logo Sign In

Obiwampa

User Group
Members
Join date
25-May-2006
Last activity
27-Sep-2006
Posts
26

Post History

Post
#247791
Topic
Weird Al's "Don't Download this Song" Video
Time
As of right now, these 'artists' are in the top ten of the most downloaded songs on itunes. Ludacris, jojo, Justin Timberlake, Fergie, and Beyonce. I don't want to knock anyones taste in music... ...Ok I do. What the fuck are people thinking??? I don't want to live in a world where pretty little poptarts like jojo get ranked in the top ten and go platinum while awesome bands like the Ranconteurs or Pas/Cal fall by the wayside. I don't want to live in a world where the average teenager's knowlege of musical history doesn't even span back far enough to remember a time when MTV actually played videos, let alone far enough to appreciate the founders and gods of the medium. Chuck Berry, Elvis, Carl Perkins, The Beatles, The Who, Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, Stevie Wonder, Johnny Cash, Led Zeppelin. To todays audiences, Led Zeppelin is a t-shirt they saw in Hot Topic, not one of the immortal gods of rock. Stevie Wonder is some blind guy they saw Eddie Murphy doing on a re-run of Saturday Night Live. Isn't that guy from The Who into kiddie porn? Chuck who? Standards have been lowered so far that nearly anything is accepted as a 'song'. Listen to Justin Timberlake's newest song. Get yer sexy on, lather rinse repeat for 3 minutes, BANG! Musical Gold!!! How did things get so low? If you ask me, it all started when hip-hop and rap began to invade mainstream music. Suddenly, any idiot with a few old records and a sampled drum beat was an 'artist'. I think if the kids today could be shown the wealth of music there is out there that goes beyond what happened 5 minutes ago, they would be amazed. Then they would be stunned at how shitty all the crap they have on their ipod really is.
Post
#247776
Topic
Official Indiana Jones DVD Release
Time
Refresh my memory, didn't they alter some of the shots of the ghosts in the opening of the Ark scene? I'm almost certain I heard that something there was changed, though I can't see anything different about it.

Look, I'm about as big of an Indiana Jones fan as it gets. If I could watch one movie for the rest of my life, it would be 'Raiders,' not anything to do with Star Wars. I'd take a bullet for Indiana Jones, but not Han Solo


Right on.
Post
#245759
Topic
Things that piss me off when opening new DVDs
Time
I actually like the new 'Apocalypse Now' packaging! I only watch the original theatrical version, so I just leave it on top. I thought it looked cool, but I see what you mean.

I thought the kid proof tabs were just on Disney DVD's to keep kids from taking them out and scratching them, but I also found them on 'Sean of the Dead' and 'Batman Begins'.



???
Post
#245756
Topic
Sean's issues
Time
You will not believe how quickly YOU and your life will change after high school. Take it from me. My experience in high school was about as bad as they come. You think you are the only one who has had or is having a shit time in high school? High school is fucked up, my friend. But like I said, you will absolutely NOT BELIEVE how quickly things will change after you get that diploma. The pricks who gave you a hard time will be about as important as last years garbage. I had a guy who rode my bus, (I had no car like all the little rich shits who went to my school), who gave me a hard time every day. There was absolutely nothing I could do because he was one of those genetic freaks who was like 6'4" 220 at 17. I had to take his shit every day, and I wanted to kill him and many others. TWO WEEKS out of high school guess how much I thought about him? ALL of the shit that seems important now will mean absolutely jack a few months from now. Don't sweat some girl. And dont think that some girl's rejection reflects negetively on you. There will be plenty more where she came from. Enjoy being young and single. I've been in one relationship for 7+ years now. Believe me, once you are stuck with someone, you don't realize how much fun it was being free to chase it. As for cutting yourself, I've been there too. It sounds like a cliche, but it won't make anything better. I know how bad depression sucks. Like being sucked into a black hole where every little thing you do feels like it was designed by some higher power just to illustrate what a total fuck-up loser you are. I woke up and cried in the shower for no reason for like 4 years. Every morning before school I contemplated ending it. At the time it seemed like death would have been preferable to the living hell called high school. It seems funny now. That is the upside. It WILL end eventually. For me, it was the birth of my daughter. Every day since then has been sunny, at least to me. Hang in there. It seems bleak now, I know. Just remember that you are NOT the only one who feels like you do.
Post
#245715
Topic
Scruffy, Continuation of Iraq Debate...
Time
The deposing of Hussein has opened up the region to a staggering number of new possiblities.

