Open Water

If you're in the mood for a crashingly dull, rather uneventful, and pointless movie, this one's for you.

* SPOILER WARNING *


The 'story' follows a couple, named Daniel (Daniel Travis) and Susan (Blanchard Ryan), who have gone scuba diving during their vacation on some Carribean island or another. Due to a screw-up with the head count by a fellow I will henceforth call Incompetent Island Guy, the boat leaves them behind while they're diving. For the rest of the movie, we watch them bob around in the ocean, blame each other for their predicament, bitch, and be generally pretty understandibly unhappy.

Highlights:

• Daniel gets stung by a jellyfish.
• Susan freaks out a bit because a fish was nibbling at her.
• Daniel gets bitten by a little shark and Susan stops the bleeding by wrapping a belt over the wound.

After a night of being pestered by sharks, the morning finds Daniel dead and being held onto by Susan after the former presumably bled to death during the course of the night. Realizing that she is clinging to what amounts to a 160 pound Beggin' Strip, she pushes the corpse away and it is promptly eaten. But no gore here - the corpse jerks a bit in the water so you realize it's being eaten by sharks.

Meanwhile, Incompetent Island Guy finds their gear aboard the boat and realizes his horrible error. A sea-plane, helicopters, and a virtual flotilla of boats race to find the pair.

The camera goes back to Susan, who then takes off her gear, voluntarily plunges beneath the surface and dies.

The End.

If you're looking for gore, there is none. If you're waiting to catch a glipse of some Mother of All Sharks, there are none - they're all pretty small for a movie. If you are looking for an engaging story, you are going to be horribly disappointed. Lion's Gate Films should be made to refund the ticket price of every poor sap that watched this pathetic excuse for a movie. It is apparently 'based on a true story', but considering that both of the main characters died before they were found you would think they could have took a bit more artistic licence or at least allowed you to connect with the characters somewhat. They seemed to be little more than a pair of over-achieving and extremely annoying yuppies, so the feeling of loss isn't particularly great when they wind up guests of Davey Jones.

An apple a day...

Since Atkins died it appears a lot of people have fallen off the bandwagon. The Atkins diet always seemed little more than a popular fad to me, and gone are the "Atkins approved" selections at restaurants, the miles of "Atkins" foods at grocery stores, and the constant internet postings of how great it is. The whole thing, as I understood it, seemed to defy common sense. There were actually bakeries across the country that were in danger of going bankrupt because of this crap. And as I am a devotee of French and Italian breads, this really concerned me.

Maybe I missed something. Atkins devotees were eschewing bread to the point of having Subway sandwiches with no friggin bun to contain the fillings and hamburgers which consisted of a patty of meat. And yet now we have this:

http://www.atkins.com/research-library/two-types-of-fiber/

Straight from the Atkins site, and talking about the benefits of fiber (a lot of which comes from grain).

Get this people: DIETS ARE BULLSHIT. What happened to the South Beach Diet and the Grapefruit Diet? All nonsense designed to separate the legions of lazy-ass people from their hard-earned cash. Yet nobody feels stupid for following the crowd. How many dumb-ass 'diets' have there been now, how many have bottles of Cal-Ban 3000, Redux, and Grapefruit 2000 (or whatever the hell it was called) are in the cabinets of moronic sheep? It's garbage.

Losing weight is the very simple matter of doing more and eating less. Not some fad. Turn off the TV, put down the Hostess cream pies, get off your big fat ass and do something.

The human body was designed to walk 20 miles a day and hunt sabretooth tigers, not sit in a couch and vegetate while munching food 'approved' by some quack doctor. No fad diet is going to overcome a sedentary lifestyle. Get out and do things, eat a good balanced diet with plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, and stay away from shit food as much as possible. Simple as that.

Grandpa may not have been a doctor, but he did live longer than Dr. Atkins. He simply ate good, wholesome foods and worked his ass off. Amazing.

Wal-Mart and the "living wage"

Time and time again I run across this economically disasterous concept of a goverment-mandated "living wage" - artificially inflated wages raised above the actual value of work performed. Neither the government or an employer is required to pay you wages on which you can live.

An employer says, in essense, "Here is what we will pay for this position". If you don't feel it is adequate for either the amount or the type of work you will be doing, don't work there. If you are not qualified to work anywhere else, whose fault is that? Wal-Mart's? I'm constantly reading all these bitches and moans by Wal-Mart employees that they don't make enough, and there's even a host of websites devoted to griping about how little they pay and how employees can hardly afford to shop there themselves. What's funny is that these sites usually bring up how a worker in a Bangladeshi factory that makes shirts for Wal-Mart couldn't even afford the smallest items there.

