The O-Pad

Citizens, as of immediate notice the following devices have been banned...The I-Phone, I-Touch, I-Pad, X-Box & PS3. Please check www.governmentapproveddevicesforabetteromerica.com for a complete comprehensive list & future updates. Theses devices must be turned in to your local ACORN immediately or face charges of immediate arrest & treason. To replace said devices the Governments new Technology Enhancement & Wellness division will be delivering the new O-Pad. The O-Pad has all necessary capabilities that Citizens need & none of the applications that are frivolous & not necessary to live a fruitful life as a Citizen. With usual Government efficiency the O-Pad will be ready for pre-order immediately at www.O-Pad.com . It will be ready for delivery in September, 2075.

For those of you that do not understand the above joke because you do not have access to certain devices or news sources please see the link above for a link to the actual commencement speech that Obama made recently. Below are the key quotes...

"And meanwhile, you're coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don't always rank that high on the truth meter. And with iPods and iPads and X-boxes and PlayStations — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation. So all of this is not only putting pressure on you; it's putting new pressure on our country and on our democracy."

Was this said by the same guy who is supposed to be tech savvy & used social networking to get elected & push his agenda now in office? The same President that is the first President to have a CTO? Which for the record is a good idea. Why did he name the products by name? Did he not understand the ramifications? Couldn't he have said that you need to better yourselves & not spend all day on social networking sites & playing games on-line. Go out & socialize with people. Play football & basketball with a ball & friends & not on a coach w/a controller?!?

For the record while I agree we are over-fed non-stop news & opinion without back-up or facts. However, these devices are not to blame & like most things they are double-edged swords. You can easily waste your time on them or us them as a valuable tool both professionally & socially. One can also waste their time hitting a little white ball on an over-watered field that is privatized (Barry, tell me...how would you like being banned from the golf course while President & have your Blackberry taken away?)or one can hike through a National Park & help clean it up.

What info is OK to view & when? Who is to say? Our President? I think it's covered in the 1st Amendment if I'm correct. These devices are tools & like any other tool can be used for good or bad. A hammer can build a home to provide one's family with shelter. It can be used to drive a nail into a wall to hang a painting & add beauty to ones home. It can also be used as a weapon & cause grievous harm. The I-devices are not going away. They will become more & more an integral part of our lives. The key with all tools is to use them properly. To be properly educated both at home & in school. To use some common sense. Something that seems to be missing in our society lately & lacking among our intelligentsia. Who knows...maybe they will come up someday with an app for that...

In the meantime...if anyone decides to come after my I-Touch, X-Box or my soon to be purchased I-Pad...please make sure you are familiar with the 2nd Amendment...

The Tourist

His name is Weaver...Milo Weaver...well not exactly Bond...James Bond but Mr. Weaver is more in the vein of Le Carre then Fleming...but a bit of Mr. Fleming rubbed off on the writer Otto Steinhauser. When I saw the book at B&N I wasn't sure what it was about, I thought maybe a travel memoir. When I saw it was a espionage thriller I figured I'd give it a whirl.

I was hooked from the get-go when Milo is on a plane to Slovenia sitting next to an attractive Swiss business woman after being in a shoot-out in Amsterdam. What was not to like? Again , this is more Le Carre then Fleming. Mr. Weaver has a pretty interesting back story that slowly unravels throughout the book. Milo also has a family & they are an integral part of the story which again makes him interesting & a unique twist from the usual lone wolf spy.

A Tourist in this book is a spy...but more of a sanctioned assassin. After an incident that almost kills Milo he ends up out of the field & working a desk job. Until of course the past comes back to haunt him & pull him back in. This is one of the better books I've read in a while & if you enjoy the spy genre then you will want to meet Weaver...Milo Weaver...

JP Morgan Pizza...Mmmmm...Mmmmm...

