Either way this is just a small list that I put together based on the movies I own (it was the easiest list of movies I have access to at the moment), so I’m sure there are other movies that I would agree with you on and if you post them in the comments I may amend my post here to include your suggestions. And of course I’ll give a little description of the movie and why I feel it was underrated. So head on through the jump and check out the list.

Automaton Transfusion
- Very low budget “zombie”-type movie. A group of kids find their town becoming over run with zombies and try to fight back. This movie seems to get a lot of flack, but I enjoyed it. Yeah the acting isn’t the greatest and it’s very low budget (similar to The Roost if you’ve seen that), but it was a cool zombie film with pretty good violence and gore.

Battle Royale
- This is one of many Foreign movies on this list, but I believe it’s being remade for the US (there was a movie called Condemned with Stone Cold Steve Austin that had a similar plot, but sucked). The movie is about a government taking 40+ delinquent kids from a school and sending them off to an island to kill each other. Each kid is given a bag of random stuff, some contain weapons some don’t, and the last person standing wins a ticket back into society. It’s pretty brutal and doesn’t skimp on the blood and it’s always a little unnerving to watching kids die or kill each other. It is foreign so it’s not in English which could have been the reason for it’s underrated-ness, but it’s definitely a great movie that you should check out.

Black Christmas
(original) - Possibly the birth of the slasher film. Killer stalks a sorority house for reasons unknown. This was made before Freddy and Jason were introduced to the world and took the idea of a killer stalking teens to new levels. Some would say that Texas Chainsaw Massacre did this a little earlier in the same year, but I feel that the movies were quite different in their ideas. Black Christmas doesn’t give you any explanation or back story what so ever as to why the killer is killing people. It also made great use of the 1st person view, you actually felt like you were in the killer’s body as he stalked the sorority house. Personally I think it still holds up today, but with all these higher budget, big production Michael Bay horror movies coming out today, most kids are probably going to find this pretty dumb in comparison.

The Blair Witch Project
- Under appreciated now, but was ground breaking at the time. Three kids set out to make a documentary about the Blair Witch. They head to a small town and interview the towns people and then head out into the woods to see the actual landmarks for themselves. After losing their map they end up lost and never heard from again… until their film footage is found and that footage is what makes up the movie. I saw it in the theater and can remember loving every minute of it. It had gotten so much hype by the time it reached major theaters that the place was packed. At the conclusion of the movie I can remember not knowing if what I had just watched was an actual snuff film or not, but I was immediately a fan either way. It was also the first movie to run a successful viral marketing campaign on the internet which just added to the idea of it being actual real footage that was found. And at just over $25,000 to produce and film it originally (theatrical release was budgeted at closer to $750,000 after Artisan acquired it at Sundance) it is one of the most profitable movies of all time bringing in close to $250 million theatrically world wide.

Cube
- This is a Canadian horror/sci-fi movie that could have been where the writers of SAW got their idea from. The movie opens with people waking up to find themselves trapped inside a room (a cube), there is a door/hatch on each side and they have no clue how they got there. Eventually the people that a trapped find each other as each door leads to another cube, some of which have traps in them. The movie is then spent trying to figure out why they are there and how to get out. The movie itself is just downright cool, the first time I saw this I was just amazed by it. The whole movie was filmed inside just one “cube” that the producers built and to make it seem like it was a different one everytime they just lit it with different colors. This is one that I highly recommend to anyone that enjoys sci-fi/mystery/horror type movies.

District B13
- Another foreign flick, but this one doesn’t have a whole lot of engaging dialogue that you’ll need to read. Basically the cool thing about this one is the action and use of parkour throughout the movie. For those of you that don’t know what parkour is, it’s a form of freestyle running. Basically doing flips and running along walls, jumping from ledge to ledge, etc. The opening scene of Casino Royale had a bit of parkour in it and if you search youtube you can find some pretty ridiculous videos of people doing it. The basic plot of the movie is that some terrorist has stolen a large bomb and hidden it within District B13, which has been completely walled off by the government since it was overrun with crime and of course the lone cop is sent in to try to retrieve the bomb before it explodes. It’s a little bit of a change from your typical run and gun action movies of late and definitely worth checking out.

High Tension
(Haute Tension) - I really enjoyed this one despite what a lot of other people thought. I had originally ordered the French version DVD to watch before it came out in theaters in the US and loved every minute of it. The story follows 2 girls as they head out to one of their parents house for the weekend to study. And in true horror fashion as soon as they start getting ready for bed there’s a knock on the door and the killings start. Now while I agree that what happens at the end is kind of a cop out to actually wrapping things up and coming up with a creative way to end it, the movie itself is still a great horror movie, it’s bloody, the killings are pretty intense and the suspense is there. If you’ve seen the movie you know what I’m talking about at the end, but if you haven’t don’t let the fact that I’m telling you the end is a little disappointing, keep you from seeing the movie.

Idiocracy
- Mike Judge, creator of Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill and of course Office Space, released this movie a couple years back and the studio hated it. The studio pretty much did everything they could to keep from releasing it in theaters, but luckily for Judge it spawned a huge following once it hit DVD. Luke Wilson and Maya Rudolph star as 2 people that volunteered for a military experiment that was supposed to put them to sleep for like 10 years or so, but soon after they were put under the experiment lost funding and the 2 were forgotten. They awake 500 years in the future to a world that has basically become retarded. As American culture progressed, the smart people of the world were the ones waiting to have kids, having maybe one or two and that’s it, where as the dumb people of the world were just popping out dumb kids left and right. So in the end, 500 years later, the world’s population has becoming extremely stupid to the point where they have replaced all of the water with a sports drink similar to Gatorade called Brawndo. They use Brawndo for everything from drinking fountains to watering plants and yet they can’t figure out why the plants won’t grow. So obviously when Luke Wilson wakes up in this time period he is instantly dubbed the smartest man in the world and is supposed to be their savior. I thought this movie was hysterical and probably fairly accurate to the state of the world if educated people start to become the minority. Definitely worth a look.

