An Undead Raccoon?

So there I was driving to KFC, that's one of my favorite places to eat when I'm house-sitting because there isn't one by where I live. Well I come to a car that was parked with it's lights on, it was dusk so you probably wouldn't have the lights on unless you were driving somewhere, because it wasn't quite dark enough that you would need it for any other reason. Well I see something in the road on my side of the road and I figured he stopped to let whatever animal it was cross. I saw what he was waiting for and I stopped too. It was a raccoon that was hunched over kind of like the way the Gollum was in Lord of the Rings. I flashed my lights hoping to startle it and have it run off. It didn't even budge, in fact I thought maybe it was dead or hurt so it couldn't move. But this wasn't the case as it would need every muscle in it's body to hunch itself over like that. The car on the other side of the street was flashing it's lights and started honking as well. He had a pretty clear shot to just drive off so I was kind of wondering why he wasn't doing anything. Well I got out of the car to shoo it away and the damn thing turns it's head very creepily. You know like real slow like monsters do in the movie. He then looks me square in the eyes with an evil stare and starts lurching toward me. It kind of looked like the way mountain lions lurch forward before they lunge after something. But this was a fucking raccoon so he must have some mountain lion sized nuts to try to attack me. Then in the back of my mind I remembered that there is some reason you don't want to get bit or scratched by a raccoon... What was it? Um... Oh yeah, because it could have rabies! Common symptoms of rabies, unusual behavior, hostile behavior, and agressive behavior... check, check, and check. And then I realized, he probably has rabies and he's totally going to attack me. OH SHIT! I rushed back in the car and the raccoon stops mid step and freezes. At first it looked like it was going to kill me but then it just froze like it totally forgot what it was doing. I then realized that the guy in the other car was warning me about a rabid raccoon. I talked with him and he was going to call animal control. Just to make sure nobody really freaks out, I found out later it was "distempered" (I honestly don't know if that means it's rabid or not; but that's what the animal control guy said). I just thought that was a creepy story worth sharing.

Saying Goodbye to Hollywood

Up until last night I was starting to wonder if Hollywood could still make a movie that I loved. Well they did and that movie was called Inception. I wasn't really surprised since people were coming up to me nearly every day, "You know what movie you'd like, Inception," and I would respond, "I don't know you but thanks for the tip." It wasn't just refreshingly friendly strangers; family, friends, and enemies all told me I'd like it. So, I'd just like to say if you did recommend it to me you were right on the money, and that movie was indeed right up my alley. And it's about time too; I was beginning to lose faith, Hollywood is so predictable and formulaic lately.
There are now only like 4 or 5 different sub-genres of movies. There is the paranormal horror movie; these almost always star Sarah Michelle Gellar or Jennifer Connelly and more than likely the stories came from Japanese movies. The plot goes like this, the main character is an emotionally complex wife or mother who needs to go live somewhere for some reason and there are paranormal things happening. They generally only have one friend to confide to who ends up thinking they are nuts and the movie boils to a crescendo when they realize that some kid died wherever they are living for whatever reason. Then there is the slasher movie which is 9 times out of 10 a "reboot" of a horror movie there already was. A reboot is when they change cast or directors for a movie series and start the series over from scratch because (among other reasons) the writers have literally written themselves into such a corner that they can't live up the the already low standards that a movie designed to help young teens get to second base. The Halloween series has already had 2 reboots, Halloween: H20, and Halloween the Rob Zombie version. After seeing Rob Zombie's Halloween II I think it's safe to say that Michael Myers is finally dead forever. Then you have the suspense thriller; these used to star Morgan Freeman ALWAYS, but now you can put Ashley Judd in place of or in addition to Morgan Freeman and it will still be released. Then there is the rehash of a 60's, 70's or 80's TV show or comic book; in the good old days they would only make movies about action comic books but now every syndicated comic strip is up for grabs... Seriously there is a movie about MARMADUKE... It blows my mind that at this time there is a person willing to pitch an idea for a feature length movie about the comic strip Marmaduke... And there is also board room of people that thought it was a good enough idea to ask people for money to finance this movie... And there are people willing to finance a movie about MARMADUKE... Because right now there people saying, "Jeeze I know movie tickets are $10 a piece, but I just have to see Marmaduke..."
Now Hollywood grinds out these things all year long and occasionally you get an Avatar and about twice a year the monster studios like Disney and Dreamworks make something you know will be good and sometimes a good independent or foreign film bubbles to the surface. But if it doesn't meet any of the above criteria... it's going to be a "twist" movie. A twist movie means they are going to throw a huge twist at the end. A lot of people blame M. Night Shyamalan for this becoming a Hollywood cliche but it takes two to tango. Honestly, Sixth Sense and Unbreakable were masterpieces; but his movies just get worse and worse every one he does. Why is this? Because a twist is only good if YOU DON'T SEE IT COMING! If you know that there is going to be a twist you just think, "What would be an ironic thing that could happen, and by ironic I don't mean the Webster's Dictionary definition of irony, more like the Alanis Morrisette definition of irony?" And then you have it... Oh he's going to kill himself and then the army will come by and kill all the bugs. It's the same reason that if you tell someone you are posing a trick question to them they usually can figure out the piece of the sentence that doesn't belong; but if you just pose it like you are asking them a serious question with a legitimate answer they are less likely to pick up on it. A lot of twist directors say they were inspired by Alfred Hitchcock but he didn't do the very last minute twist on any movie I can remember. His twists came when a well laid plan was messed up by a coincidence like in Dial M for Murder. Some Hollywood movies I would even say completely cheat the audience. The worst offender I can think of is Domino. You're sitting through over an hour of the movie and then 2/3rds of the way through it they say, "But that's not what happened at all." Why even show me something if that isn't what happened? That's like saying, "Dude I'm from Portland... psyche! I'm from Seattle." I wouldn't even consider that a lie, because that kind of implies that there was some element of tact involved, that's just telling me something that isn't true.
And finally you have the remake... There is one remake I want to PLEAD with Hollywood not to do, and that is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Now I just want to say for the record, I thought the movie was pretty good, not nearly the greatest foreign film I've ever seen. In fact I can think of a movie that really reminds me of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo that came out in the seventies. Hollywood recently remade the movie and here is what they came up with:

