Xavi Casas World Champion Bike Trial
Xavi Casas is totally awesome! I wish I had a fraction of the skills that he has. They would come in handy getting me across supertechnical mountain bike trails. He reminds me of Hans "No Way!" Rey.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
This past Saturday, I went to Turnbull Canyon in Whittier. This course has fireroads and singletrack. The fireroads provide great scenic views like this one. There's a cool looking Asian building in the background. The singletrack has some nice tough switchbacks and great woodsy descents. Our last singletrack back to our car was like a forest-themed rollercoaster ride. Sweet!
13 Going on 30
Jennifer Garner stars as a 13 year old girl who turns into a 30 year old woman.
This movie is highly derivative of Tom Hanks' Big. It has its charm because of Jennifer's cute personality, but this movie is strictly for chicks. This should be obvious before you even go see the movie.
I watched it with my wife, Sarah, because she likes girly movies. By the way, my movie reviews will probably be a lot shorter from now on because of work responsibilities.
Anyway, this 13 year old girl who wants to be cool wishes to become "thirty, flirty, and thriving". Some wishing dust makes her dream come true.
She is a young teen growing up in the 80's and loves 80's music. After her wish, she instantly goes into the future when she's 30, which is in 2004. She's a successful magazine editor, but everyone hates her because of her ruthless business tactics. She has a hocky star boyfriend, but realizes she loves her childhood friend. She wishes to go back and changes her life. She marries her childhood sweetheart.
This is too feminine for guys to watch.
The Highs: Jennifer Garner is fun to watch in this role. 80's music.
The Lows: Unoriginal. Too girly and childish.
The Verdict: Girl's version of Big.
My rating: C, 75.
This movie is highly derivative of Tom Hanks' Big. It has its charm because of Jennifer's cute personality, but this movie is strictly for chicks. This should be obvious before you even go see the movie.
I watched it with my wife, Sarah, because she likes girly movies. By the way, my movie reviews will probably be a lot shorter from now on because of work responsibilities.
Anyway, this 13 year old girl who wants to be cool wishes to become "thirty, flirty, and thriving". Some wishing dust makes her dream come true.
She is a young teen growing up in the 80's and loves 80's music. After her wish, she instantly goes into the future when she's 30, which is in 2004. She's a successful magazine editor, but everyone hates her because of her ruthless business tactics. She has a hocky star boyfriend, but realizes she loves her childhood friend. She wishes to go back and changes her life. She marries her childhood sweetheart.
This is too feminine for guys to watch.
The Highs: Jennifer Garner is fun to watch in this role. 80's music.
The Lows: Unoriginal. Too girly and childish.
The Verdict: Girl's version of Big.
My rating: C, 75.
Doom
This movie may spell the "doom" for all movies based on videogames.
This movie stars the Rock who leads a group of marines to investigate a series of deaths of scientists on Mars.
In the future, they discover a portal that leads to Mars. I thought that was a cheap way to get out of making spacecraft scenes. Come on! All sci-fi fans love spaceships when you're showing a movie that's set on Mars.
This movie is strictly for the videogame crowd. It's based upon the extremely popular Doom first-person shooter videogames. The older videogamers, like me, may not like it though, because it's highly derivative. I didn't think anything in it was very original.
It's kinda like the movie, Alien.
The funniest line was when The Rock screams out, "I'm not supposed to die!"
The scientists on Mars were conducting experiments on people to add c24, chromosome 24 their DNA. This would make people superhuman. However, people who have bad tendencies would turn into horrible monsters. That's pretty laughable.
The ending turns into a first person videogame. The camera angles are in first person. It's violent like the game, Doom 3. However, I thought scenes like this are best left in videogames. It might have been a ploy to introduce people to first person shooter games, but the overall quality of the movie may turn more people off to games than introduce people to them.
The Highs: Decent action. Good monster effects.
The Lows: Unoriginal plot. Not too exciting for an action movie.
The Verdict: Doom is dumb.
My rating: D for Dumb, 62.
This movie stars the Rock who leads a group of marines to investigate a series of deaths of scientists on Mars.
