Muahahaha...

I knew that Wizard magazine would not fail me. According to the latest issue, Iron Man is the greatest comic book movie of all time and not The Dark Knight, Ha! I told everyone the same thing but all you bat teet sucklers didn't believe me. I know this is one magazine's opinion but I'm sorry, Iron Man was in fact a better movie. Robert Downey Jr. nailed that role while Christian Bale could never live up to Micheal Keaton or Kevin Conroy (or Heath Ledger or Aaron Eckhart for that matter).

Also if you remember a few issues back, they also named the greatest 200 characters of all time(not having to do with the movies, but rather the actual source material) and Batman was also number 2, coming in just behind Wolver-fucking-ine! I love it.

And on that note, the world is not spinning quite out of control as I thought...

It has come to my attention...

...thanks to a friend and the fact that he is one of the four people that actually read this blog, that a very slight typo in the url will take you to a site completely different in subject matter. Considering the subject matter of the other site and certain things I've said on this blog, I find it very interesting and ironic to say the least.

I won't go into the great depth to which I find this hysterical but it is very funny to me in almost a "creepy" kind of way. I have no idea how long this other site has been up but the words "Big Brother" and "Homeland Security" come to mind. I'm not anyone special and certainly don't claim to be a threat to anyone's ideals but take a look for yourself.

http://nerdcynicism.blogpsot.com

Make note that the title of my blog at least makes somewhat sense to the subject matter and the same title for the other site has nothing to do with the subject matter. Can anyone say "Fa-Ree-Kee"?

Anyway the title of my blog will remain in tact but the url is now http://joshworkman.blogspot.com

Dawson's Creek With Fangs

So unless you've been living under a rock for the last year or so, I'm sure you've heard of a little book (and very soon to be released film) called Twilight. My girlfriend, my sister, many of their girlfriends and about 1 in every 3 females I see in any given public area is either reading this book or has read it several times and is obsessed with it. Notice the lack of mentioning of any males in that last statement.

So at the risk of being crucified by several of my close loved ones, I just wanna say that if you're a teenage girl or in need of a new Dawson's Creek-esque fix and don't mind some fangs thrown into the mix, than this is for you. However if you are not a teenage girl that daydreams about hunky, chisel-chinned dreamboats than this is gonna offer little to you.

Being a vampire story enthusiast myself (Anne Rice and Joss Whedon's stuff specifically) I was immediately skeptical when asked to read it months ago. What really pushed me from never wanting to read it was looking at the demographic. The vast majority of who I see reading these books are quite frankly, girls that seem invested in shows like the aforementioned Dawson's Creek, were most likely home-schooled, and believe in fairy tale love stories. So I have to ask myself the question: What do I have in common with these girls? Answer: Absolutely nothing.

So after making a bet with someone I am currently reading through it. I will say that Stephanie Meyer is a very good writer. She has a decent style on to herself. However, the ranting of a puppy lovesick angsty teen and the perfection that is her Vampire knight is really just not for me. There's also a completely made-up vampire mythology without offering up an origin story and I really don't like that.

Meanwhile check out the trailers for the film; what do you see? A bunch of pretty young white people you've never heard of and can't act right? I'm thinking, The Covenant 2: The Glittery Vampires Attack the Emo Girl in Seattle. I think my title is a lot better.

I'm sure it'll have a good opening weekend and the horde of readers will buy it on DVD too. Be on the lookout for my new romantic comedy about a high school student that falls in love with the Bride of Frankenstein coming out next summer, Reanimated Love...

To Be Heard, Or Not To Be Heard

It has occurred to me that as we approach the upcoming election that a certain question has been percolating in my head for awhile now. That is, does any and everyone's one single vote actually matter?

Given the state of things, it is pretty clear that we do not in fact live in a system in which anyone can run and hope to win any office let alone the presidency. The sad truth is we live in a two party system and no one non Democrat or Republican has a fighting chance. Currently it looks as though Obama is set to win, and although I guess I would consider him the lesser of two evils yet again, I would prefer a Ron Paul in the White House looking out for me. I do believe it is one's right and responsibility to vote and to be heard, but with a lack of choices it makes the process painful and seemingly pointless at times.

Also, looking back on the events of the 2000 and 2004 elections, it would seem a man given the right resources can buy the presidency even when they very plainly lose the election. And if you throw in the Electoral College process and its complete lack of adherence to speaking accurately for the people, it makes me wonder.

And so again I ask, do our votes really matter?

I'm Blue, How 'Bout You?

