HAPPY ANNIVERSARY STAR WARS!!!!

(Note: I added to this post since it was published. See below.)

Yep. Thirty years ago, this very day, THE greatest motion picture series known to mankind was birthed with the first of its kind to be released to the masses of humans as a grand gift from the gods! Many of us blessed with a geekesque nature lost our friggin' minds as that first scene with the Republic Blockade Runner being chased by the immense Imperial Star Destroyer played out on the large screen before our young, virgin eyes (insert you own "virgin / Star Wars geek" joke here... ya cold, heartless bastages.) forever implanting a huge boost in our collective imaginations. Science Fiction, Fantasy and pop culture would never be the same.

In tandem with the special occasion, we have put together a special podcast that has been posted at Zangz's Pod of Geekdom. It's the Zangz's Pod of Geekdom's Star Wars Special. Check it out! One reviewer says, "Great podcast Zangz! An excellent group and very entertaining discussion."

Ok, so that reviewer happens to be Roberto Del Amorte who's been on a few of my podcasts. Still, I didn't pay him to write that and it is very entertaining!

Right now thousands of lucky Star Wars fans are converging in LA for Celebration IV, a huge Star Wars convention. Lucky bastages. Leslie, from the podcast, is there having the time of her life. Maybe we'll have her give a report for a podcast.


My dad is visiting from Houston and staying with me. We've already enjoyed a cigar together so it's going good so far. It's not all arguing over politics. I don't know if I'll get a chance to see Pirates this weekend as hanging out with Dad takes precedence. I've read some decent reviews on it and really want to check it out. Perhaps soon.

Edited 5/27/07, 8:38am: Well, we did get a chance to pop in a viewing of Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds' End yesterday. I know all you faithful readers out there (Rob....sigh) are chomping at the bit to know what I thought of the movie, well wait not more!

The third installment to the Pirates trilogy is, much like the other two, a visual smorgasbord of fantastical delights! Like a ride at Disney, it takes you to odd and wonderfully dark places with some crazy swashbuckling action thrown into the mix.

Johnny Depp reprises his role as the rogue pirate, Jack Swallow and is just as good as he was in the first two films, yet his character is slightly less utilized in this one since there is sooooo much going on in this film. All of the other actors do a great job with their characters as well. I really liked the fact that they brought more out of the character of the Voodoo queen, Tai Dalma, played by the beautiful Naomie Harris. She's quite fetching in a rotting teeth kind of way.

Of course the visual effects and CG work are mind blowing and top notch, possibly attempting to gloss over some of the flaws in the storyline.

Speaking of which, one of the flaws of both this Pirate movie and the last (Dead Man's Chest) is that the plot is waterlogged and bogged down with waaaaay too much Pirate mythos and lore that the screen writers seemed to be constantly pulling out of thin air as the movie moved along. Were they making it up as they filmed? One moment there was some ancient pirate mystery to be solved, the next moment another pirate myth had to be addressed, then another, then another. The first film, The Curse of the Black Pearl, was the most cohesive as it had only one big storyline to follow, Jack Sparrow reclaiming his ship from the cursed undead pirates who had taken it. In this one we jump from one quest to another to another to another so quickly, we lose sight of who doing what to who and even who the antagonists truly are.

There's also a bit of corny, goofiness that takes a bit away from the coolness of the movie. A musical number at the beginning? Wedding vows during a massive swashbuckling sea battle? C'mon. A little less cheese, please.

All in all, I'll definitely get this one on DVD and it will sit right next to the other two to complete the trilogy. The first one, however, will probably be the one most watched.

'Nuff said. Read on......

Oddly, I was under the impression that it was set to be a trilogy and not a series of films. Well, here's a review from Harry at Ain't It Cool News where he hints that it's to be a whole series. Hmmmmm? That would be cool as frack, but I don't see Johnny Depp stuck to one character for too long. I think he'd be one to jump ship (pun intended... not a good pun, but still intended) and go do more bizarre, quirky characters he likes to do. Hopefully he will not be doing any type of sequel to the crap-fest that was The Libertine. I greatly enjoy Johnny Depp's work, but The Libertine.... not so much.

