In Hearts and Minds

I've had strange dreams lately, I suppose. Today, I had a dream where I was sent back to Basic Training for some reason. It wasn't a "In the past" dream but instead, quite the opposite.

I didn't even have time to pack. I was simply sent there and I was under the impression that I'd be in the same squadron with the same training instructor like in my original journey. Instead it was a different squadron with an instructor that looked just like the Master Sergeant that I work for right now in the office.

At first I was like "I can do this again. I've done it before. But I'm A1C now so should I have stripes on my uniform or what? Why am I here?"

I kept questioning myself as if in disbelief as to why I was back here in Lackland. Then my instructor came out and we all lined up against the wall. He screamed right in my face and I simply froze in fear, right after I thought to myself- "This won't be a problem. Nothing to be afraid of."

It was unexpected. However that was the only time he yelled. I realized how casual it was compared to my first time there. The instructor was relaxed and I thought to myself- "This is ridiculous. Is this how people get trained here now?"

Then for some reason, I received a huge mini cannon from Dan as a package and I had no place to put it so the instructor offered to keep it in his room for the time being. Real strange. I just finished watching The Jackal again so I'm sure the memories of the weapon from there moved on to the dream.

Still. This was my second dream about going back to Bootcamp. I realize that I don't want to go there again for any reason.

In other news, I went to the Airman Leader class on saturday and passed the marching evaluation which is a good thing I guess. Will I get a rope now? We will see. Still no class or news about my clearance. I'm going to have to bother some people about it, I guess.

My movie critiques- they need to be more in-depth, I realize. So instead of putting them in this blog which is really meant to be about my thoughts about random things, I'm going to create a separate blog for them and maybe just get video capability so that I can make them visual. Eh who knows.

This past week has been miserable and I felt like I could hate half the world if not all of it. But things have calmed down. I've cooped myself in my tiny little room throughout the weekend and relaxed. I don't want to see anyone right now. I don't want to be on this base much longer. I came here to get a new job, learn it, and get out of training mode.

I want to be more stable. I want a place where I can settle down a bit, maybe explore the town without curfews or the knowledge that I'll be in one place for awhile and not always on the move. I need to be more organized and stop spending money on petty things. Maybe start saving for a car, who knows. Its almost my 1 year mark and I'm still in training status. It sucks.

Aside from that, I suppose things are fine.

XXX

This movie sucked.

It sucked back when I watched it on release, and it sucks now when I watched it on DVD. Vin Diesel's bad ass character didn't cut it, the chick was annoying, the enemies were idiots and the plot was unoriginal.

Its typically James Bond for teenagers. Add a guy who is awesome at every sport, swears, has tattoos everywhere, and then some, and you're going to get a movie that was painful for me to watch. After an hour, I was struggling- I mean I was really struggling to continue watching this god awful movie. The last 30 minutes were ridiculously long. I was in pain.



I hear they came out with a sequel too later on. Of course, it was directed by the guy who made The Fast and the Furious. Is he in love with Vin Diesel or what? Whats up with him being in all these movies? The only good role he played was in Chronicles of Riddick but even then, he STILL had that same badass attitude.

Theres nothing new about this movie. If you want to waste some time watching a movie of people with bad accents, alot of techno display, fake looking weapons, and plain out horrible acting, this movie is for you. And no, I won't go see the sequel.

I give XXX a horrible score of 1 out of 5.

Doom: The Movie

First off, I have to say- the Rock is an awesome actor. I loved him in The Rundown. Sure, hes got the bad ass gung-ho attitude and can kick ass by simply looking at someone. But really, he knows how to play a part.

When I first saw this movie, I will admit- I was as disappointed as the fans. The beginning was pretty good. I didn't beat Doom 3 yet when I first saw it but I saw enough of it to understand the difference. Hell (no pun intended), I could simply play the first Doom to realize the difference.

So whats the difference between the awesome series and the movie?

THERE AREN'T ANY DEMONS IN THE MOVIE!



If you're thinking "So what?", you ought to die right now. The series was all about demons, zombies, god damn monsters from hell. Whats the movie about? A lab on Mars being invaded by monsters- but not just any kind of monsters but infected humans! I mean seriously, what the hell? (Pun intended this time!)

They simply pulled the "Resident Evil card" for this movie. People are conducting experiments on humans. Humans turn into superhumans who go on a killing spree, choosing whether to infect this poor sob or not. Then the marines go in without reinforcements with orders to eliminate, contain, and retrieve specific date which of course creates the generic but highly loved, "We never knew these sort of experiments ever happened."

So basically almost everyone dies and Sarge (The Rock) decides to kill everyone in fear that they are infected. In the end, he gets pulled away by infected zombies while yelling, "I wasn't supposed to die!" I have to admit, thats pretty badass. If I was being pulled away, I'd be screaming like a girl.

The main character, John "The Reaper" (Played by Karl Urban) is forced to fight Sarge because Sarge is infected, killed everyone, and now wants to go to Earth. Well, thats a hell of a profile but lets have at it.

I won't go into detail but John becomes a superhuman himself by injecting C-24 into himself and because hes a good guy and all, he gets to stay normal and stuff. The next 5 minutes of the movie become FPS style as if you're in control, shooting shit up and even killing a Pinky Demon with a chainsaw. Its pretty cool and reminded me of Doom. However in the end (I seem to say that a lot as if everything is in the end) John fights Sarge hand to hand, superhuman to superhuman. Its pretty awesome but I'm wondering why he decided to drop his gun in the first place. Honor? Pfft, gimme a break. It was just flavor.

The best part of the movie was when Sarge comes out of a window saying "Semper Fi, motherfucker." I admit, I laughed.

So no demons, no hell, no actual original plot, no Cyberdemon, no signature based rocket launcher (even though there was a BFG, lamely named Bio Forced Gun even though Sarge calls it by its proper title), and not enough greatness that is Doom to make this movie live up to the game series.

It was entertaining, I'll give it that. But nothing special.

I give Doom an average score of 3 out of 5.