Michael Bluth Quotes

Lindsay: I’ve always been very passionate about nature. Perhaps you remember Neuterfest?
Michael: Oh, I’ll never forget your wedding.

Barry Zuckerkorn: So basically you’re about 2,000 shares short of being the majority stock holders. Now unfortunately it’s a private stock so you can not just buy up the shares unless someone is willing to sell.
Michael: Are you sure?
Barry Zuckerkorn: That’s what it said on ‘Ask Jeeves’.

Michael: You haven’t met my family. You should meet my family. We’re going to be having an anniversary party.
Pastor Veal: What a wonderful surprise! We would love to witness a celebration of their love.
Michael: That would be a wonderful surprise.

Buster: It’s like she gets off by being withholding.
Gob: Look whose got something to say.

Buster: I’m Mom and I want to shoot down everything you say so I can feel good about myself. ‘Cause I’m an uptight BLEEP BLEEP, Buster! You old horny slut!
Michael: Well, no one’s gonna top that.

Gob Quotes

Gob: Hey, guy. They tell me you’re the actor who plays Marta’s brother, Tio.
Spanish actor: Como?
Gob: Oh, you’re gonna be in a coma, all right.

Gob: Zero hour, Michael. It’s the end of the line. I’m the firstborn. I’m sick of playing second fiddle. I’m always third in line for everything. I’m tired of finishing fourth. Being the fifth wheel. There are six things I’m mad about, and I’m taking over.

Narrator: In an effort to “hip” up his act, Gob had briefly introduced a puppet.
[Gob is acting as a black puppet named Franklin in front of the family]
Gob: [as Franklin] Can I tell you something, my man?
Gob: [as himself] Sure, Franklin.
Gob: [as Franklin] You are one cool[bleep]
Gob: . Speaking of mothers, let me give that oatmeal some brown sugar.
[the puppet ‘kisses’ Lucille]
George Sr.: Get off my wife, you bastard.
[strangles Franklin]
Gob: [as Franklin] What’s the matter with you?
Gob: [in the present] Franklin said some things Whitey wasn’t ready to hear.
Michael: Gob, weren’t you also mercilessly beaten outside of a club in Torrance for that act?
Gob: He also said some things that African-American-y wasn’t ready to hear either.

Gob: Take off your glasses. Oh … wait, wait. Let down your hair. No, glasses on, hair back up. Let’s just get that hair right back up.
Kitty: Let me turn the lights off.
Gob: Yes, yes, please.
Kitty: How’s that? Is that better?
Gob: It just seems like there’s still light coming in from under the door.

GOB: [to Michael’s date] If you like the small, come back for the medium!

Gob: I’m going to buy you the single healthiest call girl this town has ever seen.
Michael: This is why I’m calling it a ‘witness’ and not a best man. All you gotta do is watch.
Gob: Oh I’m not going to pay that kind of money and not watch!

Lucille Quotes

Lucilee: Do you boys know how to shovel coal
Ron Howard: I don’t even want to tell you what they thought that meant.

Lucille: [to waiter] Take it back. If I wanted something your thumb touched, I’d eat the inside of your ear.

Oscar: [Oscar grabs onto the dashboard] The car.
George Sr.: Up yours Granny.
Lucille: You couldn’t handle it.

Lucille: A camcorder. That’s so you can videotape it when they put you in a naked pyramid and point to your Charlie Browns.
Buster: I ought to point to Uncle Oscar’s Charlie Browns next time you’re on top of him, Mother.
Lucille: You see how he treats me just because he thinks I’m having an affair with the boy’s uncle?

Lucille: And that goes into storage, right? Not into your apartment.
Painter: Que?
Lucille: (to Michael) What’s Spanish for ‘I know you speak English’

George Sr. Quotes

Lucille: Did he say that? Does he miss his wife’s embrace?
George Sr.: [in a flashback] Daddy horny, Michael.
Michael: He said some wonderful things.
Michael: Hey, so what’s going on with the fund raiser?
George Sr.: Well, I don’t think the Home Builders Organization is going to be supporting us.
Michael: Yeah, the HBO’s not gonna want us. What do we do now?
George Sr.: Well, I think it’s Showtime. I think we have to put on a show during dinner.

