Afishionados,

There is a remake in the works of the 1963 Alfred Hitchcock classic film The Birds. Typically, I am not a fan of remakes (or re-imaginings), especially of classic films that were just fine the first time around. I did like Ocean’s 11 (though I have never seen the original) and I like the new version of The Parent Trap better than the old one. But I don’t think that anyone needs to remake The Birds. I think it will go the way of the Tim Burton flop The Planet of the Apes or the abysmal Tim Allen’s version of The Shaggy Dog. This unfortunate trend may only be tiered to movies involving people named “Tim”, however, as I now see a pattern…

I’m no fan of birds, but the original version of The Birds helps my cause in showing the world just how evil these creatures are. If you aren’t scared of birds, you should be. They’ll peck your fucking eyes out, I promise you. Right after they’re done shitting on your car. Or head.

There’s no information as to what the new Birds movie plot is, but it won’t be as good as Hitchcock’s. And one reason for that is because Tippi Hedren can’t star in it.

Tippi Hedren’s first starring role was in The Birds. She was only 33 years old and she looked smoking HOT. That’s reason enough to watch the movie right there. I suppose she could make a cameo in the new version, but it just wouldn’t be the same. For some reason, remakes love to feature the original cast members in new roles for the remade version.

Naomi Watts is rumored to be in the new Birds. She’s a hot British born and Australian raised actress and I thought she looked stunning in the new King Kong. She was also a MILF in the overrated and terribly-sound-designed horror flick, The Ring. but she’s no 33-year-old Tippi Hedren. And I don’t think there is anyone out there among today’s actresses who looks even remotely like her. Surely not her own daughter, who will never ever ever ever EVER be a GILF.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! Jeezus that fucking photo is hideous and terrifying. My eyes are burning and have melted into my lap. The apple didn’t just fall far from the tree, it landed in a pile of fresh dog shit hundreds of yards away and cross-pollenated with a fugly tree. I can’t even believe they share some of the same genes.

There, now that’s MUCH better. Absolutely stunning. I may have to go back and watch more of her movies, because I think I have only ever seen The Birds.

I have to stop posting these photos before I wet myself.

Afishionados,

Don’t be fooled by the photo above. It’s not really AngryMan’s offspring, so don’t worry.

Have you ever seen the movie Critters? I think it’s the reason that I am so fucked up today.

Critters is like Gremlins, except that it’s less comedy and way less cool. The lack of plot involves evil space alien “hedgehogs” called Krites that come to Earth and eat people on a hillbilly family’s farm. Two bounty hunters (also from space) come to Earth to help save the planet. It’s got to be one of the worst movies ever made.

My parents let me watch Critters when I was 5 or 6 years old. There are really only two scenes that stick out in my mind but they’ve forever fucked me up psychologically.

The hillbilly family’s son (He’s like 12 years old or something) rides his bike through the field at night to try and get help from a neighbor or something because his dad is hurt by the Krites. The Krites, of course, are also in the field and bite his pant legs and bike tires. As a kid, I always thought of this when I rode my bike at night, and to this day I still refuse to drive my car through cornfields.

Another scene has the Krites inside the hillbilly house and they’re chewing E.T.’s head off. A pleather doll of E.T., anyway. And they tear that fucker to pieces. Perhaps it would have been better if they had instead chewed off Drew Barrymore’s head, sparing us countless films with her terrible acting.

Critters spawned three sequels, but Critters 5 was unfortunately canceled. The sequels, while naturally worse than even the horrid first film in the series, were not a complete loss.

Critters 2, for example, did have two excellent points.

Afishionados,

I think I’m better at Photoshopping and making blogs pretty than actually writing good posts, but for some strange reason, there are still some of you out there that feel compelled to stop by and read Old Fish and Lemonade. Thanks to you, another year has passed, and OFAL officially turns 2 years old.

Last year there was some bitching by some that there wasn’t any cake. Well, this year, I baked you a fucking cake. So eat it. EAT IT.

This year was the most fun yet (for me, anyway. I can’t speak for you poor bastards) and I look forward to year three. So let’s step into the DeLorean and take a journey back in time to some of my favorite posts from the past year.

When Seagulls Attack! Where the skies of Naval Station Bremerton are taken over by seagulls carrying delicious, keebler weapons.

Virgin Records Can Suck It. Suck It Hard. Virgin makes it abundantly clear that I am supposed to pirate their music off the Internet, not pay for it.

