B-2 Stealth Bomber Crashes at Guam

B-2 Stealth Bomber Crashes at Guam Air Base; Pilots Are Safe
By Sophie Tan

Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) -- A B-2 stealth bomber crashed at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam and both pilots were safe after ejecting, the Pacific Air Forces said today in a statement on its Web site.

The Pacific Air Forces said a board of officers will look into the accident and more information will be made available later. The pilots were from the 509th Bomb Wing and are in ``good condition'' after medical checks were carried out, the statement said. The aircraft was sent to Guam from Whiteman Air Force base in Missouri, its only operational base.

The B-2 stealth bomber, which costs about $1.2 billion, can carry conventional and nuclear bombs, according to a fact sheet on the same Web site. The design, materials and coatings make its detection by defensive radar systems difficult.

The aircraft involved in the crash was destroyed during the accident, the Air Force Times reported, citing an unidentified official at Andersen Air Force Base. Calls made to the two phone numbers listed in the statement by the Pacific Air Forces weren't immediately answered.

The accident happened at around 10:30 a.m. local time when the aircraft was leaving the base in Yigo, Guam, the U.S. territory's local media Kuam News reported. It was the second military plane to crash in a month after a Navy Ea-6b Prowler from the USS Kittyhawk went down 20 miles from the base Feb. 12, Kuam News said.

Thick black smoke was visible near the air control tower of the base, the Associated Press said, citing a woman who was visiting her husband. The U.S. Air Force has 21 stealth bombers, the AP said, without stating the source of the information.

Northrop Grumman Corp., the third-largest U.S. defense company, is the main contractor of the current fleet of B-2 Spirit stealth bombers, according to the fact sheet.

Bloomberg

Kamen Rider Kiva Girl

From this freak AKA "Sailor Luna":


to the new Kamen Rider Kiva damsel:


Almost didn't recognize her.

Crazy Transit = Crazy First Day

I got to Waterfront 2 minutes shy of the 5:30pm train. So I decided, "Fine, I'll take the Skytrain to Braid and switch to the 169 rather than waiting for the 6:20pm train. Mistake #1: it probably takes the same amount of time if I had took the 160, except I would have to walk up Mariner from Coquitlam Center.

I got on the Skytrain, and I decided to switch to the Millennium Line on Broadway; this is mistake #2.

There was an announcement on the PA, but I couldn't make it out since the PA system on Skytrains is TERRIBLE. "Static... buzz... This is Skytrain control... BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!(from the doors)... buzz... Sperling... buzz." That was all I heard. I could've turned around and went back to Waterfront and catch the 6:20pm WCE if I had heard the PA.

Well it turns out there was a gas leak between Production and Lougheed so all Skytrains were to stop at Sperling and turn around; thus, I was stranded. The Skytrain attendants were hopeful that there would be connecting buses but after about ten minutes I said fuck it and took the 144 to SFU and then switched to the 143.

I finally got home at 7:30pm. OMGWTFBBQ!!!

AVPR Sucks

To the person who threw a banana peel while driving down Mariner today: please go kill yourself.


I don't know how but they managed to make AVPR worse than AVP. The dialogues, the plot, even the action are all ridiculously bad. I don't understand this. This combined franchise has all the ingredients for a great suspenseful thriller/action/horror flick; yet frigging Fox keeps failing to deliver it.

I read a review that said AVPR is decent when no one is talking. I don't agree with that because I think it's a bad movie overall, but the badness is amplified whenever a line is muttered. The screenplay has some of the laziest lines I've ever heard in a movie; it's so bad that it's funny. A lot of lines are awkwardly delivered because they are unexpected and feel out of place--the "government doesn't lie" line anyone? They even ruined Arnold's famous "Get to the chopper!" line. Abysmal.

I don't want to go into the plot because it is full of holes; an hospital helicopter with a light that says "rocket sight" is one example. I'm going to dive right into the action. The Alien franchise did not succeed because of chestburstings and facehuggings. It succeeded because of the setup that led to these scenes. AVPR just uses these scenes over and over. In fact I would argue that this is exactly what this film is about: a bunch of show-off scenes barely linked together by terrible dialogue. The predator action scenes did not fare much better. There was one scene that had incredible promise; when I saw it I was like, "Shit this laser net thing is going to be awesome!" But nope the scene sucked. It waste probably five minutes of setup for a resolution that was underdeveloped and extremely unsatisfying. The rest of the action scenes are all dark so you can't see anything, unimaginative, without suspense, without coolness, and makes the predator look like a pussy. The plasmacaster is supposed to own. Period. Actually I would've loved to see some human army verses alien action and was surprised that I didn't get any. I hope it was due to budget constraint and not some bonehead writer that thought such scene would not be cool.

I think the ideal AVP movie is a movie with just predators and aliens; no more red-shirt humans who just gets in the way. The the next step will take a great screenwriter and soundtrack but get rid of dialogues; I don't even want captions when the predators speak because doing so would defile the franchise. This setup should add depth to the film and revive the suspense and thrill of the originals. I hate how Fox reduced the two franchises to a teen horror flick. And please let there be a winner this time. I know they don't want to piss fans of either franchise off but enough is enough: predators are supposed to slaughter aliens.