The Ramblings of the Blue Fox

Avatar Review

FurryFoxBoy@gmail.com — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 23:06:47 GMT

I just returned from seeing Avatar. I went alone because there has been such a one-sidedness to this movie that I didn't want to get caught up in the hype of it. I've only been able to find one negative review and all the rest were calling it the best movie they'd seen. I wanted to make sure I wasn't affected by anyone I went to see it with. So, here goes the review. Oh, and there probably will be some spoilers, so fair warning.

Let's just get this out of the way right now. Avatar is gorgeous. It is a work of artistic genius and it all looked incredibly real and blah diddy blah blah and all this has been said before. That being said, nifty special effects do NOT make a great masterpiece, as many many have been calling this movie. More is required for a great movie. Unfortunately, Avatar lacks a lot of qualities needed for me to consider it the "greatest of all time."

Let's go down the list of things lacking in Avatar. The plot is, let's be honest, extremely cliche. I can give it to you in two sentences. A guy is hired to take over an alien body and gain the trust of the alien people so that the humans can get them to move and cut down their sacred tree which has some valuable ore beneath it. The human starts off not caring about the aliens, but eventually learns their ways, falls in love with the chief's daughter, and helps the aliens when the humans try to take the ore by force. This basic plot has been done many times over in other movies.

There are, of course, some minor sub plots, such as the fact that the main character, Jake Sully, is a paraplegic. So, being able to control an alien's body and walk appeals to him. It quickly becomes forgotten and just used as a plot device whenever they need to add drama because Jake can't walk in his human body.

Another problem with Avatar is its incessant user of sterotypical characters. You've got Jake, the stupid marine who can't think for himself until someone tells him to. You've got Grace, the scientist who doesn't want a dumb trigger-happy soldier (she makes many many references to him being some form of trigger-happy) on her team. You have the commander who wants to just blow the damn aliens up, because military guys only want to kill things. Then, you have the Corporate guy who only cares about the money and to hell with morals.

The only character that changes throughout the movie is Jake and he does it in an extremely predictable way. He goes in just wanting to help the Colonel because he was promised he would get to walk in real life if he helped them move the aliens out of the tree. Then he learns the ways of the Na'vi and eventually comes to love the one who'd been teaching him who just happens to be the leader's daughter. He then proceeds to save them from the humans like all heroes do in every movie of this type. I've seen this before and its way overdone.

Finally, this movie is about 40 minutes too long. I don't know why James Cameron insists on doing these long epic movies. Avatar is 2 hours and 40 minutes long. Most of that is taken up by Jake gazing in amazement at everything around him with camera close-ups on his face or showing the landscape for a lot longer than is needed to get the point across. I get it. The world is fantastic. At around the two hour mark, I was just wishing the movie was over.

Okay, so you want the basic summary. Should you see this movie? I'd say yes. The movie does have some high points. I'll admit that there were a few scenes that made me want to shout, "Yeah, take that you fucking humans!" And that sort of made me feel kind of weird, so maybe that's not a positive. Anyway, I focused on the negatives here. I did that because so many reviews are just saying how beautiful this movie is and how its the best ever. Well, it's not the best ever. It's not even close. The Neverending Story and Labyrinth are closer masterpieces than Avatar is and they didn't have extra special effects. But, I will say that if you want to see a fantasy movie that doesn't completely suck, and might even be considered good, you can safely see Avatar. Just don't expect to have your mind blown and have some life altering event like all the other reviewers are saying.

Writer's Block: Take this job and shove it ...

FurryFoxBoy@gmail.com — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 02:23:44 GMT

Have you ever walked off a job on the spot? What drove you to it? Did you regret it afterwards?

Submitted By hisensei808

View 871 Answers

No, but there were many-a-times that I considered it at Kroger. Hated that place.

