Comments (3)

By Mark D, June 6, 2011 3:11 am

Look online for any information about the Resident Evil movies and you’ll find a thousand nerds bitching about how bad they are and why do they keep making them. Or they bitch that the director/producer is just making them to give a starring role to Milla Jovolich. Listen, I’ll admit straight up that I have always been a huge fan of Milla Jovolich, so that is probably part of the reason I like the Resident Evil Movies. But even so, the fact that they keep making tons of money on a relatively (last one was made for 60 million, most of the rest were 40M or under) small budget is the reason why they keep getting made.

Quite simply, people are going to see them. Most of the people who are complaining don’t seem to realize why the movie has so little to do with the games. At the time Resident Evil Movies started most of the Video Game movies had been busts. Since for the most part at the time you were talking about 8 bit and 16 bit games, it was rather tough to transfer some of these games stories to the big screen you ended up with stuff like the Super Mario Bros. Movie and the Street Fighter Movie. A lot of the characters, but a modified plot. Of course it’s been almost 10 years since the first movie and things have changed a bit.

Here’s the other part of that. The stories to Resident Evil are AWFUL. Run around, find keys, solve stupid puzzles and OCCASIONALLY find a few zombies to fight. I tried the original Resident Evil a bunch of times and never had any fun. I found it even dumber that you needed keys, considering you had a gun on you and the keys were FOR WOODEN DOORS! All the Resident Evil plots suck. No one in their right mind is going to make a direct conversion of the Resident Evil games to movies. If your a fan of Resident Evil you should know how much the plots suck.

In the end though, the Resident Evil movies aren’t even for the nerds bitching about them on the internet. We’ve already seen how weak the internet is when it comes to movies. Remember how the Internet was going to make “Snakes on a Plane” a huge movie? Yea, that didn’t really work out. Why? Cause the internet doesn’t watch movies. Just look at the box office totals for Scott Pilgrim.

So it’s time to stop bitching, and just enjoy the Resident Evil movies for what they are. Popcorn action flicks with no real point or ending. A flimsy plot and somewhere along the line an excuse for Milla Jovolich to be half naked. That’s plenty to make me happy with the Resident Evil series. Hell, I hated the 2nd movie in the series but I keep watching them. So if your a fan of Resident Evil and pissed that they keep making movies, just keep going on youtube and putting up annoying rants. People will take you seriously and stop watching the movie, it will stop making money and no more Resident Evil movies. Problem Solved!

Comments (4)

By Mark D, March 29, 2011 12:07 am

I might be paranoid, but I really don’t think so. No idea where this person got my instant messenger from, but I’m almost 99% sure they were trolling me. It says something about my mentality, because whenever a woman hits on me online I think it might be someone trolling me. This has hurt me a few times in real life as I’ve gotten hit on and not noticed it at all. BTW: If you a cute chick that used to work at Music Warehouse, or Some Music Store that was across the block from the Tom’s River Mall and hit on a guy buying two Drain STH CDs, please Email me, lol.

