Follow-Up: The Sentencing

Who killed my blog? It seems to be dead. Only six posts in the past three months? My only excuse is that I have been extremely busy with way too many extra important things (I've been playing a lot of Civilization IV lately). So quit complaining. Those pesky Zulu must be dealt with!

If you read the title of this post, you know it is a follow-up to something I've written before. You're probably confused about the other part of the title, though, unless you are one of the two or three people who diligently follow my blog (I am one of those people most of the time). So, now you're asking yourself, "what is he following up on?" or "sentencing for what and for whom?". (Who am I kidding; you're probably saying "who", not "whom", and you're wrong. Dead wrong. I'll deal with you when I finish conquering the Zulu.)

Almost one year ago, last October, I took a field trip to southern Utah (which you can read about here), and when I came back I found out that while I'd been gone I had been involved in an exciting high-speed police chase with shots fired, and I'd missed all the fun (you can read about it here). Not only did I miss out on my own police chase, I apparently missed the sentencing, too (and therefore the sentence!). Here's the story, from the newspaper a couple months ago:

Well, I have something to say, Rexburg Standard Journal. You still have my age wrong, and my middle initial, and my home town. Also, I absolutely do not drive a Silverado. I drive a blue Jeep. And if you ever tried to chase me, I would totally get away. You see, I am very good at Need for Speed: Most Wanted, and I know a few tricks (such as ramming cop cars head-on so they go flying and I speed through the roadblocks). Oh, and I didn't doctor the photo this time, so it totally doesn't look like me. At all. Also, I found more photos from the chase on the internet:

They tried to ram me off the road.

When ramming didn't work, the obvious next step is to try for deadly force.

The article from which I took these pictures said the chase started after a call of a domestic dispute and a pedestrian hit with the car. They found out later that no pedestrians were hit. The article states also that three cars were damaged in the chase: two Rexburg Police cars and one sheriff's car, completely neglecting to count the truck with the bullet through the windshield as a damaged car. Finding out these details, that the Rexburg Police would chase someone for hitting a pedestrian when none were hit, and that standard operating procedure in these cases is apparently shooting at the driver's head instead of the vehicle's tires, really instills in me great confidence in our local police force. It's too bad I missed out on all the action!

Pogonology

This is way overdue (two months overdue!), but I am finally getting around to posting pictures of my beard. In fact, here's a whole post on pogonology!

So, here's the full story. Back in 2004 I decided to grow a beard because I was tired of shaving. I liked the look, but it was uncomfortable; so I was going to shave it off, but my girlfriend (now my wife) liked it and talked me into keeping it. I got used to it, and kept a short beard until starting school at BYU-Idaho, where there is a lame rule against beards. There's no rule against mustaches, so if you want to grow one and look like a pedophile that's just fine, just so long as you don't have a beard. Never mind that Jesus had one, and all of the LDS church presidents from Brigham Young to George Albert Smith, and they're not against church policy... these days apparently they're evil or something. Okay, rant over...

Of course when you shave off a beard, you can't just shave it off... you've got to have some fun with it! So here is my beard as it was when I started school here, and various stages as I shaved it off (these were taken with a really bad camera):

Here's me at the beach in California with a beard a bit shorter than usual. There's a better picture on Facebook, but I can't seem to find it to post here, so here's the next best one.

This is me going for a white trash look, kind of Joe Dirt-ish.

Handlebars!

Cop mustache. Of course I had to grab my Airsoft gun.

Okay, now let's take a short break and watch an educational video about beards (this is worth watching all the way through).

Now back to the beards! Even though while I'm at school I can't technically keep my beard, I decided while I was out on my internship in the oil field I would see what I could do in about five months. So here is the result of neither shaving my beard nor cutting my hair from mid-December to the end of May:

My wife, my beard and me.

