Fiddlin’ On The Roof

As mentioned in one of my previous posts, I’ve easily slipped myself right off the Time Warner grid. I finally got my ass off the sofa today and went up on the roof, where I quickly hooked up a digital but basically old school style antenna to upgrade the rabbit ears I’d been using, and I now have about 90 very sharp digital channels, many of which are in HD.

I’ve never understood all of the big noise that the the cable company makes about having HD programming, it’s not like HD will make all that crap on most of the channels any better, at best it might be a bit sharper.

I’ve always said that I’d much rather see something with a good idea and talented actors that I like the work of that was shot with a VHS camcorder, than any of the mass produced dreck that’s filling prime time hours, even if it was shot in IMAX.

I’ve been asking visitors to my home for their reactions to what they see on the screen, and most think as I do, that the picture received over the air, stuff I also call “for free”, is far superior to anything that was brought in on cable. Something to do with more bandwidth, or so I’m told, but the picture just plain looks better.

So now my monthly nut has dropped about $100.00 or so, and that’s even after doing the Netflix thing to see a few new feature films a week, I’m still way to the good, and I’m using those savings to beef up the payments on the few remaining credit cards I haven’t paid off yet.

Unchain your t.v…….. This revolution will be televised.

N.B., The ownership of any and all photos, opinions, and/ or quotes above (including those of my own) belong to the material’s creator(s). Credit is given when it’s known, but as always, success usually has a million parents and failure is an orphan.
Feel free to ignore any ads that are shown below this advisory, I don’t get to choose them and even more sadly, I don’t make a penny off any of them, so in the holy name of capitalism I rebuke and don’t endorse or support any of them, unless of course they’re made of funny stuff…..
P.S., check back for occasional updates and rewrites….
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Ooh-ooh that’s Mel……..

For a clearer meaning of the title of this post, it should be sung using the Lynyrd Skynyrd style. If you don’t know who Lynyrd Skynyrd was, go back to your rap and hiphop crap and leave me alone.

Forced into admitting it, today I have to give the devil his due…  I’ve usually been against most everything Mel Gibson stands for, says or does, even on the rare occasion when he’s sober or not busy celebrating having yet another offspring. By the way, that’s seven by his ex-wife and the the current count is one more (so far) by a musician / composer named Oksana Grigorieva, a Ukrainian (some incorrectly say Russian) woman a little more than half his age that he may have knocked up while still in his previous “christian” marriage.

Perhaps he’s trying to match his parents record of having eleven kids, and he has had to switch to a younger wife?

And I’d say all of the above even if I wasn’t one of those direct descendants of the christ killers he often rants about.

So, it grieves me a lot to have to say this, but there’s no one better at playing that basic Mel Gibson kind of character than Mel Columcille Gerard Gibson (google it), as exemplified in his new film “Edge Of Darkness“, directed by Martin Campbell, the same director that did one of my other favorite everyone gets killed at the end kind of movie, “The Departed”. Ooops, was that a “spoiler”?

He’s really a good actor, even if often a bit too much over the top in every sense of the word. Fighting past the cliches and more or less predictable events that roll through the film all the way to the cornball ending, I just plained enjoyed watching his facial tics in what is more or less a return to his “Lethal Weapon” days. Except that Ray Winstone does does a much better job of scene stealing every moment that  he’s on screen than Danny Glover ever did.

Sure, it’s hard for me to ignore the abundance of crosses and religious paraphernalia that’s on display in almost every scene, it was almost like the church was paying for product placement, and questions “sugar tits” asks like (paraphrasing here because I don’t have a copy of the script) “are you being nailed to the cross or doing the hammering”, or something to that effect.

So, considering the above, it’s really difficult for me to say this aloud, but I’d give this film (and Mel, goddamn it!) a “go-see-it”.

Governor Meg Lo-Manic?

Sorry, I probably meant to type “Meg Whitman”, but I just had one of those  little slips on the keyboard, I guess. Damn these senior moments.

It seems like Meg Whitman has bought up every available moment of advertising in California, especially in radio spots where you can’t see her jowls shaking and  all of the liver spots in bloom. You can’t go an hour without hearing her talking about all the things that California needs to have fixed, right now, without a word about how she plans to achieve any of them. Could it be like how she “fixed” eBay by running it into the ground with unmotivated fees and pedantic rules, buying up Paypal and making its use mandatory?

Not for nothing, but I’ve yet to hear one solid statement from her of how she will do anything to make the state goverment better, fix educational problems, lower our taxes without making service cuts, she’s only following the republican methodology of slamming anything anyone else says or does, with no counter plan in place, with no regard for the well being of the state.

(Meg’s bid to buy the election UPDATE 3-13-2010)

Ending this run for office of hers is actually very simple, just voice one important question that she needs to be asked, which goes something like this:

Exactly who did you give your vote to in the last California race for governor?

It’s amazing that no democrat has taken the time to ask this question so that her answer is on the record. Nor has anyone asked her why she won’t take part in  public debates with her opponents? Maybe she could try using Sarah Palin’s handy-work technique?

You know what I mean Meg? When you have a tough heckler in the crowd, read that small print message that you wrote on the  palm of your right hand, the one that says “Use the middle finger, stupid”.

What’s that Meg? You say you didn’t vote in the last California election? Well then, how about the election before that?

Uh no, much like Dick Cheney felt during the draft for active service in the Viet-Nam war era, there were far more important things to do.

I see, so you skipped that election as well?

Well, yeah…… you could say that.

Hmmm, and the election before that one, too?

This is starting to seem like a witch hunt…

Nice call Meg……

And when she changed her campaign slogan from a story of her 30 years as a California resident to how she was only here “many” of the last 30 years, well, could you define “many” for us?

And for me? The negative ad campaign she’s running is enough to convince me that I should re-register as a republican, hold my nose and vote for Steve Poizner using the “Lesser Of Two Weasels” thought process. Think about how many people now really regret not giving more support to Ann Richards to abort (nice how that word fits the occasion) the George W. Bush for governor campaign.

Product Placement Explained In 2 Words

Tooth Fairy

That’s the two word definition.

See the film, count the brand name products strewn around the set.