It’s been a long while, but I’ve got me a what-If…

One of my favorite movies is Cast Away.  early Aughts tale of an executive who survives a jetliner crash and has to live on a desert island for four years.  Some people hate the movie because of it’s FedEx advertisement nature — FedEx is everywhere in this film and it gets to the point where the product placement is unbearable.  Even though it’s not true product-placement as-so-much brand name use on props.  It gives a little more realizsm than if Chuck Noland had been an employee of the fictional Pacific Courier shipping company.

At any rate, I enjoy the film.  the emotional stuff and the open “Where do I go from here?” end to the film.

I got bored the other day and started tooling around IMDB.com.  I’ve looked at their “Trivia” section for Cast Away in years previous and just wanted to see things again.  Some of the facts seemed to have been changed, some of them seemed to be deleted (I do recall hearing that there was a different ending, originally, to the film that did not test well and as replaced.  Hearsay and speculation on my part because I cannot find reference to this on the web).

One piece of cynical trivia that was on that page, however, caught my eye, and spoilers are ahead for those who have not seen the movie. (more…)

Did you ever browse around in a comic book store as a kid adn find the Marvel “What If…?” comic books? Books that were about reknown comicbook characters but “What if…?” something abotu them was different… Pat of their backstory, part of their powers, or results of one thing or another that has happened in their comic books…

I won’t go into the geekdom of the what if concept and the different stories that were based on this. Lets just say it as a venerable butterfly effect — the flapping of wings on a different continent were part of the reason why a typhoon formed in the Pacific Ocean.

One small happening causes a huge domino effect and results in something seemingly indirect and different to happen. That kind of thing.

Today I came across (by way of Dave Lowe) a joke observation from the Back To The Future saga and the original movie. It was composed as a (profane) letter from Doc Brown to Marty McFly regarding one of Marty’s choices on the eve of November 12th, 1955. It’s funny as hell but it leaves you wondering just how different the story would have turned out if Marty McFly had done things differently.

So I got me a “What if…?” like this regarding a movie that I love. It’s (the film’s) basis is pretty simple and was the framework for plenty of different action movies from the late 1980′s through the 1990′s.

The movie in this case is Die Hard.

What if…? What if…?

What if Lt. John McClane of the New York Police Department… had shoes on while dealing with the terrorists at Nakatomi Plaza?

Of course there is no definite answer to this with the HOW or WHY. I thought that is part of the magic of the “What If…?” Does John make sure to slip his shoes on instead of doing the stupid fists-with-your-toes thing? Does he grab his shoes when he hears gunshots and ducks out of the room? Shit, does John slip back onto the 30th floor, grab his shoes and socks and slip back out?

How does this change things? Does he employ different tactics, or is the only notable difference in the scene where John is pinned down on the computer floor and the henchman Karl shoots the glass around the office to smithereens?

What if…?

It’s so simple, it’s so stupid but it opens up a huge can of worms. Nothing might change and everything might change in just one minor action. Maybe McClane gets blown away because he has more confidence and takes on the terrorists head on? That’s the most cynical thought I have regarding this every time I think about it — we don’t get John-McClane from the first three Die Hard films, we get the Ah-nuld wanna Be from Die Hard 4 and see him suffer (and die) in the fashion that we saw John proved mortal in the first Die Hard film.

Maybe events fall a certain way so that Ellis doesn’t die — all because John McClane was wearing his stupid shoes instead of making fists with his toes! Maybe Al Powell doesn’t buy Twinkies at the gas station but opts for Ho-Hos instead? Holly doesn’t opt to restrain Joseph Takagi during Hans Gruber’s monologue — resulting in… Takagi giving up the password for the vault and living for another hour or more?

Humor me. What if John McClane tried to save the Nakatomi Hostages while he had shoes on? And would it have been worthy of a feature film?

Happy trails, Hans.

I came across a site that posses the question, “What if the world could cast their vote for US President”…

Beta Vote

The only countries in the world that are clearly in George W. Bush’s favor are Afghanistan (52 percent to 48), the Faroe Islands (where?) with a 40 point lead on Kerry, and Tonga (4 votes to two :tongue)…

defective yeti: Taking Stuplimity To The Whole First Level

Spoiler Candidates
Says Wesley Clark’s campaign: “Lieberman is like Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense: He’s dead and doesn’t know it yet.”
Jeeze — just blurt out the ending, why don’t you?! What if everyone followed your example?
Clark: “The Republicans’ feckless approach to foreign policy has so radically changed the world that, like the Planet of the Apes, it’s no longer even recognizable as Earth.”
Dean: “When it came to authorizing the war in Iraq, the other candidates were like the characters in Murder In The Orient Express: they all did it.”
Gephardt: “Kucinich’s worldview is so idealist that he reminds me of Charles Foster Kane, pining for the halcyon days when the most important thing in the world was a sled named Rosebud.”
Kerry: “George Bush is like Luke Skywalker: powerful because his father is a influential figure in a evil organization.”
Mosley-Braun: “If you don’t vote for me you will wind up with a candidate who, like the main character in The Crying Game, is a man.”

