Ghostbusters Selected as Entertainment Weekly's Funniest Movie in Last 25 Years

Entertainment Weekly's website runs numerous ranks and countdowns of a variety of things: television shows, movies, and moments from each. In their "The Comedy 25: The Funniest Movies of the Past 25 Years", they selected Ghostbusters as the king of comedy. It is hard to argue against. The movie is routinely rated as one of the best comedies in history and ranks in the Top 50 in adjusted box office gross. The movie was a blockbuster in times when they were few and far between.

1. GHOSTBUSTERS (1984)
In the summer of 1984, the only pop-culture question more common than ''Where's the beef?'' was ''Who you gonna call?'' The dream trio of Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Harold Ramis was the epitome of sarcastic comedy cool, battling slimy ghosts, the nosy Environmental Protection Agency, and a giant Stay-Puft marshmallow man.

Ghostbusters has always been a cult icon and retro wear has been a big hit for the last 5+ years. Allusions and satire of the film percolates through our every day life, whether it be from a t-shirt or a web comic. Luckily, for us ghost heads, in the near future we will be getting even more Ghostbusters stuff. The video game, though delayed, will debut within the next year and 2009 is the 25th Anniversary of the movie (could we see a rerelease in theaters?). The movies will be released on Blu-Ray soon and we are finally getting the entire The Real Ghostbusters cartoon series on DVD. Rumors also swirl as to a 3rd movie as well as new toys. Some officially licensed prop replicas may be on their way too. It is absolutely wonderful to see Ghostbusters still sticks in the minds of the media, as well as fans.

Star Wars and the Olympic games

Technology blog Gizmodo ran a photoshop contest entitled "135 Ways to Ruin the Olympics with Technology". There were many entries including the Wii and iPhone as well as a few Star Wars pictures. Here they are.

Death Star Shot Put

by ParkerBell04

Vader Force Lifting

by JimmyPoteat3

Duel of the Sabre

by JimFestante

The image titles were made up by me. The final image, by Gizmodo reader JimFestante, won 2nd place. Be sure to check out all of the hilarious photoshopped pictures at Gizmodo!

Collection of Star Wars Stuff

I peruse many Star Wars related sites on the Internet through the course of a day. Sometimes I find a few that I believe others may overlook. This is a collection of such articles/features recently published. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

• The Top 31 Bad Ass Star Wars Moments - A collection of scenes from all 6 movies that stand out as to why Star Wars is so amazing ... and bad ass [Galactic Binder]
• Star Wars Q&A with Adam Pawlus - This is a weekly installment that features reader questions and answers from Adam, employed by Entertainment Earth. He shares his opinions on a vast amount of subjects and sometimes provides hints or inklings as to the future of Star Wars products. This is the most current installment, published on August 25th. The feature is updated every Monday. Send Adam your own questions and perhaps we can have him bump the number of questions he answers back to 10! [Galactic Hunter]
• Galactic Blogger - Adam May has been adding some commentary on all things Star Wars in this format since June 2006. He occasionally has some first look images of previously unannounced Hasbro items and is quite the rumor mongerer. His posts are insightful and funny at the same time. He posts seemingly at randowm. [Galactic Hunter]
• Reviews - Many Star Wars sites around the 'net do reviews of toys, props, games, etc. but I have found Jeff Gouse's to be the best. He focuses mostly on Hasbro items but has done some Master Replicas and Gentle Giant items, among others. He is fair and unbiased and is equally capable of praising or chastising the item and maker. Here is the most recent review, Hasbro's v-19 Torrent Starfighter. [Yodas News]
• High Resolution Imagery - Many of the online collecting sites seem to find proof of future lines and waves early but the best maybe Jedi Insider. I have posted images from their site on here multiple times. They seem to always have a first glimpse at a new product. I definitely recommend this site as a daily visit for collectors. [Jedi Insider]
• Collector to Collectors - For a first hand look through a collectors blog, check out this site. Eric Franks, a member of the PSWCS, does a fantastic job announcing upcoming items and collecting recent collecting news from around the 'net. He also does reviews and has his own personal checklists. [Imperial Holocron]

So there is a glimpse into a few of the daily sites that I check for my Star Wars fix. There are many more (Rebel Scum, Jedi Defender, Jedi Temple Archives, Sir Steves Guide) but I find those features above to be quite compelling. Check them out whenever you get a chance!