Since I did the goatee and handlebars thing last time, and there was so much more beard this time, I decided to go for something different as I shaved it off. The obvious choice was the Ambrose Burnside look! Despite my lack of receding hairline, I pulled it off pretty well, I think:

After that I carefully cut around the mustache, and curled it as best I could for an old west look. I technically could have kept this and been "legal" at BYU-Idaho, but mustaches get in the way of eating, and I prefer the full beard anyway:

This next one may be offensive to some... I couldn't resist trimming the mustache down to an "Adolf Hitler" look. And if I have a Hitler mustache, of course I have to do a Nazi salute, right? If my hair type was slightly more suited to a Hitler mustache, I would be very tempted to keep it just to make a point at how ridiculous the BYU-Idaho facial hair policy really is, since while even a well-trimmed beard is not allowed, any sort of mustache is okay. Here is my Adolf look:

Next time I can grow one I think I'll try for a year and see what happens. Now that I've shown off mine, here are a few other beards that I find impressive:

Óðinn (Odin, the "ð" is pronounced like the "th" in "then"), king of the Norse gods. He is one of my favorite mythical characters, and this is my favorite drawing of him and his awesome beard. A couple random facts: Odin was sometimes called Woden, and Wednesday is a modern version of "Woden's Day", so the modern pronunciation "Wends-day" is inaccurate and much less cool. Also, Odin is the inspiration of popular fictional characters such as Gandalf and Dumbledore, both of whom also have awesome beards.

My other favorite Norse god is Thor. He has a huge hammer, and a huge beard. I'm not sure which is a more effective weapon. Since I know someone will call me on it, this awesome picture with his intimidating mane is technically a picture of the German version of Thor, called Donner (Thunder). I wish I could call on thunder whenever I wanted it! I also wish I had that beard and hair. And build. And hammer.

Here's the other king of the gods, Zeus. The Greeks called him that, but the Romans called him Jupiter. He could also call lightning. My guess is he knew a lightning bolt was ready if all the hairs of his beard stood on end.

Leonardo DaVinci was a cool guy, with a cool beard. He also had a cool hat, but it has nothing to do with the beard.

Socrates (pronounced "so-crayts", for those of you who have never seen Bill & Ted) was very smart, at least partly because of his beard. He is also one of my favorite philosophers (my very favorite is Jack Handey, who I doesn't have a beard but is very funny).

Charles Darwin, another personal hero of mine, for both his beard and his contribution to science. Yes, I believe in natural selection and evolution, and yes, I'm probably going to Hell, but not for my belief in evolution or for growing a beard between semesters at BYU-Idaho. I'm most likely going to Hell for not liking the Osmonds and 90% of the rest of Mormon music.

Ludwig Boltzmann. Look at the photo. What's not to like? He was a physicist from Austria, so he probably had an awesome accent to go with that superb beard and intense facial expression.

Henri Becquerel. He was french, but I won't hold that against him because he discovered radioactivity and has an extra cool goatee.

Karl Marx. This guy is not a personal hero of mine, but I think our President is a fan. He's in this post because he had an awesome look, made complete by a very impressive beard. Ironically, you can buy his book at your local Barnes & Noble, thanks to capitalism.

Another crazy Marxist. With faces like that behind it, you'd think socialism would have been more successful!

Joseph Wilson Swan invented the incandescent light bulb. This is all the more impressive when you consider what a fire hazard that beard must have been in the lab.

Robert E. Lee would probably have lost his war if not for his beard. Oh, wait, I'm thinking of this next guy:

Abraham Lincoln. One of our greatest Presidents, and also one of the greatest chin curtain models.

I should note that the Union general had a pretty sweet beard, too. Here it is at its best.

Saddam Hussein. This is the kind of beard you get when you hide in a hole for a few months. Saddam and his very awesome beard have assumed room temperature thanks to the U.S. military.

You think I'm done? I've got more! As I say, anything worth doing is worth overdoing. More cool people with beards, or at least people with cool beards:

Jerry Garcia of The Greatful Dead. When I had my beard, I was told I looked like this guy. I think I needed longer hair to go with my beard. Also, I can't play the guitar.

