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I figure my son will be 40 years old when he finally watches the end of the movie “Halloween”. This is an admittedly unscientific and quick calculation based on how much more of the movie he watched this year than he did last year. About two minutes more than last year, for those keeping score.

I think Halloween is the epitome of suspense and tension in movies. Blood and gore, my son can handle. The occasional fright, no problem. But Halloween has beaten him, two years in a row now.

Last year, I was skeptical about having him watch the movie. But my eagerness to have him grow up, coupled with his persistance that he’s old enough for it, won out. So, I had him and his friend Keaton watch the movie with me. We all had built the movie “up” in the days before we watched it. I kept telling them how it was going to scare the shit out of them. Not “like other movies” scared. But really scared. I had them anticipating and dreading the viewing. I told them we’d stop the movie at any point either of them wanted it stopped, and that there was no shame in being too scared to watch it. “whatever” was their opinion of that idea. “Just wait and see” I said. They were so primed to be scared.

We made it about 40 minutes into the film, I’m guessing. Just to the point where the girl goes to the laundry-room (who has a laundry room as a separate building, by the way?) to wash her buttered clothes. She gets stuck. Michael Myers is at the door! “Stop the movie!” they agreed. “Are you sure?” I asked, keeping the movie going. “Just wait a sec.” I admired them for wanting to charge ahead, and sure enough, they got past that scene, and onto the next segment where the buttered girl takes her babysitting charge over to where Jamie Lee Curtis is sitting. As soon as the Halloween tinkling piano music started again, though, that was it. “Turn it off!” No going back. They were done.

So, that was my son’s first foray into Halloween.

Over the course of the past year, I asked him a few times if he wanted to watch the rest of Halloween. “Not right now”. “Maybe next Halloween” I allowed. “Okay”.

So, this Halloween, after the trick-or-treating was done: “Do you want to watch Halloween?” “Sure” he said, emphatically. I think his willingness to watch it was partly based on the fact that watching it would mean he’d get to stay up past his bedtime. On a school night.

Movie starts. The first appearance of the creepy tinkling piano makes him moan slightly. A few more occurrances of the theme and he begins to say things like “I hate that music!” “I know, isn’t it great” is the type of reply his mother or I would respond with.

As the movie begins to grow in suspense, he starts getting a bit agitated, in a “this is exciting, I’m getting kind of nervous and agitated at this movie again” kind of way. I offer “we can stop the moive any time you want. Just say so.” “No, I want to see more of it than I watched last year.” Okay.

So, we make it to the point where we stopped watching last year. “This is where we stopped last year” he says.

Next scene: Girl is going to drive to pick up her boyfriend. She is singing as she goes to the car. Door is locked. She goes to get the keys, singing all the way. No worries. She comes back to the car, opens the door… wait, it’s unlocked now!! She doesn’t realise it! How did the door get unlocked?!? Still singing, gets in the car. Singing. Notices condensation on the windows. “That’s odd”, she seems be thinking. THERE’S CONDENSATION ON THE WINDOWS!!! It dawns on her slowly, and she stops singing. She turns to look in the back seat. We see the white mask…

STOP THE MOVIE!!!! “Are you sure?” STOP THE MOVIE!!!

So, we stopped it. About two more minutes than last year. I’m guessing next year we watch the whole thing.

This from an NFL.com preview of Monday’s Dolphins v. Jets game:

The Jets and Dolphins are meeting on Monday Night Football for the first time since Oct. 23, 2000, when they played one of the best games in the history of the program.

Miami had a 30-7 fourth-quarter lead at the Meadowlands before New York scored a team-record 30 points in the period to force overtime. The Jets ended up winning 40-37, the biggest comeback victory in their history.

The game, voted by fans as Monday Night Football’s greatest game

I watched that game. As a Dolphins fan, I can assure you I did not vote this game as the greatest MNF game.

By the way, you may have noticed I stopped posting my weekly football picks because, well, really, who cares?

So a well-respected image analyst, the same guy who is currently studying the images of Saturn’s moon titan, has decided to apply his expertise to the photo of POTUS in the first debate.

He stakes his scientific reputation that “…Bush was wearing something under his jacket during the debate,” he says. “This is not about a bad suit. And there’s no way the bulge can be described as a wrinkled shirt.” (on a morning television program on Wednesday, Bush had said the problem was “a poorly tailored shirt”)

Interesting article, available here. (It’s Salon, so you’ll need to watch an ad to get the free one-day visit to Salon Premium)

So, when will Bush be forced to state: “I did not have electronic intercourse with my staff”

So a well-respected image analyst, the same guy who is currently studying the images of Saturn’s moon titan, has decided to apply his expertise to the photo of POTUS in the first debate.

