Samurai sword deal!

I was just looking at samurai swords, and there a great deal on a set at amazon.  I won't be able to purchase this, but, if you're looking for samurai sword set, this is a pretty sweet deal.  The set is about $70 cheaper than usual and only 4 are left. 

Kettlebell or Girya, The Name Doesn't Matter

It's a fairly simple weight.  It's made out of cast iron, and it is basically a cannonball with handle.  The kettlebell or girya is not only a weight but a form of exercise.  You can do practically anything with them including cleans, snatches, lunges, bench and shoulder presses, squats, swings, and curls.  They also increase grip strength and endurance.  If you're wondering about their effectiveness, well, I heard a story about kettlebells being used to get soldiers into shape.  The weight was so effective that nothing else was used to accomplish this.  Now, this seems unlikely, but it's a great story. 

Kettlebells are also great for workouts.  Kettlebell workouts are more aerobic than traditional weight lifting workouts.  These workouts are closer to a high intensity circuit training.  One study even found a 20 minute snatch workout with kettlebells burned as many calories as running for that 20 minutes at a six minute per mile pace.  However, it should be noted that these workouts are to be done with caution.  Linked at the bottom of the page are videos that show proper techinque.  

Dumbbells are nice, but they can be unwieldy.  Kettlebells are comfortable.  The handles are actually smooth and don't beat up your hands as much as other weights.  They're easy to handle and easy to store.  The price is comparable to dumbbells, and the range is similar: 15lbs to 70lbs.   Honestly, considering their versatility, a few kettlebells can be just as good as a complete gym.  That sounds like hyperbole, but I'm sticking by it. 



Workout instructional:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkXw9hB0Zpo

Back to the Future and a Sequel Parody

When there's something strange and it don't look good, who gonna callllll?  Ghost...no wait.  That's not the right movie.  The movie I'm thinking about involved time travel and Delorean.  It followed the wacky adventures of Marty McFly and Doc Brown as they routinely fucked with time.  They messed everything up, and, then, they had to fix it.  For some reason, a fairly formulaic story resulted in a great movie.  There were some blaring questions. 

Why was Marty the assistant to a genius inventor when he seemed to only really care about being a musician? 

Well, there is an obvious reason for this.  Doc met in 1955 and made sure to hook up with him in the early '80s. Why?  Because Marty would have to give him the letter that saves his life.  This, however, leads to the first and real question.

How did Marty originally become Doc's assistant?  

We don't know. He may have just been able to operate a video camera.  It have been that simple.  There are other possibilities as well, and this is where my parody comes into play.  Honestly, I wasn't satisfied with the three original movies.  They were good, but I wanted more.  So, I created more, another adventure for them. 

What's the story this time?

Well, the characters had to be renamed slightly to Farty and Dr. Poop (childish, I know, but funny none the less).  In 2013, Farty is down on his luck family man working as the mail boy at an office.  That is, until Doc comes back and strongly suggests that they travel across the country to Washington, D. C., so Doc can go back in time to meet his future wife.  Doc chooses an important date in history to do this, April 14, 1865.  From there, everything goes to hell, and they have to put the pieces back together again.  If you'd like to read the story, it's available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble as e-books.  A paperback copy is currently being produced.  A link to Amazon is below. 



 

  

Watchmen: Comic vs. Film

"Who watches the Watchmen?"  Apparently, a lot of people do.  When a movie was finally announced after 20 years of developmental hell, I was excited.  I was a bit leery about Zack Snyder being at the helm, but I thought it could be awesome.  I am a huge fan of the graphic novel by Alan Moore, so much so that I read it about twice a year and own multiple copies (so I can borrow them to people).  When the movie came out, I was there opening night.  The first half was a pleasant surprise.  It had been shot beautifully, and the story was close to the comic albeit less nuanced.  This was forgivable, even understandable. Fitting 12 dense issues into a 2.5 hour movie was nearly impossible.  Patrick Wilson was nothing short of incredible as Nite Owl II, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan was perfect as the Comedian.  Rorschach was also awesome as was Carla Gucino as Sally Juniper.  Although, from the beginning, I wasn't happy with Malin Akerman as Laurie. I had never found her to be a skilled actress, and this character carries much of the story.  It could even be argued that she's the most important character in the graphic novel.  Then, there was Matthew Goode playing Adrian Veidt in a weird turn.  He had an accent.  Apparently, being born to immigrants means that you have an accent when you speak English.  Who knew? 

