Wi-Philes

I am so psyched for this movie.  I mean, people have said so many good things about it, seriously, it has to at least be good. Oh it's starting now.  And this popcorn is so buttery -- man this is awesome. I think I'll just sit back and relax and start becoming one with the film and ...

"Daddy... what is that thing?" 

Oh, a family sitting behind me. And, wow, Daddy is feeling the need to reply.  Because you see, Daddy apparently doesn't realize that everyone around him has paid a stupid amount of money to watch a film without commentary from a 7-year-old girl who has no idea what District 9 is about or why those mean men just shot ET in the face.

Daddy.. come on, are you really trying to explain the plot in layman's terms.  And by layman I mean terms that a little girl can understand for a movie that has such similarities to the bloody atrocities of apartheid.  Why is a grown man bringing a little girl to a movie with car chases and loud explosions?  Why do people feel that they can talk in the theater like they're in their living rooms?  Why... oh wait... is that a baby crying?

Did I just hear a baby cry over there?

Ma'am.  Ma'am you are not seriously telling me you brought a baby into a loud, packed theater and thought the sounds of screams and cries blaring from the speakers might become like a lullabye to your Little One's delicate ears. 

Are you homeless?  Was there nowhere else to put the baby except in your loving arms and you are in the theater to take solace from the uncaring world around you?  Are you hiding from the police? 

No? Then what in God's name possessed you to bring a child into this world... and then bring him to the equivalent to a rave from hell to a tiny baby's ears?  Madame, listen I like kids. I really, really do.  But your loud and continual "SHH!"ing in the poor kid's face isn't really teaching him much of a lesson because now he is crying louder. Oh the bottle isn't working it seems.  Hm ,well maybe you can take him outside and perhaps drive back home where you can give him love and affection in an environment that doesn't foster trauma and terror.  Oh, well you've decided to cradle him and talk to him while this quiet, emotional sequence plays out.  Thank goodness because I love hearing a grown woman talk in baby language while trying to emotionally resolve the poignancy of what's happening.. 

Now your infant is gargling and making sounds like a Chihuahua.  Isn't that sweet?  Well these are the best years of motherhood – the years where you can ruin all sorts of experiences for others.  I didn't need to watch this movie anyway.

Yep I'll just -- ah shit, he's crying again.

Hoo boy.

Seriously, who could have expected this? A comic book company swallowed whole by a giant mouse?

It sort of made sense back in 2004 when Disney pounced on and consumed the Muppets like a tasty felt-flavored morsel. The Muppets themselves are intrinsically family friendly, very marketable and hadn't been even vaguely interesting since The Jim Henson Hour, and were in dire need of assistance. Luckily for the Muppets, Disney invigorated the increasingly lame company and it soon churned out modern classics like The Muppets' Wizard of Oz starring Ashanti and... well... that one time Kermit helped co-host New Year's Rockin' Eve.

But now suddenly the House of Mouse has unhinged its jaw and gulped down the ENTIRE MARVEL UNIVERSE. WTF, Goofy ate Galactus! Not surprisingly, Marvel fanboys around the world cried out in horror, terrified that their favorite mutants and/or Scarlet Witches and/or spider-related heroes/villains would become as cool and successful as the Disney-Muppets. Or worse yet, become muppets themselves?!

Well just hold on now, everybody. At this point nobody really knows much of anything except that the whole thing cost around 4 billion dollars and Disney has just acquired the ownership of over 5,000 mostly mediocre Marvel characters with a few who collectively have made billions of dollars in box office gold. Speculation abounds that Disney will eventually soften the hard edges of characters in the Marvel roster, perhaps forcing Wolverine to become a whistling tugboat captain or have the Punisher turn over a new leaf after finding non-sexual love at a large, unnamed theme park. Of course, Disneyfying Marvel would be monumentally dumb, but hey, anything is possible.

