Nerds Are Terrible People

It feels like it was an eternity ago, but once upon a time, there was a time when being a nerd/geek was generally looked down upon by the mainstream world. Being super nerdy and geeky about things like Star Wars, Star Trek, comics, movies, etc. and being vocal about it not only got you made fun of, but it got the shit beat out of you on the playground. This is the absolute truth.

Things have changed now. Being a geek and nerd is now THE mainstream. We've decided to let Hollywood and mainstream media dictate to us what's cool and awesome and what we should geek the fuck out about. Over the past few years, we've seen properties we'd get nostalgic about be rebooted, remade, and re-purposed for modern audiences and to squeeze a few more dollars out of their lifelong fans. Things like Star Wars, Star Trek, various Marvel properties, Ghostbusters, Doctor Who, and tons upon tons more have received massive makeovers and are now bigger cash cows now than they ever were before...

...and we're all stupid enough to keep throwing our time, attention, and cash at them all.

Plus, it goes without saying, where did all the nerd superiority come from? If you're not into a certain something that has achieved super mainstream nerd appeal like Star Wars or a Marvel property, you get looked down upon. Why is that? Remember when there was a time when nerds actually stuck together despite their differences in fandoms? Yeah...it's not like that anymore. I recently got a lot of shit because I said Marvel's new Jessica Jones show wasn't the greatest thing ever made like every other Marvel fanboy is. I also got shit a while back for a blog entry on here where I questioned whether or not we actually need more Star Wars movies. Not to mention the fact that now being a nerd has become the "in" thing to be. I never ever thought such a thing would ever be a reality, but here we are.

It's that kind of shit that really makes me regret being as nerdy as I am.

So yeah, you know what? Nerds are horrible people. So are hipsters. And hipster nerds are tools of the Devil.

Where the Hell is PHANTASM V?????

There is a shitload of horror franchises out there. Think of as many as you can off the top of your head right now on the spot. What are the ones that automatically pop in there? "A Nightmare on Elm Street"? "Halloween"? "Friday the 13th"? "Texas Chainsaw Massacre"? "Saw"? "Scream"? Yeah, that's a shitload of movies right there to be sure, but does anyone ever think of "Phantasm"? The "Phantasm" movies are probably some of the absolute most underrated flicks the horror genre has to offer. Written and directed by Don Coscarelli, the series started in 1979, with the last film in the franchise to come out in 1998. The series ended on a bit of a cliffhanger (which isn't a surprise really because every film in the franchise ends on a cliffhanger to begin with), and fans have been clamoring for years for another movie. Years and years went by, with a tad of promise thrown at us by Coscarelli now and then, followed by nothing.

Then, something happened.

In March of 2014, news started coming in saying that not only were we getting a fifth "Phantasm" film, but filming had secretly been completed. This was followed with a surprise teaser trailer the following day after the news had come out. Yes, it's really happening: we're getting a fifth, and final, "Phantasm" movie.

But no one really knows when.

Tentatively titled "Phantasm V: Ravager", the film is indeed complete, but is now stuck in the hell that is known as WAITING TO FIND A FUCKING DISTRIBUTOR. Coscarelli says we'll get it sometime in 2016, but that's not really guaranteed. Films can sit on the shelf for years on end before finding a willing distributor. Rob Zombie's "House of 1000 Corpses" sat on the shelf for almost three years after Universal backed out at the last minute until Lions Gate Films scooped it up. So who knows? We may see the film in 2016...or we may not.

Now believe me when I say, no one is happier than I am that we're getting another "Phantasm" movie that just might wrap up everything, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hesitant a bit. There's always been years-long gaps between all the films: the original in 1979, "Phantasm II" in 1988, "Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead" in 1994, and "Phantasm IV: Oblivion" in 1998. In all that time, has the audience for "Phantasm" really gotten bigger at all? I doubt it since no one really talks about these movies much at all. Combine that with the fact that the stars of the franchise, namely Angus "The Tall Man" Scrimm and Reggie Bannister, are older than fucking dirt now, doesn't help matters in terms of progressing the story...especially considering how the last film ended...so where the fuck is this all going now? Oh, and Coscarelli isn't directing this new film. Instead he is co-writing and producing, while new guy David Hartman gets director duties.

So basically, what the fuck are we going to get here? I'm trying to keep an open mind about "Phantasm V", but it's really hard for me to do so. I know I usually cry about needing to know when to let horror franchises end and all, but the "Phantasm" franchise is one of the few horror series' I actually wanted to see another installment of.

