MOVIE WRAP UP
I've seen two noteworthy movies in the last month: I Am Legend and No Country For Old Men.

1. I AM LEGEND
SPOILERS

I Am Legend is a vampire/zombie movie about the sole human survivor, a brilliant scientist living in Manhattan who spends his days trying to come up with a cure. Will Smith is really good in it, even if he is a little too sassy for a scientist who has seen the world die around him. But he carries the film and he does it well, not very unlike Tom Hanks in Cast Away. My problems with the film stem from the familiarity of it all. We've seen this stuff done before. Admittedly, this was shot and acted well. It was never boring. But I walked away feeling nothing.

The movie is based on a 60 year old book of the same name. The book was made into two movies previously, both with different titles. This remake retains the title, but completely changes the context of it! In the original book, the survivor, Robert Neville, spends his days killing vampires, who eventually evolve and take over the world in a new civilization. They regard Neville as a monster and kill him. His name becomes legend to the vampires, because he is like Dracula is to us; that is, a legend. In the new film, Neville cures the virus that causes the vampires and becomes a legend for saving the world. Blech.

So basically, my opinion is that it was a well-made movie with a sucky ending that could have been so much better if it was true to the book. It's good, but not worth the hype.

2. NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

This is also based on a book, but one that I had not read. I am a Coen Brothers fan, but feel they've hit their peak and now just coast on fumes, a parody of their former glory. This movie reaffirms my love. This movie was written well, acted amazingly and directed perfectly. Except for the end.
The problem is that the film is full of symbolism and the actual plot is secondary. The story involves a drug deal gone wrong and a hunt for the stolen money. But it's much more than that. It's about the slide of humanity. It's about how things are getting worse. It;'s about the unstoppable force that is pushing our civilization to its brink. This all becomes clear in a tone-shifting, momentum-retarding final act that drags the whole thing down to a crawl before ending abruptly. That's my only complaint. The dialogue was excellent. The movie had me grinning with excitement all the way through until the aforementioned ending. I wasn't excited at the action, per se, but at the brilliant filmmaking.

I am now reading the book. It's pretty great. The dialogue I loved so much from the movie came right from the book, part and parcel. The movie is a very accurate retelling of the novel. As of right now I think I like the movie better, but I think the book is great, too. It's by Cormac McCarthy. This is the second book of his I've read. The first was The Road and it blew my socks off. I may have to investigate his other works.

MOVIE WRAP UP

WAR IS OVER if you want it

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Having children 30 years after being one myself is a strange sensation. There is a tendency to see yourself in your child and a desire to recreate all your favorite things from childhood for your child. I want my kids to play with Star Wars action figures, watch Magic Garden, and get goose bumps when Charlie Brown specials come on TV.

Unfortunately, that was 30 years ago and that was me, not them.

I have fallen into the trap of trying to recreate my childhood. I got so excited when I was able to see Magic Garden on tape for the first time in 25 years. Now that I’ve seen it, I can still marvel at how good it was and what it meant to me as a child, but every viewing of it diminishes the magic it held when I hadn’t seen it. The same goes for Marlo and the Magic Movie Machine, a children’s show from the 70s that I recently found on YouTube. It was great to watch again, but it tarnished the magic of remembering it. This pattern repeats in my life over and over again: Sesame Street, Electric Company, Muppet Show, etc. I have given up buying these old DVDs of my childhood memories. I show my kids the old Sesame Streets and Electric Company episodes, but it doesn’t mean anything to them. Their childhood memories will be of Blues Clues and Dora the Explorer. Unfortunately, the 21st Century TV-watching child knows about VHS and DVD and On-Demand. There is nothing special about a TV program anymore. Dora the Explorer recently had a prime-time special. We gathered around the TV and watched it, and the next day my daughter asked to watch it again. And the next day and the next day. She couldn’t grasp that it was a television program that aired and is no longer airing. She is used to things being on tape or DVD and constantly at her disposal. It cheapens the program, in my opinion. There is no more magic in watching a Charlie Brown special, when you know you can get the DVD and watch it any time you want.