Damn kids

FurryFoxBoy@gmail.com — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:05:16 GMT

You know...I remember when I was a kid that I couldn't wait to grow up and
do all the stuff adults got to to. They could watch TV late a night, they
could see Rated R movies, drive cars, and do all sorts of stuff. Now that
I'm an adult, I almost wish I were a kid again. Now kids get to do
everything and it annoys the hell out of me. When's the last time you saw a
Rated R action movie come out? It's been awhile! Now they're dumbing down
movies so parents will let their kids see them. Just looks at the latest Die
Hard. It was PG-13! Yeah, it was still pretty good, but i wanted the classic
McClain swearing and violence! And at the latest wrestling Pay-per-view,
there was a ladder match. One of the wrestlers began to bleed and they
stopped the match the glue the cut closed. ON A WRESTLING PPV! I know most
of my friends aren't wrestling fans, but blood has always been perfectly
accepted, but now because they're all PG rated, bloods no longer acceptable.
Do they forget that adults are the ones with money, not the damn kids? Yeah,
parents will give their kids money, but they're less likely to shell out for
frivolous things now with the way the economy is. BRING BACK THE FUCKING
SWEARING AND THE GOD DAMN VIOLENCE! AND THROW IN SOME NUDITY WHILE YOU'RE AT
IT!

Check this guy out.

FurryFoxBoy@gmail.com — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 01:50:42 GMT

Saw this at the Tri County Mall today. The parking lot is completely full and this asshole and his Caddy think they can just take up two parking spots. Took all my will power not to clip him with my truck just for that. Ugh...some people have no consideration for anyone besides themselves.

From Public

WOOO 3G!

FurryFoxBoy@gmail.com — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:01:25 GMT

YAAY! T-Mobile has finally seen fit to bestow upon us, the coveted 3G here
in Cinciland! Looked down at my phone about twenty minutes ago and there's
3G! Unfortunately, it's fairly spotty. Could be because it was just brought
up or perhaps its my location. It keeps dropping the signal to EDGE. I'm
hoping it will improve over the next few days.

RIP, Laptop Hard Drive

FurryFoxBoy@gmail.com — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:07:00 GMT

Well, it didn't last very long. I've had this laptop for less than a year
and my hard drive is already dying. True, the laptop was refurbished, so
that may have contributed to the problem. Two days ago, I started to notice
a rhythmic ticking coming from my laptop. I wasn't sure what it was or where
it was coming from. I ignored if and turned the laptop off completely,
thinking it maybe just needed a rest since I usually keep it on (though I
know I prolly shouldn't. I'm still getting into the habit of putting it into
hibernation). So, yesterday I turn it on and it takes literally ten minutes
to turn on fully. Even then, no matter what I opened would freeze for about
two minutes between button presses. I knew something was wrong and ran a
disk check. It found 90 bad sectors. Alas, those are three symptoms of a
dying hard drive. Luckily, I have SugarSync backup. So, I bought a 320 GB
drive. My old one was 250 and this one only cost me a little over 60, so
it's not a bad deal.

I am hoping that it is indeed my hard drive causing the slow-down problems.
I've had hard drives die before, but they were always secondary drives, so
the only way to know that they died was because you'd get Delay Write Errors
and such. Having never dealt with my OS hard drive dying, I had to look up
the symptoms and they match pretty closely: ticking sounds, the hard drive
activity light on constantly, the disk taking forever to perform an
operation, and bad sectors. Nowadays bad sectors on a hard drive are pretty
rare and for me to have 90, some of which were in the WINDOWS directory,
tells me the hard drive is likely the issue.

Cross your fingers.

Mmm...yummy Japanese

FurryFoxBoy@gmail.com — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 04:51:09 GMT

I took my roommate, Deyna, to Benihana for dinner for his birthday tonight. It was yummy and the time was fun. I got a nice half Dragon Roll and some edamame and Teriyaki Steak was my entree. They even took our picture and printed it for us. It wasn't something I was expecting, but it was a nice touch. And, yes, I spent a little bit of money, but was worth it. He said he had a great time :)

Google and Verizon in Bed Together?

FurryFoxBoy@gmail.com — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:37:56 GMT

You know...I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt when I found
out the Droid was being released with 2.0. I figured other phones wouldn't
be far behind. But, now Google and Verizon have released an update past 2.0.
I'm starting to believe that Google and Verizon really did strike a deal
that would leave the Droid the only Android phone with 2.0, at least until
after Christmas. This sets a dangerous precedent if this happens to be true.
I find it completely unfair that I bought this phone and only a year later
it's already not getting updates. I know I was an early adopter, but I have
another year left on my contract, so there's no way for me to upgrade my
phone. I know that the G1 has the space for 2.0. That has been proven on
other sites.

