Entertainment

The combined popularity of MTV and slasher movies gave birth to a horror subgenre exclusive to the 1980s, Hair Band Horror. I'll be discussing a few of these movies this month, beginning with the aptly titled Rocktober Blood.

The movie opens at a recording session, where Billy Eye, lead singer (and lead asshole) of the band Rocktober Blood is laying down the his vocal track. Try to ignore the fact that the lyrics to the song summarize the movie's plot line. He leaves the studio for two minutes and returns with a pair of aviator sunglasses and the impulse to kill everyone in sight. Billy is about to kill Lynn, the band's backup vocalist, when he is interrupted by a security guard.

Billy has the best rock scream in the biz.

Fast forward two years. Billy has been executed for the murders of 25 people, although we saw him only kill two. The remaining members of the band reunite under the new name Head Mistress. Lynn, whose testimonial sent Billy to the chair, has taken over duties as lead singer. The other band members (played by real metal band, Sorcery) are unimportant. They get very little screen time, except for Frankie whose apparent role is to wear a Halloween mask and do a pantomime/breakdancing routine.

I'll never get tired of that trapped-in-the-box gag.

Head mistress is about to kick off a world tour, when Lynn has a run in with a guy who looks a lot like Billy Eye. Convinced that Billy isn't dead, she gets some friends to help dig up his grave. Billy's flesh has completely rotted away, but his eyeballs are perfectly intact and floating in the sockets. The prop guy wanted to remind you that Billy was a rock star, so he wrapped a bandanna around his bleached white skull.

Live fast, die young, and leave a good looking corpse.

If there's one thing Billy likes more than killing, it's taking the stairs. The director subjects us to an excessive amount of close up shots on Billy's boots as he walks up and down step after step.

Boot-Step Compilation

During a concert, Billy sneaks on to the stage wearing Frankie's mask. The band isn't phased when "Frankie" grabs the mic and starts singing exactly like Billy Eye. During the performance, Billy kills some chicks who are chained to the stage and tosses their internal organs and a severed head into the crowd. This also fails to alarm anyone. Once Billy reveals himself, band manager Chris breaks the neck of a spare guitar over Billy's shoulder. Billy manages to finish his song even though he is being electrocuted (by an unplugged guitar?) and bleeding profusely from the forehead and ears.

El Kabong!

Reasons to Watch:

• Pinball
• Naked hot tub
• Naked bath tub
• On stage nipple slips
• Rick Righteous
• Menstrual blood crank call
• Iron to the throat
• Weak plot twist
• Microphone disembowelment

The new TV season has crept up on me this year.  Once again, I've put together a list of season premiere dates for the shows that I currently watch, and new shows that I want to see.

I put these dates and times into a Windows Calendar for anyone who wants it.  Get it.

I also put the weekly schedule into a table.

For a schedule of all the network shows, check Wikipedia.

I got an email this morning from Netflix.  Seems that I have finally received my benefit from the Chavez vs. Netflix settlement.  Took long enough.  I originally posted about this back in November of 2005.

This afternoon I received another email stating that I won fourth prize in the XBox Live GTA IV Sweepstakes, a whopping 1000 Microsoft Points.  That's approximatley $12.50.

Right now I have my Xbox 360 and PC networked together, with the PC's dial-up connection shared.  It allows me to connect to Xbox Live so I can download patches and gamerpics, and upload my achievements.  I've attempted to use it for downloading small arcade games and other DLC, but the connection keeps dropping out.  If I want anything bigger than 10MB, I have to take my 360 over to my sister's house.

Once, I thought I was being clever by just taking my hard drive over there instead of my whole 360.  I slapped the hard drive on Matt's console and downloaded a few songs for Rock Band.  When I put the drive back on my 360, the songs didn't show up.  Turns out that the content contains DRM that links it to the console that was used to download it.  The only way I can play it on my console is if I'm online and logged into my Xbox Live account, which means I'd have the phone line tied up the whole time.

Lucky for me, Microsoft just released a content license transfer tool.  Now, you can associate all the content you've downloaded under your GamerTag with one console.  However, you're only allowed to use it once per year.

Most TV shows have wrapped up the 2007-2008 season by now. Several of those were cut short by the writers strike. If you'll recall, I started out the season with the intent of picking up ten new shows. I continued with several of them, but stopped watching Bionic Woman, Moonlight, New Amsterdam, and Flash Gordon. Apparently a lot of other people did also, because those shows were canceled. I was disappointed about the cancellations of Journeyman and Carpoolers, a show that wasn't on my original list.