In my day, Charlie Brown specials were once-a-year events. They always began with that SPECIAL animation that made you think, “Aw yeah, we’re in for some shit now!” The specials also had those only-during-Charlie-Brown-Specials Peppermint Patty commercials. They also had bumpers: “We’ll be back with It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown after these words…” They no longer do any of that. Now when Dr. Phil’s credits end, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving simply starts running, with TV-G and ads for Mr. Magorium’s Magic Emporium all over it. And when it’s an act break, it simply starts showing a commercial. It’s incredibly jarring and depressing.

Another problem with showing kids stuff from my past is that it’s no longer appropriate to do so. The DVDs for Sesame Street and Electric Company make it very clear that these shows are of their time and should not be used to educate and entertain today’s children. We also have the 1933-1938 Popeye DVD set. That also plainly states that the cartoons on the set are for adult collectors, not children. I am so sick and tired of this crap. Today’s kids’ shows are all crap. Electric Company and Sesame Street used to be made by people who loved and respected children. Kids’ shows are now made by toy companies and computer animators. Nothing against good computer animation (see Pixar), but today’s animation shows characters vaguely representing the movements of real people. In the 70s and 80s we had terrible animation, too (see Justice League, Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), but we also had Looney Tunes, Woody Woodpecker and Tom and Jerry on all the time. Cartoons from the 40s, 50s and 60s that were made by people who loved their work.

I don’t understand the hypocrisy of a society that tells us Sesame Street is for adults, but goes out of its way to endorse the potty humor of Shrek and a re-interpretation of Alvin and the Chipmunks, in which the main characters get horny and eat each other’s shit (Not that the two go together….they are separate things in the new movie!) I don’t understand why Popeye is not appropriate for children, but every single kids’ movie now has fart jokes and worse. Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles had to fight to keep their fart scene in a Rated R movie. Now he could market Blazing Saddles as a kids’ movie.

On the other hand, I guess I should be glad that Popeye, etc, is being made available in its original, unedited state. All too often, history is re-written. Disney’s Fantasia, Star Wars, E.T., innumerable Looney Tunes classics, have all been cut and edited to fit today’s standards. And yet, shitting, farting gangsta chipmunks….bring ‘em on.

It’s very true that, as a parent, you need to watch what your kids are watching. Besides the antisocial, vulgar stuff that crops up on TV, there’s the insidious religious stuff. I say insidious because it’s hidden. At this point, most people know Veggie-Tales is a Christian cartoon. It’s not just “oh, be nice to everyone.” It’s “Make sure you pray to Jesus and read the Bible.” Most people know this already, but it’s certainly not marketed as religious programming, and it’s not obvious. It takes watching 20 minutes before you say, “Hey, wait a minute!” I recently had the TV on for the kids while working around the house and I flipped on a new show called 123-Penguins. It’s about space penguins. Good enough. And then at the end, the characters all bowed their heads and prayed to Jesus Christ. What the hell?! I have no problem with religious programming, but just as I want to know that my kids’ shows may contain violence, adult situations and, you know, shit-eating…I want to know that it’s going to be used for religious propaganda.

My son also likes to play a game he found on the computer called Super Chick Sisters. “It’s like Super Mario Brothers!” he told me. Finally I saw the game. It’s a PETA-designed corruption of Super Mario Brothers in which you learn about the horrors of KFC and how beaks are ripped off chickens, etc, etc and you have to defeat the evil Colonel Sanders (I kid you not). Now, I’m not necessarily against the message of the game. I’m against the insidiousness of it. It’s made so kids will want to play it and then be exposed to their propaganda against their will, as it were.

I recently read a book about a society that devalues knowledge and in which the government keeps the public in the dark about an upcoming war, which they don’t care about anyway, since they’re all watching giant interactive TVs and listening to music on tiny little ear buds. The book was Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 from over 50 years ago. It’s scary how relevant it is. It is an amazing book that I recommend to everyone. I just saw the movie, too…not terrible, but too hyper-stylized to be effective.

Anyway, my point is that in the book, they tell how it all started with political correctness:
"... Ah, Robinson Crusoe. The Negroes didn’t like that, because of his man, Friday. And Nietzsche. The Jews didn’t like Nietzsche. Now, here’s a book about lung cancer. You see, all the cigarette smokers got into a panic, and so, for everyone’s piece of mind, we burn it ... You see ... we’ve all got to be alike. The only way to be happy is for everyone to be made equal, so we must burn the books."

