Go Speed! I got a traffic violation this morning. 44mph in a thirty zone. To be fair, It was up by Canyon Rim park and I was descending down a hill. He said he tagged me where it crested? It seems I get a speeding ticket like once every three years and usually when I am descending a slippery slope. I hate paying these.
K, Lex and myself caught “Mummies: Secrets Of The Pharaohs” last night at the planet-arium. Since it is a 40 minute mini-film I’m not sure it deserves a HAIKU review. I’d give it a 2.5/5. The Rosetta Stone is in there but they don’t really expand on “cracking” the code of hieroglyphics. They waste WAY to much time on the brothers who robbed the Valley Of Kings and the list of names of the kings. The DNA/Science aspect was tight and I would have liked for them to tie some of it into modern Egypt (Where are you Cairo?) .
First and foremost, the single thing I love the most about Secret Invasion, is that at its heart, the series is nothing more than a large-scope mystery. The story basically comes down to a few basic questions. Who is a Skrull? What are the Skrulls trying to accomplish? How long have the Skrulls been here? This "Who done it?" approach instantly takes the series into a whole new realm of epic storytelling, in which Marvel has not messed with in a long while. Though not nearly as conventional, Secret Invasion is much closer to Identity Crisis than it is House of M. We've been told that Bendis has been plotting this mystery for years now, and this becomes more than evident by issue's end.....and in that regard, it's important to recognize that this legwork is what truly makes Secret Invasion tick.
I bring this up for a very specific reason. Make no qualms about it...what Bendis and the rest of the Marvel crew are doing here is wading out into extremely dangerous waters. The way I see it, this series can go one of two directions. It can become an exciting tale, which holds a couple of huge world-changing revelations, or it can become a disastrous exercise in ret-conning. If there's one thing I hate in the world of comic storytelling, it's the overuse of a bevy of different gimmicks. If you want an increased readership, you simply kill characters off, play with the boundaries of sexual orientations, change a costume, etc. Then you find a way to erase said changes from continuity, and we're all right back where we started (I.E. the “Spidey“ clone saga).
To that end, Secret Invasion places a great deal of power squarely into Bendis' hands. Using the Skrulls, and more specifically their shape-shifting abilities, as a device of alteration, the author can literally change anything that's happened over the last thirty years of Marvel history. The writer himself makes this abundantly clear within the first four pages of the very first issue...as he has Tony Stark sum up the matter in a few simple sentences. "They're here now. Living Among us. Undetectable." The stakes are set very high, very quickly. This means that Captain America could still be alive. Jean Grey could still be alive. Even Iron Man himself might be a Skrull, which would call into question the very validity of the entire Marvel Civil War.
Now, as I stated earlier, after reading Secret Invasion #1, I'm fairly confident Bendis is handling this difficult task admirably. Without divulging any spoilers, there are more than a few clues to prove he wasn't merely grandstanding about having laid the seeds for this story over a long period of time. In fact, I see this issue as a bold statement from Bendis to address this very point, and to ease the worry of those of us doubters who are fearful of scheme and gimmickry. For instance, the single most prominent location in the issue is itself a giant clue about the author's long-winding intentions.
Bendis does more than enough to convince me that Secret Invasion is not simply a continuity fixing tool, Infinite Crisis, but instead the culmination of a story we haven't even realized we've been reading. Having dropped numerous hints over the course of the last four years, Bendis can justify baffling his readership with the basic questions that form the meat of the series. He can take risks, because he's already laid out the logic to defend them.
Not to be outdone, Leinil Yu's artwork is nothing short of outstanding. His characters are cool looking, in a cutting-edge sort of way, but still look decidedly human, as opposed to cartoony. They are stylized, but also fully realized which makes for perfect art.
As far as "events" are concerned, Secret Invasion just feels different. I know that it's way too early to properly judge, as who knows where the story is truly heading, but this first issue felt as rich in character as it did in epic occurrence. The very idea of different personalities debating the proper recourse to handling a faith-busting ordeal, makes for a story centralized not on explosions and cheap thrills, but instead on development of character and human interaction. The situations this could present, the questioning of faith and trust, have the potential to be a thousand times more memorable than any battle, death or costume change could ever hope for.
“Secret Invasion” could be a series fans are talking about for years...for the right reasons.
"The Olympic flame was extinguished three times yesterday and the Paris leg of its round-the-world tour abandoned after the event descended into a French farce."
Bought out by the Chinese authorities? However, India (the country?) states "smooth relay of the Olympic torch will be ensured". This will end well.
Einstein gave hope to scientists chasing the most outlandish theories when he famously declared: "If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it."
