Just saw Witchblade on TNT, which is based on some comic book by one of the smaller companies. It stars Yancy Butler as Sara Pezzini, an NYPD detective who finds (or is chosen by) a fancy wrist bracelet, the Witchblade. It can summon a sword and project armor on her arm and body that can deflect bullets.

It was a fine movie. Maybe it'll get picked up as a series, maybe not. I didn't expect to really like it much. I don't particularly like the concept of the Witchblade itself. It seems to much like an ultrapowerful device, the only problem being learning to use it and control it properly. Then again I haven't read the comic so I'm probably way off.

I don't particularly like it when the hero is so much better than the villains he'll go up against, that the only way to challenge the hero is through human factors. I'd rather have a hero that can be defeated by a thug with a gun in a fair fight. Too many heroes are unbeatable if they know you're coming with a gun at them. So the only way to take them out is if you catch them unawares (like with a sniper rifle) or you use non-battle tactics, like hostages.

I'm just full of it. Venting about a particular hero or two that I've read. Certainly it's not that bad. Take the recent Blade movie. Blade just mowed down the rank and file vampires and even the top vampire needed to be augmented to fight Blade. Too powerful. I guess I'd rather have a hero that at least looks like he was in a fight after dispatching a dozen bad guys...

I'm watching this Chely Wright video and I'm thinking about this web site I came upon one day. And I've probably mentioned this before, but I don't really remember and there are lots of things that I think I wrote about but it turns out that I never bothered to. In any case this a web site that seemed to be against having too many good-looking female country artists, especially the current crop of the last few years.

Shania Twain and Mindy McCready were mentioned along with a couple of other examples. Women who use sex-appeal in their videos which promotes an unrealistic view of women or makes young girls do crazy things to try to stay thin. I was thinking that they were totally off the deep end.

One observation that I've made to myself and that other people mention, is that most of these women look good in their videos and on screen because they have makeup people, hairdressers, wardrobe people to make them look good. It's just amazing what a bit of makeup and a nice outfit will do to a person. Most people don't really try to make themselves look good, most don't know how. If you've ever seen any shows were random people are given makeovers, then you know that the vast majority of people can look really good if they just knew how. Without trying to be thin or changing their bodies.

The other point I want to make is that some people are naturally thin, some people have to work hard at it. Few do it through bulemia or anorexia. Blaming successful women just because they look good doesn't make sense to me. Yes, there is a societal pressure to be thin (not really, more like just not fat). But it doesn't take killing yourself to be beautiful. Instead of trying to have realistic role models, why not concentrate on teach people how to dress themselves better?

Geez, this is a stupid thread that I've gotten myself into. It comes down to my perception that people concentrate too much on blaming other people rather than trying to pose realistic solutions. Too many people rail against the world but don't want to do anything other than talk and blame others. Do something, come up with alternatives. Or shut up.