Hawanja's temple of Abject Stupidity

Hey everyone,

 

Some of you may have noticed I have removed certain people from my MSN messenger contact list. Please don't get mad - the reason for this is I use messenger at work, and we deal with a lot of personal information along with things like passwords, internal urls, and the like. So it's company policy, can't have people on there who I may accidently expose this sensitive information too.

 

Then things we do for money, eh? Anyway, if anyone wants to contact me email is the best way, as I check the hotmail account like five times a day anyway.

 

-MR

1) The main character is an annoying dumbass: The sole reason main character of Sam Witwiki seems to exist for is to somehow make an ass of himself or be made an ass of in front of hot chick Megan Fox. This includes:

- Making an ass out of himself in front of her at the park.

- Making an ass out of himself while driving her home.

- Making an ass out of himself while falling off a pink bicycle in front of her.

- His parents making an ass out of him while discussing his masturbational habits while she's in the room.

Now, in a movie about giant transforming robots, belief has to be firmly suspended from the beginning. However, expecting me to believe that a girl this hot would ever settle for a broke goofy baldy headed loser is just asking too much.

2) More plot holes than swiss cheese: Granted, when your movie is about giant transforming robots a few things can be forgiven, like the fact that they even bother talking in the first place. However this movie seems incapable of progressing for even five minutes without asking us to believe truly implausible, inane, and sometimes ridiculous "plot points," such as:

- Sam's father seems to think that two small earthquakes are capable of completely destroying his entire yard, including reducing his stone water fountain to rubble. This is despite the fact that there is no significant damage to the inside of the house. Yeah that makes sense.

- Sam and Mikela instantly trust that Bumblebee is there to protect them, even though Sam was running away from Bumblebee in panic less than five minutes beforehand.

- No one seems to really be astounded or even freaked out that giant transforming robots even exist. Our heroes are quickly able to asses the situation and act accordingly instead of reacting like a real person would, i.e. running away screaming their fucking heads off.

- Even though they are sentient robotic entities comprised of technology that eats ours for breakfast, the Decpticons are required to invade a heavily defended air force base in Qatar to forcibly break into the DoD's mainframe. Apparently they've never heard of free Wifi access points.

- The second attempt the Decepticons make involves sneaking into Air Force one to break into computers located in the Pentagon (um... okaaayyy...) As Frenzy the Decepticon is busy downloading defense secrets, the DOD comes to the conclusion that the only way to stop thievery of said secrets is to "cut the hard line," even though the intrusion is located on an airplane currently 5000 feet in the air. Must be those extra super secret DOD hard-line enabled wireless routers.

- Megatron is supposed to have been frozen in ice for the last 80 years, however he speaks fluent English the moment he's thawed out.

- The first half of the movie involves the Autobots and Decepticons looking for Sam to get his grandfather's glasses, which somehow have Megatron's co-ordinates imprinted on them (how they would know this is not explained, but this is fantasy here, so whatever.) So, Optimus gets the glasses, finds the co-ordinates in the Arctic, and moves out. However it turns out Megatron is in fact being held under Hoover dam by "Section 7," (which is this Men-in-Black type organization that is under the direct command of the President, even though in real life not even the President has high enough clearance for the really secret stuff,) and thus the Decepticons attack. Suddenly the Autobots are there to fight them, even though five minutes before they were on their way to Alaska. No explanation is given as to how they found out Megatron's true location.

- All of the Autobots speak English to each other while conversing privately instead of their native robot language. The Decepitcons talk in robot hieroglyphic subtitles (which is actually pretty cool,) but feel the need to use English also as soon as Megatron shows up.

- The team that cracks an alien code is made up of stoners and hippies with one really hot blonde chick, becasue we all know signal experts double as runway models.

- The hot blonde scientist, against all logic, decides to illegally copy the information to enlist the "world's greatest Hacker," who is a big huge fat black guy that plays Dance Dance Revolution. Big fat black guy is somehow able to not only decipher said alien signal in like 30 seconds, but also somehow instantly becomes an expert in alien languages. She does all this to great personal risk to her freedom when it is quite possible that said DDR expert could just have been enlisted illegitimately if she just would have asked.

- Immediately after deciphering this advanced signal that the entire NSA and Pentagon are unable to scratch with their advanced supercomputers in mere seconds from his home pc, the FBI suddenly smashes through the house in Gestapo fashion, as if they were able to track the hot scientist's whereabouts simply by the fact that she uses a computer.

- Fat black guy is such teh h4X0r that he is able to somehow take old, dusty WWII era radio equipment with cobwebs all up on it and interface it with a modern PC monitor, all with just a screwdriver in under five minutes.

- Entire city blocks are reduced to rubble in the climatic battle in front of hundreds of witnesses, yet the United States military is somehow able to effectively cover everything up.

- Speaking of said cover up, after the end battle instead of confiscating and studying the alien robot bodies that represent technology thousands of years in advance of our own, the military instead decides to dispose of them all into the the world's deepest ocean trench. Like that would ever happen.

