The Problem With Blogging

Maybe it's just me, but my main problem with blogging is that you have to go online to do it. "Duh!" you say, but hear me out. I cannot go online without wasting vast amounts of time, it's just not in my nature. So I might come online for the soul purpose of blogging, but there's a good chance that I will log off 3 hours later having not blogged a whit.


And here's some irony for you, I was in Netscape and I tried to type this post but couldn't. For some reason I couldn only type in the title of the post, the body setion of the post writting screen was not available to me. So I couldn't write my post about the problem with posting.

I'm realizing, just now, that there's now no spell checker. I can't type in Netscape and I can't check my typing in Explorer. Methinks it is time to get a different browser.

Also, sorry about the typos.

My Tongue Feels Like A Flaming Sponge

Today is my birthday. To celebrate, I got my wisdom teeth out. I was also supposed to have a Japanese exam, but I don't think that is happening.

My mouth feels weird. It's actually starting to hurt now, so I'm going to go.

On the up side: I haven't drooled on myself yet!

2 Posts Away From 150

But man, these things are becoming even more sporadic. Stupid busy life. Saw Dodgeball and Farenheight 9/11. Liked Dodgeball better. It didn't seem as pandering. Taking an intensve Japanese course. And going to see some Rockin' the Valley and then spending the weekend at the cabin.

I'm so, so, so behind in my blogging.

Prelude

I know that I have been somewhat lax in my updates. And a lot of stuff has happened. Saw Spiderman 2, had my last day of work, was an extra in a sci fi film, scrutineered and my dad is now a member of Parliament. Hopefully I'll get to blog all about all this soon.

But not now. It's storming out, and the dog is freaking out.

Chronicles of Riddickulous

About the title: I saw this movie on opening night and the title for this review popped into my head about half-way through the movie. Then I started seeing other people use the same pun. Not wanting to let the terrorists win, I decided to stick to my guns and use the title anyway. So there.

I liked Pitch Black. A lot. Even all the times we saw some of it in Australia (they really seem to like that movie down there) couldn't dampen my feelings towards it. It was well made, stylish, and it took advantage of its small budget. And I quite liked the character of Riddick.

So I was intrigued by the idea of a sequel.

Then I saw the teaser trailer. I wasn't so intrigued anymore.

But as I saw more trailers, my interest began to build back up. It was directed by the same guy as well, I found that to be a plus. He did such a good job with such a small budget I wondered what he would do with a massive one.

Too much, it would seem.

Pitch Black worked because of its energy and style. The story was simple and propulsive: We gotta get off this planet. Chronicles of Riddick's story is too intricate for it's own good. And it ain't that intricate. There's all sorts of political intrigue and plotting that didn't really need to be in the movie and Dame Dench's only real purpose is to get all sorts of exposition out of the way.

That's my biggest problem with the story, it tries to cram too much in. Not only that, it crams it in in the worst way possible: by having characters just talk about it. Film is a visual medium damnit. To be fair, most of my films have shit loads of dialogue, but that's their point. This is a big budget action movie, I don't need no political in-fighting. What is up with all this political bullshit in sci fi lately? Episode 1 was lousy with it, The Matrix sequels had too much of it too.

They say that a good half hour has been cut out of this movie, so maybe that extra time will help better explain the story, give it room to breathe. Seems odd that while my main complaint is there's too much extraneous crap, I look forward to seeing more of it. It's not so much that I dislike all the intrigue, I just think it was handled most inelegantly.

Which fits in with the dialogue and such. This film has some really bad lines in it. "It's been a long time since I smelled beautiful." being my favourite. What's more, its based on some really hoary old cliches. Riddick is the chosen one, the last of his race, it has been prophesized that only he can defeat the Necromongers. Yep, the Necromongers (ooooooohh scaary, eh kids?). And you know what race Riddick is the last of? He's a Furyan. And before he defeats the evil bad guy of doom, he stops off on Crematoria to pick up an old friend. Crema-frikkin-toria.

I got sidetracked by the stupid names. Sorry. What I'm trying to say is that the propulsive energy of Pitch Black is no where to be found in this movie. It should be, but it isn't. It should be because Riddick is a propulsive character. He's a wanted criminal, he's always on the run. Most of this movie moves forward due to him running from bounty hunters or being taken somewhere by them. But the old energy just ain't there.

Even the action scenes are a bit lackluster. Riddick barely ever uses his ole' shiny eyes thing to his advantage. Once, right near the start, to be exact. And that fight in the dark is a quickly edited piece of crap. The intent might have been to show the chaos that Riddick is capable of causing, but it didn't work for me. The opening scene where he turns the table on his pursuers worked well. And the big fight on Crematoria was very well done and stands apart from most other fight scenes I've seen the last few years. The sound effects kind of fade away and the music takes centre stage. Twohy and his editor take the fight scene into the realm of the montage here and it works. Roger Ebert said the fight scenes in this film have no sense of space or location, but I think he's just getting old. Fuck man, he liked the Garfield movie and admitted to laughing at Family Circle (circus?)

So how does it look? The visual style of this film is easily its best attribute. If the Roman empire never collapsed and just kept spreading through the galaxies, it would look a lot like the Necromonger's empire. It's a different look, full of mean looking faces and such and I liked it. All the planets had their own distinct looks, and none of them sucked. All the ships and such looked both cool and feasible. And run down. Which is always cool. Which George Lucas forgot somewhere along the way.

And of course Vin Diesel looks cool. Riddick is a bad mother fucker and he looks the part. But Diesel edges real close to self parody in this one. I liked the Riddick in Pitch Black more. Maybe cuz Pitch Black was rated R.

In summation: looks nice, some good action, some bad dialogue and too much story.

If you liked Pitch Black and want more, play Escape From Butcher Bay instead.

Miss You

I have a problem. Not a big one. Fairly small, really. Inconsequential some might even say. I cannot seem to hold on to a pair of nail clippers for any prolonged amount of time. I always misplace them. Or my brother steals them.

Also, I do most of my nail clipping at my computer, for that is usually where I notice that my nails need to be clipped.

I mentioned once to Carla, as we chatted on the phone, that what I needed was to chain some nail clippers to my computer. So before Carla left for Newfie Land, she gave me a pair of nail clippers with a little chain.

She's a keeper she is.

I thanked her for the gift and put it in my pocket and kind of forgot about them there. Then as I was fishing for my keys after work, my fingers brushed against the nail clippers and I was filled with happiness and joy and love and I missed Carla so completely I thought I might cry.

She can't get home soon enough.

Procrastastic

I've been meaning to blog since about Tuesday. But, obviously, I have not. I have not been in the best of moods. My job is basically done. Which I find oddly saddening and maddening in equal amounts. I mean I had planned on taking a year off from work starting around now, so it really couldn't have worked out better for me. But. But.... But I don't like the thought of being replaced by a machine, of being made obsolete. I was working when they packed up the hard drive that will take the place of me and four others. About the size of a 20" TV. That bothered me.

What also bothers me is the fact that the traffic and promotions people (the people in charge of making sure all the shows get filled up with commercials and such) are so upset about losing their jobs. I'm good at my job, therefore I have reason to be upset about losing mine. They suck. They are horrible. They are incapable of doing their jobs with any small degree of competency. They should have been jobless years ago. Fuck them. Fuck them in their stupid asses.

See, that's me being bitter. Grrrrrr! (picture me scowling and shaking my fist) I don't mean to be quite so bitter. But Carla is in Newfoundland, so that makes me a sad panda. Put these two things together, and man o man, this week is full of the suck.

I know! I'll end this post and star a new one, a happier, more uplifting one.

Hrmmmm...

I said I was going to be more thorough in my movie reviews and then I write a couple little reviews that go into no real detail at all. Now I'm going to try to rectify that.

However, I'm not going to touch on the Maddin films. Because they are too dense, too visual and abstract. Too out of my league, is what I'm trying to say.

Harry Potter is a different story, because it's a story. It's based on a book so at the very least I can talk about the differences.

The problem with the first two Potter movies is that they were too faithful to the books. They crammed in as much as they could for no reason other than it was in the book so it should be in the movie. Columbus was so busy making sure he played all the notes that he lost track of the music.

The problem with Azkaban is the opposite. It loses too much good stuff from the book. The origin of the Marauder's Map and the relationship between Harry's parents and Lupin and Sirius and Snape and... the guy. These revelations helped Harry learn a lot more about his parents and the situation he finds himself in.

I have no idea how well the film works, story wise, for those who have not read the book. I can only say that I noticed the absence of the above and fervently hope that the scenes were cut for time and will appear on the DVD.

Luckily the film has many other things going for it. This is the best looking film of the series by far. And its not because its the latest film and has the newest effects. It's because the effects are better integrated into the film. A lot more effort has been put into making this world seem "real". And the effects follow suit. Compare Fluffy from the first film with Buckbeak from this one. The first was much too cartoony and played more for laughs than menace. Buckbeak is, in actuality, not nearly as imposing a creature the Cerebus. But, in the film, Buckbeak seems more menacing because it seems more "real".

This film is not afraid to be scary. The dementors have a great look to them. They look freakier than the Ring Wraiths from those movies with the rings. The fight between dog and werewolf near the end has a nice bit of brutality to it as well. The werewolf looks fairly fake, but at least it looks different than most other movie werewolves.

And the acting is better in this film as well. The children are much better in each of their roles and the adults are exemplary as always.

Really, when the only real complaint about a film is that I wanted more of it, that not too bad a complaint at all.

There. Way more words. I feel better.

Not Much Has Happened

Saw a few movies, and that be about it.

The new Harry Potter film is my favourite of the series. Mainly because they hired an actual film maker to helm this installment. The difference between this film and the last is like the difference between the work of an artist versus the work of a guy who paints houses. Nothing wrong with painting houses man, but it just ain't art.

The little touches in this film: the way the whomping willow ushers in the seasons, Harry playing with his wand under the sheets, these are things Columbus would have never even thought of, and the add so, so much.

Guy Maddin's Dracula: Pages From A Virgin's Diary was good. I like the fact that Maddin is not afraid to make silent films, but films without dialogue make me sleepy. It's a scientifically proven fact.