In the future, they discover a portal that leads to Mars. I thought that was a cheap way to get out of making spacecraft scenes. Come on! All sci-fi fans love spaceships when you're showing a movie that's set on Mars.
This movie is strictly for the videogame crowd. It's based upon the extremely popular Doom first-person shooter videogames. The older videogamers, like me, may not like it though, because it's highly derivative. I didn't think anything in it was very original.
It's kinda like the movie, Alien.
The funniest line was when The Rock screams out, "I'm not supposed to die!"
The scientists on Mars were conducting experiments on people to add c24, chromosome 24 their DNA. This would make people superhuman. However, people who have bad tendencies would turn into horrible monsters. That's pretty laughable.
The ending turns into a first person videogame. The camera angles are in first person. It's violent like the game, Doom 3. However, I thought scenes like this are best left in videogames. It might have been a ploy to introduce people to first person shooter games, but the overall quality of the movie may turn more people off to games than introduce people to them.
The Highs: Decent action. Good monster effects.
The Lows: Unoriginal plot. Not too exciting for an action movie.
The Verdict: Doom is dumb.
My rating: D for Dumb, 62.
Friday, June 09, 2006
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Saw II
Saw II is a gruesome B movie horror thriller. Even though it's highly improbable and totally contrived, it's pretty clever for a horror film.
If I made a horror movie, I would should actual slashings and other types of brutal contact. I would show knives going through people's bodies and axes smashing through people's heads. Most horror movies cut away from the actual moment of contact. I guess it would be too difficult for most viewers to handle that kind of trauma. Another reason would be that it would make for very expensive special effects to show those slashings without actual actors getting hurt.
The movie wasn't scary or suspenseful at all for the most part. There were some ghastly moments here and there that made the viewer really tense. The ending was good since it tied the entire movie together really well, even though Jigsaw's sinister games required a heck of a lot of preplanning and improbably lucky timing in order to succeed.
Spoiler Alert!
The movie starts off with a guy who was an informer for the cops. He's trapped in the bathrooom from Saw I with a Iron Maiden type contraption around his head. The Jigsaw clown says he's there because he's a lying informer. A key has been surgically inserted behind his eyeball. He's given a scalpel to cut his eyeball out. He only has 60 seconds to cut his eyeball out and get the key to free himself. Otherwise, the contraption would snap shut on him with all those nails. He tries to do it, but freaks out. He starts crying "help me, help me!" The trap shuts on him and he goes down.
In the next scene, we see a father and son getting into an argument. The father is a cop. He is called into investigate the murder of his informant. A clue leads him to find the criminal mastermind behind all these murders. Jigsaw turns out to be an old hagardly man who is in the later stages of cancer.
Jigsaw says that the dad has to follow his rules in order to see his son alive again. The videos show that his son and seven other people are trapped inside the hellhouse of horrors. We also find out that the cop is the one who framed the seven people before.
The eight people trapped inside are told that they are breathing in a deadly poison and that they must get the antitode to survive. They have to play by his rules if they want to live. Otherwise, the traps in the house will kill them off.
The first guy gets shot in the face by a gun trap. The warning said don't use the key to open that door. He didn't listen.
The second chump gets trapped in a furnace and is burned alive.
The black guy gets killed by the vato drug dealer who is going psychotic because of the poisoning. The drug dealer smashes his head with a bat spiked with nails. He wants to get the numbers written on the backs of each person's head. These numbers reveal the code to the safe with the antidotes.
A hysterical girl dies from a seizure after breathing in too much of the deadly gas.
The second girl dies from putting both her hands inside a trap to get the antidote out. She can't take her hands out because of the sharp razors set up like a Chinese fingertrap.
The drug dealer throws Amanda from the first Saw movie into a pit full of syringe needles. He makes her crawl through to find the key to let them escape. She writhes in agony as hundreds of needles pierce through her body. Ouch! I don't like needles.
