reyonthehill

Well played, John; well played. I really didn't think you had it in you.

The nomination of Sarah Palin as the vice-presidential running mate took me by surprise; in fact, it floored me. And I realize and will appropriately acknowledge -- in honest blog fashion -- that I was absolutely wrong. But what does this mean for the future of this race?

It makes it close, that is for sure. Palin is extreme right -- on abortion, on guns, on schooling -- and she will certainly bring in the base. The lunatics of right wing radio are ecstatic over the choice, and that will be very important for get-out-the-vote operations come the last week or two. Palin will also make a case for the "ostracized" Hillary voters, who may jump ship just because the GOP ticket includes a woman (even though Palin and Clinton are polar opposites politically). The race will come down to Ohio once again and a pro-gun, pro-life woman may be the right combination.

Although I hate to think it, the chances that McCain wins in November just got better. Some on the left (DailyKos) are calling Palin this election's Dan Quayle, but I wouldn't underestimate this game-changer. Up until now, the GOP base has been frustrated and disorganized. That may not be the case any longer.

It should also be noted that no one is talking about Obama's speech this evening. Well played, indeed.

My favorite time to call a breaking pitch was on three-and-one counts. And that is exactly what McCain has done with choosing the unknown Sarah Palin as his running mate. This changes the dynamics of the race completely. Not only is Palin a woman -- centrist Clinton supporters are the main grab there -- but she is also an outsider to contrast with Biden. Although McCain's arguments about Obama's inexperience will be all but without merit, he will still levy that charge (and be able to successfully since people vote based on the top of the ticket). This was certainly a dynamic pick; but we shouldn't be surprised. McCain needed a game-changer, and Palin is just that; and also, McCain desperately needed the news-cycle to adjust from the Olympic-sized speech Obama delivered last night to the GOP convention this coming week.

Something tells me this type of propaganda would still work today...

Image: Cafepress.com

There is so much to say about this film, I do not know where to start.

This was a horrible end to the Rambo saga; that is not to say that the first two sequels fared any better, but if Stallone wanted to leave the business finishing up his projects (first Rocky, then Rambo, and eventually Oscar), he failed miserably with this piece of shit. And that is truly what it is: a piece of shit.

Some back-story... Rambo: First Blood (the original) probably is the most under-rated action movie of the past twenty-five years. I know I throw out "under-rated" too much, but think about it. When the experts list the best action flicks, they typically comprise of Schwarzenegger, Tom Cruise and others. But not Rambo. Why?

Rambo is the story of a Vietnam marine who returns home but doesn't fit in. A loose-cannon of a sheriff considers him a danger to his town, and commences a man-hunt to get rid of the outsider. Rambo is, well, Rambo however, and he ends up kicking ass. It was awesome.

Rambo may be one of the defining films of a generation of men (those who were young boys in the 80s). When I think of Rambo, I think of a hero. The Rambo in Rambo 4 (this film), however, is not a hero. He is insane. There is so much blood in this film, it borders on stupidity; in fact, it passed the stupidity threshold several times.

This is the last 15 minutes of the film -- and I will give it all away because the movie sucked, and you should know this before seeing it (which you shouldn't). Rambo is standing behind a machine gun parapet, and sprays bullets endlessly in all directions, killing all the bad guys -- but he does manage, of course, to avoid accidentally hitting any of the good guys. When you think it is over, it is not. He whips the machine gun ninety degrees and sprays a couple hundred more bullets into bad guys. This scene lasted fifteen minutes. Everyone dies; except the good guys. I can only imagine the writer's room during this scene.

There was one good scene at the beginning. Out of nowhere, Rambo shows up at a killing field (where the militant Burmese were killing innocent farmers) and kills the five men with bow and arrows. A few of them were even head-shots. And he only needed the five arrows. The enemies all had machine guns, but they weren't fast enough for Rambo. It was pretty damn impressive.

The worst part about this is that this final sequel taints the original. And also, now my wife is wary of any action movie that may be sent via Netflix. I have told her that we need to see Rambo I -- and we will, eventually. But first, I will need to throw in a couple extra romantic comedies at the top of the queue to settle all debts.

I know my wife will realize what I have told her about the greatness of Rambo when she finally sees the original. I just hope Rambo I is as good as I remember.

(Returned 08/26/08.)

Rent with Netflix.

I changed my Vimeo profile to address the fact that I'm all but leaving (or giving up on) the service. Flickr is more in line with what I am looking for, and the feature-challenged Vimeo (and the developer team's seeming inability to consistently improve their product -- with actual results, not further promises, etc.) is simply not doing it for me. As I stated below, I will still be using Vimeo, but the majority of videos that I post on the internet will be better served on Flickr (alongside my photos).