The Orphanage
- This movie tried to ride the coat tails of the success of Pan’s Labyrinth by sticking Guillermo Del Toro’s name on it when in fact he was only the producer on the flick and not the actual writer or director. Despite the confusion, the movie itself was very creepy. It’s your typical haunted house type movie with creepy little kids running around. It is in Spanish, but the story is not hard to follow with the subtitles. Kids in horror movies are generally creepy, but this one just seemed to be able to make them even creepier. The atmosphere throughout the whole movie just gave me chills.

Pan’s Labyrinth
- Guillermo Del Toro is a genius, it’s as simple as that. I couldn’t believe when some of my friends said that they didn’t like this movie at all. The movie is about a little girl who uses her imagination to create a world outside of the real, war torn world around her. Del Toro creates an amazing fantastical world with some of the creepiest, most beautiful creatures you can ever imagine. It’s an amazing movie and one of my favorites. And while it did have relative success ($37 million total box office) I still feel as though it’s been under appreciated by people. How can you not love this movie…

Splinter
- A guy and his girlfriend are going camping for the weekend for their anniversary when they are car jacked by some thug and his girlfriend. The 4 start driving and eventually the car starts to overheat forcing them to stop at a gas station, but what they discover at the gas station isn’t what they were expecting. Some sort of creature has infected the clerk working at the gas station and is now trying to kill them, but the only place they have to go is inside the gas station convenience store. I thought this movie was amazing, one of the better horror movies I’ve seen in the past couple years. It’s another lower budget movie, but not nearly as low budget as Automaton Transfusion, it actually stars that stoner guy from Road Trip. Again this is another one of those movies that didn’t get much recognition and not too many people have heard of, but definitely deserves more attention.

Sunshine
- Everyone knows Danny Boyle’s name now, but not really because of the movies he did prior to Slumdog Millionaire. Sunshine is about a group of scientists/astronauts that are sent on a mission to restart the sun. The sun is dying and the only way to save the world is to restart it using a huge nuclear device shot straight into it. Now I thought the movie was amazing start to finish, but a lot of people were disappointed in the last act as it turned into more of an “Event Horizon” type movie rather than just a sci-fi drama type movie ala 2001. And while I agree that the 3rd act was a little off compared to the rest of the movie, I still think it was overall a great movie and definitely under appreciated.

The Thing
- Kurt Russell stars in one of, if not, my favorite horror movies of all time. A group of scientist in Antarctica stumble upon an alien-type shape shifting creature that starts infecting them and killing them one by one. Just a great movie in general and definitely still holds up to viewings today. The special effects are incredible for the time and the overall suspense-fulness of the movie is amazing. This is one of those movies I can watch over and over and never be bored. I’m honestly not sure if this movie was underrated when it came out (as I wasn’t born), but I know that most of my friends have never seen it and I never saw it in the 80’s when I was watching Jason and Freddy hack and slash people up, so it feels like it may have gotten lost when the slasher genre starting picking up steam. If there’s one movie from this list that you’ll want to watch it’s this one.

Most of the money I make online comes from affiliate networks and the occasional Google Adsense click. I try to keep this blog free from too many ads as it’s just a place for me to write bullshit on and if people want to read it that’s cool. acslater.com was one of those domains I had laying around not doing anything. I actually had intentions of using it to promote Dustin Diamond aka Screech Powers’ Saved By The Bell tell all book, which I don’t think ever got published or maybe even written for that matter. I was surprised when acslater.com wasn’t taken so I snatched it up along with a bunch of other random domains that I never did anything with.

While I was in my random domain buying phase Twitter was just starting to come around, this was about April of 2007. Not too many people outside of the tech world were using the service yet and none of my friends had even heard about it. In fact one of my friends who I’m currently working on a web project with made fun of me when I told him we should do something with Twitter (as in some sort of project that utilized it’s information) and that it was going to be huge. Needless to say we never did anything with it, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t buy up a couple domains in anticipation. Now since I’m no longer the owner of the 2 domains I recently sold I’m not going to give out the urls, however they were related to celebrities and twitter.

At the time I bought them the only celebrity that I really knew that was on Twitter was Diablo Cody (at least she was the only one that posted constantly). I had no idea if more celebs would accept the new form of fan based communication or not, but for $7/year it’s better than a lottery ticket. So I purchased the 2 domains with the idea of making a sort of RSS aggregator to display the different celebrities Twitter posts. At the time I set up one of the domains I only had enough celebs to fill one screen (I think there were 5 people on there) and most of them weren’t even really Hollywood celebrities. So anyways, I now owned these 2 domains and just sat on them until more celebrities embraced the service and some other people with more coding skills got the same idea I had. Pretty soon there were a bunch of sites listing the different celebrities on Twitter in a much more appealing manner, so I dropped the idea all together and figured I’d just hold on to the domains for a while and maybe try to sell them on an auction site or something.

