Fractale Episode 5: Journey

The series slows down considerably to show some not so obvious character development and let comedy take center stage.  Phryne slowly opens up, while Clain discovers manual labor.  But where is Nessa? Fractal: Reiterated continues with HD screencaps and revised text.

One of these days I’ll try to make an animated GIF out of the opening sequence.  Fractal patterns have always fascinated me and I really like the opening credits. By this point, the opening theme had really grown on me as well.

At first Journey feels like a filler episode, albeit one with some good character moments. After all the madness in the prior episodes, the pacing mellows out and in some ways it is a slice of life story. Most of the story is about normality, but most telling is how alien that is to Clain.

The episode takes place on board the Granite’s fascinating airship, which is not named.  The sheer size of the thing is impressive and we get something of a tour of its insides throughout this installment of Fractale.  Being on the run from the Temple attack that happened in the prior episode, the rebels are carefully staying in the dead zones of Fractale’s failing coverage. For the moment, there is peace and an opportunity to see their daily lives more closely.

Romney Picks Ryan for VP

Hmm. Not a wonderful political choice and it appears that picking up voters or a specific state/region was not a factor. That makes it an unusual choice, much like when McCain picked Palin. But I think the reasoning is completely different here and has more to do with Mitt’s approach to governance.

To me, this is a sign that Romney will approach being President of the United States in the same manner that he approached business. He was looking for someone competent that would fit well with his economic plans. In other words, he really did look at the resumes of the potential vice presidents and hired the one he thought could do the job best. Unlike the pundits, I believe Mitt made the decision rather than having Ryan forced on him.

While I am not a big Paul Ryan fan due to suspicions about his late conversion on fiscal issues, I think the choice reflects well on Romney the man. How it reflects on Romney the candidate may be another issue entirely. I do not see Ryan being a greater aid to the campaign than Bobby Jindall, Marco Rubio, or Chris Christie. So I am watching to see if Ryan will win me over and also voters. If there were worries about the Tea Party voters not turning out, it would explain the choice – but they were a slam dunk to show up at the polls anyway.

The collective brain power of the team exceeds Obama and Biden by many gigawatts though. This is easily the smartest ticket run in my lifetime. That may may it difficult for them to connect with the voters, but since team Obama is devoted to running the dirtiest campaign since before the Civil War it is hard to tell if it will make a difference.

Will issues win this election? I would love to say they will, but the public has become very vulnerable to demagoguery so lying and making up attacks really do work. If issues were the motivator, the upcoming election would be a landslide for Romney regardless of his veep pick. Expect Medicare scare tactics and more Romney killed people libel and slander as a result.

So is it a game changer like so many are writing and saying? Not in my opinion. Excepting Portman, any of the other names bandied about would have had a bigger effect on the general election.

Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956) Review

While Gojira was a serious film about the horrors of nuclear tests, Godzilla, King of the Monsters turned the Japanese original into a mere monster movie of the type so common during the 1950s. It isn’t without its charms, however. The spectacle of the title monster trashing Tokyo is complete and the human suffering that causes is still there to elevate this slightly beyond a normal B-movie. UPDATED August 2012 with better screencaps and expanded snark, err… text.

From the comprehensive booklet included in the 50th anniversary DVD release, we find how the American version came to be. Harold Ross and Richard Kay brought the film to America on the cheap to take advantage of the explosion in B-movies.  Described as “Hollywood bottom-feeders,” they had one problem with the movie – all the Japanese in it.  At the time, hatred of the Japanese was still strong ten years after World War II and a movie starring “Japs” couldn’t make money.

The solution was to shoot new material starring an American actor and splice it in.  About 20 minutes of the 80 minute movie would consist of the new scenes and insertions, heavily diluting the original story.  But that didn’t matter because audiences would be going to see the “King of Monsters” not the story. The result raked in $2 million and turned a tidy profit while making fans of Godzilla such as Gomer Pyle.

Now on to the review starring Raymond Burr and his pipe!

