Number your movies!

It’s been a while since the Emperor of Earth has made a fuss over something.  I have finally run into another problem that bothers me enough to make a new law…  Movie franchises will be clearly identified by numerical order.

Teresa has been pestering me to get the Harry Potter movies and watch them with her. I’ve put this off for a long time.  I read the first half of the first book, decided it was not for me and put it down.  When it became a huge pop-culture epic, I was very glad I was not a part of it.  But now the fervor has died down a bit and the screaming children have grown up a little and I’m willing to watch them because Teresa asked me to.

I won’t read them.  I tried and I’m positive it would be a hellish experience for me.  1, I’ve read a portion of the first one and found it to be simple.  She’s made crazy-cash, good for her and more power to her but I don’t like her style.  I’m not saying I can do better, I just don’t enjoy reading pap.  2. I’m already a rather slow reader, I fall asleep when reading a dull book so it would take me years to get through these things if I’m not actively engaged.

After making Teresa wait until the last movie came out before I’d watch them, I have no more excuses.  I finally got around to putting them in our Netflix queue and it was more of a chore than I thought. Here’s an idea: when you want to appeal to more than your all-knowing fanboy base, how about using NUMBERS!?! Harry Potter Deftly Swallows, Harry Potter in her Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Low Cell Phone Battery… I have NO FUCKING CLUE what order these movies come in!

I already have no desire to watch them, I’ve promised to go into this with happy thoughts and an open mind but already they are pissing me off!  Number your damn movies already!

Star Wars, Episodes 1-6.  Easy to follow.  Not easy to explain which came first but if you want to watch them in story-arc order (but why would you?), it’s easy to do.  1 is followed by 2, followed by 3… continue as such to 6.  The worst trouble you may have is understanding Roman numerals.  Tough shit, I learned them, so can you.

Star Trek.  Partially labeled.  I can always excuse a first movie because they may not have expected a franchise.  No one but Mel Brooks and Quentin Tarantino would name a movie “Part 1″.  Star Trek 2-6 are easy to identify.  7-10 can’t even figure out whether or not they’re doing the “Name: Subtitle” thing or if they’re just going all “Name with Subtitle”.  So Shatner Trek numbered them right, Stewart Trek couldn’t be bothered.  This may be enough to put me over the fence on the “who’s the better Captain” debate.  I can watch the Shatner movies without having to consult Wikipedia for their order…  #11 gets a pass because it’s a scrap and build.  Hopefully Abrams will put a clear “2″ in the title of the next one.

We call it Indy4 but there’s no number in the real title.  No number on the box.  It’s the same as the Harry Potter franchise.  ”Indiana Jones and the Something duh Something.”  Hell, I don’t care what the Spielberg/Lucas machine orders me to say, the first one was just “Raiders of the Lost Ark”.  The “Indiana Jones and the herp der derp” title branding was just as much as an afterthought as “A New Hope” was for Star Wars.

By the way, “Last Crusade” should be the last movie.  Not because Indy4 sucked, but because you used “Last” in the title.  ”The Last of the Mohicans” didn’t come out with a sequel.  ”The Last of the Mohicans Part 2: We Found Another One Hiding Behind the Couch”.  At least “The Neverending Story” didn’t lie to us.

No favoritism, the Lord of the Rings Trilogy should probably have numbers too.  But they were based on books, changing the titles may have caused internet nerd-rage not seen since… Well, since the fridge scene in Indy4.  LotR1: The Fellowship of the Rings, LotR2: The Two Towers, LotR3: Return of the King…  I wouldn’t be upset by that.  But now how do you number The Hobbit?  You could call it a different movie because it’s not part of the Sam/Frodo lovers parade into Mordor but it’s still part of the franchise.

The Johnny Depp “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies are also guilty of using the “no numbers, title-colon-subtitle” format but the DVDs have huge red numbers on the spines so I can get past this.  However, if I were trying to look them up on Netflix; no numbers!

Back to the Future.  I LOVE it!  No subtitles, just easy to follow numbers.  1, 2, 3 done.  Being time travel movies though, is it important which order you watch them in?

Spiderman 1, 2, 3.  Simple, easy, perfect.  This “Amazing” reboot better follow the same pattern.

Iron Man 1, 2 and probably 3.  Great!

Superman 1, 2, 3, 4.  If only all superheroes got it right…

Batman can go fuck himself.

