Jake's Blog is moving its main location!

Hey, 3.5 people who read 'Jake's Blog' for fun and the 2 who read it for signs of the Apocalypse, this blog is moving permanently. It really enjoyed its time here on Blogger, but wants to have a fancier home with other pages that are related to Jake and his new novel The Song of Jonas, and the many more books of high strangeness and many more blog posts of even higher ridiculousness to come. So if you or a distant family member living in a gulog in Siberia who is really bored, want to continue to enjoy posts on 'Jake's Blog' then get your little hiney over to Jake's website and click on the blog tab, or go directly to http://jakehansennovels.com/blog/ and let your brain cells feast on the psychedelic buffet that only promises to get weirder and weirder, until the cheetah running on the treadmill within the author's brain ceases to run and churn the divine wheels therein. I hope to see you all there.
Sayonara, Peace
Jake

Post about new Star Wars movie "Rogue One."

Yes, if you were breathlessly waiting for this update to finally come, I did see Rogue One at last. Do you want to read a detailed, insightful, deeply philosophical, and hilarious blog about it? Well, this is not that blog. I thought the movie was OK and I'll just leave it at that....


BUT!!!! I did come by something very, very interesting lately on the internets, and I am inspired to share it with you here. What is it, you ask? It is a detailed transcript of the director of Rogue One, Gareth Edwards, holding preliminary discussions about the development of the movie with the executives of Twentieth Century Fox studio.

For reference purposes Gareth Edwards is abbreviated "GE," studio executives are "SE" and numbered 1-20 because that was actually a slow day in the studio. "A" stands for assistant and they are numbered as well. So without another word I give you the actual, real life planning of Star Wars Rogue One as it happened!

GE: "Good morning gentlemen. Thank you all for coming. I'd like to say that I'm thankful you gave me the opportunity of directing the next Star Wars movie."

SE1: "Gareth, how much experience do you have with Star Trek?"

GE:"Ummm, it's Star Wars."

SE2:"What's Star Wars?"

SE3:"The movie Gareth's making."

SE2:"Oh, I thought it was Star Trek."

SE4:"What number is it anyway? Like episode 12 already?"

GE:"No, it's episode 3.5."

SE1:"So, who is the target audience?"

GE:"I think people who haven't seen episodes 4, 5, 6 and so won't know how it ends."

SE1:"Oh, that makes sense."

SE7:"And Gareth, since there will be so many more Star Wars movies after, this one is basically just a two hour commercial for those other movies to come later."

GE:"Oh, I see."

SE2:"If this is a new series isn't it part 1?"

GE:"No, part one was made in 1998."

SE1:"But wasn't the first one filmed in 1977?"

GE:"Yes, but that was part four."

SE4:"So what you're saying is part one was filmed twenty years after part four?"

GE:"Yes."

SE1:"Right. That makes perfect sense."

 Ten assistants walk in carrying thirty caramel Macchiatos. Assistant 1 is new, bright eyed, and bushy tailed. His spirit hasn't yet been crushed by the Hollywood machine and so he thinks he still has relevant insights to contribute. This would be the last time he ever thinks that again.

A1:"Gareth, don't you think that people will get sick of so many Star Wars movies after a while?"

GE:"What do you mean?"

A1:"Well what I'm saying is that there are lots of movies planned and I just think that...

The assistant drones on and on and Gareth listens. Gareth gets increasingly nervous. His hand hovers over a control panel on the conference table and his finger falls on a big red button.

A1:"And I just think that the newly planned Boba Fett movies might be a little too...

Gareth pushes the red button, the floor opens up and the assistant falls through into a black pit. Then the floor closes back up again. The studio executives all clap and cheer "bravo" and "good form." The remaining assistants took their submissive positions behind their perspective executive long ago.

GE:"That is a good point, though. Maybe we are over-saturating the market with Star Wars."

SE1:"How many do we have planned on coming out?"

GE:"Fifteen in the next four years."

SE2:"That is a lot!"

SE3:"Don't worry about that, we have covered that contingency. We are just going to put out so many Star Wars movies that fans won't even have time to get sick of them. They'll be way too busy going to more Star Wars movies. By the time they're sick of them we'll have made them all anyway."

SE1:"That's just brilliant!"

All the executives clap again and begin talking about how much money they'll all be making.

They all eat lunch.

GE:"So, what is the jist, the heart, the crux and meat of this movie going to be?"

SE1:"I've got this. See Gareth, it's going to be named Star Wars, but it won't really be Star Wars. Instead, it'll be more like Saving Private Ryan but with a Star Wars title and Star Wars sounding names. Nobody will be able to tell the difference, though."

GE:"Really? Are you really sure that will work?"

SE12:"See Gareth, Star Wars was basically a brilliant mistake by George Lucas. He doesn't even know how he did it. Just remember that later he tried to make more and they turned out to be steamy turds. So if George Lucas doesn't know how to make Star Wars, nobody does. So we'll just make whatever we want anyway."

GE:"Okayyyyy."

SE2:"Yeah, but Gareth. There will, of course, be a small minority of people who just don't like rehashings of other people's tired old ideas. But we can't help that. What we've learned is that people mostly like what other people like."

GE:"Okay, but what about originality, creativity, and inspiration?"

The entire conference room of twenty studio executives bursts out in maniacal laughter for thirty minutes straight.

SE15:"Oh, Gareth, you're hilarious."

GE:"Thanks, I guess."

SE8:"Gareth, where did you get the names for these characters. There's Jyne Erso, Chirrut Imway, and Saw Guererra. These names all sound like they're taken from a Home Depot gardening catalog written in Russian."

GE:"Actually, that's exactly where George Lucas gets all his character names. That's very astute of you."

SE3:"Good observation number 8."

SE8:"Thank you number 3."

SE9:"Gareth, can we wrap this up? There's a killer Eyes Wide Shut party happening at 9 and I still have to get my costume."

GE:"Oh, yeah, I have to get my costume too."

SE15:"But what if we don't make a billion dollars this time?"

SE2:"We'll say we got hacked by the Djiboutians."

SE15:"Oh, that's just brilliant!!"

SE4:"Do they even have internet in Djibouti?"

SE7:"Who cares!?"

Again the executives all laugh for ten minutes.

GE:"Okay, gentlemen, thanks for coming. I'm sure this movie will make millions and millions of dollars regardless of what I do. Kind of like James Bond is now."

SE1:"Now you're getting it Gareth. Welcome to the team of MAKING MONEY!"


END of transcript


So folks, as you can see this exciting and informative meeting is a microcosm of the groundbreaking and revolutionary work being done in this era of Hollywood. I hope you enjoyed your little snippet of how the big movers and shakers plan movies nowadays. I know I did. So until next time, stay frosty, and keep watching old movies!

Sayonara,
Jake

Preview of release of my first Sci-Fi Young Adult Novel

Hey, person(s) who read this blog, how are you? I'm really good, mainly because I got the photo for what will be my first of many novels to come. It's self published and will be available around mid October or early November. You will be able to buy a copy, or man copies, on Amazon and Apple i-books in ebook form, or a copy in print on demand form from Amazon, if you want a real, actual book to hold in your hot little hands.

I will be posting more updates when I get more info on when it will be available and on what sites. But for right now here is a picture of the cover.

So, needless to say, I'm totally psyched about it. Jason at Jera Publishing did a great job and I can't wait until it's in real book form and I can take it everywhere with me and show it to everyone! Anyway, thanks for reading and I'll write to you again shortly, I hope.