Both Lost and "24" have come to their season's end. "24" ended with a bit of a whimper and Lost ended with yet another mystery for us fans to try and ponder. I have to admit that I think I've fallen out of love with "24". Though I enjoy it, it hasn't brought anything new to the table in the last couple of seasons. I found myself switching over to Heroes every Monday night. And how about that ending? Ka-Boom! So much for the Bothers Pitrelli.

Taking a break from Star Wars RPGing, our gaming group has decided to play a little SpyCraft for a while. We'll return to Star Wars this fall/winter. SpyCraft is always fun for us James Bond fans.

Speaking of James Bond, Dad and I enjoyed the Casino Royale DVD last night. Though he slept through most of it, I enjoyed watching it for the umpteenth time since its theatrical release.

And speaking of "release", I believe now is the time to release you from my chronic and silly ramblings. At least for now. So give a nod to those who have served our country this coming Monday, and make sure you enjoy a brat, a brew and a good cigar as well!

Have a good Memorial Day and a great Star Wars 30th Anniversary day!!!

May the Force be with you!
Zangz.

This Podcasts is coming to a galaxy near you...

This weekend started off absolutely wonderful as Friday night marked the recording of my upcoming podcast, Zangz's Pod of Geekdom's Star Wars 30th Anniversary Extravaganza. A bunch of us met at Mad Mario's home and we sat around a table, surrounded by cords and microphones, and told yarns and stories about our favorite science fantasy movie. Many a tale was told and many a beer was swilled as my producer, Double "A" Man, utilized his portable recording studio to collect our thoughts on the subject matter.

This special podcast will be a two parter. Part one should be posted within a few days and you'll be able to find it right HERE!

I'd like to thank my fellow Star Wars enthusiasts, Mad Mario, Bruce and the lovely Leslie for their involvement and participation in the show. We all had a real great time, especially myself, Mario and Bruce after a few Samuel Adams, as you'll probably be able to tell when you hear it.

I think my best podcasts are the ones where I have other people to interact with. If you've listened to a whole bunch of them (the two of you) you'll see where technically A-Z Cast.net has really progressed. I gotta tell you, Double "A" man and A-Z Cast.net are starting to pull out all the stops when it comes to these podcasts. We started recording the show from my home phone and now he brings a whole recording studio to the show.

On top of that, My friend has added another show to the A-Z Cast.net podcasting network. It's called the "Kashmire Music Club" and features up and coming bands. Please, check it out HERE.

After the show myself and Double "A" Man stood outside and talked for a bit. We discuss how podcasting is a whole new, free form frontier that corporate greed and big business have yet to destroy with their cadre of corrupt corporate lawyers and lobbyists. Say what you want and produce what you want. Very cool.

While we were discussing things I enjoyed a nice cigar. Unfortunately, no mater in what direction I moved the smoke would always find its way straight into Double "A" Man's face. But her assured me that he enjoyed it (???? Different strokes for different folks, I guess).

That's right, gang, it's cigar season as the weather here has gotten quite a bit warmer in recent weeks. I'm nicely stocked for the months ahead and will be enjoying an outdoor smoke from time to time. In fact since today was so nice, I went out and enjoyed another one today. Then I found myself walking down to the local cigar shop and getting a few nice big ones (cigars, you sickos!). I would have smoked another one but my old nemesis, Mother Nature, intervened and it started to rain. Perhaps if there's a break in the rain tonight I may indulge myself.

My dad is coming into town this week for the Memorial Day weekend so I'll be spending the week cleaning the heck out of my Vault of Geekdom Headquarters for him to stay here comfortably.

So for the next week or so I'll be busy. I hope you all have a great Memorial Day weekend! When I post again I may have a review of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. So stay tuned.

Smoke 'em if you got 'em!

Zangz.

"Balls on Fire" and other interesting names for blogs.