NASCAR: A Thinking Man’s Sport Game? Further evidence supporting my fact theory that NASCAR sucks.

Blown Hard and Put Away Wet The NAVY gets a day off because of rough wind on the sea. The NAVY.

Barbaro Dies, People Cry, Elmer Rejoices Arguably one of my favorite posts ever. Who knew I could touch the hearts and souls of so many assholes people on the Internet?

Wiing in my Underpants I love this Photoshop image, and Casey’s comment is one of my all time favorites.

Wish You Were Here Dissecting the NAVY’s intelligence when it comes to making brochures.

Kenny Loggins Killed Our Teddy Ruxpin I’m still crying on the inside…

Tin Trinket Not so much for the article, but I really like the photo I took with Photo Booth for Mac.

Hangar Management The photos are what really do this “infomercial” about the Navy true justice.

Straight from the Horse’s Mouth I love poetry. Joey loves poetry. We use some of our talents on Barbaro.

Happy 4th of July and Congratulations to Isaac Some people should not be allowed to have cameras. Or have children.

I’m So Hungry I Could Eat A… A most excellent photo from Andrew that continues the ongoing misfortunes of Barbaro.

Old Fish and Lemonade has become more vulgar and offensive this past year, and has even been de-linked from a blog or two. A couple regular readers don’t seem to post here as much, either. So this year, I promise that things will be different. No more boozing. No more swearing. No more hanging out with Polanski. Just me and Jesus, loving the world together and hugging it one person at a time.

Ah, who the fuck am I kidding? Bring on year three.

Afishionados,

I’m happy to announce two new additions to our beloved family. Two new Intel Macs have been purchased for our humble home. A new 24; 2.4 GHz iMac and a 15″ 2.4 GHz MacBook Pro. Woo hoo. This brings the total number of Macs in the house to four, and the number in the family to five. Sure, we’ve still got a couple retarded PCs in the house but every family has its losers, right?

The big incentive for the le grande purchase was video chatting. Have you ever tried to video chat on a PC with more than one person? No, of course you haven’t because it’s ridiculously difficult if not impossible. Skype is free, but the video quality is crappy. AIM is nice, but what do you do it the person you want to chat with is on Yahoo? Bleh.

I’ve had my first foursome this week (video chat, anyway). My nephew in Cleveland was able to talk to Grandpa, Grandma, his Aunt, and myself, all for free and through the power of iChat. I’ve done video chats before, but never with more than one person at a time. It’s amazing how well it actually worked and the video quality was pretty good.

I don’t know why, but with so many new Macs in the house I’ve been thinking about my first Mac computer. It was the Titanium PowerBook G4 and it was (and still is) one of the sexiest computers ever. The tech specs are laughable by today’s standards, but in 2001 they were, as Darth Vader would say, impressive. Most impressive.

My TiBook had a 500 MHz G4 processor, 256 megabytes of RAM, a 20 gigabyte hard drive, a DVD-ROM drive (no burning of any kind), a 15″ screen with 1152 x 768 resolution, and Mac OS 9.1. The starting price was $3499, but that was before I added the wireless networking card, which was an additional $99.

In comparision, my MacBook Pro has a 2.4 GHz processor, 4 gigabytes (4096 megabytes) of RAM, a 160 gigabyte hard drive, built-in wireless networking, a DVD/CD burner, a 15″ screen with 1440 x 900 resolution, and Mac OS X 10.4.10. The cost of my model MacBook Pro is $2499. So the features have gone up but the price has come down.

I uncovered, after much, MUCH digging within Google, the original Titanium PowerBook information video. It’s only 5 minutes long, and it’s funny to see how excited everyone is by something that, by today’s standards, is an obsolete antique. Still, I wish I’d kept mine around for nostalgic purposes, but I sold it many years ago for the 667 MHz version.

The video is cool, I promise. It even has the song “Rain Dance” by Karl Jenkins in it. You can’t lose!

The Dell Inspiron 8600 that the MacBook Pro replaced has been formatted with an all-but-legit permanently activated version of Windows Vista Ultimate and is on its way to my brother Drew, who’s hard as hell on all his electronic equipment, gadgets, and toys. I figure, if you’re going to beat the shit out of something, might as well be a Dell with Windows.

(To the Dell’s credit, I am impressed that the ~3 year old laptop runs Windows Vista Ultimate with all its glorious bells, whistles, and eye candy. But, it’s still Windows.)

