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JOKER LAUGHING ALL THE WAY TO BANK: 'Dark Knight' Breaks Eight Film Records

I love seeing examples of people wanting to be a part of something. It gives me hope that with the right motivation and sense of belonging that people will still go out of their way to be a part of something. Movies like The Dark Knight that can draw people out in droves in the dead of night, dressed ridiculously just to be one of the first to see the movie says more about our culture than it does the quality of film in my opinion. Now of course the movie is the motivating factor, but it's that sense of being a part of something that really matters. Even I wanted to be able to see The Dark Knight first thing on Friday just so I could be one of the people who has "seen" it and can talk about it. I ended up seeing the 10am Saturday morning at Tower Theaters with Melinda. It was still packed that morning by the way. People don't like to wait already and we are a very impatient society, but that still doesn't account for why The Dark Knight will be one of the biggest films of all time. The movie has become an event and in the middle of an election that people are bored with and the the lack of leaders that are able to excite people about anything, The Dark Knight came at the right time. The movie is dark, uncomfortable, and down right great. It really is a reflection of what we are all looking for, the light at the end of the tunnel, the dawn breaking on a truly new day. And while the movie is the thing that people are going to see, you cannot discount the plain and simple fact that people are just simply longing to be part of anything that gets them out of the day to day frustrations, while still reminding them that it could be so much more worse. You could be living in Gotham City and the Joker could be real. I'll be damned if he didn't seem real in that movie. Getting back to my original point. The fact that The Dark Knight will pull in millions gives me hope that if people are inspired that they will still go out of their way to get involved, even if it is dressing up silly for the midnight showing of a movie that will be out for weeks to come. By the way, keep the kids at home from The Dark Knight. Melinda and I were truly disturbed by the amount of little kids in the theater. This is an adult psychological horror film, that kids just don't need to be exposed to. They have TUSD and college to get plenty of that.

In just one year, TUSD lost items that cost $1.6M

Speaking of TUSD, in any other school district this would seem outrageous, but not TUSD. At TUSD anything is possible. Imagine you're working for a company that says to you, "We have to lay off jobs, cut programs and equipment because we are 1.6 million over budget." Then when you ask where the money went they say, "We don't know, a lot of stuff can't accounted for, it's all lost".  This is another shining example of the lack of follow through and accountability within our local governments. I mean seriously, 71 TVs, 5 commercial sized freezers, how in the hell do you lose those? The sad part is there will be no followup, no mass investigations. There will be this story, me talking about it, and then we are off to the next story. In the meantime our local papers do nothing, no hard hitting investigating, no further follow up and they show no outrage. The people of Tucson have got to wake up and see that unless we have clean break from the current leadership in Pima County, Tucson City Council, TUSD then we will make no progress and the city of Tucson itself will continue to rot from within. I personally don't want to see that happen. We could be such a great city if we just got off our butts and took the time to tell ourselves, friends and family how important our local elections are. We need to start making a difference.

Have Oil Prices Peaked? Crude Plunges $16 in 3 Days

Gee have you seen this headline plastered everywhere? Nope and that's because we dare not let people know that maybe just maybe it ain't all as bad as the media had been telling us. Now I know we have yet to see the return of lower prices at the pump, but they are coming. Plus the reason behind the barrel price drop is the story. President Bush started hounding Congress to drill offshore and guess what, the Middle Eastern oil companies took notice. Imagine what would happen if Congress actually did something and allowed us to get at our own oil supply?

Andrew's random video for Monday:  I love poker.  I love playing it, and I love watching it.  I was surfing around some random poker videos over the weekend, and found this insane bluff pulled off against one of the best in the world, Scotty Nguyen.