Here we go!

So…. havent been writing in forever and a half but I’m back and I’m not exactly better then ever but I definitely have plenty to write about. It turns out my wife was cheating on me pretty much the whole time and my starry eyed idealism was just that, between the mess of a divorce and some serious pressure at work… yeah my life has just plain been hell on earth that said something’s making it worse.

Obama is apparently trying to bring back some extremely stupid ideas to cripple the United States even more. Socialized medicine is the biggest crock pot idea on earth, you don’t even have to go to a communist bloc nation to figure that one out! All you have to do is go to freakin canada!

In depth assault on obamacare to follow this week

Castle

I know I haven’t written anything in forever, I know I’m shiftless lazy and probably a terrible writer as well but turbulence was encountered far in excess of the normal limits and severe damage was incurred. Let’s just say lots of legal paperwork, a divorce court and some complete mental breakdowns were involved. That said that frame of mind is not the best for writing but as I’m pulling out of my funk the ability comes and goes, then something shows up and you want to write more.

In this case it’s a TV show called Castle. It’s on ABC and has just been renewed for a second season. It’s the story of a murder mystery writer by the name of Richard Castle (played by the fantastic Nathan Fillion) who through a series of events (trying not to spoil it for those of us who have not seen) ends up assisting Kate Beckett an NYPD homicide detective on several of her cases. The humor is quick, the one liners are sharp and the over all cast chemistry is fantastic. The murders and the plot behind them are creative, original and very well played out.

In short this show is one in a million. I’m not going to lie I started watching all ten season one episodes the day before yesterday and finished at about 2 am this morning and I’m already ravenous for the second season to begin. September 21st just can’t come quick enough.

I realize a review on a season of TV that’s already ended is definitely me coming in last for the “punctuality” bit I’m supposed to be working on but Castle is worth a look.

“Well the detectives on TV seem to have a strange fascination with their sunglasses”

-Richard Castle

http://www.hulu.com/castle

Watchmen: The Review

So I cheated, and got really lazy with this review, I did not see this movie on the 8th of March when it came out, rather I saw it on the 28th of February during a special pre-screening at my local theater. Yeah, 10 days before it officially came out and I’m just now writing my review… feel free to begin pelting me with rotten vegetation trust me I think I deserve it, (my wife will be happy because with all that vegetable matter around and on me, I might just eat something vaguely healthy…)

On to the review!

Holy shit this movie was utterly fantastic, I enjoyed it alot and I found it to be an excellent adaption which is an oxymoron if ever I’ve typed one. If we literary people know anything that except in insanely rare exceptions hollywood cannot do anything but fuck up adaptions, it just can’t possibly work out properly. I am pleased to report that they did a very decent job of transmitting watchmen over, did it have the same depth as the comic? was it able to raise the psychologic issues, moral issues and etc that are brought up by the comic book? For the most part, yes. Some of it was really lost in translation like the depth of Rorschach’s insanity or some of the finer grain of the Comedian’s paired sociopathy and PTSD but the primary psychologic focus was always. Dr. Manhattan and the real question of a superhero. If a man, a human man gets incredible powers will he still view himself as “just human”? Jon obviously doesn’t and his humanity is gradually washed away to be replaced with something else.

The moral issues as always are the highlight of the piece with questions being raised like the often heard “kill a few to save many” and so forth.  Again they used a lot of text with only minor adaptions from the book for all of this and that really makes it shine in my mind. The other excellent use of material from the comic was the flashbacks which are alot easier to accomplish in a verbal medium but a lot more difficult to have flow in to the script, plot and timing in a movie. These were seamlessly handled and fit in well where they were placed, so that even movie goers who had no idea what was going on when they walked in could grasp and understand the whole story.

On to my cons, there really wasn’t alot of negatives to the movie, though I do think that the movie was almost unnecessarily graphic on alot of scores, I know hollywood has had to step it up in light of how the world’s been going and how dark our entertainment’s been getting but some of it’s just plain to much in my mind. Like I didn’t need to see Dr. Manhattan’s manhood hanging out pretty much the entire movie, some of the gore seemed kind over the top and gory merely for the sake of gore as well. Again that’s all probably just me being a bit of a prude and not exactly being a gore fan.

Trailers (again)

Quotes of the Post:

The world will look up and shout “save us!” and I will whisper “no”

-Rorschach

“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes”?

“Who watches the watchmen?”