Dear Red States:

We've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us. In case you aren't aware, that includes California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. It may even include Florida and Ohio, they are seriously considering it. We've given them until Nov. 4th to decide. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country. Since we're dropping the middle states we're calling it United America, or simply the U.A.

To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches. We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood. You can take Ted Nugent. We're keeping Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel. You get WorldCom. We get Intel and Microsoft. You get Ole' Miss. We get Harvard and 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama. We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms, and the highest concentration of pregnant unwed teenagers. Please be aware that the U.A. will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs turn up, really we do, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire. We'd rather spend it on taking care of sick people, and educating our children.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country's fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 percent of America's quality wines, 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT. With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia. We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the war, the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of you crazy Redies believe you are people with higher morals then we Bluies..

Finally, we're taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico.

Peace out,
Blue States



Now I'm not claiming to have written this, but I thought it was worth sharing. And for all you "Reds" out there, go ahead and do your usual fact skewing, but it is unfortunately (for you) all true. God bless America...

Agent Double – O – Snore

So is it just me or is it way overdue for James Bond to hang up his gun? I mean seriously, even if his gadget buddy has been sneaking him some kind of anti-aging formula over the past 40 years or so, you’d think he wouldda caught at least one STD and fathered a string of illegitimate children all across Europe by now. Not to mention the Cold War has been over for how long?

I only mention this because I saw the preview for the newest one coming up and quite frankly I’m still recovering from that last one.

So in the last one, they did a pseudo re-launch of the series. It’s his first mission as a “OO”, but it’s present day. So he’s a spy in present day non-Cold War, and all the same characters (mostly played by the same actors as well) are there too. So Bond doesn’t get any older, but his colleagues do, even when they re-launch the series, confused yet?

Here’s a rundown of the last film. Bond chases some dude through Africa, insert big crazy ridiculous stunts. Then he chases some dude through an airport somewhere in Europe, insert more big crazy ridiculous stunts. Then he’s on a boat or in some hotel or something playing Poker in some other distant corner of the earth, and yes to answer your question this is all somehow connected. And if I remember correctly I’m pretty sure there was an invisible car (which became invisible somehow involving built in cameras and mirrors) in there somewhere.

The funny part is if you watch the last few bond films it becomes apparent that he either needs to put on a cape or start fighting vampire ninjas. That would make the films make more sense.

Also, I don’t know if this ad is playing in all the theaters right now, but apparently if you’re Kidd Rock then you can make a song about “warriors” and just splice together scenes of soldiers playing with children in Iraq, Nascar racing, and lots of flags and then you just automatically become the biggest baddest patriot this side of the trailer park…

Max Payne: The Perfect Title

Do you ever get that bad feeling ahead of time, as if you know you’re about to make a mistake, but you go through with it anyway? Yea, well that’s the feeling I get more often than not these days when I go to the movies. Now I like to give pretty much any movie a chance, and in my defense, this time around it was my mom’s choice, and she isn’t known for having the best taste in movies.

I try and take every movie with a grain of salt. I knew well ahead of time that The Phantom Menace wasn’t going to be the stellar achievement in storytelling that it’s predecessors were, but I took it exactly for what it was going into that theater. I sat in nervous anticipation, waiting for my nerd load to be blown all over the seats in my immediate trajectory. And it was exactly what I knew it would be, a brilliant light show and appropriate display of how far visual effects had come and just how deep Lucas’ pockets have become over the years. However people, no one can deny the fact that no matter how bad the story may have in fact been, those movies showed exactly what epic space battles and lightsaber fights between the greatest warriors in the galaxy should have looked like, and they delivered on just that.

With that said, Max Payne looked truly badass. Think a cross between Sin City and 30 Days of Night but in color. And that’s really about all the good I can say about it. If you like shitty plot, horrendous acting by people that really shouldn’t be called actors to begin with, and sloppy unresolved character arcs then you’re in for a treat.

It’s funny because I always defend the way movie stories are drastically changed from the source material, because the fact that most people don’t understand is that movie storytelling is a whole different beast and sometimes it just wouldn’t work in the original form on screen. But I gotta say, when these producers and writers completely change the original story into something that also doesn’t work as a movie, then you epic fail.

But what the hell do I know? I guess the mentality these days is just that hallucinogenic demons and pro athletes playing bad guys with makeshift swords is a formula for success…

That Half-Jew/Half-Catholic is Going to Hell

This weekend I had the immense pleasure of viewing a film that quite frankly, I can’t believe made it to theaters. Religiousity stars Bill Maher, outspoken comedian/self-proclaimed activist of pretty much anything against the norm. The film has the once half-Jewish/half-catholic and now prominent atheist, interviewing many different zealous followers of different religions.

