In recent years, the movie studios have been mining the characters and stories of the comic books that began many years ago. Spider-Man is the most popular of the bunch, raking in more money than Batman or any other superhero.

Comic Books, Graphic Novels, Whatever

It doesn't matter what you call them, they started out as comic books and that's what I call them. I'll probably continue to do so until the day I die. Here's a quick list of heroes and superheroes that have transitioned from comic book to movie. The list isn't all-inclusive because I'm relying only on memory:

• Batman
• Conan
• Daredevil
• Fantastic Four
• Hellboy
• Howard the Duck
• Hulk
• Iron Man
• Man-Thing
• The Punisher
• Red Sonja
• Spider-Man
• Supergirl
• Superman
• Swamp Thing
• X-Men

The ones that made it to TV (or made-for-TV movies), like Flash and Wonder Woman, don't count. There hasn't been a theatrical movie about them… yet.

Other Movies

Other movies have been based on the so-called graphic novels and magazines and I probably don't know the half of them. Some I didn't even know originated like this until I read the reviews. Here's my list so far:

• Constantine
• Heavy Metal
• Sin City
• V for Vendetta
• Wanted
• Watchmen

Feel free to step in at any time and tell me I'm wrong or add to my lists. [Despite it's comic-book opening and style, "Ultraviolet" did not come from any comic book or graphic novel. It was written as a movie only.]

Upcoming Movies

I've seen the mention of these various movies in different places, but I can't pinpoint exactly where. One was alluded to in the Iron Man movie — Avengers. Here's a list of what I know is coming sooner or later:

• Ant-Man
• Avengers
• Captain America
• Deathlok
• The Flash
• Green Lantern
• Shazam!
• Thor

Conclusion

Hollywood figured out there was a lot of money to be made by converting comic book fans into comic book movie fans. I, for one, am glad they're doing this instead of rehashing the same old, tired plot lines they're fond of using over and over again. Remakes of remakes has been the order of the day and maybe, just maybe, they'll be inspired to create new stories that aren't based on comic books, novels, or other movies.

We can only wish for so much.

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Next to the wall, near the head of my dining table, is a hot and cold bottled water dispenser. I honestly don't know how much it cost when my wife bought it in 2006, but I think it was made in China and I'm sure it wasn't expensive. It says "Nova" on the front of it — what a generic sounding name. Anyway, it no longer works right and I'm going to have to buy a replacement… eventually.

The Water Cooler

This is what the cold water dispensers are typically called when you hear them referenced in movies and TV shows, usually when it's about gossip at the water cooler. I heard people calling the bottled water dispensers water coolers at my last place of employment.

Ironically, it's not the cold water cooling part of my dispenser that seems to be having issues. It's the hot water dispenser. It dispenses the water fine, but the air bubbles don't float to the top of the water bottle like they should and I basically have to spin the water bottle to coerce it into action, or else I can only get like half a cup of water out of it. I guess I can deal with it until I have enough money set aside from my personal budget to replace it.

The Cost of Bottled Water

I can't complain about the cost of bottled water. The people that distribute live on the other end of the street. It's delivered whenever we want it and it costs two hundred pesos for five bottles (less than USD $5.00), each containing five gallons of purified water. They use the exact same water filtration setup I had in my home in the US for 12 years – A multi-stage filtration system followed by a reverse osmosis filtering system at the tap.

I don't remember how much the services like "Crystal" or "Sparkletts" in the US (and I think Crystal belonged to Sparkletts, just using different names in different areas of the US because their advertising jingle was almost the same) used to cost, because it's been more than 25 years since I saw one of their trucks making a delivery to my parents' home.

Drink tap water? No way!

The water delivered to our home from the Subic Water District is extremely hard water. I know this not only because of the taste, but because of the hard water stains which have magically appeared in our toilets and sinks. It's difficult to remove and there are still remnants of stains. I also think they add too much of whatever chemical they're using to kill bacteria with because the hard minerals by themselves really don't affect the taste enough to be noticeable (in my opinion).