He then proved the existence of black holes and the notion that time passes more slowly the faster you travel.
Now one of the world's most distinguished physicists has scrutinized some of science fiction's other concepts, such as teleportation and force fields, and is convinced that they too can become reality.
Professor MichioKaku, of City University in New York, has ruled out time travel for at least a few millennia, but believes invisibility cloaks and telepathy could be possible this century.
"So many times predictions are made that certain things are impossible only to find them becoming possible a decade or a few decades later," he said. In his new book, The Physics of the Impossible, published in the UK today, Kaku rates seemingly impossible phenomena according to how likely they are to happen.
Teleportation When Gene Roddenberry was planning the early episodes of the cult sci-fi series Star Trek Paramount studios, who financed the project, said the special effects necessary to recreate ships taking off and landing were too expensive. Roddenberry needed another way to get his characters down onto the surface of the uncharted worlds they were visiting. "He said, 'we'll just beam them onto the planet and save a tonne of money'," said Kaku.
That money-saving decision did much to cement teleportation as the epitome of the sci-fi way to get around, but teleportation is actually already being done by physicists. It relies on a deeply strange phenomenon called quantum entanglement, which physicists have already used to "teleport" a photon 89 miles between La Palma and Tenerife in the Canary Island group. But Kaku concedes that Captain Kirk will have to wait a couple of centuries. "You are not actually moving the photons from one place to another because you are destroying the original. What materializes at the other end is your twin which has all the information of the previous object."
Time Travel The Cambridge physicist Professor Stephen Hawking spent much of his career attempting to prove that time travel is impossible. If it were possible, he reasoned, why have we not been visited by voyagers from the future? But he was forced to conclude that there is actually nothing in the laws of physics that prevents moving in time.
"He changed his mind about 10 years ago," said Kaku, "There was no way to ban time travel from happening. So now he says that time travel is possible, but not practical."
The way it might work would be to take a trip through a worm hole connecting one point in space and time with another. The laws of physics suggest that the intense gravity of a black hole is enough to rip the fabric of space and time, making a worm hole possible.
"What we physicists want to do is create our own wormhole so that if you walk through the looking glass you may go backwards in time," said Kaku. Stabilizing a black hole would require large amounts of an exotic form of energy called negative energy, thought to be impossible. "But we can now make it in the laboratory," said Kaku.
Invisibility One reason why no one has met any time travelers from the future might be, Kaku suggested, because they are able to make themselves invisible. "Invisibility a la Harry Potter's cloak is no longer out of the question," he said. He rates it as the sci-fi technology that is likely to happen soonest. Perhaps the most promising new development is the creation of an exotic new substance called a metamaterial. By eliminating reflections and shadows, it renders an object invisible.
Alien Contact Scientists currently have the best chance in history of making contact with aliens. Although humanity has been combing the skies for signs of life for decades, the search so far has been haphazard. Astronomers have detected around 300 planets in other solar systems, but these are generally large Jupiter-like planets which do not look like a good bet for harboring life.
Satellites will greatly enhance scientists' ability to detect Earth-like planets. "We've only scanned about a thousand stars and that's nothing. We haven't even scanned the stars in our neighborhood," said Kaku, "We hope to analyze a thousand times more data than was collected in all the sweeps of the past. And that's why we are much more optimistic that we will make contact with alien life." He thinks contact with an alien civilization could happen within decades.
Precognition Being able to predict the future is very difficult to reconcile with the known laws of physics. "It would set off a major shake-up in the very foundations of modern physics if precognition was ever proved in reproducible experiments," said Kaku.
The impossible takes longer: MichioKaku's ratings
Type 1 impossibilities Impossible today, but do not violate the known laws of physics. Might be possible this century or the next: force fields, invisibility, phasers and death stars, teleportation, telepathy, psychokinesis, robots, UFOs and aliens, starships, antimatter and anti-universes.
Type 2 impossibilities Technologies that sit at the edge of our understanding of the physical world. May be realized millennia or millions of years in the future: faster-than-light travel, time travel, parallel universes.
Type 3 impossibilities Technologies that violate the known laws of physics. If they turn out to be possible, they would represent a fundamental shift in our understanding of physics: perpetual motion machines, precognition.
You are optimistic and possibly extravagant now. You are less cautious than usual, feeling that nothing can possibly go wrong. If you are inclined to overindulge, overspend, or go to excesses in any manner, this tendency is exaggerated at this time. However, you also aim higher than usual and a very promising opportunity or contact can also occur
You will become practical oriented with physical endurance and perseverance.
