These Are My Pecs, or the Latest Hit in the Cinema - Troy

I went with one of my good friends to see the movie Troy yesterday. There really wasn't anything else worth seeing in the theatre and I am a big fan of history. Also, I wanted to see just how good a movie with an Aryan looking actor with long, blonde, Barbie like hair who is supposed to be Greek could be. Surprisingly, Brad Pitt wasn't bad.

Orlando Bloom annoyed the hell out of me in this film. He's such a delicate looking man, he almost looks like a pretty girl. He played the director's vision of Paris perfectly. What really made me laugh were the posts in the forums on IMDb. My favorite was, "Is Helen a lesbian or pedophile?" Seriously, Bloom was almost as pretty as she was.

While not being the greatest film, Troy was still rather fun to watch. I agree with the director's decision to remove the Greek gods from the movie but it was rather sad to see him take the liberty of rewriting mythology to make the story more dramatic. For example, killing some characters who didn't die in the Iliad, omitting other characters, and making the Trojan war seem as thought it lasted a few days as opposed to the ten years it was to have raged. Eric Bana was also quite good as Hector. I'd say give it a look.

What is more interesting is that Morrissey has released a new album. I am not a big fan of his or the Smiths for that matter, but the first single of his new album is Irish Blood, English heart. If any of you are familiar with the story between the English and the Irish then you can understand just how powerful the song of an Irish-Englishman with torn allegiances can be.

I've been dreaming of a time when
To be English is not to be baneful
To be standing by the flag, not feeling shameful,
Racist, or partial

This is an amazing song. Give it a listen.

Alligators, Snakes, Scorpions, Cockroaches, and Fire Ants or Things You'll Find In Florida Everyday

My friend contacted me to tell me of something horrific that happened to him. He was studying at his desk when he felt something crawling on his leg. Now, my friend lives in a new, very upscale apartment community in the Orlando area. He brushed off what was on his leg and caught a quick glimpse of it. What he saw horrified him. He ran and got a can of Raid and the hunt was on. Having armed himself, he frantically knocked things over while he scrambled to find it. With the prey in his sights, he opened fire and the beast was done. My friend had killed a scorpion.

Being unaccustomed to scorpions crawling on him or sharing his home with them, he began to search the Internet to see what kind of scorpion it was. He determined it to be a Florida Wood Scorpion and took its corpse to his rental office to explain that he had an infestation of the gravest kind. They did not seem very shocked at the office and informed him that the beast was not poisonous. That did very little to ease his mind, nor mine. I informed him that for all of my future visits, I would be staying at his girlfriend's place where the overwhelming amounts of estrogenical toxicity caused by said girlfriend and her gang of roommates would prove most inhospitable to scorpions and any other such creatures. Potpourri and other accoutrements, I sincerely hope, should prove lethal.

Yes, sunny Florida, the place that people in colder climes dream of escaping to. What people do not realize of this supposed paradise is that there are mosquitoes, fire ants, alligators, criminals, rednecks, boat people, snakes, and now scorpions in abundance down here. Behind my house there is a lake. Every year you'd see ducks and their hatchlings swimming in the lake. Every week there would be however many less ducklings swimming behind their parents. Sometimes there'd be a missing parent. Do you know why? Alligators would eat them. How do I know? Because walking on the shore of the lake you'd see ducks that had been bitten in half. In Florida you hear of dogs and little children walking up to a water body and an alligator grabbing them for a tasty treat. It's tragic, but not uncommon here.

The alligators use the sewer pipes as a highway system to end up in all different parts of town. One time at work, an office wide email went out warning us to be careful in the parking lot as gators had been spotted. I thought it was a joke until the following day when a poster had been set up near the office entrance showing deputies posing with the alligators captured in the office parking lot. It just goes to show that you don't have to be in the wilderness to be Crocodile Dundee here in Florida.

I need to escape this place and either return North or back across the ocean. I do not like he beach. I do not like the heat. I do not like sweating. I do not need alligators, scorpions, snakes, and fire ants. I am not Indiana Jones!

Reflections On The Death Of Bill

Months after seeing the first installment and after reading all the hoopla, I finally made my way to the theatre and saw the supposed last part of Kill Bill, Quentin Tarantino's "masterpiece." Tarantino, or QT as his disciples call him, is being praised as a genius by both his fanboys and actors alike. I do not fully agree with that.

