I am pleased to present, for the first time, the full quality, uncut footage. But it gets even better! This is the new special edition version, featuring subtitled commentary and trivia. Think of it as footnotes.

Anyway, here it is: Mercenary Alpha Force: Uncut Special Edition. Note: It’s a 300MB MPEG4/H.264 file.

To my Darling Annabelle,

The days drag on without you by my side. I long to rejoin you in our charming town.

Life on the front is hard, and though I try, it’s difficult to keep hope. Just yesterday my good friend, James, was hit by a bullet. He’s alive, for now, but delirious with fever and the doctors do not expect him to last the night. Food, as always, is scarce, and scarcely edible. The bread has more maggots than flour.

But enough of that! My love for you can carry me through my darkest hour, a shining torch to guide me safely back to your warm embrace.

This war will surely soon be over, and I will be home again. Until then, I count the seconds we’re apart and remain faithfully yours!

All My Love,
John

To My Dearest John,

Your letters are like kisses from the Sun, warming my heart in these coldest and most trying of times. I clutch them to my bosom as if they were your very being.

Father has taken ill, but seems to be recovering well. I do hope he is better by winter. I am sorry to hear about your friend, James.

Lydia is to have the baby any day now. It will be grand to be an aunt!

My heart fears for you. The front is so very dangerous and I worry. Please, come back home to me safe. Write back soon.

Forever Yours,
Annabelle

Then one day the grocery store was out. In desperation, I decided to substitute a bottle of Kraft Mayo Hot'N Spicy. I mean, how different can they be, right?

In transpired, very different. And not different like blue is different from red; more like cake is different from feces. In short, I threw that nasty bottle away after one ruined sandwich. I've managed to survive on regular Miracle Whip, but I still long for its rebellious cousin. Every time I go grocery shopping I walk by the condiment section, casting a hopeful glance at the Miracle Whip bottles, longing for the Hot'N Spicy. Sure, maybe it's poorly named, but it was a glorious product.

In my quest to find it, I searched various stores, and asked friends to look at stores I never shop at. I even looked online. Alas, it seems to be discontinued. And so I used a form on Kraft's site to inquire about it. Perhaps it was not truly gone for good? I didn't even get a response.

My resolve has been tested, but I'm still holding out for a reversal. If Futurama can come back after years of absence, then so too can Miracle Whip Hot'N Spicy.

The Disney Channel serves as a launch pad for young careers, and associated merchandise. Of particular note is their deftness in music. It all started with Lizzie McGuire. Not only was it a spectacularly successful show, but it turned Hilary Duff into star. Merely acting isn't enough to make it on the Disney Channel now; all of their live-action shows work in musical numbers with varying degrees of regularity.

Their promotional abilities are awe-inspiring. The number one album on this week's Billboard chart is the soundtrack to High School Musical 2, making an impressive debut. This came as a surprise to no one. A true surprise was last year, when the original film's soundtrack quickly worked its way up to #1. This time around Disney was building on a massively successful franchise. The made-for-TV movie has become a genuine cultural phenomenon with the tween set, spurring a live concert tour, an ice-skating show, and myriad branded merchandise from backpacks to party plates and napkins. The original soundtrack was also the best-selling album of 2006, and the sequel has a good start on earning the same distinction for 2007. The success of HSM has also led to reasonably successful solo albums for two of the stars.

Disney works hard to keep its stars in front of you. They make frequent guest appearances in Disney Channel shows, show up as guests on ABC morning shows, and appear in endless self-promotion commercials.

And just what is Billboard's #2 album of the week? Why it's the second Hanna Montana soundtrack. Disney created an entire show about a fictional pop star, instantly transforming Miley Cyrus into a real star. A new episode of Hanna Montana came on after the premiere of High School Musical 2. Special guests: the Jonas Brothers, recent additions to Disney's Hollywood Records label. The Disney Channel has been showing Jonas Brothers music videos for months now, during commercial breaks. The brothers' eponymous album debuted last week at #5 on the charts. Climbing back up to #16 was the original HSM soundtrack. At #34, the original Hannah Montana soundtrack. And it doesn't stop there.

As we all know Disney's all about family. A few years ago, the Disney Channel had a series about some time travelers called Phil of the Future. Phil's friend and romantic interest sang in a few episodes, but nothing big. Turns out she has a sister. "Aly and AJ" then starred in their own Disney Channel Original Movie, which while it didn't feature them singing, did help promote them. Their album is now #46 on Billboard. Billy Ray Cyrus, who stars on Hannah Montana with his daughter, is now also on a Disney label; his album is currently at #74.

