Thursday, 06 August 2009
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Goodbye Yellowbrick Road
And goodbye to you, Xanga. Today is the day we part our ways, though I shall not be shutting you down. Too many memories were made here for me to just go up and bye-bye.But no, I will be moving on to greener pastures. It is still a work in progress, but you can find my new home at www.drzissman.wordpress.comSo live, laugh and enjoy. I shall see you on Wordpress!
Sunday, 28 June 2009
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THE FINAL MIX - A MUSICAL TRIBUE TO MY GRANDMA
After a long struggle that would have done most people in earlier, my grandmother (Mom's side) finally passed on. She leaves behind a massive family (8 kids, 21 grandkids and 21 great-grandkids) and lots of memories, pictures, songs and possessions to remember her by. I will say that I miss her, but in a way, I'm envious because she's free. She's free from her prison of flesh and bone and instead walks with Jesus as we speak and is no longer bed ridden. Even if you believe there is no Heaven, she's still free from the shackles that a mortal body offers.
Anyway, the decision was made to do a "mixtape" to play at her memorial service, and the task of acquiring the tracks was left to me. Thankfully, the decision on what tracks to include was not my call, as I wouldn't know even where to begin on finding songs she enjoyed. In some instances, she liked the cover of a song better than the original. (Something I share with her.) My Mom and her siblings have done a marvelous job so far of choosing songs, and after being presented with a tracklist, I have acquired the following songs...
"I Can Only Imagine" ~ MercyMe
"Music Box Dancer" ~ Frank Mills
"My Wild Irish Rose" ~ Traditional
"When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" ~ Paddy Noonan
"Ramblin Rose" ~ Nat King Cole
"Unforgettable" ~ Nat King Cole
"Unchained Melody" ~ Barry Manilow
"Venus" ~ Barry Manilow
"If I Ever Would Leave You" ~ Various Artists (from the musical 'Camelot')
"Somewhere, My Love" ~ Robert Goulet
"In the Mood" ~ Glen Miller
"A String of Pearls" ~ Glen Miller
"Sentimental Journey" ~ Les Brown & Doris Day
"Peace in the Valley" ~ Anne Murray
"The Old Rugged Cross" ~ Anne Murray
"In The Garden" ~ Anne Murray
"Solitaire" ~ The Carpenters
"I Won't Last A Day Without You" ~ The Carpenters
"The Blue Danube" ~ Andre Rieu
"Tales from the Vienna Woods" ~ Andre Rieu
"Rocky Mountain Suite" ~ John Denver
"To the Wild Country" ~ John Denver
Hopefully all of these will fit. Oh and here is the obituary for those inclined to view such a thing.
EDIT: Mom added two more songs.
Sunday, 14 June 2009
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SPLATTERHOUSE - THE MOVIE
Dude, video game movies suck and that's no lie. Sure, there are exceptions (I honestly liked the first Resident Evil and the first Tomb Raider. I have yet to see Hitman and Uwe Boll's crap doesn't count as a movie) but for the most part, a general rule is that video game movies are utter garbage. (Super Mario Brothers anyone?) So this got me to thinking that there must be some way to make an entertaining video game movie. I refuse to believe the entire genre is not without hope and today, it hit me like a 2x4 to the face.SPLATTERHOUSE! Originally an arcade game, it was ported to the now-defunct TurboGrafix video game system (along with some mild censorship and changes) and earned the wrath of every Soccer Mom and Oprah-ite out there. The story follows two University students, Rick and Jennifer, visiting the West Mansion, a local landmark known as "Splatterhouse" for the rumors of hideous experiments purportedly conducted there by Dr. West, a renowned (and now missing) parapsychologist. Of course, things quickly go south and Rick and Jennifer are attacked by the evil demons within and Jennifer is dragged off into the darkness. Rick awakes hours later, covered in blood, and discovering the legendary Mayan artifact the "Terror Mask" is now fused to his face. Now armed with incredible strength thanks to the mask, he must battle his way into the so-called Splatterhouse and save his beloved Jennifer before it's too late.Sounds pretty intense, right? Well check out this other story...Several college kids on vacation shack up in a small cabin in the woods, where they discover an audio recording of the Necronomicon Ex Mortis, or "Book of the Dead" which releases Kanadarian Demons (or commonly known as Deadites) to attack them and infest their souls. One man, named Ash, must fight his way to freedom in order to survive the night, armed only with a shotgun, a chainsaw and a chin of granite. Yeah, I just described the Evil Dead franchise with Bruce Campbell. However, Bruce would NOT be playing Rick in this movie (though it would be fun to give him a small cameo as Dr. West), but rather I am more concerned with the man behind the camera of Evil Dead and his latest flick, Drag Me to Hell.Sam Raimi.