The second installment of Kill Bill is quite different from the first. Sure, the Bride is still after Bill to exact her revenge, it's the pace that is different. The first one moved along at such a frenetic pace that it was as if the Bride was attacking your senses along with the people who wronged her. It was like a comic book come to life.

The second installment was much more focused and character driven. We were shown and told that Bill was quite bad. In the second installment, we get to see Bill as a man and a father. We learn that while he is a cold blooded killer, he does have a softer side. Watching him make his daughter a sandwich and cutting the crusts off was a very good scene.

The characters I particularly enjoyed in the second half were Pai Mei and Elle, Darryl Hannah's character. You get to see how Elle lost her eye. It's amazing looking at the variety of roles she has played in her career and this one is my favorite. She was able to be so evil, tough, and sexy with such little effort. Her character has set a standard for villainesses in film. She would have been perfect in a Bond film. I like Pai Mei as the grumpy but undeniably wise martial arts instructor. I like his temper, insults, and taunts. The way he would stroke his beard was quite funny.

The development of Bill and his portrayal by David Carradine were superb. You see that he really did love the Bride and one of the reasons he shot her and had everyone at the wedding killed was because she did in fact betray him. When she finally does exact her revenge on Bill, it was one of the greatest death scenes ever. Never has someone met the Grim Reaper in a manlier fashion.

While I liked these elements of the film, it is still not the greatest movie of all time. I was reading that a test audience in Austin gave the film a five minute standing ovation. I have to say that's overstating the magnitude of the quality of this film by leaps and bounds. I would give this movie 4 out of five stars. It was entertaining but didn't have you cheering for the hero or even really hoping that she would succeed. I kind of sympathized with Bill, she did break his heart and ran off with his baby. After all, is that not a valid reason for revenge?

Donald Trump Fired

There's nothing wrong with being fired on The Apprentice. As a contestant, you have lived in a veritable palace, been mentored by Donald Trump, and had wonderful exposure to a world full of business people that can quite possibly lead to other opportunities. The thing is that if you fire someone for a foolish reason it only illustrates how meaningless and hollow both you and your hit show are.

I just got done watching one of my favorite shows, The Apprentice. The competition is winding down and tonight's episode had the final five contestants battling it out by renting a unit in one of Trump's buildings for the highest amount. There can only be one winner and the losing team had to go to the infamous boardroom.

The project manager of the losing team was Troy, a very affable Southern boy who has led plenty of teams to the promised land. Troy handed Trump a copy of the letter he had sent to the Donald when he graduated from high school. Troy never went to college and his education in the world of business partly came from Trump's classic book, The Art of the Deal. He picked his best friend on the show, Kwame, to go to the boardroom and sent a solid competitor, Bill, back to the suite.

Trump was faced with the dilemma of who to fire. While Troy had been a wonderful leader, he was also a bit of a maverick with his decisions. Kwame never really took a leadership position, even when he was project manager. Trump had asked all three contestants about their education. Troy only has a high school education, Bill has a Bachelor's degree from a good university, and Kwame has an MBA from Harvard.

Trump ended up firing Troy because his company does multi-billion dollar business with corporations all over the world. He felt that Troy's education would be a liability in this area. To me, this was very telling of what a joke this show is.

If Troy's education, something that had been known before he was picked as a contestant on the show, was the deciding factor in him getting fired, that's CRAP. If this is indeed the case, why was Troy even a contestant on the show? By Trump's rationale, Troy never had a chance to win and that is not fair.

One of the annoying things about this show is what an incredible self-promoter Trump is. Everything he does is the "World's Greatest." He has the world's greatest bottled water, golf course, apartment, apartment buildings, casinos, and most definitely, the world's greatest bad haircut. After what the world got to witness on tonight's episode, Trump's show is now the world's greatest sham.

David Letterman Sucks

My new sleep schedule doesn't really allow for me to stay up late during the week. I no longer watch the late night talk shows but I made an exception to see Janet Jackson's appearance on Letterman. It was, after all, her first public appearance since the Super Bowl debacle.