That is the recent remake of The Wicker Man; the original 1973 version is great, but after seeing this video you probably won't take my word for it. Cracked magazine said it best, "We know that many of you have seen the above highlights, as they've been quite a sensation on YouTube. We also know that most of you haven't actually seen the rest of the film, judging by its box office. So here's a fun project for you: Sit down and try to write the rest of the movie so that those scenes make perfect sense in context" (the full article is here: 10 Scenes of Brutal Violence Guaranteed to Make You Laugh).
Now if nothing else, just don't make the movie because I have the feeling it's going to bomb and I don't know if I can afford more than $10 a ticket when you will inevitably massacre this movie. Firstly, the typical American movie goer is way way way more prudent than the average Scandinavian movie goer. I don't profess to be an expert on films from there, but I have definitely seen over a half dozen movies from there and they are much less sexually inhibited than movies you see in the United States. In fact I'd have to say we are far more prude than most European and Asian movie goers. This is the reason why classics like Ichi the Killer and Oldboy will never come to America; and why my roommates almost gouged their eyes out after watching 15 minutes of Thriller: A Cruel Picture (which is from Sweden I believe). Honestly I'm really surprised at how many women actually liked this movie and recommended it to me. It's very gritty and sexually graphic; I'm kind of thinking that anyone who is open-minded enough to see that for it's artistic merit has already seen it by now. Rape, domination, and masochism are pretty hardline themes throughout the movie; you NEVER see that (to the extent it is in this movie) in American movies. So if you censor it out or downplay it; that's 2/5ths of the movie gone AT LEAST. Then, of course, you can't have religious themes in there either so cut that out and you'll be left with something completely different. I have a feeling that the love affair with most people have with this movie is from the amazing performance by Noomi Rapace. The problem is, she doesn't speak English... not even to a Jackie Chan extent. So she can't be in it, I can't even picture an American actress that can play a don't-give-a-fuck devil-may-care attitude like her. And with a role like that, you can't fake it. I know there are many fans who loved that movie and it's for them I'm writing this; I don't want to see another Wicker Man scenario.