I’m sold on Macs for life. If you’re a Windows user and you’re happy with your PC, that’s great. I’m not looking to start a platform war. But if you’re a Windows user and you’re unhappy, remember: You don’t have to love your computer. But you certainly shouldn’t have to hate it, either.

Think different.

Afishionados,

Seems being a kid these days has a lot more risk involved than when I was growing up. I watched MSNBC news this morning, and everyone is all upset over this Chinese toys with lead paint problem.

Believe it or not, I too, used to have toys. Some of them even featured lead paint. One of my favorite cartoons and toys as a kid was Voltron. I couldn’t tell you in a million years what the hell the plot of Voltron is, but as a kid (when such things are trivial matters), I loved it.

I do remember that the toy was a whole bunch of lions that snapped together to form a badass robot dude with a sword. I think they even flew through outer space or something. About the only way to make Voltron any cooler would be to give him a lightsaber and have Keira Knightley involved somehow.

Two of the lions were Voltron’s legs. Voltron accomplished this amazing feat by sticking the stumpy part of his leg into the blue and yellow lions’ assholes. (Really, this is how it was done.) Once his stump locked into the lion’s ass, BOOM, he had a leg. I don’t remember Voltron doing much running, and for the sake of the yellow and blue lions, I hope this was true.

It just so happens that the blue lion was painted with lead paint. My parents didn’t give a damn whether or not I ate blue lead paint, but they were always happy to see me miserable. So they took my blue lion and mailed it in for a free replacement, which did not have blue lead paint.

This didn’t bother me so much, because the blue lion was the GIRL’s lion. I never played with it by itself. Unfortunately, she WAS a pivotal portion of the super badass robot version of Voltron. Without her, Voltron had a difficult time walking. Why oh why did the blue lion girl have to paint her fuckin’ lion with blue lead paint? Thanks for screwing up Voltron, bitch.

It probably wasn’t more than a week or two until the new blue lion replacement showed up, but by my recollection, it took more like 2 or 3 years to get there. And when it did show up, it didn’t match the rest of the lions because her shiny, silver paint on her plastic lion limbs was still intact and none of her paint was chipped off. But at least Voltron could walk again.

Another danger facing children these days is spontaneous combustion on playgrounds. WHHAAAA…? A playground in Arlington, Texas caught on fire, and spontaneous combustion was to blame. No kids were hurt, apparently, but it did cause quite a bit of damage. I’m not so sure that it was spontaneous combustion so much as the Wrath of God. After all, if anyone needs to be punished, it’s gotta be Texas.

There you have it folks, I survived lead based paints and wood chips as a kid, and so can you’re children. Just make sure you don’t let them play with any toys or let them near playgrounds.

Afishionados,

Life on the Lincoln marches on, hence the lack of much updating for the past month here on OFAL. Apologies. But thank you to everyone who continues to visit, including all the new folks upset about my Barbaro post. The fact that you have proven my power to truly upset complete strangers on the Internet cheers me up.

And now for something completely different.

On my way out the door of my apartment building last week, I discovered a pile of very old toys at the bottom of the stairwell. At first I didn’t think much of them, and I just assumed that perhaps a new tennant had temporarily left the toys there as they moved in. Then I remembered that it was 4:30 in the morning and nobody moves in that early.

Only a few toys existed: an old Mighty Mouse doll, a Smokey the Bear doll and a tin rocket ship. The stuffed animals were in pretty ragged shape, but the rocket is in excellent condition. Aside from the astronaut’s head, “television”, and various small parts of the rocket, the toy is all metal. It has a battery compartment which looks to hold “C” or “D” cell batteries, but I have not yet tried it out.

I’ve Googled various phrases and searched on eBay, but I haven’t been able to uncover any further information about the toy. I’m curious about it, especially since it’s in really good shape. It makes me wonder why anyone would just abandon it in an apartment stairwell.

Afishionados,

For reasons that I cannot explain, the memory of a toy from my childhood popped into my brain tonight. Specificially, my brother’s (Drew) Teddy Ruxpin from the late 1980s.

Teddy Ruxpin was a toy bear that featured a moving mouth, blinking eyes, and the ability to tell stories. I can’t recall specifically what Teddy’s overall quest was, only that he encountered various creatures and made many new friends along the way.

Two of his best friends were Newton Gimmick and Grubby, a crazy old human inventor and a large yellow caterpiller-like creature respectively. They cruised around in a bad-ass airship in search of new adventure. I wish my life could be that cool.

