IT'S A BOY!

I usually don't do two posts in one day but this is just too much for me to hold in until tomorrow. Nicky and I just got back from the doc and where we found out that we are having a boy!

I would have been happy with a girl of course, but I'm uber over joyed that I get to make a little devious mini-me boy. That's multiplied even more due to the fact that my brother has two girls and I have a Alexandria. I finally broke the legacy of pink. Check out the pics below, one of which being the photographic evidence of his wee-wee. YES!!!

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Everyone likes to feel they worth a doo-doo. Acknowledgment is an easy way to make everyone feel tad bit better. So why not at least give a basic salutation to people when you make eye contact? When I walk next to you in the hallway, sidewalk, store, or where ever, say hi. You don't have to spark up a conversation, just say good morning and then scurry away. Hell, if you aren't having a good morning just simply say morning. I also accept hey, yo, sup or even stating my name. Don't feel like talking? Then just freaking nod at me, you bitter ninny. Feigning interest in something else to avoid these greetings is a sign of weakness. If I even slightly know you, I will definitely call your ass out on it. We all are aware of the typical avoidance techniques:

• Intensely looking out the window even though you know nothing new is going on in the parking lot
• Reading whatever it is you are carrying
• Poking at your phone like you got an urgent message
• Staring at the floor like you are memorizing the carpet patterns
  
• Pretend stretching
• Phony yawning
• Rubbing a fictitious ache or pain while partially closing your eyes
  
• Adjusting an article of clothing with that lame frown on your face
  
• Acting like you forgot something then turning around to find another route

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt at least once. You might not have noticed me in a busy environment which is completely understandable. I also know the two of us might be insanely busy. But repeat offenders will be confronted. I have no problem diving balls first through your little passive resistant bubble. I mean, how hard is it to say "Hey homie!" as you're running by?

Another thing that drives me even more nuts is when I smile at someone and they don't smile back. We might be complete strangers but are you so cold and dead inside that you can't be compassionate to your fellow man even in the slightest? I'm not flirting with you. I'm not some creepy stalker or a suspicious wack-a-doo. I don't want to sell you anything. I'm not going to ask you a favor or want something. It's pretty obvious if someone is going to bug you or when they might require avoidance for weirdo factor reasons. Circumvent those particular people, not the friendly passerby. If you have trouble figuring out which is which, maybe you should get out more often and stop being a recluse.

Anyways, common courtesy is a good thing regardless of who the person is. So I'll tell you what I tell my daughter… play nice, monkey face.

MOVIE REVIEW: THE KING'S SPEECH AND THE FIGHTER

A double based on true events feature!

Short (Semi Spoiler Free) Verdicts

The King's Speech
The dysfunctional inner workings of the British royal family via the plight of a wussy, downtrodden, would-be king. Very well written and acted with just enough elements of seriousness and wartime undertones to help it shed off the rosy comedy feel.
Stars: ★★★★☆

The Fighter
You're standard boxing come-upins movie but with crack sprinkles on top! Fights, sibling rivalry, worthless kin and grimy scumbags aplenty but well worth a screening.
Stars: ★★★★☆

Full Reviews (SPOILER ALERT)

The King's Speech
I can describe this with the timeless words of Floyd, "Hanging on quiet desperation is the English way." When things are crappy you suck it up, keep your mouth shut and stay classy until the bitter end. I do get quite a chuckle when Brits lose their cool... they make cuss words fun again! I dig movies rooted in history and it was interesting to see that the duke of York had such a dysfunctional childhood. This in turn caused him to stutter and be a wuss all the way until he was forced into being king. It's nice to see our leaders humanity every now and again. I liked Churchill's softer side as well even if it was just a bit part. The speech therapist, played by Geoffrey Rush, really stole center stage with his humor and wit. Plus, this flick had one of my favorite male actors, Guy Pearce so it automatically gets brownie points.

By the end, my cheeks were rosy and I was thoroughly entertained. It did tug the old heart strings here and there even if it is hard for me to feel sorry for a guy born with a silver spoon in his ass. On a side note, I still don't think it should have won best picture this year over Black Swan or possibly even Inception. Though I love 'em and their accents, this was just a movie about Brits being Brits!

