Found this paper when I was looking for something else...Figured I would post it. This was written in 2001, so I didn't include the new Star Wars Films.


BAD GUY MODERNISM:Modernism as perceived in mainstream film


When I was a child growing up, I lived in the suburbs of Houston, Texas. My father worked for NASA as a rocket scientist, and so in that environment I gained an appreciation for technology. Not just what technology can do, but how things looked.
It seemed to me that if something was shiny or metal (or better still, shiny metal) and if it was large then it could definitely do great things. I remember when the first computers showed up at my school back in 1977, something called a P.E.T. (personal education terminal, I believe it stood for) and I was sold. It was a one-piece unit, white plastic, curvy, and had a monochromatic green screen. It looked like the future was here. And I was more than willing to be a part of it.

That same year a movie came out called Star Wars. Again I was hooked even though the events in the film supposedly happened "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away." The evidence of the future was here. Modern sleek imperial starships, personal body armor, swords made of light and "Droids", walking computers who could talk to you in British English no less!

The same went for Rosie the robot on the Jetsons cartoon show of the 1960's. Rosie and the rest of the Jetson universe promised a grand future of sleek lines, bubble shaped cars and houses that could actually elevate themselves up above the pollution below. The kids were geniuses and took classes in Esperanto on video screens.

So here it is the year 2000, and what do we have to show for it? We have the same houses and environments we've had since the 1950's. The cars are smaller and more fuel efficient, but they sure aren't as attractive. Homes are the same with the addition of a computer, microwave, satellite TV, and VCRs. Construction techniques are still pretty much the same except that we sue more people if something goes wrong. So why have we not progressed in 50 years? Why are we still making stuff that looks traditional? The answer can be found in the movies.

MODERN BAD GUYS

In film modernist architecture is almost always perceived as being evil or bad. The bad guys always seem to have the modern office buildings, industrial complexes and homes. An example of this most recently was in Mission Impossible 2 (2000). In this John Woo directed film the good guy super-spy Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his two partners have their headquarters on a farmhouse in the Australian outback, complete with windmill and sheep, no air conditioning and a rickety, rusted metal gable roof. Meanwhile back in Sydney the bad guy lives in his Frank Lloyd Wright/ Le Corbusier style, flat roof, cantilevered rectangle shaped, panelized stone covered, house underneath a cliff on the beach. The bad guy's place of business is the largest skyscraper in Sydney, which is made of golden glass and metal. In it everything is mechanical and digitally controlled, including the louvers for the 40-story atrium space, which help to bring natural light into the interior space of the building. Action ensues, and the good guys win. Another interesting thing about this movie is the fact that they show the Sydney Opera House every time they go back to Sydney, for the establishing shot. It may be modern, but it is well known.

Another recent film to do the same thing was Charlie's Angels (2000). In the film, the bad guy, a Bill Gates type tech-wizard billionaire lives in a house in the Los Angeles hills that looks suspiciously like John Lautner's Chemosphere (also known as the Malin house) of 1960. This is in contrast to the Angel's modestly traditional townhouse office where they meet with their bosses before going out on their missions. The formula of modern equaling bad guy has been used so much, that even though it appears in the beginning of the film that he is not the bad guy, once we see his home we know he's a bad guy. Incidentally, the Chemosphere was also used on The Simpsons TV program as the home of out of work actor Troy McClure (voiced by Phil Hartman) as a comment on the "Hollywood lifestyle" of the character. Other movies use the modern versus traditional look to separate the good guys from the bad guys. This is especially true when the bad guy is a corporation or large business. In movies such as GATACCA (1997), Tron(1982) and Rollerball(1975), Corporate America is seen as evil. The good guys are usually one or two individuals who are trying to buck the system. The contrast of the corporate spaces and the spaces where the heroes live and work, reflects the idea that modern equals bad and wood paneling equals good. GATACCA uses the Los Angeles County Civic Center by Frank Lloyd Wright as the headquarters for the evil people Ethan Hawke works for. The Encom Building in Tron is a skyscraper cubicle farm inspired by Mies Van Der Rohe. In Rollerball, The pristine white room filled with shards of glass windchimes serves as the meditation room of the bad guy, played by John Houseman. By contrast, Ethan Hawke lives in a house nicely integrated into the landscape, Flynn from Tron lives above his video arcade in a renovated brownstone. James Caan lives on a traditional ranch in Rollerball. The reverse of this was found in the 1999 film Entrapment, with Sean Connery playing a thief who lived in an old castle, while planning on robbing a bank vault found in Cesar Pelli's twin tower office building in Kuala Lumpur. This was done so the viewer could identify and help sympathize with a character that has a different value system.

MEGAPOLIS: METROPOLIS/THINGS TO COME

The film Metropolis, by Fritz Lang, was made in 1927. This film shows the world of the future: skyways, personal flying transports and gigantic skyscrapers challenging God like in the biblical story of the tower of Babel. The plot centers on the freedom of the oppressed workers in the underground, who toil to make this metropolis a place for the upper class to have leisure time. This vision of the future is almost an exact opposite to the ideal living conditions presented by Le Corbusier's radiant city. Exhibited in Paris in 1922, Corbusier's urban project entitled "A Contemporary City for Three Million People" presented the idea of people living and working together in condensed space, living high above the ground in a clean and positive environment. He also talks about a "hierarchy of administration" in which groups of people are represented by someone and they report to a higher someone, and so on until the top is reached. This syndicate or union allows the people to work more efficiently, like machines and therefore order the world. Metropolis shows viewers the worst case scenario of what could happen if the ideal world of Le Corbusier actually came to pass. People become machines; the workers are treated like property instead of people. In other words, they become expendable and easily replaceable. The person at the top (in this case Joh Frederson) does not care about the needs of the people below, and it is not until the city stops functioning like a machine that he begins to worry about the needs of the people.
McSherry 4The architecture of Metropolis is not stylistically completely modern, but like today is a combination of styles, mostly gothic and neo-classical, with a bit of modernism thrown in for good measure. However, it still takes the modernist concepts of Le Corbusier and communicates the idea to people that they will not work the way society is set up today. Metropolis also stands against the work of the Italian Futurists of the early 1900s. The use of multilevel streets, elevated trains, and autogyro landing pads on rooftops are fixtures in both Metropolis and in futurist architecture. The film questions how people could live in this environment that is beyond human scale. The factory underground that houses the machines running the city is a giant multistory complex that is completely open. The workers move around on a series of catwalks that are too small to be seen when the entire machine is shown in the camera. The Building housing Frederson's office is also of massive scale. Shots of the building show that it dwarfs the planes that fly by it. Writer Helmut Weihsmann says “the Vision of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis is immersed in an atmospheric framework switching from apocalyptic allusions to a city losing itself as a subject to a metaphorical "new age" civilization reminiscent of a biblical epoch." This powerful vision of fear of a possible future that reduces an individual to a number must have had an effect on moviegoers in the 1920's. While the revolution at the end of the film promises hope, I believe Lang wants to warn us, as a large majority of science fiction films do, about what our society has the potential of becoming. Lang wants moviegoers to make sure our society doesn't become the Metropolis. In the Post-WWI era context when Lang was making this film, his wariness of Corbusian ideals suggest an understanding of human psychology and the possibility of what the people at the top of Corbusier's "food chain" might do to the general populace.

As a rebuttal to Metropolis, in 1936 H.G. Wells became involved with producing a film based on his book The Shape of Things to Come. The film Things to Come takes the opposite path of Metropolis commenting on how strange and odd contemporary society is and the promise that the future would be much better. Directed by William Menzies, the film begins by looking at a town in the English countryside in the year 1936. Fast forward to the year 2036 by way of a devastating war (interesting that this was pre-1945, before the invention of the nuclear weapon.) The war was followed by decade after decade of disease, poor leadership and general suffering and finally, society has gotten it right. They have succeeded in erecting "Everytown", a place where technology and reason have gotten to the point of creating a virtual paradise. The conflict of the film arises when a group of scientists wish to launch a rocket to explore the moon.

