I forget how I stumbled on this, but one of my favorite directors Kevin Smith has as podcast which goes by the name of SModcast. The name is derived from the names of the two hosts, Kevin Smith and his long time producer Scott Mosier. It is so funny that I have burst out laughing many times to the odd looks of my co-workers.
If you like Kevin Smith, and especially if you liked his “Evening With” series, I would most heartily recommend it. If, on the other hand, you have even the slightest chance to be offended, then I would most heartily NOT recommend it. In fact, I will let their own disclaimer speak for itself:
SModcast features harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Listener discretion is advised.
If you do have nerves of steel, you might start with the following episodes:
Episode 52, in which a discussion of great length explores what kind of powers you could get from Satan in order to fight Jesus (answer: not a whole lot)
Episode 10, I think this is the one where they discuss the secret lives of chickens
There is also a great one about the awful things that happened when Kevin’s wiener dog Shecky went into heat, but I couldn’t remember which episode that was.
I think the best episodes are those with Mosier, which are about half the episodes. If Scott can’t be there, fill in host Walt Flannagan is the next best.
Once again, my favorite online shop ThinkGeek comes through with an awesome product, just in time for summer! The Swashbuckling BBQ Sword. As the ad says:
Now you don’t have to choose between seeing your enemies flee before you, and roasting the perfect weenie.
It is not uncommon to repackage a short story collection after a movie is made out of one of the stories therein to try to capitalize on the success of the movie, even though the story is often quite different. I didn’t even know Philip K. Dick had written Minority Report. I knew he had written Blade Runner, which is awesome, and also A Scanner Darkly which I have not seen, but that was it. So after I finished the titular story of this, I was amazed to discover the second story, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, was actually Total Recall, a movie that I have seen more times than I can count. Double my amazement when the next story was Paycheck! So, there were three sci-fi blockbusters in a row that I didn’t know he had written. That was a nice surprise. I was excited to see what huge movie might be next on the list, but neither of the remaining stories were movies, at least of the blockbuster variety. I will say that I thought one of those stories, Second Variety, was the best one in the book, even if the “twist ending” was painfully obvious. Looking up info on Philip K. Dick, I discovered that the movie Next is (very loosely) based on a story of his. So he’s got movies with Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford, Keanu Reeves, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ben Afleck and Nicholas Cage. That my friends is what I call not too shabby!
Oh yeah, just look at that cover baby. You may recognize Jerry O’Connel from such things as Sliders and as being the fat kid from Stand by Me:
Lauren Stamile took me a little longer to place, but she plays nurse Rose, Derek’s other woman on Grey’s Anatomy. Now why was I watching this piece of cinematic masterpiece you ask? Because it is filmed at Oak Alley Plantation in New Orleans, which I have toured.
I know after you saw that promo picture, you probably thought this was an awesome movie. It was not. After watching it, I am certainly not in a hurry to read a Nora Roberts’ book. Ever. However, I think this movie was to romance movies what Ice Spiders is to sci-fi movies and was enjoyable in much the same way. What can I say, there is something about the very poorly done, cheesy nature of these movies that appeals to me. But please don’t take that as a recommendation to watch the movie!
What I’m Listening To:
Better than Ezra is one of my all time favorite bands, and I think they don’t get nearly as much credit as they deserve. I remember one time they were playing at Purdue and we were pretty excited about it, but a lot of people were like, “Who are they? I’ve never heard of them.” Of course, once BTE took the stage and started reeling off the hits, those same people were like, “Oh yeah, I know that song. And that song. And that song…” Side note about that concert, BTE pulled a fan out of the crowd up on stage with them and gave him a guitar and actually let him play along with them…that was really awesome. I will also say that seeing BTE in New Orleans was one of the best concerts I have ever been to.
So lets go to the tape and check their record. Their first album, Deluxe, was released in 1993. Many would say this is the definitive BTE album, containing their biggest hit Good as well as Sara’s favorite, Rosealia. In ’97 they released Friction, Baby which contained some awesome songs like King of New Orleans and Desperately Wanting. Only a year later they released How does your garden grow? which has One More Murder and my personal favorite At the Stars. In 2001 they released Closer which contained the underrated Extra Ordinary as well as the original version of A Lifetime (later re-done on their next album). So that brings us to 2005, when they released Before the Robots, which is actually my favorite of their albums.
That is a decade long career of consistently good albums and I don’t think they get enough credit for it. They’ve just released a new album Paper Empire, which I haven’t heard yet and can’t comment on, but with that track record, I’m willing to bet it is good. So, without further ado:
For some reason things come together in a perfect storm such that I get a bunch of links pertaining to the same subject all at the same time. And in this case, the subject is zombies.
First things first, I we have a possible zombie attack on our hands, and thanks to technology we have been given advance warning. In this case it is the twitter account of the Boston PD:
INJURED OFFICER: Officer from district 4 transported to Beth Israel Hospital, human bite to arm, suspect in custody.
Twitter user willcady used the opportunity to ask the police a burning question:
@Boston_Police if that was a zombie bite, would you tell us?
The police, setting the gold standard for government transparency, answered him:
Second off was the zombie movie news that was all over the place last week. Apparently someone threw together a zombie movie for $70 and it is getting rave reviews. Now, to be fair, the $70 thing is kind of a white lie. Sure, maybe he only spent $70, but (for example) they had special effects leftovers from the set of Wolverine donated. It’s not like I could go out and make the same movie with only $70. Nevertheless, it was a very, very cheap movie. What did they spend the $70 on?
“We bought a crowbar and a couple of tapes, and I think we got some tea and coffee as well — not the expensive stuff either, the very basic kind,” Price told CNN. “Just to keep the zombies happy.”
Always a good idea.
Finally, I will leave you with two zombie related games.
The first, Plants vs. Zombies, combines two of my favorite things, zombies and tower defense. I saw a review of this pop up in several places, so it seems to be somewhat popular. The only problem is, it costs $20. But they do have a free trial you can download and install that lets you play the regular game for 60 minutes. And it was a lot of fun! I was extremely disappointed when my trial was up.
If you don’t feel like actually playing the game, you can watch a preview instead:
Finally, I leave you with a free game, Zombie Hooker Nightmare. The title should give you a clue about this one. Basically, you play a ::ahem:: lady of the night who is just trying to make an honest living if only these dang zombies would leave her alone! I find it kind of ironic, since she doesn’t seem to have a lot of brains to tempt them.
(Shoe link courtesy Sara)
Shane Halbach 