Session Start (webbard:sexyfinale696969): Tue Jan 11 00:08:14 2011 -0500
sexyfinale696969: heeeeey
webbard: ?
sexyfinale696969: “sexyfinale696969 (sexyfinale696969)” signed on at Tue Jan 11 00:08:25 2011.
sexyfinale696969: I saw you on POF
sexyfinale696969: You’re so sexy
webbard: lol\
sexyfinale696969: Yeah?
webbard: I put my instant messanger in it?
sexyfinale696969: well I tried your name on there
sexyfinale696969: and it worked
webbard: it shouldn’t have, I use a different user name
sexyfinale696969: Um well for some reason this name was on there
webbard: lol, who is this for real?
sexyfinale696969: Um my name’s Jen
webbard: when did you see my profile?
sexyfinale696969: A while ago I had your name and was gonna IM you but I was kind of nervous
sexyfinale696969: cause i hadn’t IMed anyone from POF yet
webbard: whats your POF profile?
sexyfinale696969: I don’t really have one…I just look at the profiles…I had one for a little bit but I didn’t put anything on there and deleted it cause I wasn’t intending on actually using it
sexyfinale696969: I know it’s pathetic
webbard: I don’t know, your acting really supicious
sexyfinale696969: Oooookay and you’re actin gweird
webbard: and to tell you the truth, I think I met just about the absolute perfect girl for me
sexyfinale696969: I dunno maybe IMing you was amistake
webbard: facebook?
sexyfinale696969: My name is Jen Garcia look it up
webbard: town?
sexyfinale696969: West Chester
sexyfinale696969: I go to college there
webbard: k
webbard: can’t find you, whats your email?
sexyfinale696969: Oh shit… I might be private but try sexyjen00@
webbard: can’t find ya
sexyfinale696969: huh…yeah i might be private let me check my settings
sexyfinale696969: oh yeah, shit
sexyfinale696969: I remember I set it that way cause of my ex
webbard: k
sexyfinale696969: so what are you up to?
webbard: not much at the moment, you?
sexyfinale696969: Well I was watching Toy Story 3 now I’m eating icecream
sexyfinale696969: I’m such a fatty
webbard: lol. it sounds like a good night
sexyfinale696969: It is….but I’m a bit lonely
webbard: any pics?\
sexyfinale696969: yeah I think I have some around here
sexyfinale696969: File shared: (hotme.jpg) (Link: http://lifestream.aol.com/photo/tmp/486be3e01f856c1d648544c20f7ef3aa/hotme.jpg)http://lifestream.aol.com/photo/tmp/486be3e01f856c1d648544c20f7ef3aa/hotme.jpg

webbard: lol, come on
sexyfinale696969: What?
webbard: no one that looks like that would be bothering with me
sexyfinale696969: ooooookay
sexyfinale696969: What is THAT supposed to mean?
webbard: Mostly I don’t believe thats a pic of you]
sexyfinale696969: and why is that?
sexyfinale696969: Because you think no one this good looking would talk to you?
sexyfinale696969: REally?
sexyfinale696969: Oh okay wow
webbard: both]
sexyfinale696969: both what?
sexyfinale696969: Ugh whatever you’re so rude
sexyfinale696969: I was going to try to get to knwo you but whatever
webbard: well you are being even more vague
sexyfinale696969: what do you fucking mean?
sexyfinale696969: you probably don’t want to talk to me cause I’m latino
webbard: no facebook, no POF profile, no reason that you have my AIM
webbard: lmao
sexyfinale696969: I’m fucking serious
webbard: no, not at all, thats just silly
sexyfinale696969: don’t you fucking laugh at me
sexyfinale696969: I’m sorry I ever talked to you, racist pig
webbard: lol]
sexyfinale696969: You have been disconnected.
sexyfinale696969: “sexyfinale696969 (sexyfinale696969)” signed on at Tue Jan 11 00:41:38 2011.
Session Close (sexyfinale696969): Tue Jan 11 00:58:04 2011 -0500