Still, Bob Iger, CEO of Disney, doesn't seem intent on neutering Marvel. This is the guy who worked out the deal between Pixar and Disney, to a very satisfying end; he installed John Lassiter as Head Guru of Awesomeness of Pixar, not only making Iser automatically great but making Michael Eisner look like a dildo by comparison. For the most part, Disney has left Pixar completely alone to smoulder in its grace and beauty, much to the joy of people who enjoy what a company with creative freedom has to offer.

So, in the short run, who knows whether or not this is a good thing. Due to licensing issues, other companies such as Paramount and Sony will continue to use Marvel characters like Spider-Man and Iron Man as they wish; when Disney plans to end these distribution deals remains to be seen. What also remains a mystery is the hand Disney will have in promoting and utilizing Marvel and its creators in a way that will please stockholders as well as fans.

But seriously, wouldn't a Pixar/Marvel film just be awesome? Oh, the possibilities!

Oh and today's Penny Arcade:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/

Ha!

Well actually it's kinda cold and there was a frightening Asian he-she call girl outside of our hotel, but it's already been a great start to E3 2009!

After surviving the trip from the airport to our hotel (thanks Chaosangel!), we arrived in Hollywood. And boy are there a lot of piercings. And tattoos. And boobs. And you can't throw a rock without hitting a wonderfully-smelling panhandler asking for money - not that N-philes would ever condone such a thing.

We stopped at a random Italian fast food joint and scarfed down some tasty gyros and pizza slices and decided to catch a movie at the Arclight Theater.

15 dollar ticket?  Totally worth it.  After hearing good things about the film, we decided to go to take in Sam Raimi's new horror movie Drag Me To Hell.  First of all, there really isn't a bad seat in the house.  We were in the last row and could still see the digital projection clearly.  The seats are comfortable and the crowd was pumped.

Overall, the film was much better than I anticipated.  Raimi has again woven humor with terror with the kind of flare only the director of the Evil Dead films could do.  Although the movie is littered with "scare" scenes, it doesn't rely on them to carry the film; the actors themselves, particuarly, Alison Lohman, do the job just fine.

The film is shocking, disgusting, hilarious and outrageous all at the same time. It's one of the most fun times I've had at the movies in a while and I would absolutely suggest seeing it in a theater that has the best sound and picture possible.

Not sure what tomorrow will bring, but once Daisy and Deacon get here I'm sure we can find some trouble to get into.

Eye of the Tiger

Is there any song more inspiring than "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor? I mean seriously, regardless of whether you think Rocky III is classic cinema, which it is, there is something to be said for hearing that song and knowing you have the "eye of the tiger" inside you; the will to stop being ordinary and train hard enough to beat the shit out of Mr. T.

Since I've been looking for said tiger eye inside meal deals at Whataburger and gourmet cupcake shops, you might guess that I'm a little flabbier than, say, Rocky Balboa – and how right you'd be! After trying all sorts of crazy diet pills (one of which was recalled for killing people), and throwing mounds of cash at the newest exercise machines (Thighmaster, the Gazelle, some shit where you leaned back and used your own weight to build muscle but mostly injured your back), not much was happening, except me getting fatter.

Then, out of the blue, someone suggested I try eating right and doing regular exercise. Since this person was not talking to me from an infomercial at 3am, I figured he was a lying sack. After spending 2 hours on the Cardio Twister followed by a chocolate éclair, I thought to myself, "You know, maybe he's right. I should try out that newfangled jogging thing I heard about on AM radio." So, after the entire left side of my body stopped tingling, I found my gym membership card underneath a stack of Burger King coupons and started my new path to success.

Long story short, I've begun my love affair with jogging. Granted it's only been 2 weeks, but I am sure it's love because when I do it, I get dizzy, my palms sweat, and feel like dying. Actually I'm exaggerating a bit, but the first time wasn't easy. I walked most of the time and jogged for a few minutes, wheezing, watching my heart rate skyrocket up to 178bpm during the toughest parts, thinking, "this is not going to get easier."

