Monthly Archives: September 2004

It Didn’t Work, My Nemesis

Yes, I got in the car this morning and drove to work, my nemesis.
Yes, I pulled out onto the busy Route 2 into Charlottetown, my nemesis.
Yes, my brakes failed, my nemesis.
No, I didn’t die, my nemesis.

Your attempt to have me killed by cutting my brake lines failed.
—————-

A couple of days ago, the brake warning light came on, on the car’s dashboard. Took it to our mechanic (it’s kind of nice to have a mechanic who knows you by name. Not so nice when he has your contact phone number practically memorized), and he topped up the brake fluid. Said “if the light comes on again, you’ll probably have to get it repaired’.
Last night, the brakes were working perfectly. This morning… no brakes. Or, barely any brakes. Interestingly, though, the brake warning light did not come on this time. It’s rather discomforting to come up to the intersection of Route 2 and the Ch’town Bypass, and your brakes can only muster to coast you to an eventual stop. Discomforting, indeed.

By the way, I don’t think I have any nemesis (or nemesii?). Unless you can call ‘debt’ a nemesis. If so, then that nemesis is killing me slowly.

It’s Been An Amazing Race

I don’t know if anybody who reads this has been watching the best reality show on television this season, but Amazing Race 5 has had some great moments so far this year. Whatever show would have a commonplace sceneario like this: start the episode in New Zealand, where a contestant has to climb (for safety, tethered to a rope themselves) a 70 foot rope ladder hanging under a bridge across a river. Once done, traverse across a couple of steel girders under same bridge, then throw themselves off the bridge to the boat waiting below. Then scurry off to Manila where you have to decorate a specialized vehicle, then take that vehicle to a farm where you must use an ox and plow to search for a clue tied to a rope. Finally, race to the ‘pit stop’ where you may or may not be eliminated.

And it’s like that every episode. Fantastic.

Early on in the season, L’il Churna and Smirnoff, the midget and motormouth, were the team you loves to hate. So happy to see them go, so sorry to not have them around anymore to hate (fortunately, someone took their place on the hate plate). There are not many opportunities on television for “little people” to be represented as something other than circus performers or oddities (Kramer’s friend on Seinfeld was the only other example I could think of), so it was nice to see Smurna (don’t remember her name) being so “normal”. Too bad she was saddled with such a bitchy-bitch. Spurna the Taller was an awful person and the little one was seen as awful mostly by association. Get her on a team with a more civilised person and she’d be loved by all, I’m sure. I loved when the cripple-creek brothers yelled “Bitch” in one episode as the devil and her minion drove by. Cut to their car: “Did someone just call me a bitch?!” Priceless.

Now there are four teams remaining as the 2 hour finale looms next week. Last night’s episode had me hooting and hollering for joy at the television as perhaps the most ignorant, mean, selfish, petulant reality show player ever finally got a bit of comeuppance. “Oh my god…I hate you” exhaled Colin, defeated, to an ox and/or his mentally abused (and rather useless) girlfriend. To see him trudging through the mud, screaming and lost and desperate and psychotic…that was a wonderful few moments of television. The episode where he almost got arrested because he (wrongly) (arrogantly) refuesed to pay a cabbie the moeny he agreed was classic. I hope they don’t win. He is a Total Asshole.

As awful as Colin is, humanity’s redemption is shown in the presence of Chip. He’s gotta be the perfect reality show contestant. He’s a good player of the game, but his (wonderful) personality keeps getting in the way of his success. Kind and generous to a fault, smart, fun, entertaining, empathetic, it’s obvious he fully understands what is important in his life, and he won’t (can’t) let the game ruin his outlook. More than any other contestant, he is taking full advantage of the wonderful opportunities this game provides him. He is respectful of his surroundings and is genuinely thrilled to be wherever he is. His wife Kim seems to have a nice outlook as well, but she’s a useless tit as far as her participation in the team effort. I hope they win.

The Bowling Moms, as they’re called, are inexplicably still in contention. They are, without question, the most boring team going. I still have no idea who or what they are. They are Fly-Under-The-Radar people, I guess. They’re the “oh, are you still here” people at a party. They are vacant of personality, unless you define personality as shrieks and whines and bemoaning of their poor lot in the game. To get to the final four, they haven’t so much succeeded as they’ve not failed as much as the teams that have lost before them. I hope they don’t win. If they do, it will most likely be by default, rather than by anything special they do.

