Rock & Roll Will Never Save Your Random Soul

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Superstitions; every culture has it, from Asian to Mexican to Americans. In many ways, superstitions became part of a culture and even goes as far and defines them in some cases. BTW, I hate superstitions. In fact, I almost hate them with a passion. I admit that back in the past, I followed some superstitions. However, I grew to realize how illogical they are, and how people are really silly to follow them. I'm okay with superstitions that are suppose to reinforce a positive attitude; like in sports, but it's the ones that project a negative outcome that bugs me the most. It's one thing to treat superstitions as a silly thing that you kinda follow, but at the same time don't really take too seriously. It's another thing when the superstition pretty much rules your life and actually changes your way of thinking just to follow it.

I've come to my own conclusion that the majority of superstitions are based on two things, a scare tactic to make people do certain things, or an excuse to explain an outcome. A superstition doesn't explain a person's physical attributes A superstition doesn't explain winning or losing. A superstition doesn't explain events that happen. It's all just mind manipulation, created by some people a long time ago, that's just passed on to generation after generation, to people gullible enough to believe them still. I can totally imagine some old ruling powerful emperor that for a lark,
told his people that they are not allowed to own two dogs, or they will
be put in jail. One is okay, three is okay, but not two dogs.
Eventually this goes down the generations of people subsconsciously not
wanting to own just two dogs, because it might bring "bad luck."

What's annoying is that when a superstition doesn't pan out, they will say that "it wasn't done exactly the way the superstition was suppose to go." What's even worse is that if a superstition happens that foretells bad fortune, people will only follow it as long as it's convenient for them. For example, there's this superstition that if it rains on a wedding, constant sadness will befall the couple. However, what happens if somebody spent months and weeks planning a wedding, and then it rains on the big day? Will they all of a sudden postpone the wedding? Heck no, because they worked too hard for it. On another note, some bad superstition for some culture can actually be a good superstition for others. See, how unbelievable superstitions are?

I swear, I may hate superstitions, but I think I hate even more the gullible people who wholeheartedly believe in them a little too much. Own up to your actions people, and don't blame things on superstitions!

... then there's fortune telling, but I'll save that for some other time.

This was a huge year for summer movies, starting with "Spider-Man 3" at the beginning of May, and ending with probably the "Bourne Ultimatum" or "Superbad." There were tons of movies that I still wasn't able to see, but for the most part I saw a good chunk of the ones I needed to watch. I'm going to wait to rent the DVD on some of the summer movies, like "Ocean's 13," "Sicko," and "the Bourne Ultimatum" which I was not in a hurry to check out. But to recap, below are my top ten favorite summer movies of 2007, with the grade I gave them. I also included the "rottentomatoes.com" grade, just as a comparison to what the critics thought (60% or above is a good grade).

01) Knocked Up  (A-) (RT 92%)
02) Superbad  (A-) (RT 87%)
03) Stardust  (A-) (RT 73%)
04) 1408  (B+) (RT 77%)
05) Ratatouille (B+) (RT 96%)
06) Spider-Man 3  (B+) (RT 61%)
07) Live Free or Die Hard  (B+) (RT 80%)
08) Transformers  (B) (RT 57%)
09) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix  (B) (RT 76%)
10) The Simpsons Movie (B) (RT 89%)

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This past Saturday, despite only having about an hour and a half of sleep, I drove over to the Home Depot Center in Carson, CA, for the last tour date of the 2007 Van's Warped Tour. Ofcourse I primarily went there to see Meg & Dia, although there were other bands I wanted to see as well. Unfortunately, due to time schedule constraints and the fact that it was so crowded, I only really ended up seeing Meg & Dia and a couple of other bands.

I would have seen Killswitch Engage and Pennywise again but no such luck. It would have been nice to see Avenged Sevenfold for the first time as well, but once again I didn't have time to see them. I did get to see a little bit of Sum41 though, and man was that a disappointment. Sum41 recently lost their lead guitarist (Dave Brownsound), and it apparently affected their live performance because they did not sound good at all, especially comparing to the fact that they sounded great the couple of times I've seen them live years ago. I did get to "hear" Bad Religion's whole set at the end of the night though, and it sounded great. I say "hear" because I had to stand pretty far away from the stage because of the huge crowd, and all I could see are people's backs and tents blocking my view of the band.

Being that this is the last day of the Warped Tour, the Meg & Dia band wanted to do something special for us faithful "boardies." They invited about 30 of us backstage for a surprise three song acoustic set and a short Q&A session. We also did a meet and greet with the band and ate cake with them to celebrate the occasion. This was also the chance I took to give Meg and Dia a thank you card I wrote. I also gave them a copy of Neil Gaiman's "Death the High Cost of Living," which is a graphic novel I hope they'll enjoy since they are avid book readers.

