JsARCLIGHT

Technically rap was around at the same time as hair bands... it's just that while rap went "gangsta" hair bands went grunge. Then grunge went industrial/techno and then it went metal and now it's this weird sort of alterna-pop. I myself hate "gangsta" rap but in the late '80s / early '90s when in the army I was in an almost all black platoon and I grew very fond of that era's hip hop. It was after that that rap became all about popin' caps in people and gang bangin'... before that it was fairly neat. I think that is why to this day I like crossover bands like Outkast and the Gorillaz.

I bought a few new CD's lately, I reccomend them highly to those who like the artists: - New Order Waiting for the Siren's Call - Gorillaz Demon Days - David (Bowie) Live (fairly new 2 disc remastered set)

I think the current "criteria" of either A) saying something stupid yet memorable B) being a total doorknob in a thread and getting slapped with a custom title befitting your actions or C) having some sort of quirk or habit that befits a strange custom title should remain. How long someone is here or how visible they are should not really be a factor... after all, I personally find it hilarious when one day someone who was being a complete asshat in a thread shows up with a custom member title befitting their boorish behaviour... I wonder who I'm talking about?... or someone giving a little too much "exposure" on the message board. I think it would take a lot of the humor and fun out of it if all of a sudden people start showing up with nonsensical or uber indie joke titles like "hong kong phooey" and stuff. The rest of the members may not know or have had a chance to know what it is all about. I like the idea that the custom titles are sort of "inside jokes" but they all stemmed from something that happened on the boards to a good degree and most people can look at someone's custom title and remember those fond memories of tomfoolery. Edit: I think what I'm trying to say is it is not too interesting to just have people randomly PMing mods saying "so and so should have 'I like small goats" because it just doesn't "speak" to the current fun on custom titles. I think the only way to get a custom title should still be how it has been done in the past... I think the whole PM a mod with suggestions thing should require "proof". IE, if you see member A say something in a thread like "I used to wash koalas" then PMing a mod asking them to give member A the title "Koala Washer" and refferencing the thread he said that in would give more "validity" to the custom titles. Then again I'm bit of a tard when it comes to "tradition".

I can only imagine how much more headstrong Agent One would be now if he where Agent One AND a marine. I think it's nice this thread popped up, I've always wondered how many current and ex armed forces folks we have on here. I know a few but I don't know everyone. I've always been a staunch believer that us current and former mil folks need to stick together. And especially on this day of all days we need to remember our brothers who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our country. Edit: me spel bad. no slep.

4 years army, 1st Armored Div (88-92) 1-1 Cav Blackhawks, Bandit Troop MOS 19D AKA "A Schmuck in a Truck". Drove through some nice places in Germany and some not so nice places in the middle east. Retired, needless to say.

I noticed that the other day and about spit my drink out on my monitor. I think the member titles are funny... most people who have one got it not thinking they where going to get one so I think that tradition should continue. ... and am I the only one having flashbacks of the "pledge naming ceremony" in Animal House?

If anything I had to talk him into scaling back his ambitious thoughts into a form we mere mortals could read and understand. I was pushing blog while he was thinking 6 film epic starring the Oak.

Muuu Haa Haaaa Haaaaaa Haaaaaaaaaaaa! It begins... Edit: I predict it will have more hits than a bong at Woodstock.

And yet he loves to play to the foreign press and hold out hope for critical acclaim at Cannes...

I'd say all the lauding and heaping of "records broken" upon ROTS is not only manufactured success but it may have an alterior motive. Considdering that ROTS most likely stands to win about zero oscars this is the only winning this movie will do. In the end I think that George would rather have another half billion in the bank than a stupid gold statue on his mantle... no matter how much the love of the hollywood snob soceity warms the heart of directors, cash in the bank and records set at the box office keep them in silks and villas far longer. And seeing as how George has been to that podium to claim a tiny gold man all of zero times I think that he prefers these hollow records to actual awards.

I had one of the original "pong" decks that could only play different versions of pong... no carts, no nothing... the darn rollers where built into the deck, too! Now THAT was a crappy game even back then. I did have one quesiton though: so modern gen console systems are only 640x480 res? Why are they not 720x480 or NTSC 720x486?

Hollywood cares... and when hollywood cares, copies are made. The SOP in Hollywood is to copy copy and copy again movies that make money, put butts in seats and turn heads. The continuing sucess of movie chains like Star Wars makes hollywood think that they should pursue other sequels and trilogies of like matieral... but unlike the successes hollywood tries to make more money with their copies by cheaping out. It's always interesting to pay attention to the massive hits as they tend to create the trends we the movie viewing public must stomach for the next few years.