The Christian models are a puzzle. They seem genuinely nice, but their faith in the lord really bugs me. I don’t understand the logic of someone who claims they’ll succeed because God has given them the tools to succeed. Are they saying God gave you the tools, but not Chip and Kim? Why did He refuse those tools to Chip and Kim, or to the Moms? I also got angry at their vanity a couple of weeks ago when they refused (even though it meant they’d likely lose the game) to get their hair cut off. Are you kidding? Still, they’re likable enough and if Chip and Kim don’t win, I hope they do. Let’s pray that they do, shall we?.

I expect Colin and Christie (Miss Christie, you make good victim) will win. But I so don’t want them to.

What a great show.

MovieJuice

I’ve been a fan of Mark Ramsey’s movie review site MovieJuice for a while.
He’s a sharp writer and packs a lot of funny lines and smart sarcasm into his reviews. Even with movies he likes, he enjoys taking pot shots at the stars and movie business in general.

If you like snarky, funny writing, and if you like movies, I’d be surprised if you didn’t like MovieJuice. Check it out.

Here’s a sample of his style from his review of “Skycaptain…”

“Aleht the amphibious squadron!” says Angelina Jolie. Never has an actress uttered more silly British commands than Jolie, who captains the all-female amphibians like synchronized swimmers with guns. “Ready assholt teams!” she yells. “Ahm clusteh tohpedoes and stick clewse to unit fohmation!” she commands. “Retuhn my Oscah to the Academy with my profoundest apohlogies!” she shouts. With her little military cap and her black uniform, Angie looks like she should be handling Jude Law’s luggage.

Picked Off

Well, I got 7 picks right out of a possible 16.
With much shame, I vow to give up publicly prognosticating football games for good. Or at least for the season.

Is It That Simple?

Last night’s Six Feet Under was, for the most part, amazing.
A couple of plot points that were a bit too soap-opera in their melodramatic unbelievability. But such great melodramatic unbelievability.

Some absolutely incredible scenes. The scene where Rico apologizes was perfect. The scene where Late Nate and David talk, fantastic. Yes, David, it is that simple “You can do anything, you lucky bastard, you’re alive.” The scene where Nate comes home, wonderful.

Overall, the season was miss and hit. It started out pretty rough (compared to its previous seasons’ standards) but by mid-season was finding its stride again.

I didn’t really like the whole Claire arc this season. She turned into an art-school asshole.

It will be far too long until next season begins.

You Don’t Belong Here!

My first day of school. Grade One. Very nervous. I believe we may have been a few minutes late. My mother takes me into the school, asks somebody where I go. Somebody points to a room. My mother leads me to the room. I go in. Door closes. I stand by the door. The teacher stops talking to the class. Everyone stares at me.
“Who are you?”, she asks.
“Robert MacDonald” I say.
She looks at her book.
“You don’t belong here!” she demands.
Bitch.
I begin to cry. “I know” I think to myself. “I belong at home, watching Sesame Street and Mr. Dressup.” I cried some more.
She shoos me out the door. In the hallway, I see my mother. She and another woman are laughing and drinking martinis, pointing at me. I get directed to another room and enter.
A wonderful piece of fuzz, softly and gently floating at the head of the class, asks me my name. I tell her. Her fluffiness embraces me and makes me feel welcome.
Thank you Mrs. McDonald for accepting me when I needed a place to belong.
Okay, so the martinis and the piece of fluff thing were made up, but they do illustrate my emotional state at the time.

Are You Ready For Some Football!!

It’s time for me to start my season of guessing who’s gonna win each NFL football game. My goal is to be at 60 percent correct at the end of the year. I’ll be guessing, I mean, calculating my picks on win or lose, not against the spread.

The first game of the season was Thursday night. I picked the Colts to beat the Patriots. So, I’m 0 and 1 so far.