What doesn't dawn on them is that the very fact that there is a Bangladeshi factory making shirts for them is due to wage-fixing. I myself worked at Wal-Mart in the 80's (back when you could still smoke in the store - imagine that today!), and Sam Walton made a huge deal about as many goods as possible being U.S. - made, unless there was no way they could obtain a U.S. made article at a reasonable price. Indeed the shelves were full of goods stamped 'Made in the U.S.A.' Not anymore. When wages are raised above the actual value for that work, employers have two choices if they wish to maintain the same level of solvency. They can outsource, or they can lay off workers. Wal-Mart, like any other company, exists to turn a profit. In a capitalist society this means exchanging value for value in accordance with what the present market will bear. It isn't a charity, and if the current workers aren't happy with it they are free to leave and work elsewhere. Go to college or learn a trade or something - it isn't anyone's fault but your own if you're working a low-paying job and are unhappy. You are there because of choices you made.

Invariably this outcry seems to come from people who consider healthcare a "right", and think we should redistribute the nation's wealth. You have no "right" to free healthcare, because someone has to pay for it, and rights cannot come at the expense of others. A "right" is a right to action. Nothing more. The right to life does not guarantee that you will continue to draw breath. The right to own property does not guarantee that you will own same, if you have nothing to exchange for it. The right to pursue happiness cannot come at another's expense.

The redistribution of wealth divorces individuals from the products of their labors, fosters a parasitic underclass, creates division and resentment, and leads to the eventual collapse of society. Life isn't fair and never has been. Get over it.

Real radio ad

Heard this today..

"Are bill collectors causing you to have trouble sleeping at night? If so, call 'XYZ' financial services, and..."

Well, here's an idea. If bill collectors are bothering you that much to where you can't even sleep, how about paying the damn things? Get this: if you pay them what you owe them, they'll stop calling. I may be way off base here, but it seems to me that if you incur debts for goods and services, the people you received said goods and services from are gonna kinda want to be repaid on the schedule you agreed to. And rightfully so, methinks.

All these debt consolidation places make it sound like the debtors are some sort of victims, as if someone held a gun to their silly heads and made them buy a bunch of crap they can't afford.

Or you could simply drink a lotta scotch before bedtime.

Man, I should be a financial advisor.

So long, Mr. Rosenthal

The man who took the most (arguably) famous photograph in history has just passed away. Joe Rosenthal, who took the famous Flag Raising on Iwo Jima (actually the second photograph taken) could not have known what impact his photo would have, but it became an icon, transformed the lives of the flag-raisers (for better or worse), defined a generation of great Americans, and earned him a Pulitzer Prize.

Now would be a good time to put in a plug for the book 'Flags of our Fathers', the most powerful book I have ever read: http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/102-5225823-0493735?url=index%3Dblended&field-keywords=Flags+of+our+fathers&Go.x=7&Go.y=11

Every American should read this book.

Mr. Rosenthal was 94.

'Operation Iraqi Freedom'

Why are we there? I've done two tours in OIF I and OIF III, and I still can't understand. We were told that there were 'weapons of mass destruction', and yet none have been found . It should have been very easy to pull up a receipt with both a date and a name on it - because we gave Saddam weapons of mass destruction, back when Iran was our enemy. These very same WMDs used on the Kurds were a direct result of the sharing of technology by U.S. labs, and even may have been produced by same. Even prior to the invasion of Kuwait which prompted Desert Storm, Saddam had every reason to believe that the U.S. would support him, if transcripts of meetings can be believed.

In the weeks and months leading up to the latest invasion, it was quite obvious that the U.S. would invade no matter what Iraq did, before Hans Blix even left the country. It became a one-sided issue of ego; no WMDs had been found, but accepting this would put us in the wrong for asserting that there was, so there was no choice but to invade to try and save face. So, when "WMDs" were not found even after the invasion, the government propagated lies, concentrating on the fact that Saddam was a brutal dictator and insinuating that Iraq was somehow involved in 9/11.

* Saddam was a brutal dictator, but there are many of his ilk all over the world that we have done nothing about. Maybe because their countries don't have oil?

* Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 whatsoever. Back when we were convinced there were WMDs..the government didn't even insinuate this. Now half the country is convinced they had something to do with it.