Seriously , go watch all three Evil Dead movies (or at the very least, Evil Dead II) and then watch Drag Me to Hell. Keep what you see in mind as you sit down to play Splatterhouse and try to picture it is as a movie while you play. Sam is the ONLY one who can even begin to get the vision right. The blood, the chaos, the carnage...he can do it all.
The thing about Sam is that he manages to interject small doses of humor into his horror, but not to the point where it becomes Airplane! or Hot Shots or something. It's just enough to give it a unique bit of flavor that leaves you wanting for more. To me, that's what makes Drag Me to Hell so great, is that is completely over-the-top and yet unapologetic for it. (This is also true with Peter Jackson's "Bad Taste", which is another director I could see doing this)
Basically, this blog entry is a plea to Mr. Raimi. Get someone else to do Spider-Man 4, I beg of you. Don't get me wrong, 1 & 2 were excellent (especially 2!) and 3 was...well, let's not go there. But the point is, you've done all can with the series and made tons of money and it's obvious you haven't lost your touch for horror. So please, could you do me just this one favor and do Splatterhouse before Uwe Bolls get the idea? I'm beggin' ya, Sammy.
Friday, 12 June 2009
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TECH REVIEW - Twikini
Ever since I first got my grubby little mits on my sexy as hell Motorola Q9C Windows Mobile Smartphone, I have been downloading programs to it to help me stay connected with my various social media websites. Of these, the one I've had the most problems with is Twitter. (Shameless plug for my Twitter account) The first program I tried was ceTwit which worked decently enough at first, but one day completely had some sort of digital meltdown. Tweets were disappearing, avatar pics started loading in some sort of huge format and it would lock up and crash without warning. So away it went, uninstalled and never to be used again.From then I moved on to TinyTwitter, which served it's purpose well. It has some nice features (such as autocompleting a @Username) as well as auto-uploading to TwitPic and more. But for all that, it had some flaws too. It was amazingly unpredictable and sometimes the program wouldn't load at all. I would have to reboot my phone just to get it to work and avatars would suddenly not load and instead I would see the default O_o picture. And, like ceTwit, certain avatars would load as the huge monstor pictures taking up my entire screen. When it worked, it worked fine, but it was too much of a gamble. Yesterday, like ceTwit it had some sort of meltdown and completely imploded on itself. My tweets could not send, though I was receving other people's tweets just fine. And when I would attempt to check my replies, I would be greeted with a list of non-reply tweets several months old. I uninstalled it and grunted in frustration.Now beyond irritated, I did a Google search for "Windows Mobile Twitter" and found Twikini. I have to say, this is quite the marvelous program. For starters, it has a nice clean, easy on the eyes interface. (And the profile pics load instantly at the same size!)(Not my cell phone layout, btw)Not to mention it's one button to reply or one button re-tweet, GPS and auto-Twitpic upload. Twikini, where have you been all my life?So in short, I am loving this program. If you are a serious Twitter fan, such as myself, and have a Windows Mobile phone, I highly suggest picking this up. You can dowload it here. http://www.trinketsoftware.com/twikini
Wednesday, 13 May 2009
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HOW TO FIX IT: Dragonball Evolution
[NOTE: This is a new series on my blog in which I discuss how to fix something, anything, that I feel is in major need of repair. Hopefully, this will be the first of many.]
For those of you not in the know, the Dragonball series is a famous manga/anime that follows this misadventures of boy named Goku as he grows up to be a man and fights various high powered super-fights with demons and space aliens and such. Naturally, Hollywood haven't passed up the chance yet to run a good thing into the ground, decided it would be a super idea to do a live action version of the original Dragonball series. (Though it would only cover Goku's early battle with Piccolo, one of the original bad dudes and later good guys.) and naturally, it tanked.
According to IMDB.com, the movie's budget was in excess of $45,000,000 and made slightly over $4,000,000 it's opening weekend. Goku was mysteriously aged from a 12 year old boy to a skinny high school student, along with various other horrible modifications. How the studio didn't sense the Impending Box-Office Doom is beyond me. The studio had planned to make a trilogy out of the movie, but I think it's a safe bet to assume that is out of the question. So what now?
Simple, do another movie.
The problem is that they took the wrong approach with Dragonball. They tried to make story driven and seem like a legit movie, but that doesn't work. It's like trying to shoe-horn AC/DC into the Country Music Hall of Fame. You gotta stick with what works! Here's my plan on How to Fix It...
