I’m not even sure how this fits into things here, but the lady over at Foodosaurus Rex just got some stuff from Hormel for a giveaway she’s doing. Make sure you head over there and keep an eye out for that. Anyway, we’ve got some mini pepperoni, some chili, an oven mitt, and some other stuff. Woo!
With an impending monsoon coming, it was off the gym tonight instead of actually running outside. As you can see, I’ve taken off since Saturday. This nagging ankle pain needs to go away so I was going to give it a full week and not run again until Sunday’s 5k, but I couldn’t stay away. I did manage to keep the run short though.
Since I don’t know about running with Vibrams on the treadmill, I busted out my sneakers for the first time since buying the Five Fingers a month ago. It was very weird at first. I couldn’t feel my feet at all. I felt very disconnected from what I was stepping on. I didn’t like it. Even though it was the treadmill and the treadmill sucks, I felt more power in my stride than the last time I was at the gym. I ran at a much faster pace from the get go than I normally do on the treadmill, it was much more like when I’m outside. I did feel pain in my ankle almost immediately though. It wasn’t really bad, but it was bad enough that I debated stopped. It was significantly worse than running outside in my Vibrams–actually, I don’t feel it then. I kept going and it went away after a few minutes.
What an incredible idea for a movie, a friggin’ shark with friggin’ tentacles. Someone actually made a movie about a hybrid shark and octopus. It’s about as good as you’d expect it to be, which is not very. However, the entertainment value is extremely high as no regard is taken whatsoever for anything.
Apparently, when you Frankenstein-together a sharktopus, you end up with an animal that not only has the biting power of a Great White and eight long tentacles, but you also get something amphibious. Right. Neither sharks nor octopi can breathe out of the water, but a Sharktopus can. Sharktopus can also use its tentacles to walk on land and climb up the sides of small structures. AND the tips of these tentacles have sharp points like knives which can be (and are) used for spearing people. Where these come from, I have no idea. The sharktopus really doesn’t make much sense, but let’s get serious here, it’s a goddamn SHARKTOPUS!
Now that we’ve got all of the biology out of the way, let’s get on to the rest. The acting is downright awful. It’s worse than your normal made-for-TV movie by a longshot, but this isn’t why you’d watch Sharktopus. You watch because of the carnage and there is no lack of that. People get speared by the tentacles and chomped in half left and right. It rules. The Sharktopus’s size is a little inconsistent as in one scene it has no problem jumping up and swallowing a girl whole, but in most of the rest of the movie, it seems to be quite a bit smaller than that. The special effects are pretty early 90s quality as the CGI for the sharktopus is rather awful. Clearly not a lot of money would be available for a movie like this and it shows.
Despite just how awful this flick is, you gotta watch it. Next time SyFy airs it, you need to be on this. I had been waiting for the better part of this year for them to air this thing and I can honestly say that every expectation I had for it was met…awesomely.
Rating: Either A- or D+. You choose
Check out one of the trailers:
I really haven’t been buying too many shirts this year so I felt like I had to take advantage of the buy one get one free deal over at TShirt Laundry. This was actually my first order from them and I was surprised at how insanely quickly I received the shirts. I placed the order on a Sunday and had them by Wednesday. Anyway, I find most of their shirts to be a little cheesy or simply funny only in theory so I wasn’t expecting to pick up four shirts, yet I almost bought a fifth one too. It was an Abe Froman shirt, but under “Sausage King of Chicago” it also said “you can’t beat his meat!” At 27, I think I’ve passed the point in my life where I should be wearing a shirt like that.
The Ski Hoth shirt is actually the shirt that got me over to their site. Even though I already have three or four other Star Wars shirts, it just seemed to good not to get. The Michael Scott Paper Company shirt was almost strictly because of the amount of Dunder Mifflin shirts I see regularly. The third shirt is indeed an obvious Simpsons joke. I do have a few Simpsons shirts already, but I don’t really wear any of them except for one so I thought the Food Chain shirt would be a nice addition to my collection. It’s not at all an obscure reference, but I like that it doesn’t just scream “hey, I’m a nerdy dude wearing a Simpsons shirt” to your average person. And finally, the cheese shirt needs no reason.
Some days, you just don’t have it. Today was one of those days. It was a bit warm out for this time of year and the humidity was around 70% so that was somewhat problematic. But that aside, I felt lethargic and my legs were completely lifeless. I got the slower run that I wanted, but it wasn’t pretty. It was a struggle to the end. The last two miles were brutal, I debated stopping.
I was kind of shocked at how difficult today’s run was, nothing about it went well. I had no energy at all. Though, this seems to be what happens when I hop out of bed and go right for a run. Such runs never seem to go well. I need a little time in the morning to hydrate and eat a little something before running.
Oh well.
I wanted to do a bit of a slower pace tonight. I started out at the same speed I normally do, even though it didn’t feel like it, but then slowed things down to about 7:50/minute for the next two miles. My calves felt like they were getting a little sore, but I found myself picking the pace back up again for miles 4-6. I didn’t even notice it at first. It just happened.