3) The robots are stupid: Don't get me wrong, this movie has quite possibly the best special effects of all time. However all the SFX doesn't change the fact that the Autobots are ridiculous stereotypes. It's when they start talking that the whole illusion is ruined and you remember this movie was written with merchandising in mind. Any line delivered by an Autobot who isn't Optimus Prime is cringeworthy - this includes Ratchet remarking that Sam's pheromone level is such that he wants to "mate with the female" (thereby making an ass out of him in front of the girl yet again, see item #1,) Jazz saying "bitch" and acting all gangsta (ugh!), and Bumblebee "lubricating" the Section 7 agent (shoot me now please.)

The Decepticons on the other hand get zero screen time even though each one is ten times more bad-ass than any of the Autobots combined. Megatron himself gets less than five minutes of screen time - pretty pathetic for the movie's arch villian. Starscream, who is quite possibly the third most recognizable character from the cartoon, gets one measly line, and they didn't even try to make his voice sound the same as the cartoon. Lame.

The one robot that gets the most time in the spotlight is Frenzy, who is not only somehow also able to regrow his entire body after being decapitated, but is also able to casually stroll off of Airforce one in front of hundreds of patrolling soldiers and secret service agents - and no one notices.

4) Reason #6: It didn't have Shockwave in it: How you gonna make a Transformers movie without Shockwave, the baddest Transformer ever? If I was making this movie the whole thing would be Shockwave stomping robot guts out for three hours.

5) The whole movie is one giant propaganda piece for the Department of Defense: I realize when part of your budget is supplied by the United States Military that means they get to approve the way they are depicted in your movie script (see Top Gun and Black Hawk Down.) However here it goes to ridiculous lengths. The Secretary of Defense character - obviously patterned after Donald Rumsfeld, down to the glasses - is depicted as like, actually taking civilian lives and international repercussions into his decision making (HA!) I mean, talking giant robots I can accept, but let's be realistic here.

In another scene with the aforementioned Sector 7 where just as the Decepticons begin their attack on the secret base, the ordinary soldiers from Qatar - for some reason that defies all logic - decide to go mutiny because Sam the horny kid wants to "see his car," even though none of the military characters would have any reason at all to believe at this point that this particular captive giant robot would want to help them at all. It's turns out the whole scene is set up to give the Secretary of Defense the line "You better listen to them, they don't like to lose." Suck, suck, suck that Army dick, Micheal Bay.

Micheal Bay chose to portray the President as a useless imbecile, completely out of the loop, munching on Ding-Dongs while other people make decisions for him. So the movie is not completely unrealistic.

6) The rest of the movie is a commercial for something else: Apparently there was plenty of room left in Micheal Bay's mouth after the DOD got finished. Obviously the Autobots are mere walking commercials for General Motors (Chevrolet, Pontiac, GMC, Hummer, etc.) But they're not the only ones, the whole rest of the movie is jammed full of product placements including (in no particular order:)

- Burger King
- Nokia
- Ebay
- Paypal
- Pepsico
- Xbox 360
- Hostess
- Yahoo

This is just the stuff I can remember off the top of my head, which isn't hard considering these placements aren't the subtle, show an ad in the background type from other movies. These ads are in your face - Ebay is mentioned several times by main characters and even has a phony listing take up the whole screen for several seconds. The various cars aren't just shown off, they get more screen time than the robots do in robot form. During the part where the Autobots are looking for vehicles to transform into the movie essentially turns into a smorgasboard of GM commercials, even going as far to show a GMC dealer with prominent showroom.

Why are product placements such a big deal? When done correctly (i.e., not shoved in the audience's face,) I agree that they can sometimes make a movie seem more "real." However when you spend half the damn movie showing various cars and how cool they are and gee these same cars are available for purchase at the dealer across the street, then it quickly becomes apparent you're not actually watching a movie. Product placements are advertisements you actually pay to watch - Watch while you suck, suck, suck on Micheal Bay's commercialized dick, then suck it some more when you buy the DVD, t-shirt, candy bars, action figures, and featured automobile as Bay shoots his load all the way to the bank.

Besides all this the movie ain't half bad.

Do you use credit cards? Are you a recent college graduate? Are you between the ages of 18 to 35? If so, chances are you've got a healthy amount of debt. Don't feel bad; The national average is around $8,000 per person, although truth is most people probably have a lot more, in fact I don't think I know one person with less than ten grand to pay off, not friends, family, no one. Except myself that is; It took me five years of living like a pauper but I finally paid it all off and now I get to live free. Read on if you want to live free too.