So I liked The Saddest Music in the World quite a bit more than Dracula. There was talking. And singing. And colour. Maddin can't make un-interesting movies. Not even if he tried. I don't know if any moment of any of his films will ever top the fat father strangling an enemy soldier with his (the father's) own guts, but that is a pretty hard act to follow. Saddest Music has plenty of arresting visuals, and plenty of humour and plenty of just about everything good.

And that's that.


Oh. And the spell checker doesn't recognize Dracula.

Wherein the Rules Are Laid Out

So that is the first chapter in a hopefully much longer tale. As far as I can tell, there's no real easy way of having the story part of my blog be readily accessible so any new additions shall always be entitled "Wherein yadda yadda yadda". I hope that works.

About the story. What is now on this blog had been written by me years ago for Carla. We were provinces apart, so we did the regular long distance type stuff; we talked on the phone all the time, emailed each other lots as well, sent each other gifts, all that good stuff. We also kept diaries for each other. When we saw each other in person, we'd exchange diaries so we'd have stuff to talk about.

There's only so many times a person can write "I miss you" before it loses all meaning, so I filled up parts of the diary with short stories. The one with Lucky was the only one that could feasibly be expanded. In fact I planned on it going on a lot longer in the diary but... Here, I'll just transcribe what I wrote immediately after the short story:

"I had originally intended for this short story to be much longer. You didn't get to meet Lucky's horse (who goes by the name of Peaches) or the evil bugs that plague the old west of the future. I had all sorts of cool shit in mind when I started out. A few pages in I realized that I suck @ writing stories. I'm not nearly descriptive enough. So I cut the whole thing short. Pretty depressing. A wannabe writer who has trouble with a 6 page short story."

I was stupid. I thought that you needed to use a lot of words all the time when writing a "proper" story. But I read a lot during our trip across Oz and I learned a lot. I learned that you don't need to use a lot of words if you use the right ones. Hell, the first Fletch book is so sparse in its style that I had to re-read a passage to try to figure out what just happened. And I liked that. It worked. Wordiness is not a virtue.

And re-writing the story in chunks like this helped me find the "beats" of the story, helped me experiment with its rhythm. Plus I turned some of the turns of phrase into something slightly different, hopefully better. At the very least, this will be an instructive little exercise.

More on the story: Lucky is based on a character that I used to role play. I know I'm a horrible, horrible geek. I won't mention the names of the games I played him in, but he spanned a few genres. So I took the games, plus my own ideas and just sort of smashed them all up for this story.

That's all I have to say on the subject for now. Remember look for "Wherein" in the title for more of the story. I have the beginning of the next chapter roughly plotted in my head, but beyond that... We'll see.

The End of The Beginning

Lucky reached over to the fat, dead, standing man and removed his bandana. Luckily, the bandana had remained bullet hole free. Lucky wiped the gore off his face and made a point of not looking at the rag when he was done. He stepped over to Stretch, squatted on his haunches, took Stretch's hat, and stuffed the wadded up bloody bandana into his screaming mouth.

The screaming became muffled, but it didn't stop. Worse still, Stretch was feebly trying to remove the obstruction in his mouth with his one good hand. Still on his haunches, Lucky searched all the dead men's pockets. Confirming his hunch, only Dave had anything of worth on his person. Wads of cash. Figuring the dead Dave had no need of such wealth, Lucky stuffed the bills into his own pockets.

Stretch was still vainly tugging at the fabric in his mouth. Lucky stood up and stretched, looking around the room as he did so. The bottle of tequila he was looking for had, Lucky sadly noted, smashed on the floor. Presumably from when he had had his argument with gravity.

Stretch managed to get a bit of the rag out of his mouth, his screaming got that much louder.

Lucky slammed his heel down hard into Stretch's throat. Spur first. The screaming stopped. Lucky walked over to the bar, handed Hector what he hoped was a large bill and said, "That's fer the mess and two bottles o' tequila. Courtesy of my old friend Steve."

Hector looked as if he was going to say something, but then reconsidered. He handed Lucky a much nicer bottle of tequila. Lucky took it with a smile and sauntered to the saloon door. He put on Stretch's hat and was not surprised at all to find it a perfect fit. He turned to face the room and tipped his hat.

"Ma'am." he said and then slipped out into the storm.

Peanuts

It took me longer to read this book than I expected, and that is a problem. I devour books. When I like what I'm reading, I have a hard time stopping. Read The Great Gatsby in the span of an afternoon. And I started out on this book in the same fashion. I chewed through half of it in two sittings, alternating between the strips and the profiles and interviews at the back of the book (both very interesting and illuminating). I only ever stopped because I had to go to work or I was dead tired. I was loving it.

The illustrations were familiar yet different. You can tell that these came from Schultz's hand, but these were the very first, there are still years of tweaking and refinement to go. And I think I like this early stuff better. It's cuter. The lines seem a bit thicker. And Snoopy is just a puppy. A cute little puppy. With no thought balloons. Those come later on in this volume. And there are characters in this first volume who later disappear. A girl named Violet, a boy named Sherman. About the only character other than Snoopy who sticks around is Charlie Brown. There's no Linus, no Peppermint Patty, no Marcie. Schroeder and Lucy don't appear until about halfway through this volume. And about halfway through this volume is where my interest started to wane.

Not because of Lucy or Schroeder, but because the writing seemed to change and the art definitely did. The lines became thinner, and wow does that make a difference. For the worse. Coupled with the cuter, more obvious humour, it made finishing the book more of a slog than I thought it would be. The writing, right from the very first strip had an edge to it, there was sweetness, but it was tempered with meanness and loneliness. The characters talked about universal and existential truths. That seemed to go away.

I'll pick up the next volume, unless I'm out of the country, but if things don't improve that might be where my collecting stops. Too bad, man, I loves me my Peanuts. Or at least I did.

It's Alive!! A LIVE!!!

So the internet is finally working in our house!!! Our phones won't be fixed until at least Monday though, so it all evens out. So now I have no excuse for not finishing up the first chapter of my story, nor for not blogging in general. Wait... I'll have excuses, but they won't be real reasons. "I was on LIVE and lost track of time." will probably be the main excuse.

I spent a couple hours on Live today and had a pleasant experience. I never came in last, which is always nice. I place in the top five a couple times. And yes, there were more than five people playing. I got to hear people bitch about how unfair certain weapons are. People really don't seem to like grenade launchers. I do. My best rounds were due to those glorious bastards. I like to use incendiary rounds, because they not only blow people up, they set them on fire as well. I'm not sure if the people who complain about grenade launchers as unfair have ever played using them. You only get three or four shots and that is it. And You have to reload after every shot. But whatever. I killed people, made people laugh, listened as people talked about the drugs they were doing right at that very moment, I think I had the quitisential (I'm sure I spelled that wrong but the only suggestion the spell checker gave was "kitchenette") Live experience.

But man, there are a lot of stupid gamertags on Live. I say anyone who has a drug reference in their Tag should automatically be banned, because DAMN are they annoying. Every. Single. One.

But I'm not here to be bitter, I'm just happy that I'm finally back online.

3 Day Delay

This whole X Box Live thing is getting to be a big damn hassle. This house, I am becoming convinced, hates electronics. And normal natural laws don't work here. I've been trying for weeks to get the two house computers and the Xbox all hooked up via a hub. It wasn't working so good. The annoying thing is that it sometimes worked. But not others. For no reason.

So I figured Fuck It. Just get a router. That should solve everything. Found a flyer from London Drugs saying they had a nice router on sale for 40 bucks. Can't beat that. So I go there at nine this morning. There's a line up. About twenty people. They had one router in stock. One fucking router. Grrrrrrr.....

Also, the BLog Spot spell checker is one of the worst I've ever encountered. If I were to type electonics, a reasonable person would take it that I meant electRonics. Fuckin spell checker gives me 17 options, electronics not being one of them. Happens all the damn time. Pisses me off. Not as much as London Drugs right now, but it's pretty close.

Without Our Permission

It figures. It's been forever since I've seen The Daily Show, and when I make a point of watching it tonight, it is a repeat. Still funny.

Went through a bottle of gin on the weekend. I believe that's one of the signs of a good weekend. I forget the other signs. One of them might very well be boobies. Yeah, I'm pretty sure boobies are good.

After waking up on Trev's couch on Sunday morning, we went out for breakfast. Mamma Mars'. It was cheap and good and bottomless coffee. And there were colouring books. So we, three graduates, spent a good long time colouring. I like colouring. Especially with almost new crayons, before they are all dulled and broken in half.

Also watched some movies on the weekend. Saw a bit of Matrix Reloaded on Friday, it looks SO FAKE. I was wowed by the effects (not the movie) in the theatre, but they've really aged poorly.

Saw A Mighty Wind. Good stuff, as are all of Guest's films. Some of the jokes fall flat, but way more don't and they zig and zag all over the place. And always filled with interesting characters. Plus Eugene Levy just rocks.

28 Days Later made me tense. As good horror films should. I liked it. I liked the fast zombies, the fast zombiefication process, and that the film still knows when to take its time. Plus there was a happy ending, even though I'm not sure how I felt about it.

I should really go into more depth when I review things. I'm going to make a point of trying to do that from now on.

Girls Can Lay Pipe

Yeah.

So I need to post more. Especially since I've been working the graveyard shifts at work this week.

To be fair, I also rented Knockout Kings for the X Box, so that's taken up the bulk of my time at work. Yeah, it's a hard life, I know. Either blog or play games at work. Life is full of the difficult questions. I look at it this way: if someone had just been hired to do my job, they would have next to no free time. I'm just so very good at what I do that I can do it all in a much shorter time.

Man, do I love Knockout Kings. It's brutally good. It just feels good to duck under a punch and then land a good solid hit to the chin, to see your foe's limbs go limp as they fall to the canvas, to pummel your opponent's limp body as they try to fall down but are stuck in a corner(my record? 2 hooks, 2 uppercuts and a jab. I giggled like a schoolgirl as I did it). Or, the best of all, the lucky hit. The punch that downs an enemy even though he had plenty of fight left in him. My record? One punch. I downed a man, a heavyweight champion, with one punch. My first punch.

I should really get the first chapter of my short story finished. Just a little chunk of words left. Maybe tonight.