One of my brothers-in-law made me a cup of coffee one morning and it tasted like sh*t. I asked him where he got the water from since I already knew the coffee was good – it was my own instant coffee. When he told me he used tap water, I asked him why he didn't use the water from my bottled water dispenser. He pleaded ignorance because he couldn't taste the difference – he was used to drinking the tap water.

Getting a Replacement Hot and Cold Bottled Water Dispenser

The dispenser we currently use is a freestanding type – it sits on the floor and is tall enough that I only need to bend over slightly to use it. It has some oddball switches and knobs on it and I never use them. The two switches are for turning the hot and cold water areas off or on. The knob is supposed to provide a form of air conditioning to the lower cabinet, but it's on a 60-minute timer. What it could be used for, I'll never figure out.

The replacement I buy won't have any strange doodads on it. My wife picked the last one and I'm picking the next one. The dispenser is three and half years old and will probably last to four before I replace it. My mother has one, made by GE, that's been in service for at least 25 years and still works like it did when it was new. It used to be that "Made in Japan" meant it was cheaply made and I think that attribution now goes to Chinese products (but not all of them).

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My wife, Josie, is considering a trip back to the US with money she saved for just that purpose. She normally travels using Philippine Airlines, but the current fares are averaging $1000 each for one-way trips from Manila to Phoenix, with more than one stop. I know there are cheaper flights than that. It turns out that Hawaiian Airline flights are at $766 right now, but going up in mid-March to $866. The only stop is in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Web Searching

I'm not surprised that the big online travel agencies like Travelocity, Orbitz and others have no services for one-way flights originating in Manila (it's easy to find cheap flights to Manila, but not the other way around). I had to go to the Philippine Airlines site itself to see what the fares were running these days.

I went to a lot of websites of the major carriers such as Northwest and Continental, but the fares of most of the airlines were either near the prices charged by Philippine Airlines or more expensive.

Josie mentioned Hawaiian Airlines to me because one of her friends swore it was cheaper than the rest. She was right as far as I'm concerned, although I didn't check airlines like China Airlines or Korean Airlines. Josie wouldn't fly on them if they were half-priced. She doesn't trust them and I don't blame her.

Why the trip?

If she goes through with it, Josie will be in the US for six months and she'll be staying with our older son, his wife and our grandson. Yes, I'm a grandpa and proud of it.

Josie's former employer rehired her the first time she went back to the US and without question. I'm pretty sure they'll do the same thing this time. We'll find out in a few hours. Naturally, she wants a guarantee of employment before spending her savings on a one-way plane ticket. Her supervisor, with hiring authority, told her when she left that he would hire her back in a heartbeat and would even give her a raise. I wonder how it's going to play out.

I don't want Josie to leave for any period of time. The family separations should have ended when I finished military service in 1998. She wants to go, however, and there's really nothing I can do to stop her. She has no patience.

We still need a washing machine and a dryer, one or two portable air conditioners, and we need to finish roofing and painting our dirty kitchen and laundry room extension to the house.

Money will be tight for me until after April due to my requirement to pay income taxes (I'm not sure I'll have to pay yet, but I'm a pessimist about these things – I almost always have to pay the state taxes before I get the federal refund) and my younger son's tuition for the next semester of nursing school. There are a couple of other expenses I don't want to mention, but it should be enough to say that money will be extremely tight until May.

The rainy season starts around June and we won't have the roof on the dirty kitchen. My wife wants a roof on it before it starts raining because the wood support frame is already in place. I think she just wants to bail before it gets really hot in April.

Buying the Ticket

I and the wife will be stopping by a travel agency in the next day or two to see if they can beat the $766 or at least keep it the same as advertised by Hawaiian Airlines, which would be between 34,000 and 36,000 pesos depending on the exchange rate at the time.

If the travel agent can't or won't meet or beat the price, I can purchase the ticket online using my trusty VISA Electron Card and Josie can get the eTicket at the airlines terminal. Well, I hope it works that way at the Manila airport.

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Regardless of who conducts a house blessing, and regardless of the religion, I don't believe it has any effect on benign spirits. A ghost, or some other spirit of some kind, has been in and out of my house since the day it was built. Before 2003, I didn't even believe in ghosts. Now I do and it's based on my own experiences and not some Filipino folklore. Whether a house blessing wards off evil spirits or not, I can't say because I've never been haunted by an evil spirit.

