Sunday, October 25, 2009

The Cinematic Glory of the Dollar Store DVD

I have heard many a trash cinema buff talk about the glory of the dollar store dvd rack. While I have always had it in mind to go foraging for some cheap thrills, considering I live in a city drowning in dollar stores, I had never ever taken the initiative. It always seemed like a good idea, but was so far in the back of my mind the matter was never pressing. Most of my time spent in the local dollar dump tends to be spent on house cleaner runs and glassware replacements. I'm not really a browsing kind of guy. When I go into a store, I try to locate the needed item, grab and buy it as fast as possible. In and out quicker than a flasher in Central Park. If I was thinking about movies, I might be a bit more curious to meander around the aisles a little more.

Thankfully I have a girlfriend these days, and she is not so lacking in the attention to dollar shop detail as I am. When we go into the store as a couple, there is so much more to notice. If it wasn't for my lovely female counterpart, my passing interest in cheap DVDs probably would never have resurfaced. Because of a couple of trips to said stores yesterday, I discovered a treasure trove cheap thrills.

Even though I saw many a movie I must call my own, the one that stood out was the Fabio Teste action bomb First Action Hero. I actually picked this one up thinking it was a 70's polizia, but I was far wrong. This train wreck was made less than 20 years ago and is probably the last time Teste's name has been in a feature length film. But this isn't my cinema blog, so I'm not going to go further than that. All I know is I probably should have went with Sonny Chiba double feature. Regardless, I am going to be paying closer attention to the contents in my neighborhood trashmarts.

Monday, October 19, 2009

The End Kickstarts a New Beginning

After many a month of screening, scheduling, planning and execution,Royal Flush Festival has finally come to an end. Since April, I have been working on the programming department, and I gotta say, as much as I love movies, I was on film overload for most of the summer. This was probably why I haven't put much of an effort in over at the other bloggity-blog. Bt Alas, my RFF persona is taking a bit of a vacation and I have been away from trash cinema long enough to be able to voice my opinion again. To start, I will hopefully be able to jot down a couple of words about some of the fine films I had the joy of viewing for RFF. I wanted to wait until after the festival ended before I voiced my opinion, and that time has finally come.

As much as I sound relieved the Festival has run it's course for 2009, I must say I learned a shitload of useful knowledge and met some great people. It became hectic at times, but in the long run it has been a valuable experience and helped kick start more than a couple of future plans this guy has for the Rotten Apple. When these ideas take a more cohesive form I'll be more than happy to share them with the rest of the world, but for now they need to be discussed in depth for a period of time. I just have to be sure not to bring my hopes up too much in case said plans don't see the light of day. For now, I'll just focus on asian gangster movies, peplum, and ozploitation.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Day two


It was really nice waking up this morning and not having to worry about doing my day to day grind. I was able to leisurely wake up at 9:30, which has been unheard of for years unless it's a holiday. A slow shower made for a great start in a chilly house, followed by bagels at one of the new shops on Bushwick ave. The coffee was good and the bagels had a bit to be desired, but he excursion added to the morning. It made me realize I really miss being able to enjoy my weekday mornings. I guess it's more adult of me to have something akin to a 9 to 5, but I find that I enjoy days off a bit more when people are at work and kids are in school.

Hopefully, one day I'll be able to live this ideal weekday life. Until then, I will continue to suffer theouh my day to day grind.

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Wednesday, October 14, 2009

There was a time in my life where I was really interested on video games. Not as interested as kids are in this day and age, but I have put 100's, if not 1000's, of hours into the digital age. Mine was the first generation to accept and embrace the video game. Sure, there were those a decade previous that had pong in their life. But how hardcore can you really get into a consol that plays the same game over and over. It wasn't until the 80's that video entertainment started to leave it's mark in history. And so began the age of digital addiction and social exclusion.

As I said, I put my time in, but it didn't go to much further past 32 bit entertainment. Super Nintendo was the last system I had a vested interest in an everything went downhill from there. I dabbled with Doom and Wolfenstein a bit in the early 90's but it was never anything I seriously connected with. In this age of first person shooters and mmorpg's I am a chimp with a stick. I haven't had


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Monday, October 12, 2009

Go Homo!!!

