Funny Pic of the Day: Ghostbusters vs. Jesus

My bro sent this one to me - as a big Ghostbusters fan I thought it was roflcoptors!

One of the Biggest Waves You'll Ever See

There is surfing.. and then there is SURFING.

Word of the Day: Ponzi Scheme

Overview

A Ponzi scheme usually offers abnormally high short-term returns in order to entice new investors. The high returns that a Ponzi scheme advertises (and pays) require an ever-increasing flow of money from investors in order to keep the scheme going.

The system is doomed to collapse because there are little or no underlying earnings from the money received by the promoter. However, the scheme is often interrupted by legal authorities before it collapses, because a Ponzi scheme is suspected and/or because the promoter is selling unregistered securities. (As more and more investors become involved, the likelihood of the scheme coming to the attention of authorities will continue to increase.)

The scheme is named after Charles Ponzi, who became notorious for using the technique after immigrating to the United States from Italy in 1903. Ponzi was not the first to invent such a scheme, but his operation took in such a large amount of money that it was the first to become known nationwide. Today's schemes are often considerably more sophisticated than Ponzi's, although the underlying formula is quite similar and the principle behind every Ponzi scheme is to exploit lapses in judgment arising out of greed.

Family Guy Clips

Ahh I Love Family Guy

Not Dead

Sorry for the lack of posts recently - I shall return to form shortly! Meanwhile, I'm going to go check out Germany vs. Poland in Round 2 of the World Cup!

Three Movie Trailers You Need To Watch Now

Superman Returns Trailer 2
Following a mysterious absence of several years, the Man of Steel comes back to Earth in the epic action-adventure Superman Returns, a soaring new chapter in the saga of one of the world’s most beloved superheroes. While an old enemy plots to render him powerless once and for all, the woman he loves, Lois Lane, has moved on with her life.

Lady In the Water Trailer 2
Cleveland Heep rescues a mysterious young woman and discovers she is actually a narf, a character from a bedtime story who is trying to make the treacherous journey from our world back to hers. As Cleveland falls in love with the woman, he works together with the tenants to protect his new fragile friend from the deadly creatures that are determined to prevent her from returning home.

A Prairie Home Companion (filmed here in Minnesota!)
Garrison Keillor's old-school radio show is going to be cancelled. A huge cast directed by Altman. This one should be a hilarious character movie.

Let's Make Movies!

One of my good friends from L.A. wrote this book with his brother. It's called The Official Movie Plot Generator.

Book Description
Perfect for anyone who loves movies--The Official Movie Plot Generator is part humor book, part game, part creative tool. Simply flip the tabs to discover , hilarious movie plot combinations. Whether its A single mom fighting crime with a wise-cracking robot or Bigfoot coaching a little league baseball team, your combination is sure to become the next blockbuster.

Amazon.com: Official Movie Plot Generator

The movie I just put together:

A hooker with a heart of gold/battles an advancing horde of insectoid aliens/set against the backdrop of a Florida retirement community

Official Site: http://www.movieplotgenerator.com/

Put together a movie plot in the comments below!

10 Things I Hate About Commandments

I love watching how people recut movie trailers to portray the film as a totally different genre! Here's the 10 Commandments recut:

10 Things I Hate About Commandments



Throw your two cents into comments!

How About Some Video?

E3 Metal Gear 4 Video:

Let's just get it out of the way: Snake's gonna die at the end. Now, before anyone starts firing off the hate mail about spoilers, they should watch the trailer for director Hideo Kojima's swan song to everyone's favorite tactical stealth action hero. Once viewers get past the amazing visuals (all done using the in-game graphics engine, and not rendered cutscenes) and stunning details, they will see what is essentially a bittersweet denouement criticizing a future of corporatized warfare and the role of the military-industrial complex. Maybe. Or they'll just see an incredibly rendered, aesthetically pleasing finale to one of the most beloved gaming franchises of all time. Perhaps. Or perhaps they'll be stuck on the fact that Raiden seems to have up and gotten all badass again in a scene that sounds slightly cool in print and pants-crappingly amazing in motion. Yeah, that's about right.