Our House Blessing

In August of 2006 (on my wife's birthday), before our house was completely finished and before we moved in, my wife had a local Catholic priest conduct a house blessing. We had our Toyota Corolla in the driveway, an electric range and a microwave oven in the kitchen, a refrigerator and a dining table in the dining area (without the chairs – they were being delivered the next day), an entertainment unit in the living room and two beds in two bedrooms (out of three).

The priest walked around chanting and sprinkling holy water on everything in sight. He blessed the inside of the car and the inside of both the refrigerator and the microwave oven (there would have to be some awfully small evil spirits hanging out in those places). It took every ounce of energy for me to keep from laughing until it was all over and the priest had left.

Noticing the Ghost for the First Time

I wrote a somewhat lengthy article about being weirded out in April of 2007, followed up by another article about solving one mystery that I previously mentioned.

I put all that behind me as I ignored any kind of weird feelings I continued to experience until August of 2008, exactly two years to the day after the house was blessed.

A Ghost or a Shadow Person or Something

I wrote about the uninvited guest back then and followed it up with an article about shadow people a couple of weeks later. That ghost or shadow person or whatever continues to visit our house. He, she or it (you never know) doesn't appear to actually live with us. I think it's a he and that he's visiting just to screw with us. Actually, I think he's screwing with me more than everyone else — yes, other relatives in our compound have been exposed to whatever this thing is as well, but only when inside our house.

Again, I put all that behind me and ignored anything unusual until just a few days ago, February 4th.

Nothing but a Head

I think it's a male, benign ghost that visits and I think he visits to screw with people's heads. He could be a dead brother-in-law, for all I know.

Anyway, I was sitting at my PC in the late evening and my wife was asleep in bed not far from me. My bedroom door was open, as usual, and all I had to do was look to my right to see the area above the first landing of the staircase. The hallway light was off, but the light from my bedroom was enough for me to see the area above the first landing of the stairwell. My son, Jon, wasn't home yet — he was out with classmates (other video game addicts) at an Internet cafe.

Out of the corner of my right eye, I kept seeing movement and attempted to ignore it. In the last instance, I turned my head to the right and saw the top of someone's head! I jumped from my chair (I was fully dressed and wore sneakers) and ran down the stairs. I flipped light switches on and quickly checked any place a person could hide downstairs. I thought one of my brothers-in-law (June) might be screwing with me since he has a key to the house and comes in and out on occasion (he does all the maintenance here). No one was inside and I hadn't heard any doors opening or closing — my door hinges creak and need to be greased again.

I ran out the front door and around all sides of the house. No one was outside of their homes in the compound and no one was up on the street.

When my son came home, I had him stand on the landing so that I could sit at the PC to see how the top of a head should look. My son is tall enough (about 5 feet 9 inches) that his entire head is visible while standing there. Whatever head I saw had to belong to a person a few inches shorter — there are plenty of men around here as short as that, but even June is nearly as tall as Jon.

Imagining things?

I wish it was that easy. When I saw the top of someone's head in the stairwell, I saw it long enough to be sure I actually saw it. The head disappeared just like it would if someone walked down the last flight of stairs.

Again, I'll repeat that I think it's a benign ghost (kind of like Casper) and not someone looking to do anyone any harm. I'm not afraid or shocked by it anymore. I'm more annoyed by it than anything else. Yes, I believe in ghosts and no, I don't think any kind of house blessing keeps non-evil ones away.

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It should come as no surprise that professional wrestlers, the kind you see on TV wrestling shows, are little more than actors. A lot of the holds and moves are legitimate in wrestling and a lot of them are not. More often than not, when it appears that one of these "celebrities" has been injured, the injuries are faked and it's all show. These professional wrestlers, with a whole bunch of "acting" experience under their belts (no pun intended), are the perfect candidates for roles in movies requiring a screen presence that reflects muscular power. I'm going to point out some of the movies and the wrestlers associated with them. It won't be pretty.

