I want to tell you how I feel about the movie "300" that I just saw this weekend.  It's with mixed emotions that I give it an A-.  Let's be clear, this movie had a lot of potential to under deliver and it didn't.  No one can recreate Gladiator, but then again, we know how this movie ends before it even starts, so it's harder to deliver the ending. 

Here's why I liked it...

• Awesome special effects.  The whole sepia thing wasn't lost on me and this move introduces an entirely new style of fight scene.  Watch out Hong Kong, computers might actually be better than kung-fu masters on pulleys. 
• Pretty good acting given all these dudes were buffed up body builders
• Storyline was moderately accurate... and here's where my beef starts

Here's what I didn't like...

• The storyline wasn't nearly as accurate as it could have been
• The entire Persian army was like an alien horde imported from some type of first person shooter game
• The Spartans, as bad ass as they are, were made out like Greek gods against a vilified Persian army.  Wouldn't be so bad if you didn't make the antagonists out to be so freaking freakish... alien... whatever...
• Why in the hell does Hollywood give ANY freaking foreign culture an English accent.  I remember reading a Clint Eastwood quote (I think) where he said that he grew up thinking that Nazis had an English accent because of Hollywood.  Hats off to Clint for making Letters from Iwojima in Japanese. 

Here's a small history lesson for some of you who might not be as in tune with "ancient times." 

• Persians are a line of people descendant from the original European Aryans.  Iran is actually meant to be read as Land of the Aryans.  They're descendants of the original Medes tribe from Arya. 
• The Immortals were Xerxes' (aka Kurosh) personal body guards.  They were all part of his extended family and were widely regarded as the best fighters on horse using bow and sword outside of the Mongols.  This also meant that they were extremely handsome, well fed, strong, courageous and were known for being immaculately dressed.  I don't know why they were portrayed as demon looking ninjas with straight swords... well I do... and it's coming
• Sparta was a military state and men trained from the age of 6 to the time they died in battle as soldiers.  This meant that they conquered a lot of smaller tribes/ nations and took them as slaves (weird given that's what they were fighting against).  This also meant that they took along way more people than just 300 Spartans to fight the Persians because every Spartan citizen had an assload of slaves.  They probably took along their most valued slaves who were probably just as bad ass to fight the Persians.  I don't know the entire number but remember reading that it was in the tens of thousands.

Herein lies my beef... I'm a bit tired of Hollywood portraying antagonistic countries (don't forget that the antagonist is dependent on which side of the fence you grew up on) completely inaccurately.  This stings a bit more because I'm from Iran and wouldn't have minded a little more representation than Demon Ninjas.  Also, what was up with the HUGE dude playing Xerxes who looked more Eastern Indian than Persian? Take a look at some ancient Persian art, you'll see more similarities with Leonidas. 

I thought it was funny when I read about some group petioning Disney to change Jafar's accent in the animated movie Aladin.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, whatch the movie again because you'll see that Jafar is the only person in the movie with a middle-eastern-esque accent.  Everyone else spoke proper American English.  Again... funny. 

I guess this is all just building up because of everything going on with Iran right now.  Yeah, their president is crazy and is trying to stir up trouble.  Let's not forget that the US provided Iraq with all their arms to fight Iran.  This is the same stuff Sadaam used to fight the US.  It should come of no surprise that Iran is helping Iraqi malcontents cause problems with the American occupation.  That's the way war works.  People like you or they don't and they'll fight for what they believe in. 

 

Noah Sahand Sattari was born on July 27, 2007 at 9:20 PM... 5 days early! Jessica gave birth to a bouncing, dribbling, SCREAMING baby boy weighing 8 lbs and measuring 20.5 inches.  Now that the official announcement is done, here's how it all went down...

 

Jessica (aka Jes) gave me a call at 11:30 AM and told me she was having her first real contraction.  I'd like you to realize that this was the first contraction ever!  Jes just started experiencing some lower cramping a few days before, but had never had a full fledged contraction.  I told her to relax and give me a call when... if... she had another.

 

Side Note:  I'm thinking she's going to have these for days since our due date was 8/1.  Boy was I in for a surprise.

 

I received another call at 1:10 PM from my wife kindly asking me to come home.  Apparently, she was beginning to experience more contractions and she thought she was going into labor.  She definitely wanted me to get home ASAP.

 

Side Note:  Don't take the bus to work when you're wife is expting to have a baby in 5 days.  Luckily, a friend from work was kind enough to take me home. 

 

I got home and everything seemed to be okay.  Jes was having mild contractions that were relatiely infrequent.  I thought we'd have all the time in the world.  She had talked to the labor and delivery nurse 3 times that day and she was adimant that we not come in until the contractions were at least 45 minutes long and 5 minutes apart.  I can understand that... I really can.  Remember that all women are different though and here's how it all wend down.