163? 163!!! I am a LARD arse. I am at the heaviest I have EVER been so me and some follies at work started a 1 month SLIM DOWN program. I hit the gym HARD this morning and I feel pretty good. I am back to calorie counting again. If I get back to 155lbs after the month I will feel good but the ultimate goal is one fitty.
We still ROCKED Provo this past Saturday night and this week, we goin’ to do it again!
Getting paid royalties for music is pretty sweet. Whenever I get these kinds of checks I like to purchase things that I can look at and be like...music bought me that. Items that I have gotten from past checks are: Ipod, Xbox 360, Snowboard, Recording equipment, etc. I mean I'm not going to be able to quit my 9-5 off these things unless they send my Kanye's by accident but I like to be able to have something for the work I put in. Well, I got my BMI check yesterday and I want to figure out what to do with it so I'm asking you all. Should I...A- Save it since the economy is in the crapper (goes against Mark Dago's BMI spending rules) B- Get a PS3 C- By a plane ticket to Minneapolis for my summer trip or D- Something else. Hit me up and let me know...
I am a writer and yet I own not one word. Not own as in like a car or a house, but own as in it’s mine in a way that I can point at it and say I stand behind the spirit and intention and manifestation. Everything, in one form or another, gets reinterpreted or changed or rewritten completely. The word really is instant gratification. There is no middle person involved, no one to CLEAR these ideas with or have them sit on a shelf and wait a week or a month or a year and hope they see the light of day. It takes seconds to see if my rants/raves have currency in the marketplace of ideas.
Write, Publish, Experience.
Because some days, this here makes room and space and sanity for that there. Feel me?
Obama, in a very real sense, gave the speech about race in America that I've wanted to hear my entire life: genuine, personal, intelligent, and direct. Today's speech wasn't about right or left, black or white, man or woman. Today Barack Obama gave a speech about basic human dignity, dignity that all of us deserve. You know the best part of the speech? It wasn’t soaring. It wasn’t rhetorical. It was a talk, adult to adult, positive but honest.
There is an intense and powerful force lying waiting in America....it is the longing for true leadership that addresses the basic goodness of the American spirit, pays tribute to the better part of ourselves as partners in a great adventure, and calls upon us to join together and give of ourselves for the common good.
The candidate who strikes that chord...who recognizes and encourages and calls upon Americans to use their strengths to solve problems instead of placing fears to divide us, can lead us in a new direction and away from the disaster we are now facing -- militarily, economically, ecologically, spiritually and ethically.
That candidate spoke today...from the heart....and to the heart.
A true leader. He inspires us toward our better angels not just with words, but with actions. He could have reacted to all of this so differently. He could have come out swinging, or disowned Wright, or tried to let things blow over. But he reacted with strength, truth, and humility. And in doing so he leads us by example toward our better nature.
He compels me not to just to want to be a better human being; but to know that I can be a better human being without either sacrificing my dignity or buying into the easy temptation to simplify and dismiss the "other" for the sake of feeling "right."
A shift has occurred in American minds and desires. It's a beautiful thing.
"Barack Obama might be courting the ever-important geek vote by reaching out to Comic-Con in the hopes of making an appearance there, according to reports. No, we are not kidding. Now, we've got no idea what Senator Obama might be wanting to do there, aside from the fact that he could very well be a comic book fan, but we think it's pretty damn cool, nonetheless. Wouldn't it be hilarious to see Obama at the convention engaged in some cosplay, or waiting in line to meet Brian Michael Bendis or some such? Now that's the audacity of hope, friends, and we LOVE it."
and from the Fark files...
"I met Obama back in 2004, right after he spoke at the DNC, and he was really cool. Hung out, drank coffee with locals, whole deal. Absolute gentleman, with a good head on his shoulders. Apparently, he's also quite the closet gamer/comic nerd - he hinted to me that he used to play D&D, but it's probably not the sort of thing that he's going to bring up at most debates."
WHAT? if this is true...I have a perma MANCRUSH on B.O.! I need to hear him yell out "I am the GODDAM Batman" at a debate now. TIGHT!
Your mental processes are speeded up now. You grasp new concepts very easily, but you tend to be impatient with slower minds or the usual, predictable routine. Nervous restlessness, impulsive or erratic behavior or speech, rushing and coming to a conclusion too quickly are likely at this time. So, be active and positive, laziness and depression should be avoided.
Certain hip hop groups are better at speaking on certain perspectives than others. The Clipse are a PERFECT example of that. I stumbled ontohttp://reupgang.blogspot.com/ and downloaded "We Got It For Cheap Vol 3"...on the mixtape they state "We just think we're better"...and you know what, I think they are. DOPE ISHT!