For starters, let's do a sequel and call it "DRAGONBALL Z: THE RETURN OF GOKU" or something like that. We fire the old director (James Wong) as well as the writers and producers. GOODBYE. Next, we change the mood of the film to a good summer pop corn flick. This is because Dragonball is STORY + FIGHTING, whereas Dragonball Z (the second series of the Dragonball franchise) is FIGHTING + HIDDEN POWER LEVELS + MORE FIGHTING + POWER!!! + FIGHTING. Lots of grunting, fireballs, explosions and lasers. Lots and lots of awesome explosions. But who could properly convey this to the big screen?
The keywords are AWESOME and EXPLOSIONS, because when it comes to AWESOME EXPLOSIONS, one man reigns supreme.
That's right, Michael Bay! The man behind both live-action Transformers movies likes things to be awesome. And he knows that when things are awesome, things blow up. Who better to do a Dragonball Z movie than Michael Bay? For example, here is an actual clip from the English dub...
That's right. You just watched a grown man in blue spandex and rejected XFL shoulder pads blow up a fish-alien guy with laser fireballs.This just screams Michael Bay.
It wouldn't matter if you weren't familiar with the subject matter, just throw in a couple of quick references to the back story and VIOLA, you're all set.
Throw in some Matrix-esque bullet time and Crouching Tiger-esque wire-fu and you have a good summer blockbuster my friend. Get a soundtrack with Disturbed, Linkin Park, Hollywood Undead, Slipknot and watch those green backs roll in. This is how you fix Dragonball. With Awesome Explosions.

Currently
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!
By Jane Austen, Seth Grahame-Smith
see related
Saturday, 25 April 2009
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TILL WE MEET AGAIN
So yeah, my internet is down for the count as my wireless Alltel modem went to big tech support company in the sky. Of course the warrant expires October of 2008 and of course there was no insurance on it. Charming, eh? So untill I can figure out what my next move is, you guys are gonna be Xanga-less from me for awhile. I can still update and mess around my Facebook and Twitter via my cell, but as for now, Xanga is on a haitus. Please try not to cry.
Friday, 10 April 2009
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ZOMBIE EDUCATION (W/ FANTASTIC SAVINGS!)
Since graduating from the Campbell University of Applied Solanum Research, I have become a certified Romero-class Zombieologist. During my crusade against the shambling hordes of the undead, I find myself crossing paths with many people who walk the same journey I do. My latest ally in this never ending fight has been Lost Zombies, which I discovered via the magic of Twitter. (Of which, why aren't you following me on Twitter?) Lost Zombies bills itself as "a community generated zombie documentary" and, truth be told, it is quite awesome. When they were offering free street team promo packs on Twitter, I jumped at the chance and signed up. Now, just a few days ago, I received about two dozen or so postcards which look like this...o
And about 8 or so stickers which read "INFECTED" and have a link back to LostZombies.com. Now armed with my information, I needed to bring the message of zombie survival to the masses, but how? I just couldn't stand on the street corner with a "THE END IS NIGH" sandwich board sign, cause people would think I'm crazy. No, instead I decided to hit the people up where they gather 24/7, a place where ethnic background, religion (or lack of one) or economic status are irrelevant.
Wal-Mart.
Armed with my post cards and stickers, I set out to educated the ignorant, unwashed masses of the dangers of zombies. My first stop was Health and Beauty, where I figured people looking for shampoo might want to focus on the safety of their brains, as well as their hair.
But my quest was not done yet. Next, I needed to let the fashionable males aware of the zombie threat. What good are jeans when you have no legs to run with?
I decided that kids should be aware of zombies too. They already know about GOOD vs EVIL due to Star Wars, so just replace the Sith with zombies.
And even The World's Greatest NASCAR Driverâ„¢ can't outrun the Living Dead...
Wednesday, 08 April 2009
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What's your favorite cologne or perfume?
This one is easy. Dirty English by Juicy Couture is the only thing I wear and the only cologne out there worth a damn. I have it shower gel form too.
I just answered this Featured Question; you can answer it too!
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CHURCH 2.0
I rejoined my old church after a heart to heart talk with my Pastor. It wasn't easy, but he extended an invitation to me and after a bit of discussion, I accepted. One of the major reasons I went back was that I would have a bit more creative control in a lot of areas, which is something I had desired. The Pastor also requested that I setup a website, as we currently do not have one. Now this tickled my fancy, as I have been wanting to put the church on the web for years now. I started a bit with MyChurch, but that didn't quite work out too well. Regardless, I will be designing (albeit crudely, still learning) a website. Eventually, I would love to be able to record the Pastor's sermons as podcasts. In my dream world, you could log on to www.unityfwb.com or something (still figuring out the URL) and click SERMONS and it would read like this...