So which way are we going? On one hand we have ultra-edited, censored classic entertainment and on the other hand we have uncensored, crass, vulgar, antisocial entertainment. Neither option is very appealing.

ALBUS DUMBLEDORE IS GAY

I consider myself a suporter of gay rights. I'm no activist, but only because I'm too lazy. I think it's deplorable that gays are not allowed to get married
That said, I think J.K. Rowling's recent announcement that Albus Dumbledore was gay is head-shakingly stupid. Now, in addition to supporting the gays, I am also a big Potter fan. I think the depth and scope of the septilogy is staggering. But no right-thinking person could read that book..the LAST book, mind you...and pick up the super subtle hints that Albus was gay. They make mention of a boyhood friendship that turns sour. There is no mention of love per se. I mean, if he was gay, then SAY so in the BOOK! I'm not upset that a main character is gay. I'm upset that it feels like tinkering with the past, a la Lucas and Spielberg. I feel like she was trying to get a sympathetic gay character in there, but was either too scared or too unsure of herself to make it blatant. Now that the books are out there and she's done, she feels comfortable with expressing what she had in mind. Well, too late, lady! The characters in a book, and the story for that matter, belong to the author first, but us second. I think it's great that there's more to these characters than is on the page. There's subtext, there's backstory, there's depth. But I don't want Spielberg coming out in a interview saying, "Yeah, Indiana Jones was raped as a boy by his uncle, which is why his relationship with his father is so strained." That adds a completely unnecessary twist and subtext to my experience. If that fact about Indy's past was so important, then it should have been in the films.

So, in my opinion, if Jo Rowling felt so strongly about making Dumbledore gay, she should have made it clear he was in the storytelling. This raises another problem for me, though. This was all brought up in the last book. It's a bit of a shocking revelation to have Albus Dumbledore, the greatest wizard in the world, revealed as a homosexual. It would be too out of left field and cast a shadow of the other goings-on. Froma strict story-telling aspect, I think this whole gay revelation should have been a deleted scene, or a subtext left buried. I mean, if it was some sort of PAYOFF to reveal he was gay, that woul be a better. Like, if you were to go back and re-read the books and pick up all these things you missed before that now add a new dimension to his character and the story as a whole, I would have no complaints. But this feels too tacked-on.

But now there's another aspect of all this that fascinates me. J.K. Rowling has announced that in all 7 of the Harry Potter books, unbeknownst to all of us, Dumbledore is gay. We gasp and say, "We had no idea!" What would happen if tomorrow, JK Rowling announced, "I was just kidding, no one's gay!" Would that suddenly make it true? Would we all say, "Oh you fooled us!" Does she really have that much control over these characters once she's closed the door on the story? At what point does she lose control over the characters. Do the characters' stories continue to exist as long as she tells the story? What if she dies and her daughter begins to write stories about Harry Potter. Are those stories "genuinely" about Harry Potter, or do they become sort of "what-if" scenarios. Do the stories merely exist on the page, or are they truly part of J.K. Rowling's continuing existence? My feeling is the story is over when the story is over. People (including myself) want to know what exactly happens to the gang when they grow up, because it's not explicitly explained in the story. The answer is there is no answer. It's not like this really happened and we just missed it. If it's not in the story, it's not part of the story. Simple. Yet infuriatingly unsatisfying. Any more she may add to the narrative at this point is completely unreliable as far as I'm concerned. Of course that sounds silly and petulent, but I feel like my past experiences are being tampered with and I am insulted by that.

J.K. told us Dumbledore is gay, and so we must accept that that's the story she had intended and for whatever reason, neglected to let us in on it. I think that fact detracts from the story, but certainly doesn't negate anything in it or contradict anything. I think the whole "gay" thing is a big nothing, but the fact that it was brought up after the fact bothers me.

I got some complaints that my posts are getting depressing. Here are a couple of funny pictures to soothe you all.