Sayonara

Peace

Jake

The long anticipated New Ghostbusters 2016 Blog. Also titled "don't listen to the Ghostbros anymore!"

Ahhh, Ghostbusters... If you are a movie fan and you know me chances are that sooner or later we'll be quoting Ghostbusters back and forth and with good reason. It's a movie that reminds us why we like movies. It shows you what can happen when a studio doesn't micromanage something to death or try to cater to a specific fan base. Its what happens when true creative geniuses, comedic geniuses, and a great director come together and make something special.

And yet it got remade this year and to tell you the truth the new movie was good. Paul Fiege's work on Spy and Bridesmaids was excellent and the female actors are some of the funniest that I've seen in recent years. Just watch the first half hour of Spy and you'll see what I mean.

The first act of the new Ghostbusters is just as funny if not more so. Paul Fiege and his actresses excel in this type of funny and silly character-building shenanigans and this is by far the best part of the movie. So good that it warrants a 7.5/10 grade, 8/10 if I'm being very generous.

The second act suffers from trying to put in as many Ghostbuster gadgets and themes as possible to pay homage to the original, which is okay. I mean, its probably hard to make a remake of a movie that is on so many fans's Mt. Rushmore of movies. Mt. Rushmore, at least to me, includes Ghostbusters, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and Caddyshack. Many will chose to argue this, but for me they are already carved, adorned, and set in stone.

But that doesn't mean that I'm going to fly off the handle if a movie on Mt. Rushmore gets remade like the current Ghostbro phemonnon which is particularly disturbing and downright lame. It is reminiscent of the Gamer Gate scenario which I won't go into here but is equally lame and dumb. I ask, if you don't like a movie why not just not watch it? Do you have to post a hundred angry reviews to IMDB and then post angry reviews to other movies with the same actor or director in them? The saying goes, out of the contents of the heart the mouth speaketh. It doesn't take Freud to tell me there's a lot of misguided and repressed anger and hatred, that comes out in the online community where there's no risk of real consequence or someone can make multiple fake accounts altogether. 

There was a hilarious scenario recently where two famous comedians, Dave Chapelle and someone else were talking and they mentioned that there had been an argument or angry exchange between them on Twitter. And the second comedian says, "You know Dave, I didn't write those things. I don't even have a Twitter account."
And Dave replies, "Man, I don't have an account either." Meaning, 2 people had created fake accounts with their names on them and had a fake argument.

So to any Ghostbro reading this, I challenge you to live a deeper life than just worshiping your toys, movies, and video games as all there is, and to not fly off the handle like a mental patient when it even sniffs like somehow, someday, maybe, if the planets all align they will come under threat from someone or something new and a meteor might collide with the Earth. 

There's a saying in Yoga that one should "Live simply and think Highly." Meaning, not putting all your attention on "things" and acquiring them, because at death you have to leave them all behind anyway. Because honestly, in five hundred years we might not even have movies or video games anymore or they could be thought of as toys of a near Neanderthal like people that are almost all forgotten by then. Or our civilization will be completely wiped out and the only survivors will be living in dense jungles that completely cover every city, road, and building and "Gunga, lagunga," will be a near meaningless phrase thought to come from an ancient myth instead of part of one of my favorite speeches from any movie ever.

Thanks for reading again. Maybe an Olympics blog will come next.

Sayonara, Peace
Jake

Jake's blog: Totally Real Journal Entry for Jake Hansen, May 29...

Jake's blog: Totally Real Journal Entry for Jake Hansen, May 29...: Totally Real Journal Entry for Jake Hansen, May 29 th , 2016 Do I want to see Captain America Civil War? I don’t really know Jake let m...

Totally Real Journal Entry for Jake Hansen, May 29th, 2016

Totally Real Journal Entry for Jake Hansen, May 29^th, 2016

Do I want to see Captain America Civil War? I don’t really know Jake let me think about it. Okay Jake, think about it for as long as you like. Thank you Jake. But Jake, I don't understand, why is Captain America even fighting Iron Man, it doesn’t make any sense at all. And Jake my man, why is Spiderman getting involved, shouldn’t he just mind his own business? What’s next, Archie and Jughead join the Avengers? Is this what comic book movies are coming to these days, just Mr. X vs. Dude Y because ‘oh, who knows just blow some stuff up and say it was in a comic book and people will watch it no matter what.’-Movie Studio Executive. Yes, that was an actual quote from a movie studio executive.

I myself am theorizing that the Mr. X vs. Dude Y for whatever reason genre is just getting started and therefore I will wait until it fully finds its voice until I start to watch them. For example, I am highly anticipating the release of ‘Raggedy Anne vs. Raggedy Andy; The Sewing War,’ and the instant classic ‘Bugs Bunny vs. Roger Rabbit vs. Peter Rabbit vs. A Farming Combine; Do We Really Need a Reason?’ So until these soon to be wonderful works of art grace a silver screen near me I might just sit on this developing genre that will soon prove to be the most incredible of all time.

Also, I am planning on seeing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles part two coming to theaters on June 3^rd which I admit is another shameless and low-brow entry into the franchise but I am helpless to resist anything with ninja turtles in it so there, that’s my true and only weakness. I could save time by just mailing $15 to Michael Bay and then have the nearest stranger on the street kick me in the nuts and be done with it, but then I wouldn’t be able to write a review for my lovely readers who read this blog under blanket and pillow forts with flashlights at midnight. And so that is why I will pry my eyelids open with electrical tape and plop down in front of the next cgi fantasmagorical whatchamacallit and try to enjoy it the best that I can. And I tell you, it will take all the strength infused into me from four billion years of evolution to do it, but I will. Wish me luck.

Sayonara, Peace

Jake

Post on random stream of consciousness musings from a musing muse coming to you at one million silvery watts of awesomness.

First, lets just say that I haven't posted for a while so lots of things are going to bubble up and find a home in this particular blog which will be called "The Birthday Blog," because yes, that's a good name for a blog right?

1. Netflix-Now I live under a rock most of the time, but it's a nice rock and I like it so because of that i have never sat down and looked around Netflix and binged watched anything yet. That is until nowwwwwww. I think the other reason is that I don't own a TV, but that is for good reasons too, #1 being that I get wayyyyyyy more writing done without one. And that's the only reason this young Lawrence of Arabia of the University District needs by golly!

I love watching documentaries because they are just so cool and learny and so far on the Net'sflix I have found tons and great ones, for example one about Ninja warriors where they saith that Ninjas didn't even eat sweets or onions or even garlic because if they did then samurai guards could smell them coming in the night! That's just so amazingly cool and also a dose of reality that I will never be a great ninja warrior because for that reason among many others of course. I don't think being known as the "burpy and flatulent ninja"
would strike fear into anyone let alone crazy strong samurai, if there were any around anymore that is.

So, during one sessoin of perusing the Net'sflix I found a new mucho favorito showo called The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and it's awesome and just so funny that I can't stop rewatching it over again even though I burned through the first two and only two seasons in like three days and now feel that I've lost a dear friend that I won't get to see again, that is until a third season comes on which I can't wait for. I did this doing something I invented called "binge watching" a TV show. And from here on out I do copyright that saying for all time.

The gist of this show on the Net'sflix is that Kimmy Schmidt was kidnapped at 15 years old and kept underground in an apocalypse cult by an evil reverend in a bunker and after 15 years she finally gets freed. 

She and her three other bunker mates are instantly famous and known as "the Indiana Mole Women," and Kimmy decides to live in New York City which of course is the exact opposite of a secluded strange bunker with only four other people in it. Let's just say that Kimmy is a huge fish out of water and the resulting culture shock is the hilarious underlying pulse to the show. I definitely recommend this show to anyone who likes shows and to laugh at said shows.