Tobias Quotes

Lindsay: How do you think I feel? Bob Loblaw’s a handsome, professional man and I’m only used to… well, none of those things.
Tobias: Okay, Lindsay, are you forgetting that I was a professional twice over — an analyst and a therapist. The world’s first analrapist.
Lindsay: Yes, and you were almost arrested for those business cards.

Tobias: I must warn you, Michael, she doesn’t respond well to strict directives.
Maeby: All right.
Tobias: That was odd.
Michael: Not really. Kids love boundaries. I mean, look at these girls.
Michael holds up GIRLS WITH LOW SELF-ESTEEM tape.
Michael: Is this what you want?
Tobias: Oh, God, no.
Michael: This could be where your daughter is headed.
Tobias: Oh, no, no, I don’t want this for Maeby either.

Tobias: Michael, you are quite the cupid. You can stick an arrow in my buttocks any time.

Tobias: [footage of Tobias trying on a Speedo with his cut-offs on] Excuse me, do these effectively hide my thunder?

Tobias: “Well, it looks like I’ve prematurely shot my wad, on what was supposed to be a dry run… and now it seems like I’ve got a bit of a mess on my hands.”
Michael: “There’s just so many poorly chosen words in that sentence.”

Tobias:”I just blued myself”.

Tobias: Oh, come on. Don’t leave your uncle T-bag hanging.
George Michael: Please don’t call yourself that.

Buster Quotes

Lucille: We could have dealt with this earlier, but Michael’s been too busy with his ‘english muffin’ [referring to Rita]
Gob: Typical
Buster: Delicious..

Buster: Well if you don’t want her, you don’t want me either. She’s taking care of me. She glued my thumb back on! Sister’s my new mother, mother - and is it just me or is she getting hotter too?
Lucille: Well why don’t you marry her!?
Buster: Maybe I will!
Michael: We’re veering away from relatability again..

Last Lines From The Show..

Narrator/Ron Howard: And Maeby pitches her family story idea to a Hollywood icon who says:
Ron Howard: No, I just don’t see it as a TV series. Maybe a movie?

Hill Valley, nestled in Northern California, wasn’t always the most tolerant society in the nation. Though it could be considered a peaceful and quiet town, despite the occasional lightning storm and manure spill, Hill Valley was traditionally run by old white men- just like all cities in the country at the time. It took a brave soda shop employee to flip the city’s, and indeed the nation’s, whole political structure on its head.

Goldie Wilson recalls working for Mr. Carruthers who assured him that a “colored” [sic] mayor wouldn’t be likely in the near future. Many townspeople thought the same thing, and it took Goldie’s persistence and courage to win over a skeptical, and somewhat racist, voting populous.

Now, seeing his former political career mirrored by a young black man trying to lead a mass of voters peppered with hate, fear and misinformation Goldie Wilson offers his official endorsement to Barrack Obama for his 2008 presidential campaign.

“I don’t recall the face of the young man who first inspired me to be something,” Wilson said in a recent interview. “I don’t recall if he was white. I don’t recall if he was black. I just know that if you ever get the chance to talk to a member of our fine Coast Guard, he probably has some valuable advice.”

Other notable Hill Valley natives like Doctor Emmett Brown and successful Science Fiction author George McFly have followed Wilson by endorsing Obama. When Wilson was asked for a comment regarding the fact that there has never been a non-white president he simply replied, “History is about to change.”

About the Author:

BadWithComputer is a hopeless Internet addict with too much time on his hands. His favorite films include Goodfellas, Hackers and Caddyshack. His late night snack of choice is chicken fingers with chocolate milk.

So you’re excited about the big election, but you don’t really know anything about democracy?  There’s a whole lot of information online regarding our government, how it works and what an election entails.  We learn a little bit about this in school, but the real education is up to you.  History has taught us to learn, form an educated opinion and vote!

1. I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.
- Thomas Edison

2. I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others… I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent.
- Thomas Edison

3. Every worthwhile accomplishment, big or little, has its stages of drudgery and triumph; a beginning, a struggle and a victory.
- Mahatma Gandhi, political and spiritual leader

4. Once you say you’re going to settle for second, that’s what happens to you in life.
- John F. Kennedy, U.S. President

5. In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower, U.S. President

6. I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful
- Warren Buffet

7. The greatest reward in becoming a millionaire is not the amount of money that you earn. It is the kind of person that you have to become to become a millionaire in the first place
- Jim Rohn

