Before I go on my little vacation.

I wanted to ask everyone to visit dikdoktor . He had this to say about yours truly. 

Super Xangans You Should Meet - Part 2

Well, better late than never some say so here I go again today with my little blurb recommending another site I have found to be pretty good this week.  And the winner is......Creed-of-Kings.xanga.com/ To be honest, I just recently began visiting his site but I'm extremely glad I did. On top of being a superb writer, he covers a variety of topics and does each very well.  This guy will keep you on your toes with his wit and great writing style.  It's a real pleasure reading his work and honestly, it's as good as it gets. He's been a member of Xanga for almost 5 years, has a vast amount of work dating back to August 2004 and there is something for everyone here. Gaming, politics, movies or book reviews, take your pick.  "Culture Rant" was a read that had me mesmerized "Sleeping With a Scorpion"  gives the reader a basic insight into who this writer is and more.

 To make things even more interesting, Creed is the host of        Featured Grownups.xanga.com/    a site that self describes.  Grownups with content being featured. And, you get a fortune cookie there too!! 

He touted my whole blog and christened me a "Super Xangan". If you are wondering, I didn't send him any money. Go over there, recommend his entry, congratulate him on his brilliance, and be his friend.

I will be leaving in a couple of hours, with a few clothes, vitamins, notebook, laptop, mp3 player, books, and an eager mind. I'll buy supplies when I get there. In the morning, I will be up with the sun and walking deep in the pines of east Texas.

I will devote a lot of time working and writing Part 2 of my now awesome fantasy fiction saga. In hardcover, the first part would be 200 pages! I guess the first book will be around 600 pages. I need to be better to attain the goal of a hardback displayed at Barnes & Noble on Black Friday of 2010. I have to rekindle the fire I had in Part 1. Honestly, the dedication and cylinders firing at peak levels wore me out. But, I am back now. I worked on Part 2 Thursday, fashioning the exciting beginning a little better than before.

I will also devote lots of time thinking about options and directions in my life. It's been about three years since I left the "corporate" world, so to speak. Except for almost a year in the middle of the three, I took another corporate job and earned good money, which allowed me to pay off stuff and save up enough to take this extended time off to write. Being willfully unemployed was the real situation I needed to finally and boldly get the book going. I worked hard, I just wasn’t paid. Soon I will start a new non-corporate part time job. Granted, I'm not rich, but I'm pretty free. And, I know people think I'm crazy and yes I see the gamble in to not earning my potential right now, but what does it profit a man to gain the world if… 

I will still have time to write, which is the plan. I will have great health insurance too, unless the Statist Authoritarian 'liberals' ruin the system.

Pursuing my dream of writing a good book required, not only reading a bazillion books on writing and storytelling, but also working part time (for me anyway) and it allows me flexible time to pursue other things and now there are opportunities before me that I must contemplate.

See ya later. 

I joined Twitter.

Even though I have NO business doing it, I have a Facebook, I'm the new host of Featured Grownups, and to top it off ...I just joined Twitter. I'm an idiot. I swear that I'm am going to erase my Facebook and stop getting involved in one more online activity and as I'm saying that I'm filling out the Twitter form! Someday ...I might just disappear from the online world completely.

More stupidity...

I just bought ANOTHER book. I think I have ADD. Someday I may go to Half Priced Books and sell them ALL and be done with it and start over. I'm reading about 18 books right now.

Next week I will be on vacation. Thankfully, the place I'm going has no internet and cell phone reception is bad. I'm going to work on the book I AM writing and take maybe two or three. Thank you God! 

Happy 4th.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - 2.5 Stars

Many contemporary movies can’t survive the typical flaws. This one had them, but I managed to enjoy it anyway. We now expect the CGI tech to be phenomenal in all movies. But, it can’t replace good stories. Imagine you are trying to pay attention to a boring conversation and a car wreck happens. That’s the script and action in the typical sci-fi action thriller these days. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was no different but it had a few bright moments.

Surprise, the Decepticons are back! The Transformers and the American military have to fight and defeat the Decepticons while Sam (Shia LaBoeuf) scrambles for the key to victory.

