Bad Weather

I was gonna blog on this last week, but to be honest with you I've been such an emotional rollercoaster lately that I almost forgot to. And in this post, I'll attempt to explain a little bit of why. I know all about Hurricane Rita, which hit last week around Houston. They said it was going to hit as a Class 5 hurricane, but it died down to a class 1. After what happened with my aunt and uncle in New Orleans, I was worried now about my uncle in Dallas and his family. Fortunately, the hurricane came nowhere near them. I pray to God though that people are safe.

In the meantime, another bad storm happened in Minnesota. A tornado hit near where a certain friend of mine lived. This was only a day after Rita hit too. But the difference was that now, I was talking to someone on AIM only minutes before they found their area being hit by a tornado. He logged off and logged on over an hour later on his Ogo, which he hadn’t actually used in a very long time. I knew there had to be a problem. He was alright, but the power was out all over. And part of his apartment was pretty smashed up. I waited until morning for a better report on what happened. The next day, I contacted him online again and this is a transcript of our conversation:

Me: Hey man
Him: Hey
Him: we FINALLY have power again
Me: How's it going over there?
Me: great
Me: damage assessment?
Him: I went and looked about this morning. the pond was flooded like 6 feet or higher. last night it was worse. about 10-15 feet. the parking lot was flooded. there are numerous trees down all over. the entire things, roots and all and if not, the tops of the trees are horribly mangled or just broken straight in half missing the top of the tree.
Me: Jeez
Him: there were numerous power poles down and if those weren't downthe wires were jumbled and broken apparently a tornado had touched down really close to here, so they believe but what i understand as a gathering of info the whole storm was a tornado. I turned on the news and pretty much the whole central part of Minnesota was red. the whole damn part of it after I had "signed off"
Him: welll
Me: red?
Him: here, i will tell you exactly how it happened
Him: the most severe rating is red
Me: oh
Him: on the weather map. here's what happened. I was sitting at my computer...
Me: I thought for a second you meant there was blood everywhere
Me: Yeah
Him: talking with you and (Name deleted.) I noticed the sky turning pitch black and those sirens i heard were actually the tornado sirens. It looked okay, so i went to the bathroom... I thought it was just a normal storm but... I was in there and all of the sudden the whole damn apartment building started shaking and a gush of wind blew in through the bathroom door. I got scared as hell and ran out. there was rain and wind pounding against the building. I told (Another name deleted) to get his shit on and go downstairs. he was confused and kinda brushed it off. I stepped out into the hallway and our neighbors came out. they were going into the basement as well. then the local sirens started going off and this roar like nothing you'd ever heard started. then loud pelting started. almost golf ball (I think) sized hail started falling nailing the building. then a loud large explosion sounded and the power went out while i was in the hallway. before the power went out I looked at the window that was at the end of the hallwau which, i might add, i was standing directly infront of was bulging inward and actually bending the metal frame with it. that thing looked like it was gonna break and send all those pieces at me. we ran downstairs and into the basement. now, the basement is half into the ground and at either end of the hallways
Me: jesus, this is intense
Him: there are large fire doors that are held open by magnets. they had closed and the emergency lights were on. the roaring got sooooo loud we could hear it in the middle of the whole place behind those doors. water started flooding in through the front door... people were going in and out. well, it was at this time... the pine tree infront of our building was uprooted and it fell down entirely on its side. I didn't even hear it. there was too much of a roar. then stuff started flying off our building. the top paneling that i think handles our gutters metal slabs started bending and flying off the building. some of the singles on the side broke off too. shit was falling over. I mean... this was some intense shit and even after the winds
Me: jesus man
Him: it just kept raining and raining and raining. everything looked flooded. there was THAT much rain. the whole storm lasted like… geez 6-7 hours. the winds lasted atleast 30-45 minutes constant. this was unlike anything i have EVER seen in my life. this was like a hurricane in Minnesota. they can't even determine for sure whether there was a tornado because of the wind speeds and the places it happened in weren't like out in the middle of no where. this happened in cities. big cities. Brb
Me: ok. Sorry to hear about all this man
Him: http://nauta.animaltracks.net/temp/storm/092205shi rley.jpg
Him: http://nauta.animaltracks.net/temp/storm/092205ga ragetree.jpg
Him: http://nauta.animaltracks.net/temp/storm/092205hu getree.jpg
Him: http://nauta.animaltracks.net/temp/storm/092205be nch.jpg
Him: here's that pine tree i was talking about
Him: http://nauta.animaltracks.net/temp/storm/092205tre edown.jpg
Him: if you can make that out
Him: http://nauta.animaltracks.net/temp/storm/092205lot sofred.jpg
Him: it's what the storm was
Him: hehe
Me: hang on a sec. gotta get through all the pics
Him: http://nauta.animaltracks.net/temp/storm/092205cre w.jpg
Him: *nods*
Him: still got more
Him: http://nauta.animaltracks.net/temp/storm/092205tre evan.jpg
Him: http://nauta.animaltracks.net/temp/storm/092205sto rmclouds.jpg
Him: http://nauta.animaltracks.net/temp/storm/092205sto rmclouds2.jpg
Me: dinnertime. Bbl
Him: k

I have two words: Jesus H. Man, I’d be scared as shit if anything like this happened to me. But since we’ve had so many major storms lately, I figured I’d generate an emergency plan.