He stakes his scientific reputation that “…Bush was wearing something under his jacket during the debate,” he says. “This is not about a bad suit. And there’s no way the bulge can be described as a wrinkled shirt.” (on a morning television program on Wednesday, Bush had said the problem was “a poorly tailored shirt”)

Interesting article, available here. (It’s Salon, so you’ll need to watch an ad to get the free one-day visit to Salon Premium)

So, when will Bush be forced to state: “I did not have electronic intercourse with my staff”

I see on the ARTS Guild marquee, during my walk to lunch today, this:

Libby Oughton’s Rug Exhibition

While I am slightly curious as to what makes her rug so special that it deserves to be displayed, I thought there was a provincial law that forbids public displays of genitals. Maybe pubic hair doesn’t count?

Still, even with these mental images swirling in my brain, I managed to eat some lunch.

Five global questions that need answering:

1) How many people in the world have read the word “coincidence” at the same time you just did right now?

2) How many people in the world, right now, are wearing short skirts and no panties?

3) How many people are, right now, eating their snot?

4) How many people, at this very second, died?

5) How many people bothered to read all the way to this fifth useless question?

I have a friend. Her name is Sasa Lele (pronounced Sass-ah Leh-lay). She is from Africa.

Okay, not really. But I have been inventing, bit by bit, a background for a fictional character named Sasa Lele. Where did the name come from, you ask?

On Quxxn Strxxt, there is a store called Hxxe Axxents. On their window, for quite some time now is a hand painted sign that says:

SASA SASA
LELE LELE

Well, not quite like that, because the L’s fall under the S’s and the E’s fall under the A’s. For the longest time (months, I’d say) I read it as Sasa Lele Sasa Lele. I figured it was a brand name. Then one day it struck me. It’s saying “Sale Sale”, only in an unclear way. Anyway, since that revelation I’ve decided that Sasa Lele is the name of some person.

Feel free to add some elements to her background.

…there’s a guy waiting to see if the smoke problem returns.

I was driving my ’91 Chevy Lumina the other day and we’re stopped at an intersection. For no discernible reason, smoke starts billowing from the neck of the steering wheel. Okay, so maybe not billowing. Maybe more like that first stream of smoke when one initially touches the hot-knife to the hash.
So, for like 10 seconds, the smoke is hot-kniving out of the neck of the steering wheel. I did not inhale, but I could smell the familiar scent of burning electrical wires. I began to imagine the car bursting into flames and exploding in a fiery ball of flames. Only after we ejected ourselves from our seats, of course. My wife started to ask if there was enough time to make it to a service station. As I watched the smoke plume, I dismissed all kinds of courses of action. In reality, I was only hoping to make it home. Our son sat bemused in the back seat.

Then, as soon as it started, it stopped. The smoke went away. The intersection light turned green, and off we went. I did the official test to see if anything was broken: I tried the directional blinkers and turned the steering wheel back and forth. My rigorous testing showed no difference than before the smoke. So, we drove home and did what, I think, most people do: we ignored the problem.

I am now waiting for the next smoke alarm before I take any serious action like taking it to a mechanic.

I don’t know very much about the implications of politics on a global scale. But I’m worried that Bush will get re-elected. I honestly do not understand how common-sense people can willingly vote to give him another four years. Perhaps I’m buying too much into the liberal media spin over the past three years, but I don’t think so. I really think there’s a fundamental difference in his opinions of The Right Thing To Do, and my opinions, and in the last year in particular, I consider his opinions dangerous to the world. For a while I’ve given him the benefit of the doubt because, well, he’s the President of the United States of America, and I’m, well, a nobody who doesn’t know very much about the implications of politics on a global scale.

I have a feeling that, if Bush wins, a great number of people who voted for him will, the moment the results come in (or get pronounced in court), have that sense you get when choosing between two things you thought were equally appealing (or unappealing, as the case may be).
You know, like when you say “I don’t know whether to eat the salad or the cheeseburger. I’ll flip a coin and if it’s heads I’ll eat the salad. Tails I eat the cheeseburger” At the time, you may honestly think you don’t have a preference between the two. But then, when you flip the coin and it comes up heads, you immediately realise that it was the cheeseburger you wanted all along. So you flip again, hoping this time it’ll be tails.

Only in the US, it’ll take four years before they can flip the coin again.

I expect the people of the US to come to their senses, and vote for Kerry in such numbers that there’s little question as to the country’s opinion about Bush policies.

I expect that, because I need to expect that. I’m also getting ready for a great disappointment.

I am in the middle of a week-long vacation. So far, it’s been a perfect vacation. Lots of video game playing, some reading, sleeping late, going to bed late, cooking meals that don’t get cooked when I work, doing unimportant things on a whim, etc.
I had planned to do a few things around the house, but so far, except for a half-afternoon of beginning to clean out the basement, I’ve done nothing. And I don’t feel guilty at all.
I’ve barely thought about work, which is the best part.
Now, though, it’s hump day, and I fear my head, from this point onwards, will be more and more filled with countdown-to-work thoughts.

To counter that, I’ll just have to play more GTA: Vice City.