The original Teddy Ruxpin toy had a cassette player built into his back. His stories came with a color picture book and a cassette tape. Simply insert the tape into Teddy’s back, sit back, then watch and listen as he shared his tale. Teddy was also in cahoots with the battery industry, as he sucked down four C batteries like Homer Simpson chugs beer.

As young kids, my brothers and I did not have our own cassette player. We did, however, manage to own one music cassette tape between the three of us: an illegal copy of the Top Gun soundtrack, transferred via my dad’s record player no less. Ah, how I miss the sweet, sweet sounds of the popping and crackling of vinyl transferred to the cheapest cassette tapes that K-Mart sold. Those were the good ol’ days…

So, what do kids with one tape and no tape player do? Slap that sucker into their Teddy Ruxpin, of course!

When it came to Teddy’s own tapes, his mouth only moved when he spoke on the cassette. But when Kenny Loggins started playing “Highway to the Danger Zone”, Teddy flipped the fuck out. His eyes twitched, his mouth jittered, and he sang his little heart out in joyous, epileptic fashion.

Sadly, thereafter Teddy was never the same again. His eyes and mouth continued to twitch horribly (ironically, I now share Teddy’s reaction when I hear Kenny Loggins music) and he no longer only spoke when his character talked on the tape. Kenny Loggins killed our Teddy Ruxpin.

Teddy has since been through four various companies but has been resurrected once again. He now uses digital cartridges instead of cassette tapes and uses four AA batteries vice the original four C, but he still looks like the lovable bear from my childhood.

&Afishionados,

After weeks of nonstop busywork onboard the Lincoln, I’ve been able to finally spend a quiet Friday night at home. I’m feeling exceptionally introspective tonight on the eve of my 25th birthday. I’ve been thinking how fast time has flown since I was 15, which leads me to believe that there is some truth to the old adage that “the more things change the more they stay the same”.

I’ve always had a passion for electronic gadgets. Ten years ago, my grandma bought me my first “sound system”. It had a compact disc player, two cassette decks, detachable speakers, and a remote control. It was also the very first CD player that I ever owned.

My CD player sat atop my twenty-some inch RCA television that was a hand-me-down from my grandpa. It was one of those console TVs from the early 90s that was encased in its own, ugly wooden cabinet. The picture tube was dying, so the lower corners of the screen “featured; large, green patches, but at least it was a color TV with a remote. I didn’t have cable TV in my room, but my dad helped me hook it up to our outdoor antenna so I was able to get the five local channels in my area.

Attached to my television was my first “home theater system”: My first (and only) VCR, complete with mono sound output and a wired remote control¹. Yea, sure, it ate tapes on occasion and the tracking could never be adjusted correctly, but it was still awesome.

My parents refused to buy me a Nintendo of any kind (something that upset me as a kid but am now thankful for, as it allowed me to grow up with my own imagination instead), though I did grow up with an Atari ST. It was our first home computer and allowed for word processing as well as gameplaying.

These days, things are nearly the same, but I am more attached to my toys and I have upgraded them. My TV has been upgraded to a 32 inch flat panel LCD, My VCR to a 1080i/720p DVD player, my boombox to a Denon surround sound tuner and an incredible 5.1 Definitive Technology speaker system, and my Atari to a Mac laptop, an Xbox 360, and a Nintendo Wii. Oh, and I have cable now instead of an antenna. Hell, I even managed to get a Logitech Harmony remote that is not only wireless, but seamlessly controls every entertainment device in my house as well.

This birthday seems like a big milestone for me and I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because I finally feel like I’m a “grown up” but I don’t really want to be. I may not be a kid anymore, but with all my fancy electronics I sure feel like one. But I would trade all of them for a chance to go back in time, just once, and play with my brothers in the backyard like we used to, dressed as Ninja Turtles and single-handingly saving the neighborhood from the Nazis who were always trying to kill us.

¹Yea, it was wired, but at least the cord could reach 6 to 8 feet away

Afishionados,

Though I hate to admit, I’ve been perusing Myspace.com tonight. I looked up people in my old hometown by using my old high school as a search term. I think I’ve seen more than I care to, and I’ve learned a few things along the way:

1. No matter how ugly, stupid, or how long your criminal record must be by now, people will still have sex with you and produce offspring.