The Fighter
Marky Mark Wahlberg playing the red blooded underdog that just wants a shot? He just seems built for this kind of role but that's nothing new. The real noteworthy actor in this movie was Christian Bale. This guy proves again and again that he really puts everything he's got into a character, even when it's painful to watch like in the excellently dark film, The Machinist. This time it wasn't painful because he was a walking skeleton but because he played a greasy, selfish, narrow visioned, crackhead who's holding back his younger brother. I can live with the other problems but the little brother bit really gets to me.

The rest of the family wasn't any better though. They were some of the trashiest and most simple minded waste of spaces that America has to offer. The mother was a conniving bitch with a whole gang of scumbag daughter clones that agreed with everything she said. If anyone in her family, be it husband, son or daughter, would get out of line, she would use some bit of off topic drama to wrangle them back under her command. None of them can obviously stop breeding either which is even more sickening. That leads me to my final sad point, I've seen this family before multiple times. Like I mentioned above, this is all based of a true story. Even if Ward eventually knocked out his boxing dreams, all the rest that this movie portrayed really makes me weep for humanity.

OPERATION IMPACT

I heard on the radio today that Wichita is doing yet another Operation In Your Ass… I mean, Operation Impact. It's Wichita and the surrounding cities police departments plan to snag the most heinous of villains known to Kansas. Those evil sinners that break laws just for kicks. People that really need a good fining. I'm referring of course to the naughty motorist. Yes my friends, speeders.

There has got to be something more effective we could be using our police force for besides busting taxpayers late for work. Personally, I haven't noticed any real issue here. The streets don't seem to be littered with wrecked car debris and running red with the blood of inattentive drivers. The accident and poor driver ratio is far worse in the other cities I've lived in around the country. Are lead footed soccer moms truly our biggest criminal problem in Wichita? Do the police stations need new vending machines thus they decided to fund it through tickets? Do we have some crotchety old coot in charge downtown standing on the rooftop of city hall screaming "Slow down you whipper snappers!"

Whatever the case, bite my white ass coppers. Maybe we should cut fickle fuzz funding to help the national debt. To all my fellow civilian drivers, beware of Broadway all day today.

MOVIE REVIEW: BATTLE: LOS ANGELES

Short (Semi Spoiler Free) Verdict
There isn't a better modern Marine ass kicking/kissing movie than this. If you like playing Call of Duty/Halo, you have testosterone producing testicles or you're a Marine, go see this movie immediately. The end.
Stars: ★★★★☆

Full Review (SPOILER ALERT)

Marines vs Aliens Loaf
Today's recipe is for the standard "aliens invade earth" sci-fi movie but with a heavy Marine frosting! Note, this recipe is for sheer action sci-fi junkies only. It is not intended for any real consideration of quality or original dialog, script, soundtrack or acting.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup technologically advanced and seemingly unstoppable aliens that want our resources
• 3/4 cups massive devastation worldwide
• 1/4 cup bleak outlook
• 2 tablespoons of collective human camaraderie
• 1 semi-recognizable Caucasian lead
• 1 tough Latino female supporting character
• 1 handful of disposable characters (variety of races preferred)
• 1 tablespoon of an almost impossible chain of events
• 1 teaspoon of alien weakness
• 1 family size barrel of today's Marine Core (contains healthy doses of American stubbornness, bravado and ignorance)

Let's start with mixing all the ingredients in a devastated Los Angeles bowl. We will use a military lingo coated spatula to blend all the ingredients together thoroughly. A standard over dramatic soundtrack pan will suffice for baking but don't forget to coat it with random civilians (kids included) to help non-military types identify. Set your special effects, action and explosions dials to high for maximum adrenaline pumping entertainment and cook for almost two hours.

All jokes aside, this was entertaining but I knew what I was getting into ahead of time. It's not meant to be an academy award winner, it's meant to be a thrill rush. Every jarhead will poke their chest out a bit further after watching this highly entertaining and action packed USMC propaganda film. Down with aliens, up with Uncle Sam. Ooh-rah.

TEAR DUCT WORK

I'm excited and nervous for Thursday. I go in for what should be my last major surgery related to my near death incident back in October of '08. This time they are going in to rip out the tube (stint) in the corner of my right eye. It was supposed to help my tear duct heal and flow properly. But it didn't. As gross as it is, it's the reason why my duct keeps getting infected.

