I just wanted to tell the world that I have passed every song in Guitar Hero World Tour on Difficulty Level “Hard.”

Except Satch Boogie.  I fail 63% into the song every time. Damn it.

And I’m still tweeting, surprisingly.

EDIT: I BEAT SATCH BOOGIE! I AM THE GREATEST!

by Rafaella Cuff

The integrity and morality of politicians has been in the news an awful lot lately. What am I saying? It is always in the news. Not long ago, we were discussing the acts of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. His affair sweeped national headlines, and for good reason, why did he leave the state without telling anyone? He is the Governor for crying out loud! If he is having an affair, personally, that is his family’s business. Those of you who claim that a politician’s lifestyle speaks about what type of politician he will be are wrong. There are plenty of perfectly disgusting and horrible people that make damn fine politicians and plenty of lovely, family-adoring individuals who are nothing short of useless while in office.

Take the recent news of the Florida town official who was fired and was believed to be fired due to his wife’s links with the adult video industry. If you fire an official, it should be due to incompetance. If his wife makes a little income on the side, that is their business and their business alone.  If the council members were fine with the job he was doing before knowledge arose of his wife, then on what legality can they fire him? It seems a little pathetic. Now, if he was spending government money to drive his wife to a studio, then, sure, he should get in trouble.

This whole mentality is why this country still has years before it will elect an open atheist as president of the US. To be honest, the impact of religion on a president’s behavior is minimal. He has to act ethical anyway, and just because a person is an atheist, does not mean that person does not behave in a way that abides to a country’s moral structure. Trust me, not a single atheist I know behaves like Berlusconi. Yet, if you look at the polls, this country is far more willing to elect a Muslim or Hindu as president than it is an atheist, overlooking the fact that just because a person is an atheist does not mean he or she has an immoral lifestyle. There are plenty of supposedly Christian, family-loving politicians (most of them Republican) who have been charged or faced allegations of infidelity or paying for prostitutes. Yet, if they apologize and cry about their wrongs, etc., the majority of the country would still elect them over an atheist based solely on morality issues.

I think we should stop looking at a person’s religion and personal life, and look more into their politics and what they can do for this country politically. An atheist president cannot simply legalize gay marriage, but he can help international relations, domestic politics, treaties, and situations of war. He alone does not have the power to change the moral politics of a country, or did you forget this is a country of checks and balances? Personal life, religion, and moral issues should no longer be the highlight of a person’s political career. Focus should be placed on the political reputation, political history, and what that person can offer the country.

by Rafaella Cuff

I have been hearing many stories in the news lately of children raping other children, most of them in groups. It is rather unsettling, and it makes me feel nauseous. It’s bad enough that a child walking by his or her self has to watch out for adults, let alone children, with bad intentions.

Today, four boys in Arizona, aged from 9 to 14, are facing rape charges of an 8-year-old girl who they lured into an empty shed and sexually assaulted. I have no sympathy for underage rapists. If they were to face a merciless trial, I would be all for underage rapists to be charged as adults. It is such a repulsive and inexcusable crime. Of those four boys, only the fourteen-year-old will be charged as an adult. The charges are pretty fair in this case, considering that most underage rapists get off easy, some only suffering a year in JV or community service.

Nonetheless, as a whole, these underage rapists are not being punished enough. Just because they are children, they should not be excused. They know fully well what they are doing, and what are the parents’ roles in their lives? Sure, chilren can watch rape and porn on the internet, but where are the parents telling them what they can or cannot do. What is civilized in society, and what is not? The media can rate a television show as unsuitable for children, but they cannot control who is on the other side of the screen. Again, I am very against parents blaming the media, when it is their job to know what their child is or is not watching.

Young people’s distorted ideas about what sexual activity should or should not be are contributed to lack of parenting and what these children are seeing on the internet. Boys should be taught to respect girls, not rape them. These young rapists should be charged heavily, as a punitive measure to teach others that this is NOT acceptable behavior. The whole situation is repulsive. The fact that a group of young boys can get together and decide to rape a young girl is grotesque.