The Americanized version starts with the sound of explosive footfalls and the new title appears over the sea. In a jarring shift, the first scene of the movie is the devastated ruins of Tokyo in miniature.  A voice over narration by Raymond Burr begins while he makes his first appearance pinned under rubble.  After failing to free himself, he passes out.  Not an auspicious debut for the hero of the movie.

Gojira (Godzilla 1954) Review

In 1954, Gojira hit Japanese theaters and was a sensation that eventually spread world wide. For those who don’t know, Gojira is the original Japanese Godzilla movie that started the series. This first film is a serious movie, unlike nearly all the ones that followed. In 2004, Toho Studios decided to restore and remaster the epic for its 50th anniversary DVD release. So now that I have my hands on it, does it live up to its reputation as a classic? UPDATED:  August 2012 with expanded text and better screen captures.

As a kid, I grew up with the later Godzilla movies and it was not until I was a teenager that I saw the heavily recut American version of the film starring Raymond Burr. It turned out to be a pleasant surprise, being a darker and more serious story than I had expected. Once the Internet age dawned, I found out that it paled in comparison to the Japanese film it originated from, but there was no way to see it.

Years went by and then rumors of a New York City showing of the original movie for the 50th anniversary of Gojira got my attention. Hopes of a DVD release turned into reality thanks to ClassicMedia, but it ended up being out of my price range. Time went by and a sale at a Target in Indiana landed the very nice deluxe release in my hands. This review applies to it and to the discs in The Godzilla Collection also put out by the same folks.

The movie starts with a strident and bombastic theme by Akira Futabe that fits the tension that permeates the entire production. After the credits roll, an idyllic scene of a merchant ship’s crew relaxing on deck seems very serene.  A bright flash of light draws their attention to a strange glowing mass in the water. Another flash and the ship explodes into flames. The distress call of the Kingo Maru results in the Eiko Maru being sent to find it, whereupon it promptly sails into a glowing circle of water and explodes like the first ship.

1987 Looks at 2012

Twenty five years ago a group of science fiction authors were asked to predict where the world would be in 2012. Most of them were off and not by a little. Orson Scott Card got the closest, with Roger Zelazny next best. Isaac Asimov and Tim Powers were so far off as to be laughable.  Still, it is a fascinating glimpse at the difficulties of prognostication even from the most imaginative of us.

Bleach Ep. 17: Ichigo Dies!

Despair dominates the story when Ichigo finds out just how powerful Soul Reapers really are during a bloody battle over Rukia. Action filled, this episode marks a turning point in the storyline and sets up the next big arc.

In the previous episode, Ichigo found out that the zanpakutos are more than magic swords that can cut up spirits. They have names and special powers which the villainous Renji demonstrated in easily overpowering the substitute Soul Reaper during the opening recap. Brought to his knees trying to rescue Rukia, things look very bad indeed.

Clearly shocked, and in shock, the high school student is helpless as Renji prepares to finish him off. He is not the only one shaken, for Rukia is horrified to see him so badly injured. Desperate to provide him a chance to escape, she attacks the tattooed Soul Reaper and tries to restrain him despite her weak body.

Yes, Idiots Mistake Sikhs for Muslims

Something that irked me about commenters on some right wing blogs (not owners or official posters) has been the immediate rejection of the idea that the temple shooter in Wisconsin might have confused the Sikhs with Muslims. While I despise the use of the word “reactionary,” this seems to fit the situation. It is not an illogical motive for the murders and certainly not out of the realm of speculation.

Depending on whether the neo-Nazi left any letters behind, we will possibly find out what his real motivation. It probably was pure racism, rather than against a specific religion, but I have found white supremacist types to be ignorant middle grade morons so getting two very different beliefs confused would be easy. Time may tell.

Actually, many educated people have no clue who the Sikhs are for that matter. About the only portrayal in mass media I can remember would have been Bend It Like Beckham ten years ago. With the growth in immigrants from India in the past twenty years or so, people would be wise to get a little more familiar with the various cultures and religion from that large nation.

