Review of Avatar
I know I am going to catch some flack from some of my friends for going to see this movie, but oh well.  I did and it’s over with.  I was sort of torn, because when it first came out I said, “That’s looks stupid. Blue people walking around in a forest.” I thought that it’s the same people giving money to the “Scary Movie” series.  But after a few weeks of hearing nothing but good reviews of the movie, I figured I would give it a shot.

I was told if I did see it to see it in 3D, which I would have seen it in 3D anyways because I have been on a 3D kick lately.  Most movies that have come out in 3D (mostly computer animated kids movies), I have seen (with the exception of dumb movies such as Final Destination).  Back to Avatar, I’ll start with the story which boils down to a basic struggle between good and bad.  A group of humans are trying to mine minerals and the people of the planet do not want them there and the struggle ensues with certain characters having to make the moral decisions about what is right and wrong.  Some people compare it to the early Americans handled the Indians or how America is handling the Middle East situation.  But many comparisons can be made and those are some that jump out at me. (The story reminds me of a cartoon movie made in the early 90’s called Fern Gully).

This movie definitely had the potential to be really stupid and a waste of money, but James Cameron’s decision to delay the production of this movie until the technology caught up with the idea was a good one.  Cameron had a new camera that allowed him to see the actors’ virtual counterparts interact in real time, instead of adding the motions later to match the actor.  Pretty freaking cool.  The movie, visually, was fawesome.  I mean it is really hard for me to describe it.  I would say at least two-thirds of the movie was computer generated and it was done very well.  If they did not do this correctly, the movie would have been worthless.

Overall the movie was good.  I would give it a 7.5 out of 10.  The person who loves fantasy will enjoy this movie.  There are some shows/movies I don’t like such as Star Trek, but I love movies like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, The Spiderwick Chronicles, etc.  I really doubt Josh or Ben would go see it, even though I think they might enjoy it (especially with the great creativity they have), but who knows….Ben has still yet to see Titanic due to a pact he made with some friends in high school.  Scott would like it.

Onto some rants now.  I know college football is over with, but it still bugs me to see people try and put Boise States undefeated season next to Alabama’s.  Some people, like the Senator from Utah wants President Obama to invite them to the White House along with the Crimson Tide.  Give me a freakin’ break!  Are you kidding me?  Lets look at the stats here.

Alabama played and beat six top 25 teams with four of those teams being in the top 10.  Boise State only played two teams in the top 25 and one of those was in the top 10.  Alabama’s opponents have a combined record of 106-71 and Boise St.’s opponents have a combined record of 84-91.  Now you tell me who played the better opponents.  Alabama did…by far.  You give anyone Boise States football schedule every year and their percentage of going undefeated rises tremendously.  I mean it is still ridiculous to try and put those two teams anywhere near the same scale.  Yes they both have records of 14-0, but Alabama’s 14-0 looks ten times better than the 14-0 of the lowly Broncos of Boise St.  So give it up people.  Boise State is not that good.  Listen, Oklahoma and Oklahoma States records of 9-4 is better than Boise States 14-0, because they played better opponents.  Don’t give me that crap about being in a crappy conference.  Deal with it!  Until we get a playoff (and Boise St. wins it), I will refuse and refute that Boise St. deserves to be ranked in the top 20 at any point in time.

Finally, some more football where people know what they are doing when it comes to the post season, the NFL.  There has been some great playoff games so far, even with the blowouts.  [Side note] No, I don’t think that the Vikings scoring again in the waning minutes against Dallas was wrong at all.  Whether it is college, high school, or pro sports, it does not matter.  If you don’t like people scoring on you, do something about it.  Quit whining and suck it up.  There’s a reason, Dallas Cowboys, that you are not in the playoffs…and that’s because you couldn’t keep Minnesota from scoring on you.  So suck it!  [End Side note].  I am really excited for this weekend.  The Colts are playing the party crashing Jets and the Vikings make their trek to New Orleans to play the Saints.

I’ll give my picks in a second, but I really wonder would the Saints and Colts be here at this point if they had tried to keep their undefeated season going?  Personally, I think so. I know that teams want to rest their players for injury purposes, whether to heal or prevent, injuries are going to happen.  The main reason I see is that during college post season, teams go up to three to four weeks in between games and I think it hurts players because they aren’t keeping up with playing.  I know teams practice, but they are not going full power all the time.  In the NFL, teams are playing each week and I think that Colts and Saints should have kept their records in tact.  Start your star players and once they get a decent lead, put in the backups.  If they give up the lead, stick the starters back out there to take the lead back. Simple as that.  It keeps everyone refreshed in their weekly playing, gives the backups some play time, and obviously keeps you undefeated.

