Classic Americana

Hahaha! Good Morning Everyone!

When I was a child, my dad drove a dark green 70’s Ford Mustang: the pony car, a classic piece of Americana that symbolized the ideals of longevity, workmanship and is the embodiment of American muscle. The Ford Mustang is the only pony car to have uninterrupted production, with each generation featuring alterations, which may be seen as for better or for worse. Nonetheless, the Mustang is still being driven and still being bought. Possibly influenced by my childhood or maybe the fact that today’s cars are nothing like the classics, when I grow up I wouldn’t mind owning a ’68 Cobra GT 350: a lot of people’s dream car.

There is just something about American muscle cars: a body made of steel, bigger, heavier, and at times louder. There is no plastic on the exterior, so it can take a hit. There are no cheesy decals needed, because they already look good as is. Getting our first car is a perennial entrance into manhood globally. Getting a muscle car will forever be an iconic symbol of male testosterone: the notion that we made it to the top, we are the alpha-dog and this is how we get around.

Jimmy Nothing never went 2 school
They made him pledge allegiance
He said it wasn’t cool
Nothing made Jimmy proud
Now Jimmy lives on a mushroom cloud

America, America
God shed his grace on thee
America, America
Keep the children free

Gran Torino

This film marks the return and departure of Clint Eastwood as a lead actor and actor in a film, respectively. Eastwood plays Walt Kowalski, a retired Ford factory worker and Korean War veteran, who has recently been widowed and now finds himself adjusting to a rapidly changing and colorful community. The classic Eastwood is back: with the hard-edge, racist slurs and overall badass that we’ve all been accustomed to with Dirty Harry and an array of spaghetti westerns. For example, a Hmong family moves into next door, initial soliloquy, ”How many swamp rats can fit into one room?” spits and walks away. Classic! Kowalski has no relationship with his two sons or their families (granddaughter tries to cadge his stuff as if he were dead). This all happening during a wake.

While mourning in the Kowalski home, the Vang Lor family (the Hmong family that just moved in) is celebrating a birth. Walt wants nothing to do the Hmong family that moves in next door, and the feeling is mutual. A small Hmong family: a mother, grandmother, Sue and her shy brother Thao Vang Lor. gets heckled by a Mexican gang only to be “saved” by his cousin and his Hmong crew. Later, they convince Thao to steal Walt’s Torino for his initiation into the gang. Thao fails, his cousin then tries to convince to repeat the attempt only to end up looking down the barrel of Walt’s shotgun. Get off his lawn.

The next day, for saving the community Walt is given gifts, which he comically throws away. Then he encounters the Vang Lor family, basically through Sue. At this point, Thao admits that he tried to steal Walt’s Torino, a crime he will atone for later. In the next scene Walt saves Sue, walking with Eastwood’s son playing Trey, from the heckling of 3 black men. Great scene. The best part Eastwood’s dialogue to his own son: “Shut up, pussy. What is all this “bro” sh*t, anyway? Want to be Super Spade or something?…Now get your ofay, Paday ass on down the road” all the time gun pointed at everybody.

After this Walt becomes more involved in the Vang Lor family: invited to a party, eats foods, has a merry time, until he gets read by a shaman, leading to another great line “God, I have more in common with these gooks than I do my own spoilt rotten family.” He not lonely gets more involved with the Lor family, but with the entire Hmong community around him. Here is where Thao pays for his crime by doing chores for Walt. “All you slopes are supposed to be good at math, right?” Hahaha! The kid counts the birds.

Needless to say, the relationship between Thao and Walt develops. Walt is the male role-model/father-figure that Thao was missing. He eventually gets Thao a job, gives Thao tools, and teaches Thao how to fix things and how to be a man…well, at least speak like one. Eventually, the Hmong gang confronts Thao again, beat him up and break his tools. Walt then gets revenge on Thao’s behalf by kicking the crap out of the fat guy.

This, of course, leads to more retaliation…eye for an eye: drive-by shooting on the Vang Lor home, Sue being beaten and raped: this being the climax of the movie and where I stop the walkthrough, because you need to watch this film yourself. And I highly recommend that you watch this film. There are several reasons why you should: family, community, the celebration of differences, friendship, but from a purely production point of view watch the film because of smart dialogue (the dialogue and development between Walt and Father Janovich is beautiful; the final lines of the movie during the Will-reading…fantastic; Miss Yum Yum!), the story and overall direction by Eastwood.