Such as?


take the insurgency out


Don't make me laugh. For every insurgent we kill, many more are inspired to join their ranks. It is a vicious cycle. There are small boys in Iraq right now that will be blowing up military convoys 10 years from now. The insurgency will never end as long as we are there.


Most of the terrorists who would be plotting terror attacks on the homeland are now IN Iraq.



Thanks for saving me the trouble of pointing that out once again.


Equating Iraq with Vietnam is an insult to the soliders of both wars.



WTF??? How can it be an insult to the veterans of Vietnam if everything is as rosy in Iraq as you would have me believe?


I'm not promoting torture at all, but rough interogation isn't torture; waterboarding and the like inflicts no permanent harm on them.



Wow. I'm almost positive that they would disagree with you.
Post
#245688
Topic
Scruffy, Continuation of Iraq Debate...
Time
If I didn't know better, I'd think that was written by a Republican.


Good things have happened in Iraq, no one is denying that. But ask yourself, does the good outweigh the bad? The quality of life for the average Iraqi has changed very little. Has it been worth thousands of American lives?

Pseudo-patriotic Republican hubris won't change a thing. The war in Iraq is a waste of life. It has not made us safer. It has not made the region more stable. It has not advanced the ancillary 'war on terror'. It has done nothing but prove to the world that we are inept, paranoid, belligerent, greedy bullies. The bumper stickers are right, Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam. Anyone who says otherwise is trying to get you to vote for them.

Post
#244656
Topic
Scruffy, Continuation of Iraq Debate...
Time
/Jump up my butt. Our Army -- and I'll throw a bone to the Marines, the Squids, and the Zoomies -- is the best trained and equipped in the world. No one "let" bin Laden escape; he used a well-established military and paramilitary along with prepared positions and civilian allies to escape. Capturing people like him isn't like serving a warrant on your slovenly wife-beating father; if it were that easy, maybe your buddy Clinton would've done it instead of desultory standoff strikes.

With regards to body armor, you go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want. There will always be another wonderful new Miracle Technology that we should've waited for besides executing a mission; that's the nature of technology, it's always advancing. If it weren't the IBA and the uparmored HMMWVs, it would've been the ACU, or the ACH, the XM8, the 6.8mm Remington, and on and on ... we could've been sitting here in 2008 arguing about how the last year in Iraq was a failure because the BBs weren't taken out of mothballs or the F-35s' avionics weren't debugged.

And if you do want to bitch and moan about armor, consider the wisdom of using infantry in a daytime urban raid without an armor cordon. I think there was a movie about that a few years back.

With regards to the Geneva Conventions, Law of War training takes place at all echelons, starting with Initial Entry Training. A few junior enlisted and NCOs decided to break those rules, and they've been punished. The only "horror" was the propaganda victory this handful of criminals handed to Baathist and Salafist terrorists. (And maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but I'm not sure how to determine that someone is hors de combat if they were never legal combatants and commit violence against their jailers. I'm sure I could find it on paper if I looked hard enough.)

You know, I take that back. The multiple Al Qaeda attacks on Abu Ghraib that killed many prisoners were the real horrors there, clearly in violation of the Law of War. And the countless Iraqis killed by the Baathist government. But you don't see hundreds of J school grads waxing morose about that. White people sexually harassing brown people sells more papers than brown people killing brown people. They're expected to do it, I guess.

You are demonstrably wrong about a number of other things, including the criminal butchering of our language ("ect," indeed!), but questioning the competence of the Army earns you a lecture and derision. Repost whatever you want from Move On, Truth Out, Al Jazeera, Democrat Underground, I don't care ... but stand by for corrections./






Our 'best trained Army in the world' is having its ass handed to it in the worst way by the dozens every week. By a bunch of "brown" non-legal combatants.

