Gwen Stefani puts her life, and solo career on hold to bring back No Doubt

Hippie lovefest band Phish, of the permanent breakup, hits the road again

The Police, yeah, another we will never play together again band, plays the Andy Summers Recovery Tour

Mr. Big gets back together.  Really?  Mr. Big?

Cheech and Chong get back together.  Hell Yeah.

Um.  Creed.  NO… this is a place to stop.

Here a just a few notables:

• hollandshitfestival.nl (shouldn’t that be German?)
• nycanal.com (do you have to pay extra for that?)
• childrenslaughter.com (now your speaking my language)
• 
  

This is better than the recent Tree Marriage they performed.  Which is only slightly better than the Frog Marriages they were up to.

Got your own way of making it rain?  Post it below.

These days any self respecting Heathen gets through the day secure with the knowledge that Mr. Raimi was actually tragically killed shortly after the release of Evil Dead III: Army of Darkness and has since been replaced by Michael Bay in a mask. Should any of you doubt this theory after seeing the utterly disappointing Spider-Man 3, point you to this latest news. That’s right, the man who once wrote a scene in which a man cuts off his own hand to stop it from kicking his ass is taking a stroll into the bailiwick of such luminaries as Uwe Boll to direct the film adaptation of World of Warcraft.

For those of you who may not know, World of Warcraft is what is referred to as a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG), or what pimple-faced teenage geeks call a social life after getting beat up AGAIN in school instead of what we used to do which was go home to watch B-grade horror films and look at porn while quoting Evil dead movies…

…I digress. Anyway, who knows? Maybe he’ll do a good job? In any case who wants to start taking bets on how many people show up to the theater in costume?

What do YOU think?

]]> http://www.heathensonline.com/2009/07/22/good-bad-im-the-guy-with-the-mmorpg/feed/ http://www.heathensonline.com/2009/07/22/hello-are-you-there-cthulu-its-me-med/ http://www.heathensonline.com/2009/07/22/hello-are-you-there-cthulu-its-me-med/#comments Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:47:50 +0000 Med http://www.heathensonline.com/?p=141 Grand ideas. History is rife with them, from the obscure young Macedonian named Alex who decided to get himself a little more land to those immortal words, “Let’s get the band back together!”

This Website was just such an idea. But maybe with more beer…

As so often happens with such lofty ambitions this little “home on teh interwebz” has been left gathering dust on the shelf next to those exercise DVD’s your girlfriend bought. As I type this there are no less than 5 partially completed posts sobbing quietly in the corner, bitter from neglect, the newest from mid-2008 (and they’re looking at YOU Fade). It’s not that we wanted to ignore the site, it just happened. Like that time with your roommate’s sister in college…

No more! I promise you, that’s right ALL of you, all three, that I will drag this site back to its former… err… glory. Got an idea for a post? Email me. Want to write a guest article? Same thing.

VIVE LE UHNBC!

Then I suppose you are expected to place the ‘monkey’ in the middle and give it a little forehand/backhand.

Yeah, for those that didn’t click to the link, and made it this far, the monkey spanker is a vibrator for men. I am not usually at a loss for things to say, but this time, I got nothing.

Click over and check it out.  It’s confounding.

He looked around at all his work and wearily thought to himself, “I need a break”.  It had been 7 days. 7 long days, during which he had been constantly working.  Molding. Building. Brainstorming his next great idea. And now, all that work was catching up to him. And, since he was in charge, he declared a day off.  Some days he was really glad to be who he was and not someone else.

Now, one might ask, what did he do on his day off?  Well, not much.  You see, he wasn’t finished with his work, so he basically spent the day sitting around thinking about all the crap he had left to do.  Which sucked.  And, even though he was still tired, instead of taking another day off, he decided to get back to work.

Six days later he was beat.  But, he’d had an idea.  Knowing how lame his first attempt at a day off had gone, and, being of the supremely intellectual type, he had allowed himself some time to prepare things for his next day off. So, with a blanket tossed over his massive shoulder, a basket containing: some wine, a truly marvelous idea if he’d say so himself, some food stuffs, and a few other items he’d put together, he set out for his day off. 

When he got to the little garden he’d thrown together for this day, he stopped and looked around for a good spot to sit.  A short distance away was a large, flowering, apple tree that cast a bit of shade on a nice patch of grass. Strolling over, he spread out the blanket and began to upack the basket.