Jaimetud’s Emergency plan, for when you don’t have time to escape the storm.

1. If it’s a flood, move all the electronics and food that you can to the highest floor of the building. And when I say electronics, I mean the TV, the stereo, the game system, the computers, the BIG stuff. Bring flashlights and candles upstairs too if you can.
2. If the storm clears and you find yourself in a third world country, try to get out and find as many supplies as you can. Bandaids even. Hygiene materials. If you wind up having to steal food from the store because it’s shut down, feel free to make yourself at home with whatever the store’s got that can help you SURVIVE. Survival is the key word here, folks. You don’t need to steal any TV sets.
3. Lastly, get as many weapons as you can. You saw those guys in New Orleans. If some fucker’s gonna threaten your life or steal anything of yours, you have the right to still protect your property and family. I went to the Fourth of July carnival and shot down 6 targets that were approximately 1 inch in width and were about ten feet away…with a handgun-model BB gun. If all hell breaks loose and you live Marin County, do NOT fuck with me.

And that’s all I can think of right now. If anyone else has got an idea, you can leave it in the comments section.

Sold!

Feelin' pretty good about this. These past few weeks, I've been showing my video of a church trip to Mexico at my church and now people are ordering it all up on DVD. I should have the dvd finished in a few weeks or a few months, and by then I may have picked up some more orders. Thus far, people have ordered 13 DVDs about our trip. Whoopee!

I'd like to take some time here to thank Ulead and Roxio for their terrific DVD burning software, Ulead for creating the DVD Image files and Roxio for being able to burn them. Don't ask me why but if I try burning an image with Ulead software or creating a DVD image with Roxio, it just doesn't work out. Ulead freeezes up and Roxio cranks out crapp video. Anyways, a very special thank you to the producers of that wonderful software.

Gettin' Cocky

http://img353.imageshack.us/my.php?image=object0cu.jpg

I just got a sneak peak at the next big revolutionary gaming system from Nintendo, aptly named "Nintendo Revolution." What's so revolutionary about it minus the improved graphics and other stuff that goes without saying? Well, we can talk about the game controller for starters, i.e. the thing that looks a remote control linked to above.

What are they thinking? Is it really a good idea to have a video game controller that looks like a remote control? Especially when most houses who have this kind of technology already have a remote control for their television, stereo and DVD player in their den? Won't that get more confusing? And how will anyone adjust to the gameplay? Something is seriously wrong here. My guess is eventually Nintendo will realize this as a flaw and release a more easy-to-use controller. If not, this must be a joke.

Update:

http://www.nintendo.com/newsarticle?articleid=TfyOgnUc7zB-ZlzdQvMhKJOgS5LsR2nK

Nope, it's not a joke.

Like a Caterpillar

The update for the “Valiant” grossings show it to have finally broken its budget just barely and be crawling in the box office.

Released in US
August 19, 2005
Total US Gross
$17,449,423
Production Budget
$40,000,000
Worldwide Gross
$42,049,423
Highest Combined Star Gross
570 (see full chart)
Genres
Digital Animation
Distributed by
Buena Vista
Music Composed By
George Fenton
Source
Original Screenplay
Major Genre
Animated
Country
United Kingdom

Wow. That’s some fortune it’s making. If you need me, I’ll be watching “Lilo and Stitch” on DVD this week. You know, the movie that actually made money.

Released in US
June 21, 2002
Total US Gross
$145,771,527
Production Budget
$80,000,000
Prints and Advertising Budget
$40,000,000
Worldwide Gross
$245,800,000
MPAA Rating
PG
Distributed by
Buena Vista
Music Composed By
Alan Silvestri
Major Genre
Animated
Country
United States

No Respeck For the Music Lovahs

I’ve been meaning to post on this for a while, but with all the trouble that’s gone on in the past week, I’ve only wanted to post on this just now. When I was at the Summer Jam concert on August 21st, I found this flier while waiting in line, and now that I’m posting I can get rid of this piece of trash:

Don’t Die for a Lie

Did you know that this concert is co-sponsored by the U.S. Military?
Military recruiters are here. Do you think they’re here for the music?

As more young Americans refuse to join the military and fight in Iraq, the armed services are showing up wherever young people gather and lure new recruits.