Bob Marley was better known for his dreadlocks than his beard, but he had one. I'm mostly using that as an excuse to post this most awesome photo of one of my favorite musicians. I wish I could pull off dreadlocks.

Johan Strauss. His music is somewhat famous, because of his sideburns.

Billy Gibbons. He's on the other end of the musical spectrum from Strauss, but both his music and his beard are famous.

Chuck Norris. I couldn't resist. This is an example of a really funny-looking beard. Then again, he's a funny-looking man. His beard really bothers me, almost to the point of pogonophobia. But not quite.

Robert Jordan. This guy is a real hero of mine, and not just because he makes a beard look good. His real name was James Rigney. When he served in Vietnam he shot down a rocket-propelled grenade headed for the helicopter he's in. He's best known, though, for writing the Wheel of Time series. This series is very long, but very good, and he died with the final book half finished. Brandon Sanderson was chosen to finish the series from Jordan's notes. Sanderson doesn't have a beard, but he's a good author anyway, and the series should end well.

Orson Welles wrote and directed weird movies. With that beard and extra intense expression he could fit right in with Marx and Trotsky.

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore had an epic beard. If he hadn't already been dead when he fell off the tower, the wind resistance from the beard would have saved him. Dumbledore is also one of my all-time heroes, and was my favorite character in the Harry Potter series. My favorite Dumbledore quote, from The Chamber of Secrets: "It is our choices [...] that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."

Hagrid also had a jealous-making beard.

Gandalf. I can't leave him out, he's another of my favorite fictional characters. My favorite Gandalf quote: "It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule."

Gimli. He was a short little guy, but had an awesome Viking-style braided beard.

And to wrap this bit up, one of the best beards ever belongs to bass player Leland Sklar:

Okay, so that was probably overkill. What a long post! I had fun doing the research for it, though. I hope it was worth taking the time to read it. Good thing it was mostly pictures!

A Photo from Field Camp

One more week of field camp! I am currently sitting in the computer lab making a preliminary map of my assigned area, and took some time to stitch a panorama of one of the coolest geologic views I have ever seen. On Friday, my friend Sally and I hiked up the northwest ridge of Goddard Canyon in the Beaverhead Mountains of Idaho with Dr. Little, which was a rare opportunity since the entrance to this canyon is on private property and we were lucky enough to get in contact with the owner of the farm and get permission to drive his road. Even the professors hadn't gotten to hike this ridge before, and when we got to the top and looked northwest into the next canyon over we got an incredible view of some intensely folded layers of rock, and we think we may well have discovered a new thrust fault no one has ever mapped before! While it's likely that only my fellow geologists will appreciate what all this means, I think everyone can appreciate this view (right-click to get the full-sized version in a new window):

There is more coming, once this class is over in a week and a half and I have more time!

Independence Day 2009

Well, it's been a month since I've posted here, and lots has happened, but I've been way too busy to post about it. I've had a post half-written about beards for a few weeks now, but no time to finish it. There's more to say about my internship, and pictures of Pennsylvania to post, several movies and some books to review, lots of political goings-on I want to opine about, and many general updates to... update. Also, I'm nearly done with field camp, and that means I have several hundred photos to go through so I can post the best ones here. I am so super behind! This will all come soon. This post is mostly to say it's coming soon, and to say something quick about one of my favorite holidays.

I've decided Independence Day is much more fun when your country isn't in the process of being taken over by a tyrant. I'm looking forward to a new Independence Day, when America wakes up and realizes that when the President can fire the CEO of a major corporation just because, we are not living in a free country any more. When Benjamin Franklin was asked what kind of government our founding fathers had managed to set up, his reply was "A Republic, if you can keep it." We kept it for over 200 years, but we are selling it now for corporate bailouts, "free" health care, and to shrink our carbon footprint to solve a problem that doesn't exist. While much of Europe is shifting toward more conservative government, America is quickly becoming one of the most socialist nations in the world. Independence Day is much more enjoyable when you don't have to be afraid of your government, or when the head of your government at least has a single shred of pride in his own country instead of aggressively touring the world and apologizing for our greatness. It makes me sick.