I guess with Wall Street under fire from the Big O some of these firms are realizing they need to further diversify their interests. In the case of JP Morgan their Chase banking division has gone into the Pizza business. I guess in a strange way this makes sense. They have locations all over New York & are if you break it down a cash business. Now, not only can you go to Chase to get a loan or money out of an ATM you can get some pizza. Now I'm not sure if it's pie only or if you can get it by the slice. I haven't actually seen it at any of the locations yet...but a girl in my building did have a personal size pizza with CHASE plastered all over it. I mean it's not like Chase would start advertising on Pizza boxes...right?!? You tried the rest...now bank with the best!

Please note...I bank with Chase, have done so for years & have been very happy with them. However, I would appreciate it if they stop buying out every single corner location in NYC for a branch making it impossible for small businesses to afford to start up in Manhattan. Make good solid loans to them....Let guys named Joey & John slap their names on pizza boxes...

ET...V?

Is there life out there among the stars...I would argue yes & I'm no Steve Hawkings. However, I don't think it takes a genius like Hawkings or an MIT mathematician to figure that considering how many stars we have identified http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/space/universe/galaxies-article.html that there is a good chance...that we are far from alone. Now while we would love to meet them...would they be friendly? Would like like to meet us...or eat us (Twilight Zone classic: To Serve Man...aliens come down...we get our hands on book...titled to serve man..turns out to be cookbook!)?

Hawking believes we are best off to hope they don't find us because most likely they would be out searching for resources & be more likely to take ours vs. giving us Healthcare & Unlimited Cold Fusion Pollution less power. He comes to this conclusion basing it on our past. Whether alien life forms would look anything like us, need our resources or think anything like us is anyone's guess.

I've always believed that aliens are out there & they travel among the stars as we travel around the planet. I think they observe places where they find life & most likely visit. Now if they are so advanced as to travel from star system to star system one thing would be fairly obvious to them about us. We are bloodthirsty killers & best to keep away from. They would have seen that from our ancestors...they would see it watching us now. So unless they have a way & desire to vaporise us & still get the resources they want...for the time being we are safe. If they do...we could be gone tomorrow & never know what hit us. If they are good natured...they would be smart enough to keep away from a bunch of stupid apes that would shoot whatever they had at them. If vicious...you may just get to meet a real live alien...right after he selects you off the menu & has you plucked out of the tank for his/her/it's dinner...

LA LAW:WALL ST SPECIAL EDITION

After a 20yr stretch for insider trading Gorden Gekko is back out on the street..Wall Street...of course that's just in the movies...in real life the NY courts showed us that it's not just in LA where celeutards can get away with crime. In all fairness I've always been a big fan Michael Douglas & an even bigger fan of his father Kirk. However, that doesn't give his spoiled rotten drug peddling son Cameron a free pass in life for dealing drugs. Not just using them...but selling them. Not just mostly harmless lets just legalize it & tax it weed but highly addictive Meth & Coke(not the highly addictive soda that makes us fat & destroys our teeth). If you or I dealt the drugs poor young (31)Cameron dealt we would get a minimum of 10yrs. He got 5 because a bunch of celebrities cried to the judge & he ratted out on the other dealers. Great message there for the rest of us.

Of course we should look at this from poor Cameron's point of view. Just imagine the horrors that he has had to deal with his entire life. A life growing up in mansions with not a want in the world. Never having or needing a job. Any toy as a child or adult without asking. Traveling the world, going to Hollywood premieres...the horror...the horror! Yes, there was growing up in the shadows of his Father & Grandfather...how was he able to deal with it?!? Then on top of that his Dad rubbing salt in the wound of his ego by marrying one of the most beautiful woman in the world Cathrine Zeta Jones...it most have been unbearable! Guess she had no friends for him.