Thank you, thank you… Please hold the applause… Please… I’m not worthy, I’m not worthy I’m….

Oh, the hell with it… Who’s clapping anyway? Little Miss Avoidance? Miss I-hooked-up-and-don’t-have-the-nerve-to-say-anything-to-
you-because-my-ties-to-you-are-nil-while-I-am-with-another? Oh yeah, maybe some of my friends who knew how fucked my situation was going into November 26th and know just what the outcome has been might be the ones clapping.

I beat the fucking odds.

I exorcised the fucking demon.

I had my miracle and God slapped me on the back and told me with a good natured grin, “You fell for it, you shit. Now get back in the game.”

I’m home.I can walk, I can talk, and I can type into this fucking blog my rants and raves and all my bullshit once again. I’m ANGRY, I’m HUNGRY, I’m in need of a some venting here and there but this is a GOOD angry, this is a DAMNED good angry. This is an angry I don’t know who the hell would be able to identify with and I don’t know who would even try.

You see, over the summer things got grim. There was this blackness hanging over my life. Everyone around me knew about it, I dreaded it, I loathed it, I was desperate for escape from it. That blackness was all the grim possibilities of my future if things didn’t get corrected.

I went under the knife in August, still in grim shape – still loathing, still scared, still sad, and what happened was I didn’t get shit fixed. Instead of going out and getting my problems washed away – I had more doubts exposed, more bad thoughts brought to the forefront, the dread conquered me and it grew every day from early September till those last weeks of November.

My friends supported me. Those who strung me along wanted to be done with me for there own personal good, others just met me and left me because I had this doubt and this negativity around me. Indeed there was too much negativity around me. There may STILL be negativity around me in the next few weeks as I face adversity and have to come back physically (and emotionall) from what I just went through.

For the record? Fuck negativity.

For the record? Fuck adversity.

Life’s a game and I am back on the playing board. I thought I was just going to be a piece on the side that didn’t get used because life has a way of taking you out of the game. Fuck that. Fuck the idea that I should worry, or I should hurt, or I should doubt I will find something I ma deserving of — be it in love, life, business or whatever. Fuck it all — I WANT IT ALL. I’m going to get it all, and God is going to be on my side as long as I don’t hurt, maim or kill to accomplish that.

I want the challenge. The blackness is gone. The looming sense of dread is gone. I want the challenge of life again. My first is getting my ass back in shape, the next is … well, the next piece I haven’t thought of yet because there are many pieces. It’s also dependent on the first piece of it all.

I posted a “Missing” picture” a few months ago on this very blog… Posting some of my former pictures and asking “Have you seen this boy?” in a mock tribute to Robert Patrick in Terminator 2…. I’ll tell you right now – the cocky and optimistic son of a bitch who founded this site, who got the Beatles balls in an uproar, who’s pissed off the locals with his liberal talk, who’s upset the government with his public votes of incompetence, who’s gone through more pain and hardship than most will experience in their lives — that fucker is me and that fucker is back in charge of the life of John Fontana.

Maybe it’s the drugs talking? Maybe I wake up tomorrow from my bed and try to figure out what is my purpose in life again?

Yeah? Well, what if I wake up tomorrow and I just say “Lets go” and do what I need to do – it’d be the same thing but with a better attitude. I need to accomplish things on my own — Lets go, I gotta get it done. I don’t need to procrastinate, I don’t need to avoid, I don’t need to pussy foot and hide from the problem.

I’m back, ladies and gentlemen….. Time will tell the tale just WTF is in store but I am back. Let it roll, let the sun shine in and all that jazz…

I don’t get it. I honestly don’t fucking get this.

How come an opinionated asshole like myself has written dozens of rants on topics from local roads to Dubya and had them published as letters to the editor in the newspaper, has had thousands of rants (be they sports related and or political related or music related or what) posted on message boards across the Internet, and yet I don’t feel comfortable at all writing out this non fiction assignment?!? UGH!

I mean, you do a search on Google for me + the St. Petersburg Times and the following is just some of what will show up (you’ll have to scroll down for each of these letters most of the time:

Abolish the DH

"Mass
Transit Could work if Counties combined efforts"

"Self Serving Voters"

"What if views had been conservative?"

"We Didn’t Deserve the Olympics"

Scientology and Anti-semitism displayed in St. Pete Times letters section

Elian Gonzales

That’s just a brief glimpse of stuff I’ve ranted about. Plus those who know my journal know full well I have ranted on and on about other things and other concerns of mine in here… I already made mention of that in a recent entry into this journal.

It drives me friggin’ INSANE knowing I can write all these short quips about things that concern me but now that I have to write 1000 words on them I’m shit out of nerve to do it. Someone pinch me, someone cuddle with me and someone re-assure before smacking me and telling me to snap out of it and get with it, that this is no big thing and I’m making a mountain out of a molehill.