2. Next I watched Bloodsport with Jean Claude Van Damme who has to be one of the best martial arts actors not named Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan. I would even put him above Mr. Chan. Ahh, Bloodsport, a movie I hadn't seen since I was 13 and just blasted me with unintentional comedy and in a good way like all cheesy 80's and early 90's action movies should do. In fact in watching it again I learned at the end via helpful white text before the end credits that it was based upon the real life accomplishments of a martial arts fighter named Frank Dux who was Kumite champion and even founded his own fighting style called Dux-Ryu which I guess is a type of ninjitsu? Maybe? Or a form of self defense hairstyling?

Anyway, it is here that I end mine ode to Netflix, who even though has killed Blockbuster forever and was inaccessible to me until I started working for a certain client, I do bow to with great respect. But I also warn you Netflix not to get cheeky and take off or prevent lots of great and older movies from being available for dumb, petty disagreements with movie studios whose executives already go home and dive into their Scrooge McDuck money silos at the end of the day anyway. 

Oh yeah and today is my birthday! Yeah, now Sionara and hasta la vista babies!
Jake

My review of Star Wars episode 7 read it, love it, like it, revile it if you dare.

Star Wars blog for episode 7 or also known as "The fourth Real Star Wars movie."

You may not believe what I am about to tell you. And yes, I will understand if you have an internal monologue of soul stunning disbelief when you hear that this very blog holds information which might be kind of out there or hard to understand.

You see, I recently saw Star Wars “The Force Awakens” and I am here to make sense of it all for anyone who wants to hear it. That is once I get all two billion of my brain’s neurons on the same page.

This blog actually was already written. I am just transcribing it from an alien language for you to read. I found it in an email from my future self as a warning that this new movie is just the beginning of a new wave of Star Wars mania that will ultimately totally transform our culture. 

See, in the year 2029 George Lucas has died. I know, it’s sad, but it’s really okay because his brain and spinal cord are put into a robot and he dedicates himself to writing more Star Wars movies.

He can do this because he raises enough money publishing books to buy the franchise back from Disney at the bargain price of three trillion dollars. The fact that in the year 2029 books cost on average $200 for a short and cheap romance novel works out well in his favor.

In the future he doesn’t even call himself George Lucas anymore. He instead goes by Darth 3PO because in the fifth Star Wars trilogy, called a pentalilogy to be technically correct, C-3PO is seduced by the Dark Side of the Force and builds an army of space appliances that rules the galaxy. My future self knows this because his friend’s son told him, having already received a Master’s Degree in Star Wars studies.

In fact George Lucas himself is voted the President of the United States. But things do get a little complicated when he marries his own clone and thus calls himself first lady Darth 3PO. But by then approximately 51% of our nation are tolerant enough to accept this and as a result we escape total cultural implosion. This is also made possible by the Man/Robot Love Laws passed in the year 2025.

George also by new decree, or called ‘Georgeisms’(not Bills or Laws, that’s so not Star Warsian), creates his own private army that attacks anyone criticizing anything Star Wars. Not verbally attack, but physically attacks people with knives and guns and mountain lions trained to use knives and guns. The fact that a second internet is created for only discussing, watching, or purchasing things related to Star Wars makes monitoring criticism easier than in the days of a single internet.

My future self continually told me how quaint it remembers our time now. So many things have changed by his time; we only have a single internet, we don’t have flying cars, we have yet to utilize internal IV caffeine pumps or learn to grow kale on the bottom of the ocean where people who like to eat kale are only allowed to live.

Now with that piece of completely true prophecy out of the way we can forget my 2029 self and focus on the meat, the nuts and bolts, and the heart of this movie which is kind of a big deal in these parts.

And yes, in case you were wondering while sitting there in your chair quivering with anticipation of what comes next, yes there will be super massive spoilers coming in the next 500 pages of this blog. Oh, wait scratch that, I meant 3 pages. In fact the spoilers look just like this!

All super cool car accessories aside, I can’t understand people’s anger at getting a movie plot told to them in advance, hence the name spoiler, as in spoiled, spoiling, spoilery, and the forgotten playwright Spoilaticus Totalus who in ancient Greece told the ending of his plays to the audience beforehand. The reason no one has heard of him is because most everyone left after he did so and so no one actually saw any of his plays.

But my point is that knowing the plot and ending shouldn’t spoil anything, because a good movie should be based on enjoyable characters, inspiring plot points, and should be funny and beautiful to watch, as in great cinematography and camera work.

I can enjoy watching Star Wars or Top Gun or Big Trouble in Little China over and over and not be spoiled because I know the plot and ending. I have probably seen them a combined 30 times, so NO I say! It matters not. So I don't see how someone can call themselves a real movie fan and whine about spoilers, or refuse to watch a movie more than once?

And just to state for the record being chiseled into pristine marble somewhere at this very moment, I am no hardcore movie fan. At best I am more of a soft-core fan.

Now the premise if you will bear with me. Completely mind blowing trilogy is created, people go wild, nothing happens for ten-fifteen years, but creator suddenly decides to make prequels. Prequels ruin people's childhoods/lives/marriages/divorces/retirements, prequels are mostly CGI and back story, people sling criticism on creator, creator cries. Creator sells huge franchise to Disney, Disney knows exactly what to do, make it funny, make it exciting, bring back the characters that people loved so it feels ‘like good old times,’ and last but not least make trillions of dollars doing it. So no pressure J.J.

Now according to these terms Disney did exactly that. J.J. did a great job of making this film exciting, of introducing new characters and bringing back the old ones, and yes the movie is on pace to make boat loads of money.

As a student of film and story I give the movie a solid B letter grade and must break it into its three acts to fully analyze it. The first act felt brilliant, the shots, sets, backgrounds, ships, everything was beautiful and felt new and intriguing. The new characters and their situations as well as the action and plot pacing was phenomenal. And J.J. really earns an A here.

However, the second act is where the story starts to stall. This is where the two new characters get captured and run into none other than Han fricking Solo and Chewy. Now, this was an obvious nostalgia shot in the arm which is understood by your Blogger, but it also felt a bit forced and at this point the plot gets really boring as if they are now trying to make Han Solo have a central role and give him something Han Soloey to do, but it really side tracks the main characters story.

Instead if J.J. had created a new and interesting mentor character he could have kept the pacing going and kept my interest. But he didn’t and one feels like he was bowing to higher corporate powers in this decision, but that’s not my call or am I able to verify it.

The story does pick up in the third act and the antagonist is formidable and interesting although goofy looking when he takes off his helmet which I could live with. Other small problems with story revolve around the plot consisting of said bad guys just resulting to building a bigger Death Star, but that’s a minor problem. If it was done right and the pacing didn’t stall so much I could buy that the bad guys would just want to build another big weapon that almost defeated the good guys in the previous movies. I mean villains are usually in the business of building bigger and badder weapons just as a rule of thumb.

Now is time to address the fact that J.J. said the movie would be mostly practical effects, yes there were some good practical effects. And I realize now that he never promised to make it ALL practical affects. That said it still is a shame he didn't because it is still too easy to tell when they use CGI; for big explosions, the star getting sucked up, every light saber, the big, big bad guy, and for the slimy, rolling ten eyed ten tentacled monster, and yes dear J.J. all that CGI looked very fake too. 

There’s still no way getting around the difference between seeing something that is real and something that is not. Oh, my bad, I forgot to mention that Carrie Fisher was also done totally with CGI as well. Okay, just kidding, she just looked extremely wooden for some reason and talked like she was always trying to keep her teeth from falling out.