Writing is a form of personal freedom. It frees us from the mass identity we see in the making all around us. In the end, writers will write not to be outlaws or heroes of some subculture but mainly to save themselves, to survive as individuals.
I finished some writing last week and I was sure I would never write anything such as strong. So every time I do write something, there is that fear, but I've sort of gotten past that fear enough times to know that there will always be a stronger idea. It comes along.
Maybe my reason for writing is, I've fallen into a point in my life where I am fantastically nostalgic about my growing up, and I really wanted to go back and explore all those memories. My growing up was really salty, but I want to be honest and prove to myself that I'm not nostalgic for the actual past; I'm nostalgic for being a child again, and for the family I've lost.
That's the entire point, to get yourself to a place that you couldn't have planned or calculated, that is kind of beyond what you think you're capable of. At that moment, you feel like you've done enough when you've gone a little bit too far, because otherwise, if you don't go that little bit too far, later you'll wish you had. You just keep reminding yourself, it's just words on the page.
I checked out “Be Kind Rewind” with K, Marissa and Fisch this past weekend. After the flick we walked around and looked at the “Coming Soon” posters. I knew there were a fistful of must sees for myself this summer but it seemed like every poster I passed I was like that looks good, that looks good, that…you get it. When did the “man” at Hollywood make the decision to start feeding my inner geek with his power TEATS! I put together a list of my summer movie agenda, check it out. I know I am missing a couple…I’ll catch matinees for those (or maybe Brewvies).
21 (March 28th) Inspired by the book “Bringing Down The House”…Where a group of gifted MIT students took Vegas for millions by counting cards. It’s a great story based on realness but the trailer kind of makes it look flashy with little substance. Not to mention a flavor of the month cast.
Forbidden Kingdom (April 18th) The first project with Jackie Chan and Jet Li. That’s really all I need to know.
Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden (April 18th) No, Morgan Spurlock didn’t find him. This film got mixed reviews at Sundance. I like Spurlock. He likes to break balls. Harold And Kumar Escape Guantanamo (April 25th) I hope they have Doogie Howser snorting coke in this one…maybe off a unicorn or something. This is a matinee for sure and I better laugh hard.
Iron Man (May 2nd) The trailers keep getting better and better. R.D.J. is going to RULE as Tony Stark. In my top 3 of the Summer that I NEED to see.
Speed Racer (May 9th) A live action Wachowski Brothers take on the iconic “Speed”. Matt Fox as Racer X? wouldn’t have been my choice but let’s see how all this plays out.
Indiana Jones 4 (May 22nd) Not sure why they needed to make a 4th Indy film but hey…I’m in. I hope that Speilberg reins in Lucas. He his muddied up my childhood with those Star Wars prequels. I hope it doesn’t happen again.
The Happening (June 13th) M. Night and an apocalyptic theme, teats on a reatz. Even when he misfires (Signs, The Village) he’s still dope. And it comes out on Friday the 13th. Spooky.
The Incredible Hulk (June 13th) Ed Norton re-wrote the screenplay for this one. He is incorporating a BUNCH of mythology (I.E. The Prometheus Myth) and I drool over ISHT like that. I didn’t think Bana’s Hulk was horrible but I am anxious to see how Norton handles the role and the material. I think he is one of the best actors working. Tony Stark (R.D.J.) has a guest spot in this. First rule about Hulk.
WALL-E (June 27th) The last Robot on Earth and he kind of looks like ET. I’m thinking it’s more like the true Hollywood story of R2-D2. Elektra says this is the #1 movie of the summer. Kids and their cartoons.
Hellboy 2 (July 11th) So far the animated Hellboy movies (I.E. “Sword Of Storms”) rock more than the live action flicks. This one looks to shake it up. Mike M. and Del Toro say that this one is more about folklore and fairy tales than pulp. You know what happens when Del Toro takes on fairy tales.
The Dark Knight (July 18th) We ALL need to posse up to this one. This is the movie event of 2008.
X Files 2 (July 25th) X Files in the 90’s is what LOST is to me now. I NEED answers.
Choke (August 1st) I missed this at Sundance and it was THE film I wanted to check. Once it was picked up it was fast tracked with a release date in August. Filmed in New Jersey over 25 days with a budget of 3.4 milly…People keep saying this is Sam Rockwell’s break-out roll.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (August 15th) Me and my cartoons…a 3D CGI animated project set between EP2 and 3. Yeah, Lucas keeps EFFing up my childhood but the whole mythology of the Jedi/Sith gets the better of me. I’d call it a mind trick but that only works on the WEAK minded.