Jump forward to NBA Playoff time, I’m not good with dates and I only remember sitting at the bar watching the Bulls game when I got an email offering me a decent amount of money for one of the domains. At this point there were quite a few celebrities on Twitter and the news was starting to talk about it on a daily basis, everyone was flocking to it. I figured I may be able to get a little more for the domain than what I was offered and emailed a buddy of mine who I though might have some contacts of people that may be interested. I gave him a week to get back to me and let me know if there was any interest, there wasn’t. Ok no problem, I’ll just sell it to this guy for his original offer and make a pretty good profit on it. So I emailed the guy back and of course he had a change of heart and pulled the offer off the table… ouch. Oh well, at least I now knew that I had something here and that at least there was some interest out there.

I started looking into domain auction sites to try to sell the domains before they expired, but I never got around to actually listing them. Rather than let them go and have them instantly be snapped up by someone, I renewed both of them hoping to unload them before the next year was up. After a while I kind of forgot about them as things with my other sites started slowing down and I had stuff to do at my actual day job. Fast forward to last week, me and the girlfriend are wandering around the grocery store looking for something to make for dinner that night when my phone rings. It was an out of state area code and I usually don’t answer those, but for some reason I picked up the phone. It was a college kid looking to buy one of the domains…. nice. I told him that I had already received a little interest in the domain, but that I was just sitting on it doing nothing with it so I’d be more than willing to sell. Without thinking about it I made the kid an offer and the deal was done, he accepted and that was that.

There were a few tiny concerns with payment and the transferring of the domain (he was leery about sending me money first and I really didn’t feel like using an escrow service, mainly because I never have), but I told him I’d stay on the phone with him until the deal was completely done and he seemed to be more comfortable with that. So he immediately wired me the money and as soon as that was confirmed I started the domain transfer. I think he was starting to get a little worried when the transfer was taking a few minutes, but GoDaddy can be a little slow with certain actions so I wasn’t too worried. After about 5 minutes he received an email telling him that a domain was being transferred to him and instructions on how to accept, 2 minutes later the deal was done.

This was probably some of the easiest money I’ve ever made. The investment is low and the rewards can be pretty substantial if you get in on a trend when it’s hot. I may take this experience and turn towards selling a few more of the domains I have laying around or maybe buying up some more and turning them loose on the auction blocks to see what I can pull in, but I’ll definitely be looking into this a bit closer now that I see how easy it is to do and what the profit numbers look like.

I know some cities and towns have restrictions about riding bikes on sidewalks and in some instances I understand this. My town, for instance, doesn’t allow bike riding on the sidewalk, but it’s a more dense city than the town I grew up in, which still allows you to ride your bike on the sidewalk. Towns where there are a lot of people walking from place to place should not have bikes zooming past pedestrians, so they have to ride in the street. This is where the idea of helmets came in (I believe) since getting hit by a car could send you flying off your bike and smash your head. I remember hearing the stories of people falling off their bikes and getting their heads run over by a car and the helmet saved their life… this was what they were pushing on us when I was growing up, but seriously, come on.

The helmets we had when I was growing up were made of hard styrofoam and looked like half an egg on  your head… picture a retarded narcoleptic and this is the type of helmet they were probably wearing. There is no way that a car can run over that thing and not crush your skull like a watermelon, they just made you look like an idiot so nobody wore them, and guess what, not a single person I knew growing up ever got a massive head injury from falling off of their bike. And it’s not like we were just riding around town at a leisurely pace, we were building jumps in the driveway/street, jumping off ledges, and doing all sorts of crazy stuff with no regards for our body. Now I bet some of you are thinking, “Well then it’s your parents’ fault for not forcing you to wear the helmet”, blah blah blah, get a life. I agree that parenting has a lot to do with how your kids grow up, but it’s a bike helmet and… we were kids! Those are the things kids are supposed to do, fall off your bike, scrape up your knee or elbow, get dirty, break an arm or two.

If you didn’t at least break one bone or get stitches as a kid you weren’t doing it right. How else are you going to learn things if you don’t hurt yourself a few times. While all your friends were jumping off the sweet ramp you guys just spent all weekend building, you were just sitting on the sidelines watching while wearing your helmet and kneepads, to scared to try it cause you didn’t want to get hurt. I’m sorry you grew up with overprotective parents who were afraid that every little thing you did was going to hurt you. Or maybe you were just ridiculously uncoordinated as a kid and couldn’t handle it. Whatever the reason is, I don’t think kids today should be forced to wear helmets to ride their bike around the neighborhood. Now if they are going to the skate park and doing 360’s and flips and shit, it might be a good idea, but normal bike riding isn’t a risk to your head. I fell off my bike a million times and never once hit my head, even going over the handlebars you’d have to be a moron to not put your hands out in front of you in which case you’d possibly hurt your hands, wrist or arms, but chances are you’re not going to smash your head into the ground with enough force to do a lot of damage.

Now while this may sound a little one sided because I don’t have kids of my own, but my parents did a fine job raising me and my brothers because they let us be kids. We got to run around outside and play in the yard, ride skateboards and bikes, build ramps, jump on trampolines, pet strange dogs, run through the neighborhood backyards, climb trees, play sports, all of the things kids are supposed to do, including getting hurt. It seems like kids these days are not getting enough time to just be kids. Parents are so worried about their education and living vicariously through them they don’t let the kids do what they want to do. Kids these days have such strict schedules to keep it’s ridiculous, it’s as if the parents are just trying to pass them off onto someone else so they can go about their day. If that’s what you wanted why did you have kids in the first place? The point of being a parent is to introduce all the wonderful things this world has to offer, to another human being. You can be there for them when they fall, but you have to let them fall if you ever want them to learn to get back up.