8. If you don’t have enemies, you don’t have character.
- Paul Newman

9. An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew hoping he’ll quickly learn how to chew it.
- Roy Ash

10. Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.
- Will Rogers

11. If a man will begin with certainties he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.
- Francis Bacon

12. The world is changing very fast. Big will not beat small anymore. It will be the fast beating the slow.
- Rupert Murdoch

13. Catch a man a fish, and you can sell it to him. Teach a man to fish, and you ruin a wonderful business opportunity.
- Karl Marx

14. Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.
- Confucius

15. The big shots are only the little shots who keep shooting.
- Christopher Morley: Business Inspiration Quotes

16. If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability.
- Henry Ford

17. Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.
- Steve Jobs

18. The greatest good we can do for others is not just to share our riches with them, but to reveal theirs.
- Zig Ziglar

19. Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.
- Albert Einstein

20. As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.
- Bill Gates

21. I believe that if you show people the problems and you show them the solutions they will be moved to act.
- Bill Gates

22. If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you get a boss. He doesn’t have tenure.
- Bill Gates

23. Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.
- Henry David Thoreau

24. Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.
- Henry David Thoreau

25. Failure defeats losers, failure inspires winners.
- Robert T. Kiyosaki, author, entrepreneur, investor

26. The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.
- Theodore Roosevelt

27. Our business in life is not to get ahead of others, but to get ahead of ourselves — to break our own records, to outstrip our yesterday by our today.”
- Stewart B. Johnson quotes

28. You can’t do today’s job with yesterday’s methods and be in business tomorrow.

29. Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.
- Peter F. Drucker

30. October: This is one of the particularly dangerous months to invest in stocks. Other dangerous months are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.”
- Mark Twain

31. Don’t be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps.”
- David Lloyd George

32. Perhaps the very best question that you can memorize and repeat, over and over, is, “what is the most valuable use of my time right now?”
- Brian Tracy

33. One worthwhile task carried to a successful conclusion is worth half-a-hundred half-finished tasks.
- Malcolm Forbes

34. Honesty pays dividends both in dollars and in peace of mind.
- B.C. Forbes

35. A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.
- Henry Ford

36. The toughest thing about success is that you’ve got to keep on being a success.
- Irving Berlin

37. “There are three kinds of people. Those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder what happened.”
- Anonymous

38. The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now.
- Anonymous

39. He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

40. Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
- Albert Einstein

Running a sucessful business requires capital, knowledge and perseverence.  If you need commuications, check out our small business phone systems.  Need a copy machine, a fax machine or emr technology?  We can help with that.  Your business needs to be cultivated like a garden.  Happy gardening!

Richard Dawkins on Vegetarianism
“What I am doing is going along with the fact that I live in a society where meat eating is accepted as the norm, and it requires a level of social courage which I haven’t yet produced to break out of that. It’s a little bit like the position which many people would have held a couple of hundred years ago over slavery. Where lots of people felt morally uneasy about slavery but went along with it because the whole economy of the South depended upon slavery.“

Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop has said bad eating habits are the main cause of 70 percent American deaths. Consuming more fresh fruits, vegetables, and grains are the best source for living a healthy, more enjoyable life.

By being a vegetarian you are not only helping your body but you also help the environment by reducing pollution created from animal agriculture. Also, you may appreciate your healthy meals even more knowing that no animals suffered along the way.

There are literally hundreds of great reasons to green with your diet but here are our top 10.

1. Live Longer
A study from the Loma Linda University has found that vegetarians live about seven years longer, and vegans live about 15 years longer than meat eaters. These studies are further supported by the Chinese Health Project (the largest population study on diet and health to date). They found Chinese people who eat the least amount of fat and animal products have the lowest risk of cancer, heart attack and other diseases.

Further proof comes from a British research that tracked 6,000 and 5,000 meat eaters for 12 years to find that vegetarians were 40 percent less likely to die from cancer during that time and 20 percent less likely to die from other diseases.

2. You’ll be more “regular.”
Vegetables are the ultimate source for fiber, which pushes waste out of the body. Meat contains no fiber. Studies done at Harvard and Brigham Women’s Hospital found that people who ate a high-fiber diet had a 42 percent lower risk of diverticulitis. People who eat vegetable rich diets also tend to have fewer incidences of constipation, hemorrhoids and spastic colon.

3. Have a good heart

Fruits and vegetables are full of antioxidant nutrients that protect the heart and its arteries. Plus, produce contains no saturated fat or cholesterol.