So to sadly conclude this blog, it will be stated that I got pretty much what I expected out of a J.J. Abrams production which is; good effects, some good characters, an exciting first act, and then a slow second act with too much pandering to certain aspects of old glory from said franchise(just like in his Star Trek films), and a somewhat satisfying, actiony ending with overall about as much character and plot depth as a toddler’s sandbox. 

But seeing as this was partially Star Wars; The Apology, it did enough. The record breaking box office proved that as well and will continue to do so as it appears that Disney will attempt to pull a Marvel and begin churning out Star Wars movies by the dozen over the years. And knowing that Disney owns Marvel that shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. I promise I will continue to point that out, that is until Disney owns this blog, at which time I will be forbidden from saying anything contradicting the Star Wars/Disney supremacy. So while I can I will add that Bugs Bunny is wayyyyyy cooler and funnier than Mickey Mouse. There I said it. It isn’t 2029 just yet ;)

On one final, final note I recently listened to a Shamanic drum tape given to me by a dear friend. I listened to it and tried to visualize going to the Underworld, or the center of the Earth in my case, in order to contact my spirit animals. Now, I’m not sure I did it right or if I can even do it right, I’m just a rookie Shaman here let’s be honest. But I can tell you that if I did do the visualization right that my spirit animals are eagles, monkeys, griffins, and Marshawn Lynch. And yes that was a list in order of least to most important.

So that’s it. This is first year Shaman Lightening Fingers signing off. Lightening Fingers was my first Shaman name choice, the second was Rumbling Belly.

Sayonara, peace.

Mine own Ode to James Bond; a timeless poetic tale for the Ages of appreciating awesomeness.

Oh James Bond, you and your movies have been so great to me over the years. Let us sit and sip great Ale and think of the ways the lovable rascal of the title 007 has impressed us and me and thee over 24 movies. The list appeareth here now; 1. Underground Lairs. 2. Gruesome and inventive ways to kill henchmen/messengers/anyone that upsets the bad guy. 3. Piranhas in a pool. 4. Jet packs. 5. Mind blowing one-liners. 6. One punch knockouts. 7. SPECTRE. 8. Number 1 stroking his cat behind the barrier and coolly frying number 4. 9. Hijacked nuclear bombs(always a great plot device.) 10. How Q really hates that James wrecks all the gadgets he gives him. 11. All the gadgets he gives James, especially the 1964 Aston Martin DB5 with headlight machine guns, smoke, oil slick, and the handy, dandy, what no spy can live without ejection seat. 12. Golf with Goldfinger. 13 Being bad-ass and fighting Dr. No to the death over a tank of watery radioactive stuff. 14. Underwater scuba wars. 15. Running across the heads of crocodiles. 16 using a crocodile submarine. 17. Fighting Jaws. 18. Fighting Oddjob inside Fort Knox. 19. Dressing up as a clown and diffusing a nuclear bomb. 20. Being so smooth and classy and awesome. 21. Always knowing that he's going to defeat the big bad guy. 22. Always defeating the big bad guy and blowing up his underwater/inside a volcano/on an island bad guy lair.

These reasons herein the preceding list be yet a small smidgen of ways which the rouge bandit of England James Bond entertains us and expresses his righteousness.

My favorite Bond movies all stick to the clean and simple maxim of storytelling that can be summed up like this. Bond gets mission from M, Bond goes to location for mission, Bond fights people and meets ladies on his way to accomplishing the mission, The End. This highlights one thing Alfred Hitchcock always did and always preached about movie making, that you should give the audience most of the information regarding the story up front so they 1. know what is going on and why. And 2. can use all their wondering for wondering how the good guy will win out in the end(that is if it's that kind of movie.) The Bond franchise does this well by M. briefing Bond on who he will be trying to apprehend/follow/investigate, where he will be going to do so, ans who will help him once he gets there. Plot points plainly laid out. Mysteries erased. I mean James Bond isn't in the Mystery genre anyway right?

This past weekend I saw the new James Bond film called SPECTRE(which stands for Special Executive for Counter-Intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion). And I must say that I didn't read too many reviews and online opinions this time so I was going in pretty fresh. That said, I will now resort to the tried and trued method of writing criticism and list the movies strengths first.

First, it had a great hand to hand fight between Bond and David Bautista on the train. Oh yeah, Spoilers!!! Daniel Craig as always was phenomenal, athletic, and smart. The super sneaky and dangerous vibe around the SPECTRE funeral and meeting were spot on and sweet, especially how David Bautista killed that guy basically for his job interview. This adds to the mythos of the Bond novels and the organization of SPECTRE as being based on Ian Fleming's dealings with the Illuminati during World War 2 when he served in the Royal Navy and which gave him all his ideas for the James Bond novels, which I find much more plausible a scenario than he was just having second thoughts about getting married and wanted to scratch his international spy, playboy, hero itch somehow.

But I digress, on with the high points of the film. The opening sequence was fast paced, action packed, really cool(I know my descriptions can be so specific sometimes ;)), and it wasn't fifteen minutes long like the one in Casino Royale. And while we are on the subject of Casino Royale for a second I must say that Shaun Connery would never go on a Parkour chase through a construction site and chase someone up a crane, just saying.

And now on to the part where this gets hard for there are flaws which I would like to point out, but in a nice way of course,  and no feelings are going to get trampled on. That's basically because I know neither Daniel Craig nor Sam Mendes will ever read this article.

First flaw. 1. They pulled a Star Trek: Into Darkness. Yes, that's right they did it, even after all the feedback on how lame it is. For those of you who don't know, pulling a Star Trek: Into Darkness will now forever be known as giving a film's bad guy a generic name only to flip on the audience once deep into the film and have said character reveal that he is actually the most dastardly villain of the franchise but was just using another name. This presents the problem of being meaningless to anyone who hasn't seen the movies with said bad guy in them for such a reveal to have any affect. Oh, and every press release, magazine interview, and actor and director interview must contain the smoke screen of "Oh, no he's not Kahn, he's just a guy named John Harrison." And I kid you not that I read a magazine article in EMPIRE none the less where Mr. Mendes states, "Oh, don't say the B word. Of course, he's not Bloefeld. He's Franz Oberhauser and that's all guys. Nothing to see here. And NO WAY will we disappoint fans by pulling a Star Trek Into Darkness."

Well folks he did and yes Christoph Waltz's character is revealed to be Ernst Stavro Bloefeld about two thirds of the way through. He being the leader of SPECTRE with their octopus symbol rings. Another fun fact, the NSA recently launched a satellite where the side of it has a painting of an octopus above the Earth and spelling out "Nothing is beyond our reach." Bet you didn't know that eh?

Okay, on with the review! With that said the only other big criticism I have is that the plot was just too confusing and I really never knew what was happening and why. For instance Bond drives to Austria but we don't know why. We only know he's looking for someone and then when he meets her he says he's looking for something else and we have no idea where or what it is only that some dying character spoke the important word twenty minutes before. At one point he walks into a cabin in a snowy forest. We don't know why. We don't know what he's looking for. I didn't know where the movie was going. It's hard to enjoy a movie if all my feeling of mystery is being tied up in the thought of "What in the heck is going on here and why is he doing this?"

And unfortunately the latter thought was repeated much more throughout the movie. It must be how Sam Mendes likes to construct a story. I remember I loved Jarhead and that had no plot, no mission, just characters existing in a landscape and reacting to what's happening to them. And that film was brilliant. I feel the simpler and more straightforward plot development fits movies like Bond better. But that's just my opinion.