The drug dealer turns so incredibly psycho that he cuts off the skin behind his own head to see what his number is. As he tries to go for the teenage boy, the boy who had been playing possum jumps up and slashes the drug dealer with the saw from the first movie.
The cop dad finally finds the house after beating the shit out of the old man. I would have started beating him up a lot sooner than that though if someone trapped my kid like that.
The dad goes in the house, but is put in a trap by Amanda. Through some twisted turn of events, she says: "What is the cure for Cancer, Eric? The cure for death itself. The answer is immortality. By creating a legacy, by living a life worth remembering, you become immortal. So now we find the tables are turned. It is I who will carry on John's work after he dies, and you are my first test subject. Now you are locked away, helpless and alone. Game over. [Closes door.]"
Cop dad: You fucking bitch! Help me! Nooo!!!!!!!
I like appropriately creepy endings.
When Jigsaw and the cop dad were talking during their psychological standoffs, Jigsaw was asking him about the meaning of life.
Jigsaw: Can you imagine what it feels like to have someone sit you down and tell you that you're dying? The gravity of that, hmm? Then the clock's ticking for you. In a split second your awe is cracked open. You look at things differently - smell things differently. You savor everything be it a glass of water or a walk in the park.
Cop dad: The clock is ticking, John (Jigsaw).
Jigsaw: But most people have the luxury of not knowing when that clock's going to go off. And the irony of it is that that keeps them from really living their life. It keeps them drinking that glass of water but never really tasting it.
I guess the meaning behind all of his diabolic murders was: life is precious, so enjoy it.
For me, I try to spread the message in a different way, but I'm not a psychotic maniac.
The Highs: Clever plot and ending. A good psychological thriller. Macabre traps and killings.
The Lows: Not suspensful. Not scary at all for a horror movie.
The Verdict: With all the cryptic clues in the movie, it's like a cross between the Da Vinci Code, The Game, and Psycho.
My rating: C, 78.
If I made a horror movie, I would should actual slashings and other types of brutal contact. I would show knives going through people's bodies and axes smashing through people's heads. Most horror movies cut away from the actual moment of contact. I guess it would be too difficult for most viewers to handle that kind of trauma. Another reason would be that it would make for very expensive special effects to show those slashings without actual actors getting hurt.
The movie wasn't scary or suspenseful at all for the most part. There were some ghastly moments here and there that made the viewer really tense. The ending was good since it tied the entire movie together really well, even though Jigsaw's sinister games required a heck of a lot of preplanning and improbably lucky timing in order to succeed.
Spoiler Alert!
The movie starts off with a guy who was an informer for the cops. He's trapped in the bathrooom from Saw I with a Iron Maiden type contraption around his head. The Jigsaw clown says he's there because he's a lying informer. A key has been surgically inserted behind his eyeball. He's given a scalpel to cut his eyeball out. He only has 60 seconds to cut his eyeball out and get the key to free himself. Otherwise, the contraption would snap shut on him with all those nails. He tries to do it, but freaks out. He starts crying "help me, help me!" The trap shuts on him and he goes down.
In the next scene, we see a father and son getting into an argument. The father is a cop. He is called into investigate the murder of his informant. A clue leads him to find the criminal mastermind behind all these murders. Jigsaw turns out to be an old hagardly man who is in the later stages of cancer.
Jigsaw says that the dad has to follow his rules in order to see his son alive again. The videos show that his son and seven other people are trapped inside the hellhouse of horrors. We also find out that the cop is the one who framed the seven people before.
The eight people trapped inside are told that they are breathing in a deadly poison and that they must get the antitode to survive. They have to play by his rules if they want to live. Otherwise, the traps in the house will kill them off.
The first guy gets shot in the face by a gun trap. The warning said don't use the key to open that door. He didn't listen.
The second chump gets trapped in a furnace and is burned alive.
The black guy gets killed by the vato drug dealer who is going psychotic because of the poisoning. The drug dealer smashes his head with a bat spiked with nails. He wants to get the numbers written on the backs of each person's head. These numbers reveal the code to the safe with the antidotes.
A hysterical girl dies from a seizure after breathing in too much of the deadly gas.