The Architecture of Things to Come is adopted straight out of Le Corbusier's book, Towards a New Architecture. In fact, Le Corbusier was offered the job of designing the sets and future city of Everytown, but declined. The task of producing the future world went to Vincent Korda, who used Corbusian ideas found in his book to design the city of the future: gigantic subterranean caverns with inverted skyscrapers built down into them. They are pristine white concrete and glass structures, with catwalks and glass elevators. Technology allows them to create their own sunlight, so everything is extraordinarily bright and well lit. This is in contrast to the dark catacombs of Metropolis. The lack of ornamentation and uniformity of the structures reflect the plans for Paris that Le Corbusier had. The world above now has the potential to become a new Garden of Eden in contact to the Tower of Babel seen in Metropolis. Bauhaus artist Laszo Moholy-Nagy worked with Korda to show the construction sequence of Everytown.

This film was recognized as an astounding visual achievement, but audiences found the movie extremely boring, and was really nothing more than a heavy-handed morality play about the wonders of technology and reason solving all of our ills. A film critic of the time called it "intolerably prosy" and also called this version of the future "the dullest subject on earth". While this film may have been pro-modernism visually, because of its poor writing and heavy message, it turns viewers off from those concepts. However, the interesting thing about this film is that it seems to foreshadow some of the architectural concepts seen twenty and thirty years later during the cold war, such as massive underground dwellings to preserve society from nuclear holocaust. Also, Architect Paolo Soleri and his philosophy of Arcology, where nature and architecture are in harmony with one another, seem to be inspired from this film. If one looks at Soleri's massive underground dwellings, one cannot help but think of this film.


BOND, JAMES BOND

A protege' of William Menzies, Ken Adam did design work for several of the James Bond films, including Dr. No (1962), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967), Diamonds are Forever (1971), The Spy Who Loved Me (1976), and Moonraker (1977). Adam is probably one of the influential designers in the history of film who is responsible for creating the look of places in which good and bad guys reside. Adam creates modern high technology fortresses for evil masterminds to reside in. The large, spherical floating platform of the villain's headquarters in The Spy Who Loved Me is a perfect example. Steel interiors and a convenient shark pit in the center of the control room (wheelchair accessible, no less) are just the touches of industrial non-traditional design methods. The entire place seems cold and sterile, allowing the viewer not to be able to feel sympathy for the bad guy in the black and white world of James Bond. Spectre's hidden volcano headquarters seen in You Only Live Twice has a similar feel to it. Monolithic and technical, it stretches 400 feet in diameter and 126 feet high at Pinewood Studios in England. According to Donald Albrect, this allowed Adam to create an

"architectural folly offered him the opportunity to emulate the designers he so admired in his youth. The great dystopian city of Fritz Lang's Metropolis had been an early aesthetic touchstone. As the designer of the vast new 007 Pinewood soundstage as well as the volcano setting within, Adam finally had the facility in which to build a set of comparable scale and scope to Metropolis." (Albrect,126)

These massive sets of steel and aluminum create an image of grandeur and hyper-reality. This lets you know that these villains mean business. They are not afraid to step on a few toes and kill a few people to get what they want. The architecture comments on their character. It is sterile and cold, and looks uncomfortable, even though it does look high tech and cool. The same commentary could be said for the works of Architects such as Frank Ghery, Norman Foster, and Santiago Calatrava.

In contrast to the cool looking stuff the bad guys have, Bond's offices are extremely traditional and well, yes, British. Lots of wood paneling, fabrics, and wall coverings, columns with capitals and cornices, and lots and lots of crown moulding. The good guys represent England, God and Country and all that, so they are seen as maintainers of the status quo. Even Q's gadgets always look like something relatively normal, such as a watch or an Aston Martin automobile with an ejection seat disguised and built into it. This use of traditional elements emphasizes the fact that the hero is doing what is right. If Bond were American, we would say he was doing it for "apple pie, baseball, and Chevrolet." In effect, Bond is saving the world from the modernists.

Ken Adam also uses these techniques in another movie. Dr. Strangelove: Or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) has the war room set which is completely different from any other place in the film. Adam was forced to invent the war room from scratch, because the U.S. government wouldn't allow director Stanley Kubrick to access government facilities. The huge room with the computer screen and oval shaped steel table lit from above makes a commentary about "the post atomic landscape of limitless power." It detaches itself from reality, making matters of life and death seem like a video game on the large screen. It is also similar to the Nazi designs of Albert Speer. This contrasts with the rest of the settings in the film such as a guard station and the typical suburban house of the general who kisses his wife goodbye on the way to the war room.

IMPERIAL VERSUS REBEL ARCHITECTURE: STAR WARS

The Nazi-sponsored designs of Albert Speer also inspired the Imperial architecture found in the Star Wars Trilogy. This is seen in the opening shot of the first film, Star Wars (1977). The scene depicts an Imperial "Star Destroyer" flying slightly above so that the viewer sees the bottom of the ship's hull. Its shape is basically that of a large triangular shaped wedge that simply keeps going and going and going. This introduces us to the level of power and resources that the Empire has in order to be able to build something that large. The interior of the ship is mainly a long set of corridors and rooms, all fashioned out of pure white metal and plastic. The occupants of the ship wear suits of white plastic battle armor and are called Storm Troopers. At first glance one is not sure if they are machines or people. The same goes for the main villain of the film, Darth Vader. Darth Vader is a synthesis of man and machine, and those machines help him survive. He is literally a "machine for living." The only human looking people on the ship are wearing uniforms that are patterned after the ones Nazi soldiers wore in WWII. Small flying ships called TIE fighters surround the large Star Destroyer much like the airplanes in Corbusier's Radiant City drawings, and are also found flying through the urban canyons of Metropolis. By contrast the Rebel Ship the star destroyer attacks a few seconds later is a small bumpy-shaped, more organic looking vehicle. This is typical of the tone found in the trilogy. In general, Imperial Architecture is seen as built on a grand scale and very high tech, symbolizing power and military might. It combines elements of Speer and Mussolini's New Rome (E.U.R.) with the high tech wonder found in the works of Norman Foster, Renzo Piano, and Buckminster Fuller. Metal and sterility exist everywhere. Hard-line geometric shapes and monumentality are the order of the day. The main colors are white, black, red or gray. Lighting is done using cool fluorescent lights behind frosted plexiglass panels. One could say that the Allen Teleport Room at the University of Houston is an example of Imperial Architecture. Rebel Architecture, by contrast is more organic, more curvy, and more integrated with nature. In Star Wars the desert planet of Tatooine is inhabited by innocent people who live in adobe style huts and in mountain caves. The first hostile encounter we find on the planet is by little technology scavengers known as Jawas. They drive a large tracked vehicle through the landscape, selling stolen robots at unbeatable prices. By contrast Luke Skywalker's vehicle has no wheels at all and hovers above the desert sand with no impact on the environment. The cantina is also made using this adobe technique where even the seating appears to be carved out from the earth. This integrated, non-invasive and native style of architecture shows that these people are the good guys. Han Solo's ship, The Millennium Falcon is made from leftover and recycled parts from other starships. In reality, so is the actual model. It is made from pieces of old model kits. The Rebel headquarters on Yavin is built half underground into a cave in what looks like the ruins of an old Mayan temple. Lots of green trees surround the site and the observation tower on top only lightly touches the landscape, using one thin single pole to connect to the earth. The "eco-friendliness" of the Rebels calls to mind architects such as Alavar Aalto and Eliel Saarinen. This is in contrast to the Imperial "Death Star", a gigantic moon-sized spherical object which the Empire uses to explode uncooperative planets. The larger Rebel spaceships are designed to look more organic and fishlike, and unlike Imperial Architecture, is less about cutting through space than swimming through space. In The Empire Strikes Back, Cloud City is set up as a haven for the heroes, but because the architecture is more Imperial than Rebel, we know that the heroes are going to run into trouble. The whiteness of the public areas contrast with the black and red of the service areas. This is exactly the same dichotomy that is present in the upper and lower worlds as seen in Metropolis. The swamp planet of Dagobah on the other hand is okay because everything there is made of organic material. Yoda is a good guy because he lives in a house made from a giant tree stump. The Rebels live in ice caves on the planet Hoth while the Empire attacks them from a Star Destroyer in orbit above the planet. In the third film, Return of the Jedi, Imperial forces using high tech machines are defeated by the tree house living Ewoks, an alien race of teddy bears. The Ewoks, being the noble savage variety of alien, use low technology weapons such as catapults, spears and by laying traps in the forest for the big Imperial machines and forces. In effect, it is Corbusier's "the house as a machine for living" versus "the primitive hut" of M.A. Laugier. Unfortunately for the Empire, the primitive hut wins.