But strangely enough it does. After only a few weeks I've been able to jog for an entire mile without stopping and can walk/run another mile without feeling like I'm going to make a bad step and go flying backward off the treadmill – which is a distinct possibility. Nobody ever tells you how hard it is to balance on that thing without holding onto the sides – and the reality is that any small misstep or untied shoelace or break in concentration could mean your untimely death or paralyzation from a piece of workout equipment. In a huge change, I now have to work to get my heartrate past 163bpm, which I could probably have done before by just watching an episode of Dukes of Hazzard.

What is surprising is that not only can you exercise without infomercial related merchandise, the rise in fitness actually causes you to want to.. exercise MORE. I'm serious did you know people get up before 7am and they ENJOY IT? You just see the most cheery, happy go lucky, sweaty smiley bastards in the morning, glowing with the knowledge that they are becoming more fit, or just overjoyed they are just escaping a family who hates them. Whatever the case, going to the gym isn't as bad as it seems.

And yes, Eye of the Tiger is an awesome song to work out to. Now, to figure out what kind of running shoes to buy. I hear $15 cross trainers do nothing for your knees, much to my chagrin. But hey, all that Street Fighter IV + new controller cash is going to a good cause right?

Right?

Now, God knows I loves me some RPG's. I can play for hours and hours, leveling up characters, fighting monsters that could only have leapt from the imagination of someone tripping on acid, or, you know, from a Japanese person. Regardless of the laziness of long-winded FMV sequences and impossibly outdated random battles, I'm a sucker for 60-hour jaunts into RPG territory.

I've recently been playing Final Fantasy XII and noticed something that has been bugging me for the longest time - something that has continued to bother me after playing through Final Fantasy after Dragon Quest after Kingdom Hearts.

There sure has been a shitload of white people.

Whiny, dramatic, gender-confused white people. Now, many of my Asian friends don't consider themselves "white", but I do, mostly because I'm ignorant and because the only difference between most Asian girls and most white girls is a pair of sunglasses.

Now, I don't have anything against white people. Without white people we wouldn't have golf programs on Saturday, hipster bullcrap like Juno or Hollister t-shirts. In fact, I think Cid Highwind is just the bees' knees with sugar on top. But after a while, I tire of seeing nothing but wide-eyed pretty white-skinned young people save the world. No, I don't give a shit if sometimes they have purple hair or bunny ears. I mean there's only so many prissy androgynous white boys I can take before I wish a gang of black breakdancers would show up and show these crackers what's up.

BUT BUT.. What about BARRETT!?, you may be asking. I have to say that I love Barrett. His painfully negro jive-speak made for a memorable FFVII experience. It's plain to see that game writers working for Squaresoft did all of their research on the "black experience" by spending a weekend watching random episodes of the A-Team and the epic motivational video Be Somebody... or Be Somebody's Fool!. For the record, I am NOT hating on Barrett - because anybody who has a machine gun for an arm deserves your immediate respect, and in Tifa's case, your virginity.

What I am saying is that RPG's have begun to bore me. In my younger years I may have thought it was totally awesome for a group of 15-year-old Asians to band together in saving the universe from another magical Asian. But after playing numerous role playing adventures, I'm wondering: Where all the brown people at? Do developers not like people with skin pigment who aren't aliens? Do game companies think that people of color are too busy sneaking across the Mexican border to notice they aren't being represented? You'd think there would be SOMEONE south of the equator in any Final Fantasy game who may have made it northward for perhaps a cameo of some sort?

Now I'm not expecting game developers to make an RPG out of What's Happening!! or for Edward James Olmos to show up in Xenosaga. But you'd think statistically SOMEONE on the planet would have the ability to use a sword AND have an afro?

I don't pretend to be an expert on RPG's or follow every title that comes out. I think I'd like to continue on this thought and start creating a roster of minority character RPG characters - so for all you console RPG'ers out there, send me your list and I'll get to seeing exactly what's going on here.

PS: By the way, gluing feathers onto Yuffie and making her a thief doesn't make her a minority in any way.

PPS: Black mages don't count either!