Friday, January 29, 2010

Abortion Doctor Killer Found Guilty

A quote from Fox News - "Jurors swiftly convicted an abortion opponent of murder Friday [Jan 29, '10] for shooting to death one of the only doctors to offer late-term abortions in the U.S., a killing the gunman claimed was justified to save the lives of unborn children."

The murderer's name is Scott Roeder, and I suppose that in his mind he was doing the right thing (don't ALL murderers and serial killers think that?).

I admit, I'm not a big fan of abortion (and it seems like the older I get, the less liberal I am about it), but the way I see it, being a man, it's really none of my business!

If a woman, for whatever reason, decides she wants/needs to get an abortion, then that is entirely between the woman and her conscience. I have no more right to tell her that she can or cannot have an abortion than she does to tell me what clothes to wear, or what kind of haircut I should get.

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Thursday, January 28, 2010

Leno, Letterman, O'Brien

Even though I have never regularly watched any of the late-night programming (because I have to get up at 5:30 a.m. to go to work), I am going to add my two cents.

I can't remember watching Jay Leno at all. I do remember watching David Letterman sometimes, maybe Friday nights. But I was watching Conan O'Brien regularly because (I think it was) MSNBC was airing the show five or six p.m. the next day. And after a while I decided to stop watching because I didn't really care for Conan. I got tired of his same entrance with his little jump and spin (or the other way around).

But I really got tired of the way he interrupted his guests, especially if it was someone I wanted to see. Everything had to be about Conan. If a guest was on for seven minutes, four of them was Conan interrupting to talk about himself. And every time, I would think how RUDE he is.

So, out of the three of them, I would choose David Letterman as my favorite.
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"Avatar" the Movie

For the second time in three weeks I went to see Avatar. Both times I went during the week to the 11 am matinee, and maybe, maybe there were ten people in the theater - just the way I like it. But before I get into the movie itself, I have to say there NEEDS to be an intermission. The movie runs about two hours and forty five minutes, and the last hour I was in PAIN, I had to pee so bad!

As for the movie, of course I paid the extra $3 for the 3D version (it would be stupid NOT to see it in 3D). And it was well worth it, the 3D was excellently done. About the only thing I could criticize, and there may not be any way to avoid it, was when things went by in a blur my eyes were a bit -- uncomfortable.

The story is nothing really new -- the bad guys want / need to get the indigenous people (the Na'vi) off their land so they can have it for themselves. In this case it was a very rich deposit of an element called Unobtanium, with sells for something like $2,000,000 (or maybe $20,000,000) per gram (or maybe kilogram) under their Home Tree.

The Hero, Jake Sully, takes his twin brother's place when he is killed as a "controller" of an Avatar. Avatars are grown (semi-cloned) using DNA from humans and the Na'vi. And there are a few differences in them. For instance, the Na'vi have three fingers and a thumb (ditto for their feet), the tank-grown Avatars have four and one.

As Jake, in the Avatar body, becomes more in tune with Na'vi and the jungle he takes on more of their ways and feelings, and eventually becomes one of them. But the Bad Guys (from Earth) decide Jake can't get the Na'vi to move from their Home Tree (where the ore is) and so they attack it, bringing it down with rockets (it stands forty or fifty stories tall, more or less). So Jake helps the Na'vi (and all the animals of the jungle) defeat, and send packing, the Earthings. And thanks to the link with the Na'vi's deity/goddess Jake permanent leaves his human body for his Avatar body.

And they lived happily ever after - until the sequel.

I really like the movie despite its length. And except for having to pee, the movie moved along and you (I) really didn't realize how long it was. And once into the story, the 3D was so natural you forgot about it until the story slowed down and once again you were aware of it.

And yes, I certainly DO recommend everyone go see it.

One last thing -- the female Na'vi wore next to nothing and, being male, I was checking them out, seeing if I could see anything that might be considered a nipple-slip / genital-slip. But since they were kind of paisley blue it was hard to tell. And of course, James Cameron only showed us what he wanted us to see.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Lucy's "Spartacus"

The first episode aired last Friday night. And it wasn't too bad, it won't be hard to keep watching. There was a lot of CGI blood and dismemberment - arms, legs and heads. Sometimes the blood was overdone - a guy got stabbed in the back with a trident and a bucket of blood filled the screen.

Lots of bare breasts. But only one instance of FFFN (full female frontal nudity). It was the actress Viva Bianca (she plays Ilithyia, the wife of Claudius Glaber (Craig Parker, who was Bellerophon in "To Helicon and Back") ). The other main character who showed her breasts was Erin Cummings (Spartacus' wife). Erin also has been in Bitch Slap, Nip/Tuck, Dollhouse, and a few other shows. And sometime in future episodes frontal male nudity is to be seen, or so I've read.