Anyways, onto my picks.  I would love to see a Vikings/Colts Superbowl because it is two awesome teams with awesome players that deserve it.

AFC Championship
New York Jets @ Indianapolis Colts
The Colts may have laid over to give the Jets a chance to get in the playoffs, but this is where it ends for the Jets.  They are going to see the Colts team that should have been playing them at the end of the season, smashing the Jets dreams of getting to the playoffs. There is nothing the Jets can do to stop them.  Their defense might be able to keep Peyton Manning and Co. out of the end zone a couple of times, but the Colts offense will not let up and the once the Jets get behind two touchdowns, it is over because they do not have the offense (nor the experience) to comeback and beat the Colts.
Colts – 27
Jets – 10

NFC Championship
Minnesota Vikings @ New Orleans Saints
The good thing for the Vikings is that the game is being played in a dome, but unfortunately for Minnesota it is the Superdome, not the Metrodome (where they are undefeated).  The Vikings had a couple of chances to be playing this game at their house, but could not pull out a win when the Saints lost.  This game has the potential to become a shoot out with Brett Favre and Drew Brees at the helm of these two teams, but the Saints do not have what the Vikings havef and that is a number two rated defense.  That is the key to this game and the Vikings have shown that they can stifle high-powered offenses and with Jared Allen and Co. they will.
Vikings –  31
Saints –  21

So it is a sad time of year.  The college football season has ended and I (as most Sooner fans) am glad it is over.  Alabama won the national championship over Texas (thank goodness).  That is the last thing the Sooners needed was another kick in the balls after this season of…of…of…I can’t think of a good adjective to name this season but it was horrendous.  Two All-Americans, including a Heisman Trophy winner, were injured before the season really even started.  Losing Gresham and Bradford was the worst thing for this team.  Of course you could rack up Bradfords’ injury to the sucky ass offensive line.  But injury after injury after injury (I think OU set a record for hurt players in a season), players playing at multiple positions (which has been done in the same season, but in the same game?), numerous losses suffered by 3 points or less, our field goal kickers not hitting the ocean 10 feet away, DeMarco Murray playing his usual sucky self (get the ball, run into blockers, fall down, repeat.), Landry Jones finding himself (didn’t do that bad of a job and still has a lot of work to do, but most fans expect him to live up to Bradford and OU may not see another Bradford for years), a year of a great defense wasted because of the lack of offense, and yet still finding a way to continue the winning streak at home.  One bright note is that the Sooners finally won a bowl game, even though it was the Sun Bowl.  There were some bright spots with some freshman showing what they can do in the bowl game.  I hope 2010 comes soon and is better than 2009.

Also, does anyone remember a certain ESPN analyst predicting a certain Catholic school to win the National Championship?  I do.  I have the video from the beginning of the year where he, Lou Holtz that is, stated that the Fighting Irish could go undefeated and be playing for a National Championship.  Instead they barely became bowl eligible with a 6-6 record, only to turn down the invitation to the bowl game, and to lose their 4th head coach in the past 10 years.  All of them having about the same records. What does Notre Dame want, 5 star players to always be knocking at their door along with the Bob Stoops and Nick Sabans of the world begging to be their coach?  I mean, come on.  Notre Dame is not a great head coaching job anymore.  And besides that, what recruit wants to keep up with their rules and requirements for a strict catholic school when they can go to a smaller (not to mention cheaper) school such as Utah, TCU, etc. and get as much, if not more exposure.  I mean, yeah, when Rudy was made in the 70’s and 80’s Notre Dame was one of the best places to be, but as we all saw, Rudy struggled with his grades to even become eligible to attend the school, much less be a part of the football team.  I am not saying that all athletes are idiots and “don’t need no skoolin so dont ax me,” but the ones that are good at school and football are few and far between.  Gerald McCoy for OU is one of those, graduating in 3 years and is skipping his senior year to enter the NFL.

In other news, I have decided to drop out of school.  I hope I am not hurting myself for the long run, but I think it is the right thing to do at this point.  I’m behind on my Capitol City work at this point in time and this will allow me to catch up.  I’m hoping to focus on Capitol City more.  I hope to be able to attract more clients allowing me to be able to support myself and bring more love to Capitol City Studios.

Anyways, I am going to try and set aside a couple of days a week, at least, to update my site.  Obviously the more I update, the more random the topics (instead of just sports) too.  So, I’m excited to take on this task and hopefully have more people ride my rants and raves.