Hardest.Game.Ever.

I was on the fence about doing a blog about a video game, most of the people I know who read this are very recreational gamers if the even play at all. But since I'm doing one of these every day I feel less bad about throwing in ones that only a few people will want to read every once in a while; so, here is the disclaimer, if you don't want to read one about a video game tune in tomorrow. But for those still here, the one I'd like to talk about is Monster Hunter Freedom 2/Unite. A few Christmases ago one of my coworkers got a game fore me called Monster Hunter Freedom 2. Initially it was hard but I liked the design elements; sort of a Northwestern Native-American feel. Unfortunately it was too hard and I packed it away after logging about a dozen hours. I loaned my PSP to a different coworker for a long business trip he was taking but forgot to ask for it back and since have lost the job and lost touch with the coworker. But I had the itch to try it again and so I asked Santa for another PSP and I haven't regretted that decision. I read a few pieces of info on the web and found out it wasn't just me; this was a hard-ass game. But I buckled down, used ninja focus to slow my heart rate; and eventually I was downing bosses and really enjoying the game. So if you want a game for under $20 that you can log 500+ hours I recommend Monster Hunter Freedom Unite (it's sort of like an expansion of MHF2 but it has everything that MHF2 has plus more monsters and some very helpful creature comforts that 2 lacked). There is also Monster Hunter Freedom Tri for the Wii; I haven't played it but I'm sort of guessing just because it's on the Wii it might have the difficulty toned down as is the case with many of it's titles.
So what is this game? Well you are transported into a world much like ours except there are talking cats (felynes) and more importantly, man is not at the top of the food chain. As I said it has a Northwestern feel to it; which is a lovely and very unique style for a video game. Basically you hunt monsters; there are small monsters that inhabit each area, but mainly you are going for the big game as far as this game goes. The large monsters are no pushover, in fact there are ones that have taken me nearly 50 minutes to kill all the while you are usually 2-3 hits from being killed when fighting appropriate leveled monsters. So when you see a typical action game like God of War or Dante's Inferno; the bosses take maybe 5-10 minutes, but here many-a-time I have been 35 minutes into a fight and then died due to circumstances beyond my control... that is heartbreaking! The mechanics are this you kill monsters and loot/carve parts from their body to make better equipment (armor and weapons). There are, I think, 8 different classes of weapons (somewhere around there, I'm not going to bother counting them) each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Some allow you to block, while others confine you to doing a dodge roll instead. Some weapons make you run slowly while others have very low damage outputs which require you to use their speed to your advantage. There are even ranged weapons but you must sacrifice safe distance with being able to equip the good armor.
In true Capcom (the game's publisher) fashion this game is effing hard! Capcom is known for butt-poundingly hard games, such as Super Ghouls and Ghosts; and even their mainstream games have very difficult boss fights like Onslought from Marvel vs. Capcom, and Dr. Wiley from Megaman. Unlike typical RPG's you can't level up, so there isn't any level grinding to one-shot any bosses (one-shot is a kill in one hit). You can get better armor but Capcom knows how to keep you from getting too great of armor at the stage of the game you are at. The armor is very rarely a gamesaver. Each armor has 2 or 3 different skills you can activate by wearing such as AttackUp; and others like Earplugs to help you against monsters that "roar" causing you to cover your ears leaving you vulnerable to attacks. There is also an inherent Defense attribute to protect you, but know this... If you fuck around even the low-level bosses can kill you no matter what armor you are wearing PERIOD. MHF2 (and by extension MHFU would have the same once since it's got the same quests more or less) also has "walls" set up throughout the game; for me there were 2 huge ones here is a video of the first one; the Tigrex.