Session Start (webbard:sexyfinale696969): Tue Jan 11 01:21:56 2011 -0500
sexyfinale696969: hey…um I’m sorry about the racist thing
sexyfinale696969: I got worked up
webbard: no problem
sexyfinale696969: I don’t understand why you said the things you did though
webbard: whats your facebook or myspace or something?
sexyfinale696969: well like I said before it is jen garcia but like
sexyfinale696969: I don’t have a myspace
sexyfinale696969: i did but I deleted it cause I didn’t need it
webbard: well I can’t find you on facebook
sexyfinale696969: I’m sorry
sexyfinale696969: =\
sexyfinale696969: I guess you can’t cause I’m private
webbard: I’d still be able to see some of it if you gave me your email
sexyfinale696969: i don’t really know what to tell you
webbard: a real picture?
sexyfinale696969: Ummm that was my real picture
sexyfinale696969: geez
sexyfinale696969: whatever
sexyfinale696969: I only IMed you cause I wanted sex
webbard: do you realize how crazy that sounds?
sexyfinale696969: Well to be honest I want to find someone to father my children
webbard: that makes a little more sense, but still, why would you think someone would be interested?
sexyfinale696969: I guess I’m jsut a bit desperate
sexyfinale696969: All the guys at west chester aren’t my type nor do they seem like the fathering type and i dunno i just
sexyfinale696969: *sigh*
webbard: you shouldn’t look for the fathering type
sexyfinale696969: how come?
webbard: just find someone that makes you happy and hope for the best
webbard: no reason to rush into having kids
sexyfinale696969: you might be right, i guess i am just in a hurry because my parents want me to start a family soon
sexyfinale696969: what kind of person would you look for?
webbard: truthfully I think I found the right person for me already
sexyfinale696969: really? awww
sexyfinale696969: well that is a shame for me
sexyfinale696969: but what is she like?
webbard: yes
webbard: she’s a lot like me for the most part
sexyfinale696969: I guess I should look for someone who is like me as well
sexyfinale696969: are you guys dating then?
webbard: I
webbard: I’m not sure, We’ve only been on one date
sexyfinale696969: but you know her really well?
webbard: it feels like it, because we are a lot alike
sexyfinale696969: ahhh I see
webbard: yea
sexyfinale696969: i guess she lives near you then? Is she latino as well?
webbard: no, and she lives about 30-40 min away
sexyfinale696969: that isn’t too bad
webbard: nope
sexyfinale696969: I’m guessing she’s white then
webbard: yes, but I’ve dated more then just white girls
sexyfinale696969: yeah gotta keep it politically correct
webbard: lol, no
sexyfinale696969: herp derp
webbard: lol, who is this?
sexyfinale696969: I dunno
webbard: well your funny as fuck
webbard: just obvious troll is obvious
sexyfinale696969: huh….
sexyfinale696969: interesting
Session Close (sexyfinale696969): Tue Jan 11 02:29:53 2011 -0500

Session Start (gambkind:sexyfinale696969): Tue Jan 11 02:38:30 2011 -0500
sexyfinale696969: *sigh* I guess I’ll never find love
sexyfinale696969: helllooo are you there anymore?
sexyfinale696969: I guess you ran off to touch yourself
Session Close (sexyfinale696969): Tue Jan 11 02:49:00 2011 -0500