RESISTANCE TO CHANGE

So what does this mean for Architecture? To me it seems that because of film, Architecture has a critical resistance to things that are perceived as "modern". I have been using this term loosely throughout this writing and when I say "modern", I am not only meaning things that look like they were designed by Le Corbusier or Mies Van Der Rohe or Frank Lloyd Wright. I am including things such as Italian Futurism, the high technology tectonic work seen with Norman Foster and Renzo Piano and the genius of Buckminister Fuller. By "modern", I mean anything that is new and different. People who do not realize that he is simply searching for new forms even call Frank Ghery "modern". The mainstream audience for architecture, that is not the critics and the professors that reside in academia, but the general public call all of this modern. This is the same general public that sometimes will eventually become clients, and guess what? They've seen the same movies I have. What these people will want will not be the house of a James Bond movie villain (unless they are one), but will want traditional things. The reason they will want traditional things is because people perceive themselves to be heroes in their own lives. These heroes always live in traditional settings with the intent to preserve the status quo. With the association of villainy with the "modern" look, people will not want to look forward or to try something different. People want to live in the primitive hut, not in the machine for living. People tolerate the little box that is a computer or a cellular phone because they are conveniences that make life easier. But, people are able to step back away from these machines and ignore them whenever possible. With the house as a machine, either literally, such as "smart homes" or just in the visual look of machine made pieces and prefabrication, is when people develop a resistance and wariness for technology. They cite Hal 9000 from 2001: a Space Odyssey or the computer from War Games. The future goal of HUD as of 1999 is to make prefabricated housing that looks exactly like site built traditional housing. Again, we see the lack of progression. Technology has become better, we just chose to use it to make traditional, status quo stuff.

The future is here. If you need me, I'll be at the movies.



Filmography

Charlie's Angels. Dir. Joseph McGinty Nichol. Columbia Pictures, 2000.

Diamonds are Forever. Dir. Guy Hamilton. MGM, 1971.

Dr. No. Dir.Terence Young. MGM, 1962.

Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Dir. Stanley
Kubrick. Columbia Pictures, 1964.

The Empire Strikes Back. Dir. Irvin Kershner. Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox, 1980.

Entrapment. Dir. Jon Amiel. 20th Century Fox, 1999.

GATTACA. Dir. Andrew Niccol. Columbia Pictures, 1997.

Goldfinger Dir. Guy Hamilton. MGM, 1964.

Metropolis. Dir. Fritz Lang. Universum Film A.G., 1927.

Mission Impossible 2. Dir. John Woo. Paramount, 2000.

Moonraker. Dir. Lewis Gilbert. MGM, 1977

Return Of the Jedi. Dir. Richard Marquand. Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox, 1983.

Rollerball. Dir. Norman Jewison. MGM, 1975.

The Spy Who Loved Me. Dir. Lewis Gilbert. MGM, 1976.

Star Wars: A New Hope. Dir. George Lucas. Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox, 1977.

Things to Come. Dir. William Cameron Menzies. London Film Productions, 1936.

Thunderball Dir. Terence Young. MGM, 1965.

Tron. Dir. Steven Lisberger. Walt Disney Productions, 1982

2001: A Space Odyssey. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. MGM, 1968.

War Games. Dir. John Badham. MGM, 1983.

You Only Live Twice Dir. Lewis Gilbert MGM, 1967.



Bibliography

Albrecht, Donald. "Dr Caligari's Cabinets: The Set Design of Ken Adam" Architecture And Film. Ed. Mark Lamster. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2000.

Bonifer, Michael. The Art of Tron., New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982.

Ito, Toyo. "Architecture Sought After By Android". The Japan Architect June 1988: 9-13

Clarke, David B. The Cinematic City. London: Routledge, 1997.

Lambster, Mark. "Wretched Hives: George Lucas and the Ambivalent Urbanism of Star Wars" Architecture And Film. Ed. Mark Lamster. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2000.

Leblanc, Sydney. Whitney Guide: 20th Century American Architecture. New York: Whitney Library of Design, 1993.

Neumann, Dietrich. Film Architecture: Set Designs from Metropolis to Blade Runner. New York: Prestel, 1999.

The days when life gets ya...

I actually left work at a reasonable hour tonight when I get home and as I greet my little furball psycho kitties at the door, I hit the answering machine that is flashing , and it appears that I have been so caught up in things that I forgot to mail the rent check! Needless to say I rushed it right over and after much apologizing spoke with the landlord about selling me the property. He actually didn't laugh his ass off as I suspected, having three tenants on a small piece of property brings him a big chunk of change. He said he would inquire with his partners and see if they could come up with a number.

I have a feeling that number's gonna be pretty darn high, but I will keep my fingers crossed...

Living in interesting times...

I bought a CD today that had a sticker on it that said "as heard on the iPOD COMMERCIAL".

Now, personally, I have never seen that commercial, or if I did, I didn't know it was this band, the Gorillaz, who in itself is a made up band of animated characters who play music, created by Damon Albarn and a guy who goes by the name "Danger Mouse."

Obviously, a guy like me is fascinated by the concept of an animated rock band, which is why I bought their first album, but I liked it enough to buy the second.

Is it selling out if you created fictional characters to do so?

Kooky.

YAY!

The Shuttle is up again after 2+ years of a suspended space program! I have to admit that because I grew up in the shadow of NASA, I still get a nice warm feeling when I see a launch.

I saw on MSNBC that the external tank collided with a bird on the way out...You have to feel sorry for that. A bird getting hit at 2000 MPH and the last thought is "Hey what is that thing?"

...Say a hopeful wish for a safe landing...

Sunday, Sunday Sunday!...

Went and did the whole sing for Jesus thing this morning. It's still a bit on the tense side since they have started telling me what to wear, but we did get a new priest (an Irish fellow with a keen sense of humor) who hopefully will get the administration to freakin relax!

Also, went to the museums today to see the baseball exhibit from Cooperstown, and the Lord of the Rings exhibit, which were both pretty cool. I always find it neat to see movie props and in the case of LOTR, they really went all out to make them as realistic as possible. I also found it interesting that the characters were almost presented as real or historical. Things like "this is the armor of the eleven race" and stuff like that. They also had interactive exhibits where they showed examples of motion capture and camera tricks, and a wall that would tell you what race from middle earth you would be based on your height (I'm an elf).

There were a few visitors who came in costume, and I have to admit , I do find it a bit on the creepy side, but to each his own I guess.

...They probably think I look funny...

Scary Thought of the Day...

Sandra Day O'Connor is retiring from the Supreme Court...That means dubya gets to pick a new one.

...Nothing like good scary stories told around a campfire...

More Office Drama...

We had 2 people quit this week, and we have 2 new people starting on Tuesday...

One of the ex employees is moving to New York City, which he just decided after a recent vacation there. He only worked for us for 6 months, and was known as "that guy" in the office, you know the one who is, I dunno, a little Off? I liked him though, in terms of personal entertainment value, but I was under the impression he was not a "model employee" so to speak.

The other one was recruited by a former professor (sounds like a familiar story, eh?) and he had only worked for us a month. He was lured away by the promise of being transferred to Las Vegas, where his brother lives. It will be interesting to see if that happens. I think he was scared of us.

