Going after those fan fiction monies

Several years ago, I thought of something I'd like to hear Darth Vader say to an employee of a record store.  I decided to write it down finally, but it doesn't really work as non-sequitur.  Therefore I decided to enter the wild world of fan fiction.  Apparently, Amazon is making plans to let fan fiction writers monetize their works. Let's see if I can get in on that with this story.  Enjoy!

Darth Vader's day off:

For routing the Rebel Alliance, capturing Han Solo, and cutting off Luke Skywalker's hand just before spilling the beans about Vader's paternity, the Emperor decided to give Darth Vader a much needed day off. 

Vader spends part of the day browsing at the Bespin record store for something new to add to his music library.  While in the section under the label "F", he begins to murmur to himself.  Soon Vader is flipping through the assortment of CD's more and more furiously.  Finally, he utters a surprised and irritated, "What?" (you know like he did that one time in the movie, can't remember where maybe Death Star trench run when Han Solo shows back up?).

Vader turns to look at the clerk and then back to the CD rack before striding menacingly over to the credits register.  He informs the clerk, "I find your lack of Faith Hill disturbing.  Your paltry selection of modern country hits has failed me for the last time…" Vader glances at the clerk's nametag, "Steve!" 

At this, Vader raises his hand threateningly ready to force choke the life out of poor Steve.  Which is kind of silly since he's really only a couple feet from Steve and could just robot choke him with his bionic arm like he did to the captain of the Tantive IV.  Then again, using the Force choke always gives Vader plausible deniability that a victim just choked to death on their own.  On the other hand, being the number two in the Empire usually comes with free reign to murder anyone you want so we're left assuming Vader can be kind of lazy.

Fearing for his life, Steve exclaims, "Were you looking under "H" for Hill or "F" for Faith?"  Vader pauses.  Steve sputters out, "We put artists using their real names alphabetically by last name!"

Vader glances thoughtfully at the CD rack.  He strides over to the H section.  Sandwiched between Jimi Hendrix and Lauryn Hill are 5 of Faith Hill's 7 albums.  Vader picks up a copy of Cry and returns to the counter where Steve waits with dread. 

"Sorry about that, Steve.  I should have figured or at least just asked.  You know, at my day job I always have to be a real hard case and sometimes I let that drift over into my personal life.  No hard feelings, I hope."

"No, no problem.  I get annoyed, too, when I can't find what I'm looking for.  That'll be 10 credits."

Vader pays and steps out of the record store.  Inside his custom TIE fighter, he puts his new copy of Cry into the CD player and turns the volume up on "Free."  By the time the last few bars of "When the Lights Go Down" have played Vader is thinking about his behavior at the record store.

He thinks to himself, "Yeesh, I was this close to suffocating poor Steve back there because I couldn't find a CD.  Definitely overreacted on that one.  And it's not like it's an isolated incident.  I cut my own son's hand off the other day and then tell him I'm his absentee father?  Who does that?  Is this really what I've come to?"

"I feel like this whole dark side of the Force thing may not be everything Palpatine told me it would be.  I mean, ever since I decided to embrace it I've really turned into a jerk.  There was that time I killed a whole group of younglings.  I could have let the clones do it, or just sold them all into slavery, but I had to go on and cut them all down.  And younglings don't just disintegrate when you hit them with a lightsaber like Ol' Obi Wan did.  That takes years of force training to do.  Poor things."

"I don't know, maybe I really need to take a good long look at my life and figure out if this is really where and who I want to be.  Oh, 'Unsaveable'!  I love this song!  And totally appropriate right now!  So crazy when stuff like that happens.  Well, that's the Force for you."

Roughly one year later, Vader stands silently watching the Emperor fire bolt after bolt of Force lightning into his son.  Just then, the chorus from "Unsaveable" pops into Vader's head.

"Cause baby I cried a little too hard, a little too long

What I though was right was way too wrong

It's too far gone

I can't bring back the love

They just ain't enough

Unavailable, impossible, unsaveable love."

"Ah, nuts to it!" thinks Vader.  Grabbing his Sith Lord Master, Vader hoists him over his head and hurls him to his doom in one of the many inexplicable bottomless pits scattered throughout the Death Star.