With that said, Mr. Mendes did a great job with what he was trying to accomplish and the script he had. This movie already has many fans and has made lots of money. It is a unique addition to the James Bond cannon which has gone all the way from Goldfinger to Octopussy to Golden Eye and now to SPECTRE. Despite my criticism I do look forward to seeing the last installment of James Bond from Mr. Craig and whoever they get to fill the directorial role left by the departure of Mr. Mendes. Thank you for reading. That is all.

Sayonara
Jake

Post on The Martian, otherwise known as MATT DAMON!

So, I finally saw Matt Damon trapped on Mars and I must say that the above meme really got my excitement flowing to see it and was a thorough warm up to the main event.

If you don't understand the above meme, watch the movie Team America World Police, or watch this clip from the movie https://youtu.be/gnPWJOJYVKc

I went with some good friends to an Issaquah theater and there planted my butt and waited for the sciency stuff to get going.

And boy did the sciency stuff really science up the story. Filled with science, a true science buff will love this movie as there are lots of references to math and astrophysics that I didn't understand but must accept as truth for this story to make sense. You can't base a movie upon being hard Science Fiction and have half-assed science right? Right? This isn't Star Trek where you can say a futuristic sciency sounding word and fill a plot hole with it. NO! This is hard core science here, real life stuff, stuff that can and will happen at any moment and you must be ready. AT. ALL. TIMES. Thus extending the recent trend of movies trying to be realistic, yes that is a real trend my friends.

Okay, so I get what they were trying to accomplish here and I come out up front and admit that I didn't read the book not even the first chapter. But I did hold a copy of someone's in the Home Depot lunch room and pretended to read the last sentence on the last page and told everyone the famous last sentence was "And then he pooped his pants." And here is where the book and the movie began to not live up to my expectations.

First off it is super hard to have satisfying character development when the main character has almost no other human interaction. He is always by himself, talking to himself, or recording cool video blogs of his progress in trying to make stuff he needs to survive, food, energy, water. There is humor in the movie, boy did they ever try to put humor here and in many places it is sciency humor that only super sciency people will get, which I am not so that is why I found the humor to be really lacking in places. I don't know, just not my type of jokes I guess. Science guys that work in science labs will probably love it or anyone who is really literal and left brained. Is left brained the literal sciency one? I am so the other type of brained that I can't even remember what the sciency one is, but whatever it is, it's the opposite of me. The most relate-able humor was Matt Damon swearing or falling down.

If this movie were to be remade I would request lots more explosions and stuff going wrong for Matt Damon and maybe an evil alien or bad guy astronaut on Mars trying to kill him or steal his freeze dried teriyaki chicken and them having space fights and making space weapons out of the scant materials they have left and then Matt Damon finishing him off and laying down the final scene stealing one liner, something like "This planet is mine." or "Get off my planet." or "Your epidermis is showing."

But overall, Ridley Scott did a good job considering it is super hard to make something with this type of tone and with basically the main character being all alone the entire movie and trying to adapt it from a book which makes it even more super hard. So, 2.5 stars out of 4 for the Martian even considering the theater broke down at the climax and we had to wait 30 minutes for them to fix the projector which they did.

I leave you with an interesting fact that I found from another meme I saw on imgur.com that states; "Between Saving Private Ryan, Interstellar, and now The Martian, America has spent a lot of time and money trying to save Matt Damon." Thank you, thank you very much.

Alright, Sayonara. I'm out.
jake

Mini post of just maybe a little significance, okay we'll see how it ends up ;)

Just an update wonderful people out there who maybe didn't want to read this blog but then thought well maybe since he hasn't posted in a while and then were like, well I don't have that much time, but sometimes his posts are funny and interesting in weird ways, so okay what the hay I'll read it and now here you are!

Great, now what I've been up to: 1. Going to school to finish the prerequisites for the Ultrasound program at Bellevue College. Now this isn't really complicated, it just involves about 80 million little steps that have to be done in perfect order so its mainly a test of patience, planning, and organization than anything. Just getting to the point where I could begin volunteering at the UW hospital to satisfy the volunteering requirement took about two months. Good thing I started early! My final quarter is this quarter and after that I send in my application, the application period is between Jan 1 2016 and Feb something 2016 so throw salt or something else over your shoulder for me. Thanks!

Anywho on to #2 the ongoing, unending, ever inspiring and sometimes maddening saga of trying to finish my book The Song of Jonas part 1 and publish it in some form that people can read dog gone it. So, 1 was finished and I started sending out submissions to Agents and in the mean time started part 2. So part 2 was going really good and am now about 90% done on first draft of it and since all agents I sent part 1 to were like "ummmmm we don't know, this sounds kind of weird and since its not accompanied by a perfect platform like a website, blog, or youtube account with already 1 million hits then we aren't interested, sorry," I decided to go back and make part 1 shorter. And I'm in the process of doing that or in other words "making it more like part 2, but also different."

In the mean time since traditional publishing is shying away from weird Young Adult novels that are too long, just like mine I have been thinking about self publishing on Smashwords and Amazon which is pretty cool in some ways and kind of a pain in more obvious ways such as no physical book being available in a real life bookstore. But oh, well maybe e-publishing will be easy and fun, or hard work and a little fun, or who knows.

So, that's my short update, nothing earth shattering here. Stay updated this fall for reviews from yours truly on the new Bond or as I like to say Borne in a Tux, and the Martian, or Saving Astronaut Matt Damon, and Star Wars part who the heck cares, which will have lots of lense flare galore and the usual J.J. Abrams staples that mean it will be pretty predictable, but hopefully good, fingers are crossing at least four times and it hurts.

Okay, Sayonara, later.
Jake

A general post on movies

My post on why I like movies and movies that I like and why, no joking allowed.

1. I love movies that represent a hyper reality that looks and sounds fresh and interesting and unique and that you don't see everyday ever, at all. This is important because setting in a story can be used to really affect the mood of the atmosphere or the world if you will. Is it a dystopia? A sword and sandal movie set in ancient Greece? An alien invasion movie? Yes, please! I'll take three of each!

2. Movies that use practical affects or CGI sparingly and blend it in with everything. The wonderful thing about practical affects is that they are real. Real in a sense that a model or a miniature has density in three dimensions and can be picked up, moved, pushed, put into water, or blown up and it looks like something physical is really happening. Don't let the argument that a "oh, well a man in a rubber mask isn't real" fool you. You are supposed to suspend your disbelief that the rubber mask is indeed rubber, we're all past that by now. What the movie is supposed to do is make the scene work and look good so that you feel like a part of the story and can emotionally relate to the main character and what is happening to them. CGI has its places, but it is all too often taken for granted that "oh, well now with CGI we can create anything we want!" and the result is a ship or a character or a building that doesn't work, not because it actually isn't real, but because it doesn't look like anything that could possibly physically exist in three dimensions. This happens way too much and highlights why the special affects on the original Star Wars are still amazing and why that movie is still so beloved and why the prequels were so widely panned.

3. Good story. As a trained writer one of the first things my omnipotent writing teachers taught me when I was struggling away in that little nursery with all the other neophyte writers was that a good story trumps everything and in fiction that includes the elements of plot, character, and setting if we're talking the most basic elements. But what is happening now in movie theaters across the globe? The prequel disease is spreading and screen writers aren't learning the lessons that my omnipotent writing instructors taught us. Among other things one of the most important rules was that back-story is always more important to the writer than the reader. Meaning that the writer always loves back-story and loves writing it a million times more that a reader enjoys reading it. Why? Because it is just lists of details and doesn't add to the drama, danger, suspense, and conflict that a true story demands. And that is why, ladies and gentlemen, that prequels in all and any form will always fall flat in the conflict and suspense department. I know some people like the new Planet of the Apes movies and that is fine, but I can't bring myself to see them for that reason alone, that they are just back-story or else they would have been made with Charlton Heston.