In between all this we had our yearly reviews, which went well for everyone, and my boss went on vacation, which was good for me, because I got to go out and actually see my project being built for a change, even though I am in charge of this project, I don't get to go to the site as much as I think I should, because I think you have to see how things are done to know how to tell other people how to do them. I have seen and done a few things before but that hasn't been enough to be able to confidently tell people how to do things when they do it for a living.

....Responsibility is HARD! 'doh!

Let the Summer Movie Season Begin...

Saw Batman Begins this last weekend. Saw it twice, once on the IMAX with my geek friends, and once in a regular movie theater with my autistic brother and a friend from church.

And lemmee tell you folks, It kicked @$$! I really enjoyed it, and it stood up to a second viewing which is rare for a change. To be fair though, I did see EP3 for a second time with my Russian friend, and it didn't seem as bad as it did the first time, perhaps I just wasn't in the right mood, but I gave it a C+ earlier, and it probably really is a high B-minus.

I hope the sequels to Batman are as good as this one, and I hope Fantastic Four doesn't suck, because I am obligated as a comic book fan to go see any movie that comes out that is based on a comic. While this is good and you occasionally see an X-Men or Batman Begins, or Spider-Man, you also have to see a Punisher, Swamp Thing, or god forbid a Catwoman.

Also, Cinderella Man was good (I haven't heard cheering at a movie in a long time), Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was good, but you have to be a fan of the books, Layer Cake was excellent, Kung-Fu Hustle is hilarious. Kingdom of Heaven was ok, but I am not a history buff, so inaccuracies do not make me so angry.

Thus concludes my movie review section of my blog...

You take the good and take the bad...The facts of life!

(interesting side note-"blog" is not in the spell checker that comes with this thing! Funny!)

God doesn't care what you look like, but your church sure does...

I go to the same Catholic church that I have been going to since I was about 3 years old, when we moved to Houston. I still go there even though I live 40 miles away from it, because I like the people and the music and the relaxed atmosphere. I also have been a participant in the mass for a number of years, starting out as an altar boy, and then joining the music ministry at 14 as a cantor for the teen group for the required confirmation project, stayed in until I was 18, went to college, sang as a cantor at the 7:00 p.m. Sunday mass (AKA the "hangover mass") for 4 years, then came back home and joined up with the group my older brother played guitar, which morphed into another group, which morphed into another group, which merged into another group, in these groups I was a cantor for all of these. In between all this we went through 4 priests, 3 choir directors, & 1 liturgical administrator.

Through all of this singing as an unpaid volunteer, I always wore my standard attire of jeans, a nice shirt, and tennis shoes, and nobody really cared, Until now. Now I am being told that what I wear to church is a problem, and I should be wearing slacks and a tie, and no tennis shoes. I don't really understand it, why a pair of tennis shoes would freak someone out, I mean they are not even white, they are black and pretty inoffensive. And the jeans are black as well, so from a distance you can't really tell they are jeans. I am constantly amazed about the closed mindedness of people, that care about these sort of things, didn't Jesus say to welcome all the people who are different?

Sometimes I wonder if God is trying to tell me something...

Episode III...

There may be a few spoilers here, I will try to be as spoiler free as possible.

The Good...

As usual the visual effects are amazing and mostly seamless. CGI is getting better and better.

The scenes between Anakin and Chancellor Palpatine where all is revealed. A nicely done dialogue scene, probably the only good one in the movie, where the camera rotates around the two characters as they are speaking...It is one of the few scenes with little or no CGI in the movie and it works.

Mace Windu's final scene in the movie...One of the better types of this scene in the prequel trilogy. I always thought most of these were done in a way which were very anticlimactic.

Chewbacca! A Star Wars movie without a major Wookie presence always seemed wrong to me. These sequences could have been longer.

"Luke"

"Leia"

No Jar Jar Speaking role!

The Cartoon Network Clone Wars Cartoon that falls in between EP2 and EP3...Jedi Knights portrayed the way they should be: Total Badasses!

The Bad...

The first half of the movie looks pretty, but completely filler. There is nothing here to advance the plot. It doesn't get any better until that Palpatine scene and that is over an hour into it.

Very wooden acting and dialogue...I've seen a lot of these actors in other movies and I know they can be better.

General Grievous...A coughing droid Jedi Killer...What does he have, a computer virus? Also In Clone Wars, he was a badass jedi killer and here he keeps running away like a coward.

The Ugly...

Obi-Wan riding that lizard thing...This is why I called the CGI "mostly" seamless earlier. This just was stupid and looked bad, like they did it just to sell a toy.

There were a few more things that bugged me, but overall, I would give it a C or C+. I was disappointed and I purposely tried not to have high expectations.

Perhaps this is not my Star Wars, but a Star Wars for another generation. My friends 5 year old seemed to like it.

New York, New York...

I just got back from a very cool trip to the Big Apple, and I had a lot of fun, Checked out a lot of Architecture and Museums, and Architecture of Museums.

I also had the wonderful opportunity to see two Broadway shows, Wicked and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and see an amazing Jazz concert put on by an 87 year old piano player (I hope I am that nimble-fingered when I get to that age).

I also saw the Yankees and the Mets play, walked through central park (the fact that it is entirely man-made blows my mind) and saw the offices of the big two comic book companies...Yes, it was much like a pilgrimage to my own personal Mecca, If only the Skywalker ranch was there, the circle would have been complete. Also saw the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and visited scenic Hoboken, NJ, which is actually a pretty nice place.

The best part of the trip though was getting to hang out with my cousin, who despite growing up thousands of miles away, and not seeing each other hardly ever, we have an incredible amount in common, as well as seeing an old coworker of mine who is doing very well for himself, and is still the same low-key nice guy he was when he was broke.

It's nice to see that money doesn't change everybody.

On Families...

I come from a large family, three older brothers, two parents, dogs, cats, mice, myself and once even a pet chicken. Because of growing up in a house full of people, I have come to value my personal space, and like to have time to myself a good majority of the time. I guess this makes me "a bit of a loner" as referred to by a former professor recently.

However, if I am a loner, the other strange side effect of this, is that one tends to surround yourself by groups of friends which can also be determined as "families" Because they all share a common bond. Such examples are:

1) The Office family...Co-workers who you actually give a damn what happens to. I work in a small office and so I like to make sure everyone is doing ok.

2) The Grad School family...This is the group of people I went to Architecture school with. We still keep in touch. I assume this is very similar to people who have gone through a traumatic experience together will bond.

3) The Church Family...This is the group of singers and musicians I sing with. This one seems to change a lot.

4) The Childhood friends...This is about 3 or 4 people that I grew up with. Still see them at least once a week.

Now, the interesting thing about this is that these groups are entirely separate from each other. I sort of drift in and out of these groups at will. They have never crossed over. One of these days I will have a party and see if they can mix.

...I guess this makes me a family man...

A diatribe about the Papacy...

Since Pope John Paul II has passed from this world into the next, and the difficult and arduous task of choosing a new Pope will begin soon, here are a few things I would like to see the new head of the catholic church address:

1. The role of women in the Catholic Church as keepers of the faith. Who made you go to church as a kid? Mom, of course. When young people leave the church and then later after getting married and having children, it is usually the wife who brings the family back into the church. Women are usually running the education programs and directing the liturgy. Nowadays, little girls aren't officially allowed to be altar servers, but there is a "don't ask, don't tell" policy in place which gives individual parishes a loophole to allow it. The original Diaconate was made of of women. The Pope should acknowledge this, and allow women to be altar servers, deacons, and priests.

2. The new Pope should attempt to open a dialogue with the leaders of the Islamic, Protestant, and Jewish communities in order to establish the proper reverence and tolerance for people of all faiths, and even people who have no faith. The first step towards understanding someone is to realize that they do not think the same way as yourself.

3. The acknowledgement from the church that 60-75% of all funding for the church comes from the United States.

4. The church should become less ritualistic and instead spend the money that would be used for elaborate ceremonies on helping the poor and destitute.

5. The acknowledgement that abortion should be kept legal for public health reasons in cases of rape, incest, and the safety of the mother. Either this or the acknowledgement that a church or government has no right to tell a woman what she can do with her body.