Also, I bought River City Ransom for the Game Boy Advance SP. I'm a little disappointed. I loved River City Ransom for the NES, and I was tickled pink by the thought of having a portable version. Of having a version that worked, really, since my NES is long since dead. But the best part of RCR, its dented raisin as it were, was the 2 player co-op. There is no co-op for the SP version. Upsetting. Especially since the same company that is releasing RCR also just recently released Double Dragon and it had co-op. It's still a fun game, but damn. I didn't even check to see if co-op was an option when I bought it. Why would it ever be released without it?

Soon I will review that Peanuts book. But I've written more than I meant to all ready and my freaking back is killing me.

My back hurts all the time now. Especially when I even think about going to the gym. I think my body wants to stay flabby. Stupid body.

OW

We (Trev, lil Kim, Carla and myself) went to see Thornley on Friday. Good times. The opening band was forgettable except for the fact that they looked like they were still in high school and the lead singer looked remarkably like someone we used to know.

Thornley himself was fantastic. He rocked out the whole freaking time. He rocked so hard, he blew the voice right out of my throat. My voice is gone. It's three days later and my voice is still gone. That's how hard he rocks. But I'm going to stop writing now, because my throat hurts.

odds n sodds

I apologize for my lack of stuff lately. I've been a bit busy, but not so busy as to not blog for 11 days. My brother was in town for a week, so we shot that script I had written. Well, to be more to the point he and I acted whilst Kelly Toth directed. Kelly runs a pretty easy going shoot, so Ry and I tossed out ideas, but basically left the directing to him. It was good. I'm glad Kelly was the first to do the directing, because he's a lot like me. He made mistakes I would make, but since he's made them, I don't have to. Hopefully.

And we got chased from a couple locations by security. Yeah. This was a very low budget shoot. One camera, no lights. Dogma-esque if you will. We didn't ask permission for most of our locations and that ended up costing us a bit. We managed to get everything shot, though, minus a few pick-ups here and there. There were a few one take shots though, so I'm interested in seeing how well it all edits together.

And there are a lot more scary people down town at night then I thought. We thought about doing some shooting there, but chickened out.

Ry, myself and Carla went to dad and Diane's for supper and I finally saw some of the Godfather. Still haven't seen the whole thing. I really should. I loved the bit that I saw.

Other than that Ry and I didn't hang out to much which I regret. I'm not so good at talking to family members. I was a withdrawn kid and I can't seem to get past that even now. I didn't tell Ry how incredibly fucking proud of him I am. He floors me. I am one of his biggest fans. See, even now I'm tempted to just delete this whole bit because it's making me uncomfortable.

But him being here for that little bit was all just part of this weird feeling that's been hanging over me for a while now. I look at him and see all the success he's all ready had and will have and I wonder about me. I'm talented, I feel like a prick for saying it but it's true. But I am also profoundly lazy, which is unfortunate. This blog, and the short story are attempts to help me get used to writing more. The movie we shot over the course of a day and a half was to help me, and Kelly, and others to get back into the habit of DOING. Of MAKING. Of CREATING. It also made me want to act more. And I feel good about all of this.

But I'm also always afraid. Of not amounting to anything. Of failing. Of succeeding. It's very annoying. Plus I have always had these dreams of success and so on (I'm sure everyone does) and the older I get the more these fantasies seem to mock me. I'm getting old. I can feel it. I feel old. I ache. I can see it in my face. I've had a lot of dreams lately about loosing my hair. Carla tells me it's starting to go grey. Good God.

I was going to write good grief to segue into talking about Peanuts and the book I just bought. But I didn't, but still managed the segue just fine. SO I bought the collected Peanuts, from 1950-1952. I quite like it. I really fits into this mood of mine. Cute and cruel and funny and deep and everything all mixed together so much that you don't know quite what you're feeling. I'll write more on the book once I've finished it, but I can heartily recommend it.

I think I'm done for now.

E3

So me and Kelly are all sorts of busy, trying to figure out how we're going to get this film of ours done. We shouldn't be wasting our time on anything else.

But...

It's E3 baby!! That's right, THE videogame event of the year. Where everyone brings their big guns. And I gotta say, I am overcome with joy.

I love Nintendo, always have, always will. Last E3, I was a bit worried about them, but I think this one is all theirs. Sure, there's the Half-Life 2s and Halo 2s and Fable and all sorts of other really great games. And there's the PSP.

But nothing makes me smile more than the new Zelda footage. Or reading about all the crazy new games for the DS. There's a version of pacman, that... I can't explain it. You draw the game. There's a first person shooter that uses the stylus as part of the control. I am just overjoyed. And I ain't the only one. Tonnes of forums are filled with cum covered geeks right now, basking in the afterglow of Nintendo press conference.

I am a happy, happy lad.

Of course, I will be out of the country when all this good shit goes down.

Also... remind me to talk about the PSP later. I ain't gonna do it now. Don't want to ruin this good feeling I got.

Story stuff

This isn't more of the story. Just letting you know that I changed a couple lines of the last bit of story. Can you guess which ones?

Nearing the End of the beginning

Lucky stared at the three men and the three guns they had pointed at him. "I wouldn't do that if I were you." He said to no one in particular.

"Why not, baldy?" asked the long and lean and stupid one.

"It ain't proper." said Lucky, looking squarely at Steve.

Out of the corner of his eye, Lucky could see the bartender reach under the bar. "Hold your horses there Hector. Me and my friends are just talking here. Ain't that right fellahs?"

"Nah. You're talkin. We're shootin." said the tall one again.

Even though his death was looking to be eminent, Lucky felt absolutely no fear. In fact, he began to smile. He hadn't felt this good in days. Of course, he couldn't remember anything from before he woke up a few minutes ago with a nose bleed. And he had felt pretty damn good when his head was in Jane's lap. Still, this moment was pretty alright.

"When was the last time you cleaned that thing, stretch?"

"What're you talking about?"

For some reason, the word Willis popped into Lucky's mind. And for some reason this one word made him laugh out loud.

Stretch didn't much like being laughed at. He didn't much like being called Stretch either. He pulled the trigger (on his gun that had never been cleaned). The gun exploded, taking most of his hand, a good chunk of his belly, 3 teeth and some lip with it.

Before the incisor fragments could hit the ground, Lucky's gun was out and blazing. His finger never touched the trigger. He fanned that bastard.

Five slugs hit fatso square in the chest. He didn't fall over, though it looked like he might for a little while. He just stood there, chins resting on chest, and bled out.
The penultimate bullet tore the gun out of Steve/Dave's hand. It slowly arced through the air.

With a laugh of delight Lucky spun his revolver around and around a few times before slipping it back into it's holster. "Now we're going to get to the bottom of this." thought Lucky, mind racing. "How can you be alive, and a Steve, Dave? What are we doing here? Where did I learn to shoot so good?"

All these questions were racing through Lucky's brain when Steve's splattered all over his face.

The Fates had a weird relationship with Lucky. Most folks, after seeing him in action, would call him blessed. All his dead friends and relatives would likely have a different opinion.

Steve's gun had flown out of his hand fully cocked. It completed five full rotations before it hit the ground. Hit hard. Hard enough to jar the hammer. Hard enough to slam it home, which in turn caused the bullet to slam into the back of Steve's head. Had the barrel been pointing a smidge or two to the right or left, Steve would have been just fine. A little bit lower and the bullet would have passed through his shoulder and into Lucky's head instead.

The three non shot people just kind of stood there for a while. Hector sweated, Jane marveled at the fact that she remained blood free, and Lucky dripped. He watched a few red drips of blood collect into a drop at the end of his nose before he realized that Stretch was still alive. Alive and screaming.

Crud

I can't seem to get my new bit of story to publish. Blogspot has changed their interface a little. A lot, actually. And I think that might be the problem. I had written most of the text down already, back before the new Blogspot interface. I tidied a few things up and hit publish post. I've done that many times now. It's just not showing up on the page. Bothersome.

Second Verse, Slightly Different Than The First

So it's been months since I have had a full, uninterrupted night of sleep. I always wake up some time between 3 and 5 AM. I don't always manage to fall back asleep either. This morning was no exception. I was up a little before 5. So I tried to fall back asleep. No dice. Instead of lying in bed, trying, nay spraining my brain in attempts to get back to sleep, I did stuff. I went to the gym. I did laundry. I got stuff done. Yay me. But now I am felling very sleepy.

Yet Still More Beginning

He sauntered over to the little lady on the stairs. She looked at him, shook her head and then looked over his shoulder. Lucky stopped in his tracks. Something bad was coming. Something bad was just about here. Lucky shook his head, trying to shake loose the dread. Not a good idea. About as good an idea as drinking Tequilla on an empty stomach. The world tilted without warning and Lucky lost his balance.

His head ended up in the girl's lap. Lucky tried to think of what her name might be. "Jane." she said. She ripped a loose piece of cloth off her dress and placed it under his nose. "You're leaking again."

"Thanks." Lucky debated as to wether or not he should stick the fabric up his nose, or if that would be uncouth. He decided to just dab at his nose. "Is there a mirror around here?"

"No. Don't worry, you look fine. But you won't for long if you don't get out of here soon."

"Too damn late for that."

Lucky looked up to see a trio of shapes step in from the storm. There was a tall, lanky, stupid looking man with a hat too big for his head, a fat, bearded man with a shirt too small for his gut and then there was Dave.

Lucky grew up with Dave. They were good friends. Then Dave had been shot to death right in front of Lucky's eyes. Needless to say, Lucky was confused.

"That's not the Dave you knew. That Dave is long since dead. This Dave is not Dave, he's Steve." whispered Jane.

Lucky had never met a Steve he liked. "Now darlin', what have I told you about whispering sweet nothings into dead men's ears?"

"It ain't proper."

"That's right."

Lucky still hadn't met a Steve he liked. He stood up. Three guns were trained on him as he did so.

Blurg

My brother and his troupe made another quick stop in town this weekend. That was nice. I got to visit with him for a few hours which is something we haven't done in quite some time. Talked about film and theatre and wrestling and all sorts of stuff in between. Gave him the script I had just finished writing. He might be back in town in a couple of weeks and we're going to try to shoot it. Hope it all comes together.