If I were to believe one side of the propaganda, the one that tells me that 99% of the people are so bad off, the one that tells me that only 1% of the population is sitting fat and happy…

If we (the 99%) are sooo broke;

Why is McDonalds doing so well that I actually have to wait in line when I want coffee?  If 99% of us are struggling to get by, McDonalds should be fucking EMPTY!  Of course I could go to (one of the) Starbucks across the street but the line is actually LONGER over there.  $4 for a cup of coffee and there are so many people buying them, they can’t pass them out the window fast enough…

It’s amazing that movies like “Real Steel” and “Paranormal Activity 3″ have made over $100 million.  You wouldn’t think 1% of the population fills up the theaters like they’ve been…

I get my new work phone and I can’t get it activated because AT&T tells me “Due to the overwhelming response of the iPhone 4S it may take longer to process your request.”  I’ve seen people discard their working and functional iPhone4 to buy the newer iPhone4S.  I’ve got people thrusting their iPad2 in my face showing me how awesome it is.  I looked up the prices, these things are not cheap and yet they seem to be very popular toys at the moment…

I pre-ordered “Modern Warfare 3″ a couple weeks ago.  I spent $60 on a frigging video game.  The guy said it was a good idea to reserve my copy because between MW3 and Battlefield3, there was going to be a big rush on these games.  People around the country will stand in line at midnight and throughout the day, the games will fly off the shelves.  This particular store is only one of twenty-two GameStop locations in Jacksonville alone.  They expect all stores to be sold out by the end of the first day.  This does not account for WalMart or Best Buy.  $60 for a video game.  The previous MW2 sold 8 million games in the first week and in overall sales topped $1 Billion (that’s with a B)…

I hate sports but Teresa loves her local football team.  I looked into buying tickets and taking her to a game.  You could go cheaper but if you buy realistic tickets where you can actually see the game, parking, a drink or two… A family of three isn’t getting out of there for under $500.  Let’s just say that’s average, you could buy cheaper tickets, skip the drinks.  But tickets also get MUCH more expensive.  I looked around at the channels this Sunday, the stadiums across the country are full.  Baseball is coming to a head, NHL is starting up, NBA is in there somewhere, college football is fucking NUTS, and the NFL is just pleased as punch to take your ticket money.  It’s not cheap yet people fill the stands week in, week out…

Want to go out to dinner at any of the strip-mall chains?  Outback, Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Longhorn…  The place is packed every night.  ”Wait in the lobby, we’ll call you in 30 minutes.”  You wait out front with ten or fifteen other parties of 3, 4, 5 and 6 and you look around.  The restaurant is easily pulling in $1500+ just in people waiting to get inside, not to mention every table already occupied inside.  Everyone’s shelling out big bucks for steam-table versions of food they could make at home for a fraction the cost…

…

All of this is bullshit anecdotal evidence and proves nothing but from what I am told, am I to believe that all this waste of wealth is generated by just 1% of the population?

That’s the real bullshit!  I don’t know anyone in this fabled 1%.  I’ll probably never know anyone that rich, yet I’m surrounded by people throwing money around on crap.  I know I waste most of my money.  My house is too big and I have too many toys.  There are seven functioning computers in my home right now and that does not include the smart phones or iPods.  If I saved just the portion of my money that I throw away on fast-food I’d be a much wealthier (and healthier) man.  But I spend it.  I spend, spend, spend until the money’s gone and then we wait until next payday and then we spend again.  All this “spending” I’m talking about won’t balance the national budget, I really don’t have THAT much disposable income but what I do have I spend on having fun, living my life and on fiddling grasshoppers…

This “I am the 99%” is full of shit!  I am not part of your protest!  Is it possible that they are the same small vocal segment of the population that is always bitching about something?  They want to sit down and complain, chanting “Revolution” but occasionally calling “time-out” so they can go home and tend to their real lives; charging their Blackberry’s, driving their Hummer’s to the mall and patronizing the very corporations they are protesting against.  ”Hey, pass me the marker so I can make a protest sign.  Ohh, be careful, you almost spilled my iced macchiato all over my MacBook Air.”

Enough with the hippie-bashing, I’m not about to go all Kent State on them but both sides are selling propaganda and no one is calling these people out on this 99% bullshit.  Protests are good, in the past they’ve brought about change that we really needed… but STOP counting me in as your “99%”.  I’m not rich, I don’t fall in your “1%” group but the difference is, I’m not blaming someone else for my failure to accumulate wealth.  Yes, the system could be better, yes I’m glad someone’s willing to step up and say something, yes I’m excited and happy at you exercising your right to peaceable assembly and redress of grievances but YES, I’m also sick of this whiny ”Us versus Them” bullshit.

I’ve made my choices, if I chose better I may have stayed awake in Calculus class, I may have a better job (I may be able to help my daughter with her homework…) But I didn’t.  I had fun, wasted my time.  And I’ll live with these choices without protesting in the streets and abandoning my job so I can run amok in the streets pointing at “THEM”, They cost me my job, They are the reason I’m not better off, They are the reason I’m not happy…

“They” had nothing to do with it.  “We” motherfucker, WE did it to ourselves!  We all went shopping on credit cards, We bought McMansions that we couldn’t afford and didn’t need, We bought luxury vehicles we can’t put gas in, We bought a lot of CRAP on credit and now the bill has come due and we’re wondering where the money’s gonna come from to pay for it all.  Well, it’s not flowing from mommy and daddy anymore.  The baby boomers are collecting the last of the Social Security and dying off… The American Dream simply became too decadent and the system is correcting itself.  It used to be about a land where you could work hard and make it, somehow we erased the “work hard” part but everyone still expects the “make it” part.  We’d better start acting like adults around here and get our asses to work.