Check out the trailer at GameSpy.com

AND:

New T.I. Video at YouTube.com

AND:

Conan O'Brien has a whole new site complete with a ton of videos from his show - check it out.

Trader Joe's Opens in St. Louis Park

Hey - another taste of California comes to Minnesota:

Trader Joe's finally opened in St. Louis Park on Monday, ending months of speculation for those who were eager to see the California food retailer bring to town its variety of quirky, cultish supermarkets.

But its successful business model of selling store-branded items -- 80 percent of the items are Trader Joe's private label -- already has made deep inroads into Minnesota, where Byerly's, Supervalu and others have jumped on to the private-label bandwagon.

Read more at the Star Tribune. Check out the TraderJoes.com site.

Froogle Wishlist

Just started playing with Froogle's Wishlist - I put up a couple pairs of kicks that look sweet. With this and Amazon.com's Wishlists you might always get what you want for the rest of time!

How The Kids Are Blogging

With the advent of text messaging (or "txt msgng") - I think we're on the verge of having an English within an English language. Check out this blog I found while surfing around Blogger.

FINALLY. finally can blog. =.=
Gt footy todae. Den gt eog test. I DIE liao. All e long long ans de, my ans all vvvv short. =.= Gimme 8 lines, i write 2 lines. =.=''' Den gt geog lesson. Miss ms seetho. =x Den gt HMT lesson. Gt compo test. I DIN WRITE FINISH MY COMPO. gosh. die. Den recess. dun lyk recess. always cant decide wad to eat. l0ls. After tt gt eng lit. Maths next. Yar. Still learing algebra. Can apporoach mi 4 help. Rmb? i m SUPPOSED to b gd at it. =.='''
YESH.G0in bak to help out e P5 camp. XD Wear wad ar? Fuchun uni???? l0ls. I dunn0 wares mine liao. =.= It's g0in to b fun. At least i tink it will b. l0ls.

Read more from Aikky at her blog FwenS ForeveRR

Reality Theory: It Always Feels Like - Someone Is Watching Me

Remember Will Smith and Gene Hackman in Enemy of the State? Well - we've finally gotten there in real life.

He said the work the agency did after hurricanes Rita and Katrina was the best he'd seen an intelligence agency do in his 42 years in the spy business.

"This was kind of a direct payback to the taxpayers for the investment made in this agency over the years, even though in its original design it was intended for foreign intelligence purposes," Clapper said in a Thursday interview with The Associated Press.

Geospatial intelligence is the science of combining imagery, such as satellite pictures, to physically depict features or activities happening anywhere on the planet. A part of the Defense Department, the NGA usually operates unnoticed to provide information on nuclear sites, terror camps, troop movements or natural disasters.

I wonder what else we can do with this kickass technology?

Privacy advocates wonder how much the agency picks up — and stores. Many are increasingly skeptical of intelligence agencies with recent revelations about the Bush administration's surveillance on phone calls and e-mails.

Among the government's most closely guarded secrets, the quality of pictures NGA receives from classified satellites is believed to far exceed the one-meter resolution available commercially. That means they can take a satellite "snapshot" from high above the atmosphere that is crisply detailed down to one meter level, which is 3.3 feet.

Clapper says his agency only does big pictures, so concerns about using the NGA's foreign intelligence apparatus at home doesn't apply.

"We are not trying to examine an individual dwelling, for example, because what our mission is normally going to be is looking at large areas," he said. "It doesn't really affect or threaten anyone's privacy or civil liberties when you are looking at a large collective area."

Well at least we have very experienced, professional folks running this branch of national security right?