4. TRUTH. One thing that my omnipresent writing instructors taught us was that good fiction has as much element of truth in it as possible. Yes, that sounds conflicting but it makes sense from the basic sense that everyday events taken to dangerous extremes are basically the garden of fiction writers. Case in point #1 Ian Fleming wrote his James Bond series based upon his experiences in Naval Intelligence and NOT in any way as some last gasp grasp at an imaginary spy/playboy lifestyle which is the truly lame current theory. Commander Fleming's stories were based on his experiences, that very powerful secret groups are behind many global events and they manipulate governments and cause lots and lots of problems. Now you can disagree with me that's okay and yes, I do read lots of conspiracy literature, but hey its not in the fiction section is it? And if you doubt any of it then go check it out. A true skeptic doubts and then verifies for him or herself and doesn't remain in willful ignorance. But then people have free will and so may choose the latter option if they really want it.

5. Because I grew up in the Golden Age of action movies and still live three blocks from the best movie store ON THE PLANET. Yes, that store is Scarecrow Video and by golly they have everything and by everything I actually mean there isn't anything that they don't have. They have so much it could almost never be watched and there is no way to actually describe the wide range of things they have. If you want movies from the Philippines, they've got 'em. Vietnam? Got 'em. Movies based on video games? Got 'em. Spy movies or Westerns or Kung Fu movies? PLeeeeaaassseee...... They have so many your eyes will start to bleed when you see it.

Now that Golden Age comment, let me explain. I grew up in the eighties and during that time such an amazing amount of classic action movies came out that studios are still, to this day, 35 years later trying to duplicate that creativity and movie magic and they haven't come close. Case in point, studios are still making Terminator movies, Predator movies, Alien movies, Indiana Jones, and Star Wars. They remade Total Recall, Robocop, the Karate Kid, and are planning to remake Kick Boxer and Ghostbusters! Now if they try to remake Caddyshack I think I won't be able to handle that. So if you find out that I'm in jail, you'll know exactly why. Still need more proof that the 80's were the best, okay I take that dare; Conan the Barbarian-remade. Gremlins-classic. Goonies-untouchable. Blazing Saddles-modern scripture, and yes it was made in the 70's. Tim Burton's Batman, Pee Wee's big adventure, Top Gun(rumored Top Gun 2 has fallen apart) all were incredible.

Now can CGI be used well? I'm glad you asked. For yes it can and the likes of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as well as G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra proved that. Yes, I liked the first G.I. Joe movie, but I'm allowed to.

Well, my hands hurt from all that intense typing, but you get my point. Disagree? Why not leave a comment? What's up next? Well, I think I'll see Whiplash and maybe Exotic Marigold Hotel 2: Bedpan Apocalypse(That's actually the real title, yes...)

So until next time, Sayonara and keep watching movies and keep reading books!
jake

New Awesome book I read recently, I mean like really recently

Hey everyone, here's a blog topic I've been thinking about posting for a while, it's on a pair of totally sweet books I read by the same author. There's a lot to say about them, and I obviously can't say everything. So in order to give a thorough overview this will probably be a two or three part blog posting.

The first book is Journey of Souls: Case Studies of Lives Between Lives, by Michael Newton, Ph.D. Dr. Newton compiled the cases for this book and a second over years and years of notes from patient hypnosis sessions over his career probing and fitting the pieces together.

His technique is simple, anyone can do it! No, not really... He put patients under hypnosis and took them to the super-conscious level of their soul and then regressed them through previous lives to their most recent life and then through the death experience and into the astral/Afterlife realms. Now the amount of information he covers is so staggering please forgive me for rambling and chasing tangents. He covers what happens when people become ghosts. He states that souls can sometimes remain near their body or their loved ones to send them healing energy and thought to help them cope with their passing. Some souls just want to see what happens with their body or are upset with their method of passing and have trouble moving on. In almost all circumstances he says that a soul feels a magnetic pull from far off and that they easily agree to join it and eventually follow it into the astral world (let's just call it that from now on).

From there his subjects usually meet their spirit guide who is a wise human like being that they identify as having been their teacher through many, many, many afterlife periods. The teachers and their methods of teaching are almost as diverse as the personalities of people and it is important to point out that the teachers are never tyrannical, judging, or negative. Speeding up a bit, the teachers always take the souls to meet their soul group usually in a type of building, sometimes in a field, but always in a room where they are free to share their recent life experiences on earth. At this point he points out the dynamics of a soul's own soul group which has many dynamics but basically includes a person's closest family and friends incarnating in different ways and personal relationships over their lifetimes. There is so much that he covers regarding soul groups and dynamics that I might just devote a single post to that, we'll see. Needless to say there is also the topic of soul evolution and the levels he encountered. Every soul he interviewed stated that they are in the process of evolving towards the Source, or god and that eventually they will be free from incarnations on earth.

From the initial soul group meeting a soul might break off to review events from their most recent life, sometimes in a giant library setting by viewing holographic 'life books' as people refer to them. Souls are also accompanied by their guide to a meeting with Elders who are understood t o be ancient high-level teachers that set up a type of board meeting or 'afterlife interview' to help the soul honestly introspect on the important events of their previous life. These Elders interview the person usually in a round chamber while from above them a great beam of love and peace emanates from what the souls simply call 'the source' and not usually god, but definitely a loving type of energy that permeates everything and the Elders and their guides especially.

The souls can then go onto several types of activities that I won't get into right here, maybe another time. Souls stay in the astral world for different amounts of time and are not forced to return to earth but all know that they still need to return. If a soul is reluctant to return their guide encourages them and might use further discussion and forms of persuasion to see that they are stalling and almost every soul comes to the knowing that they must reincarnate if they are to progress and learn. When the soul accepts it is time to reincarnate they enjoy a second 'interview' with their guide and the council of Elders in order to plan their next life. The soul is given different options to choose from based on what they and their guide have discussed and what the Elders know is best for the soul due to their high level of wisdom and previous knowledge of that soul and their journey. When the choice to reincarnate is made the soul descends into the baby in the mother's womb and integrate with the mind of the child.

Okay, that's enough for now. This was a pretty long post and still I only scratched the surface of Dr. Newton's first book. Needless to say it was a fascinating and highly inspiring read and would recommend it to anyone interested in the subject. As a last note I must add that in many instances Dr. Newtons states that a soul's guide would often reject requests for certain knowledge that they deemed to intimate or not for Dr. Newton or the patient to know. This leads to what I feel is the important fact that he is only reporting on a limited portion of the astral world and an imperfect view of it as well. The important underlying truth here is that nobody has the whole ultimate truth especially regarding such a vast metaphysical topic as this and needs to keep an open yet discriminating mind. I believe that there is much much more remains to the astral worlds and beyond than what Dr. Newton describes in his two books which is not hard to accept if someone has done a thorough amount of research into different realms of spirituality and metaphysics.

And.... that is my final thought on the subject for now. If you still doubt that this book is awesome take note that it has 685 5 star reviews on Amazon. Boom!

Peace,
Sayonara
Jake

Two great science books to check out. THE ZERO BLOG!