The second girl dies from putting both her hands inside a trap to get the antidote out. She can't take her hands out because of the sharp razors set up like a Chinese fingertrap.
The drug dealer throws Amanda from the first Saw movie into a pit full of syringe needles. He makes her crawl through to find the key to let them escape. She writhes in agony as hundreds of needles pierce through her body. Ouch! I don't like needles.
The drug dealer turns so incredibly psycho that he cuts off the skin behind his own head to see what his number is. As he tries to go for the teenage boy, the boy who had been playing possum jumps up and slashes the drug dealer with the saw from the first movie.
The cop dad finally finds the house after beating the shit out of the old man. I would have started beating him up a lot sooner than that though if someone trapped my kid like that.
The dad goes in the house, but is put in a trap by Amanda. Through some twisted turn of events, she says: "What is the cure for Cancer, Eric? The cure for death itself. The answer is immortality. By creating a legacy, by living a life worth remembering, you become immortal. So now we find the tables are turned. It is I who will carry on John's work after he dies, and you are my first test subject. Now you are locked away, helpless and alone. Game over. [Closes door.]"
Cop dad: You fucking bitch! Help me! Nooo!!!!!!!
I like appropriately creepy endings.
When Jigsaw and the cop dad were talking during their psychological standoffs, Jigsaw was asking him about the meaning of life.
Jigsaw: Can you imagine what it feels like to have someone sit you down and tell you that you're dying? The gravity of that, hmm? Then the clock's ticking for you. In a split second your awe is cracked open. You look at things differently - smell things differently. You savor everything be it a glass of water or a walk in the park.
Cop dad: The clock is ticking, John (Jigsaw).
Jigsaw: But most people have the luxury of not knowing when that clock's going to go off. And the irony of it is that that keeps them from really living their life. It keeps them drinking that glass of water but never really tasting it.
I guess the meaning behind all of his diabolic murders was: life is precious, so enjoy it.
For me, I try to spread the message in a different way, but I'm not a psychotic maniac.
The Highs: Clever plot and ending. A good psychological thriller. Macabre traps and killings.
The Lows: Not suspensful. Not scary at all for a horror movie.
The Verdict: With all the cryptic clues in the movie, it's like a cross between the Da Vinci Code, The Game, and Psycho.
My rating: C, 78.
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
The jesus Pan
I've always thought it strange when people go crazy over jesus and virgin mary images showing up on tortillas, breads, and walls. They actually believe they're signs from god since their "remarkable" images appear on a piece of food. They pay tons of money for things like this on ebay. Some people hold prayer vigils around water-stained walls and travel thousands of miles to worship them.
I thought to myself, "I can make a fortune by creating jesus and virgin mary images on foods and selling them on ebay if I just had a cookie-cutter type tool and a casting mold."
Now, some guy has taken my idea and actually created the Jesus Pan.
www.jesuspan.com
It looks like they still need to create the virgin mary pan. Anyone who makes that will make a killing.
I thought to myself, "I can make a fortune by creating jesus and virgin mary images on foods and selling them on ebay if I just had a cookie-cutter type tool and a casting mold."
Now, some guy has taken my idea and actually created the Jesus Pan.
www.jesuspan.com
It looks like they still need to create the virgin mary pan. Anyone who makes that will make a killing.
6/6/06 Baby
Here's another dumb potential mother-to-be of the Anti-Christ:
CAVERSHAM, England, May 30 (UPI) -- A woman in England due to give birth on June 6 is fighting with her hospital to induce her sooner to avoid delivering on the demonic date of 6/6/6.
Melissa Parker, 30, said as a fan of "The Omen," a movie about a demonic child, she's genuinely concerned about the numerology involved, The Sun reported Tuesday.
"I'm terrified the birth will go wrong or the child will have evil in him or her," Parker said. "Even worse my beautiful baby could be the devil himself -- the anti-Christ."
The figure 666 is mentioned in the Bible and various cultures believe it represents the date the anti-Christ will appear on Earth, but that doesn't hold any water at the Royal Berkshire Hospital.