A brochure from 1984:

THE BLACK CLOUD
As a rule, humans find patterns in almost everything. We tend to lump similar things together, even if we don’t do it consciously. Take, for example, the concept of a “bad day.” A man wakes up, takes a shower, gets dressed, drives to work, works all day, drives home and goes to bed. Now, one day, his shower turns cold at the end and his shoelace breaks as he’s tying his shoes. He might not notice these things, or he might suspect that there’s a “bad day” coming. On the way home from work that day, he dings his fender. Now he’s got three bad things that happened that day. He may very well complain that NOTHING has gone right today.
This happens to me all the time. Some unfortunate things will happen and I will collect them together in my mind and say to myself, “How can I possibly be so unlucky?” Then I remember the words of Penn Jillette: “Luck is probability taken personally,” and I stand back and look at things again. I am relatively healthy. I have a wife who loves me and two beautiful, smart children. My family is healthy. I have a roof over my head. I have a job. I have excellent health insurance. We have two cars, one of which is a minivan. The list goes on. I try to realize that I have many things in my life that millions of other people do not. If the hypothetical man from earlier woke up late, took a shower that scalded him, slipped on the soap and twisted his ankle, spilled hot coffee on his shirt which stained it just in time for his performance review and promotion meeting, which he then lost, totaled his car on the way home and ended up in the hospital with no insurance and then finally returned home to find it had been burglarized and set on fire…well, then maybe you could objectively say he was having a truly “bad day.”
I am having a proverbial “bad day.” But my day has been lasting for months.
Again, I could list all the good things in my life. But the catastrophes seem to be pushing their way to the forefront lately.
Early in the Summer, our ejector pump broke. An ejector pump is a plumbing device that pumps water from below ground level up to the sewer or septic tank. One night, our pump got clogged and burned out, leaving gallons of sewage and washing machine water to flow freely out over our basement. We had to spend several hundred dollars to fix the pump. Then we had to clean up the basement. This involved ripping up the carpet and padding and throwing out a bookcase. We eventually decided to spend the money and replace the entire basement carpet. This involved moving almost everything out of the basement and up into the rest of the house. Our house is cluttered enough without another floor’s worth of crap. But we got the carpet done and slowly replaced everything to its rightful place. The whole wet basement situation brought to our attention that we have some places in the basement that might be growing mold. We got two different people to come in and investigate. One guy offered to cleanse and come down in bio-suits and clean and remove everything and wipe down every surface in the basement. The other guy said I should go to Home Depot and buy some plastic gloves and remove the moldy stuff myself. We put it off while we decided what to do.
Then my wife got into a freak car accident, in which she lost control of her minivan, hit an illegally-parked car, which then hit a utility pole. The car sat, undriveable, in the shop’s parking lot, for about two weeks while the insurance company made its assessments. We assumed the car would be totaled, but the insurance company said no. It took over three weeks to repair the van and ended up costing over $11,000. Meanwhile, we were renting another van, which was costing us money every day. Eventually the van was fixed. Then, out of the blue, we get a bill in the mail from the town where the accident occurred for $10,000 to repair the utility pole. A quick phone called revealed that the insurance covers that completely, but it was still an unpleasant shock.
A few weeks later, my car was hit in a parking lot by another driver who didn’t look as he pulled out of his spot. My driver side door is badly damaged and the fender and back door are also damaged. The guy said he’d bypass insurance and pay for it himself. I took it to my shop and the guy’s shop and they both estimated $3500. But, the guy said he’d pay for it, so I’m bringing it to his mechanic. Luckily I have my father-in-law’s car to borrow and won’t have to rent one.
Then, Saturday evening, I came downstairs after the kids went to bed and saw, to my horror, that the bathroom sink had been left running at full force for the last 2 hours or so, and the basement was now flooded. The bathroom floor was an inch deep in water, and the carpet in a 20 foot by 5 foot area was completely soaked. Apparently one of the kids washed their hands before dinner and forgot to turn off the water. I wet-vac’d for an hour or so while my wife made phone calls. A flood recovery company came the next morning, gave us a $2000 estimate, and proceeded to dehydrate the basement. We have 4 huge machines now, running 24 hours a day, creating heat and sucking moisture. The basement is like a furnace right now. Hot air is being blown under the carpet, creating a bounce-house effect. In addition, the guy was worried about mold, so is blowing hot air into the walls, via holes he drilled in the bathroom and a closet. Upon looking for water damage in the walls, he found some more mold that we weren’t aware of. He commented that the whole closet might need to be taken apart so the back wall can be removed.
Monday morning, we thanked the stars that we were leaving the house for the afternoon to go to a Labor Day BBQ. As we were getting dressed and showered, I kid you not, the TV in the bedroom died. It went black and started making a THUMPdump…THUMPdump sound, like a heartbeat. I mean, the TV is 12 years old, but of all the times to die it picked this week? We have a spare TV in our basement from 1988 that I helped my wife buy before we were even dating. So that seems to be working so far.
So, to summarize, we had to replace an ejector pump, had the basement flooded twice, cleaned the basement of sewage, wrecked both cars, and we are currently looking forward to a mold-removal nightmare, and are using a 20-year old TV.
I don’t believe in fate or karma. I truly believe that this is all simple chance occurrences. But damn, it’s hard not to see this all as one big dark cloud hanging over our heads.