Obviously I went into this expecting nothing but maybe a few nice shots of Kristin Kreuk and Moon Bloodgood, but what I got was the worst performance of any actor I’ve seen lately in Chris Klein. At one point I stopped even caring about whether or not Chun-Li was going to save her father and defeat Bison, so long as I could see Chris Klein yell “Nash, out” into another walkie talkie. And what’s with Michael Clark Duncan taking all these shitty roles lately? Didn’t the man win some sort of award for The Green Mile? And now he’s playing Balrog in a street fighter movie? Wow, talk about a fall from grace, dude needs to get a new agent or something. And what’s with the Black Eyed Peas being cast in these types of movies lately. Vega is played by Taboo from the BEP’s and even in the small role he has, he’s pretty terrible. He even wears a mask for most of the movie and is still bad. And earlier this year we were blessed with Will I Am.’s role in Wolverine. And obviously we’ve seen Fergie in a few movies (Planet Terror, Poseidon) but she’s kinda hot in a paper bag sort of way so I’ll let that one slide. The only one we haven’t seen in a movie is “that other guy”, I don’t even know his name to be honest, I think it’s apple be bop or something, but anyways, nobody cares.

Chun-Li was a pretty terrible movie in general, the fight scenes were bad, the acting was bad, the storyline itself was pretty terrible and the casting was pretty bad. I think the only good casting was Michael Clark Duncan as Balrog, that was pretty spot on, but Bison is not a 5 foot 6 blond guy with blue eyes that wears a black suit constantly. And then there’s Chris Klein… you know that gurgling you get in your stomach after you eat something that doesn’t agree with you and then you spend 20 minutes in the bathroom fixing the problem? Well that “problem” that you just flushed down the toilet can probably act better than Chris Klein.

If you’re curious, check it out, but don’t expect too much except for some eye candy in Kristin and Moon, other than that you’re in for a treat when “Nash” is on screen. Did anyone else see this pile of shit? What did you guys think? I honestly didn’t think the original Street Fighter with Jean Claude Van Dame and all those other guys was that terrible, I mean it’s not a good movie by any means, but I feel like it was more entertaining than this latest attempt. I can’t see how any sequels are going to get green lit for this, but we’ll see.

It may not sound like the greatest show in the world, but if you know Danny McBride and enjoy his style of comedy, this show is amazing. Never mind the fact that Danny himself throws like a girl and there’s no way he’s believable as a major league pitcher, the premise of the show and the story lines created within it are comedic gold. With cameos by Will Farrell and Craig Robinson the show is by far one of the funniest TV shows of seen in a long time. I wish I had HBO so I could have watched it when it actually aired, but the DVDs are definitely worth picking up even if the first season is only 6 episodes.

I didn’t really have much to write on this topic I just wanted to get the word out that this show is hysterical and I think everyone should check it out.

“I’m Fuckin In, You’re Fuckin Out!” -Kenny Powers

Fast forward to age 21-22 (?) and the idea came up again, but this time it was because the girl P was dating at the time gave him a gift certificate for one free tandem skydive at Chicagoland Skydive Center out in Hinckley, IL. So of course P asked me if I wanted to go and brought up the pact we had made years earlier. Again money was a little bit of an issue as it was about $200 to jump and I was still in school paying for a lot of it myself, well at least that’s the excuse I gave P. Honestly I was kinda freaked out by the idea of jumping out of a perfectly good airplane, but I didn’t want to look like a giant pussy so I blamed it on money.

P went and did it that year and had a blast, I was definitely jealous and kind of regretted not sucking it up and doing it, but nothing I could do about it then. P then went on to travel the world doing all sorts of other “extreme” activities one of which was bungee jumping the 2nd highest bungee jump in the world in Australia (something like 450 ft) and doing some big swing things, I was now very jealous, but luckily after he got back from Australia he was itching to jump out of a plane again.

P got back from Australia sometime in early 2009 and immediately wanted to go skydiving again and asked me and our friend N if we wanted to go. As much as I wanted to do it I was still a little nervous about it and didn’t give him a straight answer, but N was all about it and agreed. Well 2 days later I got an email from P saying that we were all booked and paid for… So even without giving him an answer I was already booked so while I could pussy out, I decided I should just suck it up and jump. P booked us at the same place he jumped from which is Chicagoland Skydive Center and is about an hour away from the Chicago burbs we live in. I had never heard of this place so I didn’t know what sort of reputation it had, but I did know that there was another one in Chicago that had built up sort of a bad reputation over the years so I didn’t really want to go to that one.

I spent the next couple days reading the website and watching videos and it seemed like they had a perfect “no-fatality” record, which was a good thing, but then my brother got wind that we were going to do this and decided he was going to look up all the fatalities related to skydiving over the last year and show them to me. Then he started showing them to my mom who was freaked out by the idea anyways, so needless to say it was making me a little nervous, but I was still going to go through with it.

