Like Father... not so much like son.

Found this funny nugget on the inter-webs back in 1999. Back in those days, you saved funny emails by printing them out. I can't take credit, but thought I would re-post for posterity sake.

INT: BESPIN GANTRY - MOMENTS LATER:

A furious lightsaber duel is underway. DARTH VADER is backing LUKE SKYWALKER towards the end of the gantry.

A quick move by Vader, chops off Luke's hand! It goes spinning off into the ventilation shaft.

Luke backs away. He looks around, but realizes there's nowhere to go but straight down.

Darth Vader: Obi Wan never told you what happened to your father.

Luke: He told me enough! He told me you killed him!

Darth Vader: No... I am your father!

Luke: No, it's not true! It's impossible.

Darth Vader: Search your feelings... you know it to be true...

Luke: NO!

Darth Vader: Yes, it is true... and you know what else? You know that brass droid of yours?

Luke: Threepio?

Darth Vader: Yes... Threepio... I built him... when I was 7 years old.

Luke: No...

Darth Vader: Seven years old. And what have you done? Look at yourself, no hand, no job, and couldn't even levitate your own ship out of the swamp.

Luke: I destroyed your precious Death Star!

Darth Vader: When you were 20! When I was 10, I single-handedly destroyed a Trade Federation Droid Control Ship!

Luke: Well, it's not my fault-

Darth Vader: Oh, here we go... "Poor me... my father never game me what I wanted for my birthday. Boo hoo, my daddy's the Dark Lord of the Sith. Wahhh wahhh!"

Luke: Shut up.

Darth Vader: You're a slacker! By the time I was you're age, I had exterminated the Jedi Knights!

Luke: I used to race my T-16 through Beggar's Canyon.

Darth Vader: Oh, for the love of the Emperor... 10 years old, winner of the Boonta Eve Open... Only human to ever fly a Pod Racer... right here, baby!

Luke looks down the shaft. Takes a step towards it.

Darth Vader: I was wrong. You're not my kid. I don't know whose you are, but you sure ain't mine.

Luke moves to step off the platform, hesitates, then plunges down the shaft.

Darth Vader watches as Luke falls.

Darth Vader: Get a haircut!

10 Things I Hate About The Joe Movie

You can imagine my elation when I first heard about the G.I. Joe Movie rumors from a year ago. Sadly as details slowly leaked out my fears grew and grew. But my biggest mistake was assuming the silver lining to this cloud was going to be lowered expectations. After all, I had seen enough really good movies this summer. What's one bad movie amongst fan-boys? So I went in with eyes wide open and no expectation that my favorite childhood franchise of ALL TIME would be any good. Sadly this movie managed to disappoint even my meager hopes and strain my sincere affection. So was there anything good about the Joe Movie? The action sequences were awesome and the casting of a couple of characters was pretty good or at least serviceable. The worst of this movie... well, I can only hope to scratch the service. So here it goes.

10) The Not To Distant Future: The only reason to make this movie set in "The Future" is to avoid explaining the ridiculous sci-fi stuff like, sonic-wave-rifles, Holographic lap-tops, and Hover planes they stole from the Terminator's garage.

9) Flash-back Faux Pas: Flash backs kicks ass and when done properly really broaden and deepen the mythology of a story in a very short amount of time. Too bad G.I. Joe couldn't flash-back their way out of a paper bag. For starters, you'd think they could manage just two separate back-stories, that of Duke and Snake-Eyes. No they choose to waste five minutes of movie in medieval Scotland and later bore you to tears with endless time spent on flat, emotionless, sequences on why The Baroness and Storm Shadow turn evil. Which brings me to Storm Shadow.

8) Storm Shadow: They almost get it right, but they play him more assassin than noble warrior. Even at his most evil, the comic always made Storm Shadow honorable. I'll admit they gave his character room to inevitably turn good in a later movie, but we can only pray another movie with this crew never happens. Yes, Storm Shadow is a good guy in the end. Maybe that was the confusion with the Baroness, but we'll get to her in a second.

7) Accelerator Suits: I knew going in that these were in the movie, but I didn't expect the CGI to suck so bad. At least make the characters look realistic. CGI has gotten to the point where I shouldn't be able to tell the difference between real stunt action and Buzz Light-Year graphics.

6) Destro: I'll accept the fact that Destro's mask in the comic was awfully animated, but that's all it was. A freaking mask! The man didn't have his skin turned into metal. Who comes up with this shit?

5) Rip-Cord: The reason his codename is Rip-Cord is because the original character was an air force paratrooper. He jumped out of planes, i.e. RIP-CORD!!! He wasn't Duke's side-kick. He wasn't a marine. He was already an the airborne. How hard is it to get even the broadest brush-strokes correct?