For months, I've wondered what the phrase "No Homo" meant. I've seen it pop up on latfh.com, twitter, and pretty much every inch of internet modern pop culture rears it's ugly head. I was kind of offended by the term, but never really paid it to much thought because I didn't no the history behind the term. Recently, my friend K.Lee posted this video which explained everything I needed you know about this modern phenomenon...



And yes, after watching this video, I now realize I have a reason to be slightly offended. In this day and age, I am so surprised that a movement as progressive in the last 30 years as Hip-Hop still has so MANY social boundaries to overcome. In my eyes, one of the biggest is homophobia.Seriously, leaders of the hip-hop community, if America has progressed to a point where we have a black man in the White House, don't you think it's about time to drop the paleolithic ignorance. It's gotten to the point where I'm starting to view some rappers in the same light I do cross-burning trailer trash.

Now it's gotten to the point where young men feel they have to defend their masculinity with every phrase they speak, ny ending the sentence "No Homo". That's a bit fucked up. After watching the video, I was curious to see just how pervasive the phenomenon is, so I did a Twitter search. To save you the pain, I've linked my findings here. I can't believe some of the stupid shit people feel like the have to follow up a "No Homo" with. Let me give you an idea of what I'm currently viewing:

"lol wow. aww ur name suits u perfectly. lol. you are mad addorable miss. no homo."

Really? What direction is society going where I guy has to proclaim how un-homosexual he is after saying something nice to a female? I don't know about you, but I think it's kind of fucked.

So for now on, I'm going to start using the phrase "Go Homo" when I feel I am being overly masculine. Who knows, maybe it will catch on and balance out this new meme I find a bit deplorable.

Friday, October 9, 2009

Obama of Peace

As I read the Huffington Post this morning I was a bit surprised by the fact that President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. The first thing that popped in my head was "What did he do to win such an honorable award?". As I read the article and pondered momentarily, I came to the conclusion that it didn't really matter if he deserved it or not. What really mattered to me was the fact that he was yet again able to deal the Right Wing a sucker punch without even trying. That alone was enough for mee to laugh aloud, to myself, like a crazy person.

Sometimes I can't believe the kind of shit that comes out of the mouth of the right wing ignoramus. Here are a couple of the reduntant gems that I read today while at work.

RWers were complaining that there is no validity to the Nobel Prize these days because of past winners like Al Gore and Yassar Arafat.

First off, If it wasn't for Yassar Arafat, more Israelis and Palestinians would be dying on a daily basis. If I remember correctly, it was Yassar Arafat who agreed to the original cease-fires and peace talks in an attempt to step forward towards peace.

Al Gore educated the world at large on the dangers of global warming. Although there are still a couple of wingnuts out there who beleive global warming to be a myth, you can bet Al Gore made a great deal of people think about mankinds effect on the world at large. Who else, scientist, or politican, has been able to have that kind of impact on the World?

I also heard complaints about his name being submitted only after 19 days in office. So fucking what!! Just because his name was submitted in January doesn't mean it was set in stone. A submission is just a submission, the vote that awarded him the prize came pretty recently, most likely it was deliberated for dozens of hours among the Earth's Smartest. A choice for the Nobel doesn't happen overnight, assholes!!

I just hope he get's Time's Man of the Year. That will be a great kick to the junk to the whiny RWers.






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Thursday, October 8, 2009

Union Square smelliness





There is nothing like sitting at Union Square and listening to bums get in a verbal altercation. Drunk of course. all kinds of dirtiness just blathering away in an incompressible fashion. It is kind of like sitting in the Square in Portsmouth, but the posse is a much larger group.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Blue and Gold







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Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Trader Joe's test

I just downloaded a blogging app(BlogPress lite) and am going to spend today's word space testing out said software's photo uploading capability.







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Monday, October 5, 2009

Hiking the New Amsterdam Passage.

Today I came to the realization that even though NYC is the best place I could ever imagine living, it doesn't mean cell phone technology will work any better than it does in the burbs. Case in point, I can't get a 3G signal in my work area. Over the weekend that I have been obsessively abusing my new slice of Heaven I refer to as the iPhone, I failed to think about the possibility that it's not going to work everywhere the MTA takes me in the Big Apple. Foolish of me to think that in a day and age I can store the Library of Alexandria in my pocket, I can't even send a reliable fucking text message in Midtown Manhattan.