My father just returned from a two week stay with my sister and on the way down on Amtrak he had a conversation with a Sikh gentleman. The topic of being mistaken for being a Muslim came up and the man said that he had experienced that kind of hostility. He also said the people responsible for that reaction were idiots. The conversation took place well before the shootings.

Parking Lot Conversations

Over the past few years, I have noticed a strange pattern of having extended conversations in parking lots with friends and acquaintances. Parking lots are not the best locations in the world for talking, but it keeps happening. It does not matter what time of the year it is or what temperature it is out there, though precipitation will drive us indoors or into our cars to finally head home.

Did I mention this happens when we are supposed to be going home? It never happens on the way into a building or to meet up. There appears to be an unwritten (and unsaid at that) rule that the later it is at night the longer the conversations will be.

But most alarming is the development of talking where cars should be during the daytime. Why is that alarming? When I got up this morning, my nose and forehead looked like a boiled lobster, that is why. I could not understand how it had happened until I remembered what happened after church yesterday.

Yes, you guessed it: a parking lot conversation. Actually it was closer to three rather than a single event, which would explain why I was out there too long in the sun. Obviously, we need to outlaw parking lots to prevent this kind of thing happening to the unwary.

A Prelude to Hate

After reading the news this past week, it has struck me that there is a pattern that groups of people exhibit that show a steady decline  towards hostility of the armed and unarmed kind. While I have long understood some of the mechanisms involved, one that had escaped me until recently was how false labels of hatred and bigotry (or oppression back in the day) can be used to foster the very things they claim to be combating. This has become the main weapon of choice on the political left in the United States over the past few years.

It is all very basic “us vs. them” behavior, but as I dwelt on it, I realized this is how societies crumble. Breaking down people into special interest groups is the same as forming tribes or, in a more modern urban variation, street gangs and mafia. This segregation leads to growing feelings of distance toward any group that is not your group. It then becomes easy to attribute falsehoods to the “others” because the are obviously bad – if they were good, they would be part of the group.

More Renovations

Looking back at my early review posts recently, I realized I need to do some serious rewriting of a good number of them. Some will required a new DVD purchase, but most need better screencaps and text refinements to cover the technical merits of the release.

A good example of what I am up to is the first renovated review, The Black Hole. It required a new DVD because of the HDTV and so it was an excuse to rewrite an early review. What I did not expect is how much of the text needed to be rewritten! One bonus from all this is that the structure for reviews is finally standardized.

Reviews to be reworked:

• Godzilla: Tokyo SOS – DVD in hand so better screencaps DONE
• Gammera – DVDs on the way and will be both versions DONE
• Stargate: Continuum – full rewrite DONE
• Forbidden Planet – full rewrite, maybe Blu-ray upgrade? DONE
• Howl’s Moving Castle – minor tweaks plus better screencaps DONE
• Something Wicked This Way Comes – full rewrite DONE
• The Watcher in the Woods – Full Rewrite DONE
• Smallville: Absolute Justice 1 and 2 – Full rewrite
• Godzilla: King of Monsters – Better screencaps, tweaking DONE
• Gojira – Better screencaps, tweaking DONE
• Zulu – better screencaps, tweaking for Blu-ray release DONE
• Battle of Britain -- HD screencaps, rewrite DONE
• Only Yesterday -- Better screencaps, technical details

The reworks will be alternated with new reviews, despite the temptation to get them done and over with.

New reviews planned, in no particular order:

• Godzilla Raids Again/Gigantus, The Fire Monster – DVD, Japanese Original and US DONE
• Whisper of the Heart – Blu-ray and DVD DONE
• Animal Crackers – DVD DONE
• Troll Hunter – Blu-ray DONE
• TRON – DVD DONE
• Love and Honor – DVD DONE
• The African Queen – Blu-ray DONE
• Tora, Tora, Tora – Blu-ray
• The Last Dinosaur – DVD DONE
• The Bobo – DVD DONE
• Ikiru – DVD
• The Burbs – DVD DONE
• Beowulf – DVD DONE

With a personal library of hundreds of movies on DVD and Blu-ray, I am not lacking for material. If I were to give up all new shows and movies, I would still be set for a very long time.

