The Visitors

I just had to post this because it is going to be freaking cool.

I loved the original "V" movies and mini-series. I just wish they would finish the story where it left off.

But this should be good, either way. I just hope they don't screw it up like was done with the Battlestar Galactica "re-imagining"

A New Perspective on Theme Parks

When I was little, we used to go to Conneaut Lake Park in western Pennsylvania at least once or twice a summer. CLP just happened to be where my parents met when they were working there for a summer during college. So I'm sure they have lots of fond and interesting memories of it also.

My memories of it usually revolve around the sheer fun of it -- there was so much for kids to do. It was the one place I looked forward to going to each summer. They had rides (although at that point, I was nowhere near the thrill-ride junkie I am not; in fact, I was scared to death of them); they had a petting zoo; they had this place called Fairyland Forest; they had midway games; and they had an arcade.

I did dare to ride a few things like a mini-roller coaster called the Wild Mouse and their version of the Tilt-a-Whirl the last few times I went to CLP. They did have this thing called The Hell Hole that I never did go on though because it just looked ominous and my parents always told me I was too little.

I spent some serious bank in the arcade there. And of course, I'm sure my parents spent more than a fair amount just getting us into the park and for tickets to do everything we wanted to.

We moved to the Carolinas though after my fifth grade year and haven't been back to CLP since. Over the years since then, the park has had alot of financial difficulties, changed ownership a few times, and hasn't been open in over a year. They had a pretty big fire in the old dance hall there last year also. I think that's really sad. It was such a magical place for children.

But now I think I've found my adult equivalent.

During our vacation last week to Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge, TN, my wife I decided to go to Dollywood. As I have been every other time we've been to the area, I was reluctant to go to Dollywood - period. I have issues with the fact that a lot of entertainment venues seem to like to take advantage of people with high priced foods and souveniers. And I figured Dollywood would not be worth it and would just be another place that sucks hordes of money from its patrons.

So when I paid for our tickets to get into the park my thought was "This better be worth the money I just plunked down."

It ended up being very worth it - and then some. We ended up upgrading our tickets to season passes before the end of our first day there, for a very nominal fee, which can be used for the last few days of 2008 and all of the 2009 season.

I always thought that the shows I saw at Carowinds (outside Charlotte, NC) and Six Flags over Georgia were really dorky. I understand now though that that is how those performers make a living, they truly are talented, and they obviously must enjoy their job to be able to put these performances on four or five times a day, seven days a week, for 9 months at a time. We saw a total of five shows - and each one of them were really awesome - from an adaptation of Babes in Toyland, to an Appalachian bluegrass group performing Christmas carols, to a musical about the birth of Jesus. I came away wishing they had a few more shows to see.

We didn't do a whole lot of rides - just two roller coasters for me, some sort of combination tilt-a-whirl that rocks back and forth that we both rode, and then the carousel. And we did ride the Dollywood Express, an authentic coal-fired locomotive that does a five mile trip through and around the park. We rode it at night so there were few spots where it literally was pitch black as we were winding through the trees outside the park.

What we really enjoyed was going to church service in the park and seeing some demonstrations at some of the specialty shops - like glass blowing, blacksmithing, and carriage building. I really wish I had had my Nikon with me, but I was not about to take something that expensive into Dollywood. I kept telling myself "Oh, that would be such an awesome shot - I wish I had my D40 with me" --- like the gentleman who was painting the glass beads on Christmas decorations, or the one who was putting a wagon wheel together. And some decent pictures of the bald eagles that they have in the park would have been cool too.

So all in all it was very worth it. And I think I've come full circle now on from my favorite childhood amusement park to my favorite adulthood theme park.

Why George... Why?

Dear George Lucas:

First you went as far as to have Greedo shoot first. Not cool.

Then you destroyed your core fanbase's hopes for three ultra-kickin' new chapters of the best sci-fi movie series ever by including a talking amphibian that makes flatulence jokes.

You went on to make the most overly-gaudy, CGI-heavy movie with Attack of the Clowns....

Developed some of the worst dialogue I've ever heard in the Revenge of the Sith. "Hold me, like you did by the lake on Naboo; so long ago when there was nothing but our love. No politics, no plotting, no war." C'mon, man.... Yuck.

Oh, I see.... you couldn't leave well enough alone. You had to go and make an animated movie. Of the Clone Wars? Again.. C'mon, dude....

At least if you were going to make an animated movie, set it between Sith and A New Hope so that Vader could be in it.