Yes, you DO rush to war with the army you have, not the army you want, but when you don't NEED to rush to said war in the first place...

The 'Black Hawk Down' incident lasted one or two days. Iraq has been dragging on for years and will continue to drag on for years. And the troops are STILL bolting scrap metal to their Humvees. Consider that wisdom. Yes I will bitch and moan about armor. It keeps people alive.

"A few junior enlisted and NCO's" ? I'm not simply talking about those who actually attached the fake electrodes to the prisoners fingers, I'm talking about those higher ups who created the atmosphere which allowed these things to happen. First rule of leadership, EVERYTHING is your fault. And I notice you don't refute the fact that Bush NEVER apologized for this either. I assume that you feel there was no need for him to do so. Twist the Abu-Ghraib scandal however you want. In the eyes of the world, Bush, meaning us, condones and practices torture. Not "sexual harrassment". I think threatening a naked man with a snarling German shepard goes beyond simple sexual harrassment. And not only in Abu-Ghraib, but in Guantanamo, and god knows how many other secret 'black' sites around the world.
Post
#244453
Topic
And on the 8th day, God created socks that wont stay up, mosquitos, Taco Bell, and Letterboxed DVD's. It was not good.
Time
Things that were Clinton's fault:


(Allegedly) Not nabbing Bin Laden BEFORE he committed the greatest, (meaning worst), act of terrorism in history.


Things that were Bush's fault:


Letting Bin Laden escape our grasp in Afganistan

Diverting our focus and invading a totally non-related country

Either lying or being criminally mis-informed about the motives for invading said country

Risking young American lives to do so

Rushing troops into said country without proper body armor or training

Ignoring the Geneva convention, creating the atmosphere for horrors like Abu-Ghraib

NEVER apologizing for afformentioned debacle, creating even more willing terrorists

Ect.

Ect.

Ect.



To continue in this fashion would be tedious and un-necessary. (I havent even covered his treatment of the environment or his willingness to mix religion with politics.)
Post
#244447
Topic
And on the 8th day, God created socks that wont stay up, mosquitos, Taco Bell, and Letterboxed DVD's. It was not good.
Time
The intent of my original post still stands. There are some people on this earth who seem to think that they are simply above reproach. Lucas is one of them. Bush is another one of them. Plain and simple. I'm sorry that you had to loose a cousin in the pentagon attack. But please don't confuse Iraq with the war on terror. It only became a war against terrorism AFTER we got there, not before. As for blaming Clinton for this mess, ummm, what exactly was Bush doing in the many months he had in office before 9/11? Biding his time? Toying with Bin Laden? When exactly was Bush going to spring his trap and nab the evil-doer the Demon-crat Clinton had allowed to slip free?
Post
#244141
Topic
And on the 8th day, God created socks that wont stay up, mosquitos, Taco Bell, and Letterboxed DVD's. It was not good.
Time
As I sat watching the shimmery pixels of the twin suns setting on Tattooine yesterday, I bemusedly asked myself when was the last DVD I purchased that looked this bad? Had I? I went home to see. Yes I had. Kurosawa's 'Ran'. I'm no expert, but I'm guessing that this early edition was mastered using the same late 80's early 90's technology as the GOUT. What is the correlation between expensive soap and earplugs? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!!!! BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! What is the connection between 'Ran' and 'Star Wars'? Read on... George Lucas and F.F. Coppola helped Kurosawa get 'Ran' made. 'Ran' has since been given the ultra slick Criterion Collection two-disc all night spa treatment, with wet and wild super happy fun finish. While at the same time, Lucas is giving us this shut up and take it, prison shower style, dry handed reach around, with sphincter tearing anal invasion at no extra cost. The significance?? I DON'T KNOW!!! I just thought I'd mention it.

Lucas has sort of become like Bush. Shut up in his ivory tower, to high above us all to stoop to answering our pathetic little questions. "Let them eat laser disc masters..." he says through a mouthfull of turkey leg, while waving his ring laden hand at his servants. I guess like the war in Iraq, this is so infuriating because it could very easily have been avoided. What a waste of plastic this DVD is. Long after the human race is gone, this DVD will still be around, along with pop bottles, milk jugs, cockroaches, and Keith Richards. I hope that someday, someone will find a good use for it. Here are my suggestions, Mad Max/Waterworld mutant man... Plane signaler, coaster for your glass of filtered pee, break them into tiny bits for fishing lures, sharpen the edges and use like a ninja star, makeshift rearview mirror for your V-8 interceptor........



