The local Baton Rouge newspaper (and my part-time employer), The Advocate, stated today that it is considering ceasing to print the comic strip "Peanuts." The strip has been a painful regurgitation of unfunny bile since its creator Charles Schultz died. Not only that but "Ziggy" and "Family Circus" may also get an overdue axing. Hooray! Better late than never, The Advocate editors. This is by far the best editorial decision ever made.
As you may recall, a long time ago I wrote an article on this site expressing my displeasure with the Peanuts strip.
I wanted to put this list out before the Oscars, but oh well. It must be noted that this list only contains movies I actually saw. So if you are wondering where "There Will be Blood," "Juno" or "the Diving Bell and the Butterfly" are, I have not yet had the opportunity to see them yet (and there's no way "Juno" is funnier than "Superbad.")
2007 was definitely the year of suspense thriller, low-brow comedy, and low budget indie inspiration. This year I at least agree with the Academy on "No Country for Old Men." That film is the most complete film I've seen in a long time. It's screenplay is sharply well-written, it's acted perfectly, and it was shot beautifully with brilliant composition making great use of scale, silhouette, and scenery.
I disagree with the Academy whole-heartedly with completely snubbing Fincher's suspense masterpiece, Zodiac (and nominating the yawn-fest, "Michael Clayton" instead). This is by far Fincher's crowning achievement in what has already been a brilliant career. Zodiac surely suffered from it's March release date. It fell off of the radar having been released in film's no man's land. The Academy also goofed big time but not giving The King of Kong a best documentary nomination. This is without a doubt the best documentary I have ever seen. It is engaging and universal. It's a shame that just because it doesn't some left wing agenda, it can't be nominated for best documentary.
Also tomorrow night ICON Studios will be in Lafayette for the Grinder Creative Arts Expo. Grinder: Creative Arts Expo is a gathering of creative individuals in an effort to inform, educate and inspire the creative spirit. Grinder is held every four months at Grant Street Dancehall in Downtown Lafayette on the second Saturday (Art Walk). Doors open at 8pm.
This week I reached a “virtual” milestone.One of my videos on my YouTube account has recorded over 10,000 views.That’s a lot of views seeing as how all of my other videos combined don’t have that many views, and the most views any of my other videos has is a couple hundred.Like I said, it’s a lot.I bet you’ve never even counted to 10,000 before!
So, what is this video?Is it something I meticulously planned?Is it something I carefully wrote, edited and put many hours or even days of work into?Of course not!That wouldn’t be the Internet we know and secretly browse when we should be working.No, the only video the Internet would deem worthy watching over 10,000 times is of course silly, unnecessary, and a little embarrassing.
It all began when my wife bought me a replica lightsaber for my birthday in 2006.You may have seen this particular lightsaber if you came to our wedding.It was displayed next to my Darth Vader groom’s cake.Well, Christin thought I didn’t like my present since she never saw me play with it.So one night while she was teaching dance I decided to make a video of me playing with the lightsaber.We have this workout video game called Kinetic that works with the Playstation 2 Eye Toy (which is a camera you attach to the Playstation).In the game, you exercise by moving around like a nut and hitting objects on screen.This reminded me of the training Obi Wan subjected Luke Skywalker to in Star Wars when they were on the Millennium Falcon and Luke had to block the laser bolt from the floating remote.So I set up the camera on a tripod and played the game with my lightsaber. The idea seemed a lot less nerdy at the time probably just like it did to Star Wars Kid.I added some background music and uploaded it to YouTube because I wanted some other friends to see it.Now, a little over a year later, 10,000 random people have laughed at my expense (with over 20 leaving comments).It’s even linked on various foreign message boards.
So, I present to you the video that received over 10,000 unintentional views in 447 days (that’s 44 views per day as of this posting):
The local Baton Rouge newspaper (and my part-time employer), The Advocate, stated today that it is considering ceasing to print the comic strip "Peanuts." The strip has been a painful regurgitation of unfunny bile since its creator Charles Schultz died. Not only that but "Ziggy" and "Family Circus" may also get an overdue axing. Hooray! Better late than never, The Advocate editors. This is by far the best editorial decision ever made.
