The Beer-hemoth 2

Ok, so I lied. However, at the time I made the statement, I did not know it was a lie, so I feel that absolves me a little. When I mentioned The Beer-hemoth 2 the other day, I said that it would be after the Vermont Brewer's Festival in July. Little did I know that Table & Vine would be having a keg-party/beer-tasting/free-burger day of madness during this weekend. Thus, the Beer-hemoth 2 has been relocated from northern Vermont to Western Mass, with the Vermont thing now being temporarily called The Beer-hemoth 3. I don't want to guarantee the title in case of more shenanigans. Also, I do realize that northern Vermont lacks a capital "N" while Western Mass gets both words capitalized. That is because Massachusetts > Vermont.

Today's beer tasting was a lot different from the Brattleboro Brewer's Festival. For one thing, there weren't nearly as many beer options. Also, it was held inside instead of outside. The beer samples were also a lot smaller. Like maybe 1.5 to 2 ounces instead of 4 at a time. Finally, and probably most importantly, this one was free. They accepted donations, which I did because anyone who didn't probably was viewed as a total scumbag, but if you were a jerk, you could have just gone in for free.

They also had hamburgers, but they were nothing to brag about. Actually, the less I say about them the better. Except I will talk about them, and at length.

The policy was that you got a bracelet with 10 tear-off tabs on them, and every time you tried a beer, the vendors took a tab. Except that not every vendor remembered to take a tab, an event that the 5 of us referred to as "gettin' freebies." Tony also stole several tabs, and random people would come up to us and give us their bracelets. Obviously we looked like a group of serious drinkers. This will hopefully explain why there are a lot more than 10 reviews here.

On to the beers!

I started off with Sierra Nevada Summerfest which was a terrible decision. It tasted like a pretty bad pale ale, and I just didn't like it at all. I did help myself to one of their coasters, so it wasn't a total loss.

Ok, so we had a bit of a false start, but nothing to worry about. I moved on to Dirty Penny Ale from Olde Burnside Brewing Company. Probably not the best name for a beer, but who knows; people will drink pretty much anything. I could brew a beer, call it Sweaty Ball Lager, and still sell several barrels a week. Actually, I might do that if Burger Bros becomes Burger Bros Restaurant and Brewery. Keep an eye out for Sweaty Ball Lager. Back on track, the DPA is good stuff. It tastes kind of like a porter, which is weird considering that it is called a lager, but I am not a beer expert. Yet. It was also nice and smooth, which made it awesome. I will have to buy some next time I'm over at Table & Vine.

I followed that up with some fruity beers. Not like fruity in the Will & Grace sense, but fruity like actual fruit. The first one was Woodstock Inn Raspberry Weasel Wheat. It's made with bits of real weasel, so you know it's good! (I actually said that to someone at the tasting, then Matt and I laughed hysterically. Thanks, Ron Burgundy!) I ended up drinking a few more samples of this later, so that is a pretty strong endorsement. The raspberry flavor was really strong, almost to the point where it didn't taste like a beer. It was also very sweet, so I could see it not being for everyone. It's definitely good enough for me though!

Next I had a Hooker Watermelon Ale. Heh heh, Hooker. I liked it a lot more than the last watermelon beer I had, which was from Opa Opa. I don't know if I could manage an entire bottle though. I would let Kathryn order it, then drink some of it when she wasn't looking.

I tried a little of Bill's Shipyard Summer. It sucked. We both agreed that it sucked, so just skip it and drink Sam Summer instead.

At this point, I went outside and ate the lame burger. It was not great.

When I got back inside, I tried the Goose Island IPA. It tasted super hoppy and a little bitter, but I think that is what you expect from an IPA. I would drink this again.

Hoping to redeem the Shipyard Brewing Company, I decided to give their Wheat Ale a try. I did not care for it. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either. It just was. I don't think I would drink it too often, especially considering that I know they have some good beers from this particular brewer. Come on, Shipyard, step it up.

Alright, I had been putting this off for a while, but I finally had to try Red Stripe Light just because I really like Red Stripe and hoped that their light beer wasn't going to disappoint me. Luckily, I ended up satisfied. It doesn't taste too light, sort of the way that Sam Adams Light is not a bottle of crap like most light beers are. Hooray light beer!

Next up was the Smuttynose Summer Weizen. This beer was ok. There was nothing very memorable about the taste of this beer, so I would probably avoid it in the future. Also, it smelled weird. I don't make a point of drinking weird smelling beers.

After that, I sort of tried the Anchor Steam Beer. I say sort of because I am pretty sure I have had this beer before. It tasted familiar, and it tasted like a beer that wasn't very good. This beer fell into the aforementioned freebie category, so I wasn't too upset about trying a not-so-great beer. I could see myself being upset if I had bought a 6-pack of these things. I don't think I'll be drinking these in the future.

At this point, I was down to presumably my 3 final tabs, so I decided to spend them on beers I already knew I liked. I settled on a Magic Hat Wacko, a Sea Dog Blue Paw and a Long Trail Blackbeary Wheat. These are 3 great beers that I have had more of than I can remember, since I only count the Summer Ales in the Summer Ale Challenge (going strong in year 3).

At this point, I got a few more tabs from some random lady, so I tried to find more new beers. Unfortunately, nothing really enticed me, so I ended up getting a Hooker Blonde Ale and some more Weasels. The Hooker was pretty good, so I was pleased with that choice. All in all, it was a good time, and I think that beer-tastings and brewers festivals are going to have to make a more frequent appearance in my plans.

I tried 2 more beers at home later, so they can join in on this thing. Shipyard Blue Fin Stout and Saranac Pomegranate Wheat were also consumed, and they get included because they were purchased from Table & Vine and also because I am the one writing this thing so I make all the rules. The Blue Fin was good stuff, but that is because I am becoming more and more of a stout fan. The Pomegranate Wheat wasn't that great, but there was a picture of a bear juggling on the bottle, so it at least gets points for that. Bears are just cool animals.

I've got 2 different variety packs in the fridge right now, so there may be another Beer-hemoth prior to the previously declared Beer-hemoth 3. However, I wouldn't count on it, because I would end up drinking full bottles of each beer and probably forgetting to write down the half-assed notes I usually take, which would reduce the quality of my post. And no one wants that.

-Jon

Lost is . . .

wait a second, didn't I already do a post about Lost? Yeah, well, much like the series finale it sucked, so here I am to hopefully do a better job. Unlike most of my spoiler alerts where I reveal no spoiling information, if you haven't seen the series finale yet and still plan on doing so don't continue reading because I will be swearing relentlessly about what happened.

First off, let me point out that I realize that Lost is ultimately a show about the characters. That being said, it's also about a god damn time traveling magic fuck island and you can't just completely ignore that. Season 6: you suck. It's probably because I watched them so close together that I can't really appreciate the first 5 non-sucky seasons after the travesty that was season 6. Holy shit, do I hate season 6. And here's why. From season 2 onward we were lead to believe that the reason they were on the island was because Desmond wasn't in the hatch to push the button which caused an electromagnetic event that crashed their plane. Difficult to believe, but I'm not here to judge. Oh wait, then season 6 comes along and all of a sudden it's because Jacob brought them to the island in order to play some sort of game against Will Smith, aka the Man in Black. But if Jacob really brought them to the island (which I maintain is horse shit by the way) then why wasn't that a bigger fucking deal? The whole thing was supposed to be some sort of test of humanity, whether or not they were able to be good or something stupid like that. Well what the fuck happened? And IGN reviewer guy, don't tell me it's supposed to be a "Man of Faith" moment where I trust the creators. Fuck that. You can't just throw some seemingly important shit in there and then act like it never happened. Fuck Jacob. Fuck Lost.