Hulk Hogan

Born as Terry Gene Bollea, he's been known as "Hulk Hogan" and "Hollywood Hogan". Don't ask me for details on that because I don't care to the do the research. I hadn't even heard of Hulk Hogan before he appeared as "Thunderlips" in "Rocky III".

To be honest, the only movie I ever watched featuring Hulk Hogan was "Suburban Commando". I remember him from his time on the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), which I think is now called World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), and the only reason I remember him is because my older son watched that show as often as he could.

The Rock

The first time I ever saw Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson on TV was when he guest-starred as an alien on a 2000 episode of "Star Trek: Voyager". My son had watched him on the WWF, but I'd never seen him before. Well, I didn't see his face on that episode either because he wore alien makeup.

Dwayne has been faring much better than other the other wrestlers, having appeared in multiple movies. Here's a list of those that I've seen:

• The Mummy Returns (2001) (I didn't see "The Scorpion King (2002)", a prequel)
• Walking Tall (2004) (a remake as good or better than the original)
• Doom (2005) (a somewhat disappointing adaptation of the classic video game)
• Get Smart (2008)

There are some others I'd like to see and eventually I'll get around to it.

Roddy Piper

I only saw Roderick George Toombs ("Rowdy" Roddy Piper) appear as a guest star on the WWF once and not even wrestling. I didn't even know who he was at the time. I've only seen two movies he starred in, "They Live" and another that also co-starred Meg Foster that I can't remember the name of.

Based on recent photos, I'm of the opinion that the years haven't been as kind on him as they were for Hulk Hogan. He looks every bit of his age.

Check out this clip from "They Live" which inspired a similar phrase in the Duke Nukem 3D video game:

Other Wrestlers?

These three wrestlers are the only ones I know about who have crossed over from professional wrestling (another form of acting as far as I'm concerned) to acting in movies. Can you name any more I should check out?

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This isn't a secret. Some of the best nursing schools as well as some of the most affordable nursing degree programs are located in the Philippines. The problem with most Americans seeking nursing careers in the US is that they're more willing to spend a lot of money, no doubt with educational assistance programs and financial aid, than to go through the necessary steps to get the training they need as quickly and as inexpensively as possible.

Steps to a Nursing Degree in the Philippines

I'm not going to quote any prices (other than some round figures I'm familiar with) as I tell you the steps Americans have to take in order to attend nursing schools in the Philippines.

• Get a Passport. If you don't have one, get one. When I left the US in 2006, passports were valid for 12 years. I don't know how long they're valid for now. There are agencies, and post offices, where you can apply for passports throughout the US.
• Select a Nursing College. Do some online searches and find some good nursing colleges and get information for each one, especially the prerequisites. The better colleges will be found in metro Manila locations as well as in areas where there are already a lot of Americans (including dual US and Filipino citizens) attending the schools.
• Obtain an Acceptance Letter. You're dead in the water, so to speak, if you haven't been accepted to a nursing school yet. There are ways around this, of course, as I'll explain later.
• Visit one of the Philippine Consulates. Depending on your status, you can obtain a couple of types of visas. The only one I'm sure you can get if you have the required documents is the student visa. There are two offices: One in Los Angeles and one in New York City.
• Find Lodging in the Philippines. There are a few options: Dormitories at the nursing schools, rental locations near the schools or even living with relatives (if you have any in the Philippines). It's best to be prepared before you leave the US.
• Attend Nursing School in the Philippines. I believe the nursing degree programs are five years in length now. They were only four years in length when my son started attending, but I think the law changed a year or two later.

Dual US and Filipino Citizens and American Resident Aliens

A dual citizen can go back and forth between the US and the Philippines at will and without a visa. That's the advantage of being a citizen of both countries. My younger son, Jon, is a dual-citizen because he was born on American soil when his mother was still only a Filipino citizen. A law enacted in the Philippines in 2003 allowed my wife to become a dual citizen as well. Getting him into a nursing school was difficult because it wasn't planned and we had to obtain his US-based high school transcripts through the mail and mail service in the Philippines is quite inadequate.