Up next will be a review of Sherlock Holmes and Avatar.  Peace.

Zach

So I went to the blink 182 concert Weezer concert this past Labor Day weekend. I was so pumped up that blink-182 got back together, I figured this would be an awesome time for a WevilFest get together. So I called up Scott, Ben, and Josh to see if they were interested in going if I bought the tickets and they all said yes. The nearest cities were Kansas City and St. Louis and Kansas City was more centralized for everyone, so KC it was. So it was set. September 4th in Kansas City, we shall rock! Unfortunately, Josh did not make the trip with us, because he lives in Chicago and it would cost too much for him to travel down (my sincerest apologies to Josh). So it came down to Ben, Scott, and I.

After work on Thursday, I drove up to stay the night with Ben in LG so I wouldn’t have to drive like 8 hours on Friday. We left about 10am to head off to Kansas City. The forecast for the concert was unfortunately rain and thunderstorms and to add insult to injury, we had to drive up to KC in the rain. The rain was supposed to clear out by 7pm, but we hoped that the rain would go away or at least let up so we could see the concert.   We arrived in KC around 2:30pm and went straight for the venue so we could go in. But with $10 for parking, we said “Screw it!” and headed back to a shopping center to find some food. We stopped at an Applebee’s to eat some lunch and meet Scott. Scott took forever getting the Applebee’s so we ate without him.  We hung out for a little bit before heading into the concert. We all jumped into my car to save money on parking and headed into the gate. All of us started up towards the grass, because that’s where the General Admission area was, but little did we know Travis and Dustin had better seats for us. Travis and Dustin came up the night before to get good seats and good seats they got. We got to sit in stadium seats for the concert, even though they were used for breaks in between bands. We never really figured out why people in the VIP section paid like $40 more than us, but yet we were in seats in front of them. Thanks to Dustin and Travis for getting us some prime seats.

With some of the times being pushed back due to some rain, we arrived right after Chester French played. Next up, the Von Bondies and I have never heard of them before this and I will forget them after this. One thing good about the Von Bondies is that the lead singer almost got hit by someone’s shoe. I mean another 3 inches and it would have smacked him right in the face. Pretty funny.

Taking Back Sunday took the stage next and originally I thought that I had one of their albums, but I did not. I have heard some of their stuff, but never really got into their music. But they played a great show and showed me why I should get into their music. The lead singer is really good with slinging his mic everywhere (wrapping it around his neck and what not). Over all a great all around performance and it probably would have been even better if they played at night under the lights.

Once again, Weezer defeats the weather!!! Weezer took the stage next and they were fawesome! I was thinking that this might be one of the best concerts I have attended if blink-182 is this good. Anyways, there was a guy in front of us that had a set list of what Weezer would be playing. We all took a pic of it and it turns out that he worked for the venue. They played all but a couple of songs on it. I’m not really sure why they didn’t play them, but no matter they did not disappoint. They all came out wearing jumpsuits like a basketball team and once they started playing they sounded awesome. So crisp, clean, and in sync. If you look at the pics you will see a trampoline next to the drum set and we were expecting to see something crazy, but nothing happened. Rivers used it to bounce his guitar off of it after a song and it landed on its neck and he jumped on it occasionally during songs. One of the coolest things of the evening was that Rivers used a loop machine to play “Island in the Sun.” He started off with the drums, then tambourine, bass, and then his acoustic guitar. He also had us singing the “hip, hip” part and some “ooohhhs and aaahhhs” too. It was the first time that I had seen them in concert and I loved them. Thanks to Josh, Ben, and Scott for turning me on to them back at Hillsdale. Here’s some videos; My Name is Jonas, Troublemaker, War Pig.

Blink-182 was up next and I have been waiting for this ever since I heard that they got back together and were going to tour this summer. I have never seen them in concert and wasted a few opportunities back in college to go see them. But not this time. I am going. (Side note: the guy that sat in front of us with Weezer’s set list also told us that Travis’ drum set was made out of chrome. Every bit of it.) We became more and more excited. Anyways, I have video of their intro/opening song Dumpweed. Their set looked awesome with 6 circular video screens and tons of LED’s, spotlights, gobos, and lasers. There was a lot going on and it looked good. There were many bright lights blinding the crowd that probably put a few people into seizures. Mark and Tom started singing and they sounded off. Like Mark’s harmonies were too loud and Tom was flat. I thought maybe this song will be like that….nope, all of them were. They sang many of their lines in the octave below the usual. I understand concerts can be rough on voices and that is typical, but they did it a lot. And I expected them to be stupid and be jackasses (ie. Boner Springs instead of Bonner Springs and “Hey Mark, Kansas City is a slut and we are double teaming it while giving high fives), but it seemed like most of the night was them trying to fake being dumb, stupid, and vulgar. They forgot lines to at least 4 or 5 of their songs. It was like none of them wanted to be there. I realize that their friend, DJ AM, had passed away and that was still in the back of their minds. I’m not saying that wouldn’t have an effect on them, but if they didn’t want to play, they should have postponed the show, like they did the other two before it.