Take Walt for example. In season 1 he gets taken off the raft because he's "special". Well, WHAT THE FUCK MADE HIM SO GODDAMN SPECIAL? Then all of a sudden he's gone and the next time we see him he's telling Locke to get out of the pit after Ben shot him. Then, in season 6, we find out that it was really Will Smith taking the forms of dead people in order to guide certain individuals, like using Christian to show Jack where he could find water in season 1. Does that mean Walt is really dead? I don't know, because they didn't fucking tell me. Now, Walt wasn't that big of a deal, but Charlie on the other hand, holy fucking shit.

You may remember Charlie dying in season 3 because the universe wanted him dead, so umm, yeah that seems kind of a big deal. But despite Desmond's best efforts to keep him alive, he ended up sacrificing himself in order to, as he believed, save Claire and presumably everyone else. Well, what the fuck was that all about? To have a moment in the show where the universe (or the island or Jacob or whatever) wants a character dead, and then to have that moment essentially mean nothing is really fucking irritating. Now, I understand that they couldn't resolve every possible mystery or question surrounding the Island, but the fact that a character was pretty much doomed to die seems like something that may have required a little more explanation.

And then the supposed "Flash Sideways" . . . it makes me want to donkey kick someone. The whole thing was about building some sort of afterlife where they could be together . . . I'm not very religious but I'm pretty sure that's already been done. It's called heaven. And about the flash sideways: Desmond was running around reminding everybody that they were . . . already dead? Well what the fuck is that? The entire premise of the flash sideways was completely unnecessary and feels like a kick square to the baby maker. So let me get this straight: even when they left the island and then had to come back in order to save everyone they left behind, and then they traveled back in time and set off a nuclear bomb with all sorts of crazy shit along the way, was ultimately so that they could die and be happy together? That's fucking absurd.

Fuck Lost.

-Slick

The Beer-hemoth

You like that? I stole the title idea from Slick.

As mentioned over at Mmmm, Burgers, I attended the First Annual Brattleboro Brewers Festival yesterday with generally positive results. Back in the day, I would have had to eat a burger and cram all 8 of these beer reviews into a burger post, but now that I write for the wildly successful Mmmm, Opinions, I can focus on what's important: the beer. I tried 8 new varieties, and I wrote myself some short notes on each one. Hopefully I can figure out what I meant, because I was trying to be concise. Unfortunately, this appears to have resulted in me reviewing beers using a system of exclamation points. I have to assume that I was implying a difference between "good," "good!," and "good!!" I am an idiot.

I also got a bunch of free, cheap stuff like coasters, bumper stickers, stickers for things other than bumpers and pins. I also bought a half-priced t-shirt and a couple pint glasses. That stuff will all end up either adorning the walls of Burger Bros (trademark pending) or the man-room in my future house.

I started off with McNeill's Oatmeal Stout. I am a pretty big fan of stouts, especially the oatmeal ones, so I wanted to make my first beer one that I was fairly confident I would enjoy. And I was right. My review yesterday was "good!", which is positive. Kathryn, of course, did not enjoy it, because she doesn't care for the stout variety of beer. I should have written down what she was drinking, because I tried a few of hers that were pretty good too. Maybe she could write a guest post.

I then moved on to Element Brewing Company Dark Matter. This was my favorite beer of the day. It was a black ale, which I don't think I have ever tried before. Let the record show that it was delicious. Yesterday's review of this beer was "good!!", which I believe is the highest review given. More importantly, Element is located in Millers Falls, which is like 3 inches away from Kathryn on this random map I am looking at. I have no idea what the scale is, but it's not far. Brewery tour!!

The third beer of the day was Sorachi Ace from Brooklyn Brewery. Eh, it was ok. That's actually the review I gave it yesterday. It tasted like a less terrible Belgian ale with a little lemony flavor. There wasn't anything that was super about it, but there wasn't anything terrible about it. Also, this was the point in the day where we saw the first pregnant woman. Walking around a brewers festival. Drinking beer. That's just wrong. To paraphrase Knocked Up, we can't have a bunch of pregnant bitches running around the festival; that's crazy.

At this point, I was hungry, so I went and got a Beer Braised Beef Burrito from the Vermont Country Deli because it sounded good and I wanted to eat something alliterative. I was happy with my choice. Much happier than with the burger that was coming up later.

Beer number 4 was High & Mighty Beer Co.'s Two-Headed Beast. This was a chocolate stout, which sounded like it was going to be awesome, but just ended up being good. It was also a little too sweet for me. Do you remember that chocolate soda that they used to have? I think it was from either Polar or Adirondack? This beer was sort of like that.

I followed up my dessert with a Star Island Single from Smuttynose. It was a pretty good ale with something citrusy going on. I would probably drink a few of them with a meal, as it went down smoothly. Plus, Smuttynose is fun to say.

From there, it was back to the stouts with Paper City Brewery's Fogbuster. It was a very tasty coffee stout, which apparently comes from right nearby in Holyoke. It turns out that there are a lot of little breweries out in western Mass. Who knew? I liked the beer a lot, but I think it was a little too strong in the coffee taste. I prefer the Coffeehouse Porter from BBC because it's a bit more restrained in the coffee area. Also, I find it interesting that I like coffee stout, coffee ice cream, coffeecake, Dunkin Donuts coffee rolls, etc., but I don't like actual coffee.

Somewhere during those 3 beers, we saw a second pregnant lady. I don't think that this one was drinking though, but still. This is the type of event you have to give up once you make the mistake of getting pregnant. You can already predict the type of kids these people are going to have, which is the kind that make people want to quit teaching.

My next beer was the low point of the day. A random dude let me try the Vermonster from Rock Art Brewery, and it was pretty good but not great. And yes, I will try random people's beers. You're reading a post from a guy who let some random dude whose sister Dave was trying to get with buy a him beer at the Salty Dog after grabbing his ass. True story. (I realize that the story is not very clear there. Just ask me sometime and I will give you the whole tale.) And if that's not going to stop me from accepting free beer, then pretty much nothing is.

Since I had already tasted the Vermonster, I decided to have the Ridge Runner from the same brewery. Oh, past Jon, if only you knew what present Jon knows. That thing was weird tasting, and not very good. What a waste of a drink ticket. Let's move on.

My last beer of the day was Switchback Red Roasted Ale. This was a great beer to end the festival on. Red ales are often hit-or-miss with me, but this one was a hit. A couple of the people we were with started off with it, so it already had some positive reviews by the time I made my way over to that particular tent. This will be one of the beers featured in the $2.50 Beer of the Month special at Burger Bros whenever that fantasy becomes a reality. Anyone have some extra capital lying around?

After all those beers, I was kind of hungry again, so I got a bowl of turkey chili, again from the Vermont Deli Company. It was not nearly as spicy as my chili, but it was really good, and further served to make the upcoming burger even more disappointing. I should have quit eating while I was ahead.

I got 3 compliments on my Big Lebowski Abide shirt. That thing never fails to be a conversation point. Thanks, Melissa!

All in all, I tried 8+ new beers with 5 winners, 2 decent ones, and 1 loser, plus some opinions that I forgot to write down. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon. It should get even crazier when we go up to the even bigger Vermont Brewers Festival in July. The Beer-hemoth 2 is coming!

-Jon

Good. My font is back to normal.

