[The following was written by Synthesis Weekly columnist Emilie Clark. She can be reached at emilie@synthesis.net.]

Coming Soon

It’s a well-known fact that people like to adapt movies from books. It’s also a well-known fact that most of these efforts suck. So it’s my job to warn you about upcoming adaptations so you have ample time to read the book. This gives you the chance to complain about inconsistencies and general “suckiness” while still in the theater, making you look learned and therefore more attractive. You can thank me later.

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, July 4th: This is a documentary, so I guess it won’t really do to get mad about liberties taken with the adaptation. But it can’t hurt to read some of the famous Gonzo’s work if only for your own amusement. From the description it seems like the filmmakers are big fans, which can be bad in a documentary if you’re trying to eek out truth. The gist I get is that the point the film makes is that Thompson did what journalists are too afraid to do nowadays, namely get high and write caustic things about politicians. This may be true, but I easily tire of ‘60s and ‘70s nostalgia. Sure people were a bit crazier back then and I’m sure there are things to be learned from that era, but it’s over, so deal.

Journey To the Center of the Earth 3D, July 11th: Based on the classic Jules Verne novel about a rogue scientist who travels to, you guessed it, the center of the earth. According to Wikipedia, this novel didn’t age as well as some of Verne’s other works, because he was mostly wrong about what is contained in the center of the earth. However, none of that really matters because this movie is in 3D. And I will watch anything in 3D, even if it stars Brendan Fraser.

more upcoming adaptations after the jump.
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After suffering a “mild” heart attack, American actor Kelsey Grammer is recovering in an undisclosed hospital in Hawaii. Grammer, most beloved for his recurring role as Sideshow Bob in The Simpsons television show (and, you know, that whole Cheers and Frasier thing that never really took off…), aged 53, owns property on the island of Kona with his wife Camille. According to AP, Grammer’s spokesman says the television and film star suffered a mild heart attack while paddle boarding on Saturday and will be released early this week, adding “there’s no reason to be blue.”

sorry. I have no idea what’s wrong with me.

[The following article, written by Bob Howard for Synthesis Weekly, was originally published in the print version of Synthesis on Monday, May 19th, 2008. He can be reached at bob@madbob.com]

Keep on Drinking
By Bob Howard

“Be it destiny or free will, there are those amongst us who might do the rest of society a favor by staying on the couch, taking bong rips and playing the latest version of Grand Theft Auto.”

A Long History of Stupid: I’ve just started reading a biography of long-time FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, and as a result, I’m learning quite a lot about the history of this country and the tradition of our government cracking down on dissent. This latest episode of our history is far from the first time the Bill of Rights has been superseded and suspended in the name of “security.” I have yet to grasp the logic of suspending freedoms to ensure security when I thought that the whole thing we are trying to secure in the first place is freedom; but I digress.
Anyway, here are some interesting factoids I’ve picked up thus far: Remember when in protest of the French dissent against the “War on Terror” our Congress made the brilliant move of re-naming French Fries “Freedom Fries?” Seems like a pretty creative manifestation of nationalistic stupidity, right? Wrong. During World War I, our Congress re-named Sauerkraut “Liberty Cabbage.” Our current stupidity isn’t even original! How do you like that?

Think the threat of terrorism is a new thing? Wrong. Just prior to and then after World War I, the Red Scare developed. Anarchists and Communists were on the rise and there were actually a series of letter bombs and bomb attacks that riddled the nation’s capitol and industrial power figures.
These attacks lead to a complete abridgment of the freedoms granted in the Bill of Rights. Anyone suspected of being a communist, a socialist, or a sympathizer — essentially any Russian factory worker — was rounded up in mass arrests and many were unceremoniously deported so quickly that there wasn’t even time for an appeal.

More heartwarming thoughts after the jump. (more…)

Hearing all this BS about a Roger Clemens / Mindy McCready tryst amidst his defamation of character suit against former trainer McNamee, I realized that I have never sat down and watched a baseball game in a decade, and that I have never listened to one of Mindy McCready’s songs. So here’s to rectifying the latter.

Yeah… It’s fair to say that I like Nashville’s Pop Radio sensations as much as I like watching baseball. That is, this much:

Which I guess makes me Un-American. C’est la vie.

Sometime in 2005 I made a journey to New Zealand. Most of the details of this trip are very irrelevant to the purpose of this post, so don’t mind as I skip to a certain story.

Me and a friend I was traveling with were hitch-hiking from Nelson Creek NZ (after visiting the Nelson Creek Skateboard factory) to a remote town also on the South Island of New Zealand. It was raining, damn hard and freaking cold. A kind, yet eccentric man pulled over and offered us a well-recieved ride. His car was packed, he could barely fit our bags, let alone us and our damp fabrics. He strongly expressed that he would normally never pick up a hitch-hiker, but that this time he had some sort of hunch that we were American.

It didn’t take me long to label him as your run-of-the-mill conspiracy nut, filled with facts, fears and rationalizations about the government. But as time went on intellect and genius began to peak through his fact-less arguments. He talked heavily about the health care scam, false prophecies, the world bankers’ scam and New Orleans (which had happened 5-6 weeks earlier). He explained how humans were to be sorted into categories once martial law took place; green for the fully impressioned (zombies), yellow for those who needed further conditioning (the sell-outs) and red, those who would be a ‘danger’ to society and would need to be terminated (the revolutionaries). After that bit I was sure the guy was crazy, and nothing really sunk in until he made a certain direct prophecy, one that stuck with me all these years.

He predicted that the United States was going to ‘kill’ a spy satellite, and this event would somehow cause a conflict with Russia, thus starting a major conflict, such as a nuclear war. He also said this would happen Early 2008.

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Here’s a link to a super uplifting post on io9.com called 12 Ways To Prepare For The Next Great Depression. I’m going to start stockpiling coffee and dried meats.

Get out of your mortgage before the housing market collapses any further. As this site says, if you paid $300,000 for your house and it sells for $200,000, you could end up not owning your house and owing the bank $100,000.

Buy some cheap land in a rural area. Build a house, or just get a used RV. Either way, make sure you own your home free and clear, so you can live rent-free and mortgage-free for as long as you need to.

Go off the grid. Get your own power generator — or, better yet, some of those solar helium balloons. Or some wind turbines. Don’t be dependent on the power company to keep all your necessities running.

Cultivate some skills that will always be in demand. Become a decent electrician, handy-person, carpenter or cook. There may not be much need for someone who understands content management systems during a total economic shutdown, but someone who can build a house will always have a place to crash.

Go read the rest and start saving that canned food.