Been working the day shift at work, which is something I very rarely do. It makes me tired. I'm not used to being up this early. I still can't manage to sleep through the night. Always get up around 3 or 4 in the morning. Sucks.

That's Right.

I work shift work at work. Work. I'm also tired all the time.

That's right, my sleep schedule is all messed up.

I planned on going to bed at round half past midnight last night.

That's right, that didn't happen.

Yesterday, I had more than half of Battle Royale still to read.

That's right, I read it all in one great gulp of text. Staying up until six in the god damn morning.

That's right, I'm an idiot.

Still More Beginning

Lucky grabbed the bottle from Hector's (he looked like a Hector) grubby hand. He took a swig, trying not to think of where this particular bottle had been, or what other lips it had touched.

He leaned up against the bar and examined the saloon more intently. It was a very large room. There were fifteen big tables (six fat men could sit and eat at these tables comfortably) spread unevenly throughout the room. There was an old player piano in the corner. Even from across the room Lucky could tell it hadn't been in use in quite some time. It was covered by a thick layer of dust, and there were two bullet holes right where the pianist would sit. Across the room from the piano was a set of stairs leading up to the second floor landing. There were a few doors leading, presumably, to a few bedrooms. A flimsy looking handrail went up the stair and along the landing. It had obviously been repaired more than a few times. And not very well.

A girl sat fanning herself on the stairs in spite of the general lack of heat.

Lucky smiled around the bottle and decided he should get a closer look.

Her leggings, dress and gloves were all tattered and worn looking, but her face was anything but. Gorgeous would be a good word to describe her. She was gorgeous. She looked worriedly from Lucky to the front doors and back again.

Lucky turned his gaze to follow hers. "Looks like a storm's a'brewin'." said Hector. Not much was visible beyond the saloon doors except a whole lot of swirling dust.

"Ayuh." replied Lucky as he spat another red glob to the ground. It almost landed on his boot. Above the boots, Lucky was clad all in black. Black leather. Even his duster. He pulled the duster back to reveal two guns, one on either hip. Lucky had never seen guns quite like these. They were the old style of guns, the old, old style. With the cylinders. Except these guns held seven shots each. The metal was almost white, and so shiny it seemed to glow. The handles were inlaid with a deep black wood that was delighfully cool to the touch. If Lucky hadn't looked at these guns, he might never have known he was carrying them. So perfectly weighted, he couldn't feel them on his hips. "Giddy-up." he smiled.

All Work and No Play Makes Homer Something Something

I's the boy that builds the boat, and I's the boy that sails her. I's the buy that catches the fish and takes 'em home to Lizer.

I'm working on the short story here. I'm working at Global ten days straight. I have to have a twenty-ish minute script done by Saturday. And I'm reading Battle Royale. Whew.

Weird Weather

Gale force winds on the weekend. Nearly twenty on Monday. Snow today.


Huh.

The Beginning

He awoke with a nose bleed. That was never a good sign. Nose bleeds always came before something bad. Lucky toyed with the idea of just going back to sleep, hopefully avoiding the shit storm that was obviously headed in his direction. But he was, and always had been, a light sleeper. Once he woke up, he was up. Plus the coppery taste in his mouth was slowly seeping down the back of his throat making Lucky feel particularly unpleasant.

He opened his eyes, raised his head and took in the unfamiliar surroundings. He appeared to be in a saloon. A real, honest to god, old west saloon. Just like in all those "movies" he had watched years ago. Everything was made of wood; (except, of course, for the nails. And all the glass) the tables, chairs, floor, ceiling and everything in between. Lucky could name most of the different types of wood used in the construction of this place (Maplebark and Laughing Oak and the bar, the deep red unpainted bar had to be made of Thrice Dead Wallow). He had no idea how he knew that though. Lucky lived in an environment of metal and glass (more truthfully of plastic made to look like metal and glass), he knew not of any Oak. Laughing or otherwise.

That's not true, screamed a part of his mind, you grew up in a small village made of wood.

His mind occasionally did this. Once this voice in his head started it wouldn't' stop until he was filled with self-doubt and conflicting memories, rocking rocking back and forth on the ground in the fetal position. Not a good way to spend the day. Lucky knew of only one way to stop his mind's incessant nattering.

He caught the barkeep's eye. "Tequilla." he said in his morning voice. "Keep the glass, leave the bottle." He spat out a large chunk of phlegm and blood. It hit the sawdust covered floor in the shape of that creepy cartoon rat's head. The sawdust started sucking up the blood and the three circles spread out into a blob shaped blob.

Lucky made his way slowly over to the bar. His heels jingling and jangling as he did so. He stopped short of the bar and looked down at his feet. "...the hell?" He was wearing cowboy boots. Fucking cowboy boots. With spurs and everything. "fuck." Lucky was pretty sure that he had once said that he would shoot himself in the head if he ever wore cowboy boots. He looked away from the sorry spectacle that was his boots to find the barkeep holding out a grimy bottle.

"You sure you need this?" asked the greasy one eyed man. There was an evil looking scar where his left eye should have been. The pale pink of the scar stood out in stark contrast to his dark, dark skin.

"Have you seen what I'm wearing?"

Just So's Ya Knows

I'm going to start, sometime soon, to post a story here. I figured it might be more interesting than reading about what I had to eat yesterday. Unless I ate a small Cajun boy. THAT would be more interesting than any silly little story. You have been warned.

ReCap

Walked in the MS walk on Sunday. Then ate some pizza and hot dogs to counteract the physical activity. Then watched some Bride of Chucky(they cut out the best part, the exploding best friend) as we (Carla and I) prepared some Jerky and some Korean Bar B Que.

I'm Old

Bought the new Maxim mainly for their annual hot 100. I actively dislike many of the girls contained within. Janet Jackson used to be attractive, but isn't any more. That Hilton wench turns my stomach. Nicole Ritchie even moreso. And I don't care how big her boobs are, they don't make Jessica Simpson attractive. Just because they are on T.V., that doesn't make them good looking.

And Another Thing

I forgot to mention that Johnny Knoxville plays The Rock's sidekick. He's there to be funny, but isn't. Except for the scene where he and another guy get into a shotgun fight. That was about the only thing in this movie I hadn't seen a hundred times before.

I have a hankering to see the originals. I should get on that.

Walking Not All That Tall, And With Kind Of A Limp

The Rock needs a hit man, and this flick ain't it. I mean, I thought The Rundown was a hit. Out of the park. A throwback to those eighties action films I loved when I was younger. But it wasn't a box office smash. It deserved to be, but was not. Neither is Walking Tall. Which makes sense because Walking Tall is not a good movie. Not by a long shot. The script is almost laughably weak. The Rock's big impassioned speech in the courtroom is neither big nor impassioned. It doesn't get the audience all riled up, ready to kick some ass with righteous fury, it made me roll my eyes. The action scenes also made my eyes roll, if only because I couldn't follow what was going on. Once again, it seems as if the director had no real idea of what he was doing and neither did the editor. Just a bunch of shots that have been shot too close smashed together with a rawkin' score. And a film like this is all about the action, so it's rapid descent in the box office is understandable.

And the bad guy sucks. Never, for one second do you doubt that The Rock is going to kick his ass. The film tries to make him seem like The Rock's equal by having him cheat to beat The Rock in a confusingly shot and edited game of pick-up football. Yeah. It didn't work. Nothing really would have made this guy menacing. He looks to much like the bad guy from Happy Gilmore.

The only good thing about the movie is The Rock. He's so god damn charismatic. He just needs to find a better film to be in. And he better do it quick, before he ends up the next Segal or Van Damme.

This is why I love the Internet

"I have once again plastered the cieling with my man-jam.

You'd think I would run out, except that my gonads are actually quantum singularities that lead to a parallel dimension comprised entirely of semen."

Finding a quote like that makes all the hours of reading stupid crap in forums worth it. Now to work that bad boy in to conversation somehow...

Busy Couple O' Days

I did manage to see Kill Bill volume 2. Much different than volume 1. So much so that I wonder if the complete change of pace between the first and second half will work when it's watched as one long film. The again, the films change and switch and flip between so many styles and moods and tones that it will all work out just fine. I get the idea that Quentin knows what he's doing. He knows that he's going to piss people off with these movies, so he doesn't waste any time doing it. In volume one he had the Shaw Scope followed by the 70's Feature Presentation followed by a Klingon Proverb. In volume 2 he has a long black and white take in front of a clearly rear projected background of Uma spouting some pretty damn arch dialogue. Both beginnings made me smile like a goon.

There is not nearly as much action in the second volume. Add it all up and it wouldn't amount to a quarter of what was seen in volume one. A lot more dialogue. And I ate it all up. I love the Superman monologue. I love Quentin's obsession with feet. I love how he shoots things. Supersaturated. Everything glows. Even Budd's trailer in the middle of nowhere looks glorious. To be fair, I thought the final show down would last a lot longer. You'd think it would take at least as much screen time as the Crazy 88 fight. If you add in all the talking they do before hand, then maybe they'd match up. It's like fighting but with words. Except The Bride doesn't get to fight back all that much during the verbal sparring. She doesn't get to fight back much at all in this movie. Mainly she gets kicked around. Shot, buried alive, beat up, shot, shot, and so on. Not to say that I think that the people who decry all this violence against The Bride as misogynistic or anything like that. Only stupid people would think that. Stupid people who would have no problem with all the violence if it was perpetrated on a man. Which strikes me, and maybe it's just me being silly here, it strikes me as racist. You can't abuse women, but fuck the guys over as much as you want. That ain't equality. The hero of a film, especially revenge films is only as great as the obstacles they have to overcome.

By that criteria Hawksley Workman's show on Saturday was his best ever. Because I enjoyed it in spite of all the stupid fucking people that surrounded me. My god. My Fucking GOD!!! I really fucking hate people sometimes. I hate people who go to a show and then spend the bulk of it talking loudly instead of enjoying said show. Right behind me. Or people who poke me in the ribs or the ear for no good reason. I wish to god I was making this shit up. But Hawksley brought his AAA game and was absolutely incredible. I don't know how to describe such a show, y'know. A movie, you can talk about the writing, the cinematography and so on. Here, he played nothing but songs I liked, and played them the best I've ever heard them. His interactions with the crowd were amusing. Umm... he did two encores... see, I ain't so good at the live show reviews.