Its been a couple months since 2.0 was put on the Droid and we still haven't
heard even a rumor that it will be coming to any other Android phones at
all. I'm tired of these "Will so-and-so update be on the G1?" worries. I
bought Android because I was told we would have regular updates to our
phones. It sounded like a great concept. I understand not being able to put
parts of the update on the phone because it doesn't have a specific
hardware, but the G1's guts aren't THAT different from the Droid other than
its total internal ROM. Its also not fair if I'm going to have to wait for
the companies who pay more money to get the updates first. Google needs to
just release the full updates and let each phone company handle the
upgrades. It's like if Dell struck up a deal with Microsoft to have the
Windows 7 Service Pack 2 (when it comes out) put only on their machines for
six months. People would be livid. You can't limit an update that makes
someone's product perform better than it did before because someone paid you
more money.

Again, I have no proof of any of this, but I find it highly suspicious that
they've already released Android 2.0.1 for the single phone that has 2.0
already and no other phones have even gotten 2.0 yet. I've been extremely
disappointed with the lack of communication about upcoming updates in
regards to Google and T-Mobile. They know that G1 and MyTouch users are
worried they won't get the update. It's all over the message boards. Would
it be so difficult to just come out and say "Hey, don't worry, we haven't
forgotten you guys. You'll get the update." ? But, they don't. The past two
updates, we haven't known we'd get it until after they started pushing it
out to our phones. Come on, Google. Get it together.

Star Trek Online has a Release Date!

FurryFoxBoy@gmail.com — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:13:45 GMT

Star Trek Online now has a release date! It will beam down February 2nd,
2010. Oh hell YEAH I'm buying that game. I've been following its development
and it looks utterly amazing. I can not wait to play this. Unfortunately,
I'll end up turning into one of those WOWzer people who just sit in front of
their computer hacking away at things all day. The difference is I'll be
phasering away at them instead. From what I can see, it doesn't look like
this is going to be another Star Wars Galaxy disaster. I hope I'm right.

FurryFoxBoy@gmail.com — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:27:07 GMT

I used to be a huge Christmas celebrationist. I'm sad to say that with the
Christmas Creep (seriously, fucking Hobby Lobby had Christmas crap in
freaking August!), I am not excited for Christmas. I actually dread it now
and that makes me really sad. I have typed out my reasons in previous years.
I liked it more due to the family traditions and remembering my childhood
and how magical the time was. But...due to the retailers shoving it down our
throats, I just can't find the excitement anymore. It makes me really
depressed to say that. Good work, retailers. You killed me Christmas Spirit.

The final straw was the fact that Halloween hadn't even ended and I was
seeing Christmas Commercials. I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few
out even before the 31st. I could handle some stores having small Christmas
aisles and such, but...I can't abide watching two months of Christmas
commercials since I can't avoid them. Its even worse when they all have snow
and stuff in them and it's like 65 degrees out.

What's next? I mean, at this rate, we are literally only years away from
stores just having a year-round Christmas section. It makes me sick to my
stomach to think of such a thing. I realize that stores need to make money
and stuff, but do they really think people forget that Christmas is coming?
Do they really need to capitalize on it so fucking early every year? Back
when my parents were kids, they didn't even consider doing Christmas
shopping until probably a few weeks before Christmas. And, I'm fine with
Christmas "starting" the day after Thanksgiving. That's when it SHOULD
start. Thanksgiving is to Christmas like the Royal Rumble is to
Wrestlemania. Thanksgiving begins the Road to Christmas. Now, Christmas
starts two, three months early for some stores. This year seems particularly
bad and i think its because retailers saw their sales dip quite a bit last
year and they wanted to get even more money this year, hence the "Black
Friday" sales every god damn weekend until BLACK FRIDAY.

Do retailers not realize that by having Black Friday sales on days that
AREN'T Black Friday, that they're going to not have anyone buying shit on
BLACK FRIDAY?!

Diet milestone!

FurryFoxBoy@gmail.com — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 01:50:13 GMT

So, being sick really sucks, but it does apparently help you over that plateau. As of yesterday when I weighed myself, I have lost ten pounds! That's right, ten pounds in essentially a month and a half (I started dieting on September 28th). I noticed today that a pair of my jeans that was normally kinda tight on me needs a belt or it slips down! 35 left to go!

Sick...