Take it up with the people at The Numbers. Have to hand it to them though, they are one of the only accurate movie budget and profit/loss info sites on the net. They plan to change the top chart to reflect adjusted dollars soon but when you think about it that "isn't fair" in comparing movies. The total tickets sold chart below is the one to watch as it IS an accurate reflection of how well the movies do and how popular they are. Money is money and can be fudged quite easily but butts in seats is a number that can't.

Seeing as this thread already exsists I might as well dump these guys here. Star Wars Movie performance of the past (old movies not adjusted for inflation). This chart should update itself as more time and money rolls in. Star Wars movie actual ticket sales versus days in release, this is a bit more accurate of a barometer of how the various SW movies performed over time. This graph should also update itself as time passes. This info is from: The Numbers Study on ROTS As it stands ROTS has failed to break only one record, held by Spiderman still and it is on track to break about four more records. ROTS has already begun to turn a profit as it's production budget is rumored to be $115 mil. Ads and print budget is most likely astronomical but with $300 mil already in international market sales this movie will turn such a profit that it will make previous box office babies like Shrek 2 cower. The real hard egg to crack will still be Titanic. I'd rather see this sucker gain that slot and bump that darn movie out finally.

Well, if I simply must pick a side then I guess I have to fall on the side I'm leaning towards anyhow: which is liking it with reservations. I mean, it wasn't a totally terrible movie like Ewe Bol's House of the Dead (which I accidentally watched on cable a few weeks back... ugh it was so bad I think it gave me cancer). I just think Lucas should have stuck to thinking the big thoughts and letting someone with actual directing and scriptwriting talent massage his grand visions into more palatable final versions. You have to admit that just like TPM and AOTC, ROTS has dialogue so horrid it cuts beef with the blunt end. I think I winced on a few lines.

I saw RotS opening night with my wife but have avoided posting in these threads. I used to be a giant SW dork, complete with toy colleciton. I never quoted yoda or owned a lightsaber or wore a stormtrooper costume but I still thought of myself as a SW dork... until the prequels came out. I completely lost faith in SW after TPM and lost even more after AOTC. I sort of grudgingly went to see this last one just to have "closure" on the story... plus my wife went and got tickets for us before I could tell her to wait until later so we don't have to fight the crowds and sit with the lightsaber wavers. To my happiness the theater we went to was not that crowded, there where no dorks in costume and no one had a plastic lightsaber. My thoughts on the movie are still forming in my brain but for the most part I liked it... there where a lot of things both my wife and I thought were terrible (such as Lucas' seeming inability to craft dialogue that does not come off as stilted). All in all it still fits with the other two prequel movies in look and pacing but it seems that Lucas substituted "dark" for "upbeat" in this last one. Other than the tone of the movie I did not see a whole lot that differed thematically from the other two prequels. I sort of wish he would have handed the script and directing duty off to someone else so we could have a slightly alternate take on things for the final chapter but I guess Lookie only trusted himself to do the final round. All in all I give the movie a closed fist... not a thumbs up or a thumbs down, just a neutral. A lot of the movie went against what I thought should have happened but then again you can't hold that against the movie. My wife really didn't like it that much as her favorite new trilogy character, Padme, was changed from a strong charactered female lead into a whimpering stereotype. As for all the stuff about how the movies butt together now that the story arc is complete... meh. I bet people are still trying to figure out where that kid that became the new Jason in Friday the 13th the New Beginning went to between the end of that movie and the start of the next one. I think any gaps or inconsistencies in the story after all this will be swept up in the TV show that is planned.

I originally was not impressed with the PSP and was going to avoid it. I played a co-worker's PSP who had Ridge Ricer and a few other games and while it was "neat", the games did not grab me. I was all set to put it out of my mind and move on to other things when I sadly had to ask if he had any other games... then I played Lumines and was hooked. I had to go out and buy a PSP and lumines. I also bought Metal Gear Ac!d but that game does not really "do it" for me. Anyone want to trade? Straight up 1 for 1, PM me with what PSP games you want to trade.

