Author Archives: bookshelfbattle

Aug 07 2017
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You Can't Argue with Science

Top Ten Ways You Can Become a Mad Scientist Just Like Dr. Hugo Von Science

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Hello 3.5 readers.  BQB here

Have you ever wondered how you can become a mad scientist, just like my former mentor/current frenemy, the illustrious Dr. Hugo Von Scientist?

Of course you have.  Therefore, from BQB HQ in Fabulous East Randomtown, it’s the Top Ten Ways You Can Become a Mad Scientist, Just Like Doctor Hugo Von Science:

#10 – Laugh Maniacally Over Everything…

…especially when the world gives you the slightest advantage.  Drive-thru gave you an extra large fry instead of the small you ordered at no additional cost?

That’s not just a win.  That’s a reason to laugh maniacally.  “Yes, with the energy these extra fried potatoes, I shall conquer the world!  Muah ha ha ha!”

#9 – Always Monologue

It’s not just enough to laugh maniacally.  You must also spell out the advantage you received that made you laugh in a maniacal manner.  See above where you explain why getting extra fries helps you.

#8 – Always Have a Plan for World Domination

Mad scientists often begin as regular scientists who feel their genius is unappreciated.  After years of study, they tend to receive years of neglect with no one giving them so much as a pat on the back for a job well done when it comes to their science-ing.  Thus, they become jaded and turn their science skills toward evil instead of good.

In fact, hug a scientist today.  You never know.  You might just stave of a plot for global domination by doing so.

#7 – Have a Lair

Could be your basement, an abandoned warehouse, any rusty old claptrap will do.

#6 – Have Many Bubbling Potions

It’s not really a good idea to leave poisonous chemicals lying around, but you should at least give the appearance to the world that you don’t give an F.  Maybe just fill up some beakers full of Mountain Dew and Diet Shasta Orange.

You know what?  Skip this part.  Don’t do it.  Don’t mess with chemicals or even pretend to.  My lawyer says I can’t afford that kind of hassle.

#5 – Be German

The best mad scientists are always German.  Stereotype?  Maybe.  Leftover fear of Nazi experiments gone awry?  Surely.  All I know is that if you are German or can fake a good German accent, you will move up to the very tip top of the mad scientist game.

Deny all you want but you’ve never heard of a famous mad scientist who sounded like he was from North Dakota, have you?  “Ohh yah, I’m gonna take over the world, don’t you know?”

Nope.  Never happens.

#4 – Have Crazy Hair

Dr. Hugo does not have crazy hair but you should.  The crazier the better.  Your hair should always look like it was destroyed by your latest experiment.

#3 – Have a Pet Sidekick

Really, a mad scientist is not complete without a chimpanzee nearby waiting to hand him all the instruments of destruction he needs.

#2 –  Never Be Seen Without Your Lab Coat On

Can you think of a good mad scientist who didn’t wear a white lab coat?

#1 – Do Crazy Science Shit

This goes without saying.  Obviously, for legal reasons, I can’t advise you to use science for the purposes of global domination but…you know, it’s pretty much what mad scientists do so…you know what?  Forget this.  Don’t break the law.  Don’t be a mad scientist.  Be a nice, sane scientist.  Use science to help people.  Don’t be like Dr. Hugo Von Science.  He sucks.

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Aug 06 2017
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Movies, Uncategorized

Movie Review – The Dark Tower (2017)

Guns and magic!  Magic and guns!

BQB here with a review of the long awaited film version of Steven King’s “The Dark Tower.”

King’s Dark Tower is probably one of his best read works, a fan favorite for a long time.  Sadly, I’ve never read it but I have heard nothing but good things over the years.

At the outset, this film has a lot going on.  Magic.  Sorcery.  Old West Gunslinging.  Interdimensional travel.  A kid that can move between worlds.  Stuff happening in New York.  Stuff happening in a fantasy world.  At times, you want to shout, “Hey! Just pick a storyline and stick with it already!”

But there’s the rub.  A great write like King can weave all of these elements together flawlessly, while sometimes complicated plots don’t always pan out well on screen.  Critics have been harsh on this film.  Personally, I think that sucks.  I mean, I’ll be up front and say I didn’t quite understand everything that was going on.  The overall concept was hard to follow.

However, there’s a lot of style.  Matthew McConaughey (alright, alright, alright) steals the show as “The Man in Black,” the charismatic villain you love to hate (or hate to love.)  He makes being bad look so easy, and also fun, so much fun that as a viewer he might persuade you into thinking that it might be a trip to put on a black suit yourself and try out being evil for awhile.

Meanwhile, Idris Elba excels as the focused, relentless, unwavering hero Roland, aka “The Gunslinger,” the only one who can stop The Man’s dastardly deeds.