FurryFoxBoy@gmail.com — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:29:45 GMT

I've been sick since Tuesday evening...it sucks.

Another Blow to Scientology

FurryFoxBoy@gmail.com — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:21:30 GMT

Well, well, well...look how the mighty corrupt are falling. Scientology has
taken a major shot today as is evidenced by this letter written by writer
Paul Haggis. I am very outspoken in my disdain for Scientology. Personally,
I won't hold back even if I meet someone who is a Scientologist, though I've
never met one (lucky for them). So, I hope that having this letter publicly
publishes will get more people to focus on this cult.

http://gawker.com/5389594/oscar+winner-paul-haggis-publicly-resigns-from-church-of-scientology-over-gay-rights

Unfortunately, most Scientologists are discouraged, and sometimes outright
denied, access to the internet or newspapers because the upper level fear
them reading articles like this and putting two-and-two together. Another
thing that happened recently is that the official Scientology spokesperson
stormed off of the set of a new interview when he was asked if his religion
believes in Xenu. Xenu supposedly came to Earth 75 million years ago and had
a battle with those who opposed him and buried them in volcanoes and now
they are inside everyone. The spokeperson also denied that the church has an
official disconnection policy, which is bullshit.

Here's hoping they get taken down majorly hard really soon. I'm tired of
being outraged at those bastards.

I have Google Voice Invites!

FurryFoxBoy@gmail.com — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:52:40 GMT

Well, it seems Google has seen fit to bestow upon me a few invites to their
Google Voice service. If you're interested in trying it out, shoot me a
reply and I'll send you out an invite. I will accept gifts and money to put
you to the top of the list :3

Smackdown vs Raw 2010 better than last year?

FurryFoxBoy@gmail.com — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:10:07 GMT

Yes. I would say that SvR 2010 is a bit, if not much, better than last
year's installment. Everything is crisper and the animations are easily more
fluid. They also got rid of that annoying UAC thing that took up two strong
grapple slots. A couple things I'm not happy about followed by somethings I
AM happy about:

1 :( You only have one grapple (instead of three) for when a user is on the
mat and you try to grapple the head or legs.
1:) You can easily flip a wrestler from their back to their stomach and vice
versa. There are are also side grapples now.
2 :( Because everything in the Create a Superstar section is made in 3D, the
limitations are pretty stiff. Just having hair takes up half of your limit
of 32 points and jackets take up about a third, leaving you to possibly not
be able to wear pants. Oh yeah, and they took away all of the patterns for
the tights!
2 :) The hair looks a lot better now. I can actually TELL what almost
everything is supposed to be whereas in years past, there were many
accessories that left me scratching my head as to what they were supposed to
be.
3 :) The training area at the beginning is cool and is good for new users
and for trying out a superstar to see what their moves are.
3 :( The training area doesn't let you choose Created Wrestlers...for some
reason...
4 :) The Story Mode is pretty cool and lets you do most things.
4 :( It's still pretty basic, though, takes forever to make a single show,
and doesn't let you preview the "chapter" you just made. You're forced to
accept the show completely before you can preview everything, there's no way
to preview a single scene. It also took me a long time to find a scene where
my wrestler was being beaten up backstage by a single guy. I had to trim the
talking parts from the beginning and it still didn't look right because Edge
was holding a microphone in the backstage area.
5 :) You can create up to four attires for a created wrestler, which is
something I've been wanting for AGES ever since No Mercy on the Nintendo 64
had it.
5:( There's a glitch in the game that if you create a second attire for a
created wrestler, it resets your attributes and moves, so if you spent two
hours playing around with your wrestler and then created a new attire, it's
possible it may reset them, so you have to set everything all over again.
6 :( They took all of the first names from the Created Wrestler area. It
used to be that you could assign James to your wrestler and when he came
out, the announcer would say "Making his way to the ring: James!" So, they
removed all of those and left us with stupid generic nicknames that I'd
hardly ever use.
7 :( The Create an Entrance section remains practically untouched. The
system isn't revamped so that you can have fireworks carry on to other
sections and they still have that maddening Champion Entrance thing where
you're basically forced to use the entrance of a pre-existing wrestler
instead of making your own.
8 :) The Create a Titantron feature is awesome and is something I've been
wanting for awhile. It lets you take Highlight Reels you saved from your
matches and put them into a video editor to make your own entrance video. It
looks realy sweet to see your guy some out to a custom video finally.
9 :( :( :( There have been reports that the Create a Story mode had a limit
of 10 appearances of any CAW in a story. So, if I were to put Jim Lex in ten
scenes, that would be it. I wouldn't be able to have any more CAW
appearances from anyone. That's a real ridiculous limit to put on the
biggest feature in a game with the tag-line of "It's Your World Now". I
haven't reached the limit yet, so here's hoping it just means I'm not
allowed to upload it (which I didn't plan on anyway)