So tenderly your story is
Nothing more than what you see
Or what you’ve done or will become
Standing strong do you belong
In your skin; just wondering

Gentle now the tender breeze blows
Whispers through my Gran Torino
Whistling another tired song

Engine humms and bitter dreams grow
Heart locked in a Gran Torino
It beats a lonely rhythm all night long
It beats a lonely rhythm all night long
It beats a lonely rhythm all night long

I know what you may be saying; all I have been doing is praising movies and not really critiquing them and giving them dirt. That’s  because I own the movie on DVD…and I don’t own crap. Because, at this point I’m only discussing DVD’s I own (hopefully that will change), I’m using technology to my advantage. Let’s see how long this screencap thing will last.  Hahaha! Until next time!

New Dimensions?

Good Morning Everyone!

Coming to you live from an elegant universe where it would take 26 dimensions for our theories to work. Just imagine what would happen if one of those strings were misplaced. Would the balance of the universe be run off kilter? Would hot snow fall up? A definite answer would be that our favorite sweater would no longer be fashionable as the string, now misplaced, will eventually create a holel: a hole so infinitesimally small yet so overwhelming in our mind that we would store the sweater into the deepest realms of our closets; stuffed into the blackest corner, never to be seen by our eyes again. Now imagine what would happen if that misplace string were placed into another dimension, then what would become of our sweater? Would two different sweaters exist: one with a hole and one slightly thicker in overall feel? Or perhaps, there would only be one sweater; though the string can move from dimension to dimension, we can’t. So, we’ll never know what’s on the other side.

And on the other side, my Nintendo 3DS is black. For me, probably the most anticipated piece of technology besides earbuds that can last more than one year. Now, I’ve been asked before “why are you so enthralled by the 3DS, after all, real-life is already 3D?” Speechless then as I am now, I have no answers to that once posed question. All that I do know is that on a first run, I thoroughly enjoy my new piece of technology. 

Hot thing, barely 21
Hot thing, looking 4 big fun
Hot thing, what’s your fantasy?
Do U wanna play with me?

Hot thing, baby U dance so good
Hot thing, baby I knew U would
Hot thing, tell me what U see
Hot thing, When U smile, when U smile, when U smile
Are your smiles, are your smiles 4 me?

The Box:

For something so small, the box is rather big.  Did you see that? On the backside of the box? We’ve been taken to a new dimension! 3D. Hahaha! I’ve never been there before. But it’s not the box that counts, it’s the gold inside.

The Un-Boxing:

Yes! Just like opening a treasure chest recovered from the bluest to blackest to strangely clearest depths of the mid-Atlantic we find bubbles and a small sense of despair and unsatisfaction. Not to say that manuals are a bad thing. When things get hectic it’s nice to have something other than Google to turn to. Plus we find a pamphlet on Mii Plaza, our 6 AR cards for the pre-installed gaming software, a “Join Club Nintendo” snipet with registration key code (yeah…platinum plus membership like a boss). If you scratch underneath the surface (where’s does your purpose lie?), you’ll find exactly 3 segmented areas: charging station, the goods, the AC power adapter all nicely wrapped in their individual sleeves like comic books wrapped in mylar never to be opened to fresh air ever again because it’s about the preservation and collectibility, not the reading and enjoyment.

The Goods:

Simple enough, we have the power source and we have the console itself. It’s so shiny, as shiny as a mother’s love when her first child comes home from their first day of school and she asks “what did you learn today?” and the child with glee answers “recess!” I’ve noticed that Cosmos black is not the same as black or Wii black or black as day: there is a little color blending going on from light to dark, similar to sky to earth, but grey with a little black. It’s still sexy.

The Charging:

Yup! It’s true it takes 3 hours of charging before use. Out of the box not as long. But patience is the key to everything, just like Walt from Gran Torino. So while you wait; you can make a grilled cheese sandwich and 2 tacos, Wii it out for a bit, or maybe for once pretend that the Nintendo is not the called the No-Friendo and chat it up with friends and family.