Iron Man 2 is . . .

an OK movie, but disappointing given how much I enjoyed the first one. There are definitely some enjoyable parts. The action sequences are still really good and the addition of War Machine to the Iron Man squad was pretty sick, but there is WAY too much filler in this movie. Hey Jon Favreau, Me, Chris and Lindsay don't give two shits about stupid ass Gwyneth Paltrow. Her character is really annoying. Why can't she just let Tony Stark do his thing? He's fucking Iron Man and she's his fucking assistant. Just shut the fuck up and let Iron Man run shit. Also whats the deal with ScarJar Binks? Why is she even in this movie? I'm not gonna complain too much cause she's really hot, but she is another example of more filler that takes away from the quality of the movie.

There were some bright spots in this movie. One was obviously RDJ's performance. It wasn't as good as the first Iron Man, but I still thought he was funny and enjoyable, especially the scene in front of the douchebag Senate guy. I think his name was Stern, and he is a real asshole. Mickey Rourke was pretty good as Whiplash, but he has an unnatural obsession with birds. By far the best performance in this movie was turned in by Sam Rockwell, the guy who played Justin Hammer. I thought this guy was awesome. I don't wanna give away any plot details but I'll just leave it at that. One question though: Who the fuck is Sam Rockwell? I have never seen this guy in anything. I even broke Rule 1 at mmmmopinions and looked up his IMDb page. I literally haven't seen this guy in anything since he played Head Thug in the first Ninja Turtles Movie. Get this guy in more movies.

So my overall review of this movie? Its a classic Level 3 movie. It's definitely not a must watch, unless you really like Iron Man, but I definitely would watch it again if it was on TV.

Here are some other movies I've seen recently and my two cents on each:

Kick-Ass: This movie was really good actually. Like surprisingly good. I had very low expectations going in and I really enjoyed it. Nic Cum Dumpster Cage was hilarious. It would be the best movie I've seen this year, if not for the next movie on this list. You should see this movie. WARNING - It is very violent. If you don't like blood and violence, you are a pussy and should avoid this movie.

Sherlock Holmes: Slick already reviewed this so I'll just say I second his opinion. Great Movie, Must Watch.

Star Trek: Another movie Slick reviewed. I liked it a lot, but not as much as Slick. I'll give it Level 2 status - should watch.

Terminator 3: An absolute train wreck of a movie. This movie was just fucking terrible. It actually made Terminator Salvation look decent. I hate myself for watching this movie. If you wanna hate yourself too, maybe need some motivation to cut your wrists, watch this movie. Otherwise avoid at all costs.

Terminator Salvation: I watched it after Terminator 3, so my expectations were impossibly low. It failed to meet those expectations, so I somewhat enjoyed it. It is still a pretty bad movie. Definitely pass on this. What's Slick's rating? Eh, Unimpressive? Sounds right to me
Note: Chris is Sam Worthington from this movie.

Law Abiding Citizen: I liked this movie a lot. (way too many positive reviews here. sorry guys) Its got Jamie Foxx and 300 aka Gerard Butler. Both guys deliver pretty good performances and there is a lot going on. 300 is a badass. Why does he take so many gay roles in fucking romantic comedies. Start killing people again. You're good at it. Rating: Level 2 - Should Watch

And so ends my triumphant return to blogging.

Coming Soon: Dances with Smurfs (Avatar) - Is this movie as bad as Lindsay says, or is she crazy? find out next time on MMMMopinions

-Matt

This blog is brought to you by the people at Gobias Industries

What's the Rumpus? is. . .

a pretty good CD by Gaelic Storm. I am not sure it will get as much car-time as their older album, How Are We Getting Home?, but there is some quality stuff on there.

Gaelic Storm has the distinction of somehow being the first "real" band that I have seen live twice. (Sorry, Darik and the Funbags, you don't get included even though you rock out because all the songs you play are actually other people's.) Also, both times I saw the Storm were in Northampton, albeit in very different venues. The first was at the Iron Horse, which is a pretty small place with waitresses lacking in mathematical abilities. I was with Tina, Richard, and Emily, and somehow the 4 of us managed to go the entire show and only drink 6 pints of beer total according to our bill. Now, I drank 5 myself, and everyone had a drink to start, so it would appear that something went wrong with the counting somewhere along the line. Woohoo, free beer! The second time was a few weeks ago at the Calvin, which is really large and does not have a waitress bringing me free pints. However, I was a lot more familiar with their music this time around, which made the show more enjoyable, even though it was more sober.

I reread my post on Appeal to Reason, in which I stated that I was going to stick to that format for CDs. Well, guess what? Much like Slick's movie posts, the format is changing already. Instead, I am going to write this as I listen to the CD, and give individual opinions for each song. The Best Songs, Skips, and Final Rating will remain (just in a different style), so there is at least some consistency. Who knows. By the next CD, this could be different again.

On with the show!

What's the Rumpus? by Gaelic Storm (2008)

One thing to know about the band is that, much like blink-182 or Barenaked Ladies, they have two different singers with distinct sounds. I think their names are Patrick and Steve. I know one is Patrick, and Steve sounds good enough, so let's go with it. Patrick sings the fun and goofy songs, and possibly-Steve sings the more serious stuff. I tend to like the Steve songs more, with some exceptions, but I will not be distinguishing between the two guys in my review, pretty much just to mess with you after you've read this long paragraph. Ha! Deal with that.

1) "What's the Rumpus?" - Good opening track for the CD. It gets things going with a pretty lively song about a party gone slightly too far. It would also be a good song to kick off a live show, but I don't remember if they used it last month. I like it.

2) "Lover's Wreck" - Best. This song is great. It sounds like it's pretty Irish to me, although I have nothing at all to base that on. I think it's about a guy who turns to piracy because he loses something. Probably a girl, but he could also be upset about losing his car keys. That is a pretty crappy thing to have happen to you as well.

3) "Darcy's Donkey" - People love this song when it's played live. I guess because it's about a messed-up donkey who gets wasted, wins a horserace, then dies. It's really something we can all relate to. It's a pretty good song. It's catchy, it's got drunken animals, and it makes me want to start drinking whiskey. You can't really go wrong with any of those.

4) "The Mechanical Bull" - This song is an instrumental one. I don't really know how you come up with titles for instrumental songs. I guess this was was written when someone was either riding a mechanical bull, or when their friend was riding a mechanical bull, or when they were visiting the mechanical farm. It's not bad for an instrumental song, especially if you like bagpipes. Otherwise, you probably won't like it, and you probably shouldn't be listening to band with the name "Gaelic Storm."

5) "Human to a God" - Eh, this song is pretty average. It's about a guy who loves a girl who is marrying another guy and wants some divine intervention. Yawn. It's pretty mellow, so it's like the calm before the storm of the next tune.

6) "Slim Jim and the Seven Eleven Girl" - Best. Despite it's stupid name, this song is one of my favorites. The music is awesome, and the song itself is also good. That's generally a winning combination. You'll know if this song is playing when you drive past me because I'll be rocking out behind the wheel. I am actually doing some foot-stomping while I type this, which is not smart since I'm on a laptop. But I think that gives you an idea of the quality of the song.

7) "Don't Let The Truth Get In The Way (Of A Good Story)" - Who is naming these songs, Fall Out Boy? If I ever review one of their albums, I'll have to watch out for a character limit on the posts and do the thing in phases. This song is about making up ridiculous stories because lying is more fun than being honest. It's the kind of song that you'll listen to, enjoy while it's playing, and then probably forget about. Nothing amazing, but nothing bad either. I'll take it!