Experience-wise, the agency is among the youngest of the spy agencies. About 40 percent of the agency's analyst have been hired in the last five years."They are very inexperienced, and that's just fine. They don't have any baggage," said Clapper, who retires next month as the longest serving agency director. "The people that we are getting now are bright, computer literate. ... That is not something I lie awake and worry about."

It always feels like - somebody's watching me - and I got no privacy!

Chuck Norris Facts

A few pre-weekend facts to get you going:

Guns don't kill people. Chuck Norris kills People.
There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of animals Chuck Norris allows to live.
Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.
The chief export of Chuck Norris is Pain.
There is no chin under Chuck Norris' Beard. There is only another fist.

For more visit ChuckNorrisFacts.com

More Joram on Blogger

While I have never met another Joram in real life - I did a search on Blogger on the term "Joram" and came up an interesting match:

Forging the Darksword by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
Started: 4/21/06
Finished: 4/24/06
Pages: 391
Year: 1987
Genre: Fantasy
Grade: C
Reason for reading: grabbed it off the shelf (from a bookbox)
Blurb (from back cover): "In the enchanted realm of Merilon, magic is life.

"Born without magical abilities and denied his birthright, Joram is left for dead. Yet he grows to manhood in a remote country village, hiding his lack of powers only through constant vigilance and ever more skillful sleight-of-hand.

"Forced to kill a man in self-defense, Joram can keep his secret from the townspeaople no longer; he has no magic, no life. Fleeing to the Outlands, Joram joins the outlawed Technologists, who practice the long forbidden arts of science. Here he meets the scholarly catalyst Saryon, who has been sent on a special mission to hunt down a mysterious "dead man" and instead finds himself in a battle of wits and power with a renegade warlock of the dark Duuk-tsarith caste."

"Together, Joram and Saryon begin their quest toward a greater destiny-a destiny that begins with the discovery of the secret books that will enable them to overthrow the evil usurper Blachloch...and forge the powerful magic-absorbing Darksword."

Opinion: Anyone who knows me knows that I usually despise fantasy books. However, this one was okay-certainly not the best but I didn't end up throwing it across the subway while reading it.

I was often asked if my name came from this fantasy book when posting on message boards across the web - this is the first time I've actually seen something about the book! The fan reviewer pretty much trashed the book so I probably won't bother finding out too much more about it.

Check out Ollie's World of Books

You Know What I Miss? Bubble Up

I haven't had this pop (soda for the rest of you) in years... has anyone seen it for sale lately anywhere? It tastes like a blend of Sprite and 7-Up.

Links:

Wikipedia Definition

MySpace

I have a MySpace profile if you're into that.

New St. Paul Hang-Out: Chatterbox Bar

From StarTribune.com:

It's inspired by the neighborhood bar of the same name in south Minneapolis, which, even on weeknights, packs in hipsters longing for beer-filled evenings of "Battleship" and "Super Mario Bros."

The owners have expanded on that retro concept. The new bar is three times the size of the original, with more vintage sofas, funky lamps, black vinyl diner booths and bad landscape paintings straight from Grandma's house. They've boosted their gaming, too.

Sounds like it's actually a place I'd check out - beer and old school Mario Bros. on flatscreens! I looked for a website for the new restaurant but I couldn't find one - for a place that is catering to the Gen X/Gen Y crowd I found that very curious.

One For My Brother

My brother has a weakness for redheads. Here's a new one for you L:

Sporting a new red-haired look, Jessica Simpson applauds while presenting an award during the 2006 National Council of La Raza ALMA Awards in Los Angeles, Sunday, May 7, 2006. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

While I'm a gentleman and prefer blondes - I think it kinda works for Miss Simpson.

Pimp My Friends - Abstract Photography

Another shot from Abstract-Photography.com:



You can check out more digital B & W here.

Nintendo WII Coming

Well it's getting very interesting in the next-gen video game console wars. I admit I had basically given up on Nintendo coming up with anything interesting... especially when they gave up on making their new system as high end as the PS2 or the Xbox360.