-Juvenal

Just Some Food for Thought:

http://www.viruscomix.com/page474.html

I honestly have nothing to add, the comic says it all

Quote of the Post:
To thine own self be true

Get the hell out of my life: Parents interfering after you leave the house

I will never, ever understand how the hell people can let their parent’s completely control their lives. Not even as teenagers and children, it makes sense to let them have some control then, they know what the hell is going on and you don’t because your a kid or even worse a teenager and thus utterly distracted by whatever in the nine hells is going on in your own little world. That’s just how things go, it’s life it’s natural. However… it’s also natural for that shit to end, and like fast. Yeah you can still have a relationship with your parents after you’ve gone and “grown up” but that relationship is supposed to change to one of adult to adult, no longer does that parent have that controlling influence because your ass is in the captain’s chair for the S.S. Your Freakin Life.

Apparently some people don’t get that, apparently they don’t get that at all. We (being my wife and I) just got in to a situation where a friendship was utterly ruined between my wife and a very good friend of hers thanks to the actions and manipulations of her mother. The sad reality of it is that this woman’s mother rules that household and she (Nalora’s friend) doesn’t have the spine required to stand up to her, not even in the slightest does she have the necessary spine.

The thing about that is not that it’s rare, it’s fucking common as hell. Controlling psychotic parents just utterly dominating their children’s lives I mean come on, grow some spine and actually get out there for yourself. Unless you do things and live for yourself, all you really are is an outlet for your parents to do it all again and they’ve had their fucking shot, if they want to live vicariously through you, you need to tell them to fuck the hell off and get them to go out and live some more, hell my 65 year old aunt is a freakin nun and she’s still out there living and having incredible life experiences, there’s no reason no one else can do that.

Cut the apron strings, wiggle out of the leash and liberate your self from your folks, it’s your life and existence, live it the way you bloody well want to.

Quote of the Post:
“Give me liberty or give me death”
-Bonus cookies for whoever can name the man who said this before it got turned in to a liscense plate slogan

Fuck your text based communications

Now I’ll confess, I text and IM all the time. It’s pretty much the primary way my wife and I communicate when I’m away for work (like this current three month stretch) but I 100% with out a doubt, with out failure hate those two forms of communication like nothing else.

Don’t get me wrong, I like letters, after some of the stuff I’ve been through, getting a letter is the most beautiful thing in the world, except when it’s bills to pay I can’t get enough letters.

I’m similer for email, though given how much of my email is spawn and how much of the rest is random forwards that threaten to kill me if I don’t pass it on myself perhaps I could do with a bit less of that…

But I still fucking hate, hate with a burning firey rage exceeded only by my hatred for rap music and socalists. I absolutely hate the constrictions imposed on communications by texts and motherfucking IM, there’s no tone, no emotion that can honestly be communicated except by freakin emotes… I mean fuckin A it drives me literally up the bloody wall.

It really, really starts to piss me off when Nalora and I start to get aggravated or even worse have an all out fight over words that would have had a completely different meaning if you could actually understand the tone with which it was said. Nalora and I are both very literal people so words are taken at face value, however we tend to believe that other people (aka each other) can understand the tone we’re trying to set and thus that we’re joking or whatever the hell.

Sometime it would be alot easier if everyone could just read your mind or your intent with this type of communication, but the pain in the ass part is we can prevent all of that annoyance and agravation simply by dialing instead of typing.

Quote of the Post:
“Nobody likes a telepath”
Unknown, from Necropath by Brown

Real Life Roleplaying: Not who you wish you were

Now here’s a curious trend from the depths of the internet that I’ll never really understand, pretending to be something other then you are. I realise we all can’t be models and marines, and everything everyone wants to be, but that’s just life, your dealt the hand you get and while a little bluff now and then never hurts in the game of poker, lying about your cards in life just seems kinda pointless.

However one of the most common social diseases on the internet is lying about who you are out in the world. Putting other people’s photos up on myspace or facebook and claiming that’s you, when really you look like nothing like that and don’t do any of the exciting things that they say they do.

This stuff gets even weirder though when people “rp” normality in places where rp is the norm, and the normal is pretty freaking fantastic. A great example is world of warcraft. Nalora and I run in to people all the bloody time who brag constantly about how they model, or they go out and party alot or god knows what, it’s always this that or the other thing. You get “GI Joes” wanna be soldiers who are usually Navy SEALs or Green Berets and all manner of other things and it all just begs the question, “why?”.

