Video - Austin City Limits 2011 - Stevie Wonder

Stevie Wonder singing "I Just Called to Say I Love You" at ACL, 2011.

Austin City Limits 2011, Day 2

Here's some pictures from day 2 of the Austin City Limits Music Festival. The kids came with us this time, so we spent some of the time watching kids bands like "Recess Monkey." We also caught Cee Lo, who wasn't that good. The highlight was the closing act, Stevie Wonder.

Video - Austin City Limits 2011 - Coldplay

Coldplay performing "Yellow" at ACL 2011.

Austin City Limits 2011, Day 1

Here's a few pictures from the first day of the Austin City Limits Music Festival. We didn't arrive there until close to 6pm, so we only caught two bands, Bright Eyes and Coldplay. I had never heard of Bright Eyes, and wasn't particularly impressed, but Coldplay put on an excellent show.

Ramblings #12

I was reading an old blog I wrote back in October of 2008, where I wrote that Barack Obama would become president by a landslide vote. I was right, of course, and I think now I can safely say that, even though it's 14 months away, Obama will lose by the same landslide in 2012. On Tuesday in New York, a Republican took the House seat that was recently vacated by disgraced democrat Anthony Weiner. What does it say when the Republicans start winning in places that always vote Democrat? It says that the Democrats are in for a horrendous loss next year.

But, you know, we deserve it. The Democrats have not done a good job. I've gone on numerous rants about Obama in previous blogs, so I won't keep beating a dead horse. It doesn't mean I'll jump to the dark side and vote Republican, though, and watching the GOP debate the other night just confirmed my beliefs that this party will never be for me. During one particular exchange, GOP candidate Ron Paul was asked if he would let a 30 year old man without health insurance just die if he was hospitalized from a terrible accident.

"Yes!" shouted several members of the audience, followed by laughter and thunderous applause.

To give Ron Paul some credit, he never actually said yes himself, but he kind of avoided the question, instead implying that maybe a "church" would help the guy out.

I don't want to get into health insurance again. I think I've already talked about that enough. I agree (to some extent) that "healthcare begins at the supermarket." People eat crap, and their poor health is a result of their own bad decisions. However, sometimes what you eat at the supermarket has nothing to do with medical emergencies. Healthcare is just one of many issues that I disagree with Republicans on. I also disagree with them on: taxes, abortion, gay marriage, military spending, regulations, climate change, wages and unions, etc. I could go on. I think the only issues where we see eye to eye are the death penalty and immigration reform. So, as much as I am disappointed with our current Commander-in-Chief, I won't sell out my beliefs just because I'm mad.

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The Texas drought is really wreaking havoc on our front yard and backyard, and since we're only allowed to water our lawn two days a week, there isn't really much I can do to save it. We've got some hideous looking cracks on our lawns. It almost looks like there's been an earthquake and the ground is opening up. It's going to take lots and lots of rain to fix this, and I don't see that happening anytime soon. We haven't had a good rainstorm here in months, and when it does rain, it's just for about 10 minutes.

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Sara is just tearing up 1st grade. She's gotten a score of "100" on every test that she has brought home. She even got "104" on one test, since she got the "bonus question" correct. I'm really proud of her.

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This weekend is the big "Austin City Limits" music festival. I'll post some pictures from the festival over the next several days.

(Picture: The GOP contenders for President. A scary bunch, to say the least)

Pictures of New York, 2001

As I mentioned previously, on my recent trip to Taiwan, I managed to salvage some pictures I took over the last 10 years, which included some pictures from England, France, and New York.

On the 10th anniversary of 9/11, I thought I'd share these pictures I took of New York the last time I was there, which was May of 2001. It seems pretty weird now that I was there just a few short months before the attack. I took several pictures from the top of the World Trade Center, but unfortunately, like the towers themselves, they didn't survive. There is one picture, though, where you can see them in the background.

Remakes and The Death of Hollywood

As I've mentioned before on this blog, when I was a kid my mom used to take me to the movies every Sunday afternoon. She did this for several years. From about 1982 to 1986. This was back when movies were still cheap, and I could still get in under a child's ticket price. I saw a lot of crap, but I saw a lot of good movies too, and some of those movies still bring back some fond memories.

Over the years, from what I presume is because Hollywood has completely run out of ideas, they are remaking many of my favorite movies from the 80's. Just recently I saw two remakes of movies that I really loved as a kid: "Conan the Barbarian" (from 1982) and "Fright Night" (from 1985). Last year, another one of my favorite 80's movies, "Clash of the Titans", was also remade. And in October of this year, we have a remake of the John Carpenter classic "The Thing" coming out. This is after the totally crappy remakes of other classic Carpenter movies that have preceded it, like "The Fog" and "Halloween."

While "Conan" and "Fright Night" (the remakes) had a few cool scenes here and there, for the most part, they sucked. While some would argue that the original "Conan", with Arnold Schwarzenegger, is hardly a classic, I like it a lot. I also think it still holds up well today, unlike "Fright Night" and "Clash", which definitely look like the products of the 80's that they are. Both the new "Conan" and the old one are basically simple revenge stories. But the original had that great score, sweeping landscapes, and a story that took its time and allowed you to know the characters, and to feel the triumph when Conan finally kills his enemies at the end of the film. The new one is just one battle scene after another with fake CGI blood flying everywhere.

Hollywood should really give up this remake trend. They rarely work, and most of the time they tank at the box office (both "Conan" and "Fright Night" bombed). For every decent remake that comes out (Dawn of the Dead, King Kong (2005), Scarface (1983), The Thing (1982), you get tons of crap remakes (Psycho, The Omen, Arthur, Fame, The Fog, Friday the 13th, Halloween, House of Wax, Rollerball, The Wolfman, The Wicker Man, etc.) I'm sure I've only just scraped the surface here.

And more are on the way, including the previously mentioned update of "The Thing" and "Total Recall", with Colin Farell taking over Schwarzenegger's role. Although they haven't been announced, I'm fully expecting to see remakes of "Jaws" and "Star Wars" in my lifetime. "Star Wars", with all its ridiculous changes made by George Lucas, is practically a remake now anyway. With the blu-ray release of the 6 Star Wars movies coming out on September 16th, I see that Lucas has added some new dialogue to "Return of the Jedi." During the climactic scene where The Emperor is killing Luke, Darth Vader now shouts "No! Nooooo!"

(Here's a link to the video):

http://youtu.be/27RVJJfny4I

What the hell, Lucas???? First you've got Greedo firing first in the Cantina, now Vader shouting "Nooo!" at one of the most emotional scenes in the original trilogy?? I'm hoping that when Lucas dies, someone goes in and fixes all this crap.

Ok, I realize I'm sounding like a Star Wars fanboy geek, but this is the equivalent of Paul McCartney going back to the original recording of "Hey Jude", adding a Kanye West rap section in the middle, and then never releasing the original version again.

The Golden Age of Hollywood is long gone, my friends. Everything is now about marketing, demographics, and catering to the lowest common denominator. A filmmaker like Stanley Kubrick would be box office poison today. A five minute scene of dialogue would now have to have at least one explosion in the middle (in 3D, of course). It's no wonder so many kids have ADD nowadays.

I haven't completely given up on movies. Occasionally, you'll get a classic every once in a while. Steven Speilberg, Woody Allen, Martin Scorcese, The Coen Brothers, Quentin Tarantino, Terence Malick, Christopher Nolan, and Ridley Scott are still making movies. But in 2011, finding a good movie is as elusive as finding a trustworthy politician.