First he pulled out the wine and food.  For a picnic to go well, you need a good spread, he’d decided.  There were all types of meats and vegetables.  He’d spent a lot of time preparing those.  Especially trying to get the color right.  Vegetables were a tricky thing.  And, he’d found, the colors proved to be a useful tool in figureing out their ripeness.  Not surprisingly, these vegetables were all the perfect color.

After he’d laid out the foods, and the wine, he pulled a couple of people he’d made out of the basket and gave them life.  After all, he was god wasn’t he.  What was the use of being god if you couldn’t make a few people.

He gathered up the people, gave them Blankets and they laid back in the shade.  At first, they sat quietly sipping their wine.  For it was good wine.  What else would god serve.  But as they became a bit more lubricated they thought, Hey, we got god here, we should probably ask a few questions before he takes off. Right? Just the simple stuff.  Like: do you have to eat Or get your hair cut in heaven? What about if your eye got poked out, Would it be waiting for you when you die?

Well, god wasn’t exactly prepared for this type of inquisition.  Who is ever really prepared for an inquisition. He just stood there for a bit.  Shuffling his feet from side to side.  Glancing around at the people. 

Damn.  I’ve created a bunch of dumbasses, he though.

The people cleared their throats and stared at him.  Waiting for an answer. 

So he said: “Once, there was a boy, Who woke up one morning with blue hair. To him it was great.  It was really cool. But then, he began to worry.  He thought of how his friends would see him.  Would they laugh at him.  Would they think he was sick? Or weird?”

And then he folded his arms across his chest and smiled.

But the people just stared at him.

He just stood there for a bit.  Shuffling his feet around nervously.  looking around at the people. 

The people sat in the garden, waiting, as the sun began to drift down. But God didn’t have anything else to add.

Eventually, someone asked him, “I beg your pardon: I’m not exactly clear about what you just said - Was that a parable, or maybe a kind of subtle joke?”

But god just shuffled his feet from side to side.  Glancing around at the people. Thinking “Damn.  I really did create a bunch of dumbasses.”

And, yes.  By that, I mean the Gilgewife told me she’d get me one for Father’s day.  I graciously offered to pick it up.  Ostensibly so that she wouldn’t have to wait in line.  But really, because I don’t want anyone touching my precious but me.

Well, I eventually ended up at the Apple store near where I work.  Turns out AT&T ran out of phones. Everywhere.  The line wound around the mall about 300+ people long.  I wandered up to the end of the line and began what would turn out to be a 4.5 hour wait.

But it was really a good time.  I got to know the people around me in line better than people I have worked with for years.  There was the gentleman who is a programmer for a big online/TV shopping network who has 4 sons all 4 years apart.  The guy who works as an environmental engineer for the government.  Originally from Puerto Rice but ended up here by way of Texas.  The nice lady with two children in a tiny private school who is moving them to public school this fall.

What is it about waiting in a long line that causes you to open up to the people round you as if you knew them and trusted them for longer than you have?  It is a strange dynamic.  We talked about things I am sure we wouldn’t have offered up had we met at a bar or a dinner party.  Is it the strange situation?  A communal, “Oh, we have this one thing in common we probably have more in common” type attitude?

I don’t know what it is, but I do know that I probably won’t see any of them again.  Which is a shame.  We had some good times.  Like when the Apple people brought us water and coffee and more water.  And, then we had to run to Starbucks to take a leak.  And then we brought back more coffee.  And the Apple folks brought more water.  Good times.

I suppose it could be worse.  There are probably people in line right now that can’t stand each other.  Who just want to punch each other in the head.  Glad I wasn’t in that one.

By the way, the new iPhone rocks.  I should have gotten one last year.  

     The New Disney-Pixar film “Wall E” is a cute story, enjoyable for both children and adults, which is pretty impressive, since there’s basically no real dialogue for the first hour.  A love story between a pair of robots, trying to save themselves, the Earth, and the Human Race itself, all in beautiful CGI, whose glistening effects of metal, movement, and expression surpass all that’s come before it.  Truly, a well done piece, with lots of humor and emotion expressed solely by movement, position of optical sensors, and that lonely child we all hold deep inside of us.

