Sky Chopper is a fun side-scrolling shoot-em-up by Crazy Monkey Games (gotta love that name). There’s lots of fast action, tough enemies, and plentiful power-ups. This game almost reminds me a little of Chopper Command on steroids. Ahh… the good ‘ole days. *sigh*
Just a note – this file is large (>2MB) so you school kids with slow connections will need to practice your patience. 
Anyways, check this game out, and be sure to head over to Crazy Monkey Games and show them some love, too.
Ahh… the good ole’ call-your-parents-before-a-firefight gag. That one never gets old. In fact, I think I’m going to start ending all my phone conversations with “Incoming! RPG! _click_”.
I have received enough feedback about my previous Iron Man post relating to the connection I drew (rather effortlessly, let’s admit) between Stark Industries and Lockheed Martin that I wanted to post about it individually.
And speaking of… did anybody besides me notice that Stark Industries was a completely un-subtle spoof of Lockheed Martin Corporation, the United States’ biggest defense contractor? Not only does the Stark Industries logo (complete with bold-italic capitals and elongated angle-point) look strikingly like Lockheed Martin’s, but they even make the same F-22 Raptor fighter jets!?
I checked Google and my blog was the first to make the direct connection between the two (albeit obvious). Since then, it has popped up on a few other blogs and the Stark Industries entry on Wikipedia has been updated to reflect the company logo’s peculiar likeness to Lockheed Martin’s.
I would say “you be the judge”, but is there any doubt?
I just saw Iron Man at the theater. You’ll read some of my criticisms here, but all in all it was a fun and exhilarating cinematic ride. Oh yeah… minimal spoilers, so relax (in case you don’t read comic books)!
This was a pure gem for Robert Downey Jr. as he masterfully filled the shoes of our metallic hero. With all the problems Downey has had in the past it’s easy to approach his performance skeptically… until the movie starts. The ease and comfort with which he fell into the role of Tony Stark (Iron Man) is nearly dizzying, as was his command of the camera and fellow actors.
Stark is a complex character who’s unbridled and energetic approach to women and engineering (a winning combination tantamount to chocolate and peanut butter) would leave both the geekiest slacker-geniuses and the smoothest lady-killers equally schooled. Downey fit the part like a glove.
Jeff Bridges and Gwyneth Paltrow also rise to the acting occasion to round out the cast of conflicted characters. Bridges was excellent and sold the corporate suited Obadiah Stane. Paltrow, looking better than ever, deftly portrayed a demure yet savvy “Pepper” Potts (Stark’s assistant) including near-perpetual nonchalance at Stark’s antics.
Being an engineer I always have a hard spot for bad science (especially physics) in movies. By “bad” I don’t mean things like light sabers or warp drive… I mean science that violates known and common laws of physics.
Now, it’s believable that some super-armor can absorb severe impacts by missiles and bullets… but if you’re inside the suit you still will feel the full forces from your sudden changes in velocity. In Iron Man there are times when Stark’s body undergoes accelerations and decelerations that would near-liquefy his brain, yet he easily survives.
At other times Stark lands (on his feet) onto both hard and soft surfaces from incredible speeds and without leaving much of an imprint… yet in one part of the movie just gently setting down his suit feet-first onto a concrete structure caused it to collapse – under his weight, I guess – and then collapse through an additional floor of the house down into the basement.
My biggest gripe, being a former soldier and perpetual patriot, is the goofy take on national defense and military weaponry that the story partially took. Stark is the mastermind behind his father’s business, the powerful weapons development and manufacturing company Stark Industries. After Stark’s ordeal at the beginning of the movie he starts to rethink the morality of creating weaponry after seeing his weapons used by the bad guys to hurt innocent people.
Hollywood frequently interjects leftism into its movies, and I’ve become numb to their depiction of the US military as a shoot-first outfit. Iron Man was a little better at not doing this. But the annoying thing is that the inevitable conclusion to Stark’s moral crisis would have to have been: making good weapons for ourselves leads to bad people using them for evil so I should stop making good weapons for ourselves. As if our enemies would no longer have any weapons? As if the mere existence of the weapons coerces people to do evil things?
Now, I work for Lockheed Martin (but don’t speak for them in any way construed or misconstrued) and our fighter jets (or any of our weapon systems) don’t find their way into terrorists hands regardless of what Hollywood says. America’s defense technology is kept under such tight export controls that it’s a wonder sometimes even our staunchest allies can get hold of it.
And speaking of… did anybody besides me notice that Stark Industries was a completely un-subtle spoof of Lockheed Martin Corporation, the United States’ biggest defense contractor? Not only does the Stark Industries logo (complete with bold-italic capitals and elongated angle-point) look strikingly like Lockheed Martin’s, but they even make the same F-22 Raptor fighter jets!? [see photo]
Despite my bellyaching I highly recommend this flick for any lover of action and acting. I thoroughly enjoyed it and anticipate a sequel, because what’s a comic book story without lots of sequels?