On a brighter note, while I couldn't afford any fireworks myself on account of all my money is gone because of cars trouble, Kate and I managed to meet up with some old friends and watch the fireworks show in Idaho Falls this year, which is so much better than the show in Rexburg. That was fun. Also, the Mustangs flew overhead during Rexburg's lame parade, so I got to see them again.

Okay, now back to packing for field camp. Two weeks left!

Cars Trouble

I'm finally back in Rexburg, and it's been awhile since I've updated this blog. The last thing I had posted was that the transfer case on my Jeep had exploded on the highway and I was stranded in Towanda, PA. Well... in the end it took over two weeks and ten thousand dollars to get Kate and me home. Here's how it went down.

Rather than wait a week or longer for a new transfer case for my Jeep, Kate and I decided it would be best for her to drive to Towanda in her Ford Expedition and tow me home. We were planning to have her fly out and then make the drive home together anyway, plus my dad has more than one broken down Jeep with a compatible transfer case, so parts and labor would be free if I fix the Jeep myself. She made it out to Pennsylvania without incident, we disconnected the drive shaft on the Jeep and put it on a tow dolly Kate had pulled all the way from Rexburg (cheaper to borrow than to rent), and we were on our way. The only interesting thing at this point was that Kate's dashboard was acting up. If I accelerated hard, the thing would short out and all the needles would point to zero. Then it would click, all the needles would go to maximum, then it would click again and show accurate readings. It didn't affect how the car ran, though, so we decided that when we stopped in Rolla, Missouri to visit Kate's parents, we'd have it checked out. We didn't make it that far, though.

Just as we passed a city in Illinois called Effingham (I didn't make that name up), there were two popping noises from the dashboard of the Expedition, smoke came out of the dashboard, all the instruments went dead, and the car lost power. Traffic was heavy, but I made it through one lane of traffic without power steering to get to the shoulder and stop. We called AAA and got towed to a Ford dealership in Effingham, and Kate's parents drove three hours from Rolla to pick us up. Turns out the voltage regulator in the alternator had gone bad and had sent a power surge through the vehicle that fried the battery, the GEM module (controls the electronics in the car), the fuse circuit and the instrument cluster. Of course, they didn't figure it out all at once. First they replaced the battery and alternator, and still there were problems. Then they found the fried GEM, replaced that, still problems. Then they found the fried fuse circuit, replaced it, and now the car functions except that when you start it the anti-theft features lock it all up so it's not drivable. They tried reprogramming the instrument cluster, but it's fried, too, all data lost, and won't accept new data, so it has to be replaced. The problem is, it has to be programmed with all the original data specific to our car, same VIN, same odometer reading, etc., and of course the part is on backorder from the Ford manufacturing plant.

We waited a few days, but when it seemed unclear when the part would arrive, we decided we couldn't wait there anymore or Kate might lose her job and I might miss my super important field camp class. We considered flying home and coming back for the Expedition and Jeep later, but that meant not returning the tow dolly to the auto body shop my dad had borrowed it from, and they kind of needed it. We couldn't afford replacing it, so we couldn't leave it behind. My parents suggested that since they needed a new car anyway, maybe we could find one and buy it, use it to tow the Jeep home, and then they would buy it from us. So we found a 1998 Chevy Tahoe in Sullivan, MO, and bought it.

Of course, the guy wouldn't take a personal check, and it was already Friday evening when we found it and Kate's parents test drove it for us, so just buying it was an adventure. Kate and I had stayed a couple nights in a hotel in Effingham expecting the Expedition to be ready any time, but it wasn't; so Kate's parents drove three hours to pick us up at 8am, and we drove three hours back to get to a bank an hour before it closed, then get to the guy's place to buy the car, then take it to get a drive-away tag since we didn't want to license it in Missouri. Fortunately, a drive-away tag doesn't require an emissions inspection, which would have meant we'd have run out of time and would have to wait until Monday to leave. So all was well: we had a new Tahoe, we went back to Effingham and hooked up the Jeep, and were on our way.