4) Evil Plans: So Destro goes to all this trouble to make NATO pay for his state-of-the-art nanites and then goes through the trouble of stealing them back from the government. Why not just over-charge and build more than the measly 4 missiles? And if Destro built the damn things in the first place, why does he need the Baroness' scientist husband to arm them, and why oh why do the highly touted cobra super soldiers fall down like a house of cards when Scarlett sneezes on them.

3) Sgt. Slaughter: Two words... Brendon Frasier.

2) Snake-Eyes: Almost everything about this character worked. I was even willing to ignore the casting of the vertically challenged, Ray Park. But why on earth include a line (at the very end of the movie) about Snake-Eyes taking a vow of silence as his reason for not talking. That's just destroying comic-book continuity for no purpose! He can't talk because his larynx was destroyed by a helicopter explosion!

1) The Baroness: The whole point of having a sexy, dominatrix, villainess is that she is an honest to God VILLAIN, not some corn-fed, all American, girl that's been brainwashed by her crazy-ass brother.

It's the economy, stupid!

These last few months have had me thinking... thinking really hard. Because I'm a democrat, ya know? I've been one my entire life but I just can't wrap my mind around this whole stimulus package. I understand how building a super highway from Los Angeles to Las Vegas can create jobs and thereby stimulate the economy and I'm in complete support of a universal health care plan, but I couldn't help but agree with John McCain on Meet the Press last Sunday. In fact, I've been saying it for months. It's the small business that is going to save this economy, not government jobs. No don't worry, sports fans. I'm not jumping ship. I still think we can blame the Bush Administration for the lack of regulation that led to robber barons running the banks into the ground. I still blame the republican party for allowing the types of huge tax breaks that lead to larger and larger conglomerates gobbling up small businesses by offering loss-leader price cuts that didn't allow the little guy to compete. I mean I'm Best Buy's biggest fan, but whose the competition anymore? Who does Wal-Mart compete with? Who do Compass, Chase, and Bank of America compete against? Who does Geico and Progressive compete with? What the hell has happened to the mom and pop shop that took care of you? I've spent hours on the phone with Verizon the last 4 months trying like hell to get them to take my debit card and charge me for Internet service. And every month they apologise and say their system will take my debit card this month. Too bad they will not let me pay by check, because I would have done that a long time ago. Only to now have a claims agents send me a FUCKING legal action letter for not paying my bill. So I should stop my Verizon service, right? It's not like Time Warner was any better, or fucking AT&T was any better than that. In fact the best Internet service I had was a dial-up modem telephone line in 1998. They were called Internet Texoma. But you don't find the small mom and pop business anymore. Too bad because if this country is to come back stronger than before, we damn well better make it possible for small privately owned businesses to compete. Damn, it there are days I just want to sell everything and move to a bungalow in the Bahamas!

I'm about to jump ship

I've been watching Heroes from the the beginning. I got hooked early on and have really enjoyed the ride. I was even excited going into the fall season when others were saying it was done after the strike shortened season of a year ago.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm a fan-boy apologist. Meaning, once I embrace a program, I tend to stick with it through thick and thin. I tend to give a a great deal of latitude for it to screw up, become boring, and general suck up the screen. I'm also willing to give a show as mush as en entire season... sometimes two seasons before I pass final judgement. Hell, I'm watching Eureka, about to start season 4 and I still have decided if I like it.

Usually this patience is limited to science fiction and fantasy programing. I watched the first three episodes of Grey's Anatomy with my wife and told her "I'm OUT! This show sucks." Of course that may have been more of a chick-dude thing. Still, if it had been a chick-show with laser guns or dragons I probably would have given it more time.

Still, I'm proud of my sci-fi apologist stance on programing. Sometimes, given time you will find true gems. Farscape is a tremendous show that was cut down too soon. If more people had given it a chance, I am certain it would have been able to at least complete it's 5 year run.

However, I am sad to say that the last two episodes of Heroes has left me flat. I found myself saying, "Who the hell cares what happens to these ass-holes?" I'll not go into agonizing detail but one of the shows stars was put into a position where he had this season's villain dead to rights. The good guy could have put a bullet right between the bad guy's eyes. And guess what, he didn't do it! Whoop de freakin' do! You're such a good guy you aren't going to stoop to his level. How many times do we have to go over that ground. Heroes does it at least three times a season. After 4 seasons that's about 12 times too many.

For the first time I asked myself if I should give it up... I'm torn. Torn deep and I don't know what to do.