Random Musings #3

• 5 days until Penn State football begins
• 10 days until Kelly's birthday
  
• 13 days until the Miami Dolphins take the field
• I would list the number of days until the TV series Star Wars: The Clone Wars starts but I don't think the premiere has been revealed yet
• The Phillies are wildly inconsistent, both offensively and in terms of success. They can come out one night and post 10 runs and then struggle to notch 3 the next day. They will go on a multiple game winning streak only to lose that many the next week. A little consistency, please. I'd much rather have a team that goes 6-4 every 10 games throughout the course of the year than 8-2 one span and 1-9 the next. This team is better than they are playing now, despite the 3-game winning streak. Who would have thought pitching wouldn't be our problem? And by the way, if a team went 6-4 every 10 games for the entire season, that team would finish the year at (approximately) 97-65. Not too shabby, eh?
• I am so excited for football season to arrive. I know it training camps and such have been going on for close to a month now but I want real games! Penn State starts in less than a week and then the following week the NFL begins. And thus begins the best time of the year. Nothing beats September through January. Football season, October baseball, the start of hockey season and then eventually Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's. Enjoy it while it lasts, because soon enough it'll be March.
• I am thoroughly enjoying the iPhone 2.0. Though I didn't get a 3g model, the 2.0 upgrade really adds more possibilities to such an great phone. And from what I am hearing, the 3g phones are having a bunch more problems than the originals. I can't say I have had many problems, other than on launch day of the 2.0 software. The new applications are absolutely wonderful. Though there are many great ones (At Bat, Facebook, PhoneSaber, Pocketpedia, Simplify, Sportacular) I have to single out Shazam. Shazam is so far the greatest iPhone application ever. What does it do, you ask? It helps man solve this age-old question: what was that song just playing on the radio? Shazan will listen to any song and identify it for you by artist, sing title, and album. Plus, it links to YouTube videos and ways to buy the song through iTunes. I have tested an abundance of songs so far and it has nailed everything. And the bets part is the software is free! It cannot detect anyone humming, singing, or live performances but any recorded song it should be able to find. Pure genius.
• I am looking for a second part-time job. Most of you know I have been working at Purdue for just over a year now. Well, I have been employed as a temporary worker (which basically means I don't get benefits). The University only allows someone to be employed as "temporary" for 1 year. My time was up on August 22nd. We asked to have the "temporary" status extended at the same rate I had been going - 30 hours/week - but the request was denied. Human Resources required the Climate Office to hire me with benefits, let me go, or drop my hours below 20/week. My boss wanted to keep me but does not have the necessary funds to pay for the benefits. He dropped me down to 19 hours/week. As a consolation he gave me a hefty raise to try to offset losing 11 hours/week. That's nice and all but I already wasn't saving too much money after rent, food, electric, and gas. When I was working 30 hours/week I didn't feel like adding a second part-time job. Now that I am only working 19 it is a necessity. It'll be nice to have more money but finding another job will be tough. Hopefully something enjoyable turns up. It will only be for about 8-10 months, hopefully.
  

Clone Wars Wave 3 Images (Jedi Insider)

Here are some high resolution images of the figures part of wave 3 of Hasbro's Clone Wars collection, c/o Jedi Insider. There are no clones in this wave but I am posting it because the sculpts are bad ass and the accessories are some of the best to date. Check out Asajj Ventress, C-3PO, Count Dooku, Destroyer Droid, Plo Koon, and IG-86 droid...