6. The new Pope should acknowledge the cases of Priests molesting young children, by having them forcibly removed and subjected to criminal charges in all cases.

more later possibly...I still have opinions on married priests, transubstantiation, and confessions.

Still among the living...

Damn, didn't realize it has been a month since the last posting...Things have been rather busy. I did have some time to go out for St. Paddy's day, which is a requirement for us Irish-type folks, or you risk losing your official Irishman license. A good time was had by all.

I also figured out that I have worked an extra month of overtime already this year. I think I am going to add months to the calendar to reflect this....January, February, Maruary (or Farch?) March, etc...Anyhow, I have figured you know you are busy when you eat both of your daily meals while eating in the car. I don't like to do this, but between work ( the new position has been an interesting and time consuming experience, but I am liking it) and practices for Easter Masses, I have been running around like a chicken with my head cut off, so I had to do this for a couple of days last week. However, It does keep me from getting all angry with what's been happening in the world, because I don't know what's going on...

...So it is true...Ignorance IS Bliss. Or sleepiness, depending on how you come by your ignorance.

Ugliest...Sculpture...Ever!

A Good Evening...

After a long day at work, I went and saw Finding Neverland at the art house theater in Downtown Houston, then walked to Frank's Pizza and got some Pizza Rolls, then walked to the Chase bank plaza where I sat next to a mural, the ugliest Miro sculpture ever, Personage and Birds, Phillip Johnson's Penzoil Building is across the street along with the limestone clad Jones Hall, and in the background, one of the oldest buildings in Houston had its gothic top illuminated.

...Sometimes you gotta take the me time...

In Memoriam Part Three-Revenge of the Intern...

We had an office happy hour last night, where I learned yet another person at our firm is leaving...A young guy who is really skilled, talented and an all around nice guy, was offered a job by his Intern Development Program Mentor...

...I'm happy for my coworker, but I can't help wonder if he was "headhunted". Is it ethical for the mentor to offer him a job, when he was in the position to advise him on his career path? I don't know.

...Strangeness afoot at the Circle K, if you ask me.

In Memoriam Part Deux...

In those days where the only thing constant is change...Our receptionist at the office quit yesterday.

I kind of wonder about this, you see, she had taken a lot of sick leave (9 days in two months) due to a new baby who has some kind of respiratory ailment, and was offered a choice...Leave and be granted three weeks pay or try to stay, and don't miss another day at work for the rest of the year (we only get 10 sick days a year), and if she does, she risks being fired.

I can't decide if the company was being nice or being something else.

The deceased Mark Twain Outdoor Reading Classroom...

Before...Me and My Nephew, Sean at X-mas

After...My jaw is bigger than Jay Leno!

In Memoriam...

One of my projects was torn down recently in the name of progress...An outdoor reading classroom for a school in Bellaire was destroyed along with the old school in order to build a brand new school for the area. Personally, if I had gotten the chance, I would have left the outdoor classroom where it was and used it for the reading circle in the center of the library, but they never asked me. I think that's what bothers me about it is that I was never asked. My graduate school class put hundreds of hours and blood sweat and tears into building that thing, and it seemed so casually wiped out. Bummer. All I can hope is that is was such a S.O.B. to tear down, that by golly, those contractors will remember it.

In parallel weirdness, I also got most of my hair cut off yesterday...It is very, very strange to have short hair. I don't really recognize myself in the mirror yet, which by the way is a really, really odd feeling.

More life weirdness...

Well, the high school I have been working on is now been released to the general public, in order to find the best contractor for the job. This will last about six weeks and then each contractor will submit a bid and the one who has the best qualifications and the lowest price will get the job. I am just so relieved that we got the documents out that it feels like the stone has been pulled from my shoulders.

The Bad news... Somewhere along the line working on this school I have become the one in the office that has the most knowledge of the project...Therefore I have been promoted (I think?) to the position of Project Manager for the biggest job our company has had in a while if not ever...No pressure there guys.

Anyhow, what I find strange about the whole thing is this, combined with the fact that we have lost a lot of our older people with more experience and know how, and now I, along with my 28 year old pregnant coworker are now "the old guard" at the office. They have hired "young'uns" (25 and Under) to replace the older folk, and so me and my pregnant friend are now having to teach these guys, even though we are not too far from where they are. Scary!

...Having to learn to be one of the grownups can kinda suck sometimes...

Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, TX

What Happens When...

...You get a couple of architects with a few odd ideas and add in a smattering of psychedelic drugs?

http://arts.ucsc.edu/faculty/Lord/AntFarm.html


Ant Farm -Doug Michels

http://www.well.com/user/parasw/dougmichels/visions.html

The Man Without Fear...

A Commentary on the Director's Cut...

I just watched the director's cut of Daredevil, a movie that which, in the theater, frankly:

SUCKED.

Now, the reason I gave the director's cut even a chance is because:

A. I am a hardcore serious comic book fan nerd-o-rama and feel obligated to support comic based films.

B. I Really dig Daredevil...In a way, he's the redheaded stepchild to Spider-Man, and a character that the editors of comic books always let the writers do whatever to him because he wasn't that popular, and they ended up getting these great stories out of it. As a writer, you could beat the heck out of DD, have his girlfriend sell out his secret ID for a shot of heroin, whatever they wanted to do. I mean it was one of those cases where anything goes and you never really knew that 'Ol Hornhead would make it out all right at the end of the issue, because he was always just one or two readers away from being cancelled.

C. I Heard they had cut 30 minutes from the original film when they released it.

And gosh darnit, the director's cut is a SO MUCH BETTER FILM!
It actually has a story line, character development and evolution, and an almost completely different ending. I cannot believe the powers that be did not release this version of the film. Unlike the LOTR trilogy, it wasn't for time sake (I still need to watch the 5 hour version I got for X-mas) It seems like it was the case of a short sighted producer wanting to make a film that didn't have anything meaningful in it. D'oh!

...Waiting for that Catwoman Director's cut now, maybe the movie's actually good.

Happy New Year....

Another year has come and gone, and so now it is time to reflect on the good and the bad & the ugly:

The Good:

1. Just got back from frozen Minnesota to see my brother Bob, his wife and two chilluns, a 4 year old boy and a 15 month year old girl. The rest of Clan McSherry was there as well. Did the whole winter experience, went skiing and came back with all my limbs intact! Lot of fun, they are really good kids and enjoyed the visit.

2. New Neighbors! Really nice married couple...It's nice to be able to walk out on your porch and have a chat, and then go back inside when you're done.

3. New offices! Our firm moved to larger digs in November...More space for all my junk!

4. Spider-Man 2, Hellboy, and The Incredibles....Great super hero movies.

5. I didn't have to go to any funerals this year.

6. My cats Larri and Darryl. They may be freakish and psycho pets, but they are my freakish and psycho pets.

The Bad:

1. Worked the equivalent of 90 days of overtime this year. I was compensated for a lot of it come bonus time, but I worked a 15 month year this year. Ouch! Try not to do that again.

2. Lazarus the Truck's transmission blew out last June...Cost a lot to fix. I am looking into buying a new Vehicle in '05.

3. Blade: Trinity...Not a good movie. UGH!

The Ugly:

1. Still not a registered architect... Must start testing to correct in '05.

2. Moped in pieces in kitchen...Must get running sooner more than later.

3. Catwoman with Halle Berry. Got a free ticket to this movie and was still angry that I lost two hours of my life.

Jim's swingin' bachelor pad....

I have just recently added to my house the final accessory which makes my house qualify as a "bachelor pad"...You see, I now have something gasoline powered sitting in my kitchen.

While it is not a 1978 straight block V-12 engine (which also gives you extra points on your man license exam), it is a 1980 Honda moped I am trying to get up and running, with aspirations of possibly turning it into an art car. Possibly the result of too many episodes of American Chopper and Monster Garage.

Other qualifications for the bachelor pad include:

1. Having a refrigerator that has a science experiment in it. Otherwise, it is simply a place to keep sodas and beer cold.