By Clifton Lee

Terrell Owens’ reality show, originally titled The T.O.  Show, aired for the first time on VH1 last night. Although I have become a bit skeptical of some reality shows because they seem staged or faked, I was very pleased with the show’s first episode. The show chronicles T.O.’s temporary stay in L.A. during which his friends try to help him structure his life after football. (It’s kind of hard to believe T.O. wasn’t born and raised in L.A.  with his larger than life wide reciever persona…) While I wasn’t suprised to see him surrounded by throngs of beautiful women, I was shocked to see Owens display his sensitive side when he was suddenly released by the Dallas Cowboys earlier this year. The show’s combination of T.O. over the top personality, the models he is always surrounded by not to mention his two sexy friends/personal assitants and publicists should result in combined success for both T.O. and Vh1. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the season will bring!

Well, I hope not. But I must accept the fact that if I am to have time to work on my novel and spend time with friends and family every once in a while, I must drop some side projects.

After the last summer issue of TW, I will be once again abandoning this blog. If updating this thing feels like a chore, I can’t imagine how much of a chore it must be to read these posts.

To feed that last shred of attention-whoredom alive inside me, I have gone back to Twitter.  Feel free to “follow” me or whatever you’re supposed to do on there. At least until I quit using that again, too.

http://twitter.com/stephenp85

Yay.

By Clifton Lee

Within the last two months, Jay-Z’s controversial Death of the Autotune has garnered a lot positive as well as negative attention. Over the last week, detractors of HOV have gained a new angry member in the west coast enthusiast/ambassador  who is known as The Game. The rapper recently began a streak of controversial outbursts aimed against Jay during a recent stint of shows which he performed while touring across Europe. After screaming “F**k Jay-Z” and calling him an “old a** n***” , he even got several of his attending crowds involved in the act by asking them to chant the preceding insults along with him.  Personally, I have very mixed feelings about this situation. On one hand,  I can’t blame him for being offended by the striking new record because Jay does go hard on a lot of people/trends (of which I do think are extremely whack and un-hip hop). But I also feel that The Game should respect his elders and go about responding in a more respectful way. He has done in the past and even stated that he wouldn’t diss Jay because he doesn’t go at legends. His words were also backed up by an act of peace at one of the very first BET Hip Hop awards. These previous actions lead to me to believe that Games recent outbursts may only be rooted in his need to revive his failing rap career and spark up some much needed notoriety.

Besides the fact that Jay-Z has proabably outsold him ten times over, is it clear that Jay  is better artist from a creative and lyrical standpoint. So no matter how much The Game or anybody else hates it, Jay-Z does officially start and end trends in hip hop. He started and then ended the Throwback era by ushering in button up shirts along with neatly worn baseball caps.  One of my favorite lines from his song titled “Jockin’ Jay-Z” simply sums it up:

“Haters…I ain’t mad at you. If I wasn’t I probably jock me too!!!”

I can’t wait for The Blueprint 3 to drop!!

by Rafaella Cuff

As reported by USA Today, Florida Governor Charlie Crist has called for state-wide hunt of rogue pythons a couple of weeks after an 8-foot pet python escaped from its terrarium and strangled a two-year-old girl. It’s sad that it takes this type of tragedy to get the government to do something about these reptilian menaces. Honestly, Stephen Colbert reported months ago on the spread of pythons in Florida.

The only animal not yet found in the stomach of a python in Florida is the Florida panther. That means theyeven eat alligators in the Everglades. Maybe you remember the python they found a few years ago that had eaten an alligator but was ripped apart from the inside by the gator’s death roll.

Obviously Florida needs some sort of St. Patrick-like figure to rid them of this plague. My suggestion - send in Daniel Radcliffe with a sword and phoenix.

by Rafaella Cuff

As much as I love to dine on squid (delicious, by the way, if you have never tried it), they seem to have become quite a pest lately, especially for divers. Not only are flying squid taking over San Diego, California, but they seem to be attacking poor, unsuspecting divers as they do so. For those of you who think they are just a glob of goo floating around the water, you are greatly mistaken (you may refer to the goo as jellyfish). These squid are vicious with a razor-sharp beak and an attitude to match.

