Lights Out

So I was listening to my voicemail yesterday when I sneezed, and all of a sudden I heard someone on the other end of my phone say, "God Bless you."

After being startled I asked who said that, and all I got was "She sounded hot. You should call her back, cuz if not, I will."

After hanging up with the NSA I started watching the San Antonio Spurs/Dallas Mavericks game. It was Game 4 of what had been a very good series thus far. Last night's game was going real good too.

In fact with 40 seconds left the game was tied.

Then the power went out.

No reason that I could see. No storm, no high winds, bill was most definetely paid. I looked outside and the entire town was dark.

After getting incredibly pissed at the timing of it all, I pondered looting my neighbors for a while. I've been meaning to get a larger TV, and it seemed as good a time as any, but I thought "better" of it eventually.

I killed time for a while reading by candlelight, but eventually I gave up and went to sleep.

The Mavericks won in overtime by the way. Looked like a great game.

The Da Vinci Code hits theaters tomorrow. ( I think. Either tomorrow or Friday, thanks to DVR I don't see many commercials anymore) I bet it makes like 48 Billion this weekend.

The only thing that worries me about the book and movie is who knows how many people are going to take it as fact. Dan Brown does a pretty good job of interweaving myth and fact in the book, and it's easy to imagine people who aren't familiar with a lot of the things in the book taking it as fact.

Hopefully you know it's not.

A lot of the people I know who've read the book for instance believe that Da Vinci really was the Grand Master of the Priory of Scion. That would be a remarkable feat considering that the Priory of Scion wasn't even founded until 1956 by a Frenchman named Pierre Plantard.

He created the Priory, and all of it's history. He confessed as much in court many years later. Part of me wonders if Dan Brown even knew that, or maybe he just looked it up and took it as fact.

So in honor of the movie I'm gonna take a look at some of the aspects of it, and whether they're true or false.

• Church suppresses the role of women-Duh. Ya that's 100% true. For instance, if women weren't that important then how come the first two people to see Jesus after he rose were women?(Mary, Mary Magdalene) I mean if what the Catholic Church believes is true, how much sense does it make that God would hate women when they're the ones he chose to give life?
• Jesus was married and had kids- Jesus probably was married. He was referred to a few times in the Bible and other texts as Rabbi. In fact when Mary Magdalene recognizes Jesus while talking to him in the garden after he rises she refers to him as "My rabbi." Well in those times it was mandatory that all Rabbi's and Jewish men marry and have children. There are also parts in the Gnostic Gospels, and other Gospels left out of the Bible that lead the reader to believe the relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene were a lot more than Prophet-Prostitute.
• Mary Magdalene was Jesus' wife-Well based on what I've already said, this is very likely. I mean why else would she have waited at Jesus' tomb for him? Where the book is correct is the reason why the Church presents her as a prostitute. Since the entire Christian faith relies on the fact that Jesus was divine and not a man, they had to cover up the fact he was married with children like Al Bundy.
• There are blood relatives of Jesus-I have no doubt that at some point in time this was true. Unfortunately we have no way of knowing who they are or were.

Well that's just a few. I could probably go on for a lot longer, but to be honest I really don't want to.

I think what's most important though is why this book has become such a phenomenon. I think it speaks to the fact that people want something new to believe in. The irony of it all is that this is the exact same way that the Bible got started. Well...there was no movie, but you get the point.

No, I'm not saying that The Da Vinci Code will be the new Bible. I'm just commenting on the fact that a book that combines both fact and myth when done well can easily be taken as fact by it's readers.

Just like the Bible.

I finally saw King Kong the other day. Somebody please tell Peter Jackson that 3 hour movies worked for the Lord of the Rings trilogy cuz the books had enough material to make a 3 hour movie interesting.

King Kong does not. There were parts of the movie that were good, but they were ruined cuz aspects were dragged out too long. It feels like he was just trying to make a fourth Lord of the Rings, and he replaced the hobbits with a giant gorilla.

Also since the movie is titled King Kong, you would think that it should center around the big ape. Instead Jackson tries to interweave about 18 different stories together, and it kills the movie. I don't need to see about the father son relationship between the big captain guy who looks like Seal, and the little kid from the wrong side of the tracks. Show me more of Kong fighting the T-Rexeseses.

Speaking of which,

The best part of the entire movie was the special effects. No offense to special effects techinicians, but anytime you say that about a film, it's not a good thing. They were real good though. Like when the guys had fallen in that canyon and were attacked by all the insects I squirmed a little bit cuz they were so lifelike.

This movie could have been a lot better if it wasn't so pretentious.

I also saw Hustle and Flow. When I first saw commercials for this movie my initial reaction was "Wow. That's gonna be god awful." Then a few friends saw it and told me it wasn't too bad. So when it released I added it to my Netflix, and now I've finally seen it.

Lemme just say that you should always trust your instincts. The movie had potential, but it quickly killed itself.

The end pissed me off the most cuz it leaves you with out an end really. DJay (Terrence Howard) is in jail for kicking Ludacris' ass and shooting his boy, and his demo is on the radio. Then it ends.

Felt like a cop out to me, like the writer just didn't know what they wanted to do.

I did like the "Whoop That Trick" song though. Strong message behind that one. As far as the theme song, "It's Hard Out Here For a Pimp*", you're preachin to the choir bruh.

*Song actually won an Oscar.

Yet another case of the munchies costing monkey's their lives. God damn pothead bears!!!! (I assume the bear is a pothead cuz why else would a bear live in Amsterdam?)

Keepin It Real Since 1980,

Tom