Modern, Cool Nerd

Your result for The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test ...



Modern, Cool Nerd

74 % Nerd, 65% Geek, 48% Dork

Modern, Cool Nerd
For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.
You scored better than half in Nerd and Geek, earning you the title of: Modern, Cool Nerd.

Nerds didn't use to be cool, but in the 90's that all changed. It used to be that, if you were a computer expert, you had to wear plaid or a pocket protector or suspenders or something that announced to the world that you couldn't quite fit in. Not anymore. Now, the intelligent and geeky have eked out for themselves a modicum of respect at the very least, and "geek is chic." The Modern, Cool Nerd is intelligent, knowledgable and always the person to call in a crisis (needing computer advice/an arcane bit of trivia knowledge). They are the one you want as your lifeline in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (or the one up there, winning the million bucks)!

Thanks to Jon for the link to the test. Here, take it yourself: The Nerd? Geek? Dork? Test

Toilet Follies

On one of the first days home after the baby arrived, Stacy, Stacy's dad, Neil, and I took a trip to Home Depot to pick up some home improvement materials. Stacy wanted to get the microwave replaced, the basement bathroom painted, a ceiling fan installed in the playroom, a new kitchen light installed, and some other various wiring jobs done while her dad was still out visiting.

Laden with a new fan, a microwave/range hood combo, outlets and light switches, we arrived home ready to start on the kitchen light. We were going to replace the round two-bulb fixture with a 6', four-bulb florescent fixture. I was excited. I've hated the lighting in the kitchen ever since we moved in.

Naturally, Jo, Stacy's step-mom, had news that would change my immediate plans upon our arrival home. It turns out Scarlett had clogged the toilet upstairs. She's a super pooper! We're used to the toilet clogging, though. It gets clogged if you think about flushing more than a couple of squares. I shrugged and headed upstairs to plunge it, and plunge it, and plunge it, and plunge it, well, you get the picture. It wasn't a normal clog, it was plugged in such a way that the water could slowly leak out past the clog.

Next step was the snake we bought for the kitchen sink months ago. It runs off the drill, so I originally thought it would work there. It didn't work on the kitchen sink then and it didn't work on the toilet this time. Like its namesake, it would just coil back on itself. I had the flushing sinking feeling that I would have to disassemble the whole thing, which is never a guaranteed fix.

Ah well, I was already resigned to fixing it, whether that meant replacing the toilet (right, Travis?) or managing to fix it on my own. I shut off the water and set about bailing the remaining water with a 3 oz. bathroom cup.

After the bailing

Next came removing the tank. That was easy. I've done it a couple of times, so I was pretty confident with that step.

This is my toilet topless. Don't get any ideas, perv

I was ready to take the bowl off. Well, not really ready. I had never removed the bowl and was worried that I might drop and break it, cause a leak (heh, cause a leak where I take a leak,) or cause some other minor disaster.

Toilet? What toilet?

Thankfully, my father-in-law had to run back to Home Depot for a couple of missing items, so he was able to buy me a new wax ring. With the toilet successfully relocated to the tub, I was ready to work.

The patient awaits...

At first glance, I thought I could make out a valve of some sort from the bottom. That didn't make sense, though. Why would a toilet have a valve? As soon as I touched it with the snake, though, if fell deeper into the pipe. Curious. The snake let me down again, proving thrice-worthless. A straightened coat hanger did the trick, though. I was soon fishing out flushable wipe after flushable wipe.

Scarlett's contribution to the effort, a stack of wipes at least five high

I fished around until I couldn't feel anything else on the end of the hangar. No "valve" though. Fearing I would be defeated and have to replace the bowl completely, I tried one last thing in desperation. I lifted the bowl and shook it over the tub. Something fell out with a clatter. I looked down in disgust at a filthy, corroded circular piece of metal.

Look closely at the culprit, all will soon be revealed

It turns out that the piece of metal was a tin lid to a coin bank, a pink lid at that. The color was significant for a very good reason. None of my girls have ever owned such a bank, so I knew it wasn't one of them. The previous owner was a single mom with a adolescent son, so I was fairly certain it wasn't them. It could only have been deposited by someone that lived here before them, who knows how long ago?

All this time, the bank lid would act as a check valve. If too much was flushed down the toilet at once, it would clog up. Once plunged, the force of the water and debris would swivel the lid sideways and let the detritus flow by. It took Scarlett's stack of wipes to clog it in such a way that we couldn't plunge it.

