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Ninja Day 2010 is stealthily creeping up on us…

Posted in 80s, movies, ninjas, pop culture with tags movies, Ninja Day, ninjas, pop culture on December 3, 2010 by Paxton

That’s right. Ninja Day 2010 is three days away on Sunday, Dec 5, 2010. Are you ready? If you keep turning around thinking you’re hearing something behind you, don’t be scared. It’s just Ninja Day creeping up ninja-style ready to gut you like a rainbow trout. Just go with it.

What do I have planned? Well, on Ninja Day I’ll discuss a popular 80s ninja movie and some of the behind the scenes drama that almost led to it not being released. Next week, I’ll continue Ninja Day with a bunch of reviews of ninja movies. Most are vintage 80s, but one was released last year.

So come back on Sunday and next week, sit back, relax and let the explosive awesomeness of badass ninjas fighting fill your heart with warmth and love…and death.

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Ninja Day 2009: Movie review of Ninja Assassin

Posted in holiday, movies, Ninja Day, ninjas, pop culture, reviews with tags holiday, Ninja Day, ninjas, pop culture, reviews on December 5, 2009 by Paxton

YES! Today, is Ninja Day, my friends! Finally, I wait all year to don the black pajamas and stalk around my neighborhood without getting arrested. The time is nigh!!

Yesterday, I talked about what makes a bad ass ninja, BAD ASS. Today, I’m going to talk about ninjas and the movies. There has been a long history of US ninja movies, but those have MOSTLY died out here in the US since the late ’80s. I loved all of those movies, roughly 90% of which starred the awesome, Sho Kosugi. However, despite some fairly recent movies having ninjas in them (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Elektra) there haven’t really been any ninja-centric movies in the last few years. This past Thanksgiving changed that trend with the release of the movie, Ninja Assassin. In honor of Ninja Day, I saw this movie and would like to review it.

So, the movie opens up with a pretty intense scene. You see these young Asian “gangster” types hanging out in their hideout playing pool and drinking. The leader is getting a tattoo and complaining about the needle hurting and being kind of a bitch about it. The crusty old dude giving the tattoo essentially says, maybe you aren’t man enough to get this tattoo. The young Asian leader of course pulls this ridiculously large pistol (fully plated in gold, mind you) and threatens to paint the ceiling with the crusty old guy’s brains. At this point, even people from space can see where this is headed. And after the delivery of a wax sealed envelope filled with black sand, every single one of the young toughs are systematically slaughtered in the most intensely violent ways. The first guy literally has half his head torn off by a blade flying so fast you only see the blur. And that’s how everyone else dies. You see mostly the dark blurs (ninja) and silvery blurs (ninja stars) as they reduce everyone in the room to a bloody pile of limbs. It’s fast, violent and every bit as balls out awesome as you think it’s going to be.

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Ninja Day 2009: Things that make a Bad Ass NINJA…well, BAD ASS

Posted in humor, Ninja Day, ninjas with tags humor, Ninja Day, ninjas on December 4, 2009 by Paxton

Tomorrow, Dec 5, is Ninja Day, my friends. Time to break out the katana, sharpen it up and prepare for all the face and gut stabbing that’ll be required on this most glorious of days!! It’s gonna be a gut/face stabbing extravaganza. Are you prepared?

Since it’s Ninja Day Eve, I thought I’d go ahead and post this year’s ninja celebratory article today. I get a lot of hits on my previous Ninja Day articles for mainly two reasons. One, the articles are about BAD ASS ninjas (duh) and two, THEY ARE ABOUT BAD ASS NINJAS. Seriously, check them out. This blog has been celebrating Ninja Day since 2006. And that is not going to stop on my watch.

I get plenty of comments about the copious amounts of ninja love on this blog. I’m always asked “how can I, too, become a bad ass ninja like yourself?”. Good question, but let’s make one thing clear; you can become a ninja, but that won’t make you bad ass like myself. However, since this is a valid question I thought I’d impart to all my “ninja civilian” readers what makes a bad ass ninja. What do ninjas do on a daily basis that make them so much more bad-ass awesome than a normal person? You constantly have to work at being BAD ASS and a ninja. Like P-Diddy said, “Mo BAD ASS, Mo Problems” (I’m paraphrasing).

So here are a few things that make a bad ass ninja (like myself), well, BAD ASS.

Bedside Battle Monkey
The first thing you should know, I can’t wake up to a regular alarm clock. Regular alarm clocks are for normal people who aren’t bad ass ninjas. Awesome ninjas like myself need something more dangerous to get us out of bed and out the door. Personally, I wake up to the attacks of a monkey in robotic battle armor that is trained to kill me (pic above). Seriously, that monkey is literally trained to tear out my stomach and dance around with my entrails like he’s at some psychotic rave party. To start my day, I must fight this Battle Monkey Alarm (BMA) in order to get out of the house. And believe you me, this monkey is trained well. Our battles are like 3 hours long. Not only does this get my blood pumping in the morning (and not just figuratively), it keeps my killing instincts sharp. When the insides of my bedroom are covered in Battle Monkey’s gore and feces (even battle monkeys like throwing poo) I can then continue my morning with my next ritual, a hot cup ‘o joe.

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It’s Ninja Day 2008!!!

Posted in holiday, humor, life, Ninja Day, ninjas with tags Ninja Day, ninjas on December 5, 2008 by Paxton

That’s right, it’s that time of the year once again. December 5th. The Day of the Ninja. Today is a day to celebrate the lethal, the invisible, the AWESOME…Ninja.

Regular readers know that this blog celebrates Ninja Day every year. See last year here. And 2006 here.

Many people ask me what it’s like to be a ninja. Really, being a ninja is just like being a normal person, except faster and more awesome. People also want to know if just by being a bad ass ninja do I get out of many fights or, every once in a while, do I get to deliver a glorious and spectacular ninja death unto some poor soul’s sorry ass. The answer is, I get to deliver ninja justice onto people everyday. Sometimes multiple times in a day. Let’s take a look at a few of the attacks I see on a daily basis.

Pax Enter the Dragon

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Google Gmail: Now with ninjas!!

Posted in Gmail, Google, ninjas, reviews, technology with tags Gmail, Google, ninjas, technology on November 25, 2008 by Paxton

I joined Google’s Gmail service back in March of 2005. At that point, you could only join by invitation. I was able to find a guy that had a Gmail account on one of the tech websites I usually visit (PCMag.com) and got him to forward me an invitation. Once I was approved and given a log on, I tried it out. I was immediately in love. Google Gmail is simple, elegant, and has TONS of space to store all of your emails. It’s because Gmail started offering 2.5Gb of storage that Yahoo! Mail had to up their limit too. While Gmail’s form factor, or interface, is minimal (which is typical Google), the functionality is fantastic.

Gmail has many cool features that I enjoy. Instead of folders, it uses labels. You can affix multiple labels to a message and search on these labels. Makes finding emails easier. Also, Gmail will sort your emails into groups. Emails with the same subject get stacked on top of each other into a message thread called a “conversation”. This lets you see all the emails pertaining to a subject instead of having to search through 15 separate emails for a piece of info. It also lets you see each email within the context it was sent. This particular behavior takes some getting used to, but I love it now that I am.

For the first few years Google added small items of functionality to Gmail, but the online interface remained the same. When you logged on, this is pretty much what you saw.