Random Sh*t

Like the title says, this post is about some random shit that recently happened. If you came to read something scientific or musical...wait for the next post. 

So I just came back from seeing the movie World War Z. It's one of the movies on my waiting to watch list. The movie was spectacular, which is a description I rarely use to describe a film. The plot was realistic, the action was fast paced and the zombies were more of a bit player in the whole film. 

The scary part of the film was how easy a pathogen could spread globally and decimate the population. We now have the technology to reanimate the dead and viruses like H1N1 and Ebola in government facilities. The movie just played that "what if" out in a realistic way but still with zombies to give it a horror twist. If you like zombie movies with a good plot then I recommend watching it. 

Before the movie I had to go to the restroom. While I was in the restroom washing my hands a man came tumbling out of a stall screaming and fell to the floor. I gotta say... it was one of the funniest things I've seen in my life.  Okay wait, let me back up and elaborate. 

I'm standing in the theater restroom where there are a row of urinals against the wall behind me.  There's a row of  sinks to wash your hands in the middle where I was standing. Then a row of toilets against the wall in front of me. To my right there are more urinals on the right wall and the exit is to the left. Inside the restroom there were two other guys. One was standing to my left at the end of the row of sinks using the electric hand dryer to dry his hands. The second was to my right using the urinals at the far right wall with his back towards me. 

As I stated earlier...while I was washing my hands a man fell out of the toilets in front of me. His pants and underwear were around his ankles and he was screaming like a woman, that something had touched him. I was startled by the man's comical dismount from the toilet and almost started to laugh until I saw how serious he was. The man smelled like he was in the middle of doing his business before what ever made him get off the pot.

Once the man fell out the toilet stall, I looked to my right and the guy standing at the urinal had started walking over to see what was happening. I looked to the left and the other guy was gone...all I saw was the door finish closing. The man on the floor at this point was no longer screaming but he was babbling in barely intelligible Dutch about something touching him. The man from the urinal had now made it over to the man from the stall, then helped him up and asked what happened. 

The man from the stall pointed to the empty toilet stall and said something touched him while he was shitting. The stall was empty except for the visitors the man on the floor had left in the bowl. The urinal guy looked at me as if to say... is he crazy. I shrugged my shoulders and began walking toward the exit. The urinal guy went into the stall to investigate and I was almost at the exit when I heard him yell out "Jesus". 

Now I was curious, cuz the urinal guy didn't seem crazy in the brief two minutes we had been acquainted. So I turned around and walked back to where I had been standing on the opposite side of the sinks and looked into the stall. The man from the stall was standing to the side with his pants half pulled up pointing at the toilet. The urinal guy had stepped back out the stall and began walking towards the exit saying he was going to get somebody. 

In front of me the toilet seat had been lifted and on the underside was a big brown spider. It wasn't huge or even menacing, it was about the size of a pencil eraser. If the man seen that spider on the street he would've probably squished it without a second thought. But even that small arachnid found in the most inopportune places could give a person the fright of their life.

I left the bathroom and headed to the movie thinking there should be two rules to using a toilet in a public restroom. It doesn't matter if its a bar, nightclub, movie theater, library, restaurant or where ever. 

Whenever using a public toilet, follow these two rules. 1. Cover the seat in tissue (unless they provide paper seat covers), and 2. Always lift the toilet seat to make sure there aren't any insects or other vermin. Because finding a spider under your ass can make a 40 something year old man...weep like a two year old who lost their mommy. (food for thought) 

Waiting to Watch

Things have been busy so I haven't had a chance to see any new movies for a while. The short movie I'm working on will be done tomorrow so I'll post it.

Talking about movies, I finally got to see the new Star Trek movie "Into the Darkness" and I wasn't impressed.The movie wasn't bad but I like the original "Wrath of Khan" version better. It was more grimy and the dialog between Capitan Kirk and Khan was intense.

There's a few movies I'm waiting to see. Most are science fiction cuz I love the genre, but there may be a thriller or two in the list also. Top of the list is The Wolverine! Most people are waiting for Superman, but I was never into Superman comics. I collected Wolverine for years and like how they told his origin story in the first movie. Hopefully they repeat the fine blend of story-telling and action in this film.   