With the clog finally removed, I painstakingly cleared off the old wax ring. I'm not sure how long it had been there, but I couldn't wash my hands enough to feel clean afterward. I installed the new wax ring, anchored the bowl, replaced the tank, turned the water back on, and stepped back as I flushed, so the geyser of water wouldn't hit me.

Oddly enough, there was no geyser. Not even a trickle of water seemed to leak from the many possible places on the toilet. There was no way I went through all of that and came out with a fully-functioning toilet, was there? And yet, there it was, flushing like it had never flushed before and nary a leak. Don't worry, I'll pay for my good experience later. The Universe lets no positive event go unpunished.

Fully installed and ready to flush!

Tristram's First Digital Photo Album

Here's the first few photos taken of Tristram. More to follow as other cameras are emptied of their digital payload.

Please Welcome Tristram Scott Hawks

Tristram was born at 10:56 AM EST. He is 9 lbs 2oz and at least 21" long. Mother and baby boy are doing great. Thanks everyone for your support and love.

Play Street Fighter on YouTube

Topless Robot dropped this via somebody else. I'm not going to bother checking references all the way back to the originator, suffice it to say that it is awesome.

Thrill at the realistic animation (stop-motion at its finest!) Marvel at the exotic locales (is that a toilet floor in E. Honda's level?) Gape in awe at the interactivity that only Web 2.0 could bring you (okay, I just threw up a little bit in mouth at that bit of buzzword nonsense.)

Just choose your opponent, then choose your attack when the buttons light up. As TR said, it's the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure for the modern age.

Captain America, the Shiftless Bum, Finally Gets a Job

For those of you that aren't fans of comic books, the Kevin Smith movie Clerks, or both, this will probably go right over your heads. For the rest of you, enjoy!

Back with Spirit and Thing You Shouldn't Do #8

Hello, hello, hello! Have a good holiday? Ready for the new year? Yes? No? Don't care? Lovely!

I was going to use this space to write my thoughts and feelings on The Spirit, but Jon beat me to the punch by like - almost two weeks. He also hit all the points I wanted to make, so there's little point in doing it again. What he said about the movie goes for me, too. Also, he did this, which blows any commentary I have about the movie, at least about Scarlett Johansson in the movie, out of the water. So, well done there, Jon.

On to -
Thing You Shouldn't Do #8:
Take a sleeping aid on the same night as your spouse.

Why? Because ten minutes after you do, your kid is going to get out of bed and vomit all over the place. Oh, and another one of your kids will have nightmares and crawl into bed, proceeding to kick and flail around all night.

Seriously.

Last night, in an effort to fix our whacked schedules so we could function in a work week, I took a Unisom and Stacy took half of one (previously prescribed to her while pregnant with Vicki as part of an anti-nausea regimen.) Naturally, a few minutes later, Zoe stumbled into the room complaining of pains in her abdomen. Stacy, the wise woman that she is, did the nausea check and rushed her to the bathroom before chunks blew. She was up for another hour with stomach pains, but they seemed to ease off and she fell to sleep. An indeterminate amount of time passed before I was rudely jerked awake by a pair of little bony knees curled up into my back. Scarlett had nightmares and crawled into bed. She was snuggled up with Stacy, which meant I was the target of any flailing limbs. Being too tired to fumble with my sleep machine and lug her back to her bed, also knowing that it was only a temporary measure, I dropped back into slumber. It was pretty fitful, as I would be awakened by sporadic thrashing from Scarlett throughout the night.

All in all, not a good way to start a work week after nearly two weeks of vacation.

Zoe seems a bit better, but we're going to have her checked out if the pain comes back. I'm always paranoid of untreated appendicitis or worse when it comes to those nebulous pains in the abdomen of my kids.

Anyone else have a return from vacation story they'd like to share?

The Office Pranks Are Good For the Soul

I'm just a crazy posting fool today. I can't help it, though. This has got to be one of the best compilations on YouTube. For those of you that don't know about the television show, The Office, shame on you. Dwight is the office dweeb/jerk. Jim is his foil. What you see here are a few of the pranks Jim has played on Dwight over the years. Look for comedic gold at 0:47.

You Better Watch Out, You Better Not Cry, You Better Not Try to Visit Santa

We're all ready for Christmas here. The house is decorated, the presents wrapped, the kids excited. We tried to take the girls to see Santa yesterday.