2. Having rooms devoted to various and sundry hobbies, such as a large toy or comic book collection.

3. Having a television that costs more than what you paid for all of your other furniture...Combined.

4. Having a DVD rack that has absolutely no "chick flicks" in it.

5. Your pets eat better than you do, because your pantry consists of Pop Tarts, Cat Food, and Canned Ravioli.

The weirdness that is C-Span...

I was flipping channels today and I ran across the video game report card. Here is the Press Release...

The National Institute on Media and the Family has issued its eight annual MediaWise Video Game Report Card. The report gives a mixed notice on the video and PC gaming industry, with praise for the rating system and for retailers that have a ratings enforcement system but criticised the industry for easy access for M rating games for teenagers as well as not using the AO (Adults Only) rating for Rockstar's recent hardcore stealth action game Manhunt. The report also lists games for children and teens to avoid, including Manhunt, Max Payne 2, Postal 2 and the T rated Def Jam Vendetta, as well as recommended games such as Sim City 4, Rise of Nations and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004.

Now the odd part about this is they had a PSA to encourage parents to monitor what their kids played...But before this they showed examples....C-Span is showing a tape of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas where there is cussing and drive by shootings and the like. Then after that they showed this adult video game where you see real women topless...Now they didn't bleep out the language or pixelate over the nudity on any of this.

....And people are freaking out about Desperate Housewives... I love this country!

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

A mumbler's comments on public speaking...

Went to A RDA Lecture this week regarding the architectural history of Berlin. This was the second of a series of 4 lectures, and while I expected the first lecture to be painfully boring, I was surprised because the speaker actually knew how to talk and while the information he presented could have been boring if placed into the wrong hands, I found it interesting, because of this persons ability to speak to an audience.

No such luck with the second lecture.

This lady could not keep me awake to save either of our lives, and she used so many 10 dollar words (Geomancy, Didactic, Symbiotic, etc, and all in one sentence too!) combined with the fact that she was reading her lecture from what probably was chapter seven of her book in a monotone English accent, and you can see why it was a total snooze-fest.

Ahhhhhh! Why can't the English teach their children how to speak!

Ok, I feel better now.

KPHS- Interior Auditorium

KPHS - Auditorium Entrance

The Good, the bad, and the Ugly...

The Good:

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow...Great movie! Seen it twice! I want toys!

Three Seasons of Due South on DVD...This was a really quirky show that I liked about a Canadian Mountie that came to Chicago to find his father's killer, and teams up with a hard boiled American police officer. It's dramatic, funny, cool and has a really good soundtrack. Great stuff, really looking forward to watching all 42 hours of it.

The magic of TiVo. My new toy. I'll never miss ER and Smallville again.


The Bad:

Pesky Sinus infection and minor stomach problems...Go away!

The Ugly:

Apparently, one of the clients I work for finds the design for the school I am working on ugly...His taste runs towards the 1700's and our school is decidedly more modern than that, so I am ok with him not liking it. Everyone else likes it. I will post a pic soon for y'all to judge.

What Star Wars Character Are You?

http://www.matthewbarr.co.uk/personality/

I am Chewbacca...Loyal to a fault, a little bit hairy.

I have 5 bosses....The Emperor, R2D2 & C3PO, Obi Wan Kenobi and a Jawa.

What to do after falling off the face of the earth...

Well, after working 12+ hour days seven days a week for the last month, we finally got my project at work finished. However, we are going to take more time with it to redesign and make it the smaller school (thanks, school board.)

Anyhow, between the family coming to town, and working like a dog, I seem to have fallen off the face of the earth where my friends are concerned...It's a pretty odd experience, catching up with people that you used to talk to a lot, but it is very nice also in the way that you find out people actually care about you.

I had an Uncle who was one of my heroes growing up...He introduced me to comic books and drawing at an early age. He was quite the literary and artistic talent, but also a major recluse and introvert, to the point where he never left the town he lived in, didn't ever learn to drive a car and was generally uncomfortable with change. I was thinking today, that if he had some better friends, he wouldn't have died alone in a VA hospital.

Things like that make me realize I need to get out more, and will definitely take the time to reconnect with my friends, or I will lose them.

The Only Thing Constant is Change...

As usual work has been taking over my life again of late...I did actually take a weekend off from work a few weeks ago and went up to PA for a family reunion...Now, I hadn't seen these folk in 15 years and some I had never met, and it was nice to find out these people are pretty cool.

We had one of my co-workers quit this week, which will mean more work for the rest of us, and my neighbor is moving away, so I will have new neighbors on the 15th... My work project is expected to morph into a smaller school next week. I have also noticed people have been treating me as older lately, eg. not getting carded in bars, people calling you sir, etc. I don't even have the respectable haircut thing going or anything which is why I find that weird.

Lots of changes...But that's what keeps life interesting, I suppose.

work work work work...

I have been working a lot this week. My boss had a family emergency this week and so I was doing a large chunk of his job for him, plus doing my own. I realized I had actually worked over 80 hours last week as a result.

All of this is unpaid overtime...It supposedly factors into our bonus at the end of the year and we are allowed comp time, but I don't think they would let me take the supposed 8 weeks of comp time I have accumulated.

As for the bonuses, If you figure overtime at time and a half, then I am getting maybe 1/3 of that as a bonus...It's not bad to get at one time, but still, sometimes I feel that I am being taken advantage of because of my work ethic. True, I do have more freedom and responsibility because of it, but that means more work...A double edged sword, you can say.

The Celebrity Intelligence Index...
 
I was talking to a friend of mine last night before a screening of The Bourne Supremacy (good movie!)  and we were talking about reality television and how stupid most of the people are on it eg. Jessica Simpson and Anna Nicole Smith, which led into a conversation about smart vs. dumb celebrities.
 
It seems to me that actors are either real dumb or real smart with nothing in between. Occasionally you will see an actor or actress who seems like a regular person of normal intelligence, but not so often.
 
As a result I figured we could use a scale for intelligence...Anna Nicole being the lowest and Stephen Hawking being the highest. Jennifer Connely, Morgan Freeman and Mel GIbson are in the middle high end, Jessica Simpson is one above Anna, and Keannu Reeves, Jennifer Garner, Ben Affleck, and  Gillian Anderson are in the middle to low side end.

Personally, I figure I am somewhere between Quentin Tarantino and Morgan Freeman.

 

The "Family" is in town...
 
The last few weeks have been exhausting...My older, shorter brothers have been in town and one with their wife and two small chillun's, one 4 and one a newly mobile 9 months.
 
Now being the rebel and a loner that I am, while I enjoy seeing everybody, I am always amazed how LOUD it is when the Italian-Irish (McWop, as I refer to it) mix that is everyone is together, and then combine that with my brother's friends coming over and bringing their little extensions of their own DNA and well, it gets a little frazzled. I am going to a family reunion for my mom's side in August, so I guess this was practice for it.
 
Add to the mix a work deadline that required me to work 32 hours of unpaid overtime, and I am starting to need a real serious nap!
 
Still, It was fun. The All-Star game was here this week, so we went and sat outside during the home run derby watching people run to get home run balls that went over the back wall at Minute Maid Park. 
 
My brother's son learned a valuable lesson when the old people say "Don't mess with the Psychotic Cat" But he got to play with my toys, so I rate as the cool uncle.
 
My niece (who some people stupidly made me her godfather) finally stopped crying when I would pick her up. And I found out that babies are really fun to mess with psychologically. Kind of like smart dogs, actually.
 
...So when am I going to start my own family? Not for a while I think.

On Socializing with the Bosses...

Every once in a while our office goes for an "official" office happy hour. The reason for this is twofold:

1. It gives the employees a chance to relax and unwind and relax after a stressful day.

2. It lets us employees find out what the upper level people really think about us.

Seriously, we have a young (a few years older than myself) "associate", who whenever you get a beer in him, his tongue really loosens up, and you can ask him anything...For instance I am known by the higher ups as "the Union Rep" and "Superman", because I am always making sure all of the people I work with and who work for me are doing ok.