I wanted to get it, I wanted to understand.  I asked for help and people pointed me to a webpage titled, “What the Occupy WS protesters are angry about”.  I thought to myself, “Oh joy, I will finally understand these poor misunderstood hippies.”  And it had lots of graphs and charts so even a moron like me could understand it.  I stopped about three paragraphs into it when I read, “Jobs are scarce so many adults have stopped looking for them.”

Ahem… If I may… … …  Jobs were scarce NO ONE in the industry was hiring when I got laid off in the World-Com crash.  Telecom was dead and it was the weekend after Thanksgiving; who the hell hires in December?  I had a job by January.  I was flipping burgers at a fucking “Village Inn” restaurant.  One week I’m designing and engineering fiber optic cables into the largest buildings on the Jacksonville skyline, the next week I’m sloshing eggs and pies through a small kitchen window.  Sure I was angry at the IT bubble burst and sure I focused my anger at Bernie Ebbers, the man who “crashed the car” I was riding in, but I worked every shift Village Inn let me and I kept my family fed.

When my chosen industry remained a wasteland well into the new year, I found employment doing work I thought I left behind years ago.  It was shit work and involved swallowing my ego but it was slightly better pay and it turned into contacts and opportunities that finally, after 18 months, led me back into the telecom field.  It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t as glamorous as sitting on Wall Street with a sign saying I can’t find work and I blame the bankers, but I kept finding work.  It wasn’t in my field, it was work “beneath my station” but guess what my trendy-protesting-dickhole friend?  When you are a responsible adult, you sometimes do work “out of your field” and “beneath your station” because no one EVER promised us life was going to be fair, make sense or even continue to point upward.  Sometimes you do what it takes to get by.  Can’t find a job with that expensive “Liberal Arts” degree you paid too much for?  Well let me point you in the right direction; Mugging for the cameras and holding a protest sign is nowhere near as effective as lowering your expectations, sending out resumes, filling out employment applications and making contacts from within the system.  Plenty of Cousin Eddies out there “holding out for an executive position…”

Maybe you weren’t told, it was something many of us knew instinctively; you start at the fucking bottom and work your way up.  Sinking your ass deep in debt at med-school does not automagically create a top position for you at a prestigious hospital where you get to walk around and act quirky because Dr. House gets away with it.  No, you get to work long hours at a free-clinic wiping dried fecal matter out of a homeless bum’s eyes.  After years of work like this, you graduate to emptying bedpans.  Life looks so simple on TV and in the movies.  Mom and dad tell tales of the geniuses who made the world a better place “overnight”, you’ve come to believe the bullshit.  Wake up Neo, “success” is an illusion.  Everyone is so damn scared of working for a living.  If you start at the top, if you get the “big time” job straight out of school, guess what?  You’re the dirty-rotten 1% everyone is bitching about…

So stop calling me 99%.  I’m not the 1% either.  I’m part of the 100%.  We are all fucked, We have done this to ourselves, We had better figure this out right fast or We are going to be in some deep, deep shit.  So to both the bankers and the protesters alike I say;

Fuck your propaganda, Fuck your partisan bickering, Fuck your media circus and you know what?  Fuck you all…

I am the 100%

“Ray!  When someone asks you if you are a god…”

Yes!  I am a god.  Or at least, a demi-god.  I have an altar and everything.

My small congregation brings me offerings and sacrifices.  They believe I am the god of debris, asking for candy bar wrappers, crumpled napkins and crumbs of some kind of cookie or possibly even a pretzel.  To keep me entertained they move my altar and park it at odd angles and very often in difficult positions to maneuver myself inside.

But it never fails that when I do find my way inside, they have left me presents.  Yay for me, I have a new snack wrapper, a half-empty cup of sweet tea and some kind of sticky substance all over the steering wheel.

I am reminded every day just how much I cherish them.

It’s finally live!

Holy cow, we’re back on air!!! In a brilliant lapse of either intelligence or judgment, I refuse to learn from my mistakes. You’d figure I’ve tried the audio-show a few times and failed so I’d give up on it right? Well, no. Like I said, I just ain’t that smart baby!

Welcome to the new show. We’re calling it “Spoiler City” because many of the discussions will be about movies. While we’re not going to intentionally run at you with “new” spoilers, we are going to talk openly about anything that comes to our mind and we’re not going to shy away from movie endings…

Your co-hosts for this show are myself (Christopher Morgan) and Wade Berlin. We’ve known each other for many years now and we both have a definitive love of movies and music. We share a lot of the same tastes in media but there are also several wide gaps in our styles. Also, Wade has never shied away from calling me out on my constant flow of BS… So, this will get fun quickly!

We have a number of show topics in mind and and we’re committing to recording/releasing them on a consistent basis until we run out of our initial ideas. At that point, we should have built up a listener base and we’ll continue recording or we’ll just be talking to ourselves and we’ll decide we’ve had fun and call it quits.

This is where YOU the listener comes in: Comments on the show are welcome. Positive or negative, advice or just an LOL, let us know you’re listening… We’re looking forward to hearing from you, it will keep us going.

Spoiler City!  Episode 001

Episode 1 show notes