Speaking of which, did I ever review my brother's play? He didn't write it or direct it. He was Titania, Queen of the Faeries in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Best production of it I've ever seen. Wow. And that's my review of that.

Bubba Ho-Tep was exactly what it said it was. In a nursing home somewhere in Texas Elvis and a black JFK team up to defeat an ancient mummy who is sucking the souls out of the old people through their asses. Yep. It's exactly that. I'm so totally biased, but Bruce Campbell was fantastic as Elvis. He didn't play him with a wink. He played him straight. The movie was sweeter than I was expecting. Cuter. And it took it's time. It's not a long movie, under ninety minutes, but it gives the characters and the story time to explore each other. Man I loved Bruce in this. He looks totally like Bruce, but at the same time an elderly Elvis. The mummy looks like a poorly lit generic monster, and the flying bug looks beyond cheesy. And it all worked.

I Better Fucking Cheer Up

Didn't get much sleep last night and I am full of ill temper and rage today. Seriously, this is one foul fucking mood. And now it looks like I won't get to see Kill Bill v 2 today. That ain't gonna help things.

Scary

The last few nights, as I try to go to sleep, I freak myself out. I keep thinking to myself as I walk in to my room, I think how freaky it would be if when I turned off the light I would see a human shaped shape crouching outside my window. Or, when I get under the covers I think how unnerving it would be to wake up in the middle of the night and see the shadow of the same thing cast onto the opposite wall. Yeah. I don't like when my brain thinks such things.

jaslk

Not much has happened lately, but I thought I'd pop in because tomorrow is just packed. Going to see Hawksley Workman in the evening and Kill Bill v 2 in the afternoon. I imagine I'm going to need a big bag of superlatives to describe it when next I blog.

Also, went to the comic store today. I had a little time to kill after applying for re-admission at the University. Might be taking a Japanese course over the summer, donchakno. The girl who worked at the desk was pretty cute. One of Cara's sculptures was displayed in the vestibule. These are asides. What I meant to mention is this: the new Punisher one shot is pretty good. The End I think it's called. And it is. It's set in the future, so lots more Punishing can take place but I can't think of a better ending for the character. Yep.

And All Was Right With the World

I now have internet access at home again. YAY! But now I have no excuses for not blogging. Unless the dog were to eat the hub or something.

Let's get updated. I'm sick. Have been for a couple days now. Started off with that horrible burning sensation on the roof of my mouth. Now I'm coughing and sneezing a lot. And my mouth always has the slight taste of snot in it.

Saw Hellboy. Enjoyed it. Actually, I really liked it up until the final act. After Liz went all crazy Broadway style on all the Samael I thought the movie just kind of fell apart. Having the climax of the movie be about Hellboy choosing to remain "human" or not was weak. Hellboy seemed the most human out of anyone else in the movie. It didn't seem like much of a choice. Like the Daredevil movie, I think they tried to cram too much cool stuff in. But yeah, up until that point I had no problems with the show. Everyone and everything looked great. Rasputin's tomb was totally ripped out of the comics. It made no sense, and that's why I liked it. Ron Perlman WAS born to play Hellboy. Just superb. I've heard complaints about how Hellboy's quips weren't all that funny. Here's the thing: they're no supposed to be. Hellboy isn't all that quick. He's not the brains of the operation. He's like a plumber. Instead of fixing leaks he combats nightmarish creatures. But his approach is the same. To Quote Fred Flintstone's lamp, "It's a living."

The other problem I had was with the villains. The crazy no-eyes all blades dude whose name is not coming to me right now was cool. But Ilsa had nothing to do. If she was uber-hot I could understand. But she wasn't. And Rasputin just wasn't all that menacing. And the Evil Cthulu-esque abomination that springs from his corpse came totally out of left field.

I recommend the movie, if only for its design. Good movie, but not great. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, now THAT"S a great movie. Kate Winslett looked amazing in this film. I could totally understand how Jim Carrey's character fell for her. Which is kind of important for a film like this. It's a romance movie that takes place after the romance is done. Kind of. It's about the memory of romance. Is the joy worth the hurt. It's about other stuff too, and is jam packed with interesting ideas and fabulous shots and sequences. It made me feel good.

Carla and I rented Tsui Hark's Vampire Hunters, mainly because a guy she knows worked on the effects for the film (or something like that). I fell asleep within ten minutes.

MicroFuckingSoft

So I hooked up my Xbox to the interweb. Cuz that there free offer was about to expire. I got it all hooked up. I can now go online and shoot people. I haven't yet, but the OPTION is there. Somehow, getting the Xbox online has caused my computer to not go online. So yeah. I'm writing this at work. And now it's time to go.

Cat Soup

Tried a couple of times over the weekend to watch Cat Soup. Never did get to watch the whole thing. Kept falling asleep. Which just might be the best way to watch this film. Not trying to say it's a bad film, more like it's already WAY dreamlike. Here's a f'rinstance: a little cat and his sister are adrift at see in a boat with a pig. The boy cat poops off the side which attracts fish. The pig catches the fish and offers them to the cat. The cat instead strips the skin off the pig, revealing different cuts of meat. He grabs one and fries it up. He gives a portion of the fried pork back to the pig who eats it.

Crazy stuff, man. I really dug it.

The Weekend

Saw Brent Butt on Friday night. He's funny. I believe I had a tear of laughter roll down my face at one point. Funny, weird looking man. What's scary is Carla and I went with HER PARENTS to see him. That's a little off-putting. I was wondering if maybe I was starting to loose my edge, if maybe I was no longer what the kids call, "hip".

Later on that evening Carla and I went to The Freehouse and met up with Trev and James and Nate and that annoying girl whose name my brain doesn't feel the need to learn. When she heard where we had been she ran her yap about how much she hated Butt and his show. That made me feel better. I don't much like her.

Watched some Full Metal Alchemist over the weekend. Anime is weird man. Scenes of bloody horror followed immediately by wacky humour.

See, now, Carla just stopped by and is totally distracting me from blogging. Yet she complains when I don't blog. Well, I'm gonna stop now and it's all her fault.

I had a nap, but I am in no way refreshed

So unrefreshed that I didn't capitalize the title. Yeah, it was intentional. So. Zombies. I like 'em. Gonna make a movie about them someday. Not exactly sure what their allure is. Werewolves have that whole man v. beast thing going for it. Dracula is just sexy. Zombies are... I don't know. My movie is also going to have one werewolf and one vampire in it. Maybe I should have put a spoiler warning on this post. Too late now.

Zombies are like us, just not. They look like us, just not. They move like us, just not. I've read a lot on the subject of zombies, but I won't go and recap all the crap I've read. In spite of all I've read, I'm still not sure why they are so appealing. One of my film theory profs talked about how zombies were like... hmm... I forget what he said. Or exactly what he said. All the zombie stuff I know is becoming one big shit pile.

But yeah, I like 'em. And others do to. My friend Eric wants to make a zombie movie. Dawn of the Dead is doing well in the theatres. Maybe I should just talk about that. Sure. Why not?

But first: Abenobashi is a crazy anime in the best tradition of crazy anime. Plus: BOOBS!

I'm not sure why they called this movie Dawn of the Dead. I mean, sure, it borrows a fair bit from Romero's original, but not all THAT much. They spend a lot of time in the mall. That's the main thing. Oh, and there are zombies. Other than that, not that much in common. All the subtext and satire of the original has been dropped in favour of... nothing. This film has no agenda other than providing some tension, a few scares and a lot of death. And it does. And I liked it. But this remake, or re-imagining, along with that Texas Chain Saw remake, I think... What does it say about today's audience that both films are just slick, highly polished redo's of the superior originals with none of the thought, wit or charm that made the originals superior? Does it say anything about today's audiences, or does it say something about the directors involved, or about the fact that the originals were independent visions put out as independent films and these new ones are studio products?

Not that I care that much, I just think it is interesting. Romero's juxtaposition of zombies in a shopping mall was witty and clever and not really touched at all in this new one but I like it better that way. Cuz why bother remaking something if you're not going to change things up? It's just that they took out a whole lot and only added fast zombies. And I prefer slow zombies. Something about their shambling adds an air of inevitability to everything. The zombies ain't going to chase anybody, cuz they'll get them eventually. But the fast zombies worked in this film. This was a fast film. It started off fairly quick and never really slowed down. No time for love, or satire, doctor Jones. But the acting was good and there were all sorts of little touches I liked. Like the sarcastic rich guy's uncanny resemblance in both look and attitude to Bruce Campbell. If it had actually been Bruce, it wouldn't have been as cool, cuz then we'd like the character. As it stands now, we laugh at what he says but still think he's a dink and have no problem with him getting shot in the head. There were other things that I wanted to mention, that I DID mention in my post that got erased but damned if I can remember them now.

Some of the effects looked fake, like when zombies got run over and stuff. But not blatantly fake. Just fake enough to be fake. Same with that one overhead shot that follow Sarah Polley out of her neighborhood, when that van hits that car and they both crash into the gas pumps? Fake. Well done, all of it but not perfect. But that zombie baby made Carla laugh out loud. It made me think of Dead Alive. Yeah. I'd recommend this movie because what it does what it's supposed to but nothing extra. Yeah. I sound more negative than I meant to, but such is the nature of the internet.

SO Tired

Carla and I ended up going to her Grandma's for lunch. I swear that old lady put something in the food because I am plum tuckered. Must nap.

This Is Where The Title Goes

Instead of writing about Dawn of the Dead or Abenobashi Magical Shopping Arcade, two good and enjoyable things, I have spent the last couple of days whipping up a review of Breakdown, a truly ungood and unenjoyable game for the Xbox. It is just so much easier to talk about the bad rather than the good. Especially when the bad parts are just so obvious. Breakdown is probably one of the easiest reviews I've ever written (not that it's done yet), so full of bad things is it.

But that's for my other site. This is the site where I don't spend all my time bitching about video games. Here is where I bitch about everything else. Which I will do.

Soon.

First Imma go lunch wif Carla.

Also, blogspot has the worst spellchecker ever. I typed eveything instead of everything up there. The spellchecker caught it but everything was not one of its suggestions, not even close.