Since my right tear duct is pretty much mangled beyond the possibility of fixing, this surgeon has decided to bypass it totally. After the stint is out, he will drill a hole straight back into my throat from my eye. So my tears will just flow like everyone's snot does. Mmmm… yummy. This should fix my eye watering problem permanently without any man made devices to possibly fail in the future. Hooray!

Anyways, I'm probably going to look mighty mangled again. Thus, I will be out of commission and in hiding again until things are better.

MOVIE REVIEW: LIMITLESS

Short (Semi Spoiler Free) Verdict
Drugs that make you mentally superhuman? Awesome. It had decent acting, music and not too shabby of dialog but it was a little predictable. But still a fun movie none the less with a worthwhile ending.
Stars: ★★★★☆

Full Review
**SPOILER ALERT**
I think what I liked most about this movie is that he did just about everything I would done or at least contemplate.

• Go buck wild
• Slay the girlies (if single)
• Make a gazillion dollars
• Get famous
• Protect your ass from enemies and haters (I would have used ninjas instead of bodyguards)
  
• Have a back up in case the drug supply runs out
• Mentally crush everyone in your way

He did miss a few things here and there though. For instance, he forgot to pay back the bulldog faced loan shark after he made millions. How would a "limitless" mind miss something that simple? I don't even like borrowing a movie from a friend for too long, let alone a fat grip of dough. But you have to make for an interesting movie so I can let it go.

Another bit I want to mention is the part where he drinks the loan sharks blood to get his fix. That was a little goofy but it's clever and creepy so it made me smile. Last comment, the final confrontation at the end between the main guy (Bradley Cooper) and Robert De Niro's character was a nice wrap up. I think I literally exclaimed "Oh snap!" out loud.

So essentially, here's how it would go if I got the same opportunity:

Pusher: I have a proposition.
ME: Hit me.
Pusher: It involves drugs.
ME: Ooo fun! Continue.
Pusher: You don't have to sell them, just take them.
ME: Now we're talking. How much and what happen?
Pusher: They're free because they're experimental. You will become a mental miracle but it might kill you.
ME: Shut up and gimmie. NOW.

SCOOBY-DOO

Alex and I were watching Scooby-Doo: Camp Scare this morning. Long story short, the kids finally caught the scary fish man monster. Then came the standard mask removal and what was underneath was the evil woodsman! This turned out to be a mask too. Finally, under that was the former good guy park ranger.

Wait, wait, wait...

Who in the hell wears two mask!? Most masks you can barely see or breath out of by themselves. Not to mention how hot it would be in there, especially when chasing kids for hours and hours. Then think about how hard it is to move in costume. This dude swam underwater, fought, ran, jumped, took an air canister to the chest then finally got hit by the mystery van. That's some fish costume. Plus, this is a park ranger. How could he afford such an amazing suit on that crappy salary?

I call bullshit.

p.s. Velma is the hot one.

Image Credit: The Rough Sketch

ROT: PUMPKIN DOODLE

This is at the top of my notepad that I use at work. Sometimes there are gaps before meetings and I get bored easy. So... I doodle. That's it. No great story behind this weeks post. Hell, it's technically not even an object unless I'm claiming the notepad itself. Just a crappy sketch.
The end.

SITE REDESIGN

With a fresh front end splash page up and running, I felt like it was time again for a site overhaul. This time though, I took into account that not everyone is an outlandish oddball like yours truly. Plus, I don't want to go too overboard with gas masks, even if I do love the piss out of them. So I had been searching for a good image to use as a background pic that was a little more conservative yet still conveyed my off-color style. I wrestled with a billion ideas until my last road trip out to the sand dunes of Oklahoma. It was on the three hour drive there that we passed this old decrepit silo. I instantly knew what I wanted if for and how I wanted it to look. To me, it looked like some old portal to another world (kinda like Super Mario) that had been forgotten about and nature was reclaiming. With some tweaking in Photoshop I got it to feel eerie yet beautiful at the same time.

Other than the background, I kept the layout the same. I changed the About section to Info so I could expanded upon myself and give photo rates as well. If you also notice, I put in a section at the bottom of the Contact area that gives photo props to those awesome souls good enough to support my work and name. On that note, the offer still stands to anyone else willing to snap a pic of them next to something attributed to lastdeviant.

All in all, I totally dig the way it all came out. Let me know any and all of your thoughts, constructive criticisms and concepts. I'm always open to suggestion because without you, I'm just a fool with a camera and a computer.