Resident aliens in the US should not attempt to return to the Philippines to attend any kind of school. It's too easy to lose the residency status and get stuck in the Philippines for many more years than desired. Of course, as long as you return to the US for every year, it isn't a problem. Can you afford it? Ultimately, affordability is the key to all of this.

Alternatives

Nonstandard nursing programs are becoming more commonplace. Online nursing programs are becoming more popular and a little more affordable than classroom attendance, but they're still expensive. How do I explain it? A single semester of tuition will cost you more than five years of tuition in the Philippines. This applies to every online nursing school I've taken a look at.

Of course, you don't even need a nursing degree to be a nurse in the US. You just have to be able to pass the nursing board examination for whichever state you happen to live in. This would not be a good idea. A large percentage of people fail the exams even though they've had the education. How much harder do you think it would be if you had to learn it all without going to any kind of nursing school?

US citizens and dual citizens are not required to take the nursing board examination in the Philippines. If you want to be employed as a nurse in the Philippines, or any other country besides the US, you will still need to take the examination.

Why Pursue a Nursing Career?

Ignore the rumors, if you've heard them, that there's a glut of nurses seeking employment. It just isn't true. Nurses are in high demand worldwide. In the US, a career as a nurse is rewarding, both financially and emotionally.

One of my wife's cousins works at a nurse staffing agency for on-call nurses. These nurses get paid anywhere from $35.00 to $50.00 per hour (not counting overtime) depending on the assignment. They also get per diem to cover travel expenses.

Resident nurses at hospitals get paid well too, but I can't quote any numbers. Some nurses run caregiver agencies or nursing homes and make a whole lot of money. The opportunities for qualified nurses in the US are simply amazing.

If there's something I've left out, that you need to know, please feel free to comment. I'll edit this article if necessary.

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No, I'm not Batman. Do you think I would be sitting here, writing this, if I was? Besides, he's a fictional character. The only reason I bring the title phrase up is because of a pamangkin – a nephew, but really a cousin once removed (Filipino culture is confusing) – and how he responded to my first question upon his arrival from the US.

Darcey de los Reyes

Darcey and an uncle arrived a day or two before we all spent the day at Crystal Beach. I couldn't help but notice all the tattoos on both of his arms (and later he showed his chest). I asked him about them and he responded with "It's what I do." I don't want to get ahead of myself, but I explained to him why I found his reply amusing. He spent his last few days here asking me questions, at random, trying to elicit the same response from me and giggled like a little girl (he's 26-years old) when I caught on. I didn't bite. He speaks less Tagalog than my son, Jon and a lot less than me, a non-Filipino. Basically, he only speaks English although he's Filipino (a dual citizen). I had a lot of fun talking about him to others in Tagalog with him right in front of me (well, kinda sorta) and looking completely clueless.

Darcey is a freelance photographer and I'm pretty sure (almost 100 percent, but I forget things) he lives in Baltimore, Maryland or one of its suburbs. His portfolio site is de los Reyes Photography (beware of music) and his blog is Darcey de los Reyes Photography. Please don't ask me about his Facebook page because I doubt I could find it if I looked for it.

He took thousands of photos while he was here and during the week he spent at a resort in Cebu City. I wonder if he's going to eventually share some of those with us (I did see them all on his laptop, but it's not the same as having copies).

How It Should Have Ended (HISHE)

The reason I found Darcey's initial reply humorous is because of this YouTube video:

As the video ends, you can hear Batman telling Superman "I'm Batman. It's what I do. I carry things on my belt. Cause I'm Batman." Of course, Superman says things in between Batman's sentences.

All of this is not real important (or even funny) to anyone except me. And Darcey. And Jon. And maybe a few others who were around and knew what was going on.

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Back in September (2009), I considered moving all of my websites to a dedicated server sometime this year due to potential VPS web hosting problems. Well, after making changes on the server and other things I'll describe, I no longer feel the need to do so.

Web Server Max Clients

The Apache web server configuration file was set up correctly to begin with by Media Temple [affiliate link], but I had no way of knowing the number of max clients needed to be lowered – the VPS kept hitting the memory hard wall. After the reduction, there were no memory issues, but it made no sense to me; I had done all the right calculations.