Well, I should get back to work, so that's all I've got. In closing, once
again THQ appears to have done what they do every year. They've added some
cool stuff and taken away things that people loved and relied upon. Sure,
the new CAS mode with the 3D objects looks great, but now I can't make some
of my wrestlers because of the limits with the Points system. Still, I would
say it is much better than last year's game. We'll have to see if there are
any obvious bugs to aggravate me.

That Little Gecko Rocks

FurryFoxBoy@gmail.com — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:46:31 GMT

When they say "Fifteen Minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car
insurance", they're not kidding. They actually saved me 35%! I got discounts
for being an experienced driver of like 150 bucks. I love the gecko.

Woo! Door Handle Works!

FurryFoxBoy@gmail.com — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 22:25:41 GMT

Woo! I fixed the door handle in my truck today ^_^ Well, okay, I watched as my dad did a lot of the work, but I did unscrew a lot of the bolts! And now I have a fully functional door handle and no longer have to roll down my window to open the door from the outside :)

It's Actually Working

FurryFoxBoy@gmail.com — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:47:23 GMT

Wow...it's been exactly three weeks since I started really watching my diet.
I expected to have lost a pound or two at the most by this point, but...I
started seeing results within the first couple days. I am proud to say that
I've now lost a total of 7.5 pounds in 21 days. I owe it all to keeping
myself under 1952 calories a day. I've cut out snacks in between meals and
I've cut down my portion sizes. I think I may have mentioned this before,
but I used to eat way too much in one sitting without realizing I was full.
So, I'd make soup, which is fairly healthy in itself, but then I'd make a
sandwich, have some macaroni salad, have some chips, and have some fruit or
some sort all in one meal. So, while all of those things individually aren't
that bad, I'd eat them all at once and my body wouldn't tell me to stop
until after I was full.

I knew I needed to get my mind out of the habit of making my eyes bigger
than my stomach, so my strategy was to only eat microwave dinners for
awhile. True, there is a LOT of sodium in those things, but I needed a
control. I could tell myself that I would ONLY eat the dinner. If I was
still hungry afterward, I could always make something else. But I came to
find that once i finished, I WASN'T hungry. Now, I find myself starting to
feel fuller faster than I would before, almost as if my conditioning
actually worked. I can more accurately gauge how hungry I actually am while
keeping under my daily calorie intake.

My pants feel noticeably looser and I will be so happy once a particular
pair of pants get too big for me. Basically, that was the day I knew there
was a major problem. I went shopping for pants and came to find that no
longer could I even close size 32 pants. Even 34's felt tight. I had to buy
a pair of size 36 pants. So, these pants are my catalyst and I will gladly
donate these once they stop fitting.

I think this time is going to be different. I've discovered the root cause
of my problem and it seems that I am working quickly to fix my eating
problem. I am not even doing any extra special exercise and I've lost 7.5
pounds, so just imagine what I'll do once I can motivate myself to go to the
gym again. The site I'm using is great and isn't a pain in the ass to use
like the past couple were, which discouraged me from using them. It's also a
huge help that it has an iPod app I can use to keep track of my calorie
intake anywhere i have wi-fi. I have 37.5 pounds left until I reach my goal
of 140 lbs. If I keep going at this rate, I'll have met my goal in about 5
months. So, I'm hoping in time for my 25th birthday, I will have reached
back to 140 and can begin to work on maintaining my body.

Also, if you're interested, you can keep track of my progress by going to
http://dailyburn.com/locker_room/duffin.