Oh baby don’t it feel like heaven right now
Don’t it feel like something from a dream
Yeah I’ve never known nothing quite like this
Don’t it feel like tonight might never be again
Baby we know better than to try and pretend
No one coulda ever told me ’bout this
I said yeah yeah

The waiting is the hardest part
Every day you see one more card
You take it on faith, you take it to the heart
The waiting is the hardest part

 It’s On:

Before the excitment begins, you need to set up the 3D experience just like the countdown for flicks shown on an IMAX screen or the THX sound check. Smiling like a school boy when he figures out what good is, I was already hooked on the device from the set up. It’s so real. I can touch it (fingers pinching at nothing).

Once the date, language, parental controls (which is a nice feature actually) and the like are set you finally reach the home page. The first item on the menu is the “Health and Safety Information.” I didn’t read this, but I probably should have. After my first 1 hour of playing with the 3D settings, I just had to fall alseep. So, the visuals will take time to get used to. The first ride is always a little rough. Ha!

The second menu item would be the game card slot. Seeing as to how Nintendo didn’t have much usual Nintendo-released games on the release date, I settled for a close second: I love Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Ninja Gaiden, Dynasty Warriors, Tecmo Bowl, so why wouldn’t I like Koei/Tecmo-released Samurai Warriors? Talk about a beautiful opening with the cherry blossoms and wind and fire and such. And did I mention flying bullets? I’ll admit, this was the reason why I had to sleep-off my first hour of play…it was just too much to handle at once…I’m new, I’m new I don’t know what to do. Nonetheless, the game told me that I “have the spirit of a clown, bringing joy and laughter to the world.” Sexy! Let’s smile and laught together shall we?

The 3rd option is probably my favorite thus far (until more games come out): the 3DS camera. Back in the day Marvel Comics released trading cards, and in Marvel Universe Series 4 set one of the chase cards was a 3D-esque hologram of Spider-Man versus Venom. The pictures taken with the 3DS have the same look of that Marvel hologram without the crappy gold color. It was having some fun with the Magic Kingdom! I can almost touch Mickey!

The 4th menu item is the 3DS sound. Not sure how I will be using this feature, but I changed the menu bar colors to purple, because I make it funky. All that I have to do now if figure out how to nicely record Fever, Chill, some P-Funk, Prince and James Brown on the thing, then I’ll be in business.

Next up are my Mii and my Mii Peeps (aka Mii Plaza)! I made my Mii…tall, dark and sexy. Haha! But my head is a little big. You also have the option of creating a Mii based on the 3D image taken from the 3DS. For some unexplanable reason, the Mii’s generated when I did this made me look like Sleepy the dwarf.

Then we have 2 factory-installed games AR Games and Face Raiders. For AR Games you need the AR cards. By having the 3DS recognize the cards, teh software makes a game out of the affair. It’s actually pretty exciting. Face Raiders has a similar effect, but instead of cards, you take a picture of people or items and the software makes flying faces of the item captured. And you get to show how much love you have for the item by shooting at several variants of it. They kiss you if they get too close. Ha! So it’s all about the love!

When the fun is all but had, said and done, we finish off with the Activity Log, Download Play and Settings buttons. Where you can monitor your actions, monitor other people’s actions and establish rules for monitoring your and other people’s actions.

In the end, I enjoyed and am still enjoying the initial stages of romance with my 3DS. Much like the rest of you, I’m waiting for the core Nintendo games to be released. Hopefully, it will not end in bitter divorce. Of course it won’t! That is until the Nintendo 4DS comes out. Hahahaha!  But until then I’m having my fun. To conclude, if you like beautiful graphics or have an affinity for the visual arts, I suggest that you check out a 3DS for yourself.

I imagine myself inside your bedroom
Oh I imagine myself in your sky
(U) U are the reason there’s bass in my boom
(Oh u) U are the reason I’m high

If u and I were just ten feet closer
Then i’d make u understand
That everything i wanna do 2 your body, baby
I would do 2 your head
Then u’d be hip 2 the deep rush
Deeper than the boom of the bass
With every other flick of the pink plush
The closer we get 2 the space (The closer we get 2 the space)

Don’t u want 2 go? (The space)
Where the souls go (The space)
Where the tears flow (The space)
Where the love grows
Do u want 2 go?

Thank you for reading! Until the next, this is your host signing off.