Cholesterol levels for vegetarians are 14 percent lower than meat eaters. American diet that’s filled with saturated fats and cholestrol from meat and dairy has made cardiovascular disease the number one killer in the United States.

4. You’ll avoid toxic chemicals.
95 percent of pesticide residue in our diet comes from meat, fish and dairy products (according to EPA estimates). Fish, in particular, contain carcinogens (PCBs, DDT) and heavy metals (mercury, arsenic; lead, cadmium) that cannot be removed through cooking or freezing. Meat and dairy products are also laced with steroids and hormones.

5. You’ll give your body a spring cleaning.
Fruit and vegetable juices contain phytochemicals that help us detox naturally. Giving up meat helps rid the body of toxins (environmental pollutants, pesticides, preservatives) that overload our systems and cause illness.

6. You Will Look Better And Skinnier
On average, vegetarians are slimmer than meat eaters. Vegetarian diets are much lower in calories than the standard American diet. Vegetarians are also less likely to suffer from weight-related disorders like heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

7. Think of The Money You Will Save
Replacing meat, chicken and fish with vegetables and fruits is estimated to cut food bills by an average of $4,000 a year.

8. Help the environment
You’ll help reduce waste and air pollution. Circle 4 Farms in Milford, Utah, which raises 2.5 million pigs every year, creates more waste than the entire city of Los Angeles. And this is just one farm. Each year, the nation’s factory farms, collectively produce 2 billion tons of manure, a substance that’s rated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as one of the country’s top 10 pollutants. And that’s not even counting the methane gas released by cows, pigs and poultry (which contributes to the greenhouse effect); the ammonia gases from urine; poison gases that emanate from manure lagoons; toxic chemicals from pesticides; and exhaust from farm equipment used to raise feed for animals.

9. More Efficient
Right now, 72 percent of all grain produced in the United States is fed to animals raised for slaughter. It takes 15 pounds of feed to get one pound of meat. But if the grain were given directly to people, there’d be enough food to feed the entire planet. In addition, using land for animal agriculture is inefficient in terms of maximizing food production. According to the journal Soil and Water, one acre of land could produce 50,000 pounds of tomatoes, 40,000 pounds of potatoes, 30,000 pounds of carrots or just 250 pounds of beef.

10. Its The Right Thing To Do

“Our task must be to free ourselves… by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty. Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival for life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”
- Albert Einstein

Did you know 22 million animals are slaughtered to support the American appetite for meat? Its a great feeling to finish a health meal knowing that no beings have suffered.

Sources:
* World Watch Vital Signs (W.W. Norton, 1998)
* 101 Reasons Why I’m a Vegetarian by Pamela Teisler-Rice (Viva Vegie Society, 1995)
* Vegetarian Times’ Vegetarian Beginnet’s Guide (Macmillan, 1996)
* The Vegan Sourcebook by Joanne Stepaniak, M.S., E.D. (Lowell House, 1998)
* Vegan: The New Ethics of Eating by Erik Marcus (McBooks Press, 1998)
* The Perfectly Contented Meat-Eater’s Guide to Vegetarianism by Mark Warren Reinhardt (Continuum, 1998)
* 365 Good Reasons to be Vegetarian by Victor Parachin (Avery Publishing Group, 1998)

So you want to be a vegetarian, but you need some help?   How about a list of vegetarian restaurants to get you started?  Whether its a personal chef, a favorite diner or a vegetarian support group, our yellow pages will steer you in the right direction.  Going to a PETA rally in Washington?  You’ll need a Seattle hotel and a list of all the animal friendly restaurants in the area.  Your future is a click away!

Consumers ripped by banks, yet we’re in a credit crisis?

Of your checking account, that is. Last year, congress approved a bill (on behalf of the big bank lobbyists), that would allow for instant debiting of your account when you wrote a check, which basically meant that you couldn’t count on writing a check and then depositing enough to cover it when it cleared in a couple of days. Of course, this bill doesn’t work in reverse.

In other words, the bank can wait on a check you deposit to “clear” before allowing it to be “available” to count against the checks you’ve already written. This can take anywhere from 1 to 7 business days, and it ALWAYS works in the bank’s favor. What’s truly criminal about this whole scheme is the fact that virtually any bank can electronically transfer funds to or from another bank and make your deposit available immediately. But, evidently what’s good for the goose is not good for the gander.