Obama's Adorable

FurryFoxBoy@gmail.com — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:47:26 GMT

I know that Obama has taken lots of hits from both sides of the aisle for
various reason, but...you can not deny that we have one of the most "with
it" presidents in recent memory. Can you imagine Bush making a joke about
Lady Gaga at a Human Rights Campaign assembly before vowing to end the
don't-ask-don't-tell rule in the military? Fuck no, you can't and don't even
try. The universe would implode. And do you think Bush even knows that a
Blackberry is? Probably thinks it "Them juicy things that stain yer fangers
when ya eat 'em."

I still heart Obama. Sure, he hasn't made good on all of his campaign
promises, but for fuck's sake, people...can we at least give him a year or
two before we start accusing him of renegging on his promises? He's not
Jesus, you know. And I'd like to see a list of all of the promises Bush made
that he never even MENTIONED after being elected.

FurryFoxBoy@gmail.com — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:18:15 GMT

You know what really pisses me the fuck off? Assholes who try to pass you in one lane 25 MPH speed zones. Fuck you people! Excuse me for not wanting to get a ticket on those speed traps. Oh, and you think I'm going to let you pass me? Fuck no! Then, they have the gall to give me a dirty look or flip me off when I don't let them pass me so they can go 55 MPH and not get a god damn ticket (since they never do). Fuck them. And, yes, I realize the irony of speeding up to stop someone from speeding. It's just one of those things that bugs the fuck out of me. Two lanes? Fine, go ahead and pass me. But, I'm not going to let some shit head pass me over a double yellow line like I WANT to go 25 MPH.

Its working!

FurryFoxBoy@gmail.com — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 11:04:54 GMT

I just weighed myself and I've gone from 185 to 181! That's four pounds since I started paying extremely close attention on September 24th. I'm so excited. The only thing I've really changed so far is keeping track of my eating. I've also combatted my problem of eating way more than I need to because I think I'm really hungry. The way I fixed this was to buy microwave dinners. They're designed to sate one's appetite, so I told myself that I would only make one of these. If I was still hungry when I finished, I could always make something else. Lo and behold, when I finished, I wasn't hungry. I think this has jump-started my body. I find myself starting to realize that I don't need as much food whereas before, I couldn't really tell based on my hunger. I think I could actually get back down to a healthy weight!

Review: Relapse by Eminem

FurryFoxBoy@gmail.com — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 19:41:22 GMT

Really? I'm going to review an Eminem album? Yup. I like Eminem. He's "dope"
as the kids like to say these days. Okay, seriously. Yes, I've liked Eminem
ever since I heard his Marshal Mathers LP album when I was a bit younger. At
first, I was all giddy because of the swearing since most of the music I'd
heard up to that point was pretty kid-friendly. Since that album, I had
been disappointed in most of his work. Sure, the soundtrack to 8 Mile had
some classics such as "Lose Yourself", but I missed the hardcore stuff he
did in Marshall Mathers LP. I didn't even listen to Encore. Well, if you
thought that him getting clean would clean up the rest of him, you'd be
wrong. Relapse is once again rife with the outlandish rape, violence, and
pill-popping you've come to expect from Eminem. The premise of the album is
that Eminem just left rehab and immediately goes into relapse, hence the
title. 3 AM chronicles Eminem (or is it Slim Shady?) waking up from a drug
bender to find a bunch of dead bodies in his house without knowing how they
go there. In My Mom, he raps about his mother force-feeding him prescription
pills as a child. My favorite line of this song is ""All right, Ma, you win
/ I don't feel like arguin' / I'll do it, pop it, gobble it, and start
bobblin' / Stumble, hobble, tumble, slipped, fell in bed / with a bottle of
meds / and a Heath Ledger bobblehead." A lot of people have been offended or
outraged by this line, but I don't think Eminem meant it in an offending
way. I think it was meant more as a parallel to his tough childhood and
Heath Ledger's sudden and unexpected pressure in his life.
One of the songs I simply don't find appealing on this album is called "We
Made You." First of all...it features Jessica Simpson on the backup vocals
to the song and doesn't sound like her at all. This seems very strange to
me, considering all of the times Eminem has trashed her and all of the other
pop singers like Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears. I'm unsure as to why
he would choose to have her sing, but the whole song just doesn't work for
me. It doesn't add anything and it just another outlet for him to go after
Kim Kardashian, Ellen DeGeneres and Sarah Palin. I don't know WHY he's
mentioning Kardashian so much in this album, but there are multiple
references. I don't even know who she is, really.
About halfway through the album, Eminem overdoses and passes out in his
bathroom and is taken to the hospital. This is the turning-point of the
album. After this, the album goes more into a moral-of-the-story type of
situation. He raps about how he's yet again cleaned up his act. Careful What
You Wish For ends the album explaining what happened to him in the four
years after his previous album. He even makes a good point about when a fan
wrote him while he was in rehab, saying that he was praying for Eminem. He
says back:
Why would someone pray for you when they don't know you?
You didn't pray for me when I was local
And as I lay these vocals
I think of all the shit I had to go through
Just to get to where I'm at
I've already told you at least