Guess how far we made it? Topeka, Kansas. The Tahoe, which was in excellent shape with only 77,000 miles on it, drove fine at first, but the farther we got the wimpier it got. 20 miles west of Topeka it decided it couldn't make it up a hill. Not a big hill, a Kansas hill. Barely a hill at all. So I pulled over again, and it died, and wouldn't start. It seemed like it was out of gas, but there was more than half a tank. So Kate's dad drove six hours from Rolla to Topeka, we bought a new fuel filter and replaced it on the road... still nothing. It was Sunday, so nothing was open, but we managed to find a wrecker with a tow truck who pulled the Tahoe and the Jeep to the nearest repair shop, in Alma, KS. There's no hotel in Alma, so we stayed about 15 miles away in Wamego, which is apparently the Oz Capital of the World. On Monday the mechanic looked at the car, told us it was the fuel pump (which we had guessed when the filter didn't help), and said it may be a couple days before a part came. Fortunately we didn't have to wait, he got his pump that day, fixed it, and we drove away.

Guess how far we made it? The Tahoe lost power again and died on the side of I-70 a second time only 3.5 miles from the Colorado border. Yep, we didn't even make it out of Kansas. This time the battery was mysteriously dead, pointing to alternator issues. My dad decided at this point to call around to find local LDS church authorities who could recommend a mechanic in the area and help us get there, since we were again 20 miles from any town. It was about midnight, but early the next morning a local bishop came out and picked us up and took us to his place in Goodland, KS. Kate stayed there to wash up and rest while this bishop and I took a fresh battery out to the Tahoe. It started up with a new battery, the alternator seemed to be working fine, but I followed the bishop to a local Chevy dealer who tested the battery and alternator and said the alternator was good but the battery was bad. We got a new battery, the bishop gave us free food at the McDonald's in town (which he owned), and we were on our way.

Guess how far we made it? The Tahoe started losing power again, and I made it to the exit ramp for a rest stop at Arriba, CO, but couldn't make it onto the ramp. The alternator for the past several miles had stopped putting out power, and finally died at Arriba. My dad called around again (I could have if there was internet access on I-70, but there isn't), and was directed to an auto parts store in Denver with the appropriate alternator. He bought it over the phone, and another local bishop sent someone to pick it up and deliver it to us on the highway. I replaced the alternator right there on the road, in high wind and rain, and we were on our way again.

Guess how far we made it? This time we made it to Rexburg, and that was the last of the car troubles. Kate's dad couldn't stand the idea of his daughter being stranded on the highway, and after leaving us after the fuel pump in Topeka and hearing we were stuck again, decided he would tail us the whole way. He caught up to us in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and we all had dinner, and he stayed there for the night and waited to hear we'd made it home before setting off for Missouri himself.

So what is the bill? Parts and labor on the Jeep will be free, but there's $200 to borrow the tow dolly from the auto body shop. The final bill on the Expedition isn't in but will likely exceed $2000. The Chevy Tahoe cost $7000. A new alternator, new fuel pump, gas for the whole trip, hotels, food, etc., is probably close to another $2000 all together. So this trip cost over ten thousand dollars, not counting the money not earned during a couple weeks of not working. My Jeep broke on May 14th. We arrived in Rexburg around 5:30am on June 3rd. This whole trip took 20 days. Considering three cars broke down a total of five times, I call this "cars trouble" rather than just "car trouble".

Oh yeah, it's not over yet. Kate's Expedition is still in Effingham, IL, waiting for an instrument cluster. On Monday I start the major portion of my field camp class, which means for the next seven weeks I will be camping and making geologic maps, home only on weekends which will be filled with homework. Once that is done I will fly out and drive home Kate's Expedition. Let's hope nothing else goes wrong.

I Am Stuck in Towanda, PA...