Now, throw in the exotic fees for covering a check you’ve written, thinking that the deposit you made will cover it, when it overdraws your account. The national average for such a service, even the so-called “overdraft protection”, is $29 per check. But we’re not done yet. Say you write three checks for 4.99, 57.99, and 129.00 on three consecutive days. The next day, all three checks come in. Your deposit is not “available” yet, and so your actual balance is around 90.00. Your bank will count the largest check first so that all three checks will overdraw your account, and you’ll wind up paying almost an additional $90 for this great convenience they were kind enough to offer you.

If you’re confused, let me just say it flat out. Your bank will screw you over any chance they can, thanks in large part to the impotent regulation of the banking industry by our government. But hey… at least the economy is booming!

And if that wasn’t bad enough, we’re beginning to see signs of the banking system pushing towards doing away with checking accounts altogether. Has anyone else noticed how difficult it is to write a check these days? And I’m not just referring to places like the Quick-E-Mart either. The other day I made a purchase at a national chain. The total was over $50, so, after providing them with my driver’s license, and then watching them punch in the bank routing number and account number, then running it through one machine, then through the register itself, I still had to wait until they tracked down a manager to sign off on it. The whole process took about 7 minutes. Meanwhile, I had a line of customers behind me who seemed to regard me as a child molester or something. Two days later, I made another purchase for around $70, used a credit card, and was out in 30 seconds.

And now we see the wonderful commercials that show the smoothly running machine of commerce in various settings like a fast food resteraunt, garden store, or coffee shop, where everyone dances around in a ballet of buying prowess as one by one they tap their debit or credit card against a little box set next to the register. Then someone writes a check, or even pays with cash (gasp!), and everything comes to a screeching halt as flowers wilt, storm clouds brew, and flying food misses the intended target and winds up hitting the floor, and the offender is given the evil eye until the transaction is complete and the great cogs of industry can once again churn away.

Mark my words. This will only get worse, and the day will come when check and cash users will indeed be looked upon with scorn (which is funny, because it used to be the other way around), until eventually we live in a totally plastic society. Here’s another prediction. While debit cards are now being offered by banks at no cost, with no cost per transaction, as soon as this plastic revolution is over, you’ll be seeing more and more creative ways of charging you and over-charging you for the service.

And don’t buy into the spin they’re putting on how much better and safer credit cards and debit cards are either.

The banks and financial institutions may try and convince you that Credit/debit cards are much safer than checks, but the reality is quite the opposite. After doing some research about the costs of fraud in the U.S. for both credit/debit cards and check fraud, I’ve discovered the following:

It appears (both from speculation and from other reports) that the credit card industry is VERY tight-lipped about the exact amount lost each year due to fraud. What I can report is that in 2005, of the 350 BILLION dollars in fraud losses tracked by the FBI, the agency reports that the MAJORITY of the total fraud losses is attributable to credit card fraud. So let’s be more than fair and cut that 350 billion dollars in half. Total credit card loss due to fraud: 175 billion dollars.

In 2005 the reported losses due to checking account fraud/bad checks totalled 15 billion dollars. The majority of that total resulted from fake payroll checks or non-existent accounts. Very little was from compromised existing individual checking accounts.

Now, I’m no conspiracy theorist, but this whole thing smells pretty bad when you try and figure out why the financial industry would back the credit/debit system when the losses are 10 times that of checking accounts, and why businesses are becoming more and more reluctant to accept checks. I’ll tell you the REAL reason banks want debit cards to become the standard.

Look at your debit card agreement. Do you see anything important missing in there? How about account protection? My guess is, you either see that you are totally liable for the full amount if your card is stolen or cloned, or, if you’re lucky, the first $50 of loss is covered. In other words, the protection against illicit charges or theft we’ve enjoyed with checking accounts and credit cards is NOT being carried over into debit cards, which means the burden of theft will no longer be on the banks but on the users.

If that isn’t bad enough, there’s another nice little ploy that can drain your balance with overdraft fees: The Freeze. If you use your debit card for certain services, such as reserving a hotel room or renting a car, the hotel or rental service will often immediately freeze a substantial amount in your account to cover the full amount of your room fees or any amount of potential loss. If your account balance goes below this reserved or frozen amount, you incur overdraft charges at your bank.

