Space Camp

Super quick from last Friday...I'm still going to update the site on a regular basis...just not daily like I tried to in the past. Expect 2-3 posts per week and I might add more to that but just quick posts of funny things I tend to find on the web. Also, you now have a whole net set of songs to listen to. Moving along...

With Joaquin Phoenix oddly announcing his retirement from acting last week to pursue a movie career, it made me think of one his first roles when he was known as "Leaf" Phoenix. This movie had it all...tense action, a love story, some humor, and a very annoying robot. That movie is Space Camp.

There actually was a bit of a space camp fad in the mid 80's. You could apply to go to what I'm assuming was Cape Canaveral in Florida and take part in a camp for kids to simulate going up into space. It lasted two weeks and it promised an experience of a lifetime. I thought about doing it but then realized that being away from home for two weeks would make me sad. Lucky for me, they made a movie right around the same time and believe me, it made me so glad I never went.

Space Camp was pretty much about a bunch of kids who accidentally got sent into space thanks to the above mentioned robot's love for Joaquin Phoenix's character who really wanted to go into space. The robot was savvy enough to actually send a real shutting into space but didn't realize that none of the snotty brat teenagers had any real experience. Space Camp actually taught me a lot about space travel.

1.) There's a limited amount of air on a space ship and you could die if you run out of air. Again, I was 9 when this came out and didn't comprehend things like this.

2.) You could be burned to a crisp during re-entry to the Earth's atmosphere.

3.) Driving a space shuttle is very much like a video game....a fun one at that.

The cast in this movie is quite spectacular. It runs the gambit of the wide range of actors...take a look.

1.) Joaquin Phoenix - he'd go onto classics like Gladiator and semi classics like We Own The Night.

2.) Kate Capshaw - she was in Indiana Jones and Temple of Doom and later married Steven Spielberg. She actually looks pretty hot here.

3.) Lea Thompson - another hot chick, she was in the Back To Future movies and a movie I never understood called "Casual Sex?".

4.) Kelly Preston - another hottie, she was best known in Twins but has shown on late night Cinemax movies from time to time. Has settled down and is now married to John Travolta.

5.) Larry B. Scott - the name might not ring a bell but he's been in two iconic movies. He was the black gay guy in Revenge of the Nerds and also was a member of the Cobra Kai in the Karate Kid. Throw this movie into his resume, and he's looking pretty good.

6.) Tom Skerrit - One of my favorite actors, you can find him in the first Alien, the Christopher Walken classic "The Dead Zone", and in the underrated movie "Contact". He scored major squeamish points for making out with a barely legal Drew Barrymore in the first Poison Ivy movie.

Here's a clip of the movie. Its the scene where they accidentally get blasted into space.



Mind you, I would be COMPLETELY FREAKING OUT if I was sent into space and not laughing while floating around aimlessly. Then again being trapped in close quarters with Lea Thompson and Kelly Preston wouldn't be that bad...

Orange Crush Soda

When I was a little kid, I would visit my Dad at work and in his office building was a soda machine full of Crush brand soda. My two favorite flavors were grape and orange. Back then a can of soda cost 40 cents (I'm getting old).

I don't know if they make Crush soda anymore. When people think of Orange soda, they usually think of Sunkist and when people think of Grape soda, they think of Welches. Orange Crush soda, this is my ode to you although the REM song by the same name is pretty good too.

Below is an old commercial for Diet Crush soda. I like how they assume that drinking diet soda will cause you to lose a lot of weight or at least have a model type figure.



Four things I like here.

1.) All soda commercials seem to feature soda cans that are really really sweaty.

2.) At 19 seconds, the special effect to make the can of soda burst through the bowl of oranges. I'd like to see how many times they had to shoot that to get it just right.

3.) The lady taking off her shirt at the 25 second mark is nipping out. I wonder if this was shot on a cold day.

4.) How many takes did that lady throwing the soda can take? She waits until the last second to throw it, does it super quick, and the guy has lean back and reach completely back to snag it. I'm impressed here.

Classic Videos - Separate Ways by Journey

Today we now have a new leader of the free world and in honor of saying goodbye to the Republican party being in control, I thought of this song.

I love Journey...actually that's not exactly true. I like Journey, but I LOVE Steve Perry. Journey can tour all they want these days but its not "my" Journey until Steve Perry plays with them again. So for now, I have to live in the past and there's nothing better than this song from 1983. the original video has it all...from the band miming the playing of their instruments as well as dramatic poses from Mr. Perry and the band themselves.

Sadly You Tube does not allow me to post the original version of Separate Ways on a website.

For what its worth the link to the video is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxxOyGK1pMk but the live version is almost just as good...



There's not much to comment on as the song itself tells the story. These guys could play their balls off and I challenge anybody to try and recreate this song live and make it sounds just as good as the original. Still, there are some random things here to mention.

:14 - I love the walking backwards strut Steve Perry pulls off here.

:23 - The fact that yellow jumpsuits with black tee shirts were ever in style is amazing.

:50-:53 - nothing makes me laugh more than hand gestures by singers. A great fist clench here.

1:32 - Another band member sporting the yellow and black look. Check out that bass too without the frets at the top.

5:08 - What is Steve Perry saying here?

Until next time...

Pre-Election Day Madness

Tomorrow is the big day and the new leader of the free world will either be John McCain or Barrack Obama. Since this a pop culture blog, I'm not going to get into political issues at all. I will post a couple political items I've seen lately that I think are hilarious.

First is Barrack POSSIBLY giving McCain the finger at a rally.



I personally don't think he is but try it yourself and see how weird it feels to scratch your face with your middle finger.

Anyway, below is I think one of the wittiest things I've ever seen. Somebody took Bush's State of The Union Address from 2004 and turned it into something different...listen closely and you'll be rewarded by watching the whole thing.



Brilliant!