I am not a really big fan of Ms. Jackson's music but she has a certain warmth about her and is definitely easy on the eyes. She was wearing an interesting red dress with a giant belt buckle that showed off her incredible figure. Everything was set to be an incredible show. I couldn't be more wrong.

Janet sat there with her beautiful smile and Dave right away launched into the Super Bowl flash. You could see that Ms. Jackson was not comfortable with talking about it and even said so. However, Dave kept going on and on with the questions even thought she politely asked him to talk about something else and stated that she didn't want to relive that day. But Dave persisted in pestering her and it got to be painful to watch.

Even though Letterman, formerly my favorite talk show host until the suckage started about three years ago, tried to make light of the situation with some jokes, they all failed and he made himself look like an ass. One thing that I witnessed from this on-air punishment was that Janet Jackson is very gracious. Even though she may have been furious that Dave was doing this to her, she didn't show it and didn't create any opportunities to make herself look bad. I commend her on how she handled the situation. Dave really made himself look like an ass.

I cannot explain what happened to the comedic talent that Dave Letterman used to have. I'll never forget classic showdowns like the ones between Dave and Sharon Stone or his on-air battles with Madonna. When someone watched episodes like these, you saw a true master at work. Now Dave has been reduced to that unfunny relative whose jokes you laugh at for the sake of being polite. I can only wonder how much longer his show will be on the air. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

'Til Death Do Us Part or The Government Steps In And Forbids It

The really big headline in America right now is same sex marriage. The mayor of San Francisco feels that the California constitution doesn't say that same sex people cannot marry and people have lined up to get hitched. Governor Schwarzenegger has ordered the bureaucrats to stop immediately, but they refuse and are awaiting a judge's decision.

Many people, especially Republicans, are against the idea of same sex marriages. Currently, San Francisco and the states of Massachusetts and New Mexico are the only places in America that allow gay marriage. The president has just recently announced that he would back a gay marriage ban.

What is so wrong with gays marrying? Are heterosexuals inherently better suited to make marriage work? With divorce rates in this country currently at 60%, it certainly doesn't seem so.

When we look at the history of gay men in this country, gay marriage is a win-win situation. While I was studying for my first degree, in psychology, I was exposed to all manner of statistics. A recent international sex survey revealed that jewish men had the highest average number of sex partners over the course of a lifetime at nine. A study on the sexual habits of homosexual males revealed that a gay American male has an average of about 350 partners over the course of his lifetime. When you look at how AIDS exploded in the gay community and was originally considered a gay only disease before it spread to the heterosexual community through bisexuals, aren't these people being in monogamous relationships something that society would want?

Forward thinking countries such as France and Sweden have allowed same sex marriage for some time. There is no real justification for denying the homsexual community the right to marry and limit them to life partnerships. They should be entitled to all the benefits of marriage as they are tax paying, red blooded Americans just like everyone else. All eyes are turned to the election to see what exactly will come about in more ways than one.

Pop Songs - The Work Of The Devil?

I was watching something on MTV and they played a Missy Elliott song in the background. It was unmistakably Missy as the song had her rather distinctive voicing and that oh so catchy beat. "Pass That Dutch" burrowed its way into my brain and the song almost immediately became a part of the music collection.

How often have we come across songs of this type? You know what I'm talking about. Those songs that even if you absolutely hate them, you find yourself humming or singing them and hating yourself in the process. I decided to scour the music collection and find other songs of the same vein. The results were actually quite shocking.

Missy Elliott - Pass That Dutch
Kylie Minogue - Can't Get You Out of My Head
Kelis feat. Pharrell - Milkshake
Venga Boys - We Like to Party
Basement Jaxx - Where's Your Head At
K7 - Come Baby Come
Len - Steal My Sunshine
Nelly - Hot In Herre
Pixies - Here Comes Your Man
Raveonettes - That Great Love Sound
Sean Paul - Get Busy
Sisqo - Thong Song
Soft Cell - Tainted Love
Tegan And Sara - Monday Monday Monday

Now these songs are not listed in any particular order, as they are all equally powerful and deadly. There are far more to be found in the CD collection. The reason this list is so shocking and further evidence that I indeed got it right - the playlist size weighed in at 666 bytes. You make the call.