That was a mistake.

We knew the mall would be busy, but we figured going at 4:00 would be tolerable. We were wrong. The place was already packed. The line to see Santa went past the queue and into the mall corridor. The people past the end of the queue were going to be left out until 6:00, since that was when Santa would get back from his dinner break.

We bagged it.

We took the girls to pick something out for themselves from the Disney Store instead. All told, we spent the same amount of money that we would have at Santa. The worst was yet to come, though. We hurried out to our van in the blustery cold. We had parked on the top level of the garage because we knew we'd be able to find a spot there. That was a mistake. Halfway down to the next level, we hit a jam. Every aisle of the garage was filled with people trying to leave. Most people were nice enough to shuffle fellow cars in fairly, though a few people were jerks about it. The biggest problem was the exit from the garage dumped out onto a street that connected to the main drag. The traffic light on that street was really short, so not only did we have multiple exits from the garage dumping out on the same street, but the light would only let a few cars off the street at a time.

It took us a full hour to leave the garage.

We decided not to head to the temple to see the Christmas lights like we had planned. Next year we'll plan a little better.

As for the holiday, our spirits still aren't dampened. We love Christmas in the Hawks home. I hope you have a Merry Christmas!

The Thundercats That Could Have Been

Not much to say about this trailer that hasn't already been said elsewhere. It is awesome on many levels. Thanks to Topless Robot for the drop and WormyTV for the video.

Spiders, Why Did it Have to Be Spiders?

This morning, I caught sight of a spider hanging out in the corner of the shower. It was waving it's little forelegs as if to say, "Yeah, I'm a spider. So what? You wanna fight about it?"

I hate spiders in the shower.

About 14 years ago, I was minding my own business, taking a shower. I had just finished rinsing the shampoo out of my hair and had opened my eyes. I saw spots in my vision. Things are a little blurry without my glasses, so I didn't really make anything out of the spots. I figured I had rubbed my eyes too vigorously to get the water out.

That was, until I noticed the spots were moving down slowly. One was right in front of my face. I took a closer look and noticed that it was a tiny little baby spider. That meant, you guessed it, that all the other spots were the same thing. They were all around me.

I freaked out.

I hopped out of the shower as fast as I could and sprayed those suckers down the drain. Yeah, they were just baby spiders, probably couldn't even hurt a fly, yet, but they were all over. I had been well-taught of the dangers of spiders from a particularly horrible scene in Something Wicked This Way Comes and the entire movie Arachnaphobia. Them spiders had to die.

And so did this morning's shower visitor. I accepted his challenge, and promptly washed him down the drain. Of course, I'm sure his spidery family will get revenge on me by crawling into my mouth while I'm sleeping.

A Post! A Post? Yes! A Post!

Bleh. I feel so behind in posting. Much has happened in the past month and I have little time to post about it. Let's see if I can remember the highlights.

Stacy's belly has stretched to amazing proportions with our unborn son. We have settled on the name, Tristram Scott Hawks. The name was inspired by a favorite author of mine, Neil Gaiman, whom I have mentioned a few times before. My initial attempts at getting a Scott Jr. were shot down. On other fronts, Stacy is constantly busy with church, PTO, and HOA responsibilities. Inbetween all of this, she still manages to be a wonderful mother, wife, and friend.

Vicki is in girl scouts and 2nd grade. She's constantly amazing us with how mature and caring she is. I don't remember being anywhere near as conscientious at 7 years old. Zoe seems to be come out of her shell a bit more lately. She interacts with her fellow students and teachers in preschool, and did so faster this year than with her other class last year. It's my hope that she won't grow up being as painfully shy as I was. Scarlett is still a big personality in a tiny package. She just turned 3 and is queen of all she surveys. She's got a real soft, sweet side that many people don't see. We are still learning how to coax it out of her.

Had a fantastic Thanksgiving at the McCoards' house. We cracked our laptops afterwards and threw down on some Diablo 2 multiplayer goodness. It's an old game, but we had so much fun playing it that we've gotten together two more times since then to play some more. I'm looking forward to Diablo 3.

Saw Madagascar 2 and didn't hate it. Some of the jokes were pretty good. King Julian and Moto Moto stole the show.

Saw Suantom of Quolace and enjoyed it thoroughly. Still no gadgets or Q, but Bond was in top form. It was interesting to see the first true Bond sequel, which picked up directly after the last one, rather than a separate adventure to add to the series.