We had a big weekend planned the weekend of our jump. That Friday we all took off work and went down to one of the Wrigleyville rooftops near Wrigley Field to watch the Cubs play… it poured and the game was canceled so we just hung out at my brothers place and drank all day, we still had a good time and according to the forecast the next day was supposed to be clear skies all day, which was the day of our jump. We woke up the next morning pretty hungover and headed down to Hinckley to jump out of a plane and hopefully not puke on the instructors. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and we were all getting pretty excited and slightly nervous, but more so excited. We got down there at 11am and signed our lives away and got ready to jump. They then informed us that it was a little windy out and we had to wait for the wind to die down a bit before they could let anyone jump, for safety reasons. That was fine by us, we would rather be safe than dead obviously, so we had no problem waiting for a bit until the wind died down…

Yeah, the wind never died down. We sat in the hanger watching movies from 11am to 3pm and the wind never changed. It was just us 3 and one other woman that were going to jump that day and none of us got to. We left after they told us that they probably weren’t going to jump all day as the wind wasn’t supposed to die down to reasonable levels. Hungry and dejected with rain checks in hand we left and drove the hour back home. What was supposed to be this amazing weekend turned out to be a huge bust, but we were determined to skydive this summer.

Fast forward to yesterday, July 5th, we were rescheduled to jump at noon. I made sure I wasn’t hungover this time, but still woke up feeling a little “off”, I chalked it up to nerves. We jumped in the car and made it down there at about a quarter to noon, checked in and began waiting. Now when we were there the first time and ended up leaving they told us that when we came back we would move to the head of the pack since we were rainchecks, however apparently everyone with rainchecks decided they were going to reschedule for July 5th, so we were definitely not at the front of the line. They informed us that it would probably be about 45 minutes to an hour and a half before we were up to jump. Ok, no problem, we waited 4 hours last time and didn’t even see a plane so 45 minutes or so wasn’t going to kill us.

That 45 minutes slowly grew to 4 hours before we go suited up and ready to jump. And the 4 of us (P brought a friend that wasn’t with us the first time) couldn’t even go up in the same plane because there weren’t enough tandem instructors or something, even though there were definitely 4 tandem jumpers on our plane when we went up. So P and his girl jumped first and then there was a plane in between when me and N got to jump. So while we did have to wait 4 hours again this time, at least we got to jump. We headed into the plane, which looked a lot bigger from the outside. There were about 20 of us crammed into this thing and at this point I was not connected to my tandem partner/instructor. At about 9,000 feet he started attaching himself to me which was a little awkward as he’s tightening the harness ridiculously tight, but it’s all in the name of safety, so whatever. We then slid towards the back of the plane, the camera guy exited first and hung out the side as we inched towards the door, my head looking straight up as the instructor rocked back and forth 3 times and then pushed us out of the plane. And I don’t even know how to describe the feeling, it was incredible. The first 2 or 3 seconds feel very strange as your body reaches terminal velocity and it is a little hard to breath, but not impossible. It is definitely something I would recommend doing if you’re thinking about doing it. Jumping out of a plane at 14,000 feet and dropping at 120mph towards the ground is an intense experience.

The free fall aspect of the jump lasts about 60 seconds and while you may think it’d feel like forever when you’re up there, I was actually disappointed and wanted more. Unlike P’s girl, I enjoyed the free fall much more than the parachute ride down to the ground. And while there is a definite “jerk” when your parachute opens and your harness smashes your man-berries up into your body, it was just another crazy feeling that you have to experience (the parachute opening not the smashing of my nuts). Then as you float down to the ground, which takes about 3-5 minutes, the instructor gave me the ability to turn the chute left and right, which I honestly could have done without. Out of everything that comes with skydiving, the spinning around while floating in the parachute was the worst, I started getting really nauseous and dizzy, but held it together for the slide into the ground. There was a dude from the Navy who definitely could not hold it together and puked all over his shirt, which is a great story in itself. Let’s just say the whole time they were waiting to jump, him and his buddy were showing off doing one handed push-ups, running around, just acting like they were tough shit cause they were in the Navy, and to see the one dude covered in puke when he got down was priceless.

So that was it, I can cross another thing off my list. Chicagoland Skydive Center is a great place to go skydiving. The instructors are all very nice, the staff is very nice, the facilities are clean and very professional. My only complaint is the wait times. I understand if the weather isn’t cooperating and you don’t want to risk the safety of the jumpers, but when we make a reservation for noon and don’t jump until 4 it’s a little annoying, especially since had other plans for that day which we missed out on. And also a tip to those guys that are jumping, make sure to adjust your nuts so they are nowhere near the leg straps in the harness, you’ll thank me later.

I’m not trying to bash Michael or anything, but when you look at the last 20 years what do you remember about him? In 1991 he put out his album “Dangerous” which is probably his last big hit record. It had singles like “Jam”, “Dangerous”, “Remember The Time”, and “Black or White”, pretty good songs, but nothing like his previous albums. So that was 1991, what did he put out after that, “HIStory”, which came out in 1995 and the only song I remember off of that album is “Scream” on which he teamed up with Janet Jackson and filmed one of the most expensive music videos ever (at the time). The album was a 2 disc set, but the 1st disc was basically a greatest hits album and the 2nd disc didn’t have any real notable tracks on it (that I can remember at least). Then in 2001 he put out “Invincible” which I don’t even think I could name one song off of.  So since the “Dangerous” album in 1991 there hasn’t been a hugely popular, hugely significant album/song released by Michael that I can recall, but of course he was still relevant in pop culture and it’s not because of those couple albums.

In 1993 Jackson was accused of child sexual abuse. I would argue that this was the turning point for Michael and that his life would never be the same after this. “Dangerous” was a very successful album in 1991 and to follow up with being accused of sexually abusing a child is a great way to kill anyone’s success. After that Michael married Lisa Marie Presley which was just weird, especially that kiss on the MTV Music Awards. The marriage didn’t last that long and was just another strange moment in the quirky artists life. 1995 rolled around and Michael released “HIStory” which wasn’t anything spectacular and then nothing until 2001’s “Invincible” which was also nothing special. Then in 2005 Jackson was on trial for yet another case of child sexual abuse, this time he was found innocent but I don’t think he’d ever be able to shake his reputation.