A week come and gone. Friday is here. Beer in hand, smile on my face. I'm ready to face the weekend. There's also a box of cigars that awaits me on Sunday at a Mother's Day cookout that my bro in law procured for me. Now if we could just get the temp to stay above 70 for more than just a day or two that would be a decent weekend!

For anyone interested, here is a picture of the two dogs I was sitting a couple of weeks ago, Frodo and Pipin. Both are my sister's. Don't let the big eyes and fuzzy ears fool you, the one on the right (Pipin) is a frellin' poop factory and quite the mischeivious pup. He's cute, but don't trust him. Within that little mind he's plotting to take over small countries, I tell you! If you are ever asked by my sister to sit for him, watch yer back, you poor sod.

Weekend plans? Well, I got to do a little research for the upcoming 30th anniversary of the Star Wars special Zangz's Pod of Geekdom podcast. So a viewing of Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope will have to be done tomorrow. Then, if it's nice enough, I may go out and do some errands, take a walk or lose another 8 hours of my life to either Crackdown or Oblivion.

So, I have this friend, Spanky, who's been raving and raving about some guy's editorial blog over at some community newspaper's website. Spanky kept yapping about it to me day after day. I think Spanky is a big fan of this Franklin guy. So much so in fact that I believe Spanky even camped out on this Franklin guy's front lawn until this Franklin guy's wife came out and chased him off the property with a broom while swearing at him in Russian.

Well, in any case, I finally checked out this guys editorials and do have to say that they're quite fun and have a ton of geek/pop culture references in them. You can check them out HERE if you like.

I don't have time to check out a lot of websites on the net all of the time, so this guy's blog is in competition with sites like THIS and THIS and THIS (How does this Franklin dork compete with that last one? Huh?)

I do think that the "Roasted Nuts" is a little risque for a small town community newspaper to title one of its editorial pages, though. Why not just "Burnt Nards"?

(Ok, who am I kiddin'? Spanky and this Franklin guy are one in the same. I was just trying to be clever and hide his identity. But since nobody reads this frackin' blog anyway, who's going to be the wiser? Certainly not Spanky (Franklin) since he never reads this blog anyway! However, it is true that his wife did chase him off of his property with a broom while swearing at him in Russian.)

What did I get my Mom for mother's day? I got her THIS! She doesn't read this madre-frackin' blog either so it's not going to ruin any surprise anyway.

Looking forward to the last Pirates movie. Let's hope the plot is not quite as "all over the place" as Dead Man's Chest was. It comes out in a couple of weeks.....

Right around that time my dad is coming up here from Houston for a visit. He'll be staying with me so I hope he's going to like video games, the music of Type O Negative and Monster Magnet and loads of beer, 'cause that's what he's going to be exposed to during Memorial Day weekend.

How cool is this?!?!?! Bruce Willis is actually a bit of a geek, like us, and he's responding to fans on a message board. Watch the geekiness unfold HERE! You may have to read through a lot to figure out what's going on, but it's well worth it to read Bruce's smack talk against nay-sayers while also hanging out with the geek crowd and answering some questions. Very cool, Bruce.

I have little else at this point, so go download some pictures from here and do with them what you will, you dirty old bastages!

Until the next wasted time, Zangz has left the building.

Zangz.

Under Renovations

Yes, time has indeed passed and I'm way behind on posting some blogs. But, I did have to house / dog / cat sit for a week there, so cut me some frellin' slack, would ya.

The whole sitting experience went well. I only had to clean up poop twice (Mr. Pipin, you naughty, little bastage!). I'm done now and back to residing in my Vault of Geekdom and can now continue to plot ways as to spread the geek love all over this nation and realms beyond. One good way to do this brings me to my next subject.....

A new podcast has been posted!! It was posted a good week ago, but it was posted, none the less. You can download it right the frack HERE!

This time I yammer on about the wonderful Elder Scrolls games.

Both myself and my podcast producer, Double "A"-Man (from AZCast.net), have decided to cut back a little on the podcasts. We have a good 15 under our belt and have been consistently posting them for a decent 8 months. So we decided instead of posting them every 2 weeks we're going to go to a monthly format. It's all about quality over quantity, folks. Now, don't go jumping off of bridges or anything. I'll make sure you all (well... the two of you) get a decent dosage of Zangz fix.