Does anyone have any data on material costs of the "days of yore" cartridge games of the '80s and '90s that cost $50+ versus the modern days of CD and DVD games that cost $50? I'd imagine that the actual production costs to make, package and produce for sale a video game title today (excluding the actual programming and design of the game mind you) cost far less than it did a while back. These numbers may not be accurate but someone told me long ago that it used to cost a game maker like $12 or so to manufacture the game cart, package and such whereas it costs a modern maker like $2 to press the CD and make the package. Any info on this? I know it's "fiddling small change" in the scope of the cost of the game but when it comes down to it games are like movies, volume sells. I just wonder how much of the current price of a game is "hard overhead" and how much actually is "profit" and at what sale point a game becomes profitable? After all, unlike movies where butts in seats equal profit in the game world they "pre-sell" their product to stores who in turn sell it to us... so in a sense, game makers make a fixed dollar amount in sales out of the gate and if a game is popular then they stand to make even more. I guess a lot of the "Suck" games bank on the distributors buying a certain amount automatically so they budget their overhead accordingly, thus turning a profit even if the game tanks.

I remember paying abput $50 for Pac Man and other Atari 2600 games back in the early '80s... if you consider inflation and the loss of value of the american dollar technically games are cheaper today than they where when I was a kid buying $50 Atari games. $50 was a ton of loot back in 1981, $50 today is nothing.

I second. ... plus Agent One: The Real Life Experience is only available on PC!

In case anyone cares I heard Ridley Scott was on (gasp) Hannity and Colmes a few days ago and Hannity tried to rope him into saying his movie was islam bashing, "islam are the bad guys", how he was making some sort of parallel to modern times, etc. etc. etc. Ridley said "it's just a movie". I agree with Mr. Scott. This is a movie about a period in history that has very little to do with the modern world. Yes the movie has christians and muslims but they are not really the same people they are today. This thread is reminding me of all the antisemetism that Passion of the Christ supposedly spurred on.

I had one of those plastic non-collapsing ones back in I think 1980... when you swung it around like a mouth-breather it made a whistling/humming noise. I fondly remember bashing several things with it back then. Nowadays I feel like Graham does... sure they are neat and all but owning one, and admitting to it, is like shooing a giant dork flare into the sky for all to see. Plus with as much as those things cost my money is better spent buying things that go bang or parts for the cars. $300 is an awful lot of money for what is basically a glorified paperweight.

I wholeheartedly agree that it could have been much, much worse. Imagine if Bruckhiemer got ahold of it (cold shudder). As for Alan Rickman (Marvin), I actually thought he did a pretty good job. Out of all the main characters I found Mos Def and Alan Rickman to be the most "true" to what I imagined the characters to be like. Having seen it twice in such short order I picked up a lot more of the nuances of the actor's performances the second time around... outside of the terribly re-purposed Zaphod (see prior post for what I mean) most of the actors filled their roles well enough. The "new characters" where so periphery and boiled down to plot points rather than characters so it was not really so bad that they where mucking about in the movie. And I did catch my wife singing "so long and thanks for all the fish" this morning while waiting for her bagel to pop out of the toaster.

I think the point he was making was that it is a cop-out that for almost all of the movie, save a handfull of scenes in close proximity, Zaphod only has one head and two arms. I personally am in the camp that they did not want to blow the budget on a third CG arm and a second CG head for the whole movie... that would have changed their effects shot count into double if not triple what it probably was. SPOILERS FOLLOW, highlight to read: Personally I saw the whole "losing the second head and arm" in exchange for the gun thing as a complete story cop-out just so they could have a one headed, two armed, stupid texan Zaphod. Oh and my wife believes this was done so they could poke fun at a certain globally unpopular president rather than follow the true character of Zaphod. Just look at many key scenes in the movie and many key lines and it becomes quite apparent that the big Z is just a walking talking insult joke rather than the character he originally was.

IMHO actually having read the books hurts your take on the movie as soon as Arthur and Ford get aboard the Heart of Gold... right about that point the movie goes left and the books go right. I stick to my thought that the people who have never read the books will get the most out of this movie as they will not cringe at every cut down joke and have their stomach turn at every missed story piece that could be sort of important SPOILER: (highlight to read) Like the whole towel thing... they never explain it in the movie. The books have a good paragraph plus dedicated to the reasoning behind the towels. The movie just glosses over it in a poorly delivered spot between Ford and Arthur and the audience never learns why the towel is so important. If they intended this to be an inside joke that is one thing but it sure as hell ruins elements of the story... then again that is just one of the many stumbled sections they fail to elaborate on.