theMediaman.com

Speaking as an ignorant Canadian, it seems that there is a place called “White Castle“. That new teenage-sex-comedy-road-trip-with-washed-up-celebrity-cameo movie “Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle” caused me some confusion. I swore that I’ve never been to a White Castle before, but it seemed somehow familiar.

Just yesterday, I added The Beastie Boys’ CD “Licence to Ill” to my collection in the car. Every second song in there references White Castle.

There’s a real cult-following for the restaurant chain. The burgers probably aren’t anything special, but it sounds like something to put on my “To Do” list the next time I visit the US. After all, it was worth it to go to In & Out Burger with Andrew… escpecially since we went before the secret menu was no longer secret, and instead posted on the web site.

*update* I got an email from Andrew that White Castle is a burger chain in the North Eastern US. With it being so close, I’ll definitely have to find a White Castle the next time I go down to the US.

I’m in the process of recoding (and possibly redesigning) the entire web site, so bear with me if there’s some visual screwups…

Elsewhere in the news, when even Ted Turner is saying that Media Conglomerates have gotten too big, then you should believe him!

Somehow I would have felt upset if Catwoman was a good movie. I don’t like Halle Berry, and Michelle Phiffer has a special place in my… er… heart. That outfit worn in the new movie looks unrealistic, exploitive and a total anti-thesis to the strength of “a woman scorned”. Frankly, it’s worse than anything ever created by Roger Corman (and that’s sayin’ something).

Luckily for me, it’s not a good movie. It looks more like a shoe-in for the 2004 Razzie “Winner”. If the Razzies are able to include 2003’s “Gothica” in her performance lineup, Halle is for sure going to bring home the golden raspberry for Worst Actress. Just to remind you, this is the same woman who was awarded an Oscar following Julia Roberts. If it wasn’t for Charlize Theron, I wouldn’t give any credibility to any of the Academy’s post-2000 selections for Best Actress (I’ve no real opinion on 2002’s Nicole Kidman).

At least, if there’s ever a third X-men movie made, we won’t have to deal with her “Storm”.

As I mentioned before, the new Resident Evil: Apocolypse movie was filmed in Toronto, making it the second zombie film to be filmed in the GTA for 2004. I’ve pulled a few shots of City Hall (aka. main entrance to Umbrella Corporation’s The Hive) from the trailer, in order to make sarcastic comments about them that should be funny, unless you’ve never been to Toronto.

Milla Jovovich doing her best 1960’s Batman impersonation

First explosion in the trailer is probably the one that turns everyone in Racoon City into zombies, but…

While this looks like Toronto, they’ve digitally removed the CN Tower. You can also see in the background the island that Sara Polley, Ving Rhames et al. escape to at the end of Dawn of the Dead.

GlobalTV got pissed that they didn’t get to name the movie “Resident Evil: On Global” - so they sent the Global chopper after the movie execs.

This is why it’s a bad idea to expand the Center Island Airport… low flying planes.

If the aliens in Independance Day attacked Canada (and you might remember that they didn’t), this is what it would have looked like.

Doom 3’s minimum system requirements… ouch!

1.5 GHz P4

384 MB RAM

2 GB hard drive

DirectX 8 generation card (GeForce3+ or ATI 8500+)

In other words, if I wanted to play Doom 3, I’d barely have enough processing power, I’d have to upgrade my RAM and buy a new video card.

Weird things happening since I started doing Chiropractic ‘rehabilitation’. My Chiropractor goes one step beyond making adjustments to the spine and gets me doing stretches and exercises that are supposed to put a curve back in my spine. Apparently, my head is 38 mm too far forward, which is a lot. I blame all the short people I talk to.

However, I’m sure that some of the problem is a matter of scale. I believe that I’m one of the largest (in build) patients he has, so 38 mm for me isn’t quite as much as it would be for a 5′2″ woman. In any case, my neck has always been pushed quite far forward, and I was really starting to feel it.

Now I’m doing these exercises three times a week - nothing that really pushes my cardiovascular system, but it’s about an hour’s worth of stretching, traction and adjustments. The big changes in my life are already evident even after a couple months of work. While I still get crippling headaches at times, I usually finish my workday with energy to spare. A BIG difference from before. Now I’m able to do more in the evening than just sit in front of the TV or computer.

And the biggest change happened today. I weighed myself this morning and had to check four times to make sure it was right… 197 lbs. It may not last, but the last time I weighed under 200 lbs was just before I was introduced to Passover and Easter dinners in one weekend… about two and a half years ago. At my most, I weighed around 207 lbs (which was even more than Paul at the time), but I usually bounced anywhere between 200-205 lbs.

I haven’t really changed my eating habits much, so that can’t be the main reason. I’ve eaten healthy before and still never broken the 200 lbs boundary. Simone’s tried taking me out on weekends to get fresh air, but that doesn’t seem to be the exclusive reason either. I feel I have to credit my chiropractor for getting me in the habit of feeling better.

While I write this, I’m eating my chicken teriyaki. I seriously doubt that I’ll weigh 197 lbs for two days in a row. But now that I know that it’s possible once again, I think I’ll be far more fit by the end of the summer.

Here’s hoping!