First step is to get rid of your Credit Cards, ALL OF THEM: Cancel them, cut them in half, never use them again. Credit cards are the number one reason why so many people are in such ridiculous debt. Thing is they're designed to get you to max them out so you end up spending way more than you could ever actually pay off. They present them in such a way that people think they're getting free money, when in fact what is going on is when you use them you're spending your money that you have not earned yet in the present. Thus, the more you use them, the greater your debt becomes, the less of your money you get to spend in the future. They do this on purpose. They lure people in with low interest rates under some false illusion that it'll always be that way, then after a certain amount of time the rate shoots up to to 29% or whatever ridiculous level it's at now. Add to this all the other bullshit charges they throw on there when you're not looking, late fees, annual fees, your-momma-says-you-ugly-fees, etc. American Express actually tried to charge me $20 "Processing Fee" during a month when I didn't spend anything on the card, almost like a "Privilege of owning the card" fee. Then you notice that the minimum monthly payment is actually less than the interest rate - so in fact you end up owing them for the rest of your life, and if you follow their rules you'll never ever pay it off.

As far as I'm concerned it's all part of a highly sophisticated confidence scam. They prey on college kids and young adults who don't have much experience with this sort of thing, get them to spend away their future, then own them their entire lives so for years and years they end up paying thousands of dollars in interest on shit they don't even remember anymore. I got my first Credit card when I was 19 while in college, because the guy that was running the table was giving away free Slinkys to anyone who signs up. I didn't even want the card, I wanted the free toy (because Slinkys are cool.) Nowadays they even give them to children as young as 16 who don't even have jobs, as long as they have a bank account. Nice way of making financial slaves out of America's young people.

Well fuck that! Don't use them! I know it's hard to do, it's almost like we as a population have been conditioned into thinking paying 29% a year on a bag of potato chips is an acceptable thing. It's one thing to buy a new computer or some other expensive, big ticket item that you otherwise could not afford and then pay it off religiously, but most people don't use credit cards that way. Some people have gotten into such a hole that they depend on their credit cards to buy essentials: Gasoline, groceries, medicine, etc, and it may not be so easy for them to stop.

Well, how bad do you want to get rid of your debt? Do you want half your paycheck to go to paying stupid credit card bills for the rest of your damn life, or do you want to take control and do what you want with your money? If you're carrying a large amount of debt the only way you'll ever pay it off is to go without for the time being. Sorry, but that's how it is. There's no easy way to get out of it, it's going to take a lot of work, a lot of sacrifice, and a long, long time, but in the end it will be worth it.

First off you're never going to get rid of that debt if it keeps growing by 29% every month. So cancel all of the cards, ALL of them, so that way you stop incurring interest. Some companies however don't allow this and will keep charging you interest anyway (some of them like Sumitomo, American Express, or God Forbid, Cross Country Bank are real assholes about it) in that case then transfer the balance to a different card with a lower interest rate. You can also call the companies and politely ask for a lower interest rate, especially if it's a card you're had for a long time and don't have any late payments on. Pull the "Dissatisfied Customer" routine, and start quoting rates from other companies, they'll cave in (It's also a good idea to call and dispute any weird fee you see on there, half the time you can get them to take those off also.) The goal is to keep your interest rate to a low level so you're able to pay off the card faster than the interest incurs. Once this is accomplished sit down and figure out budget, a real budget that allows for emergencies and such, and find out exactly how much you can pay every month.

Now this is the hard part: Actually pay them off. Stick to it, choose the card with the smallest balance and pay it off completely, then work your way up the line until you've only got the card with the largest balance left. Thing is as you pay off each card then that much more of your monthly income is freed up, whereupon you can either save this extra cash or throw it in with your payments to get it down that much quicker. Also as the cards get paid off you may find that suddenly your credit score will increase by leaps and bounds, and you start getting credit card offers in the mail nearly daily. These companies are like wolves, they can smell your extra disposable income. Do not give it to them. Resist the temptation and throw those offers away.

Now let's fast forward a few years and assume you've managed to get it down to the one or two cards with the largest balance. Go to your bank and take out a personal loan, then pay off the largest cards in one fell swoop. If you've been sticking to your plan your credit should be good enough now to do this. This way you'll be paying a livable 5% to the bank instead of 29% to the stupid thieving credit card company. And you'll notice that a bank loan actually goes down every month when you pay it and is actually something that you can pay off within the foreseeable future.

That is essentially what I did to get out of debt. In my own case I was nearly $10,000 in the hole, I paid it down to the last card with a $3,000 balance, took out a loan for that, and had the loan paid off within two years. Yes it took five years of my life being totally broke and not having any fun with my money, but today I actually get to spend my paycheck in the way I see fit. Yeah, I'm not rich, in fact I'm at the lower end of a middle class income, but I'm not living like a pauper. Since I'm not shelling out half my paycheck to these thieves suddenly I've found myself with all kinds of purchasing power that I just didn't have before. I've bought a new car, kept a decent computer going with new stuff now and then, bought a nice 40 inch plasma flat screen TV, and I'm able to keep a month's pay with expenses in the bank. Last year I applied for an apartment and got accepted ahead of four other people because since I paid off all the cards my credit is fantastic. All of this without credit cards.

You can do it too, all it takes is some determination. Take control of your life, throw out the credit cards. Do you want them to own you forever?

I like Toast

It is the most

of it I boast

It's spooky like a ghost

better than compost

hasn't got any glucose

You cannot roast

a good piece of toast.

I like bannanas better.