2. Some people that were relatively normal looking in high school have put on at least 100 pounds.

3. Some people that were never attractive in my class suddenly got really, really hot.

4. Some of the girls in my younger brothers’ classes also got very, very hot.

5. I’m behind the times when it comes to kids. Everyone seems to have them except me.

6. Folks that always said “I’ll never stay in this crummy town” did just that.

7. Some people never change.

8. Some people do change, and not always for the better.

9. I couldn’t find the people I’d most like to talk to again anywhere on Myspace.

10. I have the coolest looking, least annoying Myspace page of anyone from my old high school.

I bought Myst V last fall when it was released and never really got into it. I installed it again last night for shits and giggles and ended up beating the game. Completing it has left me with a mixed bag of emotions.

I received the original Myst as a birthday present in 1993. It had made all the headlines and magazines and my dad thought I’d like it. He was right. Not only did I like it, I couldn’t get enough of it. Before Myst, I owned only two games: Wolfenstein 3D and Doom II. Although the graphics for those games were good back in ‘93, Myst’s were so believable that they were unbelievable. Plus, this game required some skill in puzzle solving, a nice break from the mindless shooting action of Doom and Wolfenstein.

When Riven, the sequel to Myst, was released in 1997, I was ecstatic. The graphics were even better and the story was much improved over the original. A novel, Myst: the Book of Atrus, was released between games and was more or less a prequel to the events of Riven. Since I had read the book, I enjoyed the sequel to Myst even more. Myst and Riven had depth and characters that I cared about. It wasn’t enough for me to know what was happening, I wanted to know why it was happening. I found myself caring for these fictitious game characters as much as I would for actors in a really good movie.

Sadly, I think the pinnacle of the Myst franchise was Riven. Myst III: Exile was released around 2001 and had little to do with the original series. While the technical improvements of the game were welcomed, the graphics were not better than its predecessor and the story was lame. It felt like a stale spin-off rather than a true sequel.

Enter Myst IV: Revelation. Myst IV attempted to revisit the roots of the original Myst series, and expanded upon the story of Sirrus and Achenar, the two “villains” from the original Myst game. Myst IV: Revelation was only a revelation in that it made me realize I no longer cared about the Myst games. All the Myst games were like slideshows, in that they featured pre-rendered graphics at the expense of being able to play the game in real time (like Quake or Unreal). This wasn’t so bad in the mid 90’s, when computers could hardly run the “graphic intense” games like Doom or Duke Nukem 3D, but Myst IV was released in 2004. Technology had caught up with Myst, but still Myst IV was a slideshow-like game. It also had the most annoying puzzles and the most shameful acting of the series. So annoying were the puzzles, in fact, that I never finished the game.

Myst V was finally released last fall and was, for the first time, a true Myst sequel that utilized a 3D engine and ran in real time. (Myst purists would argue that Real Myst and URU: Ages Beyond Myst were the first real Myst games to run in 3D, but Real Myst was nothing more than a remake of the 1993 original and URU was a failed, online gaming spin-off and had little, if anything, to do with the original characters.) While the graphics for Myst V were good, the story was, once again, abysmal. The central “plot” of the story isn’t really explained in detail, and I didn’t really care one way or another about the two central characters.

There are four possible endings for Myst V, two of which allow the player to return to the original Myst island. I saved my game and went, just to see what it was like. Besides, I hadn’t “seen” it since 1993. Myst island was my favorite part of the original game, and I did want to see how it looked in real time.

I arrived on Myst island in the location as I had back in 1993. But the experience wasn’t the same for me as it was then. In ‘93, Myst had a bright sky, birds chirping, and looked and sounded like a happy place to visit. This was the same island alright, but it had lost its innocence. Here, before my eyes, was Myst island with heavy rain, lightning, and dark black skies. The grass was overgrown and the trees all looked dead. All the magnificent machines and enigmatic landmarks stood desolate and destroyed.

I understand that, for the plot of Myst V to work, none of the original items on Myst island could function as they once had. It would give the player a means to escape the ending of Myst V altogether, and you just can’t do that in a game. But the Myst island I saw before me looked more like a rape victim that had been used and left to die. The sinister weather and melancholy appearance of Myst felt like a metaphor for the series. Once the bestselling game series of all time, Myst had now been reduced to this. Like the series itself, Myst island was abandoned and forgotten.

I suppose I’m getting too emotional over a simple game, but Myst really had an impact on my life. I own all the Myst novels, I have an autographed copy of From Myst to Riven (signed by all the creators of Myst and Riven), and I was, once upon a time, a very active participant in the fan community.

But that was a past life and a long time ago…