The bottom line is always profit. We’ve seen that in the recent housing crisis, as banks and lending institutions (funded largely by bank investments) got greedy and bent the rules to increase profits. Debit cards mean less hassle than checks, because no one needs to handle or enter any paperwork. Less paperwork (automation) means more profit by reducing payroll, but that’s just the tip of the profit iceberg. They can and will play the same games with your debit transactions as the currently do with checking accounts and worse. They already are.

Here’s a few tips that you can use to keep yourself from getting ripped off by your bank, and even a way to get BACK some or all of your overdraft fees.

1. NEVER use your debit card in a way that results in you not entering a pin number. The transaction might result in a freeze. Even gas stations have the ability to place a freeze over the amount of your purchase if you don’t enter a pin number because the money is not deducted immediately from your account. They do this to cover any potential loss just like a return check charge, but usually at a much higher amount.
2. Don’t use a debit card to reserve a room or rent a car, equipment, make a down payment, etc. Definite Freeze.
3. Change your pin number often, and check your transaction record daily. Report any suspicious activity immediately.
4. Don’t use a debit card.
5. If you incur overdraft fees on your checking account, call the bank and plead your case. There’s an “unwritten” rule at most banks that if a customer requests or pleads for a removal of overdraft fees that some, and sometimes, all overdraft fees will be refunded, at least upon the first occurrence, and often beyond that if there is a substantial period of time between occurrences.
6. Be creative when you ask for a refund of your overdraft fees. Plead illness, hospital stays, family emergencies or whatever. If the bank can be creative, so can you.

If you hadn’t noticed, not all credit cards are created equal.  Armed with fiscal responsibility, knowledge and a bit of common sense, your next step is to do a balance transfer  and start that business you’ve been planning.  Our business credit cards will help you get your dreams off the ground.

I’m a huge Batman fan. I own Mask of the Phantasm on VHS and find time to screen it annually. It should therefore come as no surprise that news of Heath Ledger’s untimely death immediately made me think caped crusader. What are the likely implications of Heath Ledger’s passing for Nolan’s new (and painfully promising) Batman film series?

I think it goes without saying that The Dark Knight, the summer 08 follow up to Batman Begins, is going to make a ton of money. That fact was set in stone June of 2005 when Bruce Wayne thirsty moviegoers picked up what Chris Nolan threw down. But now that Heath Ledger is dead only months before release?

Does anyone remember when Brandon Lee died while filming The Crow? It’s a great picture, but the box office gross had to have doubled due to the swirling death news. I’m not saying the studio is going to try to capitalize off of this Hollywood tragedy, I’m saying moviegoers want to see a star play a role so powerful that it killed them in real life. Interviews that I normally accredited to the hype machine had Heath saying the role of the Joker haunted him and gave him insomnia. Those seemingly casual words are going to surpass ‘Why so serious’ as a creepy textual documentation of just how dark the new Batman movies are getting.

Speaking of ‘Why so serious,’ a slogan from the very well played Dark Knight viral campaign, I couldn’t help but momentarily entertain the proposition (in admittedly bad taste) that maybe this whole thing was just another brick in the wall of brilliant viral advertising that’s been done for this movie. I know this isn’t the case here, but I wouldn’t put it past studios to fake actors deaths, or maybe just put them into legitimate comas, after they see what could very well be the biggest box office weekend of the decade come this summer.

Fiscal ramifications aside, the Batman fan in me had a terrible bout of separation anxiety today. I was so skeptical when I first heard about Heath Ledger playing the joker. I actually thought it was a joke. Soon the pictures started surfacing and then before I knew it I’m buying a ticket to see I Am Legend on the Imax just to catch a glimpse of a Joker that might, dare I say it, surpass Jack. And now, no matter how amazing his performance is this Summer, it will be the last time we see him play the role.

And you know they left it open ended so he could come back. Part of me just wants him to be terrible so I’ll eagerly await a smiling replacement, but I know that’s not going to happen. He’s going to be spectacular and when the curtain closes and the lights go up…that’s all, folks. It’s a damn shame.

I mean no disrespect to Mr. Ledger’s friends or family- trivializing his death in terms of box office impact, viral marketing and potential sequels. These are just my immediate reactions as a Batman devotee. Rest in peace, Heath. The world is waiting for one hell of a final performance.

About the Author:

BadWithComputer is a hopeless Internet addict with too much time on his hands. His favorite films include Goodfellas, Hackers and Caddyshack. His late night snack of choice is chicken fingers with chocolate milk.