You suck George. You couldn't leave the ships dingy, dirty, and battle-scarred. You had to give them a CGI sheen. You wouldn't work with someone elses' novelization of what proved to be an awesome triology in "Heir to the Empire" and turn those into movies...

You had to turn Indiana Jones into a story about aliens. Finding Atlantis just wasn't good enough, huh?

Instead you decide to give us more garbage.

The Clone Wars --- as a computer animated movie? We put so much faith in your storytelling and your ability to fascinate us with space battles on a limited budget. Now you go and do this?

Well, I'm through with your garbage. As much of a mark as you made on my generation's fascination with sci-fi and my childhood toy collection, I will never undertand why you did this to us.

Why George, why?

Sincerely,

Disgusted in South Carolina

How Do You Make A Wookie Dance?

Being a big-time Star Wars junkie and fan of 80s music, I just had to repost this.



I stumbled across the Dance Off With the Star Wars Stars 2008 video this morning on The Comedy Feed, and laughed so hard the guys in the next office came over and asked what was going on. So I showed them the video. I'm still laughing.

Both this year's and last year's competition are on YouTube. Here's the 2007 contest for your viewing enjoyment.

Lasagna and Longevity

When I pick up the Sunday paper, the first section I start hunting for is the Comics. Right past the A Section, Sports, Classifieds and Lifestyle sections, straight to the Comics. Once there, I hunt for one thing: the Garfield strip.

The very first thing I read in the Sunday newspaper is the Garfield comic strip. I get my daily Garfield fix with my Garfield IGoogle widget -- right there, center stage beside my news feeds on my homepage every day when I first load up my browser.

I'm a Garfield addict. I used to collect the Garfield comic strip compilation books. I kind of got out of that a few years back, but I still have all the ones I did purchase readily accessible so I can thumb through them from time to time. I have all of the main Garfield characters as stuffed animals on a shelf in my office at home.

Today is Garfield's 30th birthday. June 19, 1978 was the day of the first Garfield strip. He's slimmed down since then; but personality-wise he's still pretty much the same.

Garfield and I have grown up together and are a lot alike. Our favorite food is lasagna. We both love to sleep in and both hate Mondays. We both have an affinity for the remote control. We both like to make smart-ass remarks. And we both love junk food.

Garfield's creator, Jim Davis, obviously has an awesome sense of humor. To consistently come up with new material on a weekly or daily basis for 30 years, you have to have a great deal of talent. Jim is up near the top of my list of people I'd like to meet.

I don't quite recall how or when I first got into Garfield, since I was only four when Jim first put the orange ink on the paper to draw the lasagna lovin' cat. I have a feeling my dad turned me on to Garfield.

But I know I've been actively reading Garfield comic strips for at least 25 of the 30 years he's been around. Garfield is one of the constants in my life.

As long as Garfield is published, that will be the first thing I look for in my Sunday newspaper.

So Happy Birthday, Garfield. I hope you're around for another 30 years.

Idol Watch: The Finale

David Cook all the way, baby

Back at week one, I was predicting Chikeze, Brooke, and David Archuleta as the final three, one of whom to become American Idol. Other than Archie making it to the final three, I got that one really wrong.

But I truly think the best contestant won. Archie is a talented singer, he's just not a performer. And I don't think he will sell nearly as many albums as David Cook.

America needed this win. Die-hard rockers needed this win. We've been listening to crap on the radio for the past 18 years. (This is the point where this post could really diverge into a discussion on what a wasteland the music industry and the airwaves have become, but....)

I'll definitely buy any album David Cook puts out. Congratulations David, you deserve this!




The best part of the night was watching him rock out with ZZ Top. These guys have not changed at all in 25+ years and still kick ass. They were one of my favorite rock acts when I was growing up.

I could have done without Donna Summer last night. Man she's looking old.

Bryan Adams was awesome as always --- for a guy who's 48 and has been in the business for 30 years, he's still got it and he still looks young. I've been waiting for seven years to hear some Adams on Idol and they brought it on last night.



It was a nice touch to have Graham Nash on last night also. His and Brooke's duet was awesome -- a very nice addition to the show. I could have done without George Michael though.

Anyway.- it was a great end to a very competitive season. Until next year....

No One Title Fits This....

So Jericho came to the end of its -second and alleged final- season on CBS last night. My boycott against CBS (see my March 23 post) will continue.

