The Brave One

The female Death Wish.

Jodie Foster plays Erica Bain, a New York City Resident. A woman who apparently has never really considered that New York is a cesspool and law abiding citizens are sitting ducks and cannot legally defend themselves with a firearm from the large amount of bad guys in the city.

The opening setup for this movie is something every anti-gun woman should see.

Jodie and Sayid from "Lost" are walking their dog in Central Park and they are stopped by three thugs. The thugs proceed to beat Sayid to death and beat Jodie to within an inch of her life.

After physically recovering and mentally trying to deal with the loss of Sayid she decides she needs a gun for defense and peace of mind. Clearly, the reality check she received has made her realize that law abiding citizens are basically sheep waiting for the slaughter and that law abiding adults are responsible for defending themselves. Unless the police are RIGHT THERE to stop the situation all they can do is make a report and investigate AFTER the fact. Not a lot of good that does for Sayid huh?

Anyway... She goes to a local gun shop and soon learns that there is a 30 day waiting period after she gets a license. This will not help her goal of feeling safe in a scary city where lots of bad things happen.

A guy at the store privately sells her a 9mm pistol. Now I don't remember if they dude was just in the gun store or worked for the gun store. If he was just another customer I think the person-to-person sale could have been legal. If the dude was an FFL then I think what he did was illegal.

Legality's aside, she bought a Kahr 9mm pistol with a box of cartridges.

Carrying concealed (illegally since you can't carry concealed in NYC) she finds herself shopping at a bodega where a pissed off ex-husband enters the store and shoots his cashier wife to death. Unfortunately Jodie's cellphone isn't on vibrate and when the Ex hears her phone ringing he's alerted to the fact that he's not alone in the store and proceeds to try and find and kill the witness.

She doesn't give the killer the chance and she shoots him a few times in self defense, killing him. Since she broke the law (carrying concealed, possible illegal gun, etc.) she leaves the scene. Stupid gun laws aside, I believe it was a righteous shoot.

Later she finds herself on a subway with some hoodlums. They steal some dude's iPod and threaten her with a knife. She shoots the two of them dead. Again, I feel a righteous shoot.

Driven by anger and grieving her loss Jodie's character slowly becomes a vigilante. Again, the legalities of that aside, this story would have been completely different if Sayid had been carrying a gun around like he does on Lost. It could have been a legal drama with focus on the 2nd Amendment. Though, Sayid would have been alive.

Not that I'm advocating vigilantism but it's better to be judged by 12 than carried by six.

I gave it 4 stars out of 5 on the Netflix scale. (It looks really good on Bluray by the way)

Available on DVD and Blu-ray.

Would you survive a zombie attack?

63%

My flaw apparently is attempting to get to my family. But I'm confident that unless it was a Class 3 Outbreak or above that I'd at least have a sporting chance of making it especially if I planned to go shooting after work (lots of guns & ammo with me)

Sonic coming to Chicagoland...

Just an FYI to those in Chicagoland...

From Crains Chicago:

Sonic Drive-In, the fast-food chain with a 1950s flair, complete with roller-skating carhops, is coming to the Chicago area.

From its headquarters in Oklahoma City, Sonic Corp. has rapidly become the fourth-largest U.S. fast-food chain after McDonald's Corp., Burger King Corp. and Wendy's International Inc. Sonic has 3,300 restaurants in 35 states. Its Illinois sites include Downstate Springfield, Pekin and Mattoon.

Sonic is scouting restaurant sites and is close to deals in suburbs including Algonquin, Vernon Hills and Lake Zurich. Company officials confirm that the first locations will open here by summer, with as many as a dozen over the following two years. For now, Sonic has no plans to come into Chicago.

"We're already inking deals for real estate in metro Chicago, and we expect to break ground on our first store by April or May," says Drew Ritger, Sonic's senior vice-president of development.

"Chicago could hold a number of stores for us, but for now, we're going to build them just one at a time. We have no target number," Mr. Ritger says. He did note that Sonic has more than 250 in metro Dallas alone.

Sonic's menu encompasses burgers, chicken, hot dogs, fries and onion rings and an extensive lineup of beverages and desserts. Sharon Zackfia, an analyst at Chicago-based William Blair & Co. who follows Sonic, swears by the company's breakfast burritos, tater tots and cherry limeades.

"I don't see any reason why Sonic won't do well in Chicago," she says. "Their breadth of beverages is far superior to what other restaurants already here offer. Items like their tater tots are simply craveable."

As my brother pointed out, the Algonquin deal is done and construction will begin soon (if not already). That will make my nearest Sonic around 10 miles instead of the 220ish miles my nearest one is now.

Edited to Add: If they do build one in Lake Zurich and they put it on Rt. 12, odds are that I will pass it every day on the way home from work!

Sweet liquor eases the pain...

The Gunny

The Upgrade

GTA 4 Rules!!

From CNN...

It's official. Grand Theft Auto IV is a video game blockbuster, with gamers around the world buying up more than 6 million copies of the gritty, urban action title in its first week of sales.

The dual figure of unit sales and revenues makes the launch the biggest ever for video games, and one of the biggest opening weeks in all of entertainment.

Sales of the game generated more than half a billion dollars, the publisher, Take-Two Interactive, said.

"Grand Theft Auto IV's first week performance represents the largest launch in the history of interactive entertainment, and we believe these retail sales levels surpass any movie or music launch to date," said Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick.

Analysts had long expected a solid opening for the game, which hit the stores on April 29, but none ventured sales of this magnitude.

Grand Theft Auto IV's sales surpassed those of last year's best-selling title from Microsoft, Halo 3. That title established a new, single-day sales record of $180 million dollars.

Take-Two estimates that on its first day, GTA IV sold 3.6 million copies and generated $310 million in sales, far surpassing Halo 3's performance.

Full article here.


This game's a TON of fun! Though I'm aggravated that I haven't unlocked "Algonquin" yet, I had a lot of fun stealing cars for Brucie last night. Especially the one right in front of the cops. FUN FUN FUN!

The way home...

Gas Mileage

After perusing a couple Nissan forums I've read some tips on how to great the best gas mileage out of my new Sentra.

According to the sticker I should be getting...

City: 25
Highway: 33
Average: 28

I'm going to strive to get as much out of the car as I can. The Sentra has a built in computer that calculates the average MPG based on your driving. You can reset this at any point so you can calculate certain legs of your trip if you want to.

After filling up ($50) this morning I reset the AVG MPG and drove to work. Roughly 17 miles.

Here's that trip...

Obviously the less you gun it, the better mileage you'll get. But you can also gain more MPG if you try to keep the RPM's lower than you normally do. I try to keep my RPM's under 3,000 in a normal commute (parts fast [highway] parts stop & go [city])

Periodically I will post some images via my iPhone to show how well I can do.

We're near $4.00 a gallon here and that SUCKS!!