Great movies are more than just creative story telling, they embody the hopes and fears of our generation through a visual medium.  Whether you like science fiction movies, action, horror or romance, there’s a moral in there for everyone.  Imagine what the world would be like without Batman, Indiana Jones or James Bond?  Let’s just call it cinematherapy!

I’ve recently started jotting down my musings and submitting them to blogs. I honestly am not trying to make a dime, I just get this weird nerdy mind boner any time I see an article of mine on Digg/reddit. True story. Whenever I ask the blog owners about site traffic for a big viral day, they usually report huge jaw dropping numbers. They then tell me that ad revenue for the day didn’t even come close to covering bandwidth cost.

Do you see what I’m saying here? I’m not saying help the patron saints of quality content that you call bloggers get rich. I’m saying keep them from going entirely broke when you hammer their site with traffic every few days to read a frivolous top 10 list or some poorly typed out PSA like this.

Clicking ads is like the digital reach-around courtesy we should all be so evolved to offer. Ideally sites get enough steady traffic where they can just sell banner space, but that is a relatively rare and unlikely outcome for most. And believe me- I don’t expect ad clicks to skyrocket on this entry. If anything I’d expect intense hesitation at an article that looks like it’s trying to cash in on the riches AdSense holds. Whatever.

Just think about it next time you’re on your favorite blog/reading some random article. Your click could mean another day of less than grammatically sound content instead of just another newly successful site throwing in the towel over unsustainable server costs.

About the Author:

BadWithComputer is a hopeless Internet addict with too much time on his hands. His favorite films include Goodfellas, Hackers and Caddyshack. His late night snack of choice is chicken fingers with chocolate milk.

To blog or not to blog?  That is the question.  If you want to make an impact via the literary treasure of blogging, you may wish to learn a bit about search engine optimization.  Google is a great way to place ads and find inspiration on the web.  Once your site is online, a bit of optimization goes a long way!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for turning my tap water into alcohol and a never ending food basket, but I’m tired of all these people whining and telling me how to live my life. You do your thing, I do my thing, we’re all happy, but after reading that someone is paying Facebook to post a religious article titled “6 Reasons You Have To Believe In God”, I figured I’d grab my own cross and at least have fun while getting ready to be crucified for having an opinion.

The argument that because complex life exists, it must have been “created” is ridiculous, and it’s time someone said it. Yay, we have lots of chromosomes, we can see in color and keep erections for 4+ hours (commercials say see a doctor, I’d rather see a sorority house), but explaining away the unexplainable with magical explanations is as real as the emails I get from the prime minister of Nigeria who wants to send me $4 million dollars via a cashiers check.

1. “Earth is the perfect environment, it had to have been made for us”

Nai-eve. Get real. I point you to Arachaea, aka Archaebacteria and Extremophiles. These miraculous organisms live in ridiculously extreme climates. Climates much like that of, I don’t know, other planets perhaps? The point is, different kinds of life require different things. Ours needs water, oxygen and beer. Anyway, as far as we know, in the 9 planets (fuck you, Pluto still counts) we have in our Solar System, we’re the only ones with real sentient life, so I guess that means we’re the only ones right? Oh wait, I forgot about the BILLIONS+ of other planets and solar systems in other galaxies and what not that we haven’t been to or seen up close. So we’re here, great, that’s awesome, but if it were so damn perfect, Canada would be part of the United States, it wouldn’t be so damn cold here in the winter, and Yellow Stone would shoot up Budweiser. Hey, a guy can dream right?

2. Free Will - Contradicting a Contradiction

God “gives” us “Free Will” so that we can choose which path to follow. He knows what we’re going to do, but he’s “giving” us the choice to, uhm, choose what he already knows we’re going to do? To put it simply, if God can know 100% without a doubt you’re going to do it, it’s set in stone, you can’t change it, you’re just fulfilling destiny or a “plan” laid out by someone else. Either he gives us free will to do what we want (in which case there are many different paths and there is no way to KNOW which one we’ll do), or it’s all an illusion and you’ve got a puppet string coming out of your ass.

3. Hillary Clinton is leading the polls

If there is a God, and he does love us, then this would never have happened. Every time I realize my calendar doesn’t say April, I wonder if there is a God and he has a sick sense of humor, but then it would have to be a really, really sick sense of humor.