I mean honestly, why the fuck do you need to pretend to be someone else in the real world, in a place where the whole point is that you are someone else!? I mean the express purpose of an RPG is to play a role, something you usually aren’t. Wether that’s a super hero or villain like in City of Heros/Villains or a magic casting, sword wielding whatzit that rides out in glory and majesty to kick serious amounts of ass on the dragon/orc/whatever the hell needs to die of the day. I fully admit my day to day life can be pretty goddamn boring, and I mean really, really boring. That’s why I play games like WoW so I can go out and do cool stuff like slay dragons and call fire from the heavens on the heads of my foes. That stuff is straight up fun!

However I’ve never lied about who and what I am, sure I’ve changed some details here and there about who and what I am, but that’s a matter of safety, I’m not telling any one that I’m a male model who looks like a young brad pitt or some shit like that, or that I drive a freakin Ferrari or something… (I wish, my wife and I have an older toyota celica, it’s old, dented, and the trunk refuses to open) do I say I’ve lived a lot of places and done a lot of things? Yes, yes I do, because I have. Your life is your life and it’s what you’ve been given, why not try to make the best of it, instead of fantasizing about having someone else’s all the time? Wouldn’t that make you a happier person?

Quote of the Post:

“Men in general judge more by the eyes than by the hands, for everyone can see, but very few have to feel. Everybody sees what you appear to be, few feel what you are, and those few will not dare to oppose themselves to the many…”
-Niccoló Machiavelli. 1537.

Get Hot: Thermite DIY

From Wikipedia:

Thermite is a pyrotechnic composition of a metal powder and a metal oxide, which produces an aluminothermic reaction known as a thermite reaction. It is not explosive, but can create short bursts of extremely high temperatures focused on a very small area for a short period of time.

Translation: this shit gets psychotically hot and makes serious amounts of fire, the military uses thermite to destroy things like artillery pieces and sensitive stuff to prevent it’s capture in the event of over run, the blackhawk that went down during the battle of mogadishu (Blackhawk Down for those missing the obvious) was destroyed by thermite charges to prevent capture of senstive avionics and comm equipment. So what does this mean to you? One you can have some fun with this stuff, two this stuff can ruin your shit in a burning and painful manner so don’t fuck around. Also depending on what and where you do it playing with this shit can be as illegal as hell so make sure you check local laws before doing anything.

Obtaining the Aluminum
1) Go to a machine shop. They will usually give you aluminum powder for sweeping the floor or something.
2) Break open an Etch-A-Sketch, the stuff inside is pure aluminum powder.
3) Go to a paint store, they usually have powdered aluminum that people use to mix into paints to give it pigment.
4) Get a grinder, and something made of aluminum. Good ideas are soda cans, bike frames, and lacrosse sticks. Start grinding the aluminum and collect the sparks in a container.
5) Search eBay, they sell it for pretty cheap.

Obtaining the Iron Oxide (Rust)
1) Take some steel wool then put it in a jar and then cover it wool with water. Use a magnet to make sure the steel wool doesnt float during the reaction process. Next, put in 5 tablespoons of regular bleach into the water and 5 tablespoons of regular vinager. Wait a day or so and then filter the brown paste with a coffee filter. Leave it out to dry overnight.
2) Go to a paint store, they usually have powdered iron oxide that people use to mix into paints to give it pigment.
3) Connect wires to a direct current (9-volt battery), strip both ends and put them into a saltwater solution. Let them sit for five minutes. One of them will start bubbling more than the other. This is the POSITIVE(+) wire. Put a nail tied to the positive wire into the jar. Now put the negative wire in the other end. Now let it sit overnight and in the morning scrape the rust off of the nail & repeat until you have a bunch of rust on the bottom of the glass. Let it dry out, and crush it into a powder.
4) Search eBay, they sell it for pretty cheap.

Mixing the Stuff
Thermite is 8 grams of iron oxide to 3 grams of aluminum. The formula is by weight but because aluminum is very light, it will appear to be approximately a 50-50 mix. Put them together in a container and mix them until it is an even mixture. If you want, mix four parts thermite with one part clay or Play-Doh and knead thoroughly for moldable thermite.

Igniting
Thermite needs a lot of heat to light, that means magnesium. Find some magnesium ribbon, or a sparkler that contains magnesium and put it into a pile of thermite. Light it with a torch, and run! (run fast bitch, very, very fast)

I don’t know about you but this stuff certainly sounds like fun I highly reccomend your goddamn careful though. Chances are this would be a good time with a junker car you want to trash preferably on a concrete pad somewhere  on your property. Shooting at said car and getting legal explosives would also be a good time for said vehicle, if all that’s fun then of course a traditional sledge hammer is always entertaining too.