Breathing felt good today and, except for the soreness in my calves, everything else felt good as well. I’m a little tight now, but the ankle pain that’s been haunting me for three weeks now was just about completely non-existent. Though, that’s been the case for just about every run. It’s usually not until the next day that I feel it.
There comes a point for everyone when it’s just time to retire. Most of us strive to retire before we hit this point and go out on a high note, but sadly, many just keep going. For George A. Romero, the point to quit making zombie movies has come.
Survival of the Dead just isn’t very good. It’s watchable, yes, but it’s just kind of pointless. It doesn’t bring anything to the table. Each of the of the Dead movies has had purpose and reason for existing. Each covered a specific phase of the zombie apocalypse. Night of the Living Dead covered the very beginning of the outbreak with Dawn of the Dead following up on how society would fall apart after the initial outbreak. Day of the Dead gave us a glimpse into what happens after humans lose control and most all society has fallen apart and Land of the Dead covered man’s attempts at putting small and isolated, but feudalistic pockets of civilization and society back together. These four movies were all very solid and existed along a pretty obvious timeline. Diary of the Dead was decent, but served mostly as a nice look at Romero’s vision of a zombie outbreak in the 21st century amongst the user-generated content generation. The people would be the news source, documenting their personal struggles and experiences. If you take the actual timeframe of when the movies were made and simply apply the overall ideas from each one to a timeline, Diary of the Dead fits in nicely around the Dawn of the Dead phase of the zombie apocalypse. These five movies work great together as a series. They really do. This is what Romero got right.
Now, what Romero got wrong…Survival of the Dead. Where does this fit in? What is the theme here? What’s the point of this movie even existing? Romero tries to give a frame of reference by flashing back to the mercenary National Guardsmen who briefly appeared in Diary of the Dead. This is actually the story of those men, which would place this movie parallel to Diary of the Dead. I do like the connection between the two movies and I get the idea of trying to show another group of people’s experiences, but this movie just doesn’t bring anything to the table at all.
The film is rather boring save for a few decent encounters with the undead, but even the undead in this film are completely unimaginative and boring. These are Romero’s worst undead. They barely even care about the flesh of the living and seem to be about as dangerous as an empty box. The storyline revolves around these National Guardsmen as they get mixed up with two feuding families. Obviously, this doesn’t go terribly well for them, but there is hardly anyone in this movie that you actually care about. As a viewer, there are no characters to make a connection with. Each one either sucks or is just boring.
It seems as though Romero is really stuck on the idea of zombies developing low-level cognitive abilities as this idea has now made its way into half of the Dead movies. At this point, we’ve seen him run with this idea twice. The point has been well received and there is nothing new here, if anything, we’ve taken a step backwards with the idea.
I’m still trying to figure out Survival of the Dead‘s reason for existing. Anyone got anything?
Rating: D+
Hey guys, I did a guest post over at FoodosaurusRex.com about my weekend trip to Louis’ Lunch in Connecticut. It’s the birthplace of the burger. Check it out right here.
Here are a few extra photos.
Forgetters is current project of Blake Schwartzenbach, former singer of my all-time favorite band, Jawbreaker. Forgetters follows up the very shortly lived band Thorns of Life and, in some early shows, they even played some reworked Thorns of Life songs. I have no idea if they still do. Behind the drums is original Against Me! drummer Kevin Mahon. This sounds like it’d be pretty awesome, but it’s a lot to live up to. I saw an early show that was alright, not mind-blowing, but the couple bootlegs I have are solid.
So I was pretty excited for this EP…which turned out to be a bit underwhelming. I thought it was horrible at first and turned it off after the first two songs, but after a couple more listens, I’ve upgraded my opinion to “meh.” “Vampire Lessons” is kind of a catchy tune despite the lyrics being questionable. It’s still not a great song, but it does get stuck in your head about as much as that Tick Tock song by Ke$ha and since I’d rather go deaf than have Ke$ha stuck in my head, I’ll take “Vampire Lessons.” The best song of the four is the last one, “Night Accelerates,” which sounds more like a Jets to Brazil song than anything else. That’s something that I’m alright with.
I pre-ordered the 2×7″, but had I heard this beforehand, I think I would have saved my money for something else. Anyway, I’m going to go listen to Jets to Brazil now.
Tonight’s run started out pretty quick and was feeling great. The first two miles felt amazing, but miles 3, 4, and 5 were each slower than the previous one. I didn’t feel like I was going slower for those, but apparently, I was. Mile 6 was a little faster than 5, but still a bit slower than the first two miles.
Overall, despite the differences in times, I never felt like I was going as fast as I was. At least not in my legs. My breathing, while generally not a problem for me, seems to need some work to keep up with consistent 7:30/miles though. I think if I can train my breathing to be deeper at that pace, I’ll be set. When I’m running at that speed, I feel very inconsistent. Some runs, I get nice deep breathes using my diaphragm without even thinking about it, just like when my pace is slower, but on some runs I struggle to get even half as deep. I’ll have to work on it.
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