There's no reason to reiterate the fact that I created a site where people can recommend movies for me to watch. You've probably heard all about it already. The first movie for me to watch off this list was Hobo with a Shotgun, suggested by my French buddy Mickael.

Our film starts out with the titular Hobo - who never actually receives a name - rolling into a town presumably in Canada. The opening music is chipper, the sky is a highly saturated blue, and life in general seems to be just swell. Three minutes later, some dude has shoved down a manhole, a rope tossed around his neck, and a truck yanking his head off. It rains blood and some random chick in a bikini dances in it. This pretty much sets the tone for the remainder of the film until until our Hobo friend gets sick and tired of the wanton killing that seems to plague the town. He buys himself a shotgun and becomes the hero that Namelessville deserves. Oh, and he also befriends a stripper along the way.

Hobo with a Shotgun is pretty much everything I anticipated it would be; campy, cheesy, and violent for the sake of violence. There's no message, no point, just an excuse to watch people get their hands shoved into the whirling blade of a lawn mower. Which actually leads me to a musing. Along the way, Mr. Hobo gets letters carved into his chest with a knife, beat up, and stomped repeatedly by a dude wearing ice skates. But does that keep our intrepid protagonist down? No, not really, no. Give him a night of sleep and he's back up like nothing happened. Even his stripper companion nearly gets her head sawed off, but a couple hours in the ER and all is right again. Dialogue is equally cheesy, culminating in a scene where the Hobo is addressing babies in a hospital nursery about the bleak future and that, with any luck, they won't become a hobo with a shotgun like him.

The visual effects are relatively decent, I guess. I mean, once you've seen one movie with tons of blood and gore, you've seen most of them. Nothing too new or interesting here. Every scene seems to be hyper saturated, creating many shots that look almost mono- or dual-chromatic. Example on that last point, the finale is lit with a cyan light on one half and an orange on the other. After the extreme color correction, the effect is kind of nifty.

All in all, it was a pretty stupid movie. Everything was over the top and an obvious homage to the exploitation films of yore. I wouldn't really recommend it to anybody unless they get a kick out of mindless violence.

Rating - 2.5/5

EDIT: I forgot to mention the part where one of the baddies burns a bus full of kids with Disco Inferno playing in the background. Nothing more need be said.

I've lost count and these haven't been weekly.

Finances - I spent the most money I've ever spent this week. More on that in a moment. I have purchased all the Japanese items I shall for the month ($25 worth of light novels and manga). Bought some new shoes because every pair I had were quite literally falling apart at the seems. Also did a small Saturday project wherein I resurfaced my table... and the cleaning supplies I needed to clean said mess. This week I aim to buy nothing other than food needed to survive and gasoline if need be.

Health - Still haven't been to either McDonald's or Taco Bell, so good on that front. Only went to a couple restaurants this week, though Friday's escapades were donuts and cheese steaks, so take it as you will. Really have fallen off the walking wagon and I need to be working harder at that (can't let Mr. Helton take the top spot all the time). Yesterday, while walking to Walmart to acquire a sander, I forgot my fitbit half way there and had to turn around and try again. So my step count isn't 100% accuratly reflected.

Drawing and Japanese - Nothing to report.

Japan Trip - The tickets have been purchased and we're set to go the first week of June. We're currently penning a document of stuff we'd like to do. This is happening.

For real, dog.

Finances - Resisting the urge to buy something when you know you can afford but don't actually need it is quite frustrating. However, I have done well on resisting the urge for the most part. I did line up a couple things for pre-order and have settled on the number of $50/mo to satisfy my urge to purchase Japanese items. Also, unbeknownst to me, Amazon decided that they would charge me for Prime without notice once my trial had ended. Now I have Prime. Generally when it comes to online ordering, I trade patience for money and go with the cheapest shipping option, but I guess that's moot now. Also, I'll probably be purchasing from Amazon instead of rightstuf just so I can somewhat justify the money they have taken from me. I did do some spontaneous "gifting" of things last week, which was some money gone not planned. That shouldn't, however, become anything regular.

Health - Lackluster week on the exercise front. I did not get out for the usual afternoon walks as often as I should have which also caused Mr. Helton to pull ahead of me in steps. I'm putting my foot down on that this week (get it?). I've still managed to stay away from most fast food, a trip to Cici's with my family notwithstanding. Interestingly, I haven't even had the urge for the late night McDonald's or Taco Bell trip. Or even to go there at all. I've done my best to have something hanging around the house for when those urges occur, usually in the form of some kind of sandwich. Or delicious bread pudding. It's not good for me, but at least it's not processed, right?

Japanese - Not too much new here. I did get Kanacards to a (mostly) usable state and have been doing vocab drills with that. There's still some development to go to make it full featured and sand down the rough edges, but it can and shall be used. The most difficult thing I'm finding, however, is that my Genki book is a text book but there's no syllabus to go with it. So, I'm trudging along as best I can.

Drawing - I hooked my Wacom back up to my computer at some point this week.

Missed last week because... well, just because I felt like it.

Health - It has been two weeks since my last Taco Bell trip and I haven't even eaten McDonald's in the 2013 year, so we're doing well there. Didn't walk as much as I'd wanted this week, but got out every weekday last week. Also, I invested in a fitbit to keep track of all my exercise related things. It's a nifty little device and has pitted me in heated combat with a certain Morgan Helton. It also tracks my sleeping habits by measuring my movements during sleep. If I read the graph right, I could make a convincing dead man once I lose consciousness for the day. Probably also explains why I never have dreams.

Finances - Well, I did buy the fitbit, but I figure if it's in the interest of any item on this list, it's worth shelling out money for. Otherwise, I've kept a reign in for the most part, especially on eating out (which has been mostly relegated to the weekends). It's getting harder and harder not to pre-order some of the shows I want to own, though. I may time them out to once a month or something.

Japanese - I did a couple of worksheets in my book, but have not spent near enough time on this. However, I began work on a web app to help drill vocabulary. My brother who is also taking Japanese (at a real college) will be sharing this tool with me and we can learn from each other.

Drawing - Have you ever noticed that central time seems so much more logical than any of the other timezones? Prime time starts at 7pm, usually right around the time the evening meal is ending and you're ready to just relax for a while. You don't get that in the eastern timezone.

As stated, taking a really relaxed pace this year. Today, I'd like to welcome Steve - yet another of my many, many brothers - to our little band of reviews. Today we'll be delving into the characters that did and didn't do it for us.

Worst Character

Chris - Hina Takanashi (Listen to Me, Girls, I am Your Father) Holy gay sex, Batman, if I hated one character more than any in 2012, it was Hina Takanashi.

Now, you may be wondering how I can find it within myself to hate a character who is a mere three years old. Kids are adorable, right? Not universally, because her character annoyed me to such a degree I could hardly bear it at times.

Let's start with the voice, because whatever old wench they got to voice this character poured every ounce of wince inducing vocalization she could into this character. Real children have high pitched voices, don't get me wrong, but they're not grating in the way this one is, and real three year olds certainly don't speak with the mental capacity of someone much older.

And that's another thing: this kid is far too rational when it comes to emotional matters. Whilst the rest of the characters have a hard time coping with the death of their mother/sister, Hina spends one minute down at the very end crying about it before she grows a pair entirely too large for her age/gender and spouts off some sort of psychiatrist shit and immediately learns to cope with the fact that her parents are DEAD. I wouldn't be surprised if this kid popped out of the fucking womb with a doctorate in psychology.

And for the love of God, will the other characters just stop giving her dick shaped food?

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