8) "The Samurai Set" - This is another instrumental song. It sounds like it's got a lot more fiddle and less bagpipes than "The Mechanical Bull." There is definitely plenty of bagpipes though, so don't be too sad. I have no idea what the name of the song means. Nothing about this song makes me think of Japan or samurai or that video game Samurai Showdown (which I am thinking about now. Is that the one with the little gremlin Gen-an?) or anything samurai-esque. I don't understand how they are naming these things. Also, it's apparent that I need songs with lyrics or else I get completely sidetracked. The song's ok. I don't skip it when I'm listening to the CD, which is about all you can hope for in an instrumental.

9) "Beidh Aonach Amárach" - This song continues the trend that the band has of having one song every album that is completely sung in Irish. Wait, is that a language, or is it supposed to be Gaelic? I assume no one will tell me with a nicely thought-out comment. Jerks. This song is kind of mellow compared to most of what's been going on for the rest of the album. I think it's a nice change of pace, even though something is probably lost in the translation. In this case, I have literally no idea what it's about, as my Irish/Gaelic is limited to yelling "Sláinte!" when I'm drinking Guinness on St. Patrick's Day. Beer is fun.

10) "Death Ride to Durango" - Another instrumental. I don't like when they are grouped so close together, because it's hard to tell them apart. I think this song may be the sequel to the song "Cab Ride to Kingston" from How Are We Getting Home?, but obviously that is just because of the similarities in the title structures. There sounds like a lot of fiddle and tin whistle in this one, and doesn't seem very sad. Maybe Durango is actually a pretty sweet place. I kind of like this song, but I can't really tell what makes it better than either of the other instrumentals. Oh well; if you've got a problem with that, you can write your own opinion website. Just don't try to capitalize on the "Mmmm. . ." brand name.

11) "Faithful Land" - This song is a relaxed, chilling-out song. It's probably about Ireland, but I don't really pay attention to lyrics sometimes. I like it, especially the syncopation in the chorus. It gets to stay in the rotation.

12) "If Good Times Were Dollars" - This song is all about being happy even if you don't have any cool stuff. That's a good message, and the song is also good. It's above average for the album, but probably wouldn't make my Gaelic Storm Greatest Hits Mixtape. Is that a helpful review?

13) "Floating the Flambeau" - The final instrumental, and none too soon. This is a bagpipes-heavy song, with some cool percussion stuff going on in the background. However, it suffers in my book from being the 4th instrumental song, and I am often bagpiped out by the time I get to it. If I start the CD in the middle, it's not an issue, but if I'm listening on the way to Kathryn's or some other far destination, I will probably get annoyed. It does get a little crazy in the middle, which is nice. I'll have to give it a listen sometime when I haven't been listening to the whole CD in one session to see if it changes my opinion.

14) "The Night I Punched Russell Crowe" - It's pretty tough to figure out what the story behind this song is. I wish the title had been slightly less vague. (I need a sarcasm font just to make it clear.) I have no idea if the story really happened, because this CD has already suggested that I not let the truth ruin a good story. Also, there is no telephone throwing anywhere in the song. I feel that a real Russell Crowe story needs someone throwing a phone. The song is ok. I know other people like it more based on the reaction at the concert, but to me it's just an average song with a funny story.

Final rating - "I'm glad I got it, but I wouldn't have had to commit harakiri had I bypassed it." There's enough here to make it worth the purchase, and nothing that I feel the need to skip on every playthrough. And really, that's a pretty impressive feat for a CD at this point in my life. Well done!

And there you have it. The new, potentially improved CD review format. I've got a lot more new CDs, so you'll soon be able to see if I'm going to stick to it.

-Jon

PS - Why is my font different? I don't like this. This part is the correct size, and the rest is weird.

The Behemoth

It's a movie review extravaganza, but don't worry, I'm not going to put you through that much enjoyment. I'm going to legitimately review Sherlock Holmes and then I'm going to make some comments about Star Trek, X2: X-Men United, and the much anticipated Transformers 2 bashing. I'm also going to throw in some random observations and casual swearing; you know, the usual. Fortunately . . . or unfortunately . . . I'm not sure, but whatever the case I don't have any new tweaks this time around. Get your popcorn ready, this may be my longest blog post ever. And that's saying something.

1. Sherlock Holmes: I have to admit, I didn't think I was going to like Sherlock Holmes. The commercials made it look like it would contain a lot of physical comedy and although I'm not some sort of Sherlock Holmes enthusiast, I didn't like the direction that it appeared the movie was going to take. Also, I didn't know if I would believe Robert Druggy Jr. as Sherlock Holmes. And for the first 30 minutes I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about it. But as the old saying goes, "Hey fuckhead, why don't you finish the movie before you judge it?" So let's see how I ended up feeling. Question 1: Would I watch this movie again? Fuck yeah. Question 2: Would I have been mad had I seen this movie in theaters? Fuck no. Question 3: Does this movie make sense? Fuck yeah. Question 4: Was this movie predictable? Fuck . . . well yes and no. There were a lot of twists at the end which I really enjoyed but you always knew, or should have known, how the movie was ultimately going to end. And yeah, I'm intentionally being ambiguous with that last sentence because I want to keep this movie completely unspoiled for anyone that hasn't seen it. Sherlock Holmes earns my first ever "Must Watch" so if you haven't seen "No Shit Sherlock" yet, you should stop what you're doing and go do it. Well, finish this post first. Then go do it. My only problem with this movie is that they occasionally spoke too quickly for me to know what they were saying, which was kind of annoying, but not enough for me to lower my ranking at all. I, Slick, have almost nothing bad to say about this movie. So you know it must be good. Snap-a-do.

Ranking: Level 1, Must Watch. But I already said that. But it's a positive post. So I feel I should reiterate that I actually liked something. And I really liked Sherlock Holmes.

2. X2: X-Men United: I'm not sure, I just didn't like this movie. Matt thinks it's decent, I think it sucks. Wolverine is super gay, not at all like the badass Wolverine from the cartoons. Cyclops, stupid. Magneto, not terrifying like he should be. Mystique, I don't remember her from the cartoons but Rebecca Romjin is hot so that's a plus. Rogue sucks (Why is she so fucking useless?), Charles Xavier sucks, Jean Gray is stupid and that sucks because the actress that plays her is pretty hot. Basically, I enjoyed nothing about this movie . . . except the hot actresses. The guy that plays William Striker (a disgrace to the name William by the way) is the old man bad guy from the first 2 Bourne movies, but I don't buy him as like a military supergenius mastermind. So that bothered me. Matt says this movie is watchable if you have nothing better to do, but I don't even give it that much credit. I would never watch this movie again. So if you don't like it, write your own opinion. I, on the other hand, think it sucks. Ranking: Level 4, very unimpressive but not bad enough to enter the danger zone.

3. Star Trek: This isn't one of the really nerdy Star Treks, this one allows you to both like the movie and like girls at the same time. It's a real win-win. I really really like this movie. There must be something wrong with me, that's two "Must Watch" movies in the same post. Quickly running through my questions, I would absolutely watch this movie again and because I own it, I just might; I did see this movie in theaters and in no way regretted spending my hard earned Randall's money; it made sense, as long as you're willing to accept certain time traveling details; and finally, it's not that predictable which I enjoyed. Like I said, I really like this movie. So if you haven't seen it, borrow it from me. Because it's a must watch. That and Sherlock Holmes. You now have two movies highly recommended by the Big Dawg.