Oh and there’s a kid whose name I don’t feel like looking up right now.  I assume he’ll either become famous and I’ll learn his name later or he’ll end up on Skid Row like other child actors in which case, who cares?  Or maybe he’ll just do something in between.  More power to him.

At any rate, the kid has magic powers and dreams about the other world where the Gunslinger fights the Man.  Blah, blah, blah.  Somehow the kid teams up with the Gunslinger and that’s cool.  As far as I can recall, this is the first “kid steps out of his childhood to be a hero in a fantasy world” story since the 1980s, a decade that was lousy with such tales, “The Neverending Story” being the primary one that comes to mind.

Come for the Man’s smooth talk.  Stay for the Gunslinger’s skills with the steel.  The gunslinging scenes make the movie and my only complaint is you do have to wait awhile before Roland lets loose with the steel.

I can understand how someone can be confused with all that is going on.  I know I was.  However, this film is probably the best big screen adaptation that could be made of King’s book.  Some ideas are so complicated that they work better when a skilled writer lays it all out for you, whereas films have limited time to get you all the information you need to know.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy.

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Aug 06 2017
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Movies

Movie Review – Kidnap (2017)

Always keep an eye on your kids, 3.5 readers.  You never know when some weirdo might snatch them.

BQB here with a review of the thriller “Kidnap.”

Honestly, I didn’t want to see this movie.  I thought it looked stupid, like it was essentially an attempt to resurrect Halle Berry’s flatlined career.  Plus, the title.  Why not “Kidnapped?”  Kidnap in the present tense seems off to me.

The plot is weak, there isn’t much dialog but rather, Halle talks to herself a lot.  Key plot points are spoon fed to you.  There’s more tell than show.  At times, Halle over-acts in a dramatic fashion.

But somehow, the film grew on me.  Like that fungus on your bathmat, you’re not sure how it got stuck there, but it would be too much effort to throw it out and buy a new mat now.

Halle plays a divorced, single Mom who takes her kid to the park, looks away from her kid for a second and wham, her little boy Frankie has been kidnap…er kidnapped.  (Seriously, Hollywood, someone already owns the rights to “Kidnapped” is that it?)

Honestly.  Who takes their eye off a kid in this day and age?  #WorstMotherEver…then again, maybe not.  When Halle realizes her son has been kidnap…er napped…she morphs into a mama grizzly bear on PCP, a veritable T-1000 with tits, pursuing the kidnap…er kidnapper as the film becomes one great big long chase scene.

The chase makes up for it all.  It is intense and a mother’s love wins out over all.  Halle pushes her motherly mini van to the limit, pursuing the kidnappers relentlessly.  Car crashes and all types of danger do not slow her down.  At one point, her car breaks down so she just hops out and runs after the bad guys, her jumbo knockers jiggling to and fro under her shirt.

In short, she really is the T-1000 with tits.  These kidnap…er nappers messed with the wrong mother and she’s going to make them pay.

The plot holes are palpable.  Halle tears up the freeway, leaving a whirlwind of destruction in her path yet somehow the cops never catch up to her.  Also, I mean seriously, don’t take your eye off your kid.  Perverts and weirdos are everywhere, people.  Assume they are after your kids at all times.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy.  There is much about this film that sucks but the chase scenes make up for it and Halle’s hot pursuit is worthwhile.  Could this be the beginning of a Halle renaissance?

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Aug 05 2017
9 Comments
Tomfoolery, Uncategorized

Millenial Strippers are the Worst

Hey 3.5 readers.

BQB here.

Just wanted to give you 3.5 readers a handy tip – if you’re thinking about going to a strip club, don’t bother.

Now honestly, that’s been good advice for a long time, no matter the time period.  You get sad, a strange woman briefly slaps you in the face with her knockers, you feel better for five minutes but then ultimately, you’d of been better of if you’d of saved your money.  That money in a bank account with compounding interest would have done more for you than using it to pay for a brief breast slap to the face, fun as that may be.

But according to my colleague, the Alleged Man i.e. the man that people think pretends to be me and all the other characters on this illustrious site, strip clubs are pretty much a big let down these days because millennial strippers are the worst.

AM used to visit strip clubs when he was younger and he advises that the Generation X strippers were really a bunch of go-getters.  You’d walk into the joint and within 5 minutes they’d be sitting on your lap, offering you lap dances, doing yeoman’s work to use their giant fake breasts to convince you to part with your hard earned cash.

Hell, many of them were even pests about it.  AM recalls many an occasion when he just wanted to hang out and not spend much money and ogle the stripper on the pole while nursing a drink all night.  Gen X strippers would pester him for lap dances.  AM would say no, sorry, he’s all out of money.  But the savvy, hard working Gen X strippers would be all like, “Oh, you know we have an ATM…oh, you know, we take credit cards, oh you know, there’s a place nearby that will cash a check, oh you know you could do this, or that…”

I mean really, the Gen X strippers went the extra mile.  Sometimes the AM felt like any second they were going to put on a green eye shade and pull out a calculator and like a used car salesman trying to close a deal, say, “What’s it going to take to put my butt on your lap today?”