Please, please, please, please, please don't suck. Please "Phantasm V", please be something awesome that ends the franchise on a high note and be more than worth the wait. No one wants this more than I do.

Fuck the World.

It's hard to talk about any kind of otherwise inconsequential bullshit in the wake of tragedy. What happened in Paris just a couple days ago...yeah, sweet fucking Christ. The world is a cruel place, and mankind is its most terrible creature that inhabits it. There's no denying that. Hundreds of innocent people dead, and there will more than likely be plenty more to follow as anyone identifying themselves as Muslim will more than likely become a target of some sort or another. Thanks ISIS...or whoever takes credit for this or this gets pinned on.

So yeah, religious fanaticism strikes again. Innocent people were murdered, and more innocent people will end up being murdered in the wake of all this, because that's just how this shit works.

It's a wonderful thing right? People will hate each other and do horrible things to each other because of the color of their skin or because their god is whiter than the other's. It's senseless and stupid and is just another reminder that the world is wrong and unjust and any one of us can be snuffed out at any fucking moment.

With all that being said, I'll end this by saying that you should go out and go about your business. Don't buy into the mass media fear machine that will try to dictate what you should and shouldn't do, and may possibly try to get you to give up your personal freedom in an effort to make you "feel safer" (hi Patriot Act).

Fuck the world...for all its worth.

Recover soon Paris. Please.



Back to dick & fart jokes and horror shit next week. I've had enough of the human race for now.

Everything Sucks

Everything sucks.

That's just the way it is. The older you get, the more you feel that everything just plain sucks. Maybe that's just because as you get older, you just get more pessimistic (or as I call it, realistic). I know I do. It's hard to find enjoyment in the things that you've found so much enjoyment in over the years prior.

Take for example video games. I've played video games since I was five fucking years old when I first got my Nintendo. Ever since then, I've always had a video game console, and many of them as well. NES, Genesis, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, PS1, PS2, PS3, Saturn, Dreamcast, Gamecube, and a fucking Wii-U. I've gotten hours of enjoyment out of each and every one of them too, and I still do as well when the mood strikes (or when I have the time). Games today? A majority of them blow ass. Maybe it's because most mainstream games get yearly releases ("Madden", "Call of Duty", "Assassin's Creed", "Far Cry") and they're pretty much the same fucking game year after year and the masses as a whole are just too stupid to realize any different, or maybe it's because every game that comes out these days has "Day One DLC" (meaning the content was done by the time the full game itself was finished, but the publisher decided not to include it on the disc because they can get more revenue this way), season passes, microtransactions, and other bullshit that just keeps draining your wallet.

Is that what gaming has come to? I've bitched about it plenty of times before on this very blog, and have even said that this current console generation holds no interest to me, and that's not going to change at all any time soon. PC gaming is no different to me either, so the PC master race fuckholes can sit on my face.

Another thing I used to enjoy a lot? Superhero movies. I had said recently that I found "Avengers: Age of Ultron" really fucking boring, and that hasn't changed either. Now on the other hand, I really enjoyed Netflix's "Daredevil" series, so maybe this is just a symptom of the big grand scale epic flicks losing their impact on me, while a down, dirty, and gritty take on the superhero made me hard as a rock. This is something I can't really explain all that well I'm afraid, but my love to see these kind of flicks on the big screen has really died down and now in all honesty they just bore me to tears. I never thought such a day would come, but here we are.

Now lastly, there's one thing I have to get off my chest...what happened to how geeks are viewed? I remember, way back when, when we got looked down upon for being geeks. That stereotypical shit of jock meatheads beating up on the geeks and nerds? Yeah, that kind of shit actually happened quite a bit, and other people would kind of look down on you if you were super nerdy about anything from comics, to Star Wars, to video games, to whatever the fuck else didn't involve kicking around a dead pig on a football field. In that time, we went from geeks being celebrated, to geeks fighting each other over whose fandom is better (which never fucking stops being entertaining), to geeks lampooning other geeks for not sharing their fandom ("what the fuck do you mean you don't think every Marvel movie is the best thing ever? THEY ARE AND IF YOU DON'T THINK SO YOU'RE DUMB AND UN-AMERICAN!"). Again, this has become boring, disappointing...and it just makes you feel like everything fucking sucks.

So maybe the reason I think everything sucks isn't because I've gotten older and slowly more out of touch...maybe it's because everything truly does fucking suck? I don't know, I really don't...and I probably really never will either.

You know what doesn't suck? Sometimes I sit on my hand until it goes numb and then I pull my pud. That way I can pretend it's someone else doing it. I call it "the stranger". Thanks Dave Chappelle.