What a bomb (pun intended)

Sooooo, Megan & I went to see Tropic Thunder this week.  What can I say other than...it sucked!  I love all 3 of these actors, but their characters were just dumb.  As was the entire "plot".  

Jack Black plays a heroine-addicted fat obnoxious actor who's overly "hollywood".  He is the star of movies where he plays all the characters (think The Klumps w/ Eddie Murphy) and they all sit around farting.  That's it.

Robert Downey, Jr. plays a method actor who undergoes a pigmentation surgery for his role as a black man.  And I just scratched my head the entire time as to WHY this character needed to be played by a white man?  Or why he needed to be black?  I guess it's all part of the "fun" with this movie.As described in an online review as "blaxploitation-era negritude".  Pretty much.  

Then we have Ben Stiller's character.  He plays a washed-up Rambo movie 1 through 20 type actor (Tugg Speedman) who's looking to resurect his career.  Long story short, the cast is great, but the characters are weak as hell.

I won't bash this film too bad, since I had 2 free tickets to go to the movie.  They were a gift.  I could have used them to see "Burn After Reading" (which I hear is an 'out there' funny movie), but I chose TT.  Here's what happens in a nutshell:

SPOILER (hardly) ALERT!

the 3 actors just aren't 'feeling it' on the set.  so the real hero (Nick Nolte) who's there as a consultant tells the virgin director to "take them (actors) into the shit" and film their reactions guerilla-style.  so they go into the Vietnam jungle, where they think they are being filmed...well, they're not.  Turns out it's 'real' combat.  And Stiller's character gets caught and taken as a POW to a heroin production camp (see what's coming?).

The rest of the team of actors decide to "cowboy up" and rescue Stiller.  Lots of "finding yourself" crap happens, a few laughs, and Stiller is rescued.  Oh, and Matthew McConaughey plays Stiller's agent.  And his concern throughout most of the film is whether or not Stiller's character gets his TiVo installed in his house.  Seriously?!

I forgot to mention the best part (or only good part) of the film...it's bat-shit crazy Tom Cruise as a Jewish TV executive.  Mouthy, drops "f-bombs" like it's a night over Bhagdad...he's awesome!  Even screams at the terrorists over the phone and hangs up on them...priceless!  Oh, and don't forget the "Play'a" dance Cruise does in his office.  Hits the remote and music & lights come on to some hip-hop song.  Watching white men dance to hi-hop = priceless!

So veterans beware.  This film has moments where you will think they are poking fun at war.  There will be times where you feel they think Vietnam was a joke.  But the underlying tone of this film is just stupid.  Love you Stiller, Love you Black, Love you Downey, Jr.  But this script was one in which you simply say..."Pass".   Lesson learned.

Yeah, this about sums it all up...

UGH! F'n MySpace PORN!

i am SO SICK of MySpace porn disguised as "Friend Requests". and you can't even navigate through the site without pop-ups and shit invading your screen. i'm done with MySpace anyway. facebook & Troopspace are the future of social networking anyway.


seriously...i waste more friggin' time logging in and viewing friend requests than i do anything else on MySpace! it's my biggest concern for when Troopspace starts getting larger and larger. but facebook has a great handle on it, so i'm sure we'll do the same. the verification pop-up screen that requires you to type in an authentification word seems to deter much of the bot spamming.


why doesn't MySpace utilize this service? your guess is as good as mine. MySpace has died into a site for desperate band homepages and "real women" doing useless activities in front of a webcam that's supposed to be "erotic". don't believe me? read this and see for yourself. if you're not between the ages of 12-19, you don't belong on MySpace anyway!

i was never a MySpace guy to begin with (you can see that for yourself by going to my page). i hardly EVER check it anymore. i recently created a profile page for my website Troopspace.net in order to help "spread the word", but all i get is spam, spam, spam requests. F'n annoying!

Unbe-Fuckin'-lievable!

Oh, now this is classic. Now I have a spy...

Yeah, it appears that "someone" (and I have a sneaking suspicion I know who "someone" is) called my director and complained that they were required to work the counters in the driver's license facilities on days when they weren't traveling. They wanted to know why I was in my office and didn't have to do the same?!

Really?? Why is everyone in my shit?! First off, bullshit. I have yet to see any of these office gnomes out helping THEIR facility staff when I visit. But one person comes into my facility and catches me in my office (either replying to relevant emails, on the phone assisting another facility employee or developing a presentation on my computer...because that's what I do) and they assume I'm sleeping or wasting tax payer dollars. Guess what, you have NO F'N idea what I do. Want to know what I've done this month? Read my f'n activity report...talk to the staff in my facility...confront me! But noooooo. Instead they call the director and snivel like a little bitch behind my back. That's mature and responsible. I'm sure "whoever" reported me has a valid reason. And it's not because they are jealous or anything. Pussy.

So besides all of the work that REQUIRES ME to be in my office behind MY COMPUTER, I have taken it upon myself to also help out the staff here by processing applicants, answering phones to a sickening degree of politeness, and shooting my middle finger in the air SO HARD. Happy?

Can you see this? Because I'm doing it as hard as I possibly can...

Holy Complicated Batman!!

Wow...I just spent the better part of an hour trying to upload a customized layout for my blog here. Had no idea that there was such a difference between a "layout" and a "template". One is in XML format where the other is in HTML. And I GUESS the two don't make good bed fellows.

Regardless, I tried to choose a LAYOUT that wasn't so irritating that it would chase off what (if any) readers I have. There are a lot of cool ones out there for FREE though. And kudos to those designers. I'd have no idea how to create a custom graphic like these. Bravo.

So yeah, I pretty much just wasted an entire morning doing this. Oh...I DID create a test blog. This is because the first time I tried to install the new layout, it completely WIPED OUT my widgets (AKA all the links, audio blog, map, etc you see to the right of this blog post). I freaked!!! So luckily, I was able to back out without destroying everything. I then went to a site called Blogger Buster (which comes HIGHLY recommended for Blogger nOObs!) and it described how to convert the old-to-new layout while maintaining ALL of your widgets. Thank the Lord! I wasn't somehow able to save ALL of my widgets, but the 2 that didn't survive the transition were easily installed again.

So off I go again into the blog-o-sphere! Hope this layout works as well as the last one. If it sucks, I'm sure I'll hear about it. Blog on brothers & sisters...blog on!