There were flaws to be sure but there were flaws with the graphic novel too.  Sometimes, the story could drag a little, and the added bits between issues didn't always add much.  For many, the ending was a disappointment, but I loved the ending.

Other than the flaws already addressed, there were more in the movie.  Laurie's character is reduced to the point of not mattering.  Doctor Manhattan is well endowed when the dude honestly wouldn't give a damn about it.  The nuance is gone, and the violence is ramped up.  It's basically stated that the Comedian and Sally were an item, possibly in love, in the first few minutes.  The violence is bloody and extended when the comic had muted violence (this is important later).  Slow motion was included (a Snyder staple), but it doesn't add anything.  It's a style over substance decision, and, while I get that he must like these kinds of shots, they don't work in this film well. 
 
Then, the ending is completely changed (Thar be SPOILERS ahead).  I actually wouldn't have had a problem with it except that the ending literally makes no sense.  I don't mean that in the "this couldn't happen way".  I mean that the same outcomes would not happen at all.  Adrian bombs cities and blames Dr. Manhattan.  The other heroes discover this, but they all agree to stay mum except for one.  Now, the comic makes it appear as an alien threat which has attacked us.   It works because the threat feels real, and it is unknown.  It also has an emotional impact when bloody bodies are strewn everywhere.  It's first encounter not only kills three million people, but it also leaves people mentally distraught for years to come.  In the movie, as previously stated, a bunch of cities blow up, and they blame Dr. Manhattan.  So why doesn't this work?  Well, Dr. Manhattan is a known entity, and, seemingly, he left Earth, for good.  Unless Doc wants to hang around and terrorize people, this is rather pointless.  Secondly, he worked for the US.  The Soviets are going to be suspicious.  Hell, they might have even launched nukes in response.  The US might also have responded like that since neither knew where these explosions came from.  They're just going to wait around to see if it's something else?  Also, how do they know it has Dr. Manhattan's signature.  In short, this plan is also stupidly risky and doesn't guarantee peace at all.  Lastly, no one has ever been able to stop Dr. Manhattan.  There is literally no defense against him.  The best the world could hope to do is make peace with him, but he's left Earth.  In the comic, the world is on the brink of nuclear disaster.  The only deterrent, Dr. Manhattan, is gone.  When a creature suddenly appears, the world is looking for a solution and looking for peace.  In short, it makes sense whereas the movie just doesn't. Then, to add insult to injury, the film has arguably the most important line of the book said by the now least important character.  "Nothing ever changes."  Laurie says this to Adrian in response to "I did the right thing?", and it immediately removes the power of it.  Having Dr. Manhattan say that line actually means something, and Laurie saying it could have except that she was basically downgraded as a character.  I understand why Snyder didn't want the squid, but the movie ending is a logical catastrophe. 

The Romney Effect: Will Mitt's beliefs hurt his chances to become president?

It seems like a preposterous idea.  There is no way that it can happen.  People don't care about religion anymore or lack their of it.  Right?  Evangelical Christians will happily support a Mormon for president, just like any other Republican.  However, every other past candidate has been a Christian.