The pace is hectic and chaotic. Director Michael Bay seems to have been in an ill-protected bunker while calling the shots. Nearly every line is yelled. Bay, seems to think frenzy is drama. But, the Transformers are cool, Steve Jablonsky’s film score is solid and sometimes awesome, the American military is portrayed as noble, Shia LaBoeuf, in spite of the corniness delivers a solid performance. He adds wide eyes to his yelled lines.  Megan Fox is pretty but she can only seem to let her jaw go slack in all the frenzy. And, where does she find lipstick in Egypt? Eye candy was her big contribution. The most authentic character was the wild John Turturro playing the agent.

There were many lewd lines and crude humor aimed at thirteen-year-old boys. It seemed wedged in and out of place. It boggles my mind that Hollywood does this. No one will go see Transformers Revenge for the crude humor. It only diminishes box office longevity. There are some sexually charged moments between people. And, dogs were humping in various locations. Why? It was not funny, it was unnecessary and out of place. Dogs’ humping seems to the default scene for getting laughs if the script is bad. There were a couple of cutesy ‘Jive-bots’ with nothing but crude lines.    

It has some good messages. It’s almost as if screenwriters were making deals. OK, you can put in that crude humor, if I can depict the military in a positive light. Yes, it may shock you, but the American military is a force for good in Transformers Revenge. From what I remember there are no crazed killers or abusive military men murdering innocent people, which is Hollywood’s typical treatment of our military. Instead, they are depicted noble warriors fighting for good. In a ‘liberal’ review of Transformers Revenge, this positive depiction of our military was derided as “militarism”. What a whacky world we live in. The inappropriate humor was overlooked, but how dare the American military be portrayed as good!

The other good messages were that love, sacrifice, risk, and dedication matter. But its good messages were muddled by the unfunny ridiculous crude humor, corniness, bad script and garbled train wreck action. 

2.5 Stars 

The Proposal Reviewed

I knew what would happen when I saw the previews. You did to, if you saw it. This romantic comedy is a bona fide date movie. The safe formula had one thing going for it, the charm of Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. Watching the chemistry between these two was worth the matinee price. It will make you laugh aloud a few times.

Margaret (Bullock) is a cold calculating powerful woman in a publishing company, who has sacrificed relationships to climb the company ladder. Her assistant is the ever-faithful Andy (Reynolds), who knows all the details of Margaret’s life, it’s his job. She is unappreciative of his dedication and denies his request to go to his great grandmother’s 90^th birthday party.

She is high and mighty and he is low, and dependent on her success. The president of the company calls her into his office to inform her that her work visa has expired and due to some oversight, she will be deported soon and lose the job that all her identity is wrapped up; hence, the convenient Andy is used to keep her legal. She proposes to Andy, who agrees as he does with everything else to orders him to do. Due to an immigration officer who seems to think he is Elliot Ness, the couple has an appointment in which they must answer detailed questions about one another in separate interviews. If they don’t know enough about each other their engagement will be revealed for the sham it is.

Margaret insists they go to Andy’s grandmother's birthday celebration for a “get to know each other” weekend. Andy then realizes he now has the power, and Margaret bites her lip when he informs her that his grandmother’s birthday party is in …Alaska!

When they get there, Grandma (Betty White) says a lot things that scriptwriters like to put in the mouths of old people. I’m fed up with the old ladies getting funky with it but suddenly becoming quasi-wise when the music is right. This has become too cliché. There are many romantic comedy clichés, including the almost obligatory airport scene in the frantic ending.  I wonder if romantic comedy screenwriters were deprived of airports if they could put together an ending.

Now for this review’s ‘liberal hegemony moments’… You are to assume that deep down there is hope for Margaret because she is a vegetarian. You are to assume Andy’s father is a depraved soul because he grumbles about the environmentally safe golf balls purchased by his wife. ‘Liberal Hegemony Moments’ should be a regular feature. ‘Liberal’ teaching moments are so overdone in movies they are now cliché. I will help you detect them.

Things that make the movie slightly interesting are the star power of Bullock and the sizzling chemistry with Ryan Reynolds. It pulls you in long enough to get the message. Margaret’s character comes to realize how shallow her existence is, and that her career is a prop. Money can’t hug or say I love you. Many single career women are discovering this. (Oh yet another ‘Liberal Hegemony Moment’: in MS Word ‘career women’ gets underlined in green and suggests that I use ‘executives’ or ‘professionals’ reminding me that here is no difference between men and women.)