Here are my picks for the rest of this week, with comments when I have something to add:

Indianapolis @ New England – Colts to win (I was wrong. I’m scared that the Pats may be better than they were last year.
Tennessee @ Miami – Miami wins. (Miami is expected to be pitiful this year. I expect them to surprise. I’ll say they get to the playoffs. How? I have no idea at the moment.)
San Diego @ Houston – Houston wins. (The Chargers will continue to suck. The Texans will continue to surprise)
Baltimore @ Cleveland – Ravens win.
Detroit @ Chicago – Chicago wins. (only because one of these two schmucks has to win)
Jacksonville @ Buffalo – Buffalo wins. (I don’t know how the Jags stack up this year, but I expect them to fail. The Bills have got to be better than they were last year. They’re on their way to healing)
Tampa Bay @ Washington – The Buccanneers will win. (The Redskins will once again this year prove that money doesn’t necessarily equal success)
Arizona @ St. Louis – The Rams win. (they better enjoy it. Wins will be scarce for St. Louis this year)
Oakland @ Pittsburgh – The Steelers will win (I hate the Raiders. They are the Heavy Metal Music of football)
Cincinatti @ NY Jets – Jets win. (Hate to say it, but the Jets will be a good team this year)
Seattle @ New Orleans – Seahawks win
Atlanta @ San Francisco – The Falcons win. (SF will continue to plummet from the quality team they were a couple of years ago)
NY Giants @ Philadelphia – Eagles win
Dallas @ Minnesota – Dallas wins (I expect Dallas to be as good as they surprisingly were last year)
Kansas City @ Denver – The Broncos will win, because it’s their home game. (should be a good game)
Green Bay @ Carolina – Panthers win (the Brett Favre era will be shown to be over this year.)

Tears On A Pillow

Of all the musical performances I’ve heard and/or seen, without question Bruce Springsteen’s performance of My City Of Ruin on the televised Tribute to Heroes broadcast had the biggest impact on me.
I couldn’t comprehend how he could sing that song without breaking down and crying, a mere week after the attacks. I was in awe of his professionalism. And, moreso, I was in awe of the song. At the time, I hadn’t realised that it was a song on his upcoming album, and I thought he had written it specifically for the broadcast. Under that belief, I was amazed at how he could have written such a beautifully poetic and powerful song, so close to the event (I thought) it described.
Even knowing that it was written before the attacks, I am no less amazed at how beautiful and poetic it is. It was perfect. It opened the show, and it was a perfect performance. I cried when I heard it on that broadcast, and I still get teary-eyed practically every time I listen to it. No other song even comes close to eliciting that kind of reaction from me.

I know it’s corny and ultimately worthless, but:
On this anniversary, my heart goes out to the friends and families of those who lost their lives as a result of those attacks.
It also goes out to the friends and families of those innocent Iraqis, and of the 1000+ soldiers, who’ve lost their lives as a result of the mis-guided retaliation of those attacks. And to those innocent Iraqis whose lives have been saved as a result of that mis-guided retaliation.

The Libary

Confession time.
It’s been years since I’ve stepped foot in a libary.
As the computer has gradually taken up more and more of my spare time, and since I spend all day reading and writing, I find it more and more difficult to set aside time to read. And any reading I do is reading of a book or magazine I’ve purchased. My reasons, then, to enter a libary have dwindled to, well, none.
This is my great shame, I suppose.

The last time I entered a libary, I was looking for a book for my son, who was probably 4 or 5 at the time. So, that’s like 6 years ago.
At that time, I was looking for some material for him to read, or (probably, since he probably wasn’t quite able to read yet) for me to read to him. One of my favourite early-school year reads was the Noddy series of books, by Enid Blyton, so I thought I’d look for some at my local libary.
The libary didn’t have them. Or maybe they were signed out.

Anyway, I left the libary with my Noddy. And I haven’t been back since.

There. There’s my libary story. And, yes, I know how to spell it. I choose not to.

Hero

Just so stuntmen and key grips can keep their jobs, my family went to see Hero last night at the gigantic movie complex where one’s snacks end up costing as much as a Swiss Chalet meal.
The movie is gorgeous, both visually and poetically, and I appreciated the morality and philosohy it contained. I recommend it to everyone.
My only criticism is that, during the wonderfully balletic battles between adversaries, the danger of death/dying seemed to be largely absent. I enjoyed watching them as pieces of art and movement, but they lacked the notion of consequence. As such, it made it difficult to invest my emotions in the outcome of each battle.
But that’s a minor quibble. A wonderful movie, in my opinion.