Its quite the valuable resource this happy hour thing...Much power happens here huuurrM? (Imagine Yoda saying that last part)

The other thing I found out is that not wearing a white dress shirt and keeping your hair longish translates into "being a non conformist who doesn't completely embrace the company line" during a performance review.

...Personally, I think all the old bald white guys are just jealous...

FREEDOM!

USA...USA...USA!


I love this country...It's the only place in the world where:

... People can be shocked by Bill Cosby telling it like it is

...Kobe can be flown from Colorado to LA to play in the NBA Playoffs, and Robert Downey Jr. can be let out of jail for an acting job.

...A documentary about the evils of the Bush administration can be the number one film of the week, while his standing in the polls is as high as ever.

...Where you can have Bill Riley and Al Franken fight over the use of a phrase.

...A former President can write a book admitting his affairs with white trash women in the oval office.

...Our current President who pronounces the word "tyranny", "tie-ran-ee"

...A cable network called music television does not play music.

I know it seems like I am bitter and cranky about these things, but I actually think it shows that this country is a tolerant albeit sometime misguided place. Freedom of Speech, and Religion, and sometimes the freedom to act like an idiot and be forgiven. I have a lot of foreign friends due to my days in grad school, and I always am surprised how much I have in common with them in the belief in the American Ideal, which for me was derived from too many Superman and Captain America comic books, but for them it is a true dream to come over here and through personal trial and effort, be successful.

I believe this dream is what makes America great, to have the opportunity to succeed, regardless of education, gender, creed or geek hobby you may have.

The inscription on the Statue Of Liberty Reads:

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses
yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your
teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed,
to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

— Emma Lazarus, 1883, written to help raise funds for construction of the pedestal.

Maybe Americans shouldn't get their freedoms automatically and have to work for it like immigrants.


By the way....Spider-Man 2 was awesome!

SMASHCAR!

So, I built a sandcastle a couple of weekends ago....

Ever wonder what happens when you get a whole buncha architects and unleash them on a large quantity of sand on a beach? The result is the annual Sandcastle competition.


This was our first year and of course we didn't win, but we had fun. It's always funny to go out on a beach and see a whole bunch of pale workaholic people try to actually construct things instead of just draw them. Combine that with a material that isn't all that structually sound and copius amounts of alcohol and having to get up real damn early and hilarity ensues.

here is the link for the winner folks...

http://www.aiasandcastle.com

Memorial Day...

Today is the day we are supposed to honor and remember the men and women of the U.S.A. who have fought to keep our freedoms intact. I have nothing but the utmost respect for those people.

However, I do worry about our freedoms...In a post 9/11 world we are slowly finding our freedoms eroding.

We have the patriot act.

There is talk of re-instituting the draft. I think this is completely wrong because I think one of the reasons our armed forces are so great is because everybody who is there has chosen to be there.

Censorship is more prevalent than ever. Look at Michael Moore's movie, The Nightline reading of the war dead was censored in a few major markets, The FCC coming down on people like Howard Stern (who I don't find funny, but I think he should be allowed to say what he thinks) Tim Robbins' univiting to the baseball hall of fame, because they were worried he would say something political.

It seems to me that Freedom of Speech is less free than ever. I agree with Voltaire, I may not like what you say, but by god, I think you should have the right to be allowed to say it. That's one of the things that makes this country great.

I realize that we have to be cautious and vigilant, however that does not mean we have to be restrictive.

This is from FDR's speech to congress on Jan 16, 1941

"The nation takes great satisfaction and much strength from
the things which have been done to make its people conscious
of their individual stake in the preservation of democratic
life in America. Those things have toughened the fiber of
our people, have renewed their faith and strengthened their
devotion to the institutions we make ready to protect.
Certainly this is no time for any of us to stop thinking
about the social and economic problems which are the root
cause of the social revolution which is today a supreme
factor in the world. For there is nothing mysterious about
the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy.

The basic things expected by our people of their political
and economic systems are simple. They are :
Equality of opportunity for youth and for others.
Jobs for those who can work.
Security for those who need it.
The ending of special privilege for the few.
The preservation of civil liberties for all.
The enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a
wider and constantly rising standard of living.
These are the simple, the basic things that must never be
lost sight of in the turmoil and unbelievable complexity of
our modern world. The inner and abiding straight of our
economic and political systems is dependent upon the degree
to which they fulfill these expectations. "

On self improvement...

I have never been one to gain weight or have to watch what I eat. Until Now....Ahhhhh!

At 32 years of age the body metabolism is finally starting to slow just a bit, and Not to mention going from biking 3 times a week to once or twice a month and eating TV dinners and take out (not to mention that I only eat mostly meat and potatoes and a little bit of what are lovingly referred to as the "Hamburger Vegetables") drinking a little beer and a lot of margaritas, and being one crappy ass cook, who can only make things with large quantities of starches and proteins and it gets the always skinny kid....

...Yes Virginia, Slim Jim has gained a few pounds.

I'm starting to notice a little bit of a gut...Not a large one mind you, but just enough to make me start to do something about it...Let the sit-ups commence (ugh, grunt, ouch!)

D'oh!

On Cats and Comics...

been a while I know, but I have been busy at work...Been doing 10-12 hour days and Saturdays a lot as well. People tell me I work too hard, but they don't offer solutions on how to stop the madness.

Things are ok though...Pets are fine, $ is coming in, been given lost of 'sponsibility at work...Hence the long hours.

The only bummer thing was my friendly neighborhood comic book store closed down without warning...And let me tell ya, for a comic junkie like myself, it's the equivalent of having to find a new connection, a new dealer, literally.

now here's the deal, there are two kinds of comic book stores:

1. The typical dark and dank place that is operated by guys that look exactly or are worse off than Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons (at least he got some from Mrs. Krabappel) Where it is a maze of boxes and shelves and you never know what you are going to find and...

2. The well-lit, friendly family style store. Usually a minorly successful chain. Clerks are courteous and nice, genuinely concerned to help you.

Personally, I prefer the former....It's kind of why some people prefer cats to dogs...A dog will love you no matter what, but it takes a special type of person to have cats love you. If the more surly comic book store likes you, you have accomplished more.

Maybe that's why I prefer my psychotic cats.

Got a "new" Computer...

The beauty of having friends in the IT biz... A friend of mine goes and upgrades his computer (to the typical god-machine that I can only dream of...He has 3 19" flatscreen monitors linked together...Awesome!) and asks me if he wants pieces to his old system, well of course you say yes!

So, while I may not have a system that is reserved for the IT gods (I do have that at work, though) , I at least have one that might be afforded to a lesser diety, maybe a house spirit, or a minor saint, depending on the belief system.

and besides anytime your own personal tech moves up in the food chain...it is good.

Work is not much different than this either...they are moving me up the food chain from "CAD Monkey" and have given me "CAD Chimp" by giving me management duties,and are testing to see how I will perform. I suppose eventually they will make me a real human boy.

Sorry...I read Planet of the Apes recently by Pierre Boulle. I have been slowly working my way through classic sci fi novels of late, Including Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow, which I highly recommend. Working on some John Carter of Mars right now.

BTW, Go see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind....weird ass movie, but an interesting look at the nature of memory...really cool!

Life's Like a movie...

Had a surreal experience tonight...I pulled into this gas station and the loudspeakers were playing a static-free version of Fallen, by Sarah McLachlan.

What was so strange about it was that it started just as I hit the start button for the pump. As the song was playing, I felt like I was in some kind of movie with that song on the soundtrack.

The song ended right as I finished pulling the receipt out of the credit card device at the pump...Silence as I drove away.

Saturday Night at the Movies...

Saw Mel Gibson's The Passion of The Christ last night and had a few thoughts...


Things I liked...

Pilate being shown as a man who made a hard choice, and was conflicted about what he had to do to keep the political climate sturdy.

The portrayal of Peter was very well done, and I liked the scene where Jesus heals the ear that Peter cut off, how the soldier was simply awestruck by what happened was done very well.

