands on baseball field (video)

blueman group does terminator theme (audio)

the windows vs macintosh debate (link)

batman begins tv spot (video)

ohmiGod the gas prices are ridiculously high now.  Last I checked
the price for regular was $2.44/gl which is about $0.44 more expensive
than the "excepted" high price of gas. I still remember gas in the high
dollar, and even at the low dollar range from time's past, but $2.44?!
What the hell is going on? I can except gas prices going up in the
Holiday seasons, but we're not on Spring break anymore.  Worst
yet, we're not even in the Summer season yet, so how much is gas going
to be then? $3.00/gl?

Gas is one of those necessary things when a price change in CENTS
makes a big difference.  I drive a 2004 Honda Accord that goes
about 28 - 29 miles to the gallon, and it only requires regular
for fuel.  I usually put in about 11 - 13 gallons
everytime I go to the pump, and have been used to paying about $20 -
$25 everytime.  But recently I've actually gone over the $30 range
and it's starting to affect my decisions to drive.  The miles of
travel starts becoming an issue to me, and it'll be nice if I can all
together avoid driving someplace far at all.

In the future when my car starts getting too old (ten years from now),
I WILL get myself some fuel efficient vehicle. In ten years, I hope
they will make that the standard actually.

I've heard once before that "it's far easier to be a generous man than
someone who isn't." This isn't a simple thing like "it's better to give
than to receive" kind of deal, it's really about human nature.  By
nature, humans are self-gratifying beings, and that's what is laced in
everyone's minds.  You may not think that you are, but just think
about it. If you give money to the poor, doesn't that make you feel
good that you did a generous act? There you go, a self-gratifying
act.  Sure it's true that someone who sacrifices something of
himself for others is a selfless person, but don't think for a second
that there isn't any self-gratification for the good deed that person
did.

In part, the reason I bring this up is because there are many people
out there that hide behind the idea that they are "good" because they
simply do "good" things.  You've met that person before, someone who is
vile arrogant and rude, but turns out to be somebody who goes to a soup
kitchen to help the homeless once in awhile. How would you judge that
person?  Will you base it on the fact the person is not a nice guy
outside of the fact that he helps the homeless at times?  You also
have to ask yourself why an atrocious person like that would even help
in a soup kitchen in the first place? Self-gratification. 
Believing that one good deed makes them feel better about themselves,
not counting the fact that they can still be a really horrible person.

So the next time you help somebody out, don't automatically think that
you are some gift to mankind for being so kind.  Be humble in
knowing that somebody benefited from your good actions, and that it
helps you feel better about yourself. It's simply a give and take
relationship afterall.

You Are 55% Normal(Somewhat Normal)

While some of your behavior is quite normal... Other things you do are downright strange You've got a little of your freak going on But you mostly keep your weirdness to yourself

I recently got myself a new toy, and I'm pretty happy about it.  I bought the Dell Axim X50v
pocket PC. Originally I never really considered getting myself one of
those things, but there was something that pushed me in that
direction.  Namely, the Sony PSP.
For awhile I was considering getting Sony's handheld primarily because
of it's PDA type functionality (mp3, video, etc).  Ironically
enough, I wasn't planning to buy any games at all for the system
because nothing so far has interested me.  With that logic, there
really is no reason for me to get a PSP when the product that I'm
really looking for is a pocket PC.  That's where Dell's Axim came
in.

I know that it's just another thing for me to carry around, but I'm
going to limit my options on when and how I'll be taking that along
with me. It's really not going to be a substitute to my laptop or my
desktop (heaven forbids that happens), but it's primarily going to be
something I'll take with me to work. With the 3gb of space that I have
for it (SD card, Compact Flash, internal memory), I got to put some
mp3, wma, wmv, mpeg, avi, etc... as well as downloaded shows of the Kevin & Bean show
which I'll now be able to hear in it's entirety. I was also able to get
an NES emulator to work for it, so that helps in the gaming department.
I even have that
device that hooks up the headphone jack to a car's own stereo system,
so that's a big plus in the audio experience.

So far I'm pretty darn happy with my purchase, and I have been using it everyday so far.  Good stuff, good stuff.

Star Wars Fan Film Awards (videos)

somebody loves their mic (flash video)

busting moves at BMX (video)

visit anywhere in the world (link)

car surfing? (video)

streets on fire (flash game)

a perfect 9 dart game (video)

Richard Simmons vs Who's Line Is It (video)

oshiro (flash game)

halo, napoleon dynamite style (video)

picture of walls (pics)

David Blaine pulls his heart out (video)

capoeira fighter 3 (flash game)

talking robot head (video)

oh man, I got a lot of sleep today.  I was watching TV really late
and started dosing off in bed by about 12:15am.  I ended up waking
up about 4:35am (daylight savings time) so I decided to just stay
asleep.  I then woke up at 10:50am, but since I work graveyard, I
decided that I should stay asleep 'till at least 12:30pm.  By 2pm,
I woke up.  Damn, that's a lot of sleep!

I need to finish off all my recorded TV shows that I've been lagging
behind in watching for the past three weeks too. oh man, if only we had
32 hour days or something.

Frank Miller's Sin City, Great movie! I loved the look, sound, and feel of it. The film's
definitely got memorable characters and very memorable scenes. Marv is
still the same bad ass as he was in the books, and Mickey Rourke was
freakin great in the role. Benicio Del Toro also did a great job with
the slimy Jack Rafferty.

If I had any complaints about the film, it would be that the pacing
obviously felt faster than the books. The graphic novel's dialogue
worked better than I expected, although that's still arguable in that
it can sound too faux-noir. Also, the complaints I had with the
character's and some plot turns when I read the books years ago sadly
still stands (but they are very forgivable).

People might balk at the amount of punishment a man can take and still
be alive, but I personally thinked it worked fine as is. People might
also get taken aback at the violence in the movie, that is more or less
very unapologetic.

Ofcourse
there's no "A Dame to Kill for," but an extended edition / sequel could
remedy that (especially if people are wondering on why Shelly said that
Dwight had a "new look").

Hopefully, this will convince more people to accept that you can
literally translate graphic novels to film and make it work. Watchmen,
Death : The High Cost of Living, and Sandman, I'm looking in your
direction.

Badass movie of the year? Looks like it.

Action movie of the year? Probably true.

Best movie to adapt a comic book? Big Giant YES!

Movie you WANT a sequel for? Yes Yes Yes.
What's the grade I give it? A-

Now that I've seen what was done with Sin City, I wonder if Laphan will
consider a live action Stray Bullets (highly recommend you guys read
that too) or even an Amy Racecar movie.

fake dr.pepper gallery (link)

emotional baby (video)

Scientist's 13 things that do not make sense (link)

transparent screens (pics)

sugar bush squirrel (link)

panning light graffiti (flash)

shouting lampposts (link)

nevashut convenience store (flash game)

$100,000 to remove Ashton Kutcher's kabbala bracelet (link)

did you get a message from your future self? (flash)

thousands stolen in ATM scam (link)

skeet shooting (flash game)

trashcade (link)

banned on Vulcan (sound)