Before I get to my last review I would like to say something about driving behind a school bus: it's the worst thing ever. I'm usually not a terrible person, not a great one, but not terrible. But there's something about driving behind a bus that makes me want to murder a group of school children. Maybe that stupid fucking group that just got off the bus. Move your stupid asses and get across the fucking street. I don't have 5 seconds to wait for you to say goodbye to one another. It's Tuesday, you'll see each other tomorrow. Fucking douches. I'm a very busy man, so get out of my fucking way. When I have kids they better not suck because I am not going to put up with that shit. Also, I don't want to have a daughter because, and how do I put this nicely, it would send me to an early grave. And yes, I do mean that it's because too many girls are huge sluts. Hopefully having boys runs in the Dias blood.

4. Transformers 2: I'll admit that this movie was better than I remembered it, but I still think that it's fucking stupid. Spoiler Alert: my rage will be filled with plot details so proceed at your own risk. But can you really spoil something this stupid? There are just too many things that don't make sense for me to like this movie. First, Shia Lebouf drops a piece of the giant cube from the first one and all the little appliances like a toaster or blender suddenly turn into a little Decepticon fucking army. Why were they suddenly evil? I'm not sure. Second, Shia goes to college and there's this really hot chick that wants to get all up in his cabbage patch. Fine, but then it turns out she's a Decepticon in a fucking human disguise. But she's the only thing in the movie with this ability. If I'm a Decepticon I'm sending an entire fake human army to Earth but that's just me. Alright, so then the Decepticons find out where the last piece of the cube is, not the piece that Shia has, because they sent one of their buddies, Starscream I think, to assfuck a satellite. Or hack into it. It was hard to tell. So Johnny Rapist finds out where the last shard is and shoots a missile to the beach of the island where the shard is, and it turns into a robot tiger or something catlike. So Sheeba runs over to a vent and throws up a bunch of little ball bearing things, which after falling through a pipe turn into a bunch of really small Decepticons which then combine into a bigger but razor thin Decepticon which steals the piece of shard. My question is this: why not just use these things to kill a shitload of human beings? (The metric equivalent of 3 buttloads) I think Optimus Prime would surrender if I killed like 100,000 humans and no one could figure out how. And speaking of Optimus, how the fuck is Megatron in this movie? If I'm Optimus Prime, at the end of the first movie I'm like, "Hey don't drop him into the middle of the ocean, let me rip his fucking head off." Because, as you know, that's the way Slick rolls. Remember when they had him stored at the Hoover Dam and that didn't work? Well why the fuck would he be safe at the bottom of the fucking ocean? "Oh well, he's really far down there." HE'S A FUCKING GIANT TRANSFORMING ROBOT!!! The regular rules don't apply. Moving on, so then there's this giant Decepticon made up of like 18 trucks which two little racist robots and Bumblebee manage to distract . . . i guess with their blatant racism. Then the little racist ones just disappear, I'm not making that up, they're just gone and there's no explanation where they went. Just gone. And Bumblebee leaves to help Shia not get crushed by a robot, which he should've just done in the first place instead of making Shia and Megan run across a live battlefield for like an hour, but instead he decided to stay to try to take on the Truckfucker. That's what I've named him. So Truckfucker, apparently unphased, goes to uncover the sun sucking machine by ripping apart one of the Pyramids. That's right. One of the most popular ruins for archaeologists actually has a secret giant sun sucking machine. Which no one ever found. Bullshit. Meanwhile, Shia's running across a battlefield where I believe I counted 15 Decepticons, not counting Megatron, Starscream or the Fallen, who just sucks. But there's only like 10 Autobots tops, and since humans are fucking useless, they're hopelessly outnumbered. Then Shia meets with like the ghosts of the original Transformers (who knew?) and they give him the Matrix of Leadership in order to revive Optimus. Back at Pyramid, there's a ship sitting in the Red Sea and they have a rail gun which they only now decide to use to shoot Truckfucker. And then he's just gone. Because he fell down the Pyramid. He may have been buried by debris. I don't know. Nevertheless, If I have that rail gun I'm blasting it all over the fucking place. I don't care what I hit. I have a fucking rail gun. Try and stop me. But the U.S. Navy has to be slightly more responsible than me. So then Optimus combines with the parts from a really old Decepticon that switched sides and kicks the shit out of the Fallen, but no one checks to make sure Megatron is dead. Everyone celebrates like they've accomplished something, but what they really accomplished was to piss me off. On the plus side, Megan Fox's boobs look great, but still, fuck that, I hate this movie.

And I was just kidding about calling most girls huge sluts. Clearly I don't mean that.

All girls are huge sluts.

-Slick

Super Mario Bros. 2 is. . .

awesome, but everyone already knew that. Just to be clear, I am talking about the American version, which is actually just a sprite swap of a wacky Japanese game called Doki Doki Panic. The real Super Mario Bros. 2 wasn't released here until the SNES came out and Nintendo made a game called Super Mario All-Stars, which had updated versions of the 3 NES Mario games as well as a game they called "The Lost Levels," which was actually the original Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2. Glad we got that cleared up.

Now, since everyone already knows that Super Mario Bros. 2 is awesome, you may think that this review is unnecessary. However, you may have forgotten that this was the game that let you play as 4 different characters, and they each had their own special powers. Except for Mario, whose special ability was to be completely average in every way. Way to go, Mario. Thus, this Mmmm, Opinion will actually review the 4 characters after I've kicked this game's ass with each of them.

Since I am a slacker, I will be taking the warps in World 1-3 and 5-3, and skipping the one in 4-2 because it takes me to world 6, and I hate world 6. Mostly because World 6-2 is absurd. Fuck that shit. I am not riding a goddam Albatoss (gotta love the 8-character limits on those old games) over a bottomless pit for an extended distance. That's just not safe, especially when those damn Beezos start flying at me.

Mario - Mario sucks. The only reason to pick Mario is if you want a challenge. He doesn't jump high, he doesn't run fast, he doesn't do anything well. He's like the Brian Scalabrine of SMB2's lineup. Speaking of which, is Scal still on the Celtics? Wait, nevermind. That is off topic. I should have done a little more work/research/paying attention before writing this post, but I am almost positive I died the most times as Mario in the course of running through the 9 levels necessary to choke Wart's stupid frog-ass with random vegetables. This also leads to the question: if Wart's weakness is vegetables, why would his room contain 3 pipes that do nothing but launch vegetables into the air, which are easily caught and thrown into his enormous mouth? This seems like a poor design plan, just like Bowser's strange need to keep the axe for cutting his bridge down right next to the bridge. These guys are just begging Mario to defeat them. Even if he does suck at his job. Bottom line: Mario is the worst character in his own game. Nice job, jerk.

Luigi - I always chose Luigi when I played this game as a kid, so I am probably biased toward him. He controls sort of the way I imagine a zamboni would feel on the ice, but he jumps the highest, and his legs are always running in the air like a cartoon after they run off the edge of a cliff but haven't looked down yet. He jumps so far that I have literally sprint jumped through an entire level without bothering to worry about where I was supposed to be landing. I would estimate that his horizontal jumping distance is around 40 feet per leap. Of course, that is based on absolutely no scientific evidence of any kind. It just seemed like a good number. In addition to being able to pretty much leap through levels, Luigi's jumping also lets you cheat/not really cheat but not play right! You can skip getting the key (and avoid the stupid face chasing you) in 1-2; you can skip an entire section of 4-3 by leaping across a large pit; you can avoid the stupid whales' spouts by leaping over them; you can reach the warp in 5-3; I am pretty sure (but not 100%) that you can leap behind Wart and throw the vegetables into his mouth from behind him without a chance of missing or getting hit; and the list goes on. I am pretty sure the programmers didn't even bother testing whether or not Luigi was a game-breaker before they shipped this thing. There is even supposedly a way to do double-jumps with Luigi, but I suck and can't get it to work. Not that you really need to jump further, since he already is a superhuman freak. Best character if you can get used to his weird controls.