Count Dooku and Plo Koon look amazing. The hand-held holograph accessories look nice. I am very excited to see the lightsaber contraption that Plo Koon comes with. This wave looks very promising> It is set to hit shelves in the next month or two.

Recent Happenings

Hola. It has been a while since I made a full and meaningful post, the last having been deleted because of a Blogger failure. So what have I been up to?

Not much, really. The same ol' routine has been keeping my life normal. My work schedule fluctuated a bit last week due to the Indiana State Fair. I went to it on Friday to watch my boss participate in a Climate Change Q&A. Most of you know that I work at the Indiana State Climate Office but here is an example of what I do. Unfortunately students have made their way back for another year of drunken debauchery and supposed learning. The campus is much more peaceful without them. I know Kelly agrees.

Taking a step back in time, on August 9th Kelly and I traveled down to Indianapolis. Kelly needed to try on and buy her bridesmaid dress for a friends wedding and also look for bridesmaid dresses for our wedding (in 320 days). Afterwards Kelly treated me to an absolutely amazing dinner at the fames St. Elmo Steakhouse in downtown Indianapolis. The food was delectable; probably the second best steak I have ever eaten (Shula's remains numero uno). Prior to our dinner reservations, Kelly and I took in the city. I was able to snap a few pictures, including this one of me in front of the Indianapolis Colts new stadium.


Over the last 10 days Kelly and I have watched the Olympics religiously. We have watched every single swimming event - with and without Michael Phelps - as well as women's gymnastics and beach volleyball. We even took in some basketball, rowing, badminton, cycling, marathon running, water polo, and track. A full recap of Week 1 can be read here.

More recently Kelly and I journeyed to the movies for the latest Star Wars installment, The Clone Wars. Kelly and I both agreed that while a few points were a bit odd and/or annoying, the movie overall was acceptable. I, for one, am not upset that I paid a few bucks to go see it. However, I am not clamoring to see it again. I can wait for the DVD. The following will include some spoilers so if anyone hasn't seen it and is planning to, stop reading. I really disliked the beginning. No word crawl? No original John Williams music? That started things off on a bad note, literally. While the music was acceptable and the Word War II era news-like reading was different, it didn't feel like Star Wars. The opening battle on Christophsis is cool as is the Battle of Teth. The animation style doesn't bother me and I loved how involved the clone troopers and Captain Rex were throughout the movie. Besides the opening, the things that bothered me the most were the pet names Anakin and Ahsoka had for each other and other items. Anakin repeatedly calling Ahsoka 'Snipps' got on my nerves. The same goes for Ahsoka referring to Anakin as 'Skyguy'. What crap. And if Ahsoka calls R2-D2 'Artooey' one more time I may scream. Oh and another thing, we knew the huttlet (Rotta) stank. No need to refer to him as 'Stinky' the entire movie. And Ziro the Hutt? For shame. Not only do Hutts not speak Basic (English) why was he made so flamboyant? Not that I have anything against that but it doesn't fit the evil crime lord mold, ya know? They really dropped the ball on him. I wish the Senate Guards and Commander Fox would have been featured more (hopefully they will be in the cartoon series). I can't really complain about the cheesy jokes. I understand this latest installment was aimed a little more at kids than the die-hard fans (despite the critics holding it to a level comparable to the 6 main movies). Hopefully this will snare in some new young fans and keep the saga going for many more decades. Despite its shortcomings the movie is still fun and enjoyable, even if it won't win any awards. End spoilers.


So that's what I have been up to. Not that much different than usual but I hadn't posted in a while and I wanted to keep everyone in the loop!

Blogger Fail

I have no idea what has happened to my last few posts. They were on here before and my dashboard says my last post for this site was on August 8th but, alas, no posts on here. Way to go blogger. My Mcaungie post was completely deleted. Awesome.

I'll be posting some stuff a bit later. Hopefully it will actually make it on here and stay. Damn technology.