Below are the trailers for some of the films I'm waiting to watch. 

New Video Exclusive

Hello Readers, 

Like the title says this is a new video exclusive (within the first few minutes of being uploaded) release of my new video "Wanna Sound Like Me". 

The song is off Tha Audio Bully album coming later this year. The video is fast paced visuals that follow the lyrics and provide a 3D experience to the song. The song is lyrical and melodic, so the video is meant to give images to what the rhymes are saying. I believe in making a fan a day, cuz it helps the music reach new ears. Check out the video and if you like it, forward it to a friend.

AniManga: Zetman

I recently watched some anime that has me waiting for season 2.

The show is called Zetman. It's an Animanga meaning animation based off a manga series. I never read the manga so this post is strictly from my experience with the anime.

The story follows two characters Kouga (the rich kid wanna be hero) with an Iron Man suit named "Alphas." Jin (poor kid, no family, anti-hero) who was a super Player codenamed "Zet"  genetically engineered in a lab to be a killer of mankind. Players are genetically engineered monsters created by Kouga's grandfather to kill each other in gladiatorial like games. They can hide as a human until they regress to their monster form. Once they change they cannot return to human form. Also they develop a insatiable blood lust to devour people.

Things go wrong when the players gain awareness, stop fighting each other and escape. Once loose in the city some hide amongst the citizens while others just go bananas and start killing whatever they can find. Zet and Alpha's fight to stop the Players, Kouga's Father, several master manipulators and each other. This all happens in a tale full of love, lose and the delicious taste of cold-hearted revenge.

My only complaint about the show is this character the Sweeper. Its a masked suit of armor that appears out of nowhere and destroys Players who regress and attack people. The character is like the boogieman to the Players but they never explain who he is or who he works for. In the end the series was dope but it left a lot of questions unanswered. Which is why I hope there's going to be a season 2. Check out the clip from the show below.

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Self Driving Cars

Google isn't just a search engine anymore. Since buying youtube they have expanded into music, merchandising, advertising and now automobiles. In 2010 Google began a project that would create autonomous automobiles. In other words cars that would steer and drive themselves. The idea sounds like vehicles seen in science fiction movies like I, Robot and Blade Runner, but they're real.

The plan behind the project was designed to give blind and disabled people a safe means of travel (aside from public transportation). They also believe autonomous vehicles would make our roads and highways safer for everyone. Since introducing this smart vehicle in 2010 Google has steadily improved the vehicles response time and performance. Now in 2012 they've completed more than 200 hours of real driving on the roads and the vehicle seems almost ready for mass production. Below are videos showing some of the test runs for these self-driving cars...like it or not the technology now exists where science fiction has become reality.

Avatar

When I heard they made a new series based off Avatar I knew I had to check it out. I stopped following Toriko because there was a lot of humor but not enough story and action. By the way when I write about Avatar its not the big blue skinned people from the James Cameron film. I'm writing about Avatar: The Last Airbender.

This show was on years before J.C. stole the name and made it about aliens. The Last Airbender was a boy named Aang and he was the Avatar of his world. Benders were people who had the psychokinetic ability to control one of the four elements Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. An Avatar is a person who could control the flow of all four elements.  One was born every hundred years and when he or she died a new Avatar is born in their place.

The series lasted for three seasons from 2005 - 2008 and followed the story of Aang as he learned to master the four elements. While he learned these skills he had to avoid being captured and executed. Aang was the last Airbender because the rest of the Airbenders were wiped out by the king of the fire nation in an attempt to control the world. He had inside knowledge that the next Avatar would come from the Air nation and made a preemptive strike to remove the threat. 

The series was ridiculously popular because it was a mix of martial arts, psychokinetic beings, action and humorous adventure. There was a motion picture version released in 2010 directed by M. Night Shyamalan which received mixed reviews. Now after a four year hiatus there is a new story arc that takes place in the Avatar world. It's called The Legend of Korra and takes place 70 years after Aang has died. So far there are only two episodes but the show has added a nice twist the Avatar tale and worth checking out.  Below I posted clips from some of the original Avatar series and the new one.

