Stan Winston

The film world lost and icon last week, Stan Winston.

If you don't know who he is you've been living under a rock. Stan Winston has created some of the most memorable characters in film history. I bet he hasn't created that much, you're telling yourself. Well you are WRONG!

Jurassic Park
Terminators
Gremlins
Predator
Alien
Iron Man
Indiana Jones: The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull

These are just a few of the films that he's worked on and created for. He revolutionized the film world, and brought hope and respect to those who found effects to be their dream. The film world will never be the same.

My Guilty Television Pleasures

The Bachelor/Bachelorette

This season's Bachelorette is DeAnna Pappas, and she's a cutie. I'm sure all you readers are laughing right now, but I do enjoy watching these two shows. I can back up why I watch them though, I like to see people make fools of themselves for beautiful people, and I also like to see women wearing bikinis. If that isn't good tv, I don't know what is.

The purpouse of these shows is for one person to weed out one person from a batch of 25 and get married. Now, thats all well and good, but it seems to me like these people on the show always pick the douchiest person of the batch as their better half. DeAnna was on the bachelor and the guy dumped her, so now she's back with a vengance jumping on all of the douchiest guys on the planet, then again DeAnna may look good, but I think that she has the personality of a dull rock.


Design Star

This is a show on the odder end of my vast array of tv taste. Design Star is on HGTV and the main premise is that 10 designers use their designs to compete against one another in an all out design battle. I tried to make that description sound like Mortal Kombat with paint sample fans to manly it up a little more.

This show is funny because 2 people always make it on...
1. The Cryer - Last season it was an overly emotional man that made me laugh with delight because almost anytime anyone said anything to him about his work he cried. This season it's some stuck up woman from Kentucky who cried five times last episode. I wish I was kidding, but I'm not, she cried five times.

2. The Outwardly Gay - There is always more than one in the group I'm sure, but there is ALWAYS one that stands out singing "Fabulous" in the crowd. Last season it was a guy named "Sparkle" Josh. This season it's a guy named Michael, who is quite funny. He called the crying woman from Kentucky "Mommy Dearest" one episode, I got a kick out of that.

Judge if you will, but these shows are entertaining as hell!

Volition Inc.

Last week was a busy one, I had an interview for a job out in Champaign, Il and it looks like things are going well with it. Well, at least I hope that they are. It is for the QA Tester position at Volition Inc. They have put out several high grossing video games such as Saints Row, Summoner, Summoner 2, Red Faction, Red Faction 2, and The Punisher. It looks like a great company, so wish me luck that I get the job. 4 months of being unemployed has driven me a bit up the wall, so this will be a welcomed change.

While in Illinois I was able to visit with some family I hadn't seen for some time. It was great, but sadly Doug and I had to postpone our Lingo session until Saturday night. This was Doug's big debut because he got the chance to work out the format and cut the show together, and he did a phenomenal job! So if you don't listen to any other episodes of Lingo, listen to episode 4, I Can Has Geekburger...it's awesome!

Many posts to make, I will do my best to catch everyone up!

Lingo: A Geekly Podcast Episode 4 Is Go!

In this weeks late episode of Lingo, Andrew and Doug discuss...

• The Death of Stan Winston
• Battlestar Galactica's mid-season finale
• The science behind gamma rays and the Hulk
• How the brits are going to destroy the world

and a whole lot more!

International Man...Thought I'm Not Too Mysterious

Lingo: A Geekly Podcast has gone international. Thanks to Little Brother and Google Analytics I just saw that we now have listeners in Bangalor India. Bangalor is the Silicon Valley of India, so it is only appropriate that Lingo has started its status over there. Thanks to all our listeners, be sure to check out my blog and Lingo's blog to hear new episodes and also read my rants.

Lingo Episode 2 Now Active!

Episode 2 Of Lingo Is Now Posted And Active!
Click Here For The Blog
Click Here To Just Listen To The Post

Quarantine

This was one of the trailers shown in front of "The Strangers". I feel this film has a lot of potential, but it looks to be a little too Cloverfield for me. I'm sick of people "finding" videotape. We're really starting to beat a dead horse with that. I feel that they should just follow the crew in and go from there. Well either way let me know what you think!

The Strangers

I really ate my words today after watching this film. When I first started seeing trailers for this film I thought that it had potential, but I just didn't like Scott Speedman. This film was genius. I don't say that a lot about films, I am a really harsh critic, but "The Strangers" really did scare the hell out of me.