Quite simply, we fucked up. The Iraqis loved us when we deposed Saddam, but not for long after. We have nearly 20,000 confirmed American deaths now, because of a debacle which we created. Does it not dawn on people that a nation which can produce twenty thousand deaths (with no end in sight) against the most technologically adavanced military on earth could very well have deposed Saddam themselves if they had taken a notion to? Saddam's army was a joke.

General Smedley Butler had it right: war is a racket. We (the military) are little more than mercenaries sent hither and yon to die at some politician's whim. We need to get back in the business of national defense, rather than an armed horde to advance partisan interests.

I don't see that 20,000 deaths and well over three hundred billion dollars is a fair price for liberating some shitheads that don't want us there in the first place. I can certainly think of a lot better uses for a sum which is greater than the entire Gross National Product of Russia. Mark my words, in less than 30 years after we pull out we'll be right back there fighting the exact same assholes again.

We do the troops an intolerable injustice by sending them to die for an incomprehensible network of LIES.

JonBenet

Great, can we quit hearing about her now?

Fred Phelps and his whelps

It absolutely amazes me that this guy and his flock (mostly his family) are still walking around breathing. It's mind boggling that his church of hatred hasn't been burned to the ground. If anyone doesn't know who I'm talking about, he is the 'pastor' of the Westboro Baptist Church, 3701 W. 12th Street in Topeka, KS. This is the group that runs http://www.godhatesfags.com/main/index.html and pickets protesting dead servicemembers' funerals with signs saying "Thank God for Dead Soldiers", "You're going to hell", and "God hates your tears".

If I had a family member in the service who died and these people showed up, I'd be in jail for murder. That is not an idle comment. I would shoot every last one of them present.

But although he and his crew do not by any stretch of the imagination even come close to being representative of the vast majority of Christians, I can say one thing: he does know exactly what the Bible says. And he believes exactly what it says.

It is easy to say that the man is a nut, that he is rabid, much as a moderate Muslim would say that acts like cutting off innocent people's heads is insane. But he uses the exact same Bible other Christians use and quotes it often. The funny thing is, what it says is in accordance with the hateful, despicable views he holds.

He does not cherry-pick, he does not choose which parts of the Bible to ignore and which to bolster his conviction and action. He is an example of what you get with total faith in what God has to say.

How do other Christians decide which parts of their book to take to heart and which to blow off? Nearly every church I've seen has 'Bible study', yet it is absolutely mind-boggling that these millions of people that study the Bible somehow miss the contradictions, the rapes, the cannibalism, the murder, slavery, genocide, and the absurdity all either attested to, committed by, or commanded by God.

Phelps is the twisted, evil, devisive product of religion and faith. It is time to turn our backs on the filthy violent doctrine that all the 'holy' books are full of. We do not need a god to learn about the universe or our place in it. We don't need him to explain why we are here. And we certainly don't need the fear of eternal damnation or God's wrath to make reasonable people have compassion, love, and honesty.

I wish there was a hell, for any just god would have a very warm place in it indeed for a Mr. Fred Phelps.

Inboxer Rebellion

There is no little girl who will die of cancer unless you forward an e-mail. No photos were taken of a living Tyrannosaurus in Nigeria. Neither AOL or Microsoft are conducting a test that will pay you if you forward e-mail messages. There is no 'cell phone virus'.

Why do people forward stupid e-mails? If you are forwarding an e-mail to someone you know, then one would think that it is because it is interesting enough for others to read. How can it be interesting enough to read, yet not enough to verify, or at least try to find out more about?

Personally, if I read that piranha are shredding people in Lake Erie, I'm going to be like "Holy shit! I've gotta find out more about this!", and start looking for news stories about it. If I get an e-mail saying that wallets made from eelskin demagnetize credit cards due to leftover charges from the electric eels used to make them, I'm going to realize that that is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, and delete it. Either way, I'm not forwarding bullshit to fill up someone else's inbox.

99% of the "virus warnings" I get via e-mail are 100% nonsense. They are casually forwarded so often that these hoaxes assume the proportion of a real virus themselves. While many are harmless, some encourage users to find and delete system files on their computer. Personally, I don't mind these - if a person is stupid enough to blindly believe any crap that shows up in their inbox and start trashing files without the foggiest notion what they do, they deserve to have a screwed-up computer. At least they won't be sending me the crap.

Which do these people have the greater share of - ignorance or laziness? It is so easy to check the veracity of these things: http://www.snopes.com/

Look it up, hit "reply to all", and show everyone what a dumbass the original sender is. After a few times, they will quit filling up your inbox with garbage.