Disney works its magic by keeping its telegenic stable constantly in front of its audience. I don't have any vested interest in their success, but I admire clever marketing, and they've got skills.

More problematic is the horrible lack of content. We'll occasionally get a moment of inspiration, but that usually passes before any new article or video can manifest. I'm going to try to do better. It would be nice to have regular readers, but this would require regular, compelling content. That's hard.

Finally I saw it today, on my birthday. It was everything I hoped it could be. It's an inspiring work of art, visual splendor guiding by an uncompromising vision. And that's the crux of its glory. The heroes in 300 are truly heroes. This is a thoroughly Romantic film. The Spartans are the absolute embodiment of Western values, which is manifest in their deeds and flawless physical attributes. Every one of those 300 is a true warrior, and citizen-soldier. They fight for freedom and justice against an army of slaves led by a sexually ambiguous self-proclaimed god-king.

This point is, I think, worth elaborating on since some reviewers seem so transfixed on it. This story is told exclusively from the view of the Greeks, and this is exactly how they perceived the Persians to be. Xerxes, and the rest of the Persian elite, wore lots of jewels and, from a Western perspective, flamboyant clothes. The film's portrayal of Xerxes is certainly accurate from the Spartans point of view. Moreover, this effeminate view makes Xerxes that much more offensive to the Greeks. After all, these are the epitome of manly men; to submit to such an androgynous figure is unthinkably repugnant.

In all, there is not a single thing in the entire movie that I object to, not one point I thought dragged it down. I was at first a little hesitant about the creation of the queen as such a prominent figure, but she earns her position (and quite dramatically so). Perhaps the aspect about 300 I find most appealing is the moral certainty. I refuse to see it as some sort of allegory for the current political situation (it predates the 9/11 attacks by several years), but the broader philosophical implications are timeless. Western civilization is under attack by the Persians and a few brave fighters stand to challenge it. They can do so because they are right, and they know they are right. Moral fortitude is a virtue we can never do without. I love that, in a rare occurrence, a film proudly declares modern Western culture, with its love of reason and freedom, to be absolutely superior to everything else. I love that King Leonidas is not some confused soul seeking guidance but rather a resolute leader, armed with the courage that comes from knowing with certainty that your cause is just. I love this movie.

• Fire-Retardant Charcoal Briquets
• Collapsible Cribs—Save space! *Warning: may crush baby*
• Rocket Powered Big Wheel
• Head Cheese
• Sharpie Brand 44 Magnum Marker in 5 new scents!
• KidsCo Little Tyke "Junior Home Smelting Kit"
• Anything directed by Uwe Boll
• Do-it-Yourself Breast Implants
• Single Use Dentures—Never Brush again!
• Gasoline-Powered Wireless Phone—40 minutes to the gallon!
• "Tuna-Safe" Dolphin Jerky—Now in Teriyaki Style!
• Sony Blu-Ray/Betamax/MiniDisc combo player
• The Dust Brothers "Unplugged"—Only on VH1!
• Titanic II: Back from Davy Jones’ Locker!
• Pack-a-Potty-in-a-Purse

We made plans to throw them away, but it just didn't happen. It got to the point that I didn't want to throw it away. I wanted to take a picture to commemorate the auspicious achievement. Indeed, we even took some pictures; but the stack continued to grow. It took on a life of its own, reaching to the ceiling in not just one row, but another. Soon its powers grew further. It attracted other wayward boxes. Fortunately, our slovenly secret was hidden from the view of guests by a door.

With its height came arrogance. It thought itself capable of overpowering its creators. Alas, that hubris was defeated by nothing more than air.

As I sat in my room, I heard an unusual cacophony, lasting no more than a couple of seconds. Fireworks? Perhaps a bizarre bit of thunder? I go to my door to ask Chad; his look is grave. He had opened the door leading to the garage to see if he had forgotten to turn off the light. When he closed the door, the rush of wind knocked down a portion of the tower.

Realizing the time had come, we knocked down the rest, flooding the bottom of the stairwell with a sea of red boxes. We don't have an exact count, but the total is somewhere around 50 boxes, which represent 600 delicious cans of Dr Pepper. We then sat on the stairs and folded up all of the boxes. We ended up stuffing the folded boxes into intact boxes, six in all, which are now sitting neatly outside our garage awaiting pick-up tomorrow morning.