After discovering some hovering spambots, as well as Russia's busiest spidering robot (Yandex) hitting the same pages over and over again, I blocked those particular IP addresses at the server's firewall. I then raised the max clients number back to where it was and the issues returned less than once per week. An automated restart of the web server each day solved the issues temporarily.

Bad Bots Galore

My access and error logs showed me a lot of attempted server intrusions of one kind or another. The biggest performance gain I obtained was when I installed the Perishable Press 4G Blacklist. The list is much more comprehensive than what I provided when I wrote how to kill website spambots with the information I had at the time.

What a lot of anti Media Temple bloggers fail to miss in the VPS hosting equation is that once you step beyond shared web hosting, you're responsible for the majority of your server administration. They take care of making sure you have the connection, the server is secure, and replace faulty components when needed. Media Temple does take care of things you can't do yourself and frankly, there's very little that you can't do by yourself.

QoS Alerts

This is the part that new VPS hosting users fail to realize. You are responsible for checking your resources and restarting the VPS when required. I check mine once every other day and if I don't see anything besides a caution flag, I just carry on with my normal routine.

It has been a week since I've seen anything but a couple of yellow flags followed by green flags 10 minutes later. That was BEFORE I slapped the blacklist into place. I wonder how long it will be before it happens again.

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Having been born in 1960, a baby-boomer, I've witnessed the evolution of both analog and digital media in the marketplace. Younger people can't seem to appreciate these advances in technology. I'm talking about the people who were born after the 1970s. Digital media comes in all shapes and styles, but the basic media (the stuff the digital media is put on) is very inexpensive. Expense comes into play when you start adding computers and assorted computer peripherals to the equation.

Audio Formats

It's safe to assume that I remember standard AM radios and record players as the first devices to listen to music and other audio programs. I don't know exactly when they were invented, but I was using cassette tapes and cassette tape players as late as the mid-1980s. Somewhere along the line, 8-track players and tapes came and went as a failed format. I can't forget to mention vinyl records (and the material they were made of before that). They've been around a long time (some still exist), but their popularity has waned a great deal since the time it was the only format available for playing music at home.

Those were all analog. Nothing digital came along until technology advanced in the 1980s. Before I started seeing audio CDs, I saw other devices and media for video. The compact disc is the most popular audio format today and as far as pricing goes, audio CDs are no more expensive today than cassette tapes were in the 80s and they're a whole lot better.

I hear people complain about scratches and other problems with CDs, but I'm thinking those people never dealt with stretched or broken tape from cassette tapes. Fishing tape from car cassette players was always a fun thing to do. I'm not familiar with the newer digital audio tape (DAT) format, but I would have to assume the same ordeal exists.

Video Formats

Video technology has probably progressed much faster and further than audio technology. In the early 80s, I had experiences with Laserdiscs (the same size as the vinyl records), compact electronic disks (a failed technology — they used needles for audio and lasers for video), and video tape players. Amazingly, the video tape players (VHS format) are still available yet disappearing rapidly in favor of DVD players of all kinds.

Of course, video tape media still exists. I see it still being used in cheap digital cameras as well as other devices including video surveillance systems. I don't see movies on tape anymore although I'm sure they're still available in video rental stores.

I bought a DVD player during the first wave of sales. It was expensive, but the video itself was nice compared to what I'd seen on VHS over the years. Later on, the 9 GB DVDs became available while the 5 GB DVDs were still around. Other than for movies you can buy, I haven't seen that the 9 GB format has taken off. I have some favorite movies on DVD stashed away for rainy days (including "Evolution", for when I need to brush up on how to destroy alien species with Head&Shoulders shampoo).

The latest video format is Blu-ray. I'm not sure of the sizes but 25 GB sounds like something I remember reading. I don't have a Blu-ray player for either my computer or a stand-alone unit yet, but I plan to get one. I've seen what Blu-ray has to offer and I like it. I can imagine having multiple Blu ray movies and movie collections, like the entire collection of "Lord of the Rings" and the "Planet of the Apes" series of movies on one disc each.