Knowing full well this could be the final episode ever of Jericho, I watched it with nervous excitement having my own ideas of what would happen, seeing the plot unfold, and watching it with a wide range of emotions.

The whole show has had a lot of symbolism and hidden messages in it, from political to historical. It has kept me riveted.

I never expected when Jericho started to be as disappointed with the closure of a television show as I am now because last night's episode exhibited some of the finest television writing I have ever seen. From the ripping off of the Allied States of America patches from the soliders' uniforms showing their protest of the puppet government put in place by a powermongering corporation, to the show of respect for another man's loss of family... and I never thought I'd find myself saying something like this, but ... to the shooting down of two former United States Air Force jets by the Texas Air National Guard.

Throughout the whole episode, I was yelling at the TV. A 33-year-old man was getting misty eyed watching how well the humanity and the patriotism bled through the screen. I was screaming in frustration or hollering in excitement.

That, my friends, is television at it's best.

However, one of the most profound moments in the show came during an exchange between the two heroes, when the one, Jake Green, was asking the other, Hawkins, what was going to come of their actions.

Hawkins replies: "Whatever happens in the next few hours could determine the course of things for years to come. Maybe our history for the next hundred years. That is the responsbility we got here. And if that comes at a terrible cost, then so be it. Because that's the only way that things get better and it's the only way that people stay free."

Imagine these scenes:

• The morning of July 4, 1776, Philadelphia, PA, at the Pennsylvania Statehouse as delegates of the Second Continental Congress assemble to go over the final draft of a document called "The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America"....
• April 12, 1861, in the Charleston, SC harbor, as Confederate batteries are about to open up on Fort Sumter...
• December 7, 1941, in the White House as President Roosevelt receives word of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor...
• August 6, 1945, as crewmembers board the Enola Gay at Tinian Airbase in the Pacific...
• April 16, 1962, as President John F. Kennedy reviews surveillance photos showing Soviet missile batteries on the island nation of Cuba...
• November 22, 1963, as Lyndon Baines Johnson is sworn in as president aboard Air Force One following the assassinaton of President John F. Kennedy...
• August 2, 1990, as President George H. Bush receives word the the Iraqi army has invaded Kuwait...
• November 8, 2000, in the Florida election commission headquarters....
• September 11, 2001, in the Pentagon, aboard Air Force One, or in the FAA headquarters as civilian airliners are used as weapons of terrorism against the United States....

Think about what happened in a few hour time period on each of those days.

Government leaders, military personnel, and ordinary citizens all made decisions and put actions into place that have since affected American history and world history and will continue to for years to come.

In many of those cases, the cost of those decisions was in a particular hardship, political strife, turmoil, or signficiant loss of American lives. These are things that we must be faced to go through from time to time in order to sustain our freedom.

We've lost 4,000 servicemembers in the Iraqi theater in the past five years. We lost more than 58,000 in a more than 10-year period in Vietnam and the jungles of Southeast Asia. Nearly 292,000 American servicemembers died serving their country during our less than four-year involvement in the theaters of World War II.

We've seen that there can be a terrible cost for our actions and for how we respond to different situations - and that cost, whether in the past, present, or future, can or will be hard to deal with and cause tremendous heartache and doubt. But that's how things get better and people stay free.

One of Those Moods

I'm in one of those moods where I can't seem to get into the work groove his morning. I know I shouldn't take time from work to peruse silly stuff on YouTube and read the news of the weird on Fark.... but I'm just in one of those kind of moods.

We spent the weekend doing as little as possible. Being lazy is such a good thing sometimes. And despite the fact I was up until 3 am last night, I still feel pretty rested. There is a lot to be said for being able to sleep in until 10 am two days in a row. Those of you who have kids I know don't get the opportunity but on rare occasions.

So far this morning I have added four tasks on my little Today's To Do notepad that always resides on my desk. I have no intention of doing them until after lunch. I need to get this MySpacing, Blogging, Farking, and YouTubing out of my system. I'm thinking Chik-Fil-A will knock that right out.

I found this on YouTube a little bit ago -- man this brings back some college memories. You can't imagine how much influence Beavis and Butthead had over me and my friends until you see some of our videos (which are held in an undisclosed location and kept under lock and key). Anyway, here's a little Beavis and Butthead to liven up your day.



And if this posting hasn't made a whole lot of sense, I apologize. I'm just in one of those moods.

We Can Wait Another 14 Years

For the past almost 14 years we thought we were safe. They warned us -- but apparently we didn't pay close enough attention.