Since my brother drove down there, I didn't have my own car to go driving around in. My dad, fickle man that he is, finally settled on a black 2006 Ford Mustang GT, some months ago. Short story even shorter, I borrowed it on Tuesday afternoon to go visit some friends. A little before ten, I was on my way back to our parents' house. Having never driven his car more than around the block before, I was somewhat paranoid driving it anyway. Sure, I had relaxed by that point in the day, having had a little more experience with it, but I still wasn't used to the car. Also, his speedometer is labeled only every 20 miles, whereas mine is every 10. In other words, it's hard to see exactly how fast you're going, even more so when you're extra-worried about getting in a wreck. Furthermore, the Mustang has quite a few more ponies under the hood than my Chevy Malibu.

On the way home, I found myself inadvertently speeding on a few occasions, easily topping 70 in a 60 mph zone. Then I turned onto the new outer loop, which does have a speed limit of 70. I'd never driven on it and had only once, in the day, even been on it. I was out of my element in a car that wasn't mine on an unfamiliar street, in the dark. Shortly after coming up over a slight hill I saw a flash of lights on the one other car on that stretch, which was coming from the opposite direction. No, these were not headlights; it was a state trooper. He passed me, turned around, and I promptly pulled over.

I've been pulled over before, back when I was a teenager. This time I was far more calm. I didn't know exactly how fast I had been going, but I knew it couldn't have been that bad, and I thought I had a pretty good case, what with the borrowed car and unfamiliar road. Indeed, I was pretty calm, though I did accidentally start to hand him my credit card when he asked for my license. What can I say, I was still a little frazzled. Then he asked for my proof of insurance. My proof of insurance is in my glove compartment, just like all other sane people. And so that's where I looked. After at least two minutes of looking through every scrap of paper in there, I finally check the center console, where I found the missing document. Who keeps it there?

Turns out I was going exactly 70 mph. Also turns out that the speed limit drops five at night time. I got a warning and an admonition to drive carefully.

My family got a good laugh at my incident, but then it was time for Chad and me to leave. He was driving on the highway to the Interstate when we saw what was, I later found out, the first live armadillo Chad had ever seen. The car behind us surely saw the same armadillo, but it was most decidedly not alive at that point. The stupid thing was walking across the busy highway when we came upon it. Chad managed only to make sure he went directly over it, avoiding the tires. Unfortunately, Chad does not drive some high truck but rather a ground-hugging Honda Civic. The sound when we hit was startling for us in the car, and I suspect shell-shattering for our departed friend.

However with the weekend upon us and a miraculous collision of time off, Kirk and I just may pull something out of the air and slap it online...now don't hold me to that but it could happen in the foreseeable future.

Anyways stayed tuned for "possible" content!

The company seems to be on a marketing spree. They've introduced new branding and a new selling point: 23 authentic flavors. Wow, that sure is a lot of flavors, and a lot of flavors must be good.

Meanwhile, 7UP has taken a decidedly different approach. They've reformulated their drink to have only five, 100% natural ingredients. Somewhat deceptively, one of those ingredients is "natural flavors," which presumably contains lemons, limes, and perhaps other unknown flavors. To me, the "natural flavors" ingredient listing comprises several ingredients, but I'll let it go. At any rate, the message is that less is more.

Maybe it's just me, but these messages strike me as somewhat contradictory. One says that more is better and the other says less is better. They're both soft drinks so it's not like I'm comparing apples to oranges.

And so here we have two soft drink brands pushing contradictory ideals of what is desirable. The part that makes this blogworthy is that they are both owned by the same company, Dr Pepper/Seven Up, Inc., which has been a division of Cadbury Schweppes for the past decade. Surely I can't be the only person who sees this as strange.

Were I an intrepid reporter for the blogosphere, I might perhaps call the company to ask them about their marketing schemes. Or perhaps I could march up the Dr Pepper/Seven Up headquarters and demand a straight answer: is less more or is more more? Alas, that would require me to travel upwards of three minutes (by car; I'll start the "march" portion in the parking lot). Yes, I may live on the same street as the headquarters, but I'm lazy, and apparently they're on the third floor of the Cadbury Schweppes building.

And so the contradiction remains, plaguing the world with competing ideals of simplicity and complexity. To which should we strive? non scio

Alas, I had to be at work at 10, and still hadn't taken a shower. This gave me ten minutes with my MacBook before I had to get ready and leave. I had enough time to take it out, start it up, and create an account. All day long it was all I could think about. I excitedly told all of my co-workers, all of whom already knew it was on its way, thanks to my incessant raving.

I can now gladly report that, after having used it for hours, I have no regrets. Tomorrow I plan on some more aggressive use. I've got some video editing to get started on and I may even play around with GarageBand.