Dead People and People What Should Be Dead

Okay. Fuck. I had just typed up all kinds of stuff about the new Dawn of the Dead. Mainly mindless filler, but with some (I think) good stuff as well. But I'm typing this up at work. With the weird keyboard, the laptop type keyboard. With the faux-mouse buttons scrunched up against the space bar. So if you are not the best typist in the world, there might be times where your finger brushes against the buttons instead of or at the same time as the space bar. There is the chance that you can, in one accidental thumb brush, highlight your whole chunk of text and space over it, erasing it all. Yeah.

Fuck.

A Good Weekend

It was. Cuz it was almost filled with Carla. I mean, how could it be any better. Well, Triplets of Bellville could have NOT been sold out. But other than that, I have no complaints. I really, really, really dig that girl.

Eep

Yeah. Sorry about the lack of blogging. Someone I work with just found out he has a tumour on his fucking brain. It's pushing on the stem. I'm a little weirded out.

Notice how I took Bernie's tragedy and somehow made it all about me.

I'm a massive fucking jerk.

Crap Day

This day, Tuesday, was just an utter waste. I was surly and full of crank all day. Not fun for me or anyone around me.

Also, in reference to Carla's blog about that there I, Robot movie: I don't care if it has nothing to do with the book of the same name. I didn't care for the book. Found it annoying. However, I've never disliked a movie directed by Alex Proyas. Yes, Eric, that includes Garage Days.

Some Stuff happened

Don't it always seem to go....

The times when you don't blog are the times when you have the most to blog about. Not that I have all sorts of momentous life-altering announcements to make, I just have actual topics of conversation. This isn't the usual mindless getting to know you chit chat. Or maybe it is. Whatever. Let's try to do this somewhat chronological like.

Thursday (I think)
I slept in. Thusly, I was late for a late lunch with my ex-girlfriend Cara. I stepped under some hot water and then out the door to pick her up. I met her dog, whose name I forget. Nice dog. A bit bigger than I was expecting. Saw some of Cara's new sculpture pieces which I can only describe as upholstered eroticism. Yeah, they were interesting. We went to Newtown for lunch. I had the Curried Beef Hot Pot, she had the Budha Tofu with Mixed Vegetable. Both tasty. We talked. Talking to people who are actually doing stuff always make me feel bad. About my lack of stuff doing. I forget which parcel delivery service did this, but some driver delivered a package to Cara minus a whole lot of expensive tools. She wasn't home at the time, and didn't sign for it, but instead came home to an opened package. Nice.

We bummed around down town for a little bit, not doing much of anything and that was about that.

Also, she gave me a CD. By an artist called Geoff Berner. He plays the accordion and sings odd songs with nice titles like, "We All Have To Be A Prostitute Sometimes".

Even though I slept in I was still quite tired, and my late lunch could have almost been considered an early dinner. So I wasn't in the best of mind frames for cooking with Carla. We had agreed to get together on Thursday night to make a heaping helping of Padh Thai. When she called up, I begged off. As soon as I had hung up my mind began to race. Canceling a dinner date with my future wife because I was to full and tired from spending the afternoon with my ex-girlfriend would be a VERY BAD IDEA. So I called her right back and told her I was coming right over.

We went shopping for food. Whilst shopping I picked up Armed and Dangerous for cheap. And Carla let me! It was a good deal, how could she not? It took a while to get all the shopping done and we were both tired by the end so we just went to bed instead of making the food.

At 11:15pm I woke up and went to work. Saw Wonderfalls during my shift. I liked it. I thought it was cute and quirky and so was the lead actress.

Friday.
What the hell happened on Friday. Oh, we rented So Close. A Hong Kong action movie starring three hot chicks. Well, more like one exceptionally hot chick (Hsu Chi, the gorgeous Taiwanese actress from The Transporter) a hot chick and an average chick. The movie wasn't as good as I had expected. It was directed by Corey Yeun (who also helmed The Transporter), who usually does great action. The action in this was okay, but not up to his usual caliber. The story was nonsensical. Which is standard in a lot of HK movies, but especially so in this one.
You don't need to train to be a hit(wo)man in Hong Kong movies, you just need someone close to you be killed. The rest just sorts itself out. Really the only thing that kept my attention was Hsu Chi. Man she's good looking. Then she dies. Damnit. I had trouble paying attention after that. All in all, I don't recommend it.

Saturday.
I worry sometimes that me and film are growing apart. I haven't shot anything or written anything in quite a while and the last film I did shoot, I've done nothing with. Plus there's all these films out that all sorts of people are raving about. Raving. And I see them and am unmoved. Return of the King? I still like Fellowship of the Ring best, as a movie. The Passion of the Christ? I cried, but I found as many faults in that film as virtues. And now City of God. One of the few foreign films to ever get nominated for a best picture Oscar. Critics the world over fought over accolades to heap on it. I liked it. But that's it. I didn't leave the film drunk on its majesty. Maybe it's me. I really fucking hope it isn't though.

Sunday
Wrestleania XX. I enjoy wrestling. I totally understand why people don't. I'm somewhat embarrassed by my liking of it. But still I do.
Cory and Gayle came over and watched the big show with me and Seve. We had fun. I'd go into detail, but if you were interested in such things you already know everything that happened and if wrestling holds no sway over you you'd skip it all anyways. Suffice it to say I thought it ended on the best note it possibly could. The last match was the best of the night, the most dramatic and Chris Benoit's win was the most deserved. I loved that all of the fans at MSG were cheering for him and that he and Guerrerro closed out the show.

Later on that very evening...
I discovered some naked pictures of Hsu Chi (hahahaha! No link for you!) on the internet. Hot damn she's foxy!

Monday.
Nothing much happened. Went out for lunch with my dad. Then cooked lunch for Carla.

The end.

A Moment of Weakness

I wasted $8.47 tonight. There was a lull at work (OMFG!!) and instead of studying Japanese or writing any number of reviews I drove to 7-11. I bought a maxim and a couple bags of Doritos. I was going to buy some Taquitos as well, but the clerk wouldn't let me. Said they were too old. That's a first.

I remember back in my high school days I used to live on Doritos and Dr. Pepper. I still am all about the Dr., but I couldn't finish a single bag of Doritos. Why the hell did I buy 2?

Contractual Obligations

Carla doesn't like it when all I write about is how I have nothing to write about. But I have nothing to write about. An idea for a story or show just popped into my head about a man sent back in time who can't remember why or how or from when he was sent. Probably a nothing idea, but hey, at least I wrote something.

Eurotrip

Saw it. Didn't mind it. Wouldn't watch it on T.V., cuz the boobs are the best part. Without boobs, this movie ain't that great.

What A Fantastic Fucking Day!

Seriously. We've had some pretty decent weather for the past little while, but today was the first time it really felt like Spring. And as such, I had to help push someone into their driveway. I didn't HAVE to, I chose to, cuz that's the kind of guy I am. The roads around my house are absolute shit right now. They're always shit actually, but even moreso right now.

RCMP

My cousin Ben is in training to be a Mountie. It does not sound like fun. He spent the last weekend polishing his boots. His hands were stained and ugly looking. The boots were looking good though. After dinner on Sunday he had to leave early as he still had to shine his other boots and go for a three mile run before going to bed. Don't think I'll doing that, thank you. Although... it sounds like the pay is pretty all right.

My Sunday

Started off with waking up next to Carla. Can't get much better than that. Except maybe waking up feeling fully rested and refreshed next to Carla.

Most of the day was spent sleeping. A little of it was spent playing some Crystal Chronicles. That was followed with a delicious meal at my aunt and uncle's house. I actually ate, and enjoyed, beans. Murray (my uncle) is a hell of a cook. It was SO GOOD! Although the apple pie tasted to me like it had a hint of licorice to it.

The day looked like it was going to end as it had begun with Carla and I in bed. But then I received a rude awakening. At around 10:15 someone from work called to remind me that I was supposed to have been at work at 9. Luckily I'm SO GOOD at what I do that I managed to get everything done before we went to air. Actually, most of the credit should go to Dan, the sports anchor. Anyone looking for a sports anchor out there? Dan Plaster is about as good as you can get, he's a nice guy a damn funny drunk and better at his job than any one else I've ever met.

My Saturday

I could just change the date of this blog. Change it back to Saturday, make it look like I wrote it earlier. I've done it in the past. Or maybe I've done it in the present but changed back the date so that you only THINK that I've done it in the past. But not no more. I didn't blog all weekend or Monday. Nor did I go to the gym. I suck. But starting now I'm trying to decrease my sucking. No more misleading all my millions of readers.

Right. My Saturday. Right.

It was good. It was a good day. It had lots of Carla in it, that always helps. It started with a bunch of Ninja Gaiden (WTF? The spell checker doesn't recognize ninja. That's just wrong. Gaiden I could see not being in there, but ninja?) playing, that always helps as well. The I showered and Carla and I did some very brief shoe shopping, which is the best kind of shoe shopping. We also stopped in at Chapters. Carla offered to buy me a magazine and I deferred. What the hell is wrong with me? A couple years back I was probably spending more money on periodicals than food. Not anymore. Ever since Carla made me start keeping track of my money, I've been a lot more careful with it. Odd how that works.

After my non magazine getting, and Carla's massive magazine and manga getting (oh how the tables have turned!), we went and saw Broken Lizard's Club Dread. I like comedy and I like horror and there is a distinct dearth of film making comedy troupes these days, how could I NOT go? I liked this movie. More than Super Troopers. I found Troopers to be intermittently funny. I also found Club Dread to be intermittently funny, but the dry patches were not as dry nor as long. Plus this movie had boobies. Gotta like that. I like that the members of Broken Lizard probably wrote this movie for the express purpose of getting paid to spend a couple months in a tropical paradise surrounded by topless chicks. More power to 'em. I'd do that too, if I could.

The film's title comes up over a close up of a recently decapitated body spasming, shot from the point of view of the head and the movie ends with... nah I won't ruin the last shot but it nicely bookends the film. I really liked that title shot though, it set the tone for all that followed. I also liked that the guy who played the biggest prick in the last Broken Lizard film got to play the hero in this one. I liked a lot about this movie.