The new phone I want came out, the HTC Fuze. It's a slick piece of technology that may elude me, considering its hefty pricetag. Stacy is determined to get it for my Christmas present, but I'm not sure if that will, or should, happen.

My good friend Jon and I have been watching Riff Trax every week. While I thoroughly enjoy the experience, there are some movies we've seen that were not meant for mortal eyes. To whit, Battlefield Earth, Batman and Robin, Plan 9 from Outer Space, Star Wars Holiday Special, and especially Troll 2 should be cremated and rocketed into the cold recesses of space, never to be seen again.

Participated in a parade mostly by accident. Vicki was in the Manassas holiday parade with her girl scout troop. After they passed by our vantage point, I had to get to the end of the route to pick her up. A couple of groups ahead of her was Karen, a good friend of ours. When I caught up with her, she asked me to walk with their group to the end. As the sidewalks were effectively clogged, the only direct path to the end was with the parade, and good company along the way didn't hurt, I took her up on her offer. Incidentally, her group represented her church. So if anyone from my ward saw me walking with them, no, I have not converted.

Speaking of which, I received a new calling at church. I am now the Ward Mission Leader. That means I get to make sure the missionaries in our ward are taken care of and I coordinate ward member missionary activities. It is a daunting task, one that I'm not sure I'm up to, but also one that I'm going to dive into and do my best.

I recently finished the first phase of a project at work that is going to dominate my working life for the next few months. I'm not especially looking forward to the rest of it, but that's the lot I have for now. My company has yet to be purchased. There have been no rumors of layoffs. It looks like I'll be safe for this holiday season. I'm done with classes for my bachelors degree in IT. I now just have 8 elective credit hours to finish. I will be submitting technical certifications as credit and will hopefully have all that done before too long.

I hope everyone is having a pleasant holiday season. It may be a while before I really get any more meaningful posts here.

Welcome to December

Was that a tumbleweed that just rolled by? Yup, this place feels deserted. It's not though, just in hibernation. Here's December's demotivational message to tide you over.

GET TO WORK
You Aren't Being Paid to Believe in the Power of your Dreams.

Yes sir, poster sir! Getting to work!

A Little Bit of Awesome

I know, it's been a while. I'm afraid I don't have time for a proper entry today, either. I just wanted to drop this bit of awesome on your eyeballs, courtesy of Topless Robot. Geek out and enjoy!

The Something of Boris

For those of you that know me, you probably know that I really dig James Bond. That's why I'm fairly excited for The Quantum of Solace coming out this Friday. Here is a sneak peek at the unofficial Quantum of Solace theme song.



Thanks to Clay and Ain't It Cool News.

In case you miss any of the lines:

Lyrics to Quantum Of Solace :
He's got a gun and great big man-tits
He's got jug-ears and tiny trunks
Dame Judi Dench is FURIOUS with him!
He's gone completely out to lunch

The Quantum of Solace! (The Quantum of Solace!)
I don't know what that means! (What does it mean?)

He's having flash-backs in black and white
No more raised eyebrows, no more quips
He's got the stunt team from the Bourne films
and lots of product sponsorship

The Suantum of Quolace! (The Suantum of Quolace!)
Did I get it confused? (I got it mixed-up!)

He's nearly dead or really nearly
It's much more gritty than before
No silly gadgets, just lots more fighting
with that French bloke that does parkour

The Thingy of Whatsit! (The Something of Boris!)
I forgot what it's called! (Is that what it was?)

Sometimes I wish Roger Moore would come back
with an underwater car or some kind of jetpack
or a hover-gondola and a Union Jack
Forget it, mate, it's not the '80s!
He'd rather kick you in the face!
We've got a new Bond for the naughties
because the world's a TERRIBLE place!

The Quantum of Solace! (The Quantum of Solace!)
I've written it down! (I'll remember it now!)

Me No Remember to Post November

I took this back on the third, then promptly forgot to post it. Welcome to November! My favorite part of this one how the picture so aptly enforces the caption.

Halloween Pictures (Finally!)

Finally got around to transferring, editing, and uploading the photos from the different Halloween activities this year.

First up, we have the trunk or treat at our church. We joined up with a friend of ours and her family and came as the characters from Clue. Those of us that weren't characters from the game wore a weapon on the front and a room on the back. It was a lot of fun building the costumes. The payoff was a little more disappointing. The group costume competition at our church is generally pretty fierce, especially between the Waltons (our allies this year) and the Beatty's. However, for the double whammy this year, the Beatty's couldn't make it, and there was no group category. Ah well, the kids had fun anyway.