Comic Movies

I was a huge comic fan when I was a kid. I would read the X-Men, Spider Man, Wolverine, Avengers, and most of the rest of the Marvel line. One of my favorites was X-Force because it was written like the team were average teens with adult problems. The new trend in Hollywood of turning popular comics in to movies has been really successful. 

The Superman franchise were the first successful comic movies. Followed by the Batman franchise which was successful for the first film but quickly lost popularity. I was never a DC comic reader because most of their characters had cheesy names and were to wholesome. It was like reading an episode of Leave it to Beaver except the Beaver and Wally wore spandex. After the release of the Batman movies I began reading his comic.

Thanks to advancements in C.G. (Computer Graphics) technology movies can push the envelope with special effects, making more films that resemble the action sequences found in the books. Which attracts readers like myself and new fans who may have never read the comics but are attracted to the movie. Below is my top fifteen list of comics that have been turned into movies that I think are worth watching. Also a list of movies that could have been done better.

1. Batman Dark Knight
2. Blade
3. The Crow
4. Time Cop
5. Sin City
6. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
7. Iron Man
8. X-Men
9. The Incredible Hulk
10. Spawn
11. V for Vendetta
12. Hell Boy
13. Watchmen
14. Dare Devil
15. Men in Black

These films were in a word “Wack!” They did no justice to the comic, were badly written, and most had bad acting as well.

Green Lantern

Ghost Rider
Fantastic Four

Cat Woman
The Spirit
Steel

New Movies

For the homebodies who like to stay indoors here is a few movies that I recommend watching. Inception (sci-fi/action), Clash of the Titans (fantasy/action), Knight and Day (comedy/action), The Expendables (action) and Salt (mystery/action). I've seen all of them on the list and depending on how you feel about spoilers, I posted trailers below. 

Inception

The Expendables

Knight and Day

Clash of the Titans

Salt

AniManga: Dragon Ball Z

Dragon Ball Z was the first anime I saw when I went to Japan, this was back in 1993. I lived there for over a year and DBZ had already been running for almost four years when I started watching. DBZ started out as a manga (like most anime) and became a T.V. show around 1989. The series follows the adventures of Son Goku and his children from his childhood through adulthood as they train in martial arts and explore the world in search of the seven mystical objects known as the Dragon Balls, which can summon the mystical dragon Shinron who could grant 3 wishes. The wishes could be used for anything like bringing back the dead, to granting immortality. Due to their incredible power the dragon balls attracted a wide variety of villains, both alien and human which Goku and his group of warriors had to defeat.

The show was broken into three seperate series first was Dragon Ball which chronicled Goku's childhood. Then Dragon Ball Z the most popular which dealt with his adulthood and growing martial arts expertise, and finally Dragon Ball GT which dealt more with his children and descendant than Goku. He makes appearances throughout the show, but due to a curse he was reverted to the child form he had in Dragon Ball. Recently DBZ has been re-mastered and released as Dragon Ball Kai, which changes the original footage and story.

Since its release, Dragon Ball has become one of the most popular manga series of its time in both Japan and North America. It enjoys a high readership, with over 150 million volumes of the series, has 17 feature films and was ranking number 12 among the best anime series of all time in 2006. Below I posted a small clip of one of the best fights in the series Goku vs. the Galactic warrior Freeza. Peep the part where he bitch slaps the taste out of Freeza's mouth...if that doesn't get you hooked on the series then the fight with Goku vs. Perfect Cell will.

Shadow Art

Another painter that inspired me to continue painting even though my style wasn't conventional art is H.R. Giger. He is the master of the macabre, his paintings and sculptures have been used for the movies Aliens, Species, and numerous others. I got a book from him titled Necronomicon  for Christmas when I was a kid and the pictures in that book were the images from nightmares. I became a diehard fan right then and i've been collecting his work ever since. Giger was born in Switzerland in 1940, went to private school for architecture and industrial design in Zurich, then had his first art exhibit in 1966. I posted a few pieces below but you should visit www.hrgiger.com to really see all of his work.