Post
#231331
Topic
Finally Hocked the SE
Time
Never thought I'd find myself doing this, but today I went and hocked my WS SE boxset and all my PT films. Felt odd. Star Wars has always held a place of honor on my movie shelf, right next to the Indy Trilogy and the LOTR Extended Edition sets. I'm done with Star Wars. I don't want the SE in my house anymore. For a long time I tried to fool myself into thinking that the SE changes actually helped the OT. I've come around. Since 1997 I've been trying to accept the CG Dewbacks, CG Jabba, Han the Flash and legally blind Greedo, Obnoxious flying Stormtrooper droids, the non-acting schmuck the threw the Wampa suit on, Joe Yowhza's and his spit danglies, (Why is it that every CG creature ever created has little danglies of spit inside its mouth when it inevitably sticks its face in the camera to roar? See the Men in Black bug, FOTR Cave Troll, ect.) Anyway, I think I've had more than enough Star Wars for one lifetime. There will never be decent versions of the O-OT, if there ever is, Lucas will be proven a liar. (again) I'm not going to help line the pockets of a liar who I've already helped to make rich. Fuck this.
Post
#218299
Topic
Remember when everyone hated Return of the Jedi?
Time
Remember that? The Ewoks? The banal dialog between Luke and Leia?, ("But why must you confront him?!"), The musical number in Jabba's palace? The musical number in the Ewok village? Muppets. Muppets everywhere. (A plethora of puppets, if you will.) Vader unmasked? ANOTHER Death Star?! I find it amusing that everyone now considers ROTJ to be an equal member of the original-original trilogy, and a 'classic'. I just seem to remember a time, hmmmm, when was it? A time when ROTJ was considered the worst of all the SW films...hmmmm, when was that, AHA! Before Episode I!!!!!!!
Post
#218292
Topic
Prequel demographic breakdown
Time
I dont know how things went down elsewhere, but in the theatre I saw the prequels in, same theatre each time, (even the same screen), the crowd opening night, (12:00am), was composed thusly:

(this is just a guestimate from surveying the crowd for 30-40 minutes before the show)

EP:1 75% 35 or over. Many, many folks in the 50+ range. 25% 35 or under. Almost no children. Very quiet audience. Smatterings of applause at the end. A handfull of costumes.

EP:2 90% 35 or under. 10% 35+. Much younger, more fun crowd. Very loud and excited. Nearly brought the house down when Yoda fired up his lightsaber! More costumes this time. More applause at the end this time around.

EP:3 50/50 old and young. Packed to the rafters craziness! I had the impression that, good or bad, all the 'old-timers' had showed up for one last romp. There were also lots and lots of children at this one, most wearing costumes. Costumes everywhere! Thunderous applause at the end.

Note the severe and sudden drop off of older audience members after EP1. I'd be interested to hear if this was the case where you saw the films.
Post
#213612
Topic
Lucasfilm lunch hour
Time
I'm new here. I've been lurking a while, but late developements have made joining up necessary. What I think this site needs, and quick, is a unified response. There seem to be many differing points of view on how best to deal with this latest news. This is not good. We need to send Lucasfilm a response to shake them to their foundations, and we ALL must be behind it 100%. I suggest we have a vote on what our response should be, and then we send that out LOUD and clear to Lucas. Whether we, as a group, decide to buy the discs and send the SE discs back, or not to buy them at all, should be decided right now. Before the announcement of the discs and subsequent news that we were basically getting a 'official bootleg', we were all unified in simply wanting the original trilogy on DVD. I dont think it occured to anyone that it would be necessary to specify that they be high quality. Now things have changed. Lucasfilm needs to know that we will not take this sitting down. They need to know that if they go ahead with this, _______ will be the consequences from the hardcore fanbase. Who agrees?