Since the early 90’s Jackson just became a very creepy guy. Despite the child sexual abuse charges, his own kids were subjected to some weird behavior. Everyone remembers the incident where he dangled one of his kids off of a balcony, I mean who does that? And who makes their kids wear blankets over their heads when they go out in public… let the kids be kids! As mean as it sounds I’m kinda glad the kids can now hopefully grow up in a better environment than they had with Michael, granted I hope Joe Jackson doesn’t get a hold of them, but the way Michael treated them was just strange. There’s no doubt that he loved his kids and treated them well, but some of his decisions regarding them just didn’t seem right. I’m sure the kids will be just fine.

We all know that Michael Jackson was a strange guy for most of his later life and it’s pretty obvious that he hasn’t made any significant contribution to the music industry since 1991, so why are seemingly normal people taking days off work to mourn the loss of this guy? I was a huge fan of Michael Jackson in the 80’s/early 90’s growing up and can still appreciate his older music today, but that was 20 years ago. Honestly if he had died after the “Dangerous” album was released in 1991 it may have been better for him. Again I don’t mean to sound like an ass, but as I mentioned above there hasn’t been anything significant since then, just a lot of strangeness. Most of you out there that are mourning the loss of Michael have never met the guy, never been near the guy and probably only know him from pictures, video and music, and guess what, you’ll always have the pictures, videos and music. Just pretend he’s still alive hanging out at neverland ranch not doing anything like he has been for years now, listen to his old music and enjoy it, I’d rather remember the guy I knew from the 80’s rather than the guy that emerged in the mid 90’s, that guy was just creepy. RIP Michael Jackson 1958-1991/2009

Big John leads us over towards the picnic area where we are to get our rental equipment; masks and guns. As we are walking through the grass and dirt towards the picnic area I step on something that feels strange in my shoe, almost like a large jagged stone somehow made it’s way up the side of my shoe and under my heel without me noticing until I stepped down. Not thinking anything of it I stepped down again and this is when I realized it was definitely not just a rock. I stopped and pulled the sole of my shoe up to further examine what was causing this uncomfortable pain in my heel. I was not expecting what I saw starring back at me. A 4″ rusty wood nail was sticking out of my shoe and stuck into my heel. I immediately reached down and pulled it out, setting on the picnic table in front of Big John, who said nothing. I sat down and took off my shoe to see the damage. I had never stepped on a nail before but had always imagined it to be a terribly painful so I expected the worst when I removed my shoe and sock.

Luckily for me the point of the nail didn’t go into my foot too deep (I don’t think) so there was only a little bit of blood and redness. The pain wasn’t the worst pain I’ve ever felt (I’ve had 4 collapsed lungs accompanied by surgery on 1 of them) but it was a little annoying that I had already injured myself before we had even begun what was supposed to be a great day of running through the woods shooting at each other, but I pushed aside the pain and played through the day stomping through huge mud puddles and all sorts of nasty terrain that were probably going right through the hole in my shoe and possibly getting under the skin of my heel, but I didn’t care I was having a blast.

After we were all done and on our way home I began to think about the foot again. At this point it was throbbing a little bit and bleeding a bit more. I had been concerned about tetanus for the whole day since I knew I hadn’t been to the doctor in years let alone gotten a tetanus shot, but I didn’t think anything of it until we got home. I dug out my vaccination records and found out that I hadn’t gotten a tetanus shot in about 12 years and even though the whole rusty nail thing and tetanus is an old wives tale I decided maybe it was time. Sure the rusty nail thing itself is an old wives tale, but the real fact of the matter is that any sort of deep puncture wound like that can cause nasty bacteria to get deep into your foot and cause infection. Tetanus is just more prevalent in deep puncture wounds because it needs a place that lacks a lot of oxygen to cultivate, hence why stepping on a nail could cause it. Plus it breeds in mud, soil, manure, stuff like that and we were stomping through mud and possibly cow shit the whole day…. yeah a tetanus shot may not be a bad idea.

When we got home I cleaned out the wound with hydrogen peroxide and went about the rest of my Sunday. The next day I made an appointment to get a tetanus shot on Tuesday, I had softball Monday and didn’t really want to have a sore arm for the game which is why I waited till Tuesday. I had read some articles online that said the cultivation period for tetanus was 2-14 days or something like that depending on how much blood flow goes to the area of the wound, so I figured the heel of the foot and a smaller puncture would keep me safe for a few days. The internet also had me a little worried about getting lock jaw and all the other nasty things that come with tetanus, which is part of the reason why I went to get the shot in the first place. My dad actually told me to just keep an eye on it and keep it clean and it should be alright, but I’ve been meaning to go to the doctor for years so I figure this was as good a time as any.

Tuesday rolls around and I head to the doctor after work to get the shot, no softball Tuesday so I figured I’d be good for my game Wednesday. I vaguely remembered the last tetanus shot I had gotten making my arm sore for a couple of days, nothing major just a charlie horse feeling for a couple days. I got to the doctors office, checked in, tried to help some old lady find her car keys that she lost (no luck) and finally got called in to the exam room. The nurse came in and asked which arm I use to which I responded “both”, but she obviously meant which arm I wanted the shot in. I throw lefty so I figured I better get the shot in my right arm even though she assured me that I’d be able to throw just fine even if I got the shot in my throwing arm. The shot didn’t hurt at all when I actually got it, just the normal minor prick of the needle going in, but nothing after that. As quickly as she came in, the nurse was gone and now it was just a matter of waiting for the doctor who wanted to take a look at my foot before I left.