I liked almost nothing about Dreamcatcher which a group of us rented Saturday night. I can think of only two redeeming qualities. The first is that it only cost a buck to rent. The second is that the film looked pretty nice. The woods where most of the film takes place are well shot, especially some of the panoramic shots. Every thing else? Shit. And not just any kind of shit. Bloody shit. Accompanied by unpleasant farting noises. Seriously, who the hell thought that this film was a good idea? There were a fair few recognizable names involved in this travesty, what attracted them to this film? The book wasn't any good, and I'm normally a fan of Stephen King's work. It was overlong, poorly paced and seemed like King was stealing from his own previous works. It was like a poorer version of The Tommyknockers. With shit weasels. The film version was even worse. The child actors were horrible, there was no real flow to the tale being told. The tale itself was rediculous. The effects were not all that great. The sound effects were sometimes laughable. As was the sudden appearance of a british accent. Most annoying was the fact that I think they changed the ending from the book, but I can't remember for certain and I don't plan on re-reading the damn thing to make sure. But it was fun to watch at least. There was a group of us, and we were drinking, which always helps.

I usually think that Roeper, of Ebert & fame is a waste of skin and air and idiocy (I mean there are other, much more amusing idiots who could put Roeper's idiocy to better use) but I grudgingly admit that when he voted Dreamcatcher the worst film of last year he wasn't horribly, horribly wrong.

Why

Why is it that when I don't go to the gym, that's the day I consume one of the greasiest, fattiest dinners known to man. It was good. Guiltily so.

And why does Ninja Gaiden play with my mind so? When I think I've done rather well, killing all sorts of things in all sorts of ways while avoiding death in a stylish way, I get a crap rating. But when I die, and use a scroll to come back to life and consume all sorts of health potions all in the name of barely beating a level, I get the best rating possible. Japanese game developers are inscrutable. INSCRUTABLE I SAY!

Toffee makes my jaw hurt

I think the title pretty much says it all. Ow. Also: Mmmmmmmm!

Ninja Gaiden

I played the hell out of the demo that came out last week and now I'm playing the hell of the full game. I quite likes it. But the demo spoiled me in a way. You start out much more powerful in the demo. In the real game, the first boss raped me multiple times. No cheap powerful moves to defeat him this time. Seve doesn't seem to be having any problems. Fucker. He can go to hell on the youth he rode in on.

Grrr

I thought of at least a couple of things to blog about while at work. Now that I am home, however, I find myself at a loss.

Dear God, The Internet Sucks

Seriously! I wanted to get all sorts of things done today, while at work. I wanted to learn some Japanamese. Finish off a review or two and post a couple days worth of blogging. Instead I spent three hours at gamefaqs, reading a bunch of posts about which console is better. My brain, my heart and my faith in my fellow man hurt. The sad part is I'll do it again. And, since every one knows that none of their faults are their fault I blame the internet for my procrastination. Fucking internet. I'm going to sue for damages!

The... Something... Of the Christ

I have no real idea of what I think of Mel's new movie. Not that I think that he cares. He made the movie that he wanted to make and it's going to make a pile of money and it might even change some people's lives. Not mine. Let's see if I can try to write down some of my impressions of the film.

While in New Zealand I overheard a couple of film snobs complaining of LOTR:FOTR and the fact the Peter Jackson made an uber-orc to lead the orcs in the final fight of the movie. "Stupid Hollywood movies NEED an easily identifiable enemy, so the audience knows to cheer when he dies." I thought they were annoying whinging prats back then, but now I kind of see their point. The devil didn't need to be in this film. S/he made for some neat visuals (especially with that freaky evil baby. That baby was freaky and evil, man) but didn't add a whole lot to the film. I typed film there. At first I was going to write movie, but then I thought film was more appropriate. Back to Satan There are scenes of horrific violence in this film. Scenes that made my eyes leak. Scenes that made me despair for the human race. But I only turned away from the screen once. A scene with no violence or anything like that. After Jesus dies/ gives up the (Holy) ghost the film cuts to Satan in hell screaming in rage. I couldn't watch, it was just so lame. Why not have Satan shake his fist and go, "Curse, you JEEZUUUUUUUSSS!!!!!" or "I'll get you next time Jesus, next time."

And the stuff with Judas was kinda crap too. The evil apparition under the bridge rubbed me the wrong way. And the evil children that chased him to his death were lame too. They weren't necessary. The dude sold out the Son of God/ the Son of Man. That would guilt a lot of people to their death. No demon kids necessary. Get rid of all the cliched representations of evil. You don't need to see the devil gliding through the crowds that are cheering Jesus' prolonged death to know that they are under the sway of not nice things. Groups of people are scary things, easily swayed to violence. No pale androgynous beelzebub is needed.

And the scene where Jesus carpents a tall table? Lame. Forced humour. Also not needed. The rest of the flashbacks are well done, shot in an entirely different way. And it nicely contrasts the beaten and bloody Jesus of the bulk of this film with the magnetic messiah that so frightened the high priests.

Good God does this guy get gorey. Jesus is beaten. And beaten. And flayed. And flayed. And FLAYED. Then beaten some more. And more. Then crucified. And the audience is treated to graphic close ups and details of all of the above. There is some cringe inducing stuff here. Like I said, it made me cry. But. BUT. That's the point of the film. That Jesus suffered and died for us. Was crucified, died, and was burred. Those were just words before this film. This film does a great job of showing what Jesus went through. That's what Mel's goal was, so yay him. But he added a whole bunch of stuff that I found silly.

And yay for this film inspiring actual debate and intelligent discussions about religion. Not everybody likes religion (hey Carla!), but I'd much rather hear about The Passion than a nipple.

I Want A New Drug

What the world needs now, in addition to love sweet love , is a pill that combats procrastination. I know I sure as hell needs some of that. Think about it, fat people would stop putting off going to the gym, addicts would stop putting off rehab. I would stop putting off the rest of my life. God damn I wants some anti procrastination pills. Someone should get on that.

I'm Gonna Miss This Place

I like where I work. I'm easily satisfied, but still. I like that it's in the middle of a big field. There's rabbits around and great sunrises and sunsets. The refinery across the way also looks nice at night, or in the morning. I often times just take a moment or two after finishing my shift in the morning just to soak it all in. I'm gonna miss that. I don't work with a bunch of fuckwits. Which is nice. There are a couple of dimwits, and one real moron, but the rest are some of the good ones. And you need at least one idiot in any work place, otherwise what would you have to talk about. Yeah, knowing that you only have a few more months left to work makes a lot of things seem more momentous. Or maybe this situation is just making me more pretentious.

More Gaming

Went to a Halo party tonight. Didn't do too badly either. I was in no danger at any time of coming in first, but I never came in last either. I stayed hovering in the middle, and that's okay by me. Bob and Jim are way better Halo players than me, and I am okay with that. Luckily I was on their team for most of the night. So the experience was much less frustrating than it could have been. Much better than the few times I've played with Seve and his friends. Those kids are animals. Shooting you as soon as you spawn. No honour amongst them. Little bastards.

Gaming

Yeah, so Carla's brother and sister are in town this week so there was some visiting. And some game playing. Mario Kart. I didn't do all that much winning. Laura's boyfriend Devon is a dick. I mean that in the nicest possible way. He plays games almost exactly like me. Except he is not nearly as good at losing on purpose without actually looking like he's losing on purpose. I got a couple of those 'gimme' wins and a part of me died inside. I am over the hill. My best gaming years are behind me. Hell, even Laura beat me on more than one occasion. To be fair, Devon always used the cheapest characters in the game. The two turtles. They get three red shells on a regular basis. Being on the receiving end of those is enough to knock you from first to fourth in a heart beat. So that bastard Devon had six shells at his disposal. Jerk. Which happened to me on more than one occasion. And Laura picked the other unlockable characters. Not that it would change my character choice all that much. I always go with Wario. Because he's a'gonna ween. And I always pick his purple pimp caddy. Of course Wario's special attack is not all that useful and the pimp caddy doesn't handle so good. But still... I don't know...

RE-DO

All this recapping of meaningless crap is kinda pointless, don't you think? I'm trying to think of witty stuff to write, but it's been so long since I've written anything even resembling good. Damnit. Also, I seem to be having trouble sleeping, more to the point, trouble waking up. It's getting to be very annoying.

Out of Order

I have all sorts of stuff to write about from Monday to now, but right now all I can think of is what the hell am I going to do with my life? I just found out my job, and many jobs at the place where I work is/are going away at the end of June. My brain be broke.

Longest Post Ever

And about wrestling of all things. Huh.

Inter the View

Free continental breakfast this morning, and another free paper. This Comfort Inn is all about the free. And free high speed internet, luckily Carla brought her laptop along. As she was surfing, I noticed something odd. CFQC, the Saskatoon Global station was one of the channels in our room. What up with that, dog?

We had to be out by 11, and Carla's interview wasn't until 3:20, so we had plenty of time to kill. We drove around for a bit, poked around in a couple of stores and then went for lunch.

We thought it would be fitting to have Japanese for lunch. Masa is a nice little Japanese restaurant about five minutes from campus. I really do enjoy the Japanese food. I always think I won't be full when the food is set down in front of me and then I am always full before I'm done. Deceptive, ninja-like food. I had a New Zealand roll, there was lamb in it. Interesting.

U of M has a nice campus, with a river running alongside it. Probably looks even nicer when the river isn't frozen and the trees have a leaf or two on them.

The parking experience was quite an... experience. Carla wasn't sure her van would fit in it, so I had to get out and reassure her. So I did, and I did. There was plenty of clearance. Yet, from inside the van, it looked like we were going to scrape the roof off the van. We both scrunched our necks down and tensed our shoulders up even though we knew that there was no problem. It was a freaky experience, man. My brain knew that there was nothing to worry about, yet it worried all the same.

One day at work a few weeks back, I heard a couple guys talking about how Winnipeg had the highest ratio of good looking girls of any place they had been to. They both swore they were serious. And they were. Most of the girls on the U of M campus were well put together. I would have liked to spend more time looking around.

Maybe Regina is just really ugly.