As Vader lies dying, Luke removes his father's mask.  Vader sees his son with his own eyes for the first and last time.  He tells Luke to go. 

In the moments before he becomes one with the Force, Vader thinks, "Did I do it?  Was it enough?"

The final lines of "Unsaveable" echo through his mind.

"There's someone out there for me boy

Who thinks I'm beautiful

I've got to go

But baby I've tried, I've tried

Baby I've tried."

Have you ever seen that Digiorno's Pizza commercial where the kid puts on a crappy pizza delivery boy costume to infiltrate some party?  If not, here it is on youtube:

This one really irks me.  When was the last time you invited the pizza delivery boy to your party?  You'd think they'd get suspicious that he didn't have to get back to work. 

Mediocre superheroes

I was mowing my dad's lawn today when I started thinking of a common improv comedy routine. The routine consists of the first player taking on the persona of a goofy superhero. As another player enters, the first dubs him with another absurd superhero name and persona to act out. I came up with a few of my own out there.

Mr. Indifferent and Captain Cares-A-Lot. A dynamic duo. Mr. Indifferent can't get worked up to fight actual crimes while Captain Cares-A-Lot is overly concerned with trivial crimes such as a littered napkin or dogs left off their leashes to pay attention to actual crimes.

Not Even Trying Man. I like this one. I imagined that upon the entrance of the next character, Not Even Trying Man would give them an actual superhero name, like Batman or Spiderman.

Now if only I could get into an improv group. Then again, all the funny ideas I have about these characters would only be able to come to fruition if the other players happened to give me these names. Plus, I would suck at all the other improv games.

Burger King wants to ruin your peaceful nights.

Several years ago, Burger King introduced a mascot for their fast food franchise. Appropriately enough, the mascot was a man dressed as a king who gives people hamburgers. Also, the King was outfitted with an unsettling plastic mask. The King looks like this:

The King's ad campaign had him pop up and present people with hamburgers in various situations. The King would suddenly appear behind a person, look at them silently for a couple seconds, and then hand them a hamburger. The King's behavior reminded me of a stalker who, upon finally gathering the gumption to approach the object of their misplaced affection, chokes at the last second and presents the stalkee with a value meal instead of the inevitable disembowelment.

So the King has always seemed like a strange figurehead for an ad campaign. He's creepy. It makes me wonder if there are even focus groups for commercials. In spite of his creepiness, the King isn't all that bad. Tough to say if that was always the case or if I've just gotten used to him over the years.

Recently, Burger King has started airing a commercial that ups the creepiness quite a bit, maybe even into disturbing territory. The commercial in question is for ribs. Yep, ribs from Burger King.

Surely you're thinking, "Ribs? From a fast food joint? Yeah, right! When pigs fly." Which is exactly what they were expecting you to think. Therefore, this ad was born:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKcYHtCn3Ek&feature=related

Yeah, I'm not sure how to embed videos yet. What of it? So, the idea seems to be addressing the audience's initial reaction of disbelief to the idea of ribs being served at a fast food restaurant by using a flying pig man to promote the ribs. Obviously, this addresses the aforementioned flying pig imagery in order to reconcile the disparity between Burger King's usual menu and what is typically an entree considered out of reach for a fast food establishment.

Personally, I'd like to believe that the executives at Burger King understood just how big of a mountain they were trying to climb by selling ribs as fast food. Sure, they certainly seem more rib-like than that goo that forms the center of a McRib sandwich, but ribs are a meat that is best cooked slowly over many hours. And slow, or rather patient, cooking is not the specialty of fast food. Obviously. Anyway, I'd like to believe that the marketing people behind these ribs figured their best bet was to try to make the ribs look good by comparison. Because they don't look good by themselves. Not good at all. So they created the pig monster man to offset public disdain for the ribs. Because most things look good compared to the flying pig man.

If this is the case, the whole thing seems counterproductive to me. Sure, in the commercial the flying pig man is making the ribs look much more appetizing than they have any right to be by comparison. But suppose someone actually buys these ribs, sits down to eat them, and then remembers flying pig man assuring them that the ribs are good. That just seems like a recipe for a lost appetite.