Next up, we have the 8th Annual Hawks Halloween Party. We had a really good turnout this year with four other families attending. The Waltons were coming, so we all donned our Clue outfits, only to find that there was a little miscommunication and they had decided to come in individual costumes. With less than half of the Clue board represented, our costumes needed quite a bit of explanation. We really slacked off on the pictures this year. I didn't even get a good one of the food spread. The funnest part was using dry ice on our blood and eyeball punch. What I didn't realize is that putting more dry ice in after the bubbles died down would eventually freeze the punch. We had punch-encased chunks of dry ice fused to the bottom of the bowl by the time I was done. Good times. Anyway, the bulk of the pictures were of the apple bobbing, a mainstay of our annual festivities.

Here we have Zoe's costume for her preschool's Bible-themed costume party.

And last we have the girls all dressed up before attacking the neighborhood in some good old fashioned candy extortion.

I was very disappointed in our neighborhood this year. About half of the houses with exterior lights on, the traditional "I'm-giving-out-candy" symbol, didn't answer the door or didn't have candy. Even those were few and far between. The only reason the girls filled their buckets was because everyone was handing out handfuls of candy. They seemed to pick up on the other disappointing trend, a marked decrease in the amount of trick-or-treaters. Last year we had almost 200 kids raid our candy. This year we didn't even get a fourth of that. I'm wondering if it's a cultural thing. One of the houses we stopped at had their lights on, but there was a nice hispanic lady leaving. She nodded to us and directed us to the door, so we figured candy awaited. After waiting for a few moments, a hispanic gentleman came around the corner of the townhouse complex bearing fast food. It looked like he just made a food run. He stuttered out, "Ah! Halloween! Uh, no, uh, candy! Wait, wait, wait!" as he started rooting around in his pockets. I was about to usher the girls away, wanting no part of whatever candy he had stashed there, when I saw what he retrieved. He had a wad of $1 bills, off of which he peeled three notes for my girls. I told him he didn't have to do it, but he insisted. Whether or not the candy was a cultural thing, I'll say this, that was a durn nice thing for him to do.

Anyway, I'm going to get these up on Facebook, too. You should be able to get to larger versions of the pictures by clicking somewhere in the slideshows if you want copies for yourself (I'm looking your way, Mom.) If any of you want originals, let me know in email.

Save The Pie Maker

I don't make impassioned pleas to my extremely limited readership often, except for those begging you not to waste an hour and a half of your life on a worthless movie, but this is different. I'm asking you to spend an hour of your life on a worthwhile TV program.

If you haven't seen it yet, let me tell you about Pushing Daisies. It is whimsical, fun, charming, and unique. The sets, props, and costumes are straight out of the storybooks. The plots are ingenious mysteries that serve to develop and showcase the fantastic characters.

The facts are these...

From Bryan Fuller (Heroes, Wonderfalls) and Barry Sonnenfeld (Men in Black) comes a critically acclaimed series with an unprecedented blend of romance, fantasy and mystery, Pushing Daisies, a forensic fairytale about Ned, a young man with a very special gift.

As a young boy Ned discovers that he can return the dead briefly to life with just one touch. But his random gift isn't without deadly consequences& as he soon finds out. He discovers the rules of his gift early: First touch - alive; second touch - dead again, forever; Keep something alive for more than a minute and something else has to die in its place.

Grown up Ned (Lee Pace) puts his talent to good use by touching dead fruit and making it ripe with everlasting flavor. He opens a pie shop. But his life as a pie maker gets more complicated when private investigator Emerson Cod (Chi McBride) discovers Ned's secret. Emerson convinces the cash-strapped Ned to help him solve murder cases (and collect a hefty reward fee) by raising the dead and getting them to name their killers.

Then Ned is handed the case that changes his life forever. His childhood sweetheart, Charlotte "Chuck" Charles (Anna Friel), is murdered on a cruise ship under strange circumstances. Her death brings him back to his hometown of Coeur d' Coeur to bring Chuck back to life, albeit briefly, and to solve the crime. But once reunited with Chuck, Ned can't bring himself to touch her again.