The Crossover of Video and Audio Formats

While intended for one use or the other, the formats can be used for both. Digital video media (like DivX, AVI, and MP4) finds its way onto CDs, while music collections find their way onto DVDs. One thing I've overlooked is the use of the media for video games. Various PlayStation consoles have used CD, DVD and Blu-ray media, I just can't remember which is which. I believe the X-Box consoles have used DVD and HD-DVD (Blu-ray won out, but some devices still call for the HD-DVD format).

Audio and video technology has advanced a great deal in the last 40 years. I just wish the younger people could appreciate it more, take care of their media and quit complaining all the time.

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Parody movies have existed since at least the 1960s. The movies spoofed genres (spy spoofs mostly) at first and then went on to parodying other movies. Of all the spoof-style movies that have been made, only one was so bad that I threw the DVD in the trash can (it's a good thing it was on sale at the time, or I'd feel bad about it). I'll mention that one at the end of the article. In the meantime, I'll list a few movies you may or may not have seen and some that you may not even have heard of, especially if they were made way before your time.

Spy Spoofs

There must have been something going on to generate so much interest in secret agents in the 1960s – perhaps it was the cold war. These are the movies I've seen which spoofed the genre completely back then.

• Our Man Flint (1966) – James Coburn
• In Like Flint (1967) – James Coburn
• The Silencers (1966) – Dean Martin
• Murderers' Row (1966) – Dean Martin
• The Ambushers (1967) – Dean Martin
• The Silencers (1966) – Dean Martin

The 1990s saw the return of parody movies like this. Here's the list I have so far:

• Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997) – Mike Myers
• Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) – Mike Myers (the best of the three, in my opinion)
• Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002) – Mike Myers (not really the 1990s, but it's a continuation of what started then)
• Spy Hard (1996) – Leslie Nielsen
• Johnny English (2003) – Rowan Atkinson (aka Mr. Bean)
• Get Smart (2008) – Steve Carell – Based on the 1960s TV series

Feel free to remind me of those I forgot, but have actually seen.

Movies that Parody other Movies

This list will only get longer. As far as I can remember, it all started with the first one on the list:

• Airplane! (1980)
• Airplane II: The Sequel (1982)
• Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995) – Leslie Nielsen
• Wrongfully Accused (1998) – Leslie Nielsen
• 2001: A Space Travesty (2000) – Leslie Nielsen
• Scary Movie (2000)
• Scary Movie 2 (2001)
• Scary Movie 3 (2003)
• Scary Movie 4 (2006)
• Date Movie (2006) (I haven't seen this one and have no desire to see it)
• Epic Movie (2007)
• Meet the Spartans (2008)
• Superhero Movie (2008)
• Disaster Movie (2008)

Miscellaneous Parodies

Parodies that don't quite fit anywhere else:

• Johnny Dangerously (1984) – A parody of the gangster movies of the 1950s and 1960s
• Galaxy Quest (1999) – A parody of 1960s space-type TV shows like Star Trek (the original series or TOS)
• Not Another Teen Movie (2001) – A parody of teen dramas and other parodies

The Worst of the Worst

I enjoy spoofs as much as the next person, which isn't saying a whole lot. I generally know what to expect before the opening title starts rolling. I don't expect to laugh throughout each movie. I expect to be mildly amused and that's about it.

The last movie on the third list, Disaster Movie, was a disaster in every sense of the word. I didn't find anything amusing throughout the entire movie. From what I saw, the people that made this film tried really hard to make it funny. They failed miserably. Forget about the plot, as thin as it was. Forget about the actors and actresses, because most of them were nobodies. Forget about the over-extended sequences that were dragged on for no apparent reason. The worst part was:

Vulgarity. I got tired, really quickly, of hearing the words "b*tch", "fu*k" and "sh*t". The musical number at the end was the clincher that made me throw the DVD into the trash can. It wasn't necessary, it didn't add to the movie and it was just downright bad taste.

That movie was so bad, I'm going to have to be extra careful before watching another spoof of any kind, especially if it's written by the same people.

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