AM stopped that though.  Too expensive.  Bad habit really.  He grew up and learned money in the bank is worth more than a brief dalliance with a skank.  (That rhymed.)

But he felt sad lately and visited one and he is sad to say that millennial strippers are the worst.

First, they all choose their stripper names based on pop culture.  “Chastity” and “Misty” and “Amber” are all gone.  Now it’s all, “Coming up on the main stage, Khaleesi!”  Seriously.  Khaleesi.  Oh and Elsa.  A lot of Frozen and Game of Thrones fans among the millennial stripper community apparently.

Second, the work ethic is gone.  While those Generation X strippers would descend upon AM and get him on his way in no time, leaving him briefly enticed followed by sad and broke, the millennial strippers just mill about on their cell phones.  They text, they do social media, they take selfies, they talk to each other, play phone games, everything but get out there and earn some green from all the losers who have come in willing to part with their cash to the first pretty face they see.

I mean, really, AM had half a mind to raise his hand and say, “Excuse me, what do I have to do to spend an absurd amount of money to get slapped in the face with a pair of bosoms around here?”

Yes, AM misses the days of the early 2000s when Generation X strippers really worked hard for those dirty, wrinkly, sweaty dollar bills.  Sadly, like every other group within the millennial generation, millennial strippers just think the dirty, wrinkly sweaty dollar bills are going to magically pop into their G-strings without doing all the leg work…or grind work or what have you.

Oh, FYI my lawyer says to tell you this is just a story, a musing, none of this happened.  AM is a teetotalling bible studier and he spends most of his free time studying the bible and washing leper feet.  The only way he’d ever go to a strip club would be to tell the strippers to repent, pray for their souls and beg for the Lord’s forgiveness and to find a more dignified means of supporting themselves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Aug 04 2017
11 Comments
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Does anyone want to buy this blog?

I’ll sell it to you for 3.5 dollars 

Aug 03 2017
4 Comments
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I got nothing

Still don’t.

Aug 02 2017
8 Comments
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What’s up 3.5 readers?

How are all 3.5 you?

Aug 01 2017
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Movie Review – The Founder (2016)

Burgers and treachery!

BQB here with a review of “The Founder.”

I hate Ray Kroc.  That dude’s fast food chain has put absurd amounts of fat on my ass.  Now I hate him even more as I learn he stole the whole shebang out from under the McDonald brothers.

Whoops.  Spoiler.  Oh well.  Sorry.  Learn your fast food history, people.

Michael Keaton, himself experiencing a renaissance in his acting career as of late, is a down on his luck, struggling milkshake machine salesman – a failure laughed at by everyone.

He can’t sell a single machine until he gets a strange order.  A little hamburger stand in California named McDonald’s wants six of them.  Curious about what kind of restaurant could use that many machines, Kroc seeks it out and is amazed.

The McDonald Brothers (Nick Offerman and John Carroll Lynch as Dick and Mack) have brought the Henry Ford assembly line concept to hamburger production.  Dick especially has mapped it all out, distilled it all down to a science, getting everything just so, leaving the food quickly produced, tasting good, and getting customers on their way in no time.

It was a revolutionary concept.  Drive-ins had been struggling with customers sitting in their cars, waiting for food and eating it there.  This idea let customers take their food and leave.  In other words, here’s your food now go.  We’re done.  No more waiting on you.  The concept had never been tried before.

Kroc falls in love with the restaurant and offers to oversee franchising.  The McDonalds have concerns, namely, that franchises will water down the quality of their brand.  No one will put as much love and care into their business as they will.

Blah, blah, blah…Kroc seals the deal and he’s off to the races.  It’s an epic tale of how a 52-year old man who was once a joke becomes a multi-billionaire, going from washed up hack to big time baller.  At times the transition is hard to watch.  Ray loses his down home folksy charisma and becomes a ruthless businessman.  I won’t spoil what happens to the McDonalds but suffice it to say, it isn’t pretty.

Offerman and Lynch play sympathetic local businessmen who lived the American dream only to have it yanked out from under them.  Offerman is exceptionally great in his monotone “Parks and Recreation” glory, explaining all the science he put into pushing his burgers out in rapid time without losing quality.  Understandably, he goes ballistic as soon as Ray starts sacrificing quality.

Meanwhile, Lynch suffers health problems that are made worse by Ray’s double-cross.

Overall, the film is partly a comeback success story as we initially root for Ray as he goes from zero to hero, from the guy everyone laughed at to a big time mogul.  Then the film takes a turn where we want to slap Ray around, especially as he kicks loyal wife Ethel (Laura Dern) to the curb for a younger model and of course, as he gives the McDonald Bros a vigorous screwing over.