Chuck becomes the third partner in Ned and Emerson's PI enterprise, but she encourages them to use their skills for good, not just for profit. Ned is overjoyed to be reunited with Chuck, the only girl he's ever loved. Life would be perfect, except for one cruel twist: If Ned ever touches her again, she'll go back to being dead, this time for good.

This season Ned and Chuck's relationship begins to change as Chuck yearns for more independence and moves out of Ned's apartment - without Ned's support. Lovelorn waitress Olive Snook (Kristin Chenoweth) cracks under the pressure of keeping Aunt Lily's (Swoosie Kurtz) deep dark secret -- that Lily is Chuck's mother -- and runs off to a nunnery. Digby gets a new friend when Pigby, a hog with special talents, moves in. And the sudden appearance of mysterious Dwight Dixon (recurring guest star Stephen Root), supposedly an old friend of both Ned's and Chuck's father's, spells trouble for everyone.

Pushing Daisies was nominated for 12 Emmy Awards in its first season. Lee Pace, Anna Friel, Chi McBride, Ellen Greene, Swoosie Kurtz and Kristin Chenoweth star in the visually stunning series from Living Dead Guy Productions, The Jinks/Cohen Company, in association with Warner Bros. Television. Tony winner Jim Dale, reader of the Harry Potter series of audio books, is the narrator. In addition to Fuller and Sonnenfeld, Dan Jinks & Bruce Cohen (Academy Award winning producers of American Beauty) and Peter Ocko (Boston Legal) serve as executive producers.

From ABC's Pushing Daisies Site

Go, click the link and watch an episode or two online. Once you do, go here (http://www.savethepiemaker.com/) and sign the petition to save the show, maybe even send ABC a message via the link under #5. This is the third of Bryan Fuller's series that I has completely absorbed me for an hour every week. I would really love to see this one last.

Oh So Payneful

Stacy and I went on a long-deserved date last week. We had both been interested by the trailers for the latest video-game-turned-movie, Max Payne. Full of action and valkyries, it looked exciting. Valkyries, for those of you that don't know, are the mythical warrior-maidens from Norse mythology that escort fallen warriors off to Valhalla after they die in battle. Valhalla is an eternal battle during the day and endless feasting at night, just what any warrior would relish in the afterlife. Valkyries are traditionally depicted as big, bold, tough, blonde Scandanavians wearing armor and bearing swords (no, the fat opera lady is not what I'm talking about.)

Like This, NOT

Like This, and DEFINITELY NOT

Like This.

While the valkyries in the trailer for the movie looked decidedly un-warrior-maidenlike, I was interested enough to see their variation.

It was a mistake.

I'm going to spoil it for you right now, so you don't get suckered like we did. There are no valkyries. It's all just a stupid hallucination brought on by drugs. Knowing that much and the fact that this movie had a hackneyed plot and you can probably figure out exactly what happens in the movie.

No? Well I'm going to spoil it even further for you now. Only, I'm going to give you the facts straight, unlike the convuluted, nonsensical plot in the movie.

Max Payne (Mark Wahlberg) is a detective relegated to a desk job in cold case after the brutal murder of his wife and baby. Turns out he was just in time to kill two of the three assailants that invaded his home. He has led a secret life pursuing the last killer. He has few friends, an ex-partner (Donal "I'm Awesome But Keep Playing Stupid Parts Like This" Logue) that gets killed by the shady psuedo-organization behind the death of Max's family and his ex-cop, present-exec-at-a-pharmacuetical-company friend (Beau "Dear Lord What Have I Sunk To" Bridges.)

Wait a sec, one of his friends is an exec at a pharmacuetical company? Why, that's questionable right there! There's more! His wife worked at the company. Is it all coming together yet?

No?

Well, allow me to confuse matters a bit. Every time Max gets close to figuring something out about the murder, people get killed. We're led to believe that it's the valkyries doing the killing. The special effects for the valkyries is pretty cool, but ultimately lame by extension of their explanation. No, turns out it's a crazy ex-marine (Amaury "I Hope No One Watches This" Nalasco) hopped up on the drug that exec-friend is shelling out. Highly addictive and a hallucigen, it also makes the user nigh-invincible. Drawback? The hallucinations are always of the valkyries, and terrifying. I've got a few problems with that. Why would it be a popular street drug (and thus motive for the shady goings on I'm about to illuminate) AND why would the hallucinations always be of the same thing? The answer to the first question is simple, because the writer, director, producer, and everyone involved in the creative process of this movie are stupid. The answer to the second is even simpler. They wouldn't be, drugs and hallucinations don't work that way.