All I can think is "what the fuck is that all about."

What I have failed to consider is that NYC is chock full of really big buildings. Urban mountains if will. And like going on a hike in the mountains, some of the time your not going to get reception on an electronic leash. This is typically due to the fact that some mountains are taller than the placement of a digital tower, and interfere with the signal like a bully blocking kids from a water fountain. The same things happens with urban mountains aka skyscrapers. In some areas of the city, some providers aren't able to transmit a clear signal. Such is the case with the building I work in.

I can survive, I've suffered from a similar problem when I was a copy monkey in Morningside Heights. Besides, there is always the much-loved lunch break. Even though I won't be able to tweet very often, at least I'll be able to get more time in than usual.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

24 Hours Later And Blogging from an Iphone

I'm going to keep this brief because I am still learning how to type on this little piece of Heaven. Eventually I'll be able to do this in my sleep but for now I am a bit sloppy. Thus far, i've dowloaded the basic apps I need to get by In this new future world I live in.

Crank up the flux capacitor,Marty!!

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Do I Really Need Google Wave? No, but I'll Try Anything Once....






....well....Maybe not anything, but new intertech in beta gets me every time. Ever since I bought my first computer(the Adam back in the 80's didn't count),I have made it a point to stay on top on all the latest trends that the interwebby has thrown at me. In the early 2000's it was Friendster and Livejournal. Not too long after that I was all over MySpace and Gmail in beta. And as you can see, these days I'm all over Facebook,Twitter, and The blogosphere. I wouldn't go so far to say I'm an internet addict, but I would say I rely on it much more than the average person.

After watching a couple videos explaining Google's latest "breakthrough" in ultimate nerdliness, I gotta say I want more. Re-inventing the concept of email to fit into today's social networking standards sounds like a great idea. What sold me was the ability to translate "waves" from one language to another, all in real time. If that doesn't scream "Welcome to the future!!!" I don't know what does.

I'm not going to spend 10,000 words explaining the concept behind Google Wave, so I'm just going to leave you with a few videos.



And direct from Google's finest...


And this article explains in depth how Wave will not only possibly kill email but could teach Facebook a thing or two.

Friday, October 2, 2009

Too much Italo? Add Metal to Even Out

I have been listening to Italo all fucking day. It's one thing to sit and enjoy a couple of songs while cleaning around the house, but spending an entire work day with the electro-goodness of italo disco can be a bit much. I'm not saying that it was, but I should probably take a couple days off. This has been going on for the majority of the week. The last 2 days were spent dancing around as rhythmically as crackerly possible in the confines of my work space. Only to be spotted occasionally by my co-workers.

Was I embarrassed? Not really. Should I have been? Probably. Thirty-five year old men with slightly pudgy physiques probably shouldn't be doing Guido dances while on the clock. First off, it's immature. Secondly.....hmmm...Fuck it!! I dance around in public without regret so why not at work? It would be a different story if there was a client around or I was in a meeting. In that case, I would be professional. If i am the only person in the shipping area and nobody is paying attention, I'm gonna do some repetitive finger pointing. It's not like I'm doing back spins or the souljah boy(I shudder just thinking about that obscene dance!).

So I'm going to steer clear of the italo for at least the next day or so. I'll probably crank up the power metal while I sit around my apartment tomorrow morning between movies.cleaning, and general slothfulness. There is nothing like lonely moshing wearing nothing but boxer briefs.

And on that note, I'm going to start my weekend with Three Inches Of Blood

Thursday, October 1, 2009

It's The First of the Month...

...and I am going to make October 1st the grand opening of the I......Triumphant blog, the musings and randumb thoughts of an obsessive, aging scenester(that would be me!). I've already written three entries previous to this one, but a randon day in September is no good for an official release. I'm sorry that I'm not going to break a champagne bottle over my computer, but I really can't afford to replace this piece of obsolete machinery. I could just as easily break that bottle over my liver, but I like to reserve champagne for brunch and weddings.

From this point on, as explained in my first post, I'm going to try to update everyday. Some days I just don't have the gumption to put a finger to the keyboard, but I must try to fight the urge to be lazy.

And to kick off this Opening Day Celebration...a little Bone,Thugs, and Harmony!