Squid Girl Episode 11

UPDATE September 4, 2018

More DMCA take downs have hit the blog despite screen captures long being considered fair use. Due to my not being able to afford a lawyer, I have no choice but to remove them or have the blog suspended. Only the words will be left.

TVTokyo is proving to be foolishly draconian in targeting posts meant to get people interested in seeing the Squid Girl anime and perhaps even purchasing it on DVD or Blu-ray. Being anti-piracy myself this is infuriating that they are targeting posts I wrote hoping to encourage people to try out a delightful show.

The anime series proves it can do horror when a creepy doll is found, science fiction when Cindy turns her sights onto a new target, and nature documentary when a mountain hike goes terribly wrong. Laughter keeps on coming no matter what the genre is when Ika Musame invades it!

Proving the quality of the early episodes was no fluke, Squid Girl stays strong in its penultimate installment of the first season. In fact, it is one of the most solid episodes of the entire series.

Why Is This Doll So Fishy?

There are few things creepier than a doll designed to be cute, but that looks disturbing instead. Clowns may be one of those things, but even an evil clown would have trouble competing with the doll that stars in this tale.  Depp is an old toy of Eiko’s that she finds in a storage box in the Aizawa residence. Right away, the thing is unnerving to Squid Girl and most likely anyone watching the show. The animation also takes an unsettling air of a horror movie, which is something the Japanese excel at.

As darkness falls, the atmosphere grows more sinister in Eiko and Ika’s bedroom. Unable to sleep due to the doll looking at her, Ika Musame turns it around so she can get some sleep. It works, but when she awakens the doll has turned back to stare at her with those unfeeling blue eyes.

A mystery has begun, one that digs into Eiko’s forgotten past. Who is Johnny? And what does Johnny have to do with Depp? Only with the help of Sannae will the answer be found and it is not one they want…

Why So Susfishous?

Cindy Campbell is back to investigate a suspected alien, as we find out thanks to hearing her thoughts. After witnessing too many inhuman feats by Chizuru, it has dawned on her and the Three Idiots from MIT that data is needed. Data provided by DNA extracted from her blood!

Harris is the first to try to retrieve a sample, but his invisibility suit causes more problems than it assists him. With the restaurant in an uproar thanks to him, another plan must be enacted. A drone of brilliant design is then employed by Clark with disastrous consequences.

Things quickly spiral out of the control of the mad scientists and a frightened Nagisa can only watch helplessly. The true meaning of fear will be learned.

Want to Gill Up the Mountain?

Nature is a wonderful thing filled with beauty, fresh air, and exercise. Sadly for Squid Girl, she does not appreciate any of those. So when the Aizawa clan go for a mountain hike, Ika is not happy to find out how difficult going up a mountain is. Unable to escape the terrible tag team of Chizuru and Eiko, the miserable fish out of water grits her teeth and endures locomotion using only her legs.

There is another thing about nature that is very appealing and that is observing wildlife in their natural habitat. Here Ika learns about squirrels, monkeys, and other animals on the mountain. It is an up close kind of education; the kind kids enjoy the most. After all, survival skills television shows have been very popular lately.

Greater challenges await the young squid along the way to the summit. Once there she may find the most frightening creature of the them all…

Thoughts

Silly is becoming an inadequate word to describe this series. It takes silly to an exponential degree, then multiplies it by comic madness to achieve its sweet, but warped goals.  For a slice of life show, it is amazing how it spoofed three different genres so effortlessly.

The Three Idiots are particularly amusing in the second segment and a brief cameo in the third. Actually, the supporting cast carries a lot of episode eleven. It is not something you notice right away, but repeated viewings made it stand out to me. That is a good testimony of how well developed they have become by late in the season. No setups are needed, the writers just wind them up and let them go.