      For those that missed the media blitz, the basic plot is, with the Earth overwhelmed by trash, the Human Race takes to the stars, leaving robots to clean up the mess, awaiting the day they can return.  Flash forward 700 years, we find Wall E, the sole working trash compacting robot left on the planet, his only companion a cockroach, still working on collecting all the trash we left, leaving looming skyscrapers of trash, dwarfing all the abandoned buildings below.  The rest of the Earth is dust.  Well dust and trash, till one day he finds a solitary plant, just starting to bud.  Coincidentally that same day, EVE (pronounced E-VA) arrives.  EVE is basically a probe sent back to earth to see if any life has returned.  Of course they fall in love (well Wall e does, it takes her a bit longer., Doesn’t it always?).  Through a series of mishaps, and a battle against a robot gone crazy, they finally bring the humans back to Earth to begin life again.  Honestly, its a cute and touching story, on the surface.

     The sub plot of it falls well above the targeted children audience’s heads.  What they don’t notice is that the giant global big box company Buy N Large, is basically the reason for all the trash.  While they seem to be our saviors, building the ships and systems that will keep us safe and secure in space, while their robots clean up the Earth, its actually all the trash from the stuff they sold that got us shot up there to begin with.  Well, they sold and we bought.  And while we float around happily on our hoverchairs, vid screen directly infront of our face so we can talk to our friends, or shop for the last sale items, it is also the reason our bodies grow far too fat and useless, so much so that we can barely walk, much less move on our own.  The vid screens block all our vision, and more importantly, keep us from seeing the world (space) around us (”I didn’t know we had a pool” is a repeated line).  It was too quick to catch, but a series of pictures seemed to suggest that humans no longer live past 25, though whether that is due to life style, or the roboto el loco trying to prevent the discovery of life, is never really explained.

  The reason this is a Rant and not a Review is simply this.  With your child’s ticket, you get this nifty “made in china” rubber watch.  Not only that, but 3-5 free promotional cards (made from non recycled stock), all wrapped nicely in Polypropylene.  You know, that clear plastic crap everything is wrapped in that you tear off and toss where ever is most convenient (usually the floor).  This followed by the $17 mega soda, popcorn, and 2 year old JuJu Fruit combo that you simply MUST buy before settling into your seats (the same trash that will end up on the floor 1/2 hour into the movie).  Forget the fact that the watch will either be broken or forgotten in a week’s time.  Here you are sitting down to watch a movie that’s really saying all the useless crap we buy is killing the world, but here’s some FREE useless crap to go with it.  I don’t know if the subplot was some sort of fuck you to Disney that Pixar slipped in to show their disdain, or they just have a sick sense of humor.  Especially considering all the Wall E toys, bookbags, pencils, lunch boxes, plush animals (plush robots?), humidifiers, phones, toilet seats, clothes, beach towels, airplanes, pasta, tvs, stupid clothes for little rat dogs, diaper disposal units (though this would be kinda cool), video games, and the 13 direct to video sequels Disney will churn out in a year; that are due to appear at a store near you.  In fact, its going to appear at the self same Wallmarts, Targets, K Marts, Sam’s Clubs, Costco’s, Best Buys, etc that Buy N Large represents in the movie.  Does Pixar already have the space ship to get off the planet or something?  Is this movie just their little Fuck you to the viewing public, showing their disdain for our willingness to buy into all this shit and completely miss the big picture, simply because it comes in a cute and convenient little package?  Or was this simply a honest and meaningful statement that got lost somewhere in the Marketing Machine, all in the name of the mighty dollar?

     Frankly, I’m not going to stop shopping at Target, or Best Buy.  Fortunately, I’m too poor to buy all the crap I would like, so I already reduce my contribution to the destroying of the world, over and above an conscious effort I might make.  The most ironic thing about it all is, all that trash that Wall E so carefully stacked up high into the sky, is actually more likely to decompose that way, then any “proper” disposal of it.  We have gotten so worried about all the damage to the enviorment that our trash can do, that landfills these days are sealed, so that the trash won’t leak into it as it decomposes.  Unfortunately they are kept from the elements as well, so there is no actual factor acting upon them TO make them decompose.  So any organic, natural, biodegradable products you do buy, unless they are specifically recycled, they lie sealed in a tomb somewhere, just as you threw them out, and will be that way for a hundred years.  That napkin you threw out of your car, it’ll be gone in a few weeks, its just chances are it’ll just kill a few things before it happens.  Damn where’s my space ship.