Young Americans, of all backgrounds and most political persuasions, don’t want to travel thousands of miles from home to occupy Iraq and kill or be killed for no good reason.

The Iraq War was NOT launched to eliminate Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction.” Iraq had no such weapons.
The Iraq War was not launched to combat terrorism. The terrorists who attacked the U.S. on September 11th were not Iraqis and had nothing to do with Iraq.
The Iraq War was NOT launched to promote democracy. U.S. leaders want a government that favors U.S. oil companies and provides the U.S. with permanent military bases, even though Iraqis of all ethnic and religious backgrounds want genuine independence.

Join young people across the country in pledging that you “will not serve in the U.S. armed forces as long as U.S. troops are occupying or waging war in Iraq.”

Typical, far left bullshit. Of course, if you were to survey the intelligence of the people that went to the concert, I’d be willing to bet you’d find most of them would buy this. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll tell you: Iraq under Saddam’s regime had minor weapons of mass destruction hidden in large weapons caches and already had purchased most of the ingredients necessary to build nuclear weapons, Saddam’s regime gave money to Al-Qaeda for various purposes and trained many of Al-Qaeda’s operatives and I can’t say that the last bulleted statement is untrue because I’ve never really heard anything much to that exact contrary, but I don’t think the person who wrote this flier has a track record of being right. I’ll just leave that one up for any readers to decide.

Oh, and if you ever find the urge to hand out fliers like this at a concert or a movie theatre or any such event, just remember that no one really wants to be reminded of this crap when they’re going someplace to escape from it…unless it happens to somehow confirm their ideology.

I almost forgot to mention: the concert turned out bad enough as it was.

Help

Well, it's pretty obvious by now that the government, like every other government, has about the same chance of fixing all our problems as would a nanny-state government. Which is why I'm posting here. If anyone out there reads this blog. ANYONE at all, I not only thank you but right now I need your help. My family needs your help. Lives depend on it, that's how important this is.

I’ll just say it clearly: We need money. As you may already know, my aunt and uncle were in their house in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit. Their house is flooded and they’ve had no choice but to evacuate their home. My aunt no longer has a job and my uncle has cancer and can’t get a job himself. He also needs his medical treatment badly, but they can’t pay for the health care anymore. A kind stranger helped boat them out of the flooded areas, along with their son who’s a year older than I am. They’re out of the city and now with their oldest son in Missouri. They’re going to have to rebuild their life somewhere, but it’s not going to be easy. Or cheap.

In short, I’m asking for donations. My family and my church have joined forces to create a relief fund for my aunt, uncle and cousin. All the money goes straight to them, no strings attached. If you want to help, please contact me through the information below and I’ll help walk you through it personally:

Jaimetud’s Contact Info
AIM: Jaimetud1
E-mail: Jaimetud@gmail.com
Home Phone: (415) 924-4432
Cell Phone: (415) 596 6592

May God bless you all.

Any day now

I hypothesized not too long ago that the 3D animated movies would only be a temporary fad and that it was only a matter of time before movie companies would realize that making a movie in 3D isn't going to guarantee a smash hit. Now, it’s starting to happen starting with “Valiant”.
.
According to The-numbers.com, “Valiant’s” grossing so far has gone like so:

Released in US
August 19, 2005
Total US Gross
$12,474,000
Production Budget
$40,000,000
Worldwide Gross
$37,074,000
Genres
Digital Animation
Distributed by
Buena Vista
Music Composed By
George Fenton
Source
Original Screenplay
Major Genre
Animated
Country
United Kingdom

So it’s been released for a fairly long time. The first couple of weeks are always a good determining factor of how well the movie is going to do overall, and this one is only so close to covering the budget it started with. Rather pitiful. I saw “Valiant” last weekend myself. It was actually average. Once you’ve seen a good number of movies, you’ve seen this kind of plot before. And the bad guy didn’t die at the end of the movie, which tends to say to me that the makers of the movie were sissies.

While I’m on the subject, let’s compare this to the grossing of “Madagascar:”

Released in US
May 27, 2005
Total US Gross
$190,832,874
Production Budget
$75,000,000
Worldwide Gross
$467,132,874
MPAA Rating
PG for mild language, crude humor and some thematic elements
Genres
Digital Animation
Distributed by
Dreamworks SKG
Music Composed By
Hans Zimmer
Source
Original Screenplay
Major Genre
Animated
Country
United States

Holy cow! Tremendous grossage, here! Judging by the trailers, I thought that “Madagascar” didn’t look like a movie to see in the theatre and that it was fairly lewd in it’s presentation and humor. The characters looked like something out of Richard Scharry’s worst nightmare. Meanwhile, “Valiant” had reasonably good presentation and didn’t rely so much on bathroom humor.

What does this all prove to us? The kids of today have no taste. Shame on them.