Mike Browne’s Blog

Forbes.com has put out their list of the world’s richest people for 2004. William Gates III tops the list again (of course) with a whopping $46.6 billion.

Interestingly enough numbers 6 through 10 on the belong to the Walton family (not the one’s on Walton’s Mountain) of Walmart. All 5 are worth $20 billion each. That’s right 20 billion – EACH! That makes a family total of $100 billion plus. Good God! If Walmart founder Sam Walton were still alive his personal wealth would dwarf Bill Gates’. As a result of their vast wealth and questionable practices Walmart is often under fire from the Anti-Globalization folks and many others who think we should boycott Walmart. With all the hooplah they continue to do very well for themselves.

I can’t imagine what one has to do to make that kind of cash. It’s unfathomable to me even to be ahead at all. As someone who’s swimming in debt to the tunes of multiple thousands it doesn’t even remotely compute. Take away all my debt and I’m still only a multi-thousandaire. I have a long way to go before I catch Billy and The Waltons!

I’m excited about seeing Broken Lizard’s Club Dread. They even have a regularly updated blog on their site. Very cool! Their first movie, Super Troopers, was hilarious. So much so I bought the DVD and have watched it a number of times. It still makes me laugh. Their humour, however, isn’t for everyone. I have the emotional maturity of a 14 year old so it fits me very well.

Check out P-Unit!. They’re not so hardcore rappers from Princeton. They threw down a kickass rap tune called “Generic Rap Song” that you can download right herrre. There’s a video on their site too. Yeah!

P-P-P… P-P-P… P-Unit!

I’m beginning the process of incorporating a film production company. I’m calling it ZombieFreak Media Productions (I’ll add LTD or INC later). Here’s the design I came up with a logo and business card design. I’ll put all the info, like phone number and email on the back of it before it goes to the printer but I’m not posting it here. Spammers and telemarketers = Blech! Anyway, here’s the card:

Pretty cool, huh?

Anyway, I’ll also be redesigning my site, ZombieFreak.com to be more representative of a media company. Once I figure out what that entails it should be a cinch.

The Official Website of Dawn of the Dead is finally up. I, of course, have joined the Zombie Army – Official Fansite for Dawn of the Dead. The more these link get clicked through my my readers the better chance I ahve a cool zombie shwag. An you know what a great fan of zombies I am. I run ZombieFreak.com for goodness sake.

Anyway, here’s the Official Trailer, Dawn of the Dead – QuickTime

For more info and to join in on Dawn of the Dead discussions check out:

CHUD’s Official “Dawn of the Dead” (2004) Discussion

and

IMDb’s Message Board for Dawn of the Dead

Masturbation protects against prostate cancer: study

Do you want to bet that it was men who funded and carried out this study? Regardless it’s nothing but good news. Strangely enough this link is thanks to my wife, Carol. I’ll be in the bathroom with the latest Hustler ‘taking care of my health’.

Beat it like it owes you money boys. We wouldn’t want prostate cancer.

Here are the nominees with my picks and predictions:

Actor in a leading role (I’m rather torn here)

Johnny Depp in “Pirates of the Caribbean” – In a perfect world yes…

Ben Kingsley in “House of Sand and Fog” – not a chance Ghandi

Jude Law in “Cold Mountain” – what’s that smell?

Bill Murray in “Lost in Translation” – He deserves it

Sean Penn in “Mystic River” – He’ll get it

Actor in a supporting role

Alec Baldwin in “The Cooler” – Haven’t seen it, but a Baldwin?

Benicio Del Toro in “21 Grams” – Too fat and dirty…

Djimon Hounsou in “In America” – Who?

Tim Robbins in “Mystic River” – Jacob’s Ladder rocks! The Oscar is Tim’s. Watch for idiotic political speech

Ken Watanabe in “The Last Samurai” – Sorry ‘Ken’; like that’s your real name.

Actress in a leading role (I’m torn here as well)

Keisha Castle-Hughes in “Whale Rider” – Would be a coup I would love to see

Diane Keaton in “Something’s Gotta Give” – It’s a ‘before you die’ Oscar if she gets it

Samantha Morton in “In America” – Who?

Charlize Theron in “Monster” – Amazing transformation for this role. She gets it.

Naomi Watts in “21 Grams” – No room for Aussies this year

Actress in a supporting role

Shohreh Aghdashloo in “House of Sand and Fog” – Who?

Patricia Clarkson in “Pieces of April” – UPDATE: Cancer victim. Sad as hell. Well done Patricia. My preference but not the Academy’s.

Marcia Gay Harden in “Mystic River” – Disloyal bitch…

Holly Hunter in “Thirteen” – Snore. Not this year.

Renée Zellweger in “Cold Mountain” – It’s yours as we pity all your prior nominations

Watch for the other major categories coming in part 2…

The Canucks really showed up for the game last night. The final tally had Daniel Sedin scoring all four of the team’s goals, but that dosn’t mean that the rest of the team was asleep. The ‘Nucks played with big time heart and probably a bit of desperation last night. The required passion had obviously returned to their game. The photo at left shows Daniel scoring his hat trick goal. You can see a larger version of that photo here. Daniel scored his fourth and final goal of the evening into an empty net as Detroit had pulled their goal tender to allow for an extra attacker on the ice in a desperate bid to tie the game.

I must admit, after the recent performance of the Canucks, especially at home, I was not too hopeful as to their chances last evening. Playing a team like Detroit, who is at the top of the conference and on a roll it could have been a really bad night. But it wasn’t. Detroit came out hard but ran out of gas and after that it was all Vancouver. The Sedins are finally producing and even out skating opponents in the process giving a well deserved ‘in your face’ to detractors (I admittedly have been one).

As an aside, Trevor Linden played his 900th game as a Canuck and is poised to break Stan Smyl’s all time points record as a Canuck of 673. He’s been in a bit of a drought but I’m sure we’ll see this clutch player and fan favourite pull it off and soon. No pressure Trevor (like he’ll ever read this…)!

After ranting about the storm in NS so much I thought the following was worth posting:

“Here is a photo of the damage from the terrible coastal storm that passed through Victoria last week. Most people stayed home and most schools were cancelled. It really makes you cherish what you have, and reminds us not to take life for granted.

Warning: Following picture is quite graphic and may not be suitable for younger viewers”

to see the picture.

The horror!

Thanks to everyone who sent this. Again, I am so glad I live in BC.