A thousand times in these rhymes
I appreciate the prayer, but I already got
God on my side

I feel this. So many people care waaaay too much for these artist they've
never even met. What makes Eminem so special? Would you be praying for him
if he weren't a rapper and was just some homeless guy in rehab? Nope.
As is pretty obligatory in most Eminem albums, he makes repeated references
to current celebrities. In Bagpipes from Baghdad, he is locked in Mariah
Carey's wine cellar and makes threats to Nick Cannon (who I guess is going
out with Mariah. I don't really know) because he wants Mariah back again
after she broke up with him. Same Old Song and Dance (which, to me seems
like a sarcastic title) is the "Just Lose It" of Relapse where he rapes
about killing Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears. It doesn't seem to
completely fit the tone of the album and almost feels as if he put it in
there because he felt he had to.
One of the things I've always admired about Eminem are the beats he uses in
his songs. I hate most rap because the beats are all rehashed from old songs
or musicals or nursery rhymes. But Eminem's tend to be very inventive and
most are original. Some are catchy and some are down-right grating and
dirty. My Mom is a great example of a catchy song. Then, you have a song
like Underground with the hard bass sounds and the deep strings.
Relapse is definitely Eminem trying to go back to his roots by bringing back
the Mass Murdering Slim Shady while at the same time trying to show how life
changing drug abuse can be. It did speak to me and I do like how he tried
his best to make sure that none of the songs in the album were
radio-friendly (though I've heard that somehow they put Crack-a-Bottle on
the radio. Must have bleeps every other word). On the downside, some of the
songs are a lot more of Eminem just trying too hard to offend people. When
he first showed up on the scene, rapping about a kid being butt-raped or
murdering everyone in a McDonald's would have people up in arms.
Nowadays...well, most people have heard that before. He's been away for four
years and most of the Mainstream Media has forgotten about Eminem. He's not
controversial anymore. Just look at what happened when Sasha Cohen came down
and fell on Eminem during the VMA awards or whatever. It was mentioned for
maybe a week. I don't really think Eminem can be controversial anymore, but
that's fine. He doesn't need to be. Relapse would be just as powerful
without him constantly going after celebrities. I just wish he'd realize
that. Now, I'm waiting for the second album to drop.

FiOptics! Ho yeah!

FurryFoxBoy@gmail.com — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:39:25 GMT

So, I found out that we may be getting the new Cincinnati Bell fiber service
in our apartment complex. There's a meeting this evening where I'm assuming
they will gauge interest in the service and I hope everyone shows up in
droves. They call it FiOptics and it offers a minimum of 10 megs upload/10
megs download for 85 bucks a month. Oh yeah, and that includes TV (no
satellite needed) and a year of DVR! So, let's see what we've got here: with
Time Warner Cable, I get like 6 MB download, 500-something kb upload and
cable TV for 97 bucks a month. Or I can get 10 MB up/10 MB down and the same
channels (even a couple more that TW doesn't carry) for ten bucks LESS.

Time Warner has got problems. I hope they're scared by this. If they can get
fiber set up all of Cincinnati, Time Warner's going to have some serious
competition. I'm already considering the switch. I'm going to talk with a
co-worker that already got the service and see what he thinks of it.

Un...fucking...believable.

FurryFoxBoy@gmail.com — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:07:15 GMT

Why the fuck is it that the Bengals always fucking suck ass against teams like the Broncos and the Lions, but when they face actual good teams, they win? It pisses me the fuck off! You can't ever figure out what tema you're going to get if you bet with them or against them! Argh!

FurryFoxBoy@gmail.com — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 18:36:31 GMT

Just work up. God damn it! I fucking hate waking up this late on my days off. It wastes the whole fucking day!