The Walter White Guide to Middle Age

Being middle-aged isn't generally considered to be cool. It's usually the time when people begin contemplating how much they've changed and how close to death they now are. Of course a little latter when they become seniors those concerns become less pressing and thoughts turn to Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune and Fox News.

Very few actors for example, have made a name for themselves after they turned 45. Bryan Cranston is one of those. AMC's Breaking Bad accomplished something quite remarkable - and has empowered middle-aged white men everywhere. Breaking Bad made the mid-life crisis cool. How did they manage to accomplish this seemingly impossible feat? It was Walter White of course...

The five season long series that redefined television finally concluded this month and as a tribute to that show and middle-aged men everywhere we've collected some wisdom and advice from the show's lead character on how to deal with middle age.

Walter White - White, Middle-Aged and Funky

• Tip 1 - Don't trust Social Security to provide an adequate pension for you or your family; you will need at least $9 to 14 million in ready cash.
• Tip 2 - Conflict resolution is a thing of the past - it's better to deal with problems head-on - and make them just go away (permanently).
• Tip 3 - Driving a beat up Pontiac is just fine. 
• Tip 4 - Don't let anyone ridicule your funny hats.
• Tip 5 - Share your wisdom, mentor a young person.
• Tip 6 - Don't just build a business, create an empire.
• Tip 7 - Science and Chemistry are cool. Remote control machine guns are a great hobby too.. 
• Tip 8 - Never go into business with Ayran prison gangs.
• Tip 9 - Don't wait for Obamacare to get the treatment you need.
• Tip 10 - Encourage your wife to work, laundering your excess cash.
• Tip 11 - Don't waste your money on expensive legal advice. 
• Tip 12 - Accidents happen, get over it.
• Tip 13 - Do it for the family, do it for the fun.
• Tip 14 - Product quality is just as important as distribution.
• Tip 15 - The goatee is a reflection of raw power.

One of the many tributes to middle-aged cool

We will miss you Walter White, that is unless AMC decides to bring you back in the Walking Dead or as a teen intern in Madmen.


copyright, Raving Reviews 2013

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Breaking Bad AP Chemistry 101

Hello and welcome to the Breaking Bad AP Honors Chemistry course.

We have lot's in store for you this semester and we're sure it will prove to the most exciting science class you've ever taken. Your professor this year is our Dean of Chemistry, Walter White. Professor White brings an unparalleled academic record and an absolute love for chemistry into every course he teaches. He is recognized worldwide for his skills in growing crystals and also runs a thriving small business in his spare time. Your course assistant this semester is Jesse Pinkman, he is majoring in Meth Production and Distribution as well as punk rock.

Your AP Chemistry course Professor, Walter White

Course Syllabus
This semester's course will be divided in the following categories or sections; we'll denote within each area when labs are required:

Bomb Making Essentials - We will explore a variety of chemical compounds used to produce explosives and even create triggering devices. These techniques will come in very handy whenever you may feel the need to blow the face off of any rival druglord.

Lab 1 - Mercury mini-bombs.

Lab 2 - Glycerin (how to turn soap into dynamite)

Lab 3 - Plastique basics   

Dissolving Bodies - There's nothing worse than using the wrong acid compounds to eliminate evidence, it can lead to serious damage to your lab or basement. This section will explore how to most efficiently dissolve corpses while leaving your lab intact.

Lab 1 - Dissolving Guinea Pigs in milk cartons

Meth Production - Baking crystals isn't easy. Professor White takes you from theory to large scale production. 

Lab 1 - How to make super-pure Blue Meth Crystals 

Lab 2 - How to clean your lab without driving your mentor insane

The Big Rock Candy Mountain...

Setting up Mobile Labs - Being stuck indoors all the time is no fun for anybody let alone homicidal chemists - there is a way around this dull routine however; build a mobile lab. This section will explore everything from the types of recreational vehicles to choose as well as finding the equipment best suited for mobile chemistry. 

Lab 1 - Properly weighting down the RV

Killing your co-workers - Competition within the chemistry field can be cutthroat and let's face it, who needs the aggravation? Whenever you find yourself at odds with up and coming talent why not just eliminate the stress altogether? Or what about that partner who got rich off of your discovery and screwed you over? This section explores the myriad of ways you can use what you love (chemistry) to kill jerks you don't like.

Lab 1 - Killing co-workers at the lab

Lab 2 - Killing associates outside of the lab

Mixing Poisons - Ever wish you could make your own Ricin? We'll cover that and much more in this section.

Lab 1 - Using household items to produce deadly toxins.

Chemistry and Glam Rock - Even Chemists need to unwind; why not do it by creating elaborate Karaoke videos to David Bowie or David Bowie knockoff songs. This section of the course will show you how. 

this seems so harmless... ha ha ha

Chemistry and Glam Rock go hand in hand

Copyright 2012 - Raving Reviews - All Rights Reserved

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Argo and The Sci-Fi Revolution

Where were you when the American hostages were taken in Iran? Well, we don't remember either and perhaps many of you hadn't been born yet. It was kind of a big deal. What we do remember very well is Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind and how the end of the seventies gave birth to a science fiction revolution which had been prematurely aborted somewhere around 1973 and that's still going strong today. We do seem to recall the yellow ribbons and Ted Koppel on Nightline.    

We (well most of us) had never heard of Ayatollahs before 1979

Argo marks Ben Affleck's first major foray into directing and also gave him an opportunity to showcase and older, perhaps wiser version of his typical leading man role. It's hard not to recall Armageddon and Pearl Harbor and cringe at how stiff and silly he looked back then as leading man. And who can forget Ben-Lo (the brief pairing of Ben with Jennifer Lopez)? But remarkably this movie did help us forget the past - except for the past being featured in the plot. And what of that; did Ben get the story right? We think he did get it and even did so in a balanced fashion - providing lot's of interesting insights as well as both sides of of the story to some extent. Although as the movie progressed and the tension built up, the Revolutionary Guard become ever more two-dimensional bad guy villains.

This movie was interesting not merely because of the history it told - e.g. the 6 hostages who had escaped and who were spirited out of the country in a daring, yet secret CIA rescue - it was interesting in that it was Science Fiction that helped save those six diplomats. Imagine that.

Inside Argo (making the movie about pretending to make a movie)

So, the movie within a movie is a little like Inception of course but this is based on reality. Why did the Iranians let these guy go? Well, most of the movie gets wrapped around the clock-ticking tension as to whether or not they get on the plane before the revolutionaries get wise as to what's going on - but the pivotal scene of the movie is when the refugees break out their storyboards in Customs and begin explaining to the guards what the movie they're making is all about. And then, we begin to see the universal appeal of Science Fiction as a story-telling mechanism that transcends cultures. The guards while listening to the plot and looking at the drawings can't help but to identify with parts of the story and want to become a part of something a little bit larger than life and in doing so let the refugees escape (of course the guards did end up making history that but not the way they figured).

Ben made some very wise casting choices with Bryan (Breaking Bad) Cranston, John Goodman and Alan Arkin. These three actors may very be the best three character actors alive in Hollywood today - they each have the unique ability to take just about any material given to them and make it memorable. Last night night in the presidential debate we kept hearing about "Tumult in the Middle East" - we'll that's nothing new. However, telling the individual stories that occur within that tumult doesn't always happen and we're glad Ben took the time to tell this one.

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