In a recent poll conducted by Gallup, they asked respondents if they would vote for candidates of different religious backgrounds.  Atheists scored the lowest with 54% saying that would vote for that candidate, and this was closely followed by Muslims (58% would vote for this well qualified candidate) and being gay or lesbian (68%).  Included in this poll as a choice was also Mormon.  Of the responses, 80% said that they would vote for this candidate including 90% of the Republicans polled.  Now, this poll was published on June 21st of this year (2012), and the polling took place on June 7-10.  So, candidates knew that Romney was their guy.  This could have had some effect on these numbers, but it's hard to know.

Now, this possible bias could skew the results, but there's no way to be certain of this.  Generally, Gallup has excellent polls that are well organized and have been conducted for a long period of time.  The numbers have changed little since 1968.  All of this would suggest that being a Mormon will not hurt Mitt Romney's chances of becoming president, but, with Paul Ryan as his VP, it's also hard to believe that his campaign wasn't, at least, a little bit worried about this.

There is also a somewhat similar real life example of polls not matching up with the outcome due to prejudice.  The primary example is Tom Bradley who ran for governor of California in 1982.  According to the polls, he was ahead going into the election, and, then, he lost the election.  The thing is that Tom Bradley was African American, and this result led to the creation of the theory know as the Bradley Effect.  You see, when respondents were interviewed, they claimed that they were undecided or voting for Bradley due to social desirability bias (telling people what you think they want to hear to appear less prejudiced).  So, people could be saying these things because they feel like they're supposed to, but it may not be the case.  Now, in direct opposition to this idea is the last presidential election where Barack Obama won the election.  Will there be a Romney Effect?  Only time will tell. 

So, you haven't read Give Me Liberty by Frank Miller?

Frank Miller was at the top of his game from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s.  Then, he fell off a little bit, but, before that, he wrote an amazing assortment of comics.  Among his many achievements are The Dark Knight Returns, Batman: Year One, Ronin, and the Sin City series.  However, there is another comic that doesn't really  receive as much attention as the others, and that comic is Give Me Liberty. 

Give Me Liberty revolves around the aptly named Martha Washington who lives in, for lack of a better term, a ghetto for African Americans.  Like most children, she attends school but is just an average student.  She is excelling at computer programming but is just a 13 year old when the story begins.  Martha befriends a teacher who smuggles her goodies from outside the ghetto, and he encourages her computer skills.  That is, until he is murdered by a local thug, and Martha subsequently kills the thug.  This action leads to her being placed in a mental institution until it is suddenly closed down, and she is forced to live on the streeets.  When two men try to recapture her, she kills one and injures the other.  However, with no place to go and a criminal record, she joins the PAX, the new American military armed forces.  Martha is just 14 years old, but the PAX accepts her and clears her record. 

The world has changed significantly by 2009 in this world.  The US has annexed Mexico.  The president has been in office for 13 years, and, during his tenure, over 50 amendments have been added to the constitution.  The US is engaged in multiple wars including a war against fast food companies in South America, and this is where Martha is off to.  This is also where she meets Lieutenant Moretti, who becomes the main antagonist of the story.  The rest of it is a bizarre fun ride, and the ending is especially good.  This is a comic that has to be experienced, and to tell you more about it would be, simply, unfair.  It's a must read, even if you don't like comics. 

So, you haven't heard about Post Secret?

Do you have a secret that you wouldn't disclose to anyone?  Well, you're not the only one.  Every week, Frank Warren receives hundreds, if not thousands, of secrets inscribed on postcards.   Some are funny; others are very serious, and some are weird.  All in all, they're a pleasure to read and fully anonymous.  This blog has been appropriately dubbed PostSecret, and it is the largest ad-free blog in the world with new secrets posted every Sunday.

Frank has expanded the website into a series of books and yearly speaking tours.  I attended one of Frank's speaking engagements, and it was unbelievably fun.  He talks about the creation of PostSecret as an art project and about its explosion into the popular blog that it is today.  His events regularly sell out, and, here, secrets aren't so secret.  People share some of their secrets in front of an audience.  The site is anonymous though, and, if you're interested, the site is simply PostSecret.com.