I went 3 for 4 on my cancellation predictions. The only one I was wrong about is Life, which turned out to be my favorite new show of the season. The other shows that will be returning are Reaper, Pushing Daises, Chuck, and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Since I'm a new 360 owner, there's a large catalog of older games that I haven't played. GameStop has had some nice deals on used games this month with 25% off coupons and $10 trade in bonuses. I picked up Prey and Perfect Dark Zero one day for about $14. After beating Prey, I traded it in along with Saints Row that I got for Christmas, and picked up Lego Star Wars II and Quake 4 for $0.77. That was last Wednesday. I started playing Lego Star Wars immediately and didn't touch Quake 4 until last night. That's when I found out that GameStop gave me the bonus disc for Quake 4. All it contained was some behind-the-scenes videos and a ported version of Quake II, a game I played 10 years ago.

I went back to GameStop after work to take the disc back. They didn't have any other copies of Quake 4 so the guy told me I could swap it for another game of the same price. I didn't really feel like searching for another game, so I asked him to give me store credit. I probably should have just told him to put it down on a GTA IV pre-order.

I got a 360 for Christmas. After seeing some of the downloadable content for Rock Band, I looked around for cheap Microsoft Points cards and found a few sites where you can get them for free.

I got 1600 MS Points and a 3-month Live subscription from Gaming Lagoon, and another 3-months from Prize Rebel. They offer free games and accessories for Wii, PS3, PC, PSP, and more.

If anyone is interested, I wrote up a guide for exactly what you have to do to get this stuff.

I also got a free wireless headset that works with Xbox Live from playing games at Live Search Club. I'm still waiting on it to arrive though.

*Update*

I got another 1600 MS Points from Rewards1.

The headliner of this film is none other than Grizzly Adams himself, Mr. Dan Haggerty. He plays a detective named Mike who was fired for being an alcoholic. Mike takes a new job as a department store Santa after the previous Santa was killed by the elf.

This movie's low budget is evident in the appearance of the elf. The only movements it is capable of are twisting it's head and flailing it's arms. It's mouth is permanently agape.

Mike uses his detective skills to uncover a few events in elven history. He learns that elves were aboard Noah's ark, and that Nazi scientists used elves for genetic experiments to produce the master race.

Kirsten's role in the Nazi-elf conspiracy is beyond belief. The following clip should sum it up.

The last image of the movie leaves things open for a sequel. In fact, a sequel was written but never filmed. I doubt it could have been better than the original.

Reasons to watch:

• Bitch slapping
• Cat drowning
• Crotch stabbing
• Chain smoking
• Nazis
• "Ninja gremlin"
• Incest
• Swastika boobs
• Donatello TMNT pajamas

Almost 30 years ago, in a galaxy not so far away, George Lucas approved the production of a Star Wars themed CBS holiday show. Because he was too busy working on The Empire Strikes Back, Lucas was unable to directly supervise the creation of the TV special. The resulting film aired only once and was promptly locked away in the Lucasfilm vault. Bootleg tapes were traded at conventions for years. Today, peer-to-peer file sharing has made the Star Wars Holiday special widely available.

Rewrites by the producers, and creative differences with the director resulted in a bastardization of Lucas's original concept involving Han Solo and Chewbacca traveling to Kashyyyk to celebrate a Wookie holiday called Life Day. The majority of the story takes place in Chewie's home where his wife, Malla, son, Lumpy, and father, Itchy, wait for his arrival. Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, R2-D2, and C-3PO make brief appearances. CBS spared no expense in getting some huge guest stars, namely Art Carney, Harvey Korman, and Bea Arthur. Additionally, there are musical numbers by Diahann Carroll and Jefferson Starship.

The only redeeming portion of the special is an animated short that occurs near the halfway point. It marks the first ever appearance of Boba Fett.

The traditional Life Day celebration consists of Wookies dawning red robes, holding snow globes, and reenacting the Bohemian Rhapsody video.

About 50 Wookies gather together at the base of a giant tree, and for some reason Luke, Leia, Han, R2, and 3PO show up again. A coked up Carrie Fisher sings a song to the tune of John Barry's Star Wars theme and everyone leaves.

Reasons to watch:

• X-Wing woodcarving
• Cirque du Soleil holograms
• Wookie pr0n
• Lightsaber microphone
• Recipe for Bantha Surprise
• Bea Arthur singing in the cantina