It kinda takes me aback to how many new fans Meg & Dia are gaining every time I see them in concert, you can tell by the really long line waiting for their public signing at the energizer booth. Since most of us "boardies" have had many one on one experiences with the band, we were pretty efficient in just greeting them, get a signature, and move on. We decided to head over to the stage they will be playing and wait for their set. In fact we weren't the only group of fans who thought of doing that, as a lot of people were also showing up early to wait for Meg & Dia.

The majority of Meg & Dia fans seems to be teenage girls and while waiting at the "Hurley.com" stage, another band was performing at that time. It was a band called "Total Chaos" and being that it was a hardcore punk band, a good majority of the Meg & Dia fans looked like a deer in front of headlights at the vulgarity and the huge mosh pit that was going on at the time. Being that I'm also into punk, I was enjoying myself, but I did find it humorous to see the contrast of fans there were at the stage at that time. Meg & Dia did perform about a half hour later, and they did a stellar job as usual. Personally, I think I actually enjoy their set more in a smaller more intimate venue, but that could just be me feeling lost in the sea of hundreds of new fans.

It was a good last day at the Warped Tour, and I enjoyed spending the day with fellow Meg & Dia fans from the message boards. Unfortunately, Meg & Dia will be doing east coast gigs for the rest of the year, so I will have to wait until January to see them and the fellow boardies again.

Recently for the video gaming community, a huge game was just released to critical and consumer acclaim; "Bioshock." Many people with an xbox360 or a PC were quick to pick it up, and it was pretty much a case where if you consider yourself a hardcore gamer, you are already playing the game. So I guess I really am not a hardcore gamer anymore, because I haven't played it yet, not even the free demo that's easily available to me. If Bioshock came out mere months ago, I would have been one of those gamers first in line to get this game. Now however, it's just an entry to my wishlist of games I would like to buy some day. What happened? What happened to the gamer in me who used to play games everyday with long hours at a time? Oh right, the last time I did something like that was literally years ago. I have been dangerously bordering the "casual gamer" side of things for quite a while now, playing mostly "pick up and play" games (like Guitar Hero 2, xbox live arcade titles, or the Nintendo Wii). Sure I still play "hardcore" games like Gears of War and will definitely be picking up Halo 3 at the first week of release, but I really can't consider myself a die-hard gamer anymore. In a way, I'm a little saddened that this is just another sign that I'm getting farther away from being a young man. At the same time though, speaking as an adult male, playing games is still part of my life. This shows that the lifestyle of gaming is indeed part of our culture, just like movies, music, and sports have been. Young or old, playing video games is for everybody... even if you can't commit the time to play every game out there.

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movies I've seen recently...

Superbad  (2007)  A-

A teen coming of age comedy usually involves two things, alcohol and sex. "Superbad" is no different as it covers a day in the life of two teenagers whose goal that night is to obtain alcohol for a party and to get laid for the first time. The two teens in question are played perfectly well by Jonah Hill as Seth; who is the more high strung outspoken guy, and Michael Cera as Evan; who is a little more of the straight laced reserved guy. Both teens have been best friends for the longest time, but this fateful night will put their friendship to the test. Another stand out performance and probably the character you will remember the most coming out from this movie is Christopher Mintz-Plasse as Fogell, also known as "McLovin;" which is the fake name he made for his fake I.D. Seth Rogen and Bill Hader play the incompetent police officers, who at one funny moment actually screamed "holy ****, it's the cops!" when they were about to get caught doing something they weren't suppose to.

Written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, and directed by Greg Mottola, "Superbad" will most likely end up becoming another classic cult teen comedy that will be remembered down the line. This movie also embraces the "R" rating by having so much vulgarity coming out from the teenagers mouths, not to mention seeing the most cartoon drawings of penises that I've ever seen in a movie. However, just informing the guys out there, but there's hardly any female nudity whatsover in this film, which is so unlike a teen comedy. There are so many memorable scenes however and some of it are things I've never seen before in a comedy such as this. There are a couple of situations that require a suspension of disbelief, but for the most part, all you need to do is enjoy the ride.

The Simpsons Movie  (2007)  B

When you have a long running TV series that's done most everything it could possibly do, how do you make a fulfilling movie based on it? You make it bigger more bolder and more ambitious in scope. "The Simpsons Movie" kinda does that, but at the same time it really doesn't go far enough as opposed to the TV series. Some people have described the movie as "like a TV episode, but longer" and they aren't completely wrong, nor is that necessarily a bad thing. It's still good, funny, and very enjoyable to watch, so there's no real fault to the movie despite a little "been there done that" feeling. Some choice moments that will be remembered will mostly revolve around main protagonist Homer Simpson, and in a way that is a flaw for some people who only get a small taste from the many supporting cast of the show. The Simpsons family really shine as fully developed characters here, and I definitely wouldn't mind seeing them in another adventure for the big screen.