From Yahoo News:

Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s (7974.OS) new Wii video game console, considered the underdog in the console wars because it lacks the high-definition graphics and multimedia features of its rivals, is stealing the show at this week's Electronic Entertainment Expo trade show.
The wait to try out the Wii at E3 pushed past four hours on Thursday afternoon, while the wait for hands-on time with Sony Corp.'s (6758.T) PlayStation 3 was barely 30 minutes. Both consoles will hit the market later this year, though the Wii is expected to cost much less than rival consoles.

The Wii (pronounced "we") uses a motion-sensor enabled controller that looks like a TV remote and allows users to direct action on the screen by wielding it like a sword or swinging it like a baseball bat, tennis racket or golf club.

"It's basically a whole different thing from anything I've seen before," said Josef Faulkner, who had been waiting in line for three hours to get his hands on Wii. He still had an hour to go. "This is definitely the biggest thing here."

Faulkner and other attendees agreed that the unique controller is what is drawing people to the Wii.

Unlike other next-generation consoles, Wii doesn't sport high-definition graphics or make any promises of being a multimedia entertainment hub, but it promises a unique, fun experience new to video games.

While the fun vs. graphics equation has worked in the past (I believe Duke3D was eminently more playable and fun than Quake) - I'm still not sure how WII will stand up against Microsoft and Sony's plans on making their systems the center of our media worlds. Intel is also putting a lot of marketing muscle into their Viiv technology - which is the same sort of concept - have a computer run all of your music, photos, movies, etc.

More Coverage:

• Local Minneapolis blogger Noel covers booth babes at Pop Whirled.
• Read about Nintendo's entire philosophy behind Wii.
• A whole slew of Nintendo Wii news at NintendoRevolution.ca

Which system are you most looking forward to? Already own an Xbox360? Saving for the PS3? Or holding out to see if Nintendo has some more tricks up their sleeve?

Hey I Went To Japan

If you've never traveled to Japan I highly recommend it. Such a different culture - so different than America. Very clean, safe, and so much to see.

Check out an album from my last trip there with my wife. Big thanks to Elise for letting us stay with her and showing us a great time in Aomori!

Next Trip: New Zealand and/or Austrailia. Can't wait to see where they filmed Lord of the Rings (NZ)!

A Bit About My Links

I thought I'd drop some info on the links you see on the right side of the page. They are all sites run by friends of mine:

the anti-trend trend - Josh riffs on music (especially hip hop), movies, observations, food, and art.

abstract-photography.com - One of my college roommates has a site for his impressive photography. Check out my fave here.

Random posts from an MN girl in Japan... - Elise teaches English in Japan - these are her thoughts and experiences from her travels in the Land of the Rising Sun.

ImprovLarry - One of my co-workers has a site dedicated to his improv act. You can download clips of some improv performances!

Thomas Schirtz - A friend from Los Angeles has a site showing off his art. Check out some of his work here.

Send me a link to your page and I'll check it out!

About That Immigration Debate

Let me go on record again stating that I fully support immigration of all kinds.

Actress Eva Longoria performs at the 2006 'NCLR Alma' awards at the Shrine auditorium in Los Angeles May 7, 2006. The National Council of La Raza (NCLR) gives out the ALMA awards to honor outstanding Latino artistic achievement in television, film and music. The show airs on June 5 on ABC

Especially this kind.

My Favourite Song This Week

Nelly Furtado ft Timbaland - Promiscuous

What a totally sweet beat laced with hip hop tracks from Nelly Furtado. Some of the early feedback from fans has been that they don't like Nelly going away from her more lyrical sing-songy style of music... I say: stop hatin'. This collab with Timbaland is amazing and I hope she goes "all the way" with this style on her new album. If you want to check out the video - I recommend MTV Overdrive or YouTube.