Judas wasn't portrayed as a completely evil person, he was just weak. Somebody had to betray Jesus to fulfill the prediction, it just happened to be him.

However...

While I do agree that it does show a lot about sacrifice and devotion, I thought the Satan angle was played up a bit much...I don't really think Satan had all that much to do with the killing of Jesus, I think us humans are given the free will to be good and evil and in that particular case we chose evil. I've always though the story of Jesus being tempted by Satan in the desert was more for Jesus to understand what he could do, but to confirm to himself that he shouldn't do it the way Lucifer said. There is an interesting interpretation of this in Anne Rice's Book, Memnoch, The Devil, In which the story is told from the other side of the coin.

Lucifer, as a fallen angel, was simply jealous of God's love for man. After he was cast down, he could have argued for forgiveness but I tend to believe that he was asked to stay in Hell in order to help people's souls forgive themselves for their sins before they can ask God for forgiveness. Not your conventional Catholic belief, I guess.

Also, where was Joseph in the movie? Maybe I am missing something, but I could have sworn that Joseph was also there when Jesus died. It would have been nice to include a flashback with him as well, perhaps, showing him carpentry skills or something. I always thought he got the short end of the stick, He did help raise Jesus, so he had to have an impact on the man he became.

(I have been informed that since I posted this, that Joseph, Jesus' stepdad, was dead at this time...the Joseph I was thinking of was Joeseph of Aramatheia, who gave Jesus' his tomb to be buried in.)

Also, they never named the guy who carried the cross for Jesus, I think he is named in the Bible, but I can't remember.

(His name is Simon.)

The other interesting thing is I saw this with a good friend of mine, someone who barely believes in a god, let alone Catholic. I was curious to his reaction to the whole thing. I had to answer a lot of questions about certain points of the story and fill in a lot of the gaps for him. I wonder if they had started the movie earlier in Jesus' life instead of starting with his arrest it would have been clearer to him. I also wish they had showed more of what happened after he rose, even though I thought the last shot in the film was effective, I think there could have been more to resolve the story.

The other thing that he said which was interesting, was that if you completely remove all of the religion element from the story, this is pretty much a movie saying that torture and crucifixion is a pretty nasty way to die. I agree with him on that. There didn't seem to be much in the way of hope, and I think the flashbacks were intended to convey that, but there were not enough of them or they were not done effectively enough in some places to convey the proper message.

Overall, I did think it was worth seeing and if you can stomach the gallons and gallons of bloodiness (think Braveheart in Jerusalem), I would recommend it, but I think it probably wouldn't hurt to reread the gospel before doing so.

Politics, politics, etc...

So Senator John Kerry came to town today looking for $$ in order to topple our ever lovin' Georgie Jr. from his office.

here's the deal....You have a rich guy (his wife is the heir to somebody's major corporation, I can't remember what at the moment) 'ole school politician.

Vs. G.W. "Proof that you can be a C- student and still become POTUS" who is the son of another rich guy who used to be president.

They also both wear blue suits and red ties and have the same facial shape and sort of confused look on their face.



....Looks like I'm voting for Kodos this year...

On being an adult...

I was at my friendly neighborhood comic book store the other day (yes, ladies, he's one of those guys) and we started talking about how the Gen Xers haven't really got over being kids. We still like our Sci-Fi/ Fantasy movies and our playstation 2's. Not to mention all those great cartoons.

Personally, Justice League is my favorite...Hawkgirl cracks me up! Eyah!

Anyway, my own personal theory about this is we are the first generation of American Youth to never have gone to fight in a war. No World War I or II, No Korea, No Vietnam. Sure we had a little bit of Grenada, & Desert Storm, but those were over in what, a week? We also are the first generation to not have the draft.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm glad I never had to join the military, but I'm glad some people did, so I don't have to. I have nothing but respect for those people.

But you can't argue that Military service forces maturity, to put away childish things and all that, and not having that, our generation still holds to the childish ways of the PS2.

So while I still read my comics and play with my toys, I am also having to learn how to be an adult in the business world and figure out how to do things like buy a home without much of an instruction manual.

Wouldn't it be great if you turned 25 and they gave you a book called "How to be an adult"? It was have all sorts of that info that you usually have to stupidly ask your dad about...Fantastic!

Oh Well.....Back to the Cartoons...Futurama is on!

Super Bowl Sunday and Birthdays....

Like most every other American last weekend, I watched the Super Bowl...I'm not a serious football fan at all, in fact, I really don't care for the sport. Probably those formative years being messed with by the jocks...Course I could outrun them, because I was on the Cross Country Team.

...Anyhoo, the game actually was decent after the first 1/2 hour or so...But the thing that amazes me is this...NO ONE I KNOW HAS TALKED ABOUT THE ACTUAL CONTENT OF THE GAME! It has all been about Janet's Titty! Now she has been banned from the Grammys, while little innocent bastard Justin gets off scot-free...God bless America!

I feel Bad for the New England Patriots...They won a Super Bowl and nobody gives a $*!+. Congrats to y'all guys.

The other odd thing was the Game was here in my 'ol hometown. The majorly impressive thing is that it got people out into the streets downtown, over 200,000 people came out to see what all the fuss was about. There were also a severely limited number of arrests and injuries (under 50).

We just got this new light rail line, and people actually used it!

Traffic was only slightly more of a nightmare than it usually is!

....Yes Virginia, it's a Super Bowl Miracle.

Also my Pop's B-day was this week on Groundhog Day...We had him immortalized on the Wall of honor at the new Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C....He is a former rocket scientist.

Really, he is.

My older brother's was the week before...He claims he's only two years instead of 5 years older than me...Weird.

I was buying some toys yesterday....

I love toys...FAO Schwarz is going out of business in my area, and my office is quite nearby, so...

...Let's just say that damage was done to Mr. Visa Card.

Aneey-how, that got me to thinking about the concept of money. We exchange our skills, time and hard labor for a piece of paper with a number on it. We then take it to another place where we store it and maybe get some green pieces of paper to go and give to other people to get actual stuff. Or we give them a piece of plastic and then they look at it and record the numbers and give it back with the stuff.

It's quite the strange ritual when you think about it...I was thinking how this would look to Aliens or something of the sort:

"Well Zorblak, these fleshy things with the small eyes and the fur on their heads seem to exchange worthless pieces of paper for stuff."

"Why do they do that Greeblix?"

"I have absolutely no idea, Zorblak."

It's gotta go something like that.

I actually read a book the other day...

Yes, kids! An actual honest to god book...Not a "graphic novel" or anything with pictures in it.

Actually, I do it more often than I joke about, but I digress.

The book was called American Gods, By Neil Gaiman (who used to write a comic book called Sandman, Go fig) anyhow, It had this idea that Gods walk the earth with us, and they gain their power from the belief of people. Now the thing is, when people from overseas came to America, they brought these gods with them, and as such, America is full of gods from Everywhere...Europe, Egypt, Russia, Etc...Plus We have all of our native gods. To top it off all these old gods are fighting with the new gods of America, which are Technology, Media, Television, Etc.

Interesting read....And if you're not embarrassed to be seen reading a comic book, check out Sandman...Way cool stuff.

A New Year is upon us...

Man, I can't believe I have actually survived until 2004...Where are those dang flyin' cars they promised us anyway?

Last year was a good year, albeit a very quick one. I heard yesterday that they didn't have to add that leap second to the atomic clock this year because apparently the earth is spinning just that much faster. Maybe that has something to do with it, I dunno.

I got a niece this year...Got put sort of in charge of a big project for my office (haven't screwed it up too much yet)...Still have all the same friends, even though I don't see them as often as I like...Got a new cat...Got a calmer version of the old cat as a result...Went to two weddings and no funerals...Saw more good movies than bad movies...Went on a couple of trips...Got a raise...The truck is still intact (knock on wood)...Read a bunch of comics...Started learning how to drink... Drove someone home who was too drunk to drive...Got some cool toys and DVD's...& have started trying to get out more.

Anyhow, life's pretty good...Hope everyone else will have a happy 2004!