The doctor came in and asked a bunch of questions since I hadn’t been there in a while and then took a look at my foot. By this time the skin on the outside had already healed and there was just sort of a black/bluish dot where the nail went in. I’m assuming it was just blood or something, hopefully not mud and dirt, but who knows. The doctor said it looked ok, but he was still a little concerned about the possibility of a skin infection due to the fact that I didn’t clean it right away (we were an hour from home and playing paintball) and I was running through the mud and fields all day. So as a precaution he wanted to prescribe an antibiotic to clear up anything that might be growing down there. He said he’s a fan of cipro (Ciprofloxacin) and that’s what he’d be prescribing for a week (7 days). And that was that, I said thanks, took the prescription and headed to the pharmacy.

I was prescribed two 500 mg pills a day, one every 12 hours for 7 days to clean up any infection that may be growing in my heel. Once I got home I made the biggest mistake I could have made regarding the medicine. Ok, maybe not biggest mistake, I didn’t down the whole bottle in one sitting, that would probably have been the biggest mistake I could have made. My mistake was firing up the internet and looking up this medicine that I was about to ingest for a week. Here’s my advice to you, as long as you’re vocal with your doctor about allergies, weaknesses, and whatever other problems you have with your body your doctor is more than likely going to know which medicine will work for you, better than you will. So as much as people today like to know what they are putting into their body, sites like webMD and Googleing prescription meds is probably a bad idea. I even went as far as to ask a friend who’s a pharmacist about Cipro, but despite what he assured me, the internet had already tainted the medicine for me.

Cipro is apparently a very very strong antibiotic and can do wonders for bacterial infections. And for those wondering where you’ve heard of this medicine before, it also helps if you’ve been in contact with Anthrax. This is the medicine that people were getting after the September 11th attacks if they had come into contact with a white powder of any sort. It’s also very common to prescribe Cipro if you have a urinary tract infection, but seeing as how I knew nothing about the drug I made the mistake of going to the internet to find out more.

Apparently there are some cases of Cipro causing tendon ruptures and problems which has lead to a “black box” warning label for the drug. I guess “black box” warnings are just more warnings that are stapled to the prescription bag when you pick it up, warning you of some of the more serious possible side effects of the drug. I also found a bunch of lawsuits regarding the use of Cipro and debilitating tendon ruptures and joint pain supposedly caused by the drug. So after a little while I started to get a little nervous about taking this to clear up an infection that may not even be there. I’m a very active person who plays softball 3 nights a week, roller hockey on the weekends sometimes and just leads a very active lifestyle and I didn’t want to have to give those things up due to a drug that I may not even need. So needless to say I started getting a little hypocondriatic (I don’t think that’s a word, but we’ll use it anyways) and even after one pill I started thinking my tendons were going to immediately snap.

So after spending a good amount of time reading the forums and discussions from people who’ve had their tendons rupture due to (what they think is) this drug, I decided to ask my pharmacist friend what he thought. He didn’t sound too concerned that I was taking it and said that he’s given it out to tons of people, mostly women for urinary tract infections, and hasn’t heard of one person coming back to complain of snapped tendons. He tried to assure me that all drugs have some serious side effects, but they are extremely rare and are only put on the warning label as just that, a warning that these things could possibly happen but are very rare and if they do happen to you, you should play the lottery. Ok well maybe not that last part, but he assured me that those major side effects are very rare. But then why does every post on the internet make it sound like this drug is terrible and I’m guaranteed to snap a tendon? I can tell you exactly why.

If something is working perfectly for you whether it’s medicine, an electronic device, a car, whatever, would you seek out an internet forum, blog, social network, etc, to voice how this thing is working absolutely perfect for you without any issues what so ever? Most people would not. But now if that new iPhone you bought isn’t performing the way you think it should be, or that car isn’t running up to par, or that medicine you’re taking isn’t making you feel right, would you then be inclined to head to the internet in search of a possible answer or place to voice your opinion? I would say you are definitely more likely to do so if something isn’t working correctly for you as opposed to if something is working exactly how you expected. If it’s working perfectly you have no reason to seek an answer or voice your opinion, which is what happens on the internet.

Some people have had an adverse effect from Cipro and want answers. In todays world the first place they are going to seek those answers are the internet and these are the only people I found in my hours of researching the medicine. Those people that complained of joint pain, tendon rupture, and whatever other side effects to the medicine were the ones posting. I did not see a single post that said “I took Cipro and it worked absolutely fine, no complaints here”. And this is why I became fearful of the medicine I was putting into my body, or poison as it was referred to many times on different forums. Ask my pharmacist friend, I was constantly complaining that I had one symptom or another and was convinced my tendons were going to rupture on me.

Eventually I was able to put things into perspective and continued to take the medicine despite my findings on the internet. If you think about how many prescriptions are written for Cipro each day and how many people actually have their tendons rupture due to the medicine, the number is quite small. I can’t quote exact numbers because I couldn’t find any sites that would agree on the percentage, but if you ask the people on the internet that numbers is 100%, everyone who takes Cipro will have their achilles tendon snap as they are sitting in a chair after taking 1 pill. Now don’t get me wrong, there are serious side effects to this drug and there have been people who have had their lives forever changed due to tendon and joint problems associated with this drug, but don’t let the internet skew how you view the statistics.