Speaking of writing, the stories bounce around from different time periods in the manga, but it all works seamlessly in the adaptation. A lot of credit needs to go to the production crew for I think this is a rare case of an anime being better than the manga it was based on.  I do not think there are any Ika Musame purists out there to complain, so I should be safe in making that statement.

The first story has a rare reference to the missing Aizawa parents who have never been seen. Their absence is something of a mystery.

All in all, this was a great episode and now I am saddened that the season is coming to an end. Only one full episode and two mini Squid Girl videos left to review.

BEWARE! HERE BE SPOILERS!!!

The reveal of Johnny is deftly handled and I loved how the one hand poked out of the packing like a zombie hand from a grave. I admire how they built up the suspense and still managed to be silly at the same time. It was great fun.

The second segment’s best part was Chizuru. I would take her up against any shounen fighting character and bet on her winning. Oh and that innocent face she made at the end, it was even more scary than her opening her eyes.

When the cobra showed up to torment Ika further, I was laughing a little. When she lost to it, I was laughing out loud. The duel with the echo is pure early invasion and still amusing. Sannae’s Marilyn Monroe like summer dress and entrance was kind of strange if not alarming. When it turned out to be an innocent scene, I was relieved.

Rotation

Besides being an awesome tune from Herb Alpert’s amazing Rise album, it is also a word that means going around in circles.

In this case, I am writing about the reviews of series I cycle around. With too many in rotation, it is time to finish out two to streamline things a little. So for the near future, Squid Girl season one and Bleach season one will be fast tracked since they are almost completed. Then the rest will resume their normal places.

The movie reviews will get loose rotation too. Marx Brothers films will be joined by Godzilla movies and Studio Ghibli animes, with other movies slotted in between. A couple of relatively unknown foreign films will be prioritized before I fully start rolling on that rotation.

But before any of that gets posted, I have to put up the 1979 video of the title tune. While Rise is a great tune and made the album a huge hit, this is by far my favorite track from it:

Pure music, late ‘70s style.

Enjoy.

Fractale Episode 4: Departure

Clain reunites with Phryne, but the light hearted adventure is gone when the price paid for the carnage ending the last episode begins to hit home for the Granite clan. While there are comic moments to be found, the series is darkening quickly as the Temple responds to the terrorist attack. Fractale: Reiterated continues with HD screen captures & revised text.

After the shock, if not whiplash, induced by the change in tone at the end of the third episode I had wondered where Fractale was headed.  Departure shows that the change is no fluke and integral to the storyline. More than that, it depicts that there are consequences for what you do in this fictional world. Harsh consequences…

Renovations to the Blog

This summer, I decided to do a little remodeling to the blog. Rather than change the visuals, I decided to change the accessibility of older posts. It has been a work in progress and I will continue to refine the layout as time goes on. One of these days I may even replace the old photo of me with something more recent, which will not be easy since I avoid having my ugly mug photographed.

The latest change involves using Blogger’s pages feature which was introduced last autumn. In keeping with the KISS model, there are now simple indexes to reviews with a new bar near the top allowing easy access. Eventually there may be new pages, but for the moment the categories of Home, Movie Reviews, Anime Series Reviews, and Television Series Reviews will be it in the tabs.

Hopefully, this will help people searching for more content they are interested in, since tags have turned out to be a little messier than I expected. With people clicking in from countries all over the world and from many different languages, simplicity is a must. Enough people have been using the tags for me to realize there might be a better way to go about things. It means a little more work for me, but it it should be worth it.

Comments are not allowed on the index pages in order to keep them neat, but any feedback is appreciated on individual posts, of course.

I never expected to have many hits on this blog, but I passed the 20,000 page view mark a month ago to my amazement. While it started out as a journal of sorts, it has become something more experimental than that. Being in on the Web relatively early, I find myself missing the random surfing of web rings and the excitement of finding something unusual. The Web may be more useful now, but it was a lot more fun back then.