And to top it all off with another kick in the crotch, I didn’t get to see a Travis Barker drum solo. I heard from early reviews of the show that his drum solo was freaking awesome. There was also video of it floating around on the internet, but I restrained myself because I knew I would be seeing it live. They left the stage and I’m thinking Travis will come back and start off the encore with the solo, but noooo….nothing. They did their encore and then left. Here are two videos of the solo that I missed out on. Solo f/Wisconsin and solo f/New Jersey. Once I watched what I missed, I was even more pissed off. And come to find out (via @GGGGGGGG on twitter), Travis didn’t play the solo because he played it to a DJ AM song. Totally understandable, but there are thousands of other songs to play with or I would have loved to just hear and see Travis play without music. I personally thought that being on tour already for about a month has taken a toll on their voices, but the majority in the group thought that they didn’t care and that they sound that bad live. Personally I hope it is the former, but doesn’t matter now…it’s done. So, I saw some awesome bands this past weekend, but it is too bad that blink-182 was not one of them. This weekend shall be known as the Weezer concert and blink-182 will not be played on any of my electronic devices for some time. They don’t deserve it. Here’s some videos; Intro/Dumpweed, Butchering What’s My Age Again, Ending.

Once again, it is football season (my favorite time of the year).  And of course, the season comes with all kinds of craziness before the actual season starts in about a week.  Let’s get the first thing out of the way.  The Oklahoma Sooners are ranked 3rd in most polls behind Florida and Texas.  Now do I think that the Sooners should be rated higher…maybe, but the rankings at the end of the year matter more than the pre-season.  The Gators are a good team and so is Texas, but I’m not sure if Florida deserved the most number one votes in the history of the AP Poll.  OU basically beat themselves in the National Championship game.  I don’t see much difference in the two teams.  Texas on the other hand is still struggling to find a starting running back.  There is no star back on this Longhorn team.

But I’m not surprised to see the Sooners ranked below those two teams.  Oklahoma is not going to get any respect this year no matter what.   Not in the polls, not on TV, not on the radio, not with the odds makers.  Even if they went undefeated with a winning margin of 35 pts, they would be underdogs in the National Championship game.  No biggee.  I enjoy having OU as an underdog.  It is nice to not have a target on your back all the time.  Oklahoma will just have to go out and prove it to everyone.

A final thing about college football is that Lou Holtz is still on the air with ESPN.  I am not really sure how he has been able to keep his job.  His insane spit talk/lisp along with his inane love for the University of Notre Dame has ruined College Football on ESPN.  It is hard to watch him talk about any team and give opinions about them.  Even though, it is pretty funny to watch Mark Mays laugh at him on the air, because of Lou’s outlandish talks.  But here is another tale in the book of Lou.  Most of you have already seen it, but I’ll just let the video speak for itself.

I’m continuing my school to attain my 2nd bachelor’s degree at the Academy of Art University this fall.  I am enjoying it, but it may prove to be too much money to go come the spring semester.  I will know more when the time comes.  This semester I am taking Sketching for Communication and Digital Imaging 1.  Should be fun though.

I am also busy finishing up some weddings I filmed in the summer and then I have one more to film and edit for a friend in October.  Then once I finish that one, I will be done with filming and shooting weddings.  It was a good thing when I first started out and as much as I enjoy editing, weddings just don’t do it for me.  I am getting into the actual design process of designing logos, websites, and smaller editing jobs.  Hence the reason I am going to art school.

But other than that I am going to football games, a couple of weddings (one in Virginia Beach and the other in Vegas), a Blink-182 concert with Ben and Scott.  Chester French and Weezer will also be there.  I have been looking forward for this concert ever since I heard Blink-182 announced that they were getting back together.  I never took the chances I had to go and see them before they broke, so I am going to make the most of it now.

Well, that’s my update for now.  Hopefully they will come more frequent.  Enjoy.