Colbert announces candidacy

Last night on the “Colbert Report” Stephen Colbert announced that he would enter the race to be the next President of the United States. He says that he will run as both a republican and a democrat, and that he is running in the state of South Carolina, and only in the state of South Carolina. After watching “Man of the Year” last fall, I’m excited to see if life will imitate art. If nothing else it will be interesting to watch and see what, if anything, happens. Stephen Colbert, you’re on notice.

24 Hell just froze over…

Don’t read this if you want to be spoiler free for 24 when it returns in Jan…

According to Entertainment Weekly, one Tony “Soul Patch” Almeida will rise from the dead and return in season 7. Apparently he was just sleeping last season, or maybe he’ll be coming back as some sort of bionic man with a super powered soul patch. Either way, my ability to suspend reality with this show is being stretched to it’s limits. Now if they would just bring back that cougar that attacked Kim in season two. Jack, robot Tony and the cougar would make one heck of a terrorist fighting team!

Halo 3

I was lucky (?) enough to get my copy of Halo 3 yesterday afternoon. That meant that I was playing when I certainly should have been working…but that’s behind me now. At first I was worried about playing the game early. There were rumors all over the internet that Microsoft was going to ban any X-Box Live members who played early. Thankfully, I found the report from Microsoft online which clearly said there would be no punishment for early play. Anyway, it’s a great game. The campaign mode is awesome, and I love that you can play through the campaign with your friends now. The online multiplayer is incredible too, and there’s really little to no lag time, unless your host gets mad that you keep killing them and decides to quit (not that I’m bitter)…then you get some serious down time.

Back to the game… The graphics and shading are incredible. The shadows and light rendering are awesome to watch. AI is really smart in this one too. As always, the music and storyline are my favorite aspects of the Halo games. Halo 3’s doesn’t seem to be any different. Now I just have to finish the campaign…then we’ll see if I’m still happy with the story. I’m playing through it on heroic right now, and have 2 levels left to go. After that, I’ll probably try playing through on legendary with a few friends. Should be fun. I’m not playing it a ton though, I’m in no hurry. I figure I’ll play a little here and there, and stretch the fun out for a good long time.

Well this stinks…

My brother just dropped off a copy of the 360 game Medal of Honor Airborne. I was really eager to hop on and start playing the multiplayer, and by the time I had loaded the game and was ready to go my brother was already home and had sent me a game invite. Then I tried to join his game only to have a “connection to the EA servers has been lost” message. My brother is online and loving it, and I still can’t get it to work. XBOX live is working great…just not this game. Either I’m not smart enough to figure it out, or there’s something screwy with the EA server.

Either way, it’s a big disappointment. My big reason for wanting to play MOH Airborne was the multiplayer. I guess I won’t be buying this game.

Best Movie of the Summer

If you know me very well, you know that I’m not terribly picky about my movie selections. I’ll tell you if I don’t like it, but generally I like most flicks I see. This summer was full of some ups and downs, but very few “incredible” movie moments. The disappointment started in the spring with 28 Weeks Later being WAY too weak in comparison with 28 days Later. Then we hit the lamest Spiderman movie yet. Not even a Bruce Campbell cameo could save it (and if you’re a Campbell fan and/or a spy flick fan with a sense of humor, you MUST be watching Burn Notice on USA. It’s excellent!). Pirates and Shrek were both “ok”. I loved the Pinocchio interrogation scene in Shrek! Harry Potter and Bourne both let me down, especially Potter. 1408 went from awesome to stupid about halfway through, but Transformers left me feeling good about movies again. Still, the scene of the main character (Shia LaBeouf) making out with his girlfriend on the hood of the Transformer (after he KNEW it was alive!) will haunt me for awhile. Speaking of Shia, two of the best movies I’ve seen this summer are ones that came out in April and are already out for rental. Disturbia (w/ previously mentioned Shia) is awesome and fun, Jill and I really liked it. And Hot Fuzz, with the guys from Shaun of the Dead, is amazing!

Hands down the funniest movie of the summer was The Simpson’s Movie. The other two funny movies I saw were great, but I can’t admit to having watched them on a public blog! All of this brings me to my big reveal…the best movie of the summer, and maybe one of my all-time favorite movies (only time will tell) is…

STARDUST!

This show is incredible! We went to see it today and I loved every second of it. It’s funny, but not too corny. It’s got great heroes and well done baddies. Jill and I both loved Robert De Nero especially. His character was a lot of fun, and very well played. I just wish he had a little more screen time. Claire Daines and Charlie Cox were perfect as well…and the whole thing just had this amazing “larger than life” feeling to it. Absolutely my favorite movie of the summer…and I would say a must see. Jill and I are considering going back to see it again tomorrow, and that’s something I haven’t done in a LONG time!

Here are a couple of quotes from my man Harry Knowles at Aintitcoolnews. com. I know it may seem like I’m gushing here, but I REALLY loved this movie, and Harry’s review hit on some things that really sold me on the movie. Especially what he says about Hayao Miyazaki (who did “Princess Mononoke”, also with Claire Dianes and also totally awesome!) and about Ian McKellen.

“The overall sensation of the story is literally like watching a live-action Miyazaki film.”

“You see, the movie begins with narration by Ian McKellen, and you know… Sir Ian’s voice just instantly makes you want to accept everything that follows as being from a long time ago, far far away, when a boy could become a man that could become so much more.”

“I genuinely believe that this is a film for romantics, which is predominately women, with a select group of us men that are not afraid to go gooey over falling in love. However, I’m not entirely sure that Paramount is ever going to get them in to theaters with the trailer they’ve cut.”

“I absolutely love this film and feel it could very well wind up being amongst my favorites of the year when all is said and done. If not, we’re in for one helluva year.”

“Don’t trust me? Just wait till you see Moriarty’s Love Letter once he sees this at Tribeca… or Quint’s – who saw it with me. This is the genuine article, unless you’re a single dude that stays up all night playing first person shooters and grunting out attack jargon on your headset. And you know who you are.”

Check it out and let me know what you think.

Left Behind

I’m not sure how I feel about the idea of a Christian prank show, but this is absolutely hilarious. The girl’s reaction is priceless. What do you think? Do you think it’s real? Do you think it’s hilarious, or did they go too far? ht to Mikey at Think Christian.

Easy Post…

It’s been a busy couple of weeks! We had an awesome DRIVE event down in OKC with the Nazarene denomination, and I loved every second of it. The downside is that there’s been a ton of catching up to do, which hasn’t allowed for much time on my blog. So instead of an actual post with actual content, I will leave you with these three videos. One is from Marko, one from Mark Riddle, and one from Zach Lind. Check em out!