Eventually it was time for Carla to have her interview. I waited for her as she was grilled. I saw some of her competition, I think she was better than all of them. I also watched some JET promotional videos. Gotta love those promotional videos. Especially the synth scores. Actually, one of the girls in the videos looked strikingly similar to Kierra Knighley. That was nice.

Carla didn't seem to think that she did to well on her interview, but that's just the way she is. I had to be even more entertaining than usual to keep her mind off the interview. Luckily, the weather turned to crap, so that kept her mind occupied. Have I mentioned that I'm glad I ain't driving? Cuz I am. The roads looked pretty horrible to me, but Carla didn't seem to have any problems. Until we couldn't consistently see the road. That's about when we decided to call it a day. We stopped in a little town called Moosomin, and checked in to the Prarie Pride Motel. Carla called her parents to assure them we weren't dead, and I checked out the weather channel. The highways around Regina were all closed. The Ring road in Regina was closed. There had been a twenty car accident in the city and a fourty car accident just outside of it. Good thing we had decided to stop when we did.

We set up Carla's laptop and watched a movie. Comic Book: the Movie to be Precise. Let me consult my notes to see what I thought of it. Here's exactly what I wrote down after watching it: meh. That about sums it up. A lot of geeky cool people in this movie, a lot of cool cameos but the stuff that holds it together doesn't really do a good job of holding it together.

Then we slept.

Road Oning

Drove up to Winnipeg today with the lovely and talented Carla. She has an interview with JET. I do not. I am tagging along to provide moral support and such. For I am the most awesomest of fiances. Not so awesome that I did any driving. I hate driving, especially in the winter.

I have never been to Winnipeg before. I'm so very excited.

We don't actually plan on doing anything other than go to Carla's interview during our stay in Winnipeg. I'm so very excited.

The national highway becomes non-devided for a good long stretch between Regina and Winnipeg. Sure glad I ain't driving.

We stayed at a Comfort Inn in Winnipeg. Nicer than I was expecting. We got complimentary soup when we checked in. Cream of Mushroom soup. And a copy of the National Post.

Being tired and lazy, we just ordered in some pizza. From Big Time Pizza. We don't have a Big Time Pizza in Regina. Oh, the many splendoured delights of this Winnipeg. The pizza was good, I especially enjoyed the spicy sauce.

That's about it.

John Cena did not come to my arena.

Which is about the only bad thing I can say about last night's wrestling event. All of the radio ads promoting the Smackdown show last night had John Cena rapping about how he would be at our arena. Generic, to be sure, but still. Also, some other ads referred to it as Paul Heyman's Smackdown, but Heyman was also a no show. Cena I can understand, he screwed up his knee at the Royal Rumble, but why no Paul?

We pulled into the fairly full parking lot, found a spot nowhere near the entrance and made our way to the Cena-less arena. Nothing makes you feel more attractive and smart than a live wrestling crowd. Boy there are some fat, ugly, stupid looking people in this city. There were a few normal looking people scattered about but they were in the vast minority. Where were all the skanky wrestling groupies? I didn't see any. At least, I hope I didn't see any. If some of the girls I did see were groupies, I feel sorry for the wrestlers' penises. We, my brother Seve and I looked around for a bit at all the stuff we wouldn't buy. I am not that picky when it comes to clothing. I wear t-shirts with comic book characters on them (lesser known characters, so most people have no idea that I'm wearing a comic book shirt), I wear a Man Whore shirt, I wear an offensive shirt that has a crude drawing of a flying me throwing eggs at a terrified pope who runs from me and swears. What I'm trying to say is that while I aint that picky when it comes to what I wear, I don't think I'll ever wear a wrestling shirt. In addition to the shirts, there were thongs and belts to buy as well. And a big poster of Torrie Wilson in a wet t-shirt. I was tempted by that poster. I know that Torrie's boobs are fake, and I usually don't like fake boobs (actively dislike them to be more accurate), but I like Torrie Wilson's fake boobs. Any wrestling girls fake boobs to be completely honest. I guess it's all about context. If I'm going to choose to invest myself in fake fighting, I have no real reason to object to the fake boobs. Our tickets were for row 27 down in the floor section. It turns out our seats were in section two row seven, so we were WAY closer than we had first thought. Seated next to us was a very old lady with a thick accent (Greek, maybe?). She talked to us about wrestling for a while. This was her first live event although she never misses it when it's on the TV. Seated in front of us were a bunch of young kids. With signs. Worrisome. Behind us was a perfect example ugly. Group ugly. An ugly guy and three ugly girls.

The show started with the announcer making all kinds of announcements about how to behave, and what behavior would get you escorted off the premises and what behavior would have you facing criminal charges. Then we all rose for the national anthem. The entire crowd, (the Agridome was more than half full, but less than three quarters full) stood silently as the music to Oh Canada played. When the music was over, we all cheered.

The first match of the night was Nunzio, of the FBI(Full Blooded Italians) versus Billie Kidman. Billie Kidman is a little lightweight wrestler (and I believe the lucky bastard is married to Torrie Wilson), whilst Nunzio is much bigger. One of the ugly girls behind me lusted after Nunzio quite vociferously. If she could, she would have ripped off and thrown her vagina at Nunzio's crotch. I was mildly disturbed by her comments. The match was pretty decent. Lots of power moves and a few high flying moves. And the good guy (Kidman) won.

A word now on cheering: I had planned on cheering for the heels (bad guys) through all the matches. But the old lady liked all the good guys and seemed to not like it when I booed them. But at the same time, the kids in front of me also didn't like me booing the good guys. I felt bad for bothering the old lady but pretty good for bothering the little kids. I gave up and cheered for the good guys pretty early on.

The next match was... damnit I forget. That sucks. It was another singles match between some undercard guys. Ah screw going through the card match by match, I'll just recap the pertinent points. Rey Mysterio is very short. The Big Show is Very big. Bradshaw took a beer from a girl in the audience and drank it. It was like spinach to Popeye and he was able to push the Big Show around for a bit. But then Big Show chokeslammed him. Wrestling seems much more violent and painful in person. Watching it on TV you sometimes take for granted the risks that they take. And somewhere near the beginning Dawn Marie, the WWE's resident crack-whore announced that by order of Paul Heyman, John Cena is suspended. Then she showed off her ass and left. I don't like Dawn Marie's boobs. They frighten me.

During Chavo's match the crowd chanted "EDDY! EDDY! EDDY!", it seemed to bother Chavo. That was fun. Chanting along with a stadium full of people is fun, even if most of the people are ugly and stupid. I love Tajiri, even though he didn't get to do much during his match. No Tarantula, no Green Mist, no Buzzsaw Kick. Tajiri didn't get to do much, but he was still fantastic. Kurt Angle wrestled Hardcore Holly and Kurt mostly dominated and gave Holly the finger fairly often. The crowd cheered whenever he did. Either Shelton Benjamin or Charlie Haas screwed up a spot. We, being the polite crowd that we are did no start chanting "You fucked up!" The Airline lost Rikishi's luggage co we were spared the sight of his ginormous be-dimpled ass as he instead wore a much more reserved track suit. That said Big Daddy on it. Rhyno wrestled, but didn't gore anyone. Thus, the crowd booed him.

The last fight of the night was Eddie Guererro versus Brock Lesnar for the title. LOTS of chanting at the beginning of this one. The wrestlers didn't DO anything for around ten minutes, they just let the crowd work themselves up. Instead the crowd got all confused. Some sections chanted "EDDIE!" some "YOU TAPPED OUT!" still others "GOLD-BERG". Sometimes the crowd would settle on one and chant their little hearts out but then it would degenerate into the unintelligible mess again. Eddie just reclined on the top rope, seemingly loving every minute of this while Lesnar stalked around the ring, telling everyone to shut up. The wrestlers stretched for a bit and then got down to it. That Brock Lesnar is a big boy, boy howdy. But Eddie is crafty, and not above the occasional thumb to the eye. Brock dominated the bulk of the match but Eddie managed to reverse an F-5 into a DDT and land the frog splash, but that wasn't enough and Brock came back, hit his finisher and that was that. I wonder if that's how they're going to finish the match at the PPV? Probably not, Goldberg needs to be in there somewhere. Anyways, great match. Most of the matches were fun to watch. Live wrestling is a good time.

For the audience at least. I wonder what it must be like to go from working sold out massive arenas on a regular basis to a definitely not full Agridome in Regina/Middle of Nowhere. That must do things to a man's mind. Some of these guys are millionaires and still they're busting their asses in Saskatchewan. I don't know, man, I don't know.

In other news

I had a wonderful lunch with Carla today at the new Japanese restaurant in town. Best Tempura ever. The rest was pretty good too. I want to get back there soon to try out their evening menu.

Please Just Fucking Stop

I work at a TeeVee station and I have had more than enough of this breast related scandal. What's so scandalous? It was a boob. The nipple was covered. It wasn't an accident. It was carefully calculated to generate publicity for Janet (she's got a new album coming out this month doncha know), the Grammies (this week on CBS) and every network operated by Paramount. Will Janet go to the Grammies? Do actual real people care about this trivial shit? I mean, I get paid to watch Entertainment Tonight and I don't watch it. The older I get, the more Hate Filled I get.

Training Is Fun

I don't like being trained at new stuff, that isn't always fun, but training someone to do your job is great. You teach them the basics and then let them do your job for you. Occasionally, you give them disapproving looks or cluck your tongue and watch as they try to figure out what they're doing wrong. Man I love being an ass.

Damnit

I had something I wanted to talk about, but I totally forget what it was. Hmm... In other news, shooting things in slow motion is a fantastic basis for games. I played a fair bit of Max Payne 2 over the course of the weekend and loved most of that time. The gameplay is tight, and there are a lot of weird little touches that I very much liked. All the stuff that played on the televisions in the background was gold, Jerry, gold. And now I'm all talked out.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

Whooo! Superbowl!!! I could really give a crap. I worked during the game, at a television station that aired the game, and I don't think I could name both teams that played. Maybe the Colts and Patriots. I'm not 100% sure who won, either. And I sometimes edit the sports. Crazy, man, crazy. And how about that tit? Man, wow, man. I feel like a tool for even mentioning it, because that's what they want for me to do. So never mind about Latoya's tit or Marky Mark's grabbing of it. Let's talk about something else, like doggies. I like doggies.