Toad - Toad is alright. He can't jump very high, but he's really fast. He also has the special ability of being able to pick stuff up quickly. I am not sure why that is good, but whatever. I spent the majority of time as Toad running through the levels as quickly as possible, since that is pretty much what he does. One of the major issues with Toad is that you have to pay attention to trivial details like where platforms are located. Unlike Luigi, Toad can't just sprint jump across almost every pit in the game, which means those dumb logs on the waterfalls and the jumping fish are actually important for survival. Toad had the 2nd most lost lives, mostly because of the running blindly forward thing. However, rumour has it that he gets all the bitches. So he's got that going for him, which is nice.

Princess - Princess Toadstool (I am pretty sure this game was pre-Peach) is slightly faster than Luigi, but she can float! Since this game is sexist, she picks things up at roughly the same speed as old people merge onto the highway, but that doesn't really affect the game other than when you have to fight the green/gray Birdos that only shoot fireballs. Then it's slightly annoying. But who cares! She floats!! You can float pretty far, but I think that Luigi's sprinting jump travels slightly further. Either way, the game was super easy as the Princess. She can take several of the same shortcuts as Luigi, and also gets to ignore the "correct" way to do the levels in favor of just jumping and hoping. I also had way better luck in the crappy lottery, and ended up with somewhere in the 20s for lives remaining after force-feeding Wart his doom.

Overall, I rank the characters in terms of Wart-killing abilities as: Luigi, Princess, Toad, Mario.

Now go play this game. Especially if you have a Wii, because then you can get this and all sorts of other sweet old-school games. Which are clearly more awesome than the new ones. Slick and I both agree, so you know it's true.

-Jon

PS - Yeah, I'm going to keep linking to that video. It's just a quality film.

iTunes is. . .

incredibly creepy, with a sort of Big Brother vibe. I am pretty sure that it can read my mind. It's either that, or, as Rockwell so astutely put it, somebody's watching me. I guess technically that part was sung by Michael Jackson, but let's not split hairs here.

There are two parts to this theory. Have you ever been listening to iTunes or your iPod, and the next song that comes on is one that you had mentioned earlier in a conversation? That happens to me all the time. Now, it could be a coincidence, but at last count, my iTunes/iPod had 7,345 songs, so that's a pretty huge coincidence. I don't think that I mention the vast majority my songs in daily conversation, so the fact that iTunes knows what I'm talking about scares me. If "Somebody's Watching Me" comes on while I am writing this, I may completely freak out. It may be hard to distinguish between completely freaked-out Jon and regular Jon, as I imagine many of their behaviours will overlap.

The second part of the theory comes from the other day. We were doing various cleaning activities, and Kathryn was listening to some radio station on her iPhone (which I am pretty sure she likes more than she likes me, but that is a story for another day). However, the battery life on those things is not that spectacular, so we figured you could probably listen to the same stations via iTunes. Except that for some reason, there was no "Radio" option on my version of iTunes. I thought that I probably just hid it like I hid some of the tabs, but then when I went to. . . unhide (?) it, it was all grayed out and not allowed. "Podcasts" was also blocked, so if you have a podcast, that's why I wasn't listening to it. My sincerest apologies.

After my 3 seconds of trying to figure it out, I gave up and went back to destroying cardboard boxes with the box cutter I found in a drawer. Kathryn discovered that, for whatever reason, iTunes had decided to enable various parental control settings, which just happened to include blocking the radio stations and podcast downloads. That is weird.

Look, iTunes: I have 37 songs in the library containing the word "Fuck" in the title (3 of which are named "Fuck You." Rappers are creative. . .), 41 with the word "Shit," and a whole slew of album covers featuring the words "Parental Advisory" and "Explicit Content." Clearly I've been exposed to anything that could possibly come through the airwaves of the Radiolo Acoustic Cafe station. Maybe you should work on a way that the album art for all my songs could be acquired from the internet while they are playing instead of trying to protect me from curse words.

Sadly, this misguided effort by iTunes still amounts to more "parenting" than a lot of my students get from their actual parents. It turns out that making kids is way more fun than raising them.

-Jon

PS - Rockwell's 1984 masterpiece was not one of the 7 songs that played during this writing. Perhaps my paranoia is misplaced. Or, and this is more likely, perhaps iTunes is trying to lure me into a false sense of security. Or, and this is even more likely, I think this is the kind of ridiculousness that results from me not eating dinner and letting my blood sugar drop.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is . . .

another disappointing superhero movie. I'll pretty much watch any superhero movie, and unfortunately, most of them are terrible. Spiderman 3? One of the worst films I've ever seen. Ghost Rider? Oh yeah, I believe Nicholas Cage as a demon vigilante. X-Men 3? You can't just kill everybody. That's horseshit. But then you get a movie like Iron Man (Iron Man 2 review coming next week . . . you know, after I actually see it) which is pretty good and I think, "Well maybe they figured this superhero thing out." And, as you know, the Batman movies are two of my top 5 of all time . . . OF ALL TIME. So, it was with delusional hope that I went into X-Men Origins.

It's another movie review so you know the new, improved version. However, I must add another tweak. If you go down to my Terminator review and look at the comments, you'll see that devoted reader "James" and I had a discussion regarding the title of my bottom category, the now infamous "Transformers 2" zone. We decided that the category needs to be adjusted to "Transformers 2/Ghost Rider" to be applied to movies that piss me off when I'm watching them (Transformers 2) or movies that are just absolutely terrible (Ghost Rider). Well, there's the system adjustment this time around. I'm sure by next week it will have changed again.

It goes without saying what the plot of this movie attempted to explain. But it's important to emphasize attempted. Question 1: Would I watch this movie again? Well, I'm not sure. No, because it kind of sucked but yes, because maybe it makes sense the second time around. But that's question 3 so I'll get there soon. The problem with this movie is that I never really knew what was going on, never really knew who any of the characters were, and was never really entertained by anything that was going on at the time. So ultimately, no I don't think I would watch it again. Question 2: Would I have been mad had I paid to see this movie in theaters? Yup. I think the real reason people don't go to the movies as much anymore is not because it's too expensive, but really it's that $10 is too much money to spend on something that's probably going to suck. That's why I just wait until Matt gets them from Netflix so that I can bitch about them for free. It's win-win-lose. Win- it's free. Win- I get to complain about something. Lose- I had to watch a shitty movie. Question 3: Does this movie make sense? No. I think it was too dependent on you already knowing who the characters in Wolverine's backstory were because most of the time I didn't know why most of the people were on screen. Why was Charlie from Lost in this movie? What about Keamy from Lost? What about Will.I.Am? I have no fucking clue who any of these people were. Matt and I had to look it up during the movie just so we would know what they were supposed to be. The plot is shitty and for the most part it's nonsensical. I can't remember there being a good scene anywhere in this movie. And that makes me sad. Question 4: Was this movie predictable? I knew Wolverine had to "win" so in a sense yeah, but it wasn't predictable because I don't think there was an actual plot. It was more like a series of scenes that were vaguely connected somehow. Overall, just really disappointing.