When I got home today, Chad told me his crazy idea to build a pontoon raft. At first I thought the idea insane, but figured it wouldn't hurt to at least do a drawing and make plans for it. Based off some horribly dirty math, I decided that 16 feet of 6" PVC pipe would hold the two of us and our raft above water. But how much does pipe that big cost? We couldn't find it on the Home Depot or Lowe's web sites, so we went to Home Depot, which is only a few minutes down the road. Turns out 6" is hard to find. We found 4" but that would have required using a lot more, plus it was expensive too. The PVC pontoons just weren't going to happen. We did, however, find some under-the-bed storage bins. At 20 gallons each, I calculated, in my head, that four of them would give us enough support for over 600 pounds. Chad and I, along with the raft, were estimated at 400 pounds, assuming a very heavy raft. Yes, we ourselves are very light.

Up to this point I was by no means commited to the idea. Our biggest problem was the board that would form the basis of the raft. We initially discussed plywood, but then realized it was horrible and that for only a few dollars more, we could get substantially higher quality MDF board. A 3/4" sheet was under $20. That's all good and well, but a sheet is 4 by 8 feet. Chad drives a Civic. We sat around for a while thinking about it. Finally commiting to it, Chad called a friend with a truck and asked if he could borrow it. We bought the plastic bins, plus a cordless drill/driver, which we needed anyway.

We then picked up his friend's truck, went back to the Home Depot, and bought the board, some screws, and two broomsticks. Eventually we could add some dustpans to them for oars, but since tonight's test voyage was to be strictly in shallow water, sticks were enough. Chad said we needed a name for the raft. I threw out, jokingly, the SS Duchess Montana; it stuck. We got it all home and set up shop in the garage. I predrilled holes in the lip of the bins. We applied a layer of sealant to the bins and more or less glued them in place, then screwed them in. We then lifted up our surprisingly heavy raft and carried it down the hill to the creek that runs behind our apartment. This creek, however, is by no means remote. It's right down the middle our our apartment complex, flanked on both sides by rows of apartments. Thankfully it was dark and the creek is down low in a valley. We put the raft in the water and it actually floated. I stepped on; so far so good. Chad got on. Yes, water poured across the top, but it still floated. As long as we kept balanced, the top was mostly above water.

The building process was filmed, and we took photos of most of the entire project. Tomorrow, maybe, we'll have a friend over to actually film us on the raft.

I accidentally deleted our archives page a couple of months ago. I discovered this only today. I painstakingly rebuilt the page, but in doing so, realized that it really sucked. (I took a few hundred words to say this the first time around).

We have 68 articles on our site, and the only link to most of them is one the one archives page, which is nothing more than a hierarchal list of the titles, organized by subject. Our affinity for creative titles means that for many of them, you have very little idea what the article is actually about.

My solution: coming in the near future we will have a redesigned Articles page (which is a better title for the page, for reasons I previously described in depth but, alas, were lost to the glitch). The more relevant articles will be elevated from obscurity, complete with descriptions. Less relevant material, now muddying the waters, can settle into the abyss--alive, but not crowding out the good stuff. For example, no one needs to read our review of Windows XP anymore. Luceo Magazine began in the Fall of 2001. A lot has changed, but there are still treasures in the depths, such as "Working Retail During the Holidays."

I, unfortunately, worked both days. I did not, however, work yesterday, when I finally got to see it. The review in the Dallas Morning News called it vapid--and gave it an "A-." Usually vapid is a bad thing, but the reviewer correctly judged the movie for what it was: light and fluffy fun. It makes no pretense of being serious, and as such, is a far greater success than many of the hopelessly pretentious movies out there.

I'll admit it: I liked the movie. Was it great? Absolutely not. Were there numerous holes? Like Swiss cheese. But that doesn't matter. It is meant as an enjoyable way to spend an hour and a half, and I think it does admirably. The songs are catchy. Indeed, the movie is going a long way towards paying for itself based on sales of the soundtrack. On iTunes, it is currently the #1 album, and holds spots 1, 5, 7, and 10 on today's top song list. In fact, 9 of the 13 tracks are in today's top 30.

The Disney Channel struck gold with this one, but they tend to have good luck with music. The Cheetah Girls, another recent DCOM, has now spawned its own concert tour. The Disney Channel also launched the career of Hilary Duff, who has now sold millions of albums. Whom to look out for: Aly & AJ. These sisters are being built up by Disney as Hilary repeats. They've got a record out, they're on the aforementioned Cheetah Girls tour; their DCOM, Cow Belles, comes out in March (and is already being promoted); plus they've got their very own Disney Channel original series, Haversham Hall, in the works.