Session Start (webbard:sexyfinale696969): Sat Mar 12 00:39:43 2011 -0500
sexyfinale696969: Long time no talk
webbard: who?
sexyfinale696969: don’t you remember me?
sexyfinale696969: Oh wait I changed my aim
webbard: your a bot
sexyfinale696969: it was simplegenie
sexyfinale696969: no no I’m not
sexyfinale696969: o_O
sexyfinale696969: weirdo
webbard: lol, bot
sexyfinale696969: Yeah okay sure
sexyfinale696969: Like I could talk like this to you
sexyfinale696969: if I was a bot
sexyfinale696969: *sigh*
sexyfinale696969: I IMed you like a long time ago
sexyfinale696969: I saw you on POF
sexyfinale696969: and we talked
sexyfinale696969: geez
webbard: wait, why the 6969696 at the end?
sexyfinale696969: because that’s a sex position duuuh
sexyfinale696969: and I can’t have numbers in my name?
sexyfinale696969: suddenly?
webbard: okay, it just comes off as a bot
sexyfinale696969: oh i’m sorry
webbard: and I use this for multiple accounts
sexyfinale696969: i didn’t realize
sexyfinale696969: oh i see
webbard: usually I get spammed out of the blue on my yahoo
sexyfinale696969: ahhh
sexyfinale696969: yeah no I’m nota bot I hate them
webbard: truthfully, I don’t remember, unless you have a pic
sexyfinale696969: oh okay I’ll find one
(null): sexyfinale696969 is trying to send you “hotme.jpg”.
webbard: didn’t work, do you have any posted?
sexyfinale696969: What do you mean?
(null): sexyfinale696969 is trying to send you “hotme.jpg”.
webbard: can you email it?
sexyfinale696969: yeah i can
sexyfinale696969: wuts your email
webbard: webbard@webbard
sexyfinale696969: sent
webbard: ahh, your name is familiar
sexyfinale696969: yeah
webbard: your a small girl though
sexyfinale696969: we chatted liek a few months ago
sexyfinale696969: haha yeah my friends say that
sexyfinale696969: is that bad?
webbard: no, except I’m not small at all, lol
sexyfinale696969: oh?
webbard: yea, I’m a big guy
sexyfinale696969: oh my
sexyfinale696969: well I like big guys
webbard: so whats up, why the IM out of the blue?
sexyfinale696969: Oh well I mean I missed talking to you
webbard: \whats your first name?
sexyfinale696969: Jen
webbard: okay, so why does your email say Dana and facebook say Sophia?
sexyfinale696969: I don’t use my real name on my e-mail to be honest, that’s my friend’s name and with the facebook well….lol
sexyfinale696969: my friend was trying to stalk an ex so I made her a fake facebook with it
sexyfinale696969: but I don’t have my own facebook
sexyfinale696969: i think it’s overrated
webbard: okay, can you take a picture of yourself with a piece of paper that says todays date
sexyfinale696969: ummm why?
sexyfinale696969: o_O;
webbard: because I think you might be messing with me
sexyfinale696969: wow you’re a bit paranoid lol
sexyfinale696969: I don’t have my own camera, that was taken at a party so…
sexyfinale696969: i dunno how to fulfill your request
sexyfinale696969: lol
webbard: okay, any other pictures of you?
sexyfinale696969: Well yeah but you don’t seem to trust me so…
sexyfinale696969: I dunno what the point is -_-
webbard: I will with more pics
webbard: you had a PoF profile?
sexyfinale696969: “sexyfinale696969 (sexyfinale696969)” signed off at Sat Mar 12 01:07:12 2011.
sexyfinale696969: You have been disconnected.

So any thoughts? Am I too Paranoid?

Comments (0)

By Mark D, March 1, 2011 5:00 pm

[Reprinted from Anonymous after viewing at Political Irony]

Open Letter To The World

We stand at a unique time in our history, the rise of the internet and computer technology have contributed to an unparalleled rate of prosperity for the First World.

We have created for ourselves and empire unlike any other, a global network of constant trade and communication, a new age of technological advancement. We have come a long way from our humble roots in the Industrial Revolution and the days of Manifest Destiny. We are now pioneers on new digital frontiers expanding our domain from the quantum world to the far reaches of space.

And yet, the empire faces a crisis, a global recession, growing poverty, rampant violence, corruption in politics, and threats to personal freedom. As it was before in other times of crisis, the old stories have begun to repeat themselves. The half truths, this time repeated nightly on cable news and echoed through a series of tubes onto the internet: the empire is strong, change is unwise, business as usual is the answer. In times of uncertainty there are those who seek to add to the confusion, to prey on our insecurities and fears. Those who would seek to keep us divided for their own gain. The pervasive strategy takes many very convincing forms: Liberals and Conservatives, Christians and Muslims, Black and White, Saved and sinner.

But something unexpected is happening. We have begun telling each other our own stories. Sharing our lives, our hopes, our dreams, our demons. Every second, day in day out, into all hours of the night the gritty details of life on this earth are streaming around the world. As we see the lives of others played out in our living rooms we are beginning to understand the consequences of our actions and the error of the old ways. We are questioning the old assumptions that we are made to consume not to create, that the world was made for our taking, that wars are inevitable, that poverty is unavoidable. As we learn more about our global community a fundamental truth has been rediscovered: We are not so different as we may seem. Every human has strengths, weaknesses, and deep emotions. We crave love, love laughter, fear being alone and dream for a better life.

