What I'm Listening To...

Several years ago I became hopelessly addicted to the original film scores for movies. I find that this music is designed to tap into primal human emotions and I love to listen to the lyric-free music when I write. As such, I’m much more interested in talking about the works of Hans Zimmer or Trevor Rabin as opposed to Trick Hop Wizard Trickie or whatever pop band is out there right now.

Unfortunately fans of music scores are definitely in the minority. It is an expensive habit because you can’t just stroll into any store and purchase them and you can’t find smaller films in the “Get 12 CDs for a Penny” clubs. Regardless, I’ve purchased a few scores lately. This is what I’m listening to.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest by Hans Zimmer
Hans Zimmer is my favorite composer of all time. Something about his music speaks to my soul. I think he is the best in history. He owns a studio called Media Ventures, which is home for several film scorers. Klaus Badelt is Zimmer’s protégé and scored the first POTC movie. Zimmer has done the sequel and I am hoping he will score the third film of the trilogy (due out in 2007.)
Keep in mind that the first movie’s score is one of my favorites of all time. As a follow up to COTBP, this is great music on a poor CD. I listen to all my music on my computer so I rip CDs to my hard drive so I can listen to them without tying up my disc drive. Some of the tracks were okay and for some reason they put these techno-remixed tracks at the end and listed them as “bonus tracks.” They were unlistenable. But the tracks that were good enough to keep in the play list are pure gold.
It’s good action music, Halloweenish villain music, and a good ol’ fashion adventure score, just like the movie. If you liked the movie, pick this one up.

Doom by Clint Mansell

Remember playing the old Doom game on PC? Clint Mansell didn’t stray too far from the original themes of the game but it is great to hear it in full orchestral score. Tracks like Sibling Rivalry, BFG, and First Person Shooter make the cut as the best tracks on the disc. Very, very cool.

What I'm Reading...

As you will quickly learn in these blogs, I am a tiny bit of a comic book fanatic. Okay, take that last sentence and replace “tiny bit” with “massive.”

I think comics often get a bum rap and are considered childish because people make snap decisions about them. They think that every line of dialogue still ends in an exclamation point or a question mark. That is not true. It might have been that way back in the ‘60s but no more.

I feel that comics have all the depth, intrigue, characterization, and storytelling flair of any media. And right now, for me, there is nothing bigger than Marvel Civil War. Civil War is a seven-part story that is echoing throughout the Marvel Universe. You can see its effects in New Avengers, She-Hulk, Ms. Marvel, Thunderbolts, all sorts of books.

In the story, a film crew captured video of a young group of inexperienced heroes attempting to apprehend a powerful villain. When the fight turned ugly, half of Stamford, Connecticut was vaporized and Ground Zero was an elementary school. Now this is some pretty serious stuff, far and away bigger than your average bubble-gum pop story meant for kids.

Because of this event, the government passed into law the Superhero Registration Act. It required all super-powered individuals to register into a secure database, receive training with their powers, and… reveal their secret identities. Half of the Marvel Universe praised the idea. The other have gave the government the finger. Battle lines were drawn. And this is not just bad guys vs. good guys. This is good guys vs. good guys. Failure to register became a crime, so those that failed to register became criminals.
The Defenders of the Act: Iron Man, Spider-Man, Mr. Fantastic, Ms. Marvel.
Opponents of the Act: Wolverine, Daredevil, Luke Cage, Spider-Woman… and the leader of the opposition is none other than my man Captain America.

So it’s Iron Man vs. Captain America. Best friends for years and this division is just causing a downward spiral in the Marvel U. Big events have happened in the series including but not limited to Spider-Man unmasking in front of a live press conference and the return from the grave of Thor the Norse God of Thunder. (I'm hoping against hope that we will see the return of Hawkeye -- one of my all time favorites who died several yeas ago during Avengers: Disassembled.)

Translation: Man, it is a great time for comics.

This has been a fantastic read, I’d highly recommend picking it up or wait a few months for the Trade Paperback to become available.

Ryan Foley -- Comic Geek

Starting Over... Again...

Since this is only my second post, I feel a need to put in a few qualifiers here for people that are surfing in for the first time. I don’t want you to feel like you’ve shown up twenty minutes late to a movie…

I am happily married to my wife Amy and we have three great kids, Alex (9, 4th grade), Jason (7, 2nd grade), and Lauren (2, Headstart), who are all getting ready to have birthdays in October and November.
Back in 2000, Amy was working at a family job (which allowed her to take the kids with her to work) and I was running a video store for a small chain. Because of certain events, I decided that the company I was working for was not the company for me and Amy was in need of a change as well.
One of the view advantages of being poor is that you can literally start any new career and chances are you won’t miss out on a lot of money. So, Amy and I decided to take a big risk. Using her associates degree, Amy got a job working at the Tulsa County District Attorney’s Office and I took the position as Full Time Father. (I hate the term Stay-At-Home Dad, makes it sound like I’m sitting on the couch all day eating Bon-Bons and watching soaps.)
Those first few months were pretty scary but Amy excelled at her job and was suddenly making more money by herself than we were making combined a year earlier despite a forty-five minute commute.
Things were good. But, after several years at this job, Amy was essentially making the same amount of money she was making when she started (with a few minor raises). Unfortunately, cost of living decided to shoot up substantially. Been to the gas pump lately? Yeah.
So, after a failed attempt to work at a place that was closer to home and apparently run by monkeys, Amy walked out of her job. Amy is one of the most amicable people I know so for this one cee-to-the-unt hair to get her riled up enough to walk out in the middle of the day… It had to be bad.
My hope is that a phoenix is about to rise from the ashes. Amy has set her sights on an RN program at the local college, fast-tracked through a Vo-tech school.
Unfortunately, this means that for the next two to two-and-a-half years, we are living off student loans. And I went back to work at the local grocery store that I worked at during high school and when I went to college… and I absolutely hate it.
Okay, hate is a pretty strong word so let me quantify that. The job is good. My boss is a great guy, my co-workers are cool, and I work in a fairly compartmentalized department where we take care of our own and stay out of all the political B.S.
Sadly, I only get about 32 hours a week (sometimes less!) and this is our primary source of income! If it were a secondary income, man, it would be spectacular. But we get paid on Monday and I am broke on Wednesday… I hate it. I am working on my own projects (I’ll post that soon) and Amy says that once she is hired as an RN, we will make almost three times what we were making before. I could just go back to running the house full time. Let the wife support me. Is that the life or what, fellas? But until we get to that point, man, this is a scary time. Imagine looking at your life and trying to start over for a second time.
Pretty scary stuff. Welcome to my life…

My First Blog Entry!

"Panic. I know most experts tell you not to, but it’s gonna happen one way or the other, so you might as well get it out of the way early while you still have the strength to really get hysterical."
Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report, 2006

Greetings everyone and welcome to my first official blog! This is where I plan to do a bunch of self promotion, ranting, raving, reviewing, and pretty much all the rest of things that your average blogger does. So welcome everyone. I am hoping that friends can use this to stay informed on my day-to-day events that is Ryanland.

Sit back, happy viewing, and bear with me as I am new to all of this. I'm learning as I go. Feel free to send in comments and suggestions. I'd love to hear them.
I hope you enjoy the ride.

Ryan Foley
The Most Electrifying Man in Internet Entertainment