4/5/2009 - The Important of Prayer (45:12)
4/12/2009 - Why Trusting God Is Important (39:42)
4/19/2009 - Study God (45:16)
You get the point and these are just examples I pulled out of thin air. I have no clue how I would do this, but I imagine it'd just be finding a way to hook the soundboard up to the computer. Still, we will file this under LONG TERM GOALS and just focus on getting the actual webpage up. The website will be HTML (not Flash, as I think all Flash sites suck) and would have a nice picture of the church on top, complete with "logo" of sorts, and on the left hand side would be the different sections. In my head, I sketched out the following...
ABOUT US - A brief section that explains the history of the church, the history of the Pastors there, and such. Would be a neat way to fill people on the church's backstory
LOCATION - Hopefully I'd be able to blend MapQuest in with the website, or GoogleMaps. If not, then it'd just have the church's address and phone number.
THE PASTOR - A bit of history about the Pastor.
EVENTS - Would need to keep this updated regularly. Basically, it'd list some of the upcoming big events at the church and when to expect them.
NEWSLETTER - Sign up for the newsletter
QUESTIONS? - Email the webmaster if you have any questions.
That's it for now. I might even link to an Amazon.com store where people can buy Bibles and other religious texts. I'm sure I'll tweak it as time goes on, but right now I'm just barely learning how to do web design and focusing on this. I'm really hoping this can work out, as I have big plans for the church when it comes to the internet and using it to reach out to people.
Sunday, 29 March 2009
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WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO HULK HOGAN?
Growing up as a fan of the (then) WWF, Hulk Hogan was always "the man" much like Stone Cold Steve Austin was in the mid-to-late 90's. You couldn't turn on a TV without seeing the Hulkster and it was glorious. I remember watching an old VHS tap while home sick one day from school and flipping the hell out when Hulk body slammed the seven and a half foot tall Andre the Giant!
And of course, I, like most wrestling fans, was SHOCKED when he turned his back on (a storyline, yes I know) WCW and aligned himself with the New World Order (nWo)
And even when he returned to the WWF(E), it was clear his star was still shining brightly. He had an awesome match with The Rock at Wrestlemania XVII, but things slowly began to unravel at this point. He soon started dressing up as a retarded Captain America (calling himself Mr. America) and then began to team up with a one legged wrestler named Zach Gowan. Things soon to began to roll downhill faster when he landed his "reality" show Hogan Knows Best. In this voyeuristic train wreck we we treated to his gold digging wife Linda, douche bag of a son named Nick and tanning bad experiment gone wrong of a daughter called Brooke. Instead of the "WATCHA GONNA DO, BROTHA?!" we had for years, we wound up with this bumbling, limping old man who installs tracking devices on his daughter's car to secretly keep track of her while on a date. It was sort of like watching a pro-wrestling version of The Osbournes, that instead of the wide-eyed Prince of Darkness we saw on stage, we saw a shuffling man muttering incoherently while his wife's dogs used the carpet as a bathroom stall.
But Hogan was determined to still remain in the spotlight and return to the WWF/E again, this time in story lines involving his daughter. (The whole thing was an attempt to promote Brooke Hogan's album.) Hogan sort of lingered around in the WWF/E at this point, before disappearing again to fade back into the real world. Wasn't too long before his son Nick, in a fit of being 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS, decides to drag race and winds up in a horrible car accident, leaving Nick's friend brain dead. Ever the man for words, Hogan comforted his son by saying that, among other things, he'd be sure to get his son a new reality TV show once he is out of prison.
Of course, this was followed up by Hogan's cougar-esque wife divorcing him and sapping him of pretty much every penny he had. (Holla 'We want pre-nup!') When Brooke's album tanked (as of now, a little over 200,00 CDs sold), Hogan needed cash to pay bills and he needed it now. Borrowing a page from The Gene Simmons Guide to Marketing, he decided to shill his image on just about any damn thing he could.(Hogan could have gone back to the WWE, but he has pretty much ranted about how he is "done" with them, so he may have burned his biggest money making bridge.)
So now we have....

Hulk Hogan Energy Drink
Hulk Hogan EXTREME Energy Granules
Hulk Hogan Ultimate Grill
The Hulkster Cheeseburger
And see, all of this is so sad. To see this once mighty king of the ring reduced to slapping his name on any ol' product he can get his hands on is almost Shakespearean in it's tragedy. How the mighty have fallen. Hulkster, if you happen to read this, I just want to say that I miss you. I hope you get enough money from hawking this crap (though the grill does look kinda neat!) and that you don't have a mental breakdown during the divorce hearings and hit the judge with the Big Boot and body slam Linda through a table.
On second thought, do that. That would probably the best way to go out in a blaze of glory without having to Chris Benoit yourself. And stop being so damn creepy with your daughter.
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