Ranking: Level 4: "Eh, Unimpressive." This movie borders on the dreaded "Transformers 2/Ghost Rider" zone, but I couldn't put it in there because while it was bad, it wasn't that level of bad. Do not waste your time watching this movie, you will be disappointed.

-Slick

So I've Pretty Much Stopped Reviewing Things

Apparently the temporary hiatus due to family stuff has been simultaneously lifted by Slick and myself. That is kind of wild that we both would get back to the blog on the same day. The only thing that might be even crazier would be if Matt wrote something.

Secretly, I always knew that this was where my part of the blog was going to end up eventually, so I don't feel bad about it at all. I really just like writing, but I have a terrible time getting started most of the time. Writing opinions gives me a, for all intents and purposes, unlimited source of topics. However, it also forces me into a certain mold, which is something I constantly fight against. Just ask Kathryn about any instance where she suggests that I do something, even if she is making the correct suggestion.

I will still be reviewing things (such as the 8 CDs I have coming in the mail. Thanks, Coinstar!), I will just also be randomly telling stories about things as well. Such as this one.

I hate mowing the lawn. Absolutely, unequivocally hate it. If I ever achieve my goal of winning the lottery or finding a suitcase/briefcase/sack with a $ sign on the side/duffel bag filled with money, hiring a landscaper is in the top 20 things to do. The first is to buy a Bounce House, mostly because I told somebody I would do that first and they said I wouldn't. In your face, Person I Can't Remember!

Today's lawn mowing attempt would probably get a D- as a grade if the teacher was one of those teachers near the end of his career who was pretty much just passing everyone in order to avoid any hassles. First and foremost, I broke the starter cord on my lawnmower because I am apparently way too strong. That is simply not a good way to start. It also meant that I had to walk over to Dad & Kelly's to borrow their mower and then walk back 5 streets while pulling it since it is not a riding mower. Since I hate mowing so much, my lawn was about 8-10 inches high and was possibly beginning to achieve sentience. It was definitely hostile to my attempts to cut it down, and somehow managed to get grass all up in my shoes. Not off to a great start.

I divide the lawn into 3 sections in my mind, mostly because the walkways to the front and side doors literally divide it into 3 sections in reality. I mowed only the first (and smallest) section today before I got fed up with that bullshit and dumped the grass clippings on the dead spot in the second section. Yeah, I'm that guy. You'd better hope that I never move next door to you, because the day I show up, you'll actually be able to hear your property value dropping. It's going to sound like those old Disney cartoons when Goofy falls off of something really high (you want the 3:08 or 5:14 mark).

Maybe I'll give some laundry a try, because at least there is a small chance of success that way.

-Jon

Terminator Salvation is . . .

better than I thought it was going to be. Not great, but better than I was anticipating. Now before I delve into my normal movie review, I'm going to reiterate something I wrote earlier. If I find myself in a situation where I want to/need to kill someone, there's absolutely no chance I drag that out. I'm going to chop his fucking head off. I'm not going to pick him up and throw him across the screen or toy with him or do any fucking bullshit. I'm going to straight decapitate him. I'm sick of movies where the hero is captured by his arch nemesis and instead of just killing him, there's an elaborate fight scene or some stupid bull shit. Straight murder. That's the way Slick rolls.

Loyal readers of the blog will remember my standard movie questions and official ranking system. For those of you who are new here, that means you creepy charter guy, the system is broken down accordingly: A Must Watch, A Should Watch, An If you have nothing better to do, An "Eh, Unimpressed", and finally, the much dreaded "Transformers 2". However, three new tweaks must be made. The first is the introduction of a new question: Was this movie predictable? Because even if a movie sucks, if it does something unexpected I'll at least respect it. The second is that I've cut the "Not Worth It" category because I feel like the "Eh, unimpressed" category covers that. Finally, I need a clarification of the "Transformers 2" category. I watched Transformers 2 again last week (don't worry that review is coming) and I realized that it wasn't as shitty as I thought it was. Now before you call me a hypocrite, it was still really shitty. But I realized that it's not on the same plane of shitty as Batman Returns, so my system needed to be revamped. Therefore, the dreaded "Transformers 2" ranking applies to movies that absolutely suck or piss me off when I'm watching them. So with these new improvements, let's go.

Question 1: Would I watch this movie again? Probably not. It was like getting punched in the balls, once is enough. You're not going to rewatch this movie and realize you missed something the first time around. Question 2: Would I have been mad had I paid to see this movie in theaters? Yeah, probably. But, seeing as how I saw it for free I'm not really upset by it. That's probably why I hate Transformers 2 so much, because I paid my hard-earned Randall's money to see that crap. Had I paid to see Terminator Salvation, I probably would have hated it. This will be addressed later. Question 3: Does this movie make sense? NO FUCKING CHANCE. Granted I haven't seen any of the other Terminator movies so I'm not really sure what's going on, but there's absolutely no chance the computer doesn't win this war. Second, the Terminators are absolutely fucking useless. They fucking suck. If you have a giant robot the size of a fucking office building why are you using a piece of shit that has a weakness if you stab it in neck? Stupid fucking robots. I would have made John Connor my bitch. And if you capture John Connor, don't just fucking stand there playing with your . . . robot balls? . . . just fucking kill him. End of war. I guess? Question 4: Was it predictable? Humans win, shocking. And if I ruined the movie for you I don't feel bad because you're a moron.

Rating: Level 4, "Eh, Unimpressed." It was better than I thought it was going to be, but I can't in good conscience recommend that anyone see this movie.

Something I've discovered about movies is that my opinion of them is influenced by two things. First, did I pay for it? Because if I did I have higher expectations. Second, and this is Matt's contribution to the blog for like the year . . . I guess . . . is that my opinion of a movie is affected by what I think of the movie going in. With Transformers 2 (it always comes back to Transformers 2) I expected that movie to be really good. Clearly, I didn't think it was. But, with Terminator Salvation I expected it to be awful, so I was pleasantly surprised when it was just bad.

Finally, my recurring segment "Things that survive an Apocalypse"
1. Motorcycles. No gangs, but the motorcycles are still there.
2. Pregnant bitches trying to get all up in the club.
3. Those weird glove things that don't have any fingers. BECAUSE MY PALMS ARE COLD BUT MY FINGERS ARE BURNING!!!!!
4. CGI Arnold Scwarzeneggers.
5. Popped collars. Because nothing says, "Hey I'm part of the resistance but I'm also kind of a douche," better than a popped collar.

"Hand in hand we can live together, ginger or not, we're all the same. Black or white, brown or red, we shouldn't kill each other, cause it's lame." -Eric Cartman

That doesn't really apply to anything, I just like that episode.

-Slick

Can We Stop This Nonsense?

Sorry. I couldn't think of a better short phrase to put as the title.

I don't know if it's because of my sweet position as a teacher or not, but there is one thing that I hear said so frequently that I need to complain about it before my brain explodes in the world's first quadruple aneurysm. However, I will offer suggested alternatives and acceptable use policies because at Mmmm, Opinions, we're here to help. Well, sometimes. Some things are beyond even our incredible abilities, like the Cleveland Orchestra or pretty much anything that Tim Burton gets his crazy hands on.

"I'm not gonna lie. . . ."

Actual real life example-

"I'm not gonna lie; it's really hot outside."