Get loose everybody cause were gonna do our thing
cause you know it aint over till the fat lady sings

Unfortunately while we were all biding our time with the sucky-ass wasteland of alternative music, boy bands, Britney and Christina, or trashy sexed up hip-hop, they must have been planning this all along. *Barf*

Don't cross our path cause youre gonna get stomped.
We aint gonna give anybody any slack
and if you try to keep us down were gonna come right back

All we can do know is pray that it isn't true... But according to People magazine, it is.

The New Kids on the Block are back. *Gag* (By the way, the lyrics above are from Hanging Tough, one of the dorkiest songs ever written)

Sigh. Now I'm really depressed. I was as hopeful as every red-blooded 80s raised male that maybe Lita Ford would make a comeback.



Or maybe Heart would do a new tour for the first time in years.

There's been a lot of 80s bands in recent years that have hit the recording studio and/or tour roads again. Many never stopped. Some of the best are still going strong. Bon Jovi has been at it for almost 25 years now. Def Leppard - going on 30+. Aerosmith - 35ish.

Journey, Styx, REO Speedwagon. Slaughter, RATT, Cinderella. Duran Duran. The GoGos. I heard recently the Bangles are together again. They are all groups that are awesome to have around still.



I want Lita Ford to tour again.

But not the New Kids. I had to deal with them at a rainy concert at Carowinds amusement park when I was in 9th grade just so I could see Tiffany. Yes, I admit it. I saw them. Not one of my favorite memories. At least not until Tiffany came out.

Dealing with Donnie Wahlberg's horrendous acting has been bad enough. Mark Wahlberg's isn't too bad. The movie Rock Star, while kinda corny, was decent. The best thing about that movie was Mike Matijevic's awesome voice that Wahlberg lip-synced to. (If you don't know who I'm talking about, he's the lead singer of Steelheart)



I just hope that time will have allowed the New Kids to put together songs that aren't as dorky as what they originally did.

I would rather listen to Hannah Montana or Gregorian monk chants every day for the rest of my life than have to hear NKOTB on the radio again.

As it is they'll really need to rename themselves Thirtysomethings On The Block. They couldn't give us another 14 years as a warning to prepare? Then they could be the Rising Seniors On The Block.

All Good Things...

(I think that actually WAS the title of a TV series finale...)

One of my favorite shows ended its official run on television last Friday evening. Stargate SG-1 ended after an impressive 10-season run. Save two movies that are scheduled to run this fall, the adventures of Jack O'Neill (aka McGyver), Teal'c, Daniel Jackson, Cam Mitchell, General Hammond, General Landry, Vala (what a babe), and Sam Carter (what an even hotter babe), have come to a bittersweet end - although Sam will be starring on Stargate Atlantis starting this fall, for which I am very thankful.

The series finale wasn't impressive. They could have at least given us a two-hour event. Instead they utilized an hour to tweak sci-fi elements of a previously used story (Stargate fans will know what I'm talking about) into another story that resolved almost nothing -- and left many unanswered questions.

Thankfully in Stargate's case, the upcoming movies should bring additional closure to the show. But it seems to be a trend now that when shows are ending, they just end badly. If they know ahead of time the show is ending, they tend to write some lame finale, resolving some questions but leaving many unanswered. If they're just pulled off the air, we don't get any resolution.

And it seems that the biggest offenders are sci-fi and action shows. Threshold, Surface, and Invasion were all pulled with no warning. Star Trek Enterprise's finale was just lame, as was Star Trek Voyager's. JAG's was okay, but still pretty bad.

The Wonder Years, one of my other favorite shows of all-time, ended with perhaps the one of the biggest questions in television history: Did they or didn't they?

Quantum Leap had one of the most frustrating series finales. It was bittersweet, answered many questions, reunited lost loves (Al and Beth -- still one of my favorite television scenes ever), but Sam never got to go home. I've been hoping for years that they would resolve this show with a movie. The lobbying efforts do still continue for this....

Viewers like myself often spend years watching a show evolve and change, and at the end hope for a farewell worthy of their respect. Whatever happened though to putting heart into the end of an era, a chapter in someone's life and in a television show's life? Growing Pains, Family Ties and MASH had excellent finales. My favorite all-time finale is probably that of Cheers.

Here's to Norm, Sammy, Diane, Fraiser, Rebecca, Carla, Cliff, Woody, and Coach.