My world has been rocked..

I view the upcoming "Dark tower" movies with both hope and skepticism. I always fear when one of my favorite franchises is adapted to a new format and this is especially true in the case of the "Dark Tower". I read the the gunslinger when i was 18 or 18 and didn't care too much for it. Years later my little brother became obsessed with the Dark tower and to be honest I just read "the Drawing of the three" to shut him up because he was harping me non-stop, and boy was he doing me a favor.
I'm the type of guy that is probably all too effected by the stories I love. My wife frequently jokes that I should send fathers day cards to Stan Lee because Marvel comics was responsible for instilling me with my morals and beliefs. Anyhow, to get back on topic The Dark Tower ruled my thoughts for a year and is still some thing I constantly find my self thinking of. The Dark tower is truly a masterpiece that is way beyond the restrictions of any genre. Today Stephen King tweeted this mind blowing bit of info.... I won't explain this, those in the know will have their head pop just like mine just did. Those who aren't have a whole hell of a lot of reading ahead of them before they will understand it but I can promise if you love stories it will be time well spent.
Without further ado...

 For those of you that understand this, go get yourselves some cleaning products, you've got some brains to clean off your ceiling, computer and floor because your mind was just blown in a big way.
For the rest off you, Get your ass to a library or book store so can treat yourself to one of the best pieces of fiction ever!

Puede un perro viejo aprenderun nuevo idioma?

Can an old dog learn a new language?

Alright, full disclosure, I can't actually read that title in full yet, I had to use Google translate.

In 6th Grade I took Finnish, didn't learn a damn lick of it. Now if that was because I didn't care, or because i'm Lazy or just plain stupid I couldn't tell you. It was a long time ago. Looking back all I can say for sure is even if I had become fluent I'm not sure what good it would have done me.

Spanish on the other hand is a whole other story. More frequently I'm hearing people speak Spanish and I while I won't bother to find a stat (because I'm sure I could find 20 different conflicting stats)  there is more and more Spanish speakers in America and being able to communicate is a good thing on many levels, plus when there is a group of Latino ladies giggling and glancing I won't feel like I'm being talked about, Ill know it ;).

Jokes aside I had decided a while Back that I should learn Spanish but Rossetta stone was cost prohibitive and the program that my local library gave me access to was buggy and relied on voice recognition that couldn't interpret my poor pronunciation so I looked at the various free apps on Google play. I was real lucky the first app I tried was duolingo (curiously spelled with a lower case d.) The app is easy to use, Lets you move at your own pace and best of all is even fun. Within a few days I started to feel like I was making real progress and my kids had even got in on the learning.

Now in the car rather than playing the million and first game of twenty questions or eye spy one of us opens the app and reads the questions out loud and we sorta compete at answering the them.

My kids seem to be picking it up even faster than I am and my 13 year old sees it as a game that will result in an easy A if he takes a Spanish class in High school.

I'm only a few weeks into using duolingo so obviously this is kind of an "early look" review but I would recommend it to anyone wanting to learn a new language or even any one who is sick of playing silly games (I'm looking at you candy crap crush) to kill time on the bus or in line at the bank when they could be using that same time and device to learn a new skill. Everybody has those small chunks of time in the day waiting for something, and usually that time is long enough to start on an important task so it just goes to waste. this is a great way to make that time count for something instead of wasting it.

I give duolingo a tenative 9 Sexy Latino chicks making fun of my flat butt out of ten.

The shitish invasion

What would you do if a leader of the white power movement showed up in your town and started buying up property all while declaring his intentions to make your once peaceful little town into a vile hub of  racism and bigotry?   The great people of the small town of Leith, North Dakota said no fucking way!, and to me that was a wonderful thing to watch. Part of the reason I found this documentary so encouraging was that despite the lack of diversity in Leith (one black gentleman seemed to be the soul minority in town) the town united against craig cobb (and no that's not a typing mistake, this asshole doesn't deserve capitalization) and his white trash Y'allQaeda, even though they would not have found themselves in the groups cross-hairs if they had kept their heads down and their mouths shut. We all like to think that we would take an active stance against this type of bigotry and it's encouraging to see that in this small town people did just that.

I watch a lot of documentaries and Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K. Walker have definitely added a new one to my list of favorites with "Welcome to Leith". It's not that the cinematography or direction are groundbreaking (though they are in no way lacking) or that the subject matter it self is particularly unique, its just great to see a real life story where the sides are so black and white (I swear, no pun intended) with such obvious good guys and bad guys, We don't see anyone straddling the fence or anyone accepting evil for convenience or compromising their beliefs because they are afraid to rock the boat.  I'm not naive enough to think all situations are that clear cut but all too often I see ambiguity where there should be none and people taking the path of least resistance rather than taking a stand that should be the clear moral choice to any thinking compassionate being. And in the town of Leith  (at least of what we are shown) as a whole the town took the path that would be clear to any moral person.

The "Cast" of "Welcome to Leath", if you will, is divided between the the townspeople (of which there is only a total of 24) comprising the "good guys".  the bad guys (no need for quotations here) in this story are craig cobb and his group "the national socialist movement". one heavily featured Jr Fuhrer in particular is kynan dutton, who has all the frightening intensity of laurel and hardy but none of their charm or good looks, you get the feeling this guys life could have went a totally different way had he just been able to get a girl to hold his hand before age 25.  Oh and lets not forget kynan's fiance (who's name slips my mind but isn't even deserving of a glance at my notes) who is a case study in white trash, at one point she refers to (and I'm paraphrasing here) "my fine ass fiance and his sexy ass guns". I laughed so hard I cried at that solid proof that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
This bigoted trio would be the funniest reality show cast in history if they weren't, you know, nazi's.
If people enjoy "jersey shore" or "honey boo boo" because they feel superior to those on screen, this cast could set a new low in the lowest common denominator.

If you like documentaries or like seeing tales of good VS. evil or even if you just hated Nazis, "Welcome to Leith"  should be enjoyable to most. Documentaries tend be hard to recommend in general but I don't think many people are going to feel like they wasted their time on this one.
"Welcome to Leith" Gets a 9 stars of David (haha, oh yeah) out of 10