So here is a video to kind of illustrate the gameplay elements and show just how hard this game (particularly the Tigrex) is. I know it's in German (this game is very popular in Europe, Japan, and South America) and the screen is kind of small but this is one of the few videos to illustrate my point. YouTube is filled with people showing videos with cheat codes (hax) and people just beating up on low level monsters with end-game weapons; but I finally found one that shows just how painful a small mistake can be. You just have to take my word for it, those guys have amazing armor and weapons and were trying to kill a much lower level monster, actually kill it in one hit. In an instant the tables are turned and both guys are dead. Now if you were fighting this guy for the first time you can expect to have to fight this guy for at least 25-30 minutes all the while being able to be killed even quicker than these guys in this video. I am going ballpark it as about 60 hours of gameplay in preparation for this guy. Compare this to World of Warcraft; I'm going to say maybe 20 hours in preparation for the pre-nerf Magister's Terrace (nerf is a term for lowering the difficulty or power of something) and as far as I can remember that was the longest time for preparation for any dungeons on that game. And I'm going to say I watched about 6 or 7 Tigrex strategy videos compared to the most on WoW of 3 for the Four Horsemen. So the strategy element is beyond comparison to any game I've played including top-end raiding on Wrath of the Lich King when it was first released.
There are some specific elements to the difficulty; first and foremost you can't see the monster's HP no matter what you do. You would be surprised at how challenging that makes a game; did I barely scratch the surface, or did I almost kill him? You won't know until you try again. You need to memorize monster "tells" such as if a monster reels back he's about to shoot a fireball. This requires very split second timing in some cases; but you won't be able to go anywhere unless you figure these out, as I said armor and defense only go so far. Another kind of annoying thing is that you need to wait for animations for nearly everything you do. Sheathing and unsheathing your weapon takes time, even using potions to heal yourself you do this flex thing afterwards sometimes allowing you to get hit and take even more damage than the potion healed. Speaking of which the shops only carry the very beginning low end things, like potions for instance, and then they get very obsolete very quick. You need to make good potions with ingredients you gather so you are constantly needing to supply yourself with raw materials. The hitboxes and collision detection also leave much to be desired so it's about 30% "wheew he didn't hit me" 30% "what the hell, I didn't hit him?" and 40% "HOW THE FUCK DID HE HIT ME FROM ALL THE WAY OVER THERE?!?" But if you ask most people the greatest pain in the ass is the adds (additional enemies, in this case the small monsters) there are mosquitoes that stun you, warthogs that charge at you, and even pink apes that fart on you. In a game where you can die almost instantly, whether or not you're paying attention, these guys can really piss you off. So here is another video I found of a person showing just how hard the game is; sadly some of these fights could have gone on for 30 minutes and then ended this quickly. So why even play this game? It's such a challenge it's really hard to put down. And trust me once you finally kill the Tigrex you are going to do a fist pump in the air to that song that goes, "you're the best a-round, nothing gonna ever keep you down, you're the best a-round, nothing gonna ever keep ya doooowwwnnn." There really is no other way.

The Prude, The Bland, and The Double Standard

Okay I changed the name of the blog yet again; I was originally wanting to be funny to have some crazy name but a joke is only funny the first time you see it then it's not so funny anymore. Okay so I have been meaning to write about this on the for a couple months now and I really didn't have enough substance to put it in the other blog but since the goal of these ones is to make it shorter I have plenty for this little entry. Now I can remember 5th grade sex ed. they had some guy come in to talk to the boys while the girls were off talking to whoever. He asked the class, "What do you think when a man has sex with multiple partners?" somebody chimed in, "he's a stud," and then he asked, "what we think of when a girl has sex with multiple partners?" And that was my introduction to the double-standard. I actually wish there wasn't even a double-standard; think about it, if girls thought it was kick ass to have sex with as many guys as they could the world would be awesome. But that isn't the only double standard that works against me; I'm only 5'7" so I hear this all the time, "I can't date a guy that's under 6'," something I couldn't change no matter how hard I try. But guys can't say, "I can't date a girl who is under a C cup."
One double standard I think is just kind of sad, is the one for female pop singers. As long as I can remember Brittney Spears and other female pop singers are hounded by the paparazzi but N'Sync, Backstreet Boys, New Kids on the Block get to do interviews in all the tween/teen magazines on their own terms. But photographers hound Brittney Spears, when there is over a dozen people taking hundreds of pictures of her every day, it's only a matter of time before they finally get a vag shot. Even by out of control girl standards, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Nichole Ritchie... All actually committed crimes of some sort and then violated parole on top of that. As far as I know Brittney Spears never actually got caught doing something illegal. And then Jessica Simpson had a bad reputation when she thought Buffalo wings came from buffaloes; you want to tell me Lance Bass is the sharpest knife in the drawer? Probably not, but I'll never know because they don't talk about his shortcomings. Then of course Miley Cyrus seems to get it worse than anyone, first she gets in trouble with "racy" photos in Rolling Stone... Good lord if she were only 3 or 4 years older they would say, "beautifully tasteful photos" I guarantee. I bet Justin Beiber could be teabagging Oprah on the cover of O magazine and nobody would give a shit, as long as Oprah was on the cover. Her Twitter posts, party photos, all that stuff even made the news (the honest to God old people TV news) but do you know how bad JT would have to fuck up to make the news?
Now most of you have probably guessed I'm not a huge pop music fan as far as it goes but there is one girl I feel especially gets an unfair shake. That would be Ke$ha; she has to be the first pop singer where I actually like her personality more than her music. Her songs are about clubbing and being out of control; fun girls fucking rule in my opinion. I'd take a out of control party girl over a supermodel any day of the week. And yet there are some vajays that just don't seem to get it:


First question... Where the fuck did these jokers come from? Unless it's Salt Lake City's vagina I am completely confounded. Second of all, the disclaimer? Disclaimers are only for things that are fucking cool, and trust me, you are in no way in danger of being awarded any cool points. Then the guy sniffs it and says,"ewww..." I can't even think of a circle of friends where that would fly. I know chicks that would stomp you for saying something like that. It's fucking Jack Daniels, that stuff will barely put hair on your nuts. I've drank shit that will make you grow hair on the roof of your mouth and Jack isn't even on that scale. In fact everyone is granted one drink they can't drink for instance tequila (for me it's Rumplemintz) but Jack Daniels is never acceptable on that list, never. And I kept waiting for someone to finally say, "Dude, it's only Jack Daniels quit being such a pussy," but it never happened. I can totally respect people who don't drink, but damn, you need to at least understand when you're being a little bitch about something... and I don't think he does, none of them do. Maybe I wouldn't brush my teeth with Jack for fun and gargling it does seem kind of gross because it's not the same consistency as water and I'd worry about swallowing it while I'm gargling; but come on, on a dare I could do that no problem, no disclaimer needed. And to answer your question of what I'd say if a girl told me she just brushed her teeth with a bottle of Jack; "please have sex with me," didn't even have to think about that one.
In an interview with the Times (the link has since gone down so I'm sorry I can't site it properly) she says, "Everyone's really offended by that. But come on, brushing your teeth with Jack Daniel's: what girl does that? People are like, 'Do you really advocate brushing your teeth with bourbon?' I'm like, 'Yes, actually, I do, every day, for everybody. Especially eight year olds.' I mean, what are you talking about? Of course I don't. Come on." The fact she actually has to even explain that is just kind of sad. Eminem never had to justify why you really shouldn't have unprotected sex with a passed out 14 year old, drinking a fifth of vodka and driving, or causing earthquakes with your penis. Not only that but she's even admitted that her persona is sort of a joke, a white female rapper with a dollar sign in her name... Yeah again, I didn't need that to be explained to me, I got it, it's why my moniker is JKon it's slightly a joke slightly serious. I don't really understand why her out of control and strange behavior bugs people. That's what makes chicks cool, at least she has some depth to her. And finally she gets a bunch of shit for using autotune, like chicks need to be able to sing and T Pain and Kanye West don't? Fuck that! Anyway before I even saw a picture of Ke$ha I was in love, and she pretty hot to boot so anyway I'll just end this by saying, "Ke$ha, I don't care what anyone says, I would totally do you and that offer still stands even if you gain or lose 70 pounds so I mean that is a huge buffer. Call me!"