On to the stupid conspiracy that you should already see coming from a mile away. Max's wife was about to blow the whistle on the company. Max's exec-friend decided the only way to silence her was to kill her. He's the missing killer Max has been searching for...for...we don't know how long.

We don't know this because the director has no concept of time. We are led to believe that it's been "a long time," yet the house is still cordoned off with police tape, there is no vandalism, and no squatters. Unlikely alone, however, we get the impression from other conversations that Max hasn't been in cold case for long, as well as in his apartment. I think we can guess that for the director, "a long time," is about a month.

Sooooo, Marky Mark Payne doesn't actually figure this out. He is dense enough that when his exec-friend preposterously shows up in the middle of the retarded fight scene with the ex-marine and shoots him cold dead, he still has to be knocked out and explained the entire plot right before he gets "killed" in the frozen river.

Does he die? Oh, you wish. No, he conveniently has a couple of vials of the wunder drug planted in his pocket by his erstwhile killer. Oh yeah, and a B(%^h of an undead wife that won't let him die in peace. "Not yet," my arse, by the time the retarded creative team lets Max finally die, he's not going to want one thing to do with you. Anyway, hopped up on the macguffin, Max single-handedly wades through corrupt and rent-a-cops at the company to reach the exec-friend. Guess what he does there? You got it, the movie is so predictable, Max talks it out with exec-friend rationally and convinces him to turn himself in to the authorities. Roll credits.

Hah.

He kills him, of course. Big whoop.

One other (did I say one? One in a loooong string of many, maybe) beef I have with the movie was Mila "You-Can-Tell-I'm-Tough-Because-I-Glare-In-All-My-Scenes" Kunis. Her character is introduced as the sister of a soon-to-be-dead hot chick (Olga "Way-Too-Hot-To-Have-A-Major-Role" Kurylenko) that can't keep her hands off of Max. Soon-to-be-dead hot chick, that is, not Mila. Naturally, she's pissed that her sister is dead and blames Max. That soon changes after a lazy plot device and she's suddenly eager to help him. Why? Some lukewarm vengeance for her sister or something. Mila kinda sleepwalks through this film, so it's hard to tell. Mila is a badass, though. You know this because she walks around everywhere with a machine gun. I mean everywhere. I'm sure there is a scene on the cutting room floor of her at the laundromat folding her baby-doll Tees with the gun strapped to her side. The problem is that not only is her motive oddly suspect, but her appearances are as well. Midway through the obligatory one-man assault on the evil corporation, she shows up to bail a hallucinating Max out of the hole he's dug himself. Why? What reason would she have to be there? She doesn't know anything about the company or Max's assault. She had no way of knowing where he would be. "I can hold them off for a while, but if you're going to finish this, you have to get up, blabbity-blah." WHY? Oh yeah, Ludacris, Nelly Furtado, and Chris O'Donnell, because, why not?

And that, my friends, is what this movie left Stacy and I saying at the end. WHY? Why did we pay good money to see this piece O hud? Why did anyone finance this stinker? Why did half the things in the movie even happen? Why didn't we walk out? Why is this post so stinking long?

That's it. I could complain about so many more things about this movie, but I won't. Just don't, whatever you do, see this movie. It's not as bad as Babylon A.D., but it's close, real close. I give this half of a hallucinatory valkyrie out of fifteen hallucinatory valkyries on a scale that I just made up that doesn't mean anything.

To the John Moore, Beau Thorne, and Sam Lake. Next time, more supernatural valkyrie, less hackneyed drug-fueled conspiracy.

ITIL Will Drive You Crazy!

Boy, it's been a while. I'm still around. I just finished ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) Foundation training today. It was pretty brutal. I'm also enrolled in my final class at University of Phoenix. It's been pretty intense. I was hoping it would be an easy class with how hard the last few have been, but no luck. Almost done, though. After this class, I've got 8 elective credits I have to try to get through work/life experience. Every certification I get is good for that, thus the ITIL Foundation training. I won't know if I passed the test for another few days. I'm just glad the class is over. One of the entertaining things about the class was the instructor. He kept reminding me of a slightly goofy version of Malcolm McDowell. Is it just me, or does Malcolm McDowell look like he would drive you to the brink of madness after a long quiet conversation?

Let me tell you a little something about Information Technology...that will drive you MAD!