Zero Blog

Hey, so there are two new books on science that I wanted to share, one I’ve already read, the other one I’m about half way through. Nonfiction is probably my favorite genre, ironically, since I like to write almost only epic YA with fantasy and scifi angles, tangents, and flavors. Not sure why, but there must be a reason somewhere. Not that I don’t like to read fiction, it’s just that I just don’t find that much fiction that I like reading, other than The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Lord of the Rings, and A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The classics are always great. Oh, those and Slaughterhouse Five, one of my all-time faves.

The first science book, well history of science really is called Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time, by Dava Sobel. It traces the time period before, leading up to, and during the race to find the solution to calculating Longitude. This was very, very important for sailing of all kinds obviously and would release ships from needing to stick close to shore and just praying they were on course to the British Royal Navy pretty much dominating the seas for at least a hundred years.

The cool thing is it was almost all due to the hard work of one man named John Harrison an 18^th century clockmaker who worked over thirty years to perfect the chronometer a maritime clock about the size of a pocket watch. His previous attempts are on display in a museum somewhere in England. They started out looking huge and then got smaller and smaller. The trick to making it was that all clocks up until then had been pendulum clocks that got out of whack and off time when subjected to the swaying of a ship. Others had their oil and gear messed up due to changes in atmospheric changes like temperature, pressure, and humidity that resulted in loss or gain of time and in the worst situations total seizing up and ruin.

Without knowing their longitude sailors had to use dead reckoning which was basically guessing or using maritime ‘intuition’ to determine where their destination was or just hug the coastline or sail along a latitude and then take a straight shot from that known location. All of these methods led to extra long voyages, shortening of rations and a heightening threat of scurvy, or in the worst cases wreckage and loss of the entire vessel.

The chronometer basically allowed the sailors to keep the constant time of their home port. Then at noon when the sun was its highest the sailors compared this to the home port clock and the hour difference was calculated into distance difference and thus the sailor could determine their longitude and have a good idea of where they were and not crash into huge nasty, pointy rocks.

I suggest that if you don’t want to read the book, check out the Wikipedia page on it just to get a more in depth idea of exactly what it’s about. If you like science, engineering, and history this is a really interesting read.

The second Book is called Zero; The Biography of a Dangerous Idea, by Charles Seife. In this one the author traces the concepts of zero and infinity and details how they have been so closely interrelated and ultimately considered to be two sides of the same coin. The author traces its appearance in Babylonian mathematics, all the way through the ancient Greeks, the Egyptians, the Roman Empire, the dark Ages, then the Renaissance, and all the way up to Quantum Mechanics and possibly beyond(Like I said, I’m not quite finished yet.) I don’t quite understand all the fancy math ideas, especially once he gets to Calculus, but it was interesting once the same and it’s not hard to appreciate how it was such an important concept to early mathematicians that struggled with it and rejected it all the way up to those that embraced it and invented the irrational numbers and the different types of infinity and how to count them(whewww! That last part is a mind bender!).

Since it is basically tracking the history of science I think a really important thought experiment is to try to think of where we are getting science wrong now and think about where it is going and how. Think of one of Arthur C. Clarke’s maxims; “If an old scientist says something is impossible he is most probably wrong. If a younger scientist says something is possible it most likely is.” That wasn’t a perfect quote word for word, but you get the idea.

Well, anyway, those are two of some of the best books I’ve read recently and if you’ve got the time and desire I definitely recommend them as easy, quick reads.

Take care

Sayonara!

Jake

The Sports Blog, better known as the futbal/football blog

Hey everyone, so I've recently really gotten into this little sport called futbol or football. That's what it's called over almost 80% of the world that only the United States and Australia call Soccer. I think it's super awesome and will from now on refer to it as football since you actually play it by kicking a thing that looks ball shaped with your foot unlike American football where you mostly use your hands to pass, catch, run with something that looks like an egg. The Brits refer to American Football as armored wank ball which is just hilarious and in no way offensive. You shouldn't be offended American Football fans, it's entertaining to learn new things about other places and cultures and mix it up a bit right? Right;)

So, I slowly got into this sport of futbol by playing the video game Fifa which stands for the world governing body of football, or something to that affect. The game is super fun and I have progressed from getting waxed on a daily basis to being able to beat the computer every time. But what will happen when I face my old human opponents remains to be seen. The game allows any league team to play any other or any country squad. In the future I will use this to evaluate impossible scenarios such as; who is the better defender, scorer, Wayne Rooney playing for England national squad or Wayne Rooney playing for Manchester United?

 Now watching the game on television and following it online, or in print is another task in and of itself. Being by far above and beyond the most popular sport in the world there are just so many leagues and players to know and keep track of. I'm starting slow, but reading regularly. But if I start memorizing the previous leading scorers of the Czech Republic top league then I will need admission to a Shick Shadle like facility for Futbol Obsession Disorder, or FOD. And I'm sure such a thing exists within the London city limits.


Since I'm new to football I tend to use comparisons to other sports in trying to understand it. For example the excitement of scoring a goal in football and the impact on the game is equal to a single basketball player scoring a ten point basket. It isn't impossible to overcome a ten point deficit in basketball, but it puts you behind for sure. Losing by three to nill in football is a thrashing, similar to losing by thirty in basketball, not a pretty picture. This analogy works except when evaluating goals per game average; a football player averaging 1 goal or more per game is straight killing it, and is much more impressive than a basketball player averaging ten points a game, more like 25 or 30 points per game.

You can even compare players like Christiano Ronaldo is like a Lebron James type player, super powerful, fast and a scoring machine. And Messi can be a more prolific Allen Iverson, a mighty mouse that goes and goes and scores like a maniac, except that I'm sure Messi likes 'practice.'

Now in defense of armored wankball, I'm a fan, especially the Seahawks, and I've followed it all my life to some extent even though now I follow sports in general maybe a third as much as I used to. I still feel like I've entered a bizarro world or alternative Earth when I think that the Seahawks actually won the Superbowl.  And I really believe it will never stop shocking me, it was just an incredible experience. Can they do it again this year? Who knows? Let's find out. Go Hawks!!!
later
jake

Review of TMNT

Hi everyone, I was going to do a review of two science books I've read recently, but I can't find the correct author and title for one of them so that will have to wait.

But instead I will review that movie that no one I knew wanted to see, but I saw anyway, the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! And boy was it about what I thought it would be. Nothing surprised me or surpassed expectations in any way. Let's just say its a rental or just skip it if you're on the fence about it.

First off, I loved the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, watched the cartoon, and read the comics. It's been a wildly successful and popular franchise considering Eastman and Laird basically created it as a joke.

But the CGI in the new movie looks good, don't get me wrong, the turtles look great, its just that their design looks creepy. It's the same problem with any movie that relies too much on CGI, the viewer doesn't emotionally relate to something that looks and feels fake, ex. Transformers, Spiderman swinging, etc... That said its no wonder there was an article in the Seattle Times a couple of days ago about how Hollywood has seen the worst box office attendance drop off in thirty years. This reliance on CGI to create un-relatable images is further compounded by the fact that so many movies are now either sequels or reboots; glaring examples are Robocop, Total Recall, Predators, Terminator 4, TMNT, Star Trek, and basically anything new with the word Star Wars attached to it. But there's a logical but flawed reason for remaking all these action movies from the late 70's and 80's=they are fricking, legit classics. That was the Golden Age for action cinema, Hollywood knows this, and they want to recapture it but are just going about it the wrong way unfortunately. It's sad, but I think eventually that things will loosen up in Hollywood and the CGI movement will mature to the point where maybe we can see some more classics that were creative, funny, and daring like Predator, Gremlins, Superman, Alien, and Caddyshack just to name a few.