The Word

I take it upon myself today to spread the Word of Almighty God. For in Galatians 5:22-23 it clearly tells us that the fruit of the Spirit of God is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Should we all not endeavor to be more Godlike?

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Ezekiel 5:17 "and I will send upon you famine and evil beasts, and they shall bereave thee; and pestilence and blood shall pass through thee; and I will bring the sword upon thee: I, Jehovah, have spoken it."
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2 Kings 2:23;24 And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.

And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tore forty two of the children to pieces.
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1 Chronicles 13:9;10 And when they came unto the threshingfloor of Chidon, Uzza put forth his hand to hold the ark; for the oxen stumbled.

And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzza, and he smote him, because he put his hand to the ark: and there he died before God.
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Genesis 38:7;8;9;10 And Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD slew him.

And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother.

And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother.

And the thing which he did displeased the LORD: wherefore he slew him also.
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Genesis 6:7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.
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Malachi 2:2;3 If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the LORD of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings: yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart.

Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you away with it.
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Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
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1 Kings 20:35;36 And a certain man of the sons of the prophets said unto his neighbor in the word of the LORD, Smite me, I pray thee. And the man refused to smite him.

Then said he unto him, Because thou hast not obeyed the voice of the LORD, behold, as soon as thou art departed from me, a lion shall slay thee. And as soon as he was departed from him, a lion found him, and slew him.
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Exodus 12:12;29;30 For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the LORD.

And it came to pass, that at midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle.

And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead.
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Jeremiah 11:22;23 Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, Behold, I will punish them: the young men shall die by the sword; their sons and their daughters shall die by famine.

And there shall be no remnant of them: for I will bring evil upon the men of Anathoth, even the year of their visitation.
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Hosea 13:16 Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up.
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Judges 11:30-39 And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the LORD, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands

Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.

So Jephthah passed over unto the children of Ammon to fight against them; and the LORD delivered them into his hands.

And he smote them from Aroer, even till thou come to Minnith, even twenty cities, and unto the plain of the vineyards, with a very great slaughter. Thus the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel.

And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter.

And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the LORD, and I cannot go back.

And she said unto him, My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the LORD, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; forasmuch as the LORD hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the children of Ammon.

And she said unto her father, Let this thing be done for me: let me alone two months, that I may go up and down upon the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my fellows.

And he said, Go. And he sent her away for two months: and she went with her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains.

And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she knew no man.
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1 Kings 13:2 And he cried against the altar in the word of the LORD, and said, O altar, altar, thus saith the LORD; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee.
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Leviticus 25:44-46 However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way.
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Zephaniah 2:12-15 You Ethiopians will also be slaughtered by my sword," says the LORD.

And the LORD will strike the lands of the north with his fist. He will destroy Assyria and make its great capital, Nineveh, a desolate wasteland, parched like a desert.

The city that once was so proud will become a pasture for sheep and cattle. All sorts of wild animals will settle there. Owls of many kinds will live among the ruins of its palaces, hooting from the gaping windows. Rubble will block all the doorways, and the cedar paneling will lie open to the wind and weather.

This is the fate of that boisterous city, once so secure. "In all the world there is no city as great as I," it boasted. But now, look how it has become an utter ruin, a place where animals live! Everyone passing that way shall hiss or wag his hand.
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Matthew 10:34;35;36;37 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
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Luke 14:25;26 And there went great multitudes with him: and he turned, and said unto them,

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
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Deuteronomy 23:1;2 He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD.

A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD.
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Psalms 137:8;9 O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.

Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.
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This is just a small taste.

Visit www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/index.htm for a WHOLE LOT more enlightening Scripture!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6370534978087426825&hl=en

More replies from the deluded..

So I get an email from yet another of the devout who has read my biblical contradictions postings. And thus begins a stream of e-mails in which he shows himself quite incapable of thinking for himself, referring me instead to a number of websites which supposedly "refute" these contradictions (in many, the explanation is even more ludicrous than the original Biblical discrepancy). He even eventually attaches a file from some utter dimwit (supposedly his brother) with weak, illogical "answers" and logical fallacies in response to what I wrote in my e-mail to the first dimwit. This new choad even insists the earth is 6000 years old, and didn't realize that there is such a word as 'prehistory'! Where the heck is this wormhole that they are using to bring these dorks from the Iron Age back?