So From the Sidelines is not going to be the usual blog that is purely personal, political, or other niche oriented. It is going to be an  oddball mix of some of my many interests with no apologies for any of it. Much like my DVD/Blu-ray collection has anime sitting next to highly acclaimed films next to cult classics next to box office hits without segregation, the posts here will be the same.

If I have managed to inform, entertain, or intrigue just one person having trouble sleeping or simply surfing the Net, then I am satisfied that I have returned a little of what I got to experience back in the 1990s when the World Wide Web was new.

So I thank all who have visited thereby keeping me intrigued and entertained from showing up in my stats and comments. It adds something to my life here on the sidelines.

Blogger Referral Spam and Twitter

After digging into my monthly stats on Blogger, a pattern emerged of links to apparently legitimate sites that really were not genuine. Instead, they used Twitter’s URL shortening service, T.co, to disguise the page. It turns out that some hits that I thought were real from stumbleupon.com were actually the exact same kind of spam as I previously wrote about here and here. Another falsified website referral using t.co I found was for cultek.com which is a biomedical company.

I have never liked link abbreviating services due to the amount of malicious code, pages, and photos they have been used for. Twitter has launched lawsuits and claim to be filtering how t.co handles links, but so far I am not impressed. It seems like services are always falling behind the black hats in cyberspace, so the moral of the story is for people to be very careful about what they click. Examine the entire link and be reluctant to click on a shortened one.

UPDATE:

Oh the irony. From the time I started writing this post to actually publishing it, another site with referral spam hit me, but not using t.co. This one is ultrafiles . net and is again out of Russia. The title of their website is Linkbucks . com and is another make money off of links site.

UPDATE: A day later, another fake link using devscripts.net and t.co, so the beat goes on.

UPDATE: July 31st brought a new falsified link using the same method, this time posing as myhealthscore.com.

UPDATE: Another one supposedly from filmhill.com that links to a video of how to get “lucky” using a fish. The absurdity is amazing and I am glad I have a little used browser in a sandbox to check these things.

The Dark Knight (2008) Review

After successfully rebooting Batman with a serious origin in Batman Begins, director Christopher Nolan had high expectations to meet with both critics and movie goers. Determined to go “bigger” in every way often  and by unleashing an unforgettable version of the Joker, Nolan created a masterpiece. Brilliant, beautiful, thrilling, and contemplative, The Dark Knight is film making at its best. It is also a twisted bromance for the ages.

A sequel to a popular film is a very tricky thing to make for recapturing lightning in a bottle is rare. When successful, it can result in a superior film under the right hands. The Dark Knight is not that. Instead it transcends its predecessor to become a work of art that stands on its own. What is even more amazing is that it became a box office record breaker, which is unusual for such an intellectual film which also turned out to be surprising commentary on the War on Terror.

Let us dig into the film and see how he did it.

Health 7-26-2012

The bout with Lyme Disease took more out of me than I thought and it has been hard to get going this week. Allergies are flaring, so they share at least a little of the blame. What has surprised me is how physically weak I have gotten and it looks like it will be awhile before I get my strength back. My always shaky hands are now erratic at times and I have been accidently knocking things due to the large tremors. Irritating.

On a positive note, I have been hiking up the driveway in hot and humid weather to get the mail with no ill effects. It is strange the stamina is recovering faster than the strength. Headaches are subsiding too, which is good since those combined with allergies is true misery. Still it is not the summer I was hoping for.

Life or Something Approximating It

The past week was busy by my standards and this week looks to begin that way. Saturday and Sunday combined to make for a marathon run of events, so I am not feeling terribly good today. Two D&D sessions in a row contributed mightily to that, but at least we had one TPW (Total Party Wipeout). I did try to get the party killed in the first session, but the level five party managed to survive a mummy lord thanks to me and defeat a young adult green dragon that I attacked. He did have it coming after torturing my character, I must say.