If there’s anyone out there that has any major doubts, questions, or problems with any major religion they follow, or you just have a pretty cynical sense of humor, then go see this film. I recommend it highly.

The film displays Maher’s unrelenting “in your face” style at its best. If you are easily offended or extremely close-minded than don’t go anywhere near this film, it will only piss you off. Now with that said, it doesn’t simply offer an “I hate religious nutcases” mentality. The way in which he synchronizes intense music alongside very dated clips of instructional religious propaganda for children had me rolling in my seat more than once. He also makes references to certain images throughout the film that he mirrors with current pop culture. My favorite moment in the entire film was Maher referencing a “chubby, bad at sports Jesus, sporting a jew-fro” followed by a clip of Jonah Hill from Superbad.

I would like to mention that I completely agree with Bill’s tactics, for the most part. He has a good knack for putting religious gurus on the spot and pointing out all the major plot holes and consistency errors, as well as calling them on all their “copouts”. The one problem I had was the way he seems to constantly cut people off throughout the film. Whenever they begin to defend themselves he interrupts and discourages them from doing so by simply becoming frustrated and screaming out his own point. I would like to have seen more of the other side, because I have had many of the same questions in my own experiences. However, one of the best scenes is when he gets into it with a Rabbi who insists upon making his own point just as much as Bill does. Doing so prompts Bill to get up in mid interview and say, “I’m done” without finishing the interview. I think this may have ultimately hurt his cause, but it is pretty damned funny to watch.

Also try to keep in mind this is a documentary, not a concise display of facts. Many people tend to forget that all documentarians, no matter how much they may love and agree with them, are putting forward a point, which is in the end their point, not one of the majority. The facts may or may not be unbiased, but ultimately it is their own point they wish to convey, not an equal-sided display of information. Some tend to forget that. However, even if you are a total religious nutcase, it doesn’t hurt to laugh at yourself every now and then. Don’t worry, God won’t hate you for watching it.

Either way it was worth my green, go watch and start up a conversation about any and everything that was said. It would sure as hell be a lot better for the world than another conversation about the latest episode of The Hills…

The Good Book and the Wide-Eyed Shoppkeepe

What is it about stupid people and their stupid assumptions?

Yesterday I went to the local bookstore to pick-up something for a friend's birthday, found what I was looking for, and then decided to try and enlist the help of one of the employees in at the very least steering me in the right direction. What a mistake that was.

Let me start off by saying, I'm not one of those assholes that goes into any restaurant, mall store, or coffee shop and decides to piss all over "the help" to make myself feel superior. No no no, I despise people that do that. I worked for many years in both retail and the service industry so I consider myself sensitive to that matter. And I just believe in basic human decency. But, with that said, it really takes all of my inner strength to fight the urge to not verbally abuse those wonderful people you meet on a daily basis that are truly ignorant and incompetent.

Here's what I was looking for (and I have to say this subject matter has always fascinated me, yet I've never made the time to explore it further). I was looking for a some type of referential or historical text that gives insight into the history of the bible. Not a bible, or a book full of bible studies, but a history of the bible, preferably from a non-Christian author.

The first woman points me towards, you guessed it, the bible section. And let me tell you, there were a whole lot of bibles there. I asked her again and tried to clarify. This time she led me to the "Christian Inspiration/Bible Study" section. So I gave up on her. So I went and found a different guy (he looked like a semi-liberal hippy type). Holy shit was I wrong. I proceeded to debate with him what I meant, and he proceeded to tell me that the bible was in fact a history book, the only history book, and actually that he didn't even understand my question. So I gave up on him.

The third woman I tried a different tactic. I told her about how a few years ago when the Da Vinci Code was insanely popular all the major chain bookstores had entire tables of referential type books of something similar to what I was looking for ranging from the Templars vs. the Assassins, to the true life of Mary Magdalen, to the lost gospels of Jesus Christ. I told her to point me in that direction and I would just look for myself. She searched on her computer (all while rolling her eyes and pounding the keys) and then walked me over to the "New Age" section where she pointed me to the Satanic Bible. She then declared, "This is the closest thing we have, now is there anything else?"

I had to control my laughter and contempt all at once. I didn't know how to react within my own body. So I thanked her and just flipped through the Satanic Bible for a few seconds. I didn't even know they had it at major chain stores. This was it for her, in her mind if it wasn't the bible then it was the Satanic bible. Wow.

But I have to admit, it did make me feel proud to be an American...