The closest comparison I can draw is it is like Kroc is Walter White but with hamburgers instead of meth.  At 52, his age has left him with a “don’t give a fuck” attitude.  This is his shot at success.  He’s done being Mr. Nice Guy.  He’s ready for the big time and no longer cares about stepping over people to get what he wants.

A particularly heartwarming sequence comes when Kroc initially pitches the franchise idea to men who are already rich.  These well to do types run lousy restaurants.  They’ve earned their money so they don’t care.  Kroc learns from this and begins seeking investors not on wealthy golf courses but instead, in fraternity lodges, churches, bingo games and the like, recruiting owner/operators who pay attention to every last detail because it is their savings and nancial future on the line.

Ultimately, it’s a story of the American Dream, combined with a warning of being careful who you trust and a study of how far should one be willing to go to achieve success.

STATUS:  Shelf-worthy.  Deserved more Oscar praise.  Also, the McDonald brothers were right.  Kroc ruined the quality of their food but I guess I’m the one who should be ashamed of myself because I stuff that shit in my suckhole anyway.  Thanks for giving me a fat ass, Ray Kroc.

Aug 01 2017
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Movies

Movie Review – Free Fire (2016)

Guns, guns, guns!

BQB here with a review of the two hour long gun fight movie, “Free Fire.”

I’m going to say this straight out of the gate.  This movie features a concept that is great in theory but fails in execution.  In this day and age of non-stop sequels and reboots, it was nice to see an original idea on screen, i.e., what would a feature length gun fight battle sequence look like?

The problem is none of the characters are particularly likable.  For me, I wasn’t really left caring enough about any of them to worry whether or not any of them buy the farm.  Brie Larsen’s character was the only one I rooted for but even then it was only because I wanted to bone her.

In the 1970s, an excessively large ensemble cast meets in a Boston warehouse to perform a gun deal.  I’m not an underworld gun salesman but the amount of people involved in this gun buy seems to be at least ten people too many.  It feels like the Hollywood suits just had a lot of actors they liked so they squashed them together and gave them superfluous, unlikely rolls in this transaction.

For example, Brie and Armie Hammer are brokers of some kind who are just there to make introductions. Sharlto Copley plays the South African gun runner while Cillian Murphy plays the IRA buyer.

Meanwhile, there’s a vast assortment of henchmen, drivers, lackeys, and so on.  The film begins with everyone saying a lot of superfluous things designed only to be stylish for style’s sake.

After the blah, blah, blah, a petty dispute between two henchmen leads to a gun battle that just gets worse and worse, at times comically so though I don’t think comedy is the film’s intention.  Once the initial shots are fired, there are accidental shootings that cause anger among the parties, adding fuel to the fire and causing battle lines to be drawn.  Literally at no time does anyone exercise some brain power and just says like, “Hey! This was just an accident.  Let’s all calm down!”

For most of the film, the actors are flat on their backs, hiding for cover, nursing gun shot wounds, limping along the floor on their elbows when they need to move, either whispering to allies or shouting at enemies.

At first, it’s interesting but after awhile it becomes hard to keep track of who wants to shoot who and why.

STATUS:  Shelf-worthy.  Plus points for originality.  Minus points for execution.  All the characters were lame cookie cutter criminal lowlife dicks and when you don’t care if they croak it’s hard to root for anyone to win the gun battle royale.

Just root for Brie.  Because she gives me tingly feelings in my pants.nnn

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Aug 01 2017
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Movies

Movie Review – Atomic Blonde (2017)

1980s music!  Jason Bourn-esque fight scenes!  Charlize Theron goes full lesbo!

BQB here with a review of “Atomic Blonde.”

It’s 1989.  The Soviet Union is on the verge of collapse.  In Germany, the Berlin Wall divided the country is about to be torn down.

Set aside this end of the Cold War backdrop, MI6 agent Atomic Blonde (Charlize Theron) must work her way through a world of intrigue to secure a list of Western agents, lest they be killed if they fall into the wrong hands.

With classic 1980s jams playing in the background, Charlize engages in stylish, well-choreographed fight scenes, all the while wearing the latest in 1980s fashion.

Meanwhile, she works with devious allies like Percival (James McAvoy), Spyglass (Eddie Marsan) and Kurzfeld (John Goodman.)

There are a lot of twists.  You’ll feel contorted by the end.  At times it can be difficult to keep up with what is happening, but the music and action is fun.n

Also, you get to see Charlize’s tucas.  I assume it is hers.  I have no reason to believe it was a stunt butt but I have no means of verification.  It isn’t presented in a very erotic manner though but hey, a butt’s a butt.

I’m not sure it lived up to all the hype but it is a fun time just the same.

STATUS:  Shelf-worthy.

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