So how was my experience on the drug you ask? Well despite my initial fears of never being able to play softball again, I continued to take the pills every 12 hours. The first couple days I did feel a little bit strange I would say. I don’t know if it was just the antibiotic or the hypochondriac in me, I haven’t been on an antibiotic since I was probably 12 with an ear infection so I really don’t know how they are supposed to make you feel, but I can image that since they are killing all the bacteria in your body, you may feel a bit off. So I started the pills last Wednesday and we had a big weekend in the sun planned for this past weekend so I was a little worried about the warning label right on the pill bottle that says this medicine will make you more sensitive to the sun. And considering I’m already pretty sensitive to the sun I was worried I was going to burn the instant I stepped foot outside, but after slathering up the sunscreen and spending all weekend in downtown Chicago sitting in the sun for 8 hours a day both days, I was no more red than I normally am, so no problems there.

Today is day 5 of the 7 day cycle of Cipro and I feel fine, I actually just took another pill as I’m writing this and while I do still have that “off” feeling a little bit, my achilles tendon is still attached, my joints don’t hurt, and I played softball just fine last night, even hit a triple. And while I realize that some of the people complaining of these problems claim that they happened after they were off the drug, so far so good and I’m not worried at all anymore. So while I do realize that there are some side effects for certain drugs, I know now that I’m going to stop looking things like this up on the internet and to those people that are thinking about looking up the medication they are on to see what it’s doing to people, I highly advise against it. You know your body and how you’re supposed to feel so if you’re taking a medication and things start to feel wrong then consult your doctor, don’t consult the internet.

So I sat down and watched this flick last night not expecting too much. I couldn’t recall hearing of any of the main actors before although I did recognize a few faces when it started. The movie is about a team of computer software engineers that create this simulation sort of like The Matrix, where you lay down and your brain is transfered into the computer and you take over the body of another person inside the simulation. The simulation was programmed to represent Los Angeles in 1937 and there were certain characters that were modeled after the main characters and other people they knew in real life. So the old guy that leads the team of engineers/programmers has been moonlighting inside the simulation and banging young women. It’s obviously just a simulation and not real life so as long as the timer is set to pull him out automatically, there really aren’t any consequences to getting his rocks off with young showgirls.

While on one of these sex journeys to the past he leaves a note with a bartender telling him to give it to Douglas, then he comes back to the real world and is carved up like a turkey (killed). Before he’s killed he calls Douglas and tells him that he left a message for him in the system. So of course Douglas has to go into the simulation and try to retrieve this message from the bartender who took it upon himself to read the letter and turn him into a hostile asshole. So the rest of the movie is about Douglas trying to figure out who killed the old man and why.

Ok, now there are going to be some spoilers that will seriously ruin the end of the movie. So if you plan on watching the movie anytime soon and don’t want the entire plot ruined for you I would stop reading now.

The big twist in the movie is the fact that what Douglas and his team think is the real world is actually another simulation. There are, in a sense, three different worlds here. The real world, which has created a simulation, Douglas’ real world, which as subsequently created another simulation, the 1937 world. Douglas’ world is a simulation and it’s also the first simulation to ever create a simulation within a simulation. Apparently the actual real world has a bunch of these simulations that residents can hang out in and tool around with to get away from the actual real world. And this is exactly what the old man found out, he discovered that what they thought was the real world was actually a simulation.

Apparently these simulations only cover a certain area of the world, a city, and once you venture out to the end of the world all you see is green grid lines indicating that you have reached the limits of the simulation. This is what the old man wrote in his letter which then caused the bartender to drive his car to the limits and realize that his world is a sham. So then he goes rogue and tries to kill Douglas when he’s in their world romping around.

Ok so that’s basically the movie, but I do have a couple questions that didn’t really make sense to me. At one point in Douglas’ world, his assistant guy plugs into the simulation to check it out and since his alter-ego in the simulation is that bartender he takes over his body. So he’s driving around the simulation looking like the bartender, but then he gets hit by a car and killed. When he’s killed he wakes up in his world (Douglas’ world), but he’s not himself, the bartenders personality and mind has now jumped from the simulation to the “real world”.

So if you die in the simulation, since your brain was transfered into the computer, you die, I get that. It’s just like The Matrix, but in this case apparently whoever’s body you took over in the simulation now jumps out to your world and takes over your body. I don’t understand how this would work since when you go into the simulation only your brain is copied into the simulation, the other person that you’re taking over’s brain is not copied back to yours. So how does the simulation brain jump out into the world above it?

Another problem I have with this is how do they control this? In Douglas’ world it’s not really an issue because the simulation is a very secret project and only 3 people total in the movie have ever gone into it, thus negating something like this happening frequently. However, since Douglas’ world is a simulation itself there is a world on top of it and this world has personal simulators that people wear at home just laying around the house. They are like futuristic looking headphones that you wear and they plug you in to the simulation. Now if everyone has access to technology like this in the future world, you would think that this situation of someone dying in the matrix would happen fairly often, thus bringing simulated personalities out of the simulation on a regular basis. I know if I had access to a simulation like this I would be doing all sorts of death defying things and probably killing myself on a regular basis. It is just a simulation, I know it’s a simulation whether the other people in the simulated world know it or not… so why should dying there harm me at all?

So while the movie was good it did leave me with a few questions that just don’t seem to make sense to me. If anyone else has seen the movie can you offer an explanation? Maybe I missed something, maybe the brains were copied back and forth, I don’t know, I just don’t understand. Oh, but props to that old dude for using the simulation has his personal whore house…. I bet he had a blast.