I'm phasing out Vimeo, although not completely. It turns out Vimeo is more about self-promotion of semi-professional (or professional) videos, and not home movies. I'll be using Flickr for home movies from now on (and will remove all such files from Vimeo). For "produced" videos, I will probably still use Vimeo. This transition will take some time (in order to fix all embeds), but I feel it is necessary to achieve what I am trying to accomplish. I have helped set-up my entire family with Vimeo, so I will still use the service to view the private videos that my family shares with me. I will still comment on and register "likes" for these videos. But for my purposes, the combination of photos and videos on Flickr (in the same set, the same space, the same user-base) is the better service for sharing personal (and private) videos, although you are limited to 90 seconds (which is typical for home movies taken with a camera, and something I have now made sure I do). Longer videos -- most likely older ones from before this 90-second threshold -- may show up (or stay) on Vimeo. I had peaked at 108 videos.

As of now -- the site is currently down (all day, so far) -- my account has 77 videos.

I'm pretty sure John McCain will be announcing Tm Pawlenty, the governor of Minnesota, as his running mate. How sure? Well, it really doesn't matter because it's only my opinion, not front-page news. But this is why...

Houses. McCain has thirty-six of them or something, at last count. Mitt Romney has a handful. Romney is what the base wants, and Romney is what McCain truly needs to secure the base. But this "how many houses?" issue is too cumbersome for McCain to nominate another multi-millionaire. The GOP has falsely accused elitism in numerous past elections, but the house-number issue has revealed another part of that story: the republicans are elitists too, and they are filthy rich.

Clinton, as in Hillary. Once Biden was announced as the VP nominee, the McCain team released as many "gotcha" videos as they could. First, it was Biden at the debate quietly defending his past statement on Obama's limited experience. And then it was full-on siege to attract post-Hillary voters, by passing along footage of Clinton ripping on Obama in the debates and on the campaign trail. Flashback, and then flash forward... Romney and McCain went toe-to-toe for months, with endless footage and debate coverage of the two rivals tearing one another to shreds. After the Hillary ads, the inevitable Romney ads would have been just as harsh on the McCain campaign.

So, the backup guy steps up to the plate. The little-known governor of a medium-sized state in the Midwest. Will Pawlenty be able to stand his ground in the VP debate with Biden? It doesn't matter, at least to the McCain camp; Pawlenty doesn't own a dozen houses or so, and there isn't hundreds of hours of footage that will make the Obama oppo team giddy with excitement. That is all that matters.

Is this safe to say: Forest Whitaker over-acts just a bit? I mean, the wandering eye is a distraction, but when he is so animatedly insane (or his character is), it is even more distracting and almost laughable. House (the tv doctor) makes an appearance, although he may be playing the same role, minus the cane.

(Returned 08/26/08.)

Rent with Netflix.

This may make me "strange," especially for someone who keeps a blog, but at least one thing I am thankful for this evening... I do not own an iPhone. A $120 phone bill to bitch about the lack of copy-and-paste capability? Gripes over the App store? (Read: dork patrol. Pass the dungeons and dragons rule book, this API is making me crazy.)

There is something about the iPhone that does not make sense. Sure, at some point in the near future, every phone will be a smart-phone, and if Apple ditches AT&T, and if the minimum monthly service charge is less than $100, then fine. In the meantime, I'll wait for the next generation. (Incidentally, when the original came out, I said the exact same thing. I admit, I love technology, but I do not -- and will not -- get a hard-on to be an early adopter.)

Oh yea, one other thing... Twitter is overrated, and lame.* And don't get me started on Wii.

* I should be careful; watch this blog become a tweety-shit thing, or whatever.

Now that I've got some time for myself, this is what I think of the Biden selection for VP. The choice for Joe Biden as Barack Obama's running mate nets almost every possible positive except one: easy electoral votes. And if Biden's Scranton roots puts Pennsylvania in Obama's corner, that trumps that angle as well. (Indiana and Virginia will be tight, but Pennsylvania as a lock will be worth that much more.)

Old school democrats. The old-timers; the union members; the teachers; the government workers. These dems were solidly behind Hillary Clinton during the primary (and some are stubbornly still). An old name with a familiar face is what these folks crave. Biden does that. Sebelius, Kaine, and to most, Bayh, simply do not.

Attack dog. Presidential candidates usually desire to stay above the fray. Having a fighter like Biden in your corner makes that that much easier. While Biden can attack republicans at-will (the Giuliani rip from the debates come to mind: "A noun, a verb, and nine-eleven."), he can target the misgivings of John McCain while Obama stays on message.

National security. Yea, that issue. Biden has majored in foreign policy during his decades-long stint as a senator. And he has an intelligent answer to every world situation. Bush partially won the White House promising seasoned advisers (Cheney, Powell, etc.) -- and we know how that turned out -- but something we can be rest assured of: Obama is nothing like Bush; and Biden is nothing like Cheney.

This is one of those films that had no over-arching theme; nothing to learn, nothing to gain. Aaron Eckhart is a fine actor, but this film was a little too low budget for him to make it work.

(Returned 08/19/08.)

Rent with Netflix.