Who wouldn't turn to drugs?!? Who wouldn't turn to dealing drugs?!? Who...just about anyone else you spoiled rotten shit! Sorry I have no mercy for a spoiled rotten brat born with a platinum spoon up his nose. It would be sad if he took to drugs himself for being so weak & fragile...but to sell drugs to others to add to their misery! What creates such a weak pathetic creature? Hollywood...or just being spoiled & never having anything expected of them. I'm sorry, I just have no mercy for people like Cameron. He had access to everything & choose to be a total screw-up & worse screw up further the lives of others. He shouldn't have received half the minimum he should have received double the minimum! The poor kid who grew up without a chance & without one or both parents... maybe if they showed promise... should maybe get some leniency...not some spoiled rotten Hollywood brat. Since I"m not much a fan of America's greatest action hero actor the one & only Shia I was close to not going to see the Wall St sequel as is. Now, sorry Mr. Douglas but I'm boycotting your movie. I know it will accomplish nothing...but it's my little message to you & the pathetic establishment that enables people like you & yours...

A Star is Born...Kicking A$$!!!

I laughed, I cried (from laughing so damn hard) I don't think Matt Vaughn could have made this movie better if he tried... I'll try as usual to keep this as Spoiler Free as possible. Please note this one is NOT for kids*! It more then earns it R rating between it's graphic violence, profanity, & sexual content(sorry...but no nudity...so yes you get to see blood but don't worry no nipples) The premise of the movie Kick Ass (based on the comic) is a regular geeky kid in High School ponders the thought why has no one ever dressed up as a Superhero to fight crime**. He decides to give it a try...with less then spectacular initial results. Turns out...he is not the only one who came up with the idea. Others...have been let's say more successful. No one has super-powers, so it's about as grounded in reality as it's gonna get with one possible exception...

Matt Vaughn does a great job of mixing the humour with the violence & tragedy. Not easily done but he does. You may know him from Layer Cake which is a movie I love & was a screen test for Craig to play Bond. Vaughn was a protege of Guy Richie but I think the student is becoming the master. I really think that after Sam Mendes does his take on Bond Vaughn & Craig need to re-unite...but I digress for once.

The action sequences in this movie are awesome, well choreographed, & I'm fairly confident like nothing you have ever quite seen...Great performances across the board. Nic Cage so needed this movie, Aaron Johnson the lead will be stealing roles from Toby & Jake soon, McLovin was pretty funny, Lyndsy Fonseca the female lead was great & she is oh so damn cute & hot! Mark Strong did a good job as the "bad guy" but it is young Chloe Moretz that steals the show from everyone! She was amazing!!! One of the best characters in a movie ever...I want the action figure! It could just be that she reminded me in certain ways of my niece. Cute, angelic looking...but with the Devil in her. I remember how when she was just learning to talk...how much she used to love to wake me up when I crashed over (or on the couch) my hitting me. My brother would say Jilly...soft...nice when you wake up Uncle Steve...she would reply..No...hard! & keep hitting me. Chloe's performance really conjured memories of the young actress in the classic movie Leon The Professional. You saw immediately the star power that little girl had. That little girl was Natalie Portman. Let's hope that Chloe follows in her footsteps both in her professional & personal life. Natalie has had a great career so far & is a class act in her personal life. The film does have some great lines on a certain celeb-retard who has not...

I don't think you need to like comics to like this movie, you just have to like action flicks & have a dark sense of humour. Of course if you do, then you will catch plenty of the comic references...everyone else will get all the POP references that include the you-tube-ification of our culture & video game influences. This one really is a must see...go see it...don't make me slap on my costume & deliver some whoop-ass on you!

*The guy sitting next to my friend was there with his 8-10yr old daughter...I can only give so much grief due to the fact my Dad used to bring my baby bro & I when we were even younger to Martial Arts & Cop flicks...but he would never have taken my sister his little girl...

** Actually there are some out there...a handful patrol Washington Sq Park confronting Drug Dealers http://www.reallifesuperheroes.org/archives/tag/dark-guardian

Geek Trivia question...Who is the actress that plays Ms. Amico(the bad guys wife) & what superheroine did she play on TV? See IMDB for answer... http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000319/