That said, I hold out hope that Burger King will adopt the flying pig man as the King's sidekick. It can be the start of a whole pantheon of off-putting Burger King mascots that could eventually lead to a misguided attempt at a film franchise. Come to think of it, there were those ads starring the Whopper family. I guess we're already there.

The exciting conclusion of my thoughts on Distict 9

Not really. I'm just going to let that last post hang there, unfinished. I guess the idea of District 9 being nominated for an Oscar is a little less offensive seeing as how Avatar was up for the best picture nod. I don't have much to say here. I thought I ought to make some futile attempt to upkeep this blog. No one reads it anyway. If there were more going on in my life, I might actually write about it here and tell my family about it. That way I'd at least get courtesy page views.

Anyway, a few week s ago I saw a movie called "Rolling Vengeance". It was like Mad Max except about a trucker who builds a monster truck to kill the guys who killed his family. The truck had a drill on the front as well. Pretty awesome, really.

District 9

I watched "District 9" last Saturday. I can't say that I was particularly interested in seeing the film. My roommate was going to see it with his brothers and dad and he invited me along. I thought I might as well watch it. It was matinee prices after all.
After seeing it, I thought, "Wow. That was an okay movie. It had a lot of stupid elements and turned into a video game movie in the second half, but it was okay."
But I've been reading people talking about how great the movie is, saying it's one of the best sci-fi films of the decade and how Oscar worthy it is. And honestly, that bugs me. Because it's not that great. It's okay. It's fairly enjoyable, but I will vehemently disagree with anyone who says it is worthy of the praise it's getting. So, here's why my opinion is better than theirs. Spoilers ahead:
The overall concept of District 9 is fairly original. At least it isn't one of the overused sci-fi tropes that we see trotted out again and again. The beginning of the film is in a documentary style where the arrival of an alien species above Johannesburg, South Africa 20 years ago is explained through various interviews and other documentary stuff. You know what? I'm going to skip over the plot description for now. Just know that the aliens have been moved into a slum underneath their spaceship and have been heavily segregated from the human population.
A private organization called the MNU is the main entity that deals with the aliens. And they're EEEEEVIL. Super evil. Hitler evil. Mustache twirlingly, tying women to railroad tracks, hand wringingly evil. And it is the MNU's ridiculous level of evilness that really prevents this movie from being great. The evil marine employed by the MNU and becomes the main antagonist actually says to one of the aliens (called prawns derogatorily), "I love killing you prawns!" Cause he's evil, see?
Anyway, I'll have to finish complaining about other peoples' opinions later.

Drag me to Ukraine

I lived in a Ukraine from the July of 2002 to the July of 2004. While there I ran into a group of people that I had only had knowledge of from TV and film, Gypsies or Roma. Director Sam Raimi is releasing a film titled "Drag Me To Hell" and it focuses on a girl who will be dragged to Hell in three days because of a Gypsy curse. Now in my first week in Ukraine, I was sitting in a cab with a friend of mine. The cab driver had left to take care of something before we departed. We waited with the doors open, my friend in the passenger seat and me in the back on the passenger side.
We were suddenly approached by two Gypsy women. There tended to be groups of Gypsies around train and bus stations. Unfortunately, they were usually there to ask travelers for money or on occasion steal from them. I hope that doesn't sound hateful, but I knew quite a few people who had their wallets stolen by Gypsies at train stations.
Anyway, the women approached us and began speaking to us. I hardly spoke any Russian and understood less. My friend was preoccupied with the other Gypsy, so I was left to my own devices to communicate with this woman. After a couple of minutes of neither one of us understanding one another, the woman pulled a hair off of my head and poked out triangle patterns on my arm with it. Then both of the women turned and left.
I asked my friend, "What just happened?"
He replied, "They were asking for money. They said if we didn't give them money they would curse us with bad health. That's why they pulled out the hair."
I said, "So I was just cursed by a Gypsy?"
"Yep. Cursed with bad health."
"Huh."
Happily, I wasn't sick for over a year and a half after that. Also happily, I haven't been dragged to Hell either.