...because of this:

That is the transfer case on my Jeep. Coming home from work today I heard a metal clinking noise, and I looked in my rearview mirror to see chunks of metal bouncing down the highway. The chunks of metal I saw are the chunks of metal that are not in the above pictures. As I stopped to investigate, I suddenly heard the most awful scraping, grinding noise I've ever heard from a car, and it hasn't stopped. One of the mechanics that looked at it said it sounded like a rock tumbler. I now drive a rock tumbler. Awesome! So long story short, my car doesn't go until I get a new part.

Live Free or Die Harder With a Vengeance

I've been getting a lot of hate mail from my fans lately saying "Why aren't you reviewing movies anymore? We're tired of this politics crap, tell us what movies we should watch so we can watch more movies!" Okay, okay, fine! Just stop sending me the hate mail! I know, I'm way behind with the movie reviews, especially considering the massive amount of time I've had on my hands lately to watch them. So here come one review of four movies!

About a month ago I had myself a Die Hard movie marathon. I was never interested in the Die Hard movies until I saw Live Free or Die Hard, and was impressed. So I got my hands on the other movies, and watched all four back to back in one day. That's right, in a twelve-hour shift I have enough down time to watch four movies relatively undistracted, and even get paid all the while because I'm working, too. And guess what? All four Die Hard movies are awesome, especially the first and fourth ones. Except the last one they are very heavy on the language, and the first movie has brief and completely unnecessary nudity near the beginning; but other than that, that is all you need to know. No need to read further (though you're welcome to), if you haven't seen them yet, don't wait as long as I did, go rent them and watch them. They are worth the time.

I originally avoided them because they looked like typical action movies with a predictable plot and unbelievable explosions and no real point except to show cool fight scenes. Well, they are your typical action movie, but Die Hard doesn't follow any formula, Die Hard is the formula used by so many action movies since. With this movie it's fresh and new, not as unbelievable as it could be, and Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman are believable in their roles. With action movies (and especially superhero movies), what really makes or breaks it is the villain. The reason most of the James Bond movies are merely fun, and no more, is that if the villains weren't completely incompetent James Bond would be dead about fifty times now. There's nothing satisfying about watching a hero, no matter how cool, go up against a villain who isn't truly threatening. Bruce Willis makes a great hero, doing an especially good job being a "regular guy" (well, a detective, and really tough, but deep down just a regular guy) who becomes a hero only by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even better, Alan Rickman makes such a believable, menacing villain, that it is very satisfying to see him brought down by the hero (even with 1988 special effects).

The overall plotline is mostly predictable, but along the way individual scenes throw some pretty fun curve balls, and there's great humor, too. The action is intense, and while there are the expected overdone Hollywood explosions, most of the action and stunts are plausible and the danger seems real without becoming an overload for the audience. Many action movies fail by being all climax all the time, and by the end are boring no matter how many bullets are flying, and others fail by trying to have too much deep dialogue and social commentary from the characters, and are boring that way. The pacing in Die Hard is perfect. I was riveted the whole time, and satisfied by the end.

The only real downsides were some lame acting from some of the supporting cast, and I can't help seeing the guy who played the cop who helps Bruce Willis and thinking "Family Matters". I can't take that guy seriously no matter what, and he's not that great an actor. Worse, Die Hard makes the classic movie mistake of having the cops bungle everything from start to finish because the police captain has an ego and insists he knows everything despite getting the inside info from Bruce Willis. Sure, this happens in real life, too, but wouldn't it be nice in a movie to see competent hero, competent villain, and competent cops? (Terminator 2 had that, now that I think of it... another great movie.) But even accounting for these negatives, it is still one of the best action movies I've seen, and well deserving of it's classic status.

Die Hard 2: Die Harder was also fun, but was in my opinion the weakest of the series. That's not a bad thing, Die Hard is a tough act to follow up. How do you raise the bar? They tried, but it didn't really work. It had it's plot twists, backstabbing and betrayal, and plenty of action, and was definitely a fun movie and didn't feel like a waste of time despite not having as solid a plot as the original. What made it work was Bruce Willis. The villain was pretty good, but no Hans Gruber, but Bruce was still Bruce, and fun to watch. Though there is a scene where he fails to save quite a lot of people and starts crying, and that's a bit uncomfortable. The incompetent cop formula is even stronger in this movie, though, and definitely getting old. You can skip this movie and not be lost in the next two, but I still recommend it. It is above average for an action movie.