You must create a better life.

You cannot sit on the couch watching television or playing video games, waiting for a revolution. You are the revolution. Every time you decide not to exercise your rights, every time you refuse to hear another view point, every time you ignore the world around you, every time you spend a dollar at a business that doesn’t pay a fair wage you are contributing to the oppression of the human body and the repression of the human mind. You have a choice, a choice to take the easy path, the familiar path, to walk willingly into your own submission. Or a choice get up, to go outside and talk to your neighbor, to come together in new forums to create lasting, meaningful change for the human race.

This is our challenge:

A peaceful revolution, a revolution of ideas, a revolution of creation. The twenty-first century enlightenment. A global movement to create a new age of tolerance and understanding, empathy and respect. An age of unfettered technological development. An age of sharing ideas and cooperation. An age of artistic and personal expression. We can choose to use new technology for radical positive change or let it be used against us. We can choose to keep the internet free, keep channels of communication open and dig new tunnels into those places where information is still guarded. Or we can let it all close in around us. As we move in to new digital worlds, we must acknowledge the need for honest information and free expression. We must fight to keep the internet open as a marketplace of ideas where all are seated as equals. We must defend our freedoms from those who would seek to control us. We must fight for those who do not yet have a voice. Keep telling your story. All must be heard.

Comments (0)

By Mark D, February 15, 2011 5:32 pm

I really do, but sometimes you can burn out on it. That’s definitely what happened this weekend. For those that don’t follow hockey, I write over at Lighthouse hockey which is a SB Nation blog for the Islanders. The boss (Dom rocks and this isn’t his fault at all) went on vacation and I just had to write up the recaps for the games. Well Friday night the Islanders ended up in one of the most insane games of recent history. 300+ PIM, fights, misconducts, it was a throwback to 70s hockey. The Islanders not only won the game in a complete blowout, but pretty much beat the crap out of the Penguins. Also given that 90% of the fans not living in Pittsburgh hate the Penguins, you can imagine the excitement among Islander fans.

Now this is where my love of writing gets me into a bit of trouble. I’ve actually been blogging on and off for about a decade now. Whenever I do posts from the vault it’s actually from my old LiveJournal. Sometimes despite the fact that I now tend to get 50 hits a day, I still act like this place is getting 30 hits a month. Not that I would change at all anyway, but I don’t even think about it. It’s not just local either, I’m quite popular in Belgium, Paraguay, Bolivia, Norway and even Vietnam. It amazes me that someone from Vietnam spent 10 minutes reading my post on Victoria 2.

So I wrote the recap of the game and celebrated it for the most part. Well Pittsburgh fans didn’t take too kindly to it. First the Penguins fan site on SBN linked to it complaining about my title and their fans ripped my comments. Then this blog that I didn’t even know existed that follows the Pens called LHH “Buttholes” for the game recap. To put a cherry on top of everything, SBN has regional hubs. The regional hub for Pittsburgh decided to rip into my article too. To say the least that I was annoyed is putting it mildly.

Basically I just ignored them, and then the Penguins blog I had never heard of had a Podcast that again spent a good amount of time ripping the recap. So as you have seen since then, I posted a comment saying I’d love to chat. After getting cursed at by their crazy fans, I posted the screenshots of their comments. When I tweeted about it, one of the Pens fans saw it and told the owners that I was bashing their site. The funny thing is that I was hardly even bashing their site, I said almost nothing and let the screenshots talk for themselves. So he tweets that I created a new blog (Since it’s so hard to take a look at the calendar tool and see I’ve been around for almost 3 years) because SBN wouldn’t let me post my “attack” (I actually didn’t think it was newsworthy and didn’t want to give them anymore publicity) and I got twitted to death by a ton of asshole Pens fans.