Anyway, that's my movie rant for this week. Hopefully soon I will change topic and write about those science books I read that really were fascinating.
Until then, later.
Jake

Hey, just wanted to share some great books on cutting edge science and history. The history is only cutting edge because the mainstream establishment has suppressed it for a long time now in order to smooth out any opposition to their dogmatic beliefs.

A brief aside on that last point; these are good people that are deluded by what is called the "hubris of modern man," i.e. the unspoken cultural assumption that just because we have atomic energy, planes, the internet, and iphones that we are super advanced in all aspects of life and that all our scientific theories and theories on history and archaeology are therefore true. This takes the unfortunate form in the mainstream denying publication and press to alternative theories outside the norm, thus assuring there is no ability to reasonably quote and research them in a fair way, therefore supporting their claim that they are fringe and useless.

Here are three books I have read recently and one I am currently reading that are blockbusters in terms of inspiring facts that have been suppressed in favor of more boring, mainstream theories. And by boring I don't mean in the entertainment sense, but in the quality sense, in that these cutting edge science represents deep truths that are awe inspiring, uplifting, and just all around awesome, which is not so with most theories that are hammered into our brains and worshiped like religious dogma by the scientific elite.

Here they are;
1. Forbidden Archaeology, by Michael Cremo.
2. Forbidden Science Edited by J. Douglas Kenyon.

3. The Ancient Giants Who Ruled America. By Richard J. Dewhurst

4. The Lost Star of Myth and Time. By Walter Cruttendun.

I could go on and on about these books, but they touch on a few points that are just mind-blowing; the fact that ten to twelve foot giants lived in the US thousands of years before the Native Americans(these giants were the Mound Builders and Native Americans have no oral history of mound building.)

The theory that Atlantis was a more technologically and spiritually advanced civilization than we have now and that in that time or even many years before Atlantis there was a worldwide culture that shared many beliefs, languages, and rituals(pyramids, mummification, hieroglyphics, and many other things.)

The great Pyramid of Giza complex and the sphinx are much older than believed. There is proof of heavy rainfall erosion on the Sphinx which hadn't existed on the Giza Plateau for more than 8,000 years. There is not proof that the Pharaoh Kufu had the pyramid built.

Anyway, hope you check out some of these books. I will be sharing more in the future and they usually will be along the same lines of discussion. Until then stay frosty.

Sayonara

Jake

P.S. This maverick view towards science and the establishment is fundamentally essential to advancement. Tons and tons of advancements have come from outside the establishment, meaning they weren't bogged down in dogma and publish or perish, toe the line ideology. Ex. Einstein did his best stuff as a patent clerk(Quote from Ray Stanz in Ghostbusters ;) which is true and look what he accomplished.

The spirit of science should be creative, always challenging itself to grow, expand, and break out of its old boundaries. When human nature and psychology reach that point of critical mass, humanity will accomplish greater things than we can even dream of now.

Drum roll......My review of The Guardians of the Galaxy

     Okay, so I saw The Guardians of the Galaxy on Thursday like I said I would and well this is what I thought. It pretty much exceeded my lowered expectations a little with the humor, the great oldies music the main character listens to, and the great villain. Finally a strong, non CGI(computer graphic images) villain in a Marvel Movie(but it still had a nonsensical, cosmically confusing mcguffin, 'the orb' with the 'infinity stone', which just seems to be an incredibly powerful thing that can do anything and has no restrictions or rules. Basically a plot saving Ace in the whole for the writer who just makes it do whatever he wants it to do to move the plot along. Kind of like the ether power in the second Thor movie, which I really liked but with the mcguffin being the greatest weakness.) For those non initiates into movie Nerdome a mcguffin is an object in the plot that every character wants and is fighting over. See Tesserac, Holy Grail, Arc of the Covenant, etc....

     I think if I saw it again that maybe I would care about the characters more. Their motivation for them to be friends and stick together was a little weak, but hey this is a Marvel movie in the age of huge studios micromanaging things to death, see the comments of Jose Padilha on directing the new Robocop. He basically said the studio denied 9 out of 10 ideas he had and it was a terrible experience. But like a good employee he retracted them and apologized. So given that I don't expect a Star Wars, Lawrence of Arabia, or a Seven Samurai to come out of Marvel anytime soon. Moving on, yes the movie had an INSANE amount of CGI, ships, characters, backgrounds, laser blasts, almost everything got the makeover. Note the long list of digital artists in the credits, almost took up half of the closing crawl. But for that amount of CGI I have to say I was pleased with it. It has to be remembered that this CGI era is only sixteen years old and as an era it's still finding itself.

    I will support this last point there and then I'm done. In the Legend special features Ridley Scott said that movies should be mostly close up shots and some 3/4 shots, but very little long shots. This helps the audience can build an emotional connection with the characters. Star Wars used this to perfection by utilizing what George Lucas called "documentary style" which means lots of handheld, lots of camera movement within a scene, and mostly close ups to 3/4 distance shots. There is even an anecdote that the producers and suits at Fox were angry that he was spending lots of money creating beautiful sets but only filming a small portion by not using long shots. To use too many long shots would have worked against him. And the high use of establishing longshots by directors today is what is not establishing a connection with the characters as well as it could. There are almost too many examples to list here. Just watch any Transformers, Marvel, or Tom Cruise vs. aliens movie since 1998 and you will see that the director wants to maximize the use and full exposure of the entire CGI image rather than go back to the basics of cinematography. This also includes lack of interesting camera angles and movement which is basically said word for word by the special affects engineer on the special features to Big Trouble in Little China, whose name I just Goodled, its Richard Edlund. I love Wikipedia;) In that feature he recounts how they spent THOUSANDS of dollars on creating the floating blob head with like five eyes only for it to have like one minute of screen time. Okay, guilty on liking special features;) Anyway, this blog was too long, but I had a lot to say. Thanks for reading anyone who did and leave a comment if you like.

Next up the movie no one wants to see but I WILL SEE NO MATTER WHAT, the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Sayonara.
later
jake

Hey, everyone. This Thursday I'm going to see the new Marvel movie, The Guardians of the Galaxy. I'm kind of excited to see it, not gonna lie, but am setting low expectations because it's another comic book movie. Don't think I hate comics, I collected them as a kid and loved the art work, but now looking back I never collected them for the interesting stories or characters. Now Tim Burton's Batman and the Christopher Reeves Superman series are my favorite comic movies, but the new species of comic movies are steeped in so much CGI that something is lost I think. Plus, I'm not a fan of the new 'dark and dingy' comic movies that seem to be really popular, like the Dark Knight series. There is a quote by Jim Henson that I whole heartedly agree with where he basically says that "Life should be fun and filled with joy all the time." So, I frankly am tired of the dark and dingy look myself.

I'm totally open to liking Guardians, but my expectations are pretty low. People are free to say that it's the new Star Wars, that's their opinion and they are welcome to it. But, we'll see. I will post my opinion after I see it.

later
jake

This past weekend I attended the PNWA writer's conference and it was awesome. I saw old friends from the UW Extension writing programs, heard some good talks(Robert Dugoni, James Rollins, Gerri Russel among others) and ate some ok food at the SeaTac Hilton hotel. Got some good feedback on my novel, some agent interest, and ideas on how to get in the most perfect shape I can right now before I send it off. In all it was a really fun time, about the best conference I've been to so far. And this was my sixth! Seems like I'm a long ways from sitting in Jim Thayer's class talking about his ten rules of writing. But it's been a great journey.