YouTube - Lose Hours of Your Life Watching Online Video

Two dorks do their own video of the Mortal Kombat theme song. The one brother who keeps yelling MORTAL KOMBAT gets funnier every time you see it. This vid also points out that you really don't need to spend much money on props or cameras to make interesting content for the web.

MTV Overdrive - Controlling Your Own Entertainment

Do you have a broadband connection? Do you like music videos or some other kind of MTV content? You can stream a lot of their stuff from their Overdrive site. I guess I'm one of the old school types who likes his MTV to be full of music videos and not Newlyweds, Punk'd, etc. (Isn't that what MTV156 is for?) With Overdrive you can create a playlist of music videos and they'll play in order with only an occasional break for a 30-second commercial. I wish the videos were of a bit higher quality - played at full-screen they're very pixelated. Oh well. It's Overdrive 1.0.

Awesome I Shot That! New Beastie Boys Movie

Building on an earlier post about the digital video revolution - I finally looked into the new Beastie Boys feature film I've been hearing a lot about. Here's the blurb:

A formally innovative feature film experience, the Beastie Boys handed out 50 cameras to audience members at their sold-out performance in New York’s famed Madison Square Garden in October 2004. These 50 different passionate perspectives shot from the point-of-view of the audience take the viewer deep inside the world of a live Beastie Boys show.

Additional Infoz:

Beastieboys.com - Main site for the Beastie Boys!

Awesome I F'n Shot That - Feature Film Official Site

Official Trailer - Check out the trailer in Quicktime

You Think That's Good Salsa?

Some commercials that I find eminently funny are the new Axe Keep Your Cool commercials. I like The One Upper, Mother Hen, and Fake British Accent Guy.

Check out the commercials online.

What's your favourite commerical on TV currently? Or since TIVO/DVR have you not seen a commercial since late 1998? Drop comments below.

A House-keeping Note

Links from many of my old posts will not work due to the archiving practices of sites such as Yahoo News and StarTribune.com. In the future I will make sure posts make sense without having to click-thru to ensure readability.

-Joram

Movie Fridays

In Early Development:
I spotted this graph in a Yahoo News story:

A new big-screen movie, apparently featuring the early adventures of Trek forefathers James T. Kirk and Spock, and boasting the handiwork of Lost creator J.J. Abrams, is being primed for a 2008 release.

Very interesting. While I've yet to sit down and watch the DVD seasons of Lost - I've only heard good things about their plotlines and show dynamics. In my opinion - if you nail these two criteria for Trek you'll have a great series. I'll keep an eye on this one. More info at StarTrek.com.


Upcoming Release:

X-Men 3 - The Last Stand. Check out the Official Site for the trailer. Back in the Fandom.com days I was following the release of the new movie very religiously. I'm hoping with a shift of directors (to Brett Ratner of Rush Hour fame) that they can still maintain the feel of the first two movies. It looks like they've at least put the right amount of money into the budget! For additional coverage of the movie I recommend CHUD.com.



This Weekend:

Predictions:


Big Winner: United 93 - Everyone is talking about it - Plus it's first to market after 9/11. I think America is ready for it.
Big Loser: RV - Robin Williams vs. cranky RV. Snore. 10 million tops.
Surprise Performer: Stick It - performs well with MTV crowd and dads volunteering to take kids to it.

Drop a comment below if you dig this subject matter!

Digital Shorts

I am very excited about the rise of digital short films hitting the mainstream. My friend Josh tackles the hip-hop angle on a couple of SNL's best. (ChronicWHAT?!) I'm into giving the power of entertainment to the masses. Having spent a couple of years in Hollywood - I only got a taste of what's wrong with commercialized productions; i.e. too many sequels, cookie-cutter scripts, etc. The digital revolution will change how we create and consume our entertainment options.

The sun sets on an old blog... and will rise again with a new one

Well it's good to be back online. I'm testing some features for the blog.