Attack of the Heart

Okay so here we go; this is my new blog... What's with the name? Well I wanted something batshit crazy to distract from the fact that this is practically a diary. The idea is I write at least something each day but well we'll see. Also one of the biggest gripes I heard about my other blog is that the entries were just way too long. Okay so admittedly I'm just putting pen to paper because it's been so long. Kind of like when you have a glue stick and you leave it sit too long and it gets that crusty non-sticky shit on it so you have to use it once or twice to get back to the stickiness... That's kind of how this is. So right now I'm house sitting at a house without a DVR (even if it had one I don't think it would be appropriate to record my shows on someone else's TV).
But anyway so I was watching Rocky V; now I know fans say Rocky V is the worst one of the series, but still it had a good moral. See Tommy Gunn stopped fighting with his heart and started fighting just for the money. But Rocky Balboa he always fights with his heart in a more abstract way for his family and friends. It's the reason why Philadelphia rallied behind Balboa and didn't recognize Tommy Gunn's title. Why is this even worth mentioning? Well it's my fucking blog and I'll mention whatever I damn well please! Just kidding; my point is that think about people like LeBron James (okay I know people are already sick of berating him but let me finish) Miami is building some fucking Justice-League-Dream-Team-4th-Reich thing, but when they win who is going to care? They don't have heart, they are just buying the stairway to heaven. Once you lose heart you lose everything, think about it, there are only two outcomes for Miami this season: win and everyone will say, "Well with a team like that who couldn't win," don't win and everyone will just think that you're just a bunch of jackasses. Heart is a completely underestimated quality. It's why Ghost Adventures rules and Ghost Hunters sucks; I like the rag-tag group of twenty-somethings doing what they love. Ghost Hunters even have a show now where they do like an Apprentice thing only for ghost hunting called Ghost Hunter Academy. I've watched like a dozen fucking episodes and they always say, "there is something paranormal going on but your house isn't haunted." So if you never find any ghosts then how the hell can you say you are fit to conduct an "Academy." That would be like me having a show called "Unicorn Hunter" where I hunt fucking unicorns but never find one but still think I'm in some way a unicorn hunting authority. And seriously those two main guys are the most boring fucking people that ever existed. Boring show + never finding ghosts isn't exactly a recipe for a ghost show. Seriously, fucking lie to me, say there is a ghost once in a while... sheesh!
Okay back to the main topic, I have a parable for LeBron that takes place in the samurai days of feudal Japan. Once upon a time there was a young sword prodigy that was on his way to becoming the shogun (I guess that would be like a 6-star general, so kind of a big deal). But one day his village was raided by some bandits, the young man saw that one of the bandits had amazing skill, in fact he was the greatest swordmaster he had ever seen; except of course, his sensei. He quit his training to travel the world and defeat the bandit and then he would be ready to challenge his sensei and then he would know truly he was the best in the world. This broke the villager's hearts and devastated his sensei. He traveled all over Japan challenging anyone who dared to face him, winning every battle. One day after years of searching he came across his sensei who didn't say a word and threw the bandit's blood soaked mask on the ground. The young man realized his sensei had killed the man he had spent years searching for. The young man was enraged and drew his sword; the sensei also drew his sword, they charged each other and the young man struck the sensei, but the sensei pulled his blade away at the last second. "Damn you! You didn't even try to best me," the young man growled. "This is my final lesson to you, one I gave my life that you learn. I wasn't the one who killed the bandit; you did, but you were so consumed by desire you never even realized it. And as punishment for your foolish pride I let you beat me, so you would never know if you were better than me. Truly you are now the greatest swordmaster alive..." The sensei died and the young man threw his sword to the ground never to use a sword again.
The moral of the story is that the moment of triumph is the greatest feeling of being a champion. You beat the best and overcame difficult odds. But the young samurai would never know if he was better than his sensei and never would be able to have that feeling of triumph. Same with Tommy Gunn he has the title belt but he got his ass kicked in the street so he holds a bullshit title which is even worse than actually losing it. And this is what will happen to LeBron if he wins a title with Miami; he'll get his championship cherry popped with a team that was bought and practically couldn't fail. And even if he goes back to a team like Cleveland and wins it legit it won't mean anything because it will be his second or third title. Look at the Yankees; when they win a Pennant who even fucking cares anymore? With their budget and players I could coach them to a World Series victory. If you ask me the east-coast super teams they are making have practically ruined baseball; ESPN doesn't even talk about anyone but the Yankees and Red Sox anymore. And basketball is going to that; it's just going to be Lakers, Miami, and Celtics. I heard from somebody that the Heat is even trying to get Pierce, and then you can even cross Boston off that list. Then LeBron will be "King Nothing," champion of a sport people are sick of watching.