Oh, you don't feel the need to lie about the current status of the weather? How kind of you. But more importantly, do you often attempt to fool people with fake weather reports? People who start sentences by telling me that they aren't going to lie immediately call into question every other thing they have said during that conversation. Why did they feel the need to tell me that they are not lying in this specific instance? Have all the other statements been lies, so they have to make sure that I know that this one is not? You shady bastards!

Other examples of this foolishness include things like "I'm not gonna lie, but I don't like her" or "I'm not gonna lie; I am starving." First of all, the word "but" has no business in that first sentence under any conceivable grammatical circumstances. Secondly, I can't figure out any situations where anyone would feel the need to lie about who they like (since this is clearly behind their back) or their current hunger status. Finally, I still don't think it's necessary to declare when you are telling the truth. Maybe from now on, I will start my lies with "I'm not gonna be honest. . . ."

I will admit that I have found myself using this expression from time to time. Part of this is because I am a liar, so I actually do have to clarify my truths. Another part of it is that I hear it so much, it's become ingrained in my brain and I have to drink beer to kill the specific brain cells where it is located. And the final part is that I am also apparently a jackass. So be it. I will try harder in the future to lance this boil from my English repertoire.

Now, I am giving "I'm not gonna lie" a really hard time here, but I should also include its friend "I'll be honest" since that is equally stupid. Seriously. Just stop. The next time you are about to start a sentence with either of these phrases, try not to do it and see if anyone notices and complains. They won't.

Alright, it's time to make things better. I will be using a silly example to illustrate appropriate and inappropriate usage of these expressions. Please take notes, as there will be a quiz later. As in, the next time I hear you use one of these expressions, it better be a valid usage unless you want to burn in Language Usage Hell.

How many times has Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France?

Wrong negative response: I'm not gonna lie, but I think it's 6. (What are you not lying about? Were you originally planning to claim you thought it was 10 even though you didn't, and then you changed your mind about lying? I don't get it. And no, I have not heard this specific sentence, but I have heard things that are logically equivalent.)

Correct negative response: I'll be honest; I don't really follow cycling. (Nice work!)

Also acceptable: I'm not gonna lie; I literally have no idea. (This is the correct response if you are widely regarded as a liar.)

Wrong positive response: I'm not gonna lie; he's won 7. (There is no additional information given with the first part of that response. So cut the shit!)

Correct positive response (uncertain): I think he's won 7, but I'm honestly not sure. (This sentence is less acceptable if written in the opposite order.)

Correct positive response (certain): He's won 7. (No stupid introduction to the sentence.)

Hopefully I will not have to hear "I'm not gonna lie" 10+ times a day any more. I'll be honest with you; it's starting to get annoying. Yeah, see what I did there?

Now, in the interest of fairness, here are a few occasions that I can think of that allow the use of every idiot's favorite expression.

"I'm not gonna lie; I'm drunk!" This is ok, because drunk people are allowed to be foolish. It's also a good idea to beckon someone over and whisper the first part in their ear, then yell the second part just to mess with them.

"I'm not gonna lie; I didn't do my homework." I would rather hear this than hear that someone's homework is on their desk at home for the 247th time. I bet most of those kids don't even have a desk! Lying jerks.

That's pretty much it. I now envision a future where I hear nothing but "I'm not gonna lie" from the people who read this. And I'm not gonna lie; someone is gonna get choked.

-Jon

Batman Returns is . . .

I'm not really sure yet because I'm still watching it. I think this may be the first ever live opinion. Here at MMMM Opinions we're all about innovating, so every time I have something to say I'm going to pause the movie and write it down. Hopefully it goes well. Why Batman Returns? Netflix recommended it to Matt and that's good enough for me.

3 minutes - Ok, I've already got a couple things to say. Why is it that whenever someone has a monster child to destroy they just put it in a river and assume it dies? Like the Oedipus story, instead of killing Oedipus his father trusts someone else to do it by like leaving him at the base of a mountain or something dumb like that. Yeah, no way that plan fails. I can't envision a situation where I would need to kill a child, but if it somehow comes up, I'm going to make sure that it's actually dead. I'm not going to pull a Homer "Beer Baron" Simpson. "I forgot to check if the coast is clear. Eh, it probably is."

Early Predictions: I'm guessing that the baby turns out to be Batman. Seems like the logical conclusion. Also, it's a Tim Burton film so I now have really low expectations.

5:30 - Penguins? Really? He was just in a fucking sewer.

9:30 - These giant spinning cats are really creepy but totally fit in with everything Tim Burton does. That one trick asshole.

10:30 - Max Shreck, played by Christopher Walken, is apparently one of the richest men in the city and is just chucking presents into the crowd, but there's only like 100 people there?

13:00 - Why does every Tim Burton movie have to be weird as shit? This a Batman movie. Maybe I'm slightly biased because Batman Begins and The Dark Knight are my favorite movies ever, but why is there a giant present with motorcycles coming out of it. If the Joker is in this movie then it might make sense, but still, Tim Burton you can go suck one. This is just fucking absurd.

16:00 - The classic Batmobile does look pretty sick even if it's not a tank. And it poops fire.

22:00 - Toxic waste. Contained safely in a thermos? Danny DeVito is absolutely crushing this scene.

30:00 - There are a lot of weird human-animal interactions going on here. Cats are much more organized than I thought they were. This is somewhat terrifying. Also, this movie apparently came from an era when sexual harassment was still funny, or as I like to call them, the good old days. She seems to be taking this whole "My boss tried to kill me by shoving me out a window" thing a little too seriously. I would still rather work for Max Shreck than Anna Randall. Finally, the monkey from the car commercials where "How you like me now? How you like me now?" is playing in the background, I think it's for Kia, just got stabbed and put in a garbage disposal. Pretty exciting scene.

35:35 - What the fuck just happened? A back-flipping lunatic just stole a baby because after yesterday's attack, there's no need for improved security. Tim Burton fucking sucks.

44:00 - Ummmmmmmm when did she get ninja training?

52:25 - Every scene in this movie is ridiculously awkward. However, "I'd like to fill her void" and "That's the biggest parasol I've ever seen" are pretty great sexual euphemisms. Especially if you have another man's nose still in your teeth. So this wasn't a complete waste. Also, if the sewer dwelling Penguin wants to stop global warming, and this movie came in 1992, how can Republicans still not believe it exists? I'm guessing Max Shreck votes Retard . . . I mean Republican.

1 hour - so I'm at the halfway point. Batman's been on the screen for less than 5 minutes but he did just blow a guy up with some dynamite. Catwoman just blew up a store. And the Penguin just took off with his helicopter parasol. It's a shock that they made a new one. Kind of like how they're redoing Spiderman after Tobey McGwire's awesome performances.

This movie is really creepy . . . and awful. "Just the pussy I've been looking for." Really?

1:27:00 - Instead of going through the elaborate scheme of trying to remote control drive the Batmobile, why didn't he just put a bomb in the car? In both of the new Batman movies, they explained why Raz or the Joker wouldn't just kill Batman, but why wouldn't the Penguin just blow him up? "He didn't even lose a limb." You want him dead? Bomb. Boom. Roasted.

1:41:00 - The master plan to capture all of the first born sons of Gotham is executed by using . . . a fucking train? This movie has been 100 minutes of crap but this is the stupidest thing I've ever seen. Why doesn't someone just walk outside and stop them. THEY'RE ON THE FUCKING STREET! Just go get them! Oh good it's Batman but how is he going to foil such an ingenious plan?

1:42:50 - Ok the penguin army is pretty sick. It makes absolutely no sense, but I want one.

Batman Returns is . . . Holy shit, that was the worst thing I've ever seen.

-Slick