Now that's more like it.
While I am surely not the first person to notice this, it has recently occurred to me that all of my interests tend to "blend" into each other in one manner or another. Let's run through an example, shall we?
When I was in the 7th grade, I saw the film Saving Private Ryan for the first time. This affected my life in a profound way and today I consider it to be my favorite movie. The opening scene on Omaha Beach was the most intense scene I had ever seen in a movie, and arguably to this day still holds that regard. The rest of the movie was a harrowing tale of men just trying to do their job as part of a larger picture, with most of them never making it home. For those who are completely oblivious, this movie takes place in France following the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944 (which is, coincidentally, the day on which I am typing this). That movie profoundly opened my eyes to World War II and these unreal experiences that very real people lived through.
No words can accurately depict how watching this makes me feel.
After watching Saving Private Ryan, an interest began to grow in the war and history in general. During this time, the History Channel was not a laughable embarrassment and actually showcased shows that had some historical context, much of which was World War II related. I ate it all up. This is where the blending comes in. Soon afterwards, the Xbox 360 released. While I had no plans of getting one at the time, I still jumped at the opportunity to play it when a kiosk came to Target. I didn't know any of the games that were available to play, so I chose Call of Duty 2. That was one of the best decisions I ever made (my life isn't very interesting, remember?). The level portrayed in the demo placed you in the shoes of a British soldier during the North African campaign. This was the first instance during the time in which my interest in the war was blooming that I was made aware of an event that didn't involve America. It was also the first time I had played a first person shooter. Everything about this game was foreign to me. The concept of taking cover, avoiding fire, throwing grenades, aiming down your sights (RAMIREZ!!), all of it was new. And I loved every second of it.
That Christmas I received the equivalent of Call of Duty 2 for the PlayStation 2, the spin-off developed by Treyarch (<3), Call of Duty 2: Big Red One. This game portrayed the efforts of a squad in the U.S. Army's 1st Infantry Division during the entire war, starting with the invasion of North Africa and ending with crossing the Dragon's Teeth deep into Germany. The best part of the game, in my opinion, were the characters. To this day, it was the one military FPS with consistently interesting characters. You were with the same group of characters the entire game, and they grew with you from inexperienced privates to grizzled veterans. When a member of the squad died, it wasn't a tired cliche - it actually had some weight. I still can't believe Brooklyn died. Oh, spoilers. Whoops.
After playing that game, two things happened. One, I saw the movie The Big Red One, starring Lee Marvin and Mark Hamill. It had no relation to the game in the sense that the characters were not shared, but it followed the same real life events, portraying the experiences of men in the 1st Infantry Division during the war. Watching this turned me on to these types of movies. I started watching all sorts of war movies and was constantly tuning in to AMC to catch more.
More importantly, I played the prequel to Big Red One, Call of Duty: Finest Hour. It was made by a different developer and is basically unplayable if you try to play it today, but at the time I thought it was incredible. Even with the graphics being as antiquated as they are, the one thing that I will say the game did extremely well was have great presentation. The atmosphere was incredible and was prevalent from the moment you pressed start. The music and sound just absorbed you. The game splits its time between the Eastern Front as a Russian soldier, North Africa as a British soldier, and the Western Front as an American soldier. However, it was the very first level that changed my life forever. It portrayed you as a Russian soldier joining the fight in Stalingrad against an unrelenting Nazi hoard... with no weapon. After the merciless Commissar demonstrated that all cowards and traitors would be shot, you are given a single magazine of Mosn-Nagant ammunition and told to follow your sergeant into battle, completely defenseless. One solider exclaims over a loudspeaker "when the first man dies, the second picks up his rifle!" It was truly haunting, and cemented in my mind that I had to dedicate my time to learning as much as I could about the war and entertaining myself with as much related material as possible. As such, two very great loves bloomed from this entire series of events. One, my love of World War II and related military history, and two, my love of shooters.
The first mission of the game. It STILL blows me away.
Since that time, I have constantly surrounded myself with anything and everything that remotely relates, from games like Call of Duty and other types of shooters as diverse as Resistance and Ghost Recon to films such as The Dirty Dozen and Patton, and the Band of Brothers book and the miniseries based on it. I can name off key battles and figures of the war without thought. I know every firearm that was used by every faction and many of the tanks and planes. I know so much, and love every bit of it. I've even taught classes on the war and given speeches on why it must be kept relevant. AS I've briefly mentioned this has also spilled over into a general love of history, especially military history. I could present a detailed argument as to why the M16A1 used by the U.S. during the Vietnam War was inferior to the Viet Cong's AK-47. I can explain the advantages of the MP7 over the ageing MP5. Any movie or game that is based in another time instantly has an easier time of gaining my attention. They don't even need to necessarily relate to war, I just love seeing how people lived in other times. A few months ago I saw the latest Sherlock Holmes movie and loved seeing how people lived in Victorian England. The Assassin's Creed series fascinates me with its treatment of various historical locales, from the Crusades to the Renaissance to the American Revolution.
Before I get ahead of myself I do wish to return to WWII for one last time. Even though my interests may have expanded over the years past just this one event, it is still my greatest love. I still love hearing daring tales of heroic undertakings against the Nazis and the Japanese, because these were the real experiences of real people up against the greatest evil the world has ever known. It almost sounds like something Hollywood imagined instead of something that really happened. Even today, I still find stories and images that fascinate me. For example, I found this very interesting story last week, and I found this image recently as well.
