It's the weekend again, and I have nothing planned. This 8:28 morning has left me a bit planless. 48 (or so) hours of freedom ahead of me and nothing to show for it? Like always.


I get asked, "So you guys [the guys being me and Tony] have anything exciting planned for the weekend?"
And I've started answering truthfully rather than bumbling through a list of maybes. "Nope. Not so far. Nothing at all"
"Oh... um. Okay."

Truly, I love breaking people out of their predicted conversational paths.

So anyway, here I sit, planless, staring at Hula Cat and wondering, "How does one really live their life?" as the old esoteric cliche goes. Hula Cat has no idea, and Buddha's not talking. Lousy, goodfernuthin desk toys.

It's time I break out of this rut and do something wild, like eat ice cream in a swimming pool that's not yet warm enough for human flesh. Or buy silly girl clothes and pretend to support the idea that boys and girls are different. OR! I could actually do something fun for once and enjoy my weekend before another rutting workweek rolls around. (Oh, Firefly... sob)

Now there's a concept.

Off to the drawing board. To put an end to the planlessness.

So... very... tired....

{thud}

Impromptu Movie Review:
Dawn Of The Dead

Two words: undeniably horrid. This movie makes 28 Days Later look like a work of art. Dawn Of The Dead is meaningless, incoherent, and crass. Hell, the thing should be rated NC-17 because I KNOW there were ten year old kids in that theater who saw more violence in one (much too long) sitting than they ever would in front of a Playstation.

But let's forget about my intense new hatred for the makers of this movie and get technical.

Characters appear out of nowhere, without development, without introduction. At one point, some blonde's breasts are all over the place without so much as a "how do you do," which leaves me worried that this hour and 40 minute brain killer was once a longer piece of trash than it is now. I can see it now; the director turning to his editor and saying, "Yeah, you're right. The audience won't care who she is or why she suddenly appears in the group for no reason. Just flash her tits.... there. Yeah, that's good."

What characters we do know are imbecilic or insane, leaving little reason to care whether or not they die. During the bits where I wasn't being nauseated by gore, I was bored to tears by dull dialogue and witless character interactions. We learn about a bad-boy-gone-good early in the "film." Within a span of two minutes, he changes from protective new father to demented obstetrician for his zombie girlfriend. No reason, no why. We're just supposed to accept that his desire to "do things right" with his new child has driven him past the point of caring that girlfriend Luda is a purple writhing mass just dying to eat his arm. But he's not the only other character we couldn't care less about. The teenage daughter of a zombie good guy apparently has the brain of a three year old, running with arms outstretched to her puppy Chips, and when she plows a truck through a mob of carniverous dead to rescue the mutt, I almost fell asleep out of sheer exasperation. Not even the fact that she lost her family to this virus/hell's-waiting-room thing makes any sense out her utter and complete imbecility. In fact, the only likeable character in the whole bunch is a snide rich guy that I'm not sure we're supposed to like. At least he has an identity.

And I won't even go near the obligatory and entirely baseless "romance" we have to endure. Trust me, there's no point.

And to go back to the immaculate-looking 28 Days Later, at least that movie gave us an explanation of what the hell was going on. Dawn Of The Dead leaves us wondering, "Okay, so this is a virus? Does it still have something to do with Hell being full? Wha? How? And why aren't people infected when they're sprayed with zombie blood?" At least 28 Days Later gave us a "Thou shall not perform tests on angry monkeys" lesson. Dawn Of The Dead is a bit like porn. We don't care why the guy showed up to fix the copy machine at night as long as he disrobes with the late-working secretary and the waaa-waaa guitar kicks in. Dawn throws in an aluminum-can-strength plot and hopes we just don't give a shit as long as we're dripping in blood by the end.

Even as a hack and slash this movie is garbage. The satirical meaning behind its consumerism-skewering orignal has vanished. My only hope is that anyone with enough brain power to exchange money for Dawn Of The Dead also has enough intelligence to shake it off like the trash it is.


See also:
"Indeed, in this movie, having no brains seems to be an advantage."
"There's nothing fresh in this Dead remake."

And no, I haven't been saying much lately, not because there isn't much to say, but because... meh. Call it the whim of the gods of apathy and nihilism. ...I love those guys.

If one more smartass tourist makes one more condescending remark, I swear I will reach across my computer and shove a brochure down his stupid mouth.

Just so everyone knows.

I've been time travelling, or some other such nonsense. It bores the hell out of me. To tell the truth - and to tell a lie - the future's just as bleak as before.

So strap on your beanies, babies, and look somewhere else.

"Ohhh, there's a thin line between Saturday night and Sunday morning."

Know offhand who said that and you get a cookie.
Ahhh...

So here's a twist you may not have thought of...

How Global Warming May Cause the Next Ice Age

"...if enough cold, fresh water coming from the melting polar ice caps and the melting glaciers of Greenland flows into the northern Atlantic, it will shut down the Gulf Stream, which keeps Europe and northeastern North America warm. The worst-case scenario would be a full-blown return of the last ice age - in a period as short as 2 to 3 years from its onset - and the mid-case scenario would be a period like the "little ice age" of a few centuries ago that disrupted worldwide weather patterns leading to extremely harsh winters, droughts, worldwide desertification, crop failures, and wars around the world."

[Jenny starts stockpiling blankets and hot chocolate.]

The Passion

Haven't seen it yet, and as I'm uninterested in both gratuitious violence and stories about carpenters with God complexes, I don't believe I ever will. And this review of the thing pretty much anticipates what my thoughts on it would be.

"...I wondered why the hell they were beating up the hippie, and what the hippie's deal was. See, there's no context to Passion: just straight-up flesh-ripping violence porn. If you want to see a naked guy get whipped, flogged and nailed, and you live in a community with limited access to gay leather magazines, then this is really the movie for you.

It starts with Yoshua (in the subtitles they call him "Jesus," but he's supposed to be Jewish, not Puerto Rican, so the dialogue has him as "Yoshua") having a bad trip in the garden of his rich friend Gethsemane. Then-- and this is what makes the movie fun--Satan shows up."

...Two thumbs up for movie reviews that end up being more entertaining than the movies themselves.