Scientists are trying to understand what has caused this mass migration of 1,000’s of giant squid from Mexico to California. Some are blaming it on global warming while others claim it’s due to dying food sources.  I, personally, blame the economy.

Besides the point, they are attacking poor California divers, enveloping their equipment in a fearful mass of raging tentacles. It is quite disturbing. My suggestion to divers in California: arm yourselves with chopsticks.

By Clifton Lee

Hey Tigerweekly fans. For those of you all who love hip hop out there, I had to let you know about the song of the week by The Clipse and Kanye West. The song, which is called “Kind of a Like a Big Deal” is a classic east coast anthem which goes in the exact opposite lane of much of today’s chart-topping “Ringtone Rap” hits. Since I am unable to post the song on this site, I’ve posted the link to the song’s video on youtube. Check it out when you get a chance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSSMkIYfWyA

Took a few hours off work to see this movie yesterday (don’t laugh — I worked until 2 a.m. last night). I want to say it’s the best one of the six that have been released so far, but I saw this one in the theater and the others at home. I always enjoy movies more on the big screen, especially if I’ve been anticipating that particular movie.

Of course, those who haven’t read the books will find few flaws with this film (assuming you liked that previous five) — and those who don’t have a good memory of the book will also love it with no complaints. I, however, have the disadvantage of being a late-comer in Harry Potter fandom, having started the series in late May this year. I finished reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince a mere three days before seeing the movie. Likewise, I rented the films for the previous five as soon as I finished each book — often that day.

It was difficult to fully enjoy the movies when the books were so fresh on my mind each time. Tough not to compare them, to scrutinize every missing plot element (yes, I understand the need to change/remove things — these books are as long as 250,000 words; I only wish there was a market for 5-hour movies these days).

Anyway, here are my gripes about Half-Blood Prince.. SPOILERS BELOW:

1. Not enough Ministry of Magic plot — fans seem to find this aspect of the series tedious because it borders on two-dimensional political satire, but I like that extra layer. Fans of the books can fill in the gaps with why certain things are the way they are, but how are they going to incorporate all this stuff into the seventh movie and expect movie-only fans to follow?

2. No Dursleys — Just a personal preference. They can be written off as an unnecessary subplot, but I feel shortchanged every time. There wasn’t nearly enough of them in the first movie, and the inconsistency and underdevelopment of them is frustrating.

3. Added scene where the burrow was attacked — why waste time with a scene that wasn’t in the book? It did nothing to further develop the story, and I’m sure fans are frustrated that a new, unnecessary scene was added in the place of one of many scenes that were cut.

4. Sudden Aragog death — At least provide warning that the spider was sick, as was done in the book. By the time Harry took the Felix Felicias potion and started off to Hagrid’s, I had assumed the Aragog subplot had been cut.

5.  Harry/Snape interaction — I at least wanted to see hints of Snape’s initial suspicions that Harry was using his potion’s book… And the scene after Snape killed Dumbledore, where Harry confronts Snape, was just terrible. It was one of the most important scenes in the book, and it may as well have been cut from the movie. Harry literally shoots one spell at Snape before calling him a coward for not fighting back. Good god, slow down, directors. Give us some build-up. Of course, since the Snape/Harry hatred was poorly conveyed in the previous movies, there wasn’t much hope.

6. Flying Death Eaters — In the movies, they can turn into black smoke and fly. Apparently if you’re evil, you don’t need to apparate, fly on a broom, or use the floo network. But it does look cool.

7. Harry not being frozen — in the Dumbledore death scene in the book, Dumbledore froze Harry so that he could do nothing to fight back when the Death Eaters cornered Dumbledore. In the movie, Harry is just told to hide. And he does.  That’s not Harry’s character; he only obeys when it benefits him.

8. No Dumbledore funeral — overall, the death scene was handled very well, but the funeral would’ve been a powerful ending. But yeah, it’s expensive to put all those actors in one scene on the same day.

Overall, I give the movie a B+. Worth seeing, even if you just finished the book this weekend.