This image shows Soviet Marines using American Thompson submachine guns. The U.S. gave these to Russia as a part of the Lend-Lease Act, and I was always under the impression that the Soviets didn't actually use them due do the scarcity of .45 caliber ammunition. Based on this and other photos I've recently come across, I'm guessing I was wrong.
Basically, where I'm going with all of this is that occasionally I'll post something neato I find about the war in order to share my interest with others in the hopes of spreading my interest like a plague to others. More people need to be made aware of the specifics of what happened during the war.
Oh, and remember how I mentioned my interests blending? Imagine my surprise when I realized Iron Maiden had a song about the Battle of Britain.
Every WWII battle deserves its very own rock song.
I'd like to move away from blending and on to another topic of discussion for tonight - film and television. I've discussed already my love of war movies, but being the geek I am, there are some movies that I also must like by default, namely Star Wars. A lot of movies that I like are older than I am, with Ferris Bueller's Day Off being a personal favorite. And then of course, there are the Wayne's World movies. I'm not quite sure how to describe them for the uninitiated. It's kind of the misadventures of two metalhead best friends, I suppose, and every second of both is hilarious. Random moments can be taken and applied to anything and are endless quotable, kind of like Anchorman, I guess. One such example:
This scene is why you know Bohemian Rhapsody. I'm serious.
The movies were based on a series of skits from the TV show Saturday Night Live, which also happens to be the only show I watch with any regularity. Those skits were before my time though, which I guess was bound to happen with a show that just finished its 37th season. I'm not sure what got me to start watching this show, but whatever it was, I'm hooked and am going to be watching it forever (considering it very well might last that long). There are no storylines to get involved with, no complex plots, just an hour and a half of 5 minutes skits performed live. These skits vary across basically any topic and may or may not be related to current events and involve celebrity impersonations. Not every single skit knocks it out of the park, but considering most episodes have at least one or two winners, I always feel compelled to stick around and watch the whole show. There are also magical episodes where almost every second is brilliantly hilarious or have such standout moments that it was worth sitting through a bad skit or two. A few examples from the past season include the episodes hosted by Jimmy Fallon and Zooey Deschanel. Celebrity guests host each episode and perform with the regular cast, and these guests can sometimes be way out of left field, such as when Eli Manning hosted this season.
After watching the show for awhile, you begin to grow attached to certain cast members and their antics. While I have a few favorites, no one on the show quite captivated me like Andy Samberg. The very first episode that I watched (Michael Phelps was the host) I learned of his "SNL Digital Shorts," prerecorded segments that generally featured him doing something that was equivalent to what would be found in a five minute comedy video on YouTube. These segments were incredibly diverse, and sometimes involved him performing bizarre (and hilarious) raps as part of his comedy rap group The Lonely Island. Even if you haven't heard of the show, surely you heard of them. Anyways, on the very first episode that I watched, he premiered the video for Space Olympics. I don't think I ever had seen anything on television up to that point in my life that made me laugh as hard as I did when I saw that for the first time.
Comedic genius at its finest.
I'll miss you, bro.
Again, the point of this unnecessarily lengthy discussion was to explain why SNL skits are going to be popping up on this page from time to time. Expect it to happen at least somewhat frequently.
I would probably at least considering buying anything with this logo on it.
The last topic that I want to quickly jump on is my love of the Pittsburgh Penguins. To me, there is the Penguins, and then every other sports team in the world. Nothing even comes close. I am a diehard fan. Hockey is incredibly intense and I feel that no other sport even comes close to matching its intensity. I don't want to get into a discussion of the intricacies of the sport here, but let it be known that I will be making posts relevant to my team or the sport in general from time to time. We are in the the midst of the Stanley Cup Finals right now, with the Cinderella story of the 8th and lowest seed LA Kings seemingly about to reach its fairy tale conclusion. I may post my comments on that if it happens, but beyond that and the limited post season info we'll get about the Penguins, I won't have much to comment on for a while. I will say that the Penguins signing goaltender Tomas Vokoun gives us an extremely solid goalie tandem. I love Brent Johnson, our current backup, for what he's done for the team, but after a disappointing showing last season and Vokoun's track record, I am pleasantly surprised with the deal. I'll be sad to see Johnson go, but it's for the best. I'll be sure to make my thoughts be known on more Pens-related info as it comes along, which probably won't be for a while.
I'll miss One-Punch Johnny.
Welp, I guess that's that. There's my introduction. At least now you (all one of you) have an idea of what my posts will relate to. The only question now is what format my posts will take, I suppose. I assure you that none will be as ridiculously long as these last two posts were, and many will likely be me posting pictures and clips with commentary. I simply deemed it necessary to relate to my extremely minuscule audience what the content of this blog would contain, not necessarily the format. We can cross that bridge when we get to it. But for now, remember this name:
NICOLAS CAGE
Instead of signing off with music this time, I would like instead like to have a moment of silence for the men who served the free world on D-Day, June 6th, 1944. It's the least we can do for the sacrifices they made.
The gates of Heaven are in the clouds. On June 6th, 1944, the gates of Hell were in France.
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