Stay tuned. I'm drumming up something special for the 30th anniversary of one of the greatest movies ever made!

I know it's quite early in the season to be talking about Haunted Attractions, but a couple of them went down in Orlando recently.

Skull Kingdom was a staple of haunted attractions for tourists visiting the Disney area for many years. Recently the owner decided to close it down and cash in on it. Instead of taking a $100,000 offer from a company to buy the facility, he decided to take it to auction, not piece by piece, mind you. One sum for the whole enchilada. Not a good move. He made $26k, way under the price originally offered to him. Rumor has it he absolutely lost his cool at the auction when he realized how he frelled himself and was outraged at the offer. He kicked everybody out of the Skull Kingdom facility and has refused to give the haunt to the company that bought it (the same company that made the original offer of $100k).

Sadly, once they get their hands on it, the people who bought the facility will tear it down and sell most of it off piece by piece and use what they keep for use at a water park. Thems the breaks, folks.

Since we're talking about dumbassed moves, Haunted Attractions and Orlando, I have some good news / bad news about the grandaddy of 'em all, Walt Disney World's Haunted Mansion.

The good news: The fine people at Disney have decided to finally toss out some green and give the ol' manse a decent renovation to upgrade a lot of the effects, many of which were really starting to be dated and show their age.

The bad news: The rocket scientists at Disney have decided to achieve this masterful task by closing down the Haunted Mansion (one of their biggest draws during tourist season) during.... TOURIST SEASON!!!!! It will be shut down through all of spring and summer for, hopefully, a fall reopening. Now, wouldn't any person blessed with 1/4 of a brain realize that perhaps the late fall and winter months, when there's not quite the throng of paying customers, would have been a far better time to shut the facility down for the upgrade.

Why is it that every time a huge corporation does something good, they always have to frack something up to do so?

Anyway, another interesting tid-bit about some of the changes is that Disney is finally putting their own back story to the haunt. In years past fans had made up their own interpretation of the dark history of old Gracey Manor.

This weekend the big summer blockbusters get into gear as Spider-Man 3 hits theaters. I think I'm going to wait on this one a bit. Though, I liked the first two, I was never really into them. I've heard that this current one has a plot that is a bit of a mess.

I worried when I heard that they were going to have three villains and two girlfriends for Spidey to deal with. Too many characters can really ruin a good story. Just watch Batman Forever and Batman and Robin to see what I'm talking about.

There is one good reason to see this movie, though. Bruce Campbell has another one of his famous cameos. I've heard that this time it's funnier and longer than in the two previous movies.

Still haven't seen Hot Fuzz. I gotta check that one out also as their previous Shaun of the Dead was friggin' brilliant!

Why a 2nd Incredible Hulk movie? Why? Why?

My buddy Carlo's back from serving in the middle east, Yeehaa! I hope to have him on a podcast soon!

Things to look forward to this summer:

- Dad's coming home for a visit.

- My buddy Goof, his lovely wife Gayle and their 7 month old will be

coming home for a visit.

- Seeing Weird Al Yankovic at Summerfest with Goof and Gayle.

- Cook outs!

- Cigars!

- Beer!

Crackdown is just that...pure crack. Damn near as addictive as Oblivion, I tell you.

It's fun as hell when you can pick up a burning body and throw it off the top of a 90 story building and then watch it plummet to the ground below. I always make the "falling to the death scream" under my breath when I do that (AAAAAAAaaaaarrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa....thud).

Why are fans freaking out about the TV series, Lost, coming to an end in '09? The series creators have always said, from the get go, that the show will run about 4 to 5 seasons and come to its end. What has me all cheesed of is that it will not be back this coming fall, instead the next season won't start until early 2008. Grrrr....

This is all I have in me for now. But I'm sure I'll find more to bother you with at a latter date. See ya.

Zangz.