The episode ran 55 minutes but Lucy didn't show up until 40 minutes. But they had to show how Spartacus got captured.

The story in a nutshell --

Glaber was trying to get Spartacus and his village to join with the Romans to fight another tribe. They agreed, but were mostly "cannon" fodder. The evil tribe was heading toward Spartacus' village, but Glaber wanted them to attack a Greek general and his army in the opposite direction to further Glaber's ambition. They refused and beat up Glaber and left to protect their village.

Spartacus found his wife (although the village was burned to the ground) and they had a good night together (Spartacus' naked butt was shown a few times as he was humping Sura, and we got to see her very nice breasts.) The next morning, Glaber was there with some men, and Sura was enslaved and Spartacus was to be executed in an arena. He ended up defeating four gladiators and was to be sent to the gladiatorial school owned by (Lucy's) husband (that comes next week).

The nude scene(s) of Lucy will be sometime in the next few episodes since it wasn't in this one. It was nice that Lucy wasn't forced to use an American accent. She didn't have much to do in this episode, but I'm sure more of her story will develop as the episodes unfold.

The show was picked up for a second season even before this episode aired, which is good for us Lucy fans, but I'm sure if the ratings aren't there, Starz will pull the plug.

http://daviderl.com/ReneeOConnor.html

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Shiri Appleby's "Life Unexpected"

Watched the pilot episode last night, and it was ever bit as good as the promo clips promised. But then, I've never seen Shiri in anything she didn't do a good job with (okay, "Darklight" wasn't so hot, but her character, Lilith, left me wanting another TV movie or series). But as I stated in an earlier blog, I find Shiri very attractive (not to mention very sexy and delightful to watch).

All the characters were pretty likable, especially Shiri and Britt Robertson, who plays Lux (we never found out if that was a nickname or her real name}. Just a day or two after Cate's (Shiri's) boyfriend freaked out after finding out Cate had a kid, and she gave back the engagement ring, she (Cate) spent the night with Lux's dad - Baze. I guess this was to show us that Cate isn't perfect. And they reinforced that when she decided she wanted to do right by Lux, and then asked her boyfriend to marry her (he accepted). No doubt the night with Baze will come back to bite her in the ass (and what a NICE ass it is!!).

This is supposed to be "Juno" meet "Gilmore Girls" and I can see how the "Juno" part fits since Lux is somewhat savvy and precocious. But except for Cate having a daughter when she was 17 (pregnant at 16), I've yet to see the bond between Cate and Lux that there was between Lorelai and Rory. But I guess as the episodes unfold we will (should) see more of it.

This is one show I definitely will watch every week.

Friday, January 1, 2010

New Year's Resolutions ; The New Decade

And so a new year has come, and many of you will be making resolutions (if you haven't already) to improve your lives in the coming year(s). I used to do that, way back when. And I can't remember a single, solitary one. It may have been to stop smoking (which I did when I bought my first new car), or something else. And no doubt, whatever they were didn't last very long.

So, some years ago I decided to make only one resolution each new year, and that was -- to only make one resolution each new year. And it's the one resolution I have never broken.

This isn't to say there is nothing in my life I could improve on. I need to drop 20 - 30 pounds. Work as been VERY slow (construction) and I've only been working 15 - 20 hours per week. So I come home early and sit in front of the TV (with cable TV, daytime TV isn't so bad; I've picked out my fave shows) and my daily routine is set.

I don't smoke or drink (well, a few beers here and there, mostly when I eat things like hot wings, pizza, BBQ). I don't run the bars, and I don't do drugs. But I don't exercise like I should to help keep the pounds off, so I guess that is one thing I should resolve to do.

But like smoking or doing drugs, I will make the effort when I'm ready to, and not because I tell myself it's now time.

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One of the things I do on New Year's Day is to go through my check book (yes, I STILL write checks) and write the new year up in the right hand corner where the date goes so I won't write the old one without thinking. And as I was writing "2010" it felt very odd. I can't remember it feeling like that ten years ago when I was writing "2000." Maybe it's because I am ten years older, and I know I don't have as many years ahead of me as I do behind me. (And yes, I have passed the half century mark [and yes, I intend to live to be 100!] )

In other words, as someone somewhere once said (more or less), "I am becoming aware of my mortality." The future is approaching faster and faster, and I realize I won't be seeing as much of it as I did when I was younger.

Happy New Year. And let's all hope it will be a better one that 2009.