Based on true events, "The Strangers" follows two characters Kristen McKay (Liv Tyler) and James Hoyt (Scott Speedman). James and Kristen were at a friend's wedding reception, when they ran into some relationship problems. They are staying at the family cottage and start to make amends when there is a forceful knock at the door. There is a young woman asking for Tamera.

After sending her on her way, we are back to the doom and gloom of their relationship. James goes for a drive to get Kristen some cigarettes, and that is when the fun begins. Eerie placement of the strangers through the house, and incredible attention to natural sound bring so many terrors to this film I wish that I had a safety blanket.

The film is based on true events, and those events are from the writer/director Bryan Bertino's childhood, and also the events that took place at Cabin #28 at Keddie Resort. I look forward to seeing more work from Bryan, and highly recommend this film to all who are looking to lose a nights sleep.

The Machine Girl

As I walked the aisles of Wal-Mart's electronics section I stumbled across this film "The Machine Girl". What a diamond in the rough this is. Though it is an Asian film, it was made specially for the American audiences, never aired in Japan.

The story has a very common theme in Asian cinema...revenge. Ami is a normal school girl who has been taking care of her younger brother since her parent's committed suicide. Things seem to be going well in their lives until her brother, Yu, gets caught up with the Yakuza and gets himself killed.

Distraught, Ami decides to take vengeance upon the Yakuza family that killed her brother, the Hanzo family. Yes, that's right, Hitori Hanzo. Ami storms the families house and fights several henchmen before she is caught and tortured. The loss of her arm leaves her in pain and on the brink of death. Luckily she manages to stumble upon the doorstep of Yu's friend, who also died by the hands of the Hanzo.

After a little home suturing and some mechanical know-how, shes back to fighting, and now with a machine gun arm. She teams up with a mother of Yu's friend who was also killed by the Hanzo clan. After several ridiculous battles involving ninjas, and also an angry group of mourning parents, Ami and her partner descend on the Hanzo family temple with all the power that they have.

This film is riddled with excellent visuals, and very inventive weapons i.e. the drill bra, the flying guillotine, a suiroken sword, and also an arm that has been fried like tempura. It also is an homage to, I'm sure, some of the writer/director's favorite movies. Kill Bill, Army of Darkness, and Planet Terror to name a few.

I highly recommend this film to all.

Stan Romaneck

I will make this quick because I don't know how long that this video will be posted on Youtube. If you've been living under a rock then you haven't heard about Stan Romaneck. Long story short, he videotaped and "alien" peering into his window. This video is getting shut down quick so I hope it is still up for viewing when you read this. Let me know your thoughts. Take into consideration that this video does have timecode and it does have a reflection of the opposite wall in the background. The "alien" is definitely on the outside of the window. Look at how fluid the motions it makes are, and how it blinks. You opinions?

Let's Keep The Fantasy Out Of Sports.

Something I noticed a lot in school, and my brief stint in the office environment of a company was people's love for sports. I am not a huge sports person, sure I enjoy going to events, but that is mostly for the food. I have been known to watch a Chicago Bears football game every now and again, or event a golf tournament with my dad. I'll never understand the craze for "fantasy" sports though.

To clarify, there is no fantasy involved at all. It is when a group of men, who are either too terrible at sports in real life, or were the sports "all stars" in high school, gather together and pick players from sports teams to build a giant mega team. Now, I haven't done much research into this type of fad (mostly because I got a headache trying to figure batting averages, and then fell asleep when I was reading the names of these players.) but it appears that you watch the event your "players" are in, and you are assigned points per "awesome feat" that the player does per game. Then, I assume the winner is the person with the most points at the end of the season.

Where is the fantasy involved in that? Unless Gandalf is running the bases with his sword in hand, or Frodo is dodging tackles left and right only to spike the one ring down into the end zone fires of Mt. Doom, it isn't fantasy.

Though, as I read what I have written about fantasy sports it does really sound like an RPG does it not? How come nobody ever made fun of them in high school, yet the D&D kids were outcasts? Everyone is a nerd...put that in your pipe sports stars.

So I tell you what, lets make a compromise. Start a petition for a live action Dragonlance film, check Perezhilton.com daily, watch The Soup, and listen to Lingo weekly.