One thing I liked about it is how well it made the point about the media in its quest for sensational, dramatic stories, does the public no favor and can make things worse. My memory is a bit rusty (that's what I get watching all four at once in one day and waiting so long to blog it, I guess), but I think the first Die Hard made that point as well, but it is in this movie that it sticks in my mind. It reminds me of a real-life example that happened ten years ago: the school shooting in Columbine. A friend of mine sent me a link to a very interesting interview with someone who studied that event, and one of the most interesting aspects is how the myths connected to the shooting originated from CNN coverage within hours of the shooting. Children in the classrooms were watching what was happening on TV, and as they came out they were interviewed by reporters as if they were eyewitnesses who knew the shooters personally when all they were doing is repeating what they'd just seen on TV and immediately reinforcing the myths. That's sort of a tangent, but it is one of the more interesting parts of the movie seeing the attitude of the news reporters trying to get the story that will make their career, oblivious to the panic they are causing and the leverage they are giving to the terrorists.

Die Hard With a Vengeance was a lot of fun, much better than the second movie. This one brings in Samuel L. Jackson as a character named Zeus, which is awesome by itself. Zeus is a very racist black man who only begins helping Bruce Willis to save his black neighborhood from unwanted negative publicity. When a terrorist sets off a bomb and threatens to detonate more unless Bruce Willis's character walks through Harlem wearing a sandwich board with offensive racial slurs on it, Zeus saves his life explaining that the last thing his neighborhood needs is another headline about black gang members killing a white cop.

I was dubious at first, letting the character chemistry between Samuel Jackson and Bruce Willis be enough to make the movie worth watching, but disappointed that it was just a typical sadistic villain out for revenge coming up with silly impossible scenarios to keep the cops guessing and the hero running. By the end I was impressed, though, because there is much more going on than that, and it starts from the very beginning though you don't see it. Or maybe I just didn't see it. This movie was also great in that finally we're allowed to see competent cops, making honest mistakes because even though they've thought it through they can still be wrong, not just stubborn and stupid in the face of obvious facts. There is also a very effective scene as a school is evacuated due to a bomb threat, where the bomb expert stays in the school trying to diffuse a bomb knowing he has no chance of success and is going to die, but refusing to leave as long as there are kids in the school. This was a really great movie.

Not as good as the last one, though! Live Free or Die Hard was the movie that got me interested in the series in the first place, and it was just as good the second time. All of the Die Hard movies are very patriotic (it is still amazing to me that Hollywood can pump out movies that clearly demonstrate why we can't negotiate with an enemy bent on our destruction, then they turn around and denounce the "illegal" war on terrorism), but this one is the most so. It also is the first of the series to moderate the language to the point that it is not rated "R", though there's an "Unrated" version that is hilarious in that language is added in when it is clear the character is not really speaking. It is also the first of the series that does not take place on Christmas; instead this movie takes place on Independence Day. Bruce Willis is much older in this film, and they work with that fact very well in the film. His partner in this film is the Mac guy from Apple's "Get a Mac" commercials, and plays a very convincing hacker, and is great in the film.

The story is great, the characters are great, the fights are very cool and above average for realism in an action movie, and there are some extremely cool stunts, not all of which strain your suspension of disbelief (though some do). My favorite part was watching throughout the movie as Bruce Willis is so impatient with the nerds he has to work with to stop the terrorists in this movie, especially when they meet the biggest nerd of all, who lives in his mother's basement and answers only to "Warlock". I don't know if I can say if this is my favorite or the first is my favorite, because they are very different movies; but especially if language in a movie bothers you, or you refuse to watch an "R" rated movie, Live Free or Die Hard is the one I would recommend the most.

Okay, four down, about two dozen movie reviews to go... another time.