4. Evolution

I don’t actually think that evolution disproves creationism, actually if there was an “intelligent designer” this would have been an “intelligent design” to build in. It’s nature’s undo button once you figure out that giving tigers the ability to fly just wasn’t the best idea out on the market. But since the church feels that evolution cannot co-exist with creationism, point me.

5. Intelligent Designs lack of a designer

Aren’t we smart, we are truly awesome. Don’t misunderstand me, I love walking on two legs and peeing standing up, but telling me that we have to be created by a magical being just because we exist, begs questioning.

Logic dictates that if (a) we are here so we must have come from somewhere, i.e. a “designer” who is more complex and intelligent than us, then (b) a complex and intelligent designer, would also have to have come from somewhere i.e. a “designer” who is even more complex and intelligent.

If the reasoning for a God is we’re here, then where did he come from? My favorite famous lines are “he always was” and “no one knows”. Shave the wool off your back and follow the herd if you believe that. If someone HAD to have created us, they would have HAD to have been created. If our creator could have ALWAYS been or just magically appeared, then so could we have.

We can’t just assert that God is mightier and he just magically came to be, if that’s the logic, I say someone still had to find him in the bottom of a cereal box, it’s a paradox.

6. Ron Paul is behind in the polls

“Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) is the leading advocate for freedom in our nation’s capital.” He’s advocating for FREEDOM, come on, how can you not love freedom. He wants to legalize pot and I’ve seen him kiss at least 6 babies in the past week. He wants to get rid of the IRS, imagine a world without angry letters from those bastards! If God existed, Ron Paul wouldn’t be just President, he would have been made Co-God back in the 60s.

7. Pot is illegal but Alcohol is A-Okay

Alcohol, the leading cause of drunk driving, and as such the leading cause of alcohol-related deaths, is totally cool for me to drive down to the liquor store to pick up and binge drink on. On the flip side, lighting up a joint and scarfing down a large pizza or two will get you boned hard. If God was around, he’d rather I eat a bag of Doritos and pass out than get drunk, beat my wife and piss on the couch. The worst that can happen with pot is smoking yourself stupid and passing out, but alcohol makes people angry. Hulk mad. If only there were a God… and then Ron Paul would set the record straight.

8. Bad things happen to good people, great things happen to bad people

For a society that constantly gets the short end of the stick when it comes to miracles, I’ve never fully understood how people can whipe away such an obvious shortcoming with one or two hail marys. If we’re God’s children, how come Bin Laden hasn’t been bent over his knee and beat with a wooden spoon yet? Why the hell are people stopping to help stalled motorists and getting raped murdered, and why is it that every time a girl scout makes it to my door she’s out of thin mints? I’m sick of it. Shortbread cookies suck, they do. There, I said it. Aside from such atrocities, every single day bad people get rewarded, while good people are getting creamed on the side of the road by drunk drivers. Give credit where credit is due, if you’re an asshole, you should have karma spitting in your face, and if you’re a good-looking, stand-up guy who wants some damn thin mints, you should get some damn thin mints.

9. Blind Faith

If we’re supposed to believe in a God, and he wants us to believe in him, and the only way for eternal salvation is to believe, then why can’t he take 30 seconds to hop off his throne made of golden baby carcasses and pop in and have coffee with me tomorrow? Starbucks, 10:30, I’ll buy. If it’s such a big deal to believe, why is it not such a big deal to give a reason to believe in?

10. The proof is in dying

Ever notice how religions promise us stuff that cannot be instantly proven? One of the biggest promises is heaven after we die or in Islam they promise 72 virgins. That has got to be the lowest thing.. promising pussy in the after life for accepting their religion.

The biggest logical fallacy is that a religion can offer us millions and millions of years of heaven for accepting their beliefs for just 100 years max? What is the ratio there there, how can accepting something for 100 years or so get you something for millions of years (or eternity) to come. When something looks too good to be true, it probably is.
Conclusion

I don’t want you to change your views for me, hell I don’t care if you DO believe that Jesus is magic and my house was struck by lightning and swiftly burnt to the ground right after posting this. It’s your life, do what you want, but don’t sit back and take everything you’re told with a spoonful of sugar and a blindfold, that’s for republicans.

About the Author: David enjoys long walks on the beach, casual strolls down the boulevard and writing long and drawn out posts in his underwear in the wee hours of the morning.