Batman: The Grey Squire (at best)

I'm not one to hate something mainstream just for the sake of going against the grain, but I am known amongst my circle of friends and co-workers to hate certain things that everyone else seems to love, but never without reason. With that said, Batman is one of the lamest super heroes of all time.

I know I know, sacrilege right? But I have to ask why? What makes him so fucking great? Seriously. I know he's popular, much further beyond the source material than most comic book heroes. He has lots of movies, toys, and memorabilia, but a truly great character that does not make him; simply a very well marketed cash cow. Let me tell you why most of you out there are all wrong about this very undeveloped character.

Let's go back to the beginning. Young boy's parents are killed by a mugger (who may or may not be a pre-Joker Joker depending on which story you follow), stays bitter for years and years, grows up through the rich kid, pretty boy, privileged elite system, dons a cape and mask to fight crime in a deeper and darker pseudo New York, all while having no super powers whatsoever (unless you consider a super charged bank account a super power). All that would be fine and dandy for a B-list Silver Age Hero, but not the all-powerfully invincible force DC and Hollywood has turned him into.

My problem in a nutshell with Batman as a character is that he is completely undeveloped, and everyone simply excepts this undeveloped perfection because he's so "badass". Let's run through his skill set. He's the best detective in the world, the best ninja in the world, he inexplicably has a super gadget for any and all situations (while also always having the foresight to always know which gadget to bring at what time), a genius scientist, a genius businessman, and in better physical shape then any other "normal" human on the planet, and is able to juggle his fortune and heal from his nightly outtings all on about an hour of sleep every night. Uhhhh....what the fuck?

My issue is that no powers equals total bullshit. Trust me, I know this is all fictional but the most common argument I hear is that people love Batman because of his lack of power, in effect he is what anyone could be, that he doesn't have the luxury of being Superman or the Green Lantern. Yet if you follow DC's major events or simply watch all of the movies and cartoon shows, he always seems to come out totally unscathed no matter how perilous the odds are. All on no powers, he's just that crafty. And again I ask how? What the fuck could make him so awesome that something could wipe out the whole Justice League but could make them all sigh in relief as he arrives with his Bat-O-Inexplicably-Save-The-Day-Rang just in the nick of time, every time?

At what point exactly did he become such a great detective/ninja/gadgeteer/etc in his early life? It's fucking ridiculous, the background is just not there. Maybe he took a decade long trip to China and recieved training while he was attending business school, or spent another decade mentoring with the FBI while he was at the office expanding the Wayne business empire, anyone? But again, its all just accepted with no problems and that's my problem. His marketing department is very steady with his periodic explanationless expansion in skill set. Just wait, in no time at all he'll be morphing into a giant mutant man-bat, casting magic spells, and astral projecting all over the place, and just as timely as ever, the legion of fans suckling at his bat teet will all agree that it all makes perfect sense simply because "he's Batman and he just kicks ass".

Well I say nay...

It's My First Time, Be Gentle...

So after spending the last several years or so, having an often long and gratuitous dialogue with myself, usually in the car while stuck in traffic, it dawned on me that I could simply type these things out and not have the painful itch of wondering if I am in fact crazy. A friend once told me that there is a difference between talking to yourself and commenting to yourself. I thought about that and I guess that's true. I don't actually talk to myself as if I'm another person. I simply express long-winded diatribes about whatever the hell's on my mind. Now I suppose it wouldn't be ballzy at all to have a few others leave their comments on my thoughts without the risk of me actually having to discuss, debate, and defend my opinions, but I invite any and everyone to to contradict my opinion at every turn. And I promise, that's what I will bring to this, my opinion. I can't promise that my opinions will always be fully informed, but goddamnit this is America, and I aim to follow suit.

I have appropriately titled this Nerd Cynicism because that is exactly what it will be, the rantings of a film fanatical, music loving, comic-book reading, videogame playing, anime loving, pseudo-tech savvy, 20-something that has much to say about whatever crops up into my noggin. After you read my next entry (which I have already begun writing) you will understand better. I guess I'll throw some current events, politics, and general happenings in here from time to time, but mostly this is going to be angry nerd stuff from an angry nerd. I'll never be relenting or apologetic about what I say but I would love more than anything to have an open dialogue with anyone (especially if they disagree with me, and I'm sure many will) as long as they retort with something other than kneejerk "you're wrong" type remarks. Hit me with it, everything you've got, just so long as you are inteligent, eloquent, and open to the idea that you may in fact be wrong. I promise to do the same.

I should also warn that I tend to often disagree with the majority, make references a little too inside for the masses, and frequently use naughty words like fuck, shit, and douchebag. But again, I'm warning everyone out there ahead of time. But enough of this foreplay bullshit...