Looooong Weekend

This was a good one. With the holiday, I took off Thursday and Friday providing a long weekend to rest up and just have fun. That I did! I saw a couple movies, hung out with my brother, took the little one to the vet, took myself to the doctor, bought a laptop, spent time with my wife, did some chores, and on and on. It was great!

Yes, I did purchase the laptop on Friday; however, I do not have it in my posession at this time. It will come in a couple weeks, the university computer store didn't have them in yet. I did get to take home my router and printer though. I have the wireless set up(did that saturday), so we have a network, now. I'll write more once I get the thing and play with it a bit. The wireless setup actually took a lot longer than it should have. The best part is that the "easy to use, quick install" software provided with the router actually screwed things up. So after an unofficial tip from Comcast, I just manually configured the thing and voila, up and running network!

Back to Wednesday, we went over to Chris' house to grill. The dogs came along, and had a blast checking out Chris' apartment. It was obviously in celebration of the nation's birth, but also in celebration of his new job. He'll be guarding prisoners in one of this country's great federal minimum security prisons, that has a hospital. This is actually a good thing, he'll make more money than what he was previously doing, asking you all to take off your shoes, lay your bags flat, and do the hokie pokie as you walk through the metal detector. And, it will be considerably safer than what he was planning on doing which was sign up for a stint with the Guard so he could go to Iraq to defend Merika and her Fredum. But it's a prison you say! Easy now, it's a minimum security hospital prison. The only shanking he really has to worry about is from an 80 year old's dentures. Anyway, had some good food and some good times. Before that, he and I went to go see Transformers! Hell, yeah! Now, there wasn't exactly more than meets the eye here, it pretty much was what I thought it would be...freaking awesome! If you were a fan of the cartoons, you have to go see this. If not, it'll still be fun. They kind of blend all the lore from the TV and feature film versions past, but they don't make up anything dramatically new. Also, the CGI is phenomenal! If I didn't know it was CGI, I'd have been amazed that Michael Bay convinced a studio to build working transformers. It's worth it just to see Optimus for the first time, or the showdown at the end with him and Megatron, or for Bumble Bee's antics, or...well you get the picture.

All of this reliving the childhood really created a yearning for more movies like this. I mean, serioulsy, where the hell is the Thundercats movie? And why hasn't there been a live action GI Joe? Hell, I'd take a She-Ra(I refuse to acknowledge Dolf's He-Man, and plus there's another one on the way). There's clearly a built-in market(anyone born between 1974-1986), and if you make them good enough, even more people. Nostalgia is fun, it reminds us of innocent times, plus that stuff was ten million times more creative and compelling than power rangers or yu-gi-oh. Dude, if you like the Japanese stuff so much, give me a damn Voltron or Robo-Tech live action movie! Do it! I, personally, guarantee a 8-9 figure opening weekend on any true to the orginal live action early 80's cartoon inspired film. Except for Strawberry Short-Cake or My Little Pony, you could do a Gem! though. I'm not gonna say I never watched those cartoons, I just won't vouch for them. Let's be honest, My Little Pony was just an equine Care Bears and I already did my clapping. Oh, no Go-Bots...RIP OFF!!! So who's with me, we'll take a petition to all the studios. You know that you're salivating over a Matrix-esque showdown between Snake-Eyes and Storm Shadow, Liono bustin out with the sword that's 12 feet long on screen, and if you deny the jaw quivering beauty that a Lucas Light and Sound Voltron would be, don't even talk to me!(and apparently it's in the works)

Oh, and I saw a another little movie called SiCKO. Now, I've already sounded off on this one on Josh's Blog, but I thought I'd mention it here. It is an excellent film, in that it sheds light on how much of a problem our broken healthcare system is to everyone, not just those who have had problems with the system. The critics of it are saying a lot of things to try to defend the status quo. My take, the film is anecdotal, Michael Moore is not an objective journalist(he never pretends to be either); the film is an argument that uses specific stories to highlight it's major points. And these stories will stir common feelings in anyone in this country. Whether you've had coverage and lost it, had it and had to jump through hoops, or don't have it and fear for that one "accident, " you'll relate which is pretty much everyone. And if so many people have such strong feelings(mostly fear, anxiety, and stress) related to American Healthcare, who cares if they're prompted by anecdotal evidence, it's still universal sentiment. Now, all large, human systems have problems, and nationlized medicine is no different in other countries. And, Moore definitely is advocating nationalized, government supported healthcare, and I don't know if I agree with him entirely. However, his points about the inherent paradox in profit driven healthcare(i.e. if the insurance companies make more money not providing care then they aren't really in the business of helping people be healthy), the populace controlling effects of a debt/healthcare/labor system, and his focus on the preventative care basis of those "Socialized Healthcare" countries definitely struck a chord with me. And what should really strike a chord with everyone in the USA is how far we fall behind the rest of the "Western" world in infant mortality(beind Cuba), expenditure per capita on healthcare(more than anyone), and average life expectancy(behind Slovenia). If our sytem really is so much better, as politicians on both sides would have you believe, why are we so far behind? Moore also makes a great point about what state guaranteed medecine indicates about a society, that it's into taking care of we, not just me. Just a thought. Josh has some great stuff up on his blog about it, and some great clips from a former British MP who is in the film. Check it out.

That was pretty much my weekend. Not much on the agenda this week, though another movie is coming out. It's about a little boy, you may have heard of it. That'll either be my Friday or Saturday night. Have a great week!

Note: So, apparently every film I suggested here save Jem and Robo-Tech are somewhere on the journey to becoming a full length feature film. But, Thundercats is gonna be fully CGI. However, a lot of this could be internet hoaxes, do the googling to find out.