C'mon, if you are going to attempt to debate at least have the decency to do more than send me a slew of links (one of which to a site about "Creation Science"! Could anyone come up with a MORE absurd oxymoron?!) and bring in additional dunderheaded reinforcements.

The beauty of attempting to use reason with people like this is that they haven't the power to think for themselves, because they operate solely on a meme. When confronted with reason they fall back only on mindless insistence and foot-stamping. This guy even resorted to trying to prove the "truth" of scripture by - you guessed it! - quoting more scripture!

So predictably, the verbose emails that started with bold challenges and claims that I'm ignorant dwindle down to a couple lines with a weak-assed excuse that because I don't accept one of his beloved websites' explanation of the number of animals on the ark that there is no point in talking to me. He conveniently ignores the numerous other Biblical discrepancies that I wrote about in the e-mail. Oh yeah, and of course he includes a link to yet another preposterous website written by some equally preposterous evangelist.

Listen, if any of you are going to write, please be capable of logical thought. Also, don't criticize my knowledge of English when your own e-mails look like they were written by a retarded child.

Everything old is....bastardized

What is with this epidemic of making old TV shows and movies from the 70's and 80's into "new" feature films? It's like nobody can come up with anything original anymore. Some are okay, like Adam Sandler's "The Longest Yard", "Dawn of the Dead", and "Fat Albert", but come on..a "Starsky and Hutch" riddled with silly one-liners and ridiculous stunts and a "Dukes of Hazzard" where the Dukes cuss? They can't even get the slang right, nobody said 'whateverr' in the 80's.

It's kind of sad that kids actually think some of these are good movies, when all they have done is butcher the charm and/or meaning of the original. "Miami Vice" is the top movie out right now, but it appears to be set in the present time. The whole reason the original was popular is that it opitimized everything that was considered cool in the 80's..Lamborghinis, 5 o'clock shadow at 8 a.m., loafers, and linen suits worn with pink T shirts. If they are going to make a movie about two Miami cops in present day, why rip off the original? Make a new movie with new names. Have them strut around sporting Ipods and logging into MySpace or whatever is considered 'cool' now...but fer chrissakes don't claim they're Crockett and Tubbs.

Some are just too dated to have any impact. Witness 1998's "Godzilla". Inoshiro Honda's original, beyond being incredibly campy, had the undercurrent of post-WW2 Japan's nuclear paranoia. The new one is just a big scaly monster that crushes shit. Loudly.

Some movies people don't even realize are horribly done remakes. "The Haunting" was a collosal lump of poop, a sad copy of Robert Wise's 1963 adaptation of Shirley Jackson's classic short story, "The Haunting of Hill House."

I grew up watching "Bewitched" and "The Avengers", but dear God..the remakes are so awful that I think they likely could have done much better by wracking their stupid uncreative little brains and coming up with something original, however bad it is. The original actors should come back and kick the directors' asses.

Now from what I understand they're remaking "The A Team", "Knight Rider", and "Dallas" too, all of which will suck horribly. I can see it now, on "The A Team" we will finally get to see someone actually shot, "Knight Rider" will drive a hybrid K.I.T.T. that speaks with a Spanish accent, and "Dallas" will be set in Saudi Arabia with J.R. (Jamal Rahsheed) sporting a turban.

Oh, yeah..they're remaking "Baywatch" into a freakin' movie too! This movie is going to have to suck on a galactic scale never before seen in the history of cinema. Jesus, the original show's only redeeming characteristic was plenty of bouncing boobs. It was horrible even when it was new. Why on earth would anyone want to bring it back? Can anyone even take two hours of this shit in one sitting - and pay for it to boot?

On some level, a generation is defined by their music and films. It pisses me off that the only thing these fat, overpaid movie producers can come up with is shitty copies of shows I grew up with and movies based on video games. Whatever will the next generation have to rip off? Even more sad is the fact that people line up in droves to fork over $8 to watch a mangled remake of a much better show that was free, all because 'retro' is 'cool' now. They're selling fake 'Cinderella' and 'Motley Crue' T-shirts in Wal-Mart now, and they're being snapped up by kids who weren't even born when these bands were on the charts.

Don't patronize remake movies. If you are trying to glimpse some of the magic of the original TV show that you remember, 90% of the time you are going to be sadly disappointed. If you weren't around when the original show was aired, then you missed that boat...even by watching reruns you aren't going to 'get' a lot of something that was popular 20 or 30 years ago. Demand that Hollywood make your own damn pop culture.