A hospital spokesman said Parker's request for an induction was refused because due dates are not 100 percent certain.
"There is little we can do to change them without a Caesarean or inducing the child, which we try to avoid," the spokesman said. "We must let nature take its course. The baby will be born when ready, no matter what day it is."
CAVERSHAM, England, May 30 (UPI) -- A woman in England due to give birth on June 6 is fighting with her hospital to induce her sooner to avoid delivering on the demonic date of 6/6/6.
Melissa Parker, 30, said as a fan of "The Omen," a movie about a demonic child, she's genuinely concerned about the numerology involved, The Sun reported Tuesday.
"I'm terrified the birth will go wrong or the child will have evil in him or her," Parker said. "Even worse my beautiful baby could be the devil himself -- the anti-Christ."
The figure 666 is mentioned in the Bible and various cultures believe it represents the date the anti-Christ will appear on Earth, but that doesn't hold any water at the Royal Berkshire Hospital.
A hospital spokesman said Parker's request for an induction was refused because due dates are not 100 percent certain.
"There is little we can do to change them without a Caesarean or inducing the child, which we try to avoid," the spokesman said. "We must let nature take its course. The baby will be born when ready, no matter what day it is."
Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia
Superstitious religious people are so stupid. This article is from BBC News:
Prayer vigil targets Devil's Day
Dutch evangelical Christians are to hold a round-the-clock prayer vigil to ward off the forces of evil on Tuesday - the so-called Devil's Day.
They believe that the sixth day of the sixth month of 2006 has great significance for evil-doers and Satanists who revere the number 666.
In a bid to counteract the forces of evil, more than 2,000 Dutch Christians will hold "a violent day of worship".
They will be joined by Christians in 23 other countries, organisers say.
The reference to 666 is taken from the Biblical book of Revelation, which talks about the events leading to the end of the world.
Revelation 13:18 states: "If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666."
Omen launch
Behind the initiative is a Dutch evangelical organisation called Ambassadors Ministries.
Mathijs Piet, one of the organisers, told the BBC news website that the prayer marathon was to officially start at 1800 on Monday with a prayer rally in Jerusalem.
"666 is the number of the Devil and we know that on this date, Satanists will try and do many things, so we Christians try and do the opposite," Mr Piet said.
"We know the Devil hates it when we worship God."
Organisers expect at least 2,000 Dutch evangelicals to take part in the mass prayer vigil across the Netherlands.
They are not the only ones to note the significance of the date.
Film company 20th Century Fox has chosen the same date to launch its remake of the 1976 horror classic The Omen, in which a man comes to realise his son is the Antichrist.
The fear of the number 666 is known as hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia.
Prayer vigil targets Devil's Day
Dutch evangelical Christians are to hold a round-the-clock prayer vigil to ward off the forces of evil on Tuesday - the so-called Devil's Day.
They believe that the sixth day of the sixth month of 2006 has great significance for evil-doers and Satanists who revere the number 666.
In a bid to counteract the forces of evil, more than 2,000 Dutch Christians will hold "a violent day of worship".
They will be joined by Christians in 23 other countries, organisers say.
The reference to 666 is taken from the Biblical book of Revelation, which talks about the events leading to the end of the world.
Revelation 13:18 states: "If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666."
Omen launch
Behind the initiative is a Dutch evangelical organisation called Ambassadors Ministries.
Mathijs Piet, one of the organisers, told the BBC news website that the prayer marathon was to officially start at 1800 on Monday with a prayer rally in Jerusalem.
"666 is the number of the Devil and we know that on this date, Satanists will try and do many things, so we Christians try and do the opposite," Mr Piet said.
"We know the Devil hates it when we worship God."
Organisers expect at least 2,000 Dutch evangelicals to take part in the mass prayer vigil across the Netherlands.
They are not the only ones to note the significance of the date.
Film company 20th Century Fox has chosen the same date to launch its remake of the 1976 horror classic The Omen, in which a man comes to realise his son is the Antichrist.
The fear of the number 666 is known as hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia.
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