I was rather surprised to be given the Diablo III Book of Cain hardcover by my friends hosting the second session. While I cannot yet afford the game, I always enjoyed the lore and storyline contained in the series which this book covers. It looks like it will be a fun read.

The Dark Knight Rises Theater Review

Despite the horrific events in the early morning, I decided to go see the movie to spite the shooter’s desire to instill fear in people. I also did it so I could be a proxy for the people who waited with such fervent desire to see the film, but were permanently denied the chance to. So I dedicate this review to the victims in Aurora.

Super hero film series have a bad tendency to go south in the third installment for some strange reason. Batman Forever, Spider-Man 3, and X-3 all were terrible disappointments. So the question of whether Christopher Nolan could deliver was very valid to ask.

The good news is he delivered a worthy conclusion to the trilogy that is at once familiar, yet very different than the previous movies. Duality has been a theme throughout, so that is fitting. The Dark Knight Rises is a more emotion driven piece that explores how people handle things in a worst case scenario. While neither Batman Begins or The Dark Knight were cheerful, this is a story about losing hope and trying to find it again in an utterly grim setting.

14 Dead and 50 Wounded at The Dark Knight Rises Premiere

Having trouble sleeping thanks to a mouse running around (since dispatched), I got online to find out that a midnight showing in Aurora, a suburb of Denver, Colorado was attacked by a gunman wearing body armor and a gas mask. Just watched an interview here with a survivor who had friends in the specific theater and it sounds like the shooter used an AR-15 and at least one tear gas grenade. Also, the killer waited in the parking lot for the police to arrive and is in custody.

Speculation is rampant, but there is no given reason for the shooting yet. It could be terrorism, but it probably is a nutcase again. Since the theme of the movie is terrorism, it no surprise that people are thinking that. One thing is for sure, he wanted to be caught and get attention.

Hearsay is that a baby was shot and children are among the victims, including a little girl seen with bullet holes in her back.

It is horrific and sure to generate a lot of political blame all over the place, but I wish people would just leave that alone until we get the motives of the shooter.

Another local talked on camera that the theater was not considered one of the safest in the area and usually had three police officers in the lobby. With so many people dressing in costumes for the movie, how would anyone tell the threat was real at first?

It is the typical confusion and it will be awhile before a true picture emerges.

The irony of the movie being about a society disintegrating into violence and terrorism is profound, not to mention depressing. My fear is that we will see a lot more of this kind of thing once the economy collapses completely.

My prayers go out to the victims, their families, and their friends.

UPDATE

Things are still murky, but at least the death toll has been reduced to twelve. The baby has been verified as being three months old and being treated at a hospital and so is a six year old girl.

People commenting online are angering me greatly from both the left and the right. It may be my lack of sleep, but I wish I could slap them silly. Attempts to make it a racial or religious issue irks me no end. The area is mixed and so was the audience.

Name of suspect is James Holmes, 24, with only a traffic ticket for a record in Aurora.

UPDATE

The baby was uninjured, the parents were concerned and wanted the child checked out. Tear gas is confirmed and that was smart of them to do.

Supposedly the gunman entered the theater by kicking down an exit door by the screen during an on screen gun fight.

Mitt Romney is being dinged by idiots for saying 15 killed, for awhile the live coverage said that an additional person had died at a hospital raising it to that number. I know that because I was watching it and that tells me Mr. Romney was too. Non issue folks.

Likewise, the proximity of a large Muslim community to Aurora has nothing to do with what happened. It is like people want this to be worse than it already is so they can grind axes. Sigh.

UPDATE

Imagine surviving a crazed gunman on the rampage only to be killed by another six weeks later. This may turn out to be one of the most tragic stories out of the shootings. It is made even more poignant by her last tweet waiting for the movie to start.

Meanwhile, the media has decided to try to pin the killings on Rush Limbaugh and the Tea Party movement both. And they wonder why they only have a 26% approval rating with the American public.

Then there is one of Howard Stern's pranksters calling in and posing as cop with a local TV station. What slime.

After those last two items, I do not feel very motivated to keep up with the news.