Warning: I don’t reccomend you doing stupid, retarded shit. If your going to play with fire, legal explosives and guns do it in a safe manner. I am not liable for you and whatever the hell happens if you decide to go play with thermite or any of the other stuff I may put up on the site. Fuck you I have lawyers.

Quote of the Post:

“That’s hot”

-I shouldn’t have to credit this

Over the Hills and Far Away

So it’s time to close up this particular string of articles based on my adventures in the exciting realm of matrimony to date. Yeah it hasn’t been long but together we’ve already learned  a lot and we’ve gotten some lessons that have taken others who have come before us years to understand and cost still more people their marriages.

Every relationship has challenges and those can be things from how you kiss, to how you fold laundry to big things like having to be long distance for work or being allergic to animals and marrying a critter person. For Nalora and I the big challenge is actually one of the ones I listed. Long distance. For our relationship of four months and for better then half of our marriage I’ve been away for work.  I have to be away for at least the next four months, of that time if I’m lucky I’ll be home for the better part of four days. Unfortunately that’s going to be a standard for a lot of our lives while I’m working my current job. It sucks but it’s life and we’re both prepared to deal with it. I know my wife can handle it (and not just because she’s tougher then me) but because we have too, and that’s just part of the vows, through the good and the bad you carry on together. That’s what love truly is utter commitment to one another, not because you need that person in your life, but because you want them there, no matter what.

A lot of people use the word “need” when they talk about the person they have in their lives. Oh I need her or him in my life, that’s an addiction like any other and I’ll tell you what any relationship where you “need” someone, won’t last long distance. I’ve tried and she just went off and “needed” someone else.

I have someone in my life now, a special person that I want in my life the way you want air in your lungs, food in your stomach and shelter from the storms. I want her in my life more then those things because with out her none of it matters any more, I lose the will to breath, the need to eat and I cease to care about the storms around me. She wants me in her life the same way, that’s why we did what we did, why we got married. That’s the beautiful part about this mutual want, we have each other, we have each other as husband and wife, as partners, as soul mates.

That’s the type of bond where distance doesn’t matter, time and space are nothing to love,  unstoppable and indestructible by a mere thing like separation.

All I can say is that if you find yourself in a situation like mine, a love this strong and powerful. Hold her close whenever you can, and hold her heart close forever. believe in her, yourself and your love. That’s the key to surviving when your over the hills and far away.

Quote of the Post:

You know your in love because reality is finally better then your dream
-Dr. Seuss

PS No update for this friday because of MLK day weekend, I don’t have to work so I’m not going to. See you all next week.

The Most Important Lesson To Learn

There’s a secret I’ve learned in my marriage, yes even in the short time that I’ve been married I’ve learned a great and important secret. Other married people (men and women alike) have told me about it, even after I’ve learned it and I’ve agreed and shared my own experiences with it. It is the key to a successful life and a happy marriage, hell even a happy relationship of any sort.

It is simply this: “Life will never be all sunshine and daisies, roses and rainbows, occasionally things will get rocky, the storms will rage and lighting will strike. The thing to remember is that you and your partner will forever weather the storm better together then you ever could apart”

Let’s break all that down shall we? it’s a lot to take in and I suppose could be slightly cryptic. Let’s take that line by line.

Line 1: Life will never be all sunshine and daisies, roses and rainbows, occasionally things will get rocky, the storms will rage and lighting will strike.

This is fairly simple, most people go in to a marriage or a dating relationship expecting everything to be perfect which sadly is just not so. Life sucks, get a helmet. Just because you’ve found someone wonderful to be with and spend all of your days with doesn’t mean everything is suddenly going to be sunshine and roses all the time. Like I said life sucks and will continue to do so.

Line 2: The thing to remember is that you and your partner will forever weather the storm better together then you ever could apart.

I think that’s fairly self explanatory, It’s like two trees growing together, they lend each other their strength and might and become far stronger then either would as a single tree. No matter what you must stand with your spouse and be a strong tower for him/her a strong support as they shall in turn be for you. Each of you supporting and helping the other up.

Quote of the Post:
“More marriages might survive if the partners realized that sometimes the better comes after the worse.”
-Doug Larson