So pretty much I spent a whole night tweeting back and forth with a bunch of idiots and not getting any useful sleep. Which especially mattered since I also needed to do the Recap on Sunday and the Prospect report for Monday morning and my followup post on Monday. So after all that I was pretty much burnt out. My apologies to people who might come by looking for real updates with all the insanity in the world recently.

But I wanted to just really thank everyone who comes by and reads. It’s so awesome that people I might not even know actually come here and read some stuff. Feel free to say hi, you can Like the Bards Blog facebook page, twitter at me or even email me. You can also comment, I usually answer everything unless I don’t have anything to say. And I promise I’ll be back to work full time tomorrow.

Comments (0)

By Mark D, January 31, 2011 11:27 pm

With all the news coming out of Egypt, one of the new ones is that the Islamic Brotherhood is behind the protests and will take over if Mubarak falls. People have to realize that this is a mass movement of the people, and that whenever you have such a movement there are going to be extremist sections of it. Not to sound like Bush, but if a liberal Democracy in Egypt can only be a good thing. Maybe we can also stop sending large amounts of money to Egypt to stabilize a conservative regime:

The US has provided Egypt with $1.3 billion a year in military aid since 1979, and an average of $815 million a year in economic assistance. All told, Egypt has received over $50 billion in US largesse since 1975.

That’s just a quote from a 2004 CSM article.

We have already seen this before, the US rallies against the extremist elements of a movement and it strengthens those elements. It might not make sense on the face of things, but it does in the end. Attacking mass movements because they tend to have elements the US disagrees with, only weakens those moderates looking to compromise. When the movement is broken by US intervention, the moderates lose face and the extremists put out that the US will never compromise and you are going to have to fight them.

This is pretty much what happened with the Islamic Court Unions in Somalia. The ICU actually cut down on the Somali pirates when they took over. They were the first centralized government in years to actually have support and to start getting things back together in a country that has been nothing but anarchy. The US, fearing that they were extremists, first sent a ton of money to the Warlords that had been defeated by the ICU. When that failed we sent Ethiopia support to invade Somali and break up the ICU. When the ICU was without any territory it broke up, it’s extremist section going on to fight a guerrilla war while the moderates joined the ineffectual transition government. In the end the moderates lost strength and the extremists proved their point.

There has always been an inability for America to learn from previous follies in foreign affairs. To prop up Mubarak anymore will only make matters worse and strengthen the worse parts of the movement. At this point strengthening him only assures a continuing polarization of society. It will only became a threat in the future. The current protests are the best thing the US could hope for, especially as the Police and Military are unwilling to take action. A peaceful conversion to a democratic government is the best way to insure the long term health of the government.

Just because these people are more liberal then Mubarak is, does not immediately make them a threat to the US. There comes a time when you should stop chasing the good money with the bad. We have paid into the Mubarak regime for long enough. Those billions might have been better spent elsewhere instead of keeping a corrupt dictator in power. For that matter, this whole superpower and supporting corrupt dictators is something that needs to be stopped. It shouldn’t be surprising that some of the worst regimes in the world are the first to complain about their “terrorists”. When the reality is that their “terrorists” are people fighting for a democratic government that doesn’t run roughshod over people’s rights.

It’s time to stop playing this game. No one else is playing “against US” and it’s a waste of money. Allow Mubarak to fall, allow all these corrupt governments to fall and the world would be a better place. Interfering in other nations is something that never ends up good. Don’t forget who gave money and weapons and training to Osama Bin Laden and his cronies to begin with. Our dealings in these nations have not only caused sadness for the US in the long run, but those nations have struggled too. Don’t forget our backing of Iraq and Saddam because we wanted them to fight and take down Iran. Another shortsighted move which came back to bite the US in the ass. Now is the time for the US to make the right move, convince Mubarak to step down or just stay out of it.