Hundred Monkey Theory is calling it quits, but is going out with a bang with one last concert at Grace Fellowship on Friday, May 2 at 7:30pm. The evening will be featuring the current band, plus rotating guest musicians who’ve played with HMT throughout the years (including yours truly).
Of course there will be the obligatory tweaking over the next few weeks… but here’s the long-awaited (mostly by me) redesign. I will blog about this officially very soon – the post you are looking at is an “aside”, and is styled slightly subtler than a regular post. Let me know what you think!
I’ve been jawing about this a while (too long)… but there is seriously a new design for this blog coming very soon. It will be another light-on-dark color scheme… but very colorful, slightly space-themed, and demi-minimalistic.
Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?
- Adolf Hitler… while persuading his generals that a Jewish holocaust would be tolerated by the West
…the Armenian massacre was the greatest crime of the war, and the failure to act against Turkey is to condone it … the failure to deal radically with the Turkish horror means that all talk of guaranteeing the future peace of the world is mischievous nonsense.
- Theodore Roosevelt… in a May 11, 1918, letter to Cleveland Hoadley Dodge
I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode as this. The great massacres and persecutions of the past seem almost insignificant when compared to the sufferings of the Armenian race in 1915.
- Henry Morgenthau, Sr. US Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire
On this day, we pause in remembrance of one of the most horrible tragedies of the 20th century, the annihilation of as many as 1.5 million Armenians through forced exile and murder at the end of the Ottoman Empire. This terrible event remains a source of pain for people in Armenia and Turkey and for all those who believe in freedom, tolerance, and the dignity of every human life. I join with my fellow Americans and the Armenian community in the United States and around the world in mourning this loss of life.
- George W. Bush, April 24, 2004
Armenian Genocide // Armenian Genocide Map // Armenian Genocide Photos // genocide1915.info // never-again.com
It’s Earth Day 2008 and everyone is talking green – despite the ridiculously hypocritical nature [pun] of it all. I’m not big on the greenies or their leftist propaganda… but I do like this big rock we’re living on. I like it because the chances of a rock just like this to support any complex life is about one in 1×10^10^120 (for those of you bad at math… that probability is unimaginably small). So, in the interest of keeping this big beautiful rock environmentally well – here is my list of actions you can take:
Happy Earth Day!
It’s been a few weeks since the April 3 police raid on a Mormon breakaway sect that had a Texas ranch (called Yearning for Zion) where several families lived and worked in societal seclusion. They were also practicing polygamy and pubescent marriage – both of which are Biblical (in historicity) and fit with these people’s strict religious adherence.
After all the blah-blah the mainstream media windbags have gassed out, I’m left pondering this whole thing. I remember the Waco Massacre and how our government burned alive 76 people, including 21 children and two pregnant women. Now, if you think I’m going to condone any of those Waco nuts, or any of the recent polygamy and child-marriage, you can rest easy – I’m not. However, bigger issues and ethical dilemmas arise.
For instance, what exactly justifies the government removing confiscating kidnapping over 400 children based on one anonymous call from a purported young girl at this ranch? I mean, shouldn’t they first investigate, find this girl, and THEN legally deal with HER parents only (at least initially)? Can you imagine if someone in your church had abused their children, and because of it all the children in your church – including YOUR children – were taken away by the government and prepped for foster care? Where’s the due process?
Another thing that bugs me is that this would NEVER have happened if it were a Muslim ranch… not in today’s politically correct mire where politicians are stumbling over each other to kiss any large potential voting block’s collective arse.
Perhaps the biggest incongruity I struggle with here is the illogical, irrational, and imbalanced “shock” and “outrage”. I’m talking about “outrage” over a 50-yr-old man marrying a 14-yr-old girl – yet if a 50-yr-old man had instead carved out the girl’s brain at birth, then that’s okay. I’m talking about “shock” that a man would have two wives, but two gay men existing as co-husbands is okay. Polygamy is just an organized and religious “marriage” version of what’s already going on in our inner-cities in a very non-marriage and non-religious context.
Quite frankly, America’s (and Britain’s) inner-cities have sorta become an urban underage-illegitimacy farm where poorly-raised girls of single mothers copulate with multiple poorly-raised boys of single mothers and produce multiple babies by multiple fathers (that we foot the bill for, of course). These children would be better off with polygamist parentssss who are more stable, more nurturing, and wait at least until puberty to whore out wed their daughters… yet it’s the Texas ranch folks who got their kids taken away. [Two great books to read more about inner-city "nurturing" and illegitimacy are Freakonomics by Steven Levitt, and Marriage and Caste In America by Kay Hymowitz]
So I’m troubled a bit. I’m troubled that we’re on a slippery slope and nobody cares enough about some pioneer-dress wearing simple folk to at least raise an eyebrow. I’m raising my eyebrow… and curious to see how this turns out in the next few weeks.
I'm a Christ-follower, compelled by my faith toward reason, which points directly toward conservatism. This world's daily onslaught of lunacy offends my intellect and senses, so this is my venue to blow off steam.