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS

NO SPOILERS

As you know, I'm a Harry Potter fan. Not one of those insane people who dress up and visit the many HP fan sites and post with other fans, but I like the books and watch the movies. As if you did'n already know, the final HP book came out on Saturday, July 21st. I pre-ordered 2 copies from a local Border's book store and was told it went on sale at midnight and that I had to get a bracelet on Friday to determine when I would be on line for the actual book sale.
Luckily, I am off from work on Fridays in the summer. At 9:00am, I got to the store, so I could be the first one there to get a bracelet. Ha! The line was down the block! As I slowly made my way to the store, I passed several folding chairs and coolers. People had been camping out for hours, it seemed. I finally snaked my way into the store and then had to snake my way to the registration table. There, they checked my name and gave me an orange bracelet. I was told to make sure I was back before 11:00pm, because the doors would be closed at that point.

At 10:30pm I got to the store, not knowing what I was in for. There was a Kmart in the same shopping center, so I almost ditched the circus of Borders and tried my luck there. But in the end, I decided not to risk it. I went into the Borders and was greeted by a woman dressed as a witch who told me where to go and what to do. The place was freakin PACKED. I had time to kill so I made my way to the back, past the costume contest, past the raffles, past the jellybean-counting games, past the people dressed as characters from the books and stopped at the back, where the potheads and overwhelmed parents lay in the children's section.

Just when I thought I had time to relax, the announcements started. First, they came over the store's speaker system and then from employees with little megaphones. "We will begin lining people up at 11:15!" "We will be getting you into position by 11:30!" The employees were trying desperately to be heard over the din of muttering customers, but they eventually got their point across and we all shuffled, bovine-like towards the front of the store. As I said, I had an orange wristband. Other colors (green and purple) had to wait until we oranges had our books. "If you do NOT have an orange wristband, you MUST go to the back of the store until we call you!" It was hot in the store. The doors were closed and there were way too many people for the store's A/C to handle. People were hot, uncomfortable, nervous, excited and weary.

"Please show your wristbands!" a woman with a bullhorn called from atop the register counter. 150 orange-clad arms shot up like some sort of strange, silent "fight the power" rally. Another woman wove through the crowd checking individual arms and ushered out the one or two purples from the orange-only area. We oranges were stuffed into every free spot of floor in the front of the store. Then we were told to form a single-file line. We all looked at each other incredulously. Then the protests began. There was no way for this dense mass to suddenly organize itself into a line. The yelling went back and forth for about 15 minutes until the employees starting to direct traffic and get us in some sort of order.

There we waited. At five minutes to midnight, they started counting down the minutes and then the seconds to 12:00am. Periodically they would shout things like, "Are you ready for Harry Potter???!!!!" and the crowd would scream. I really enjoy the Harry Potter books, but this was ridiculous. I put my iPod on and waited to buy my book. As I moved forward, I could see people (mostly girls) holding the books they had just bought and hyperventilating or on the brink of tears. It was a little over-the-top. I finally got to the counter and asked for my 2 books, which I was quickly given. I must admit, the moment I actually saw my books was pretty exciting. I paid and put my iPod back on and walked to my car. I wanted to make sure no assholes drove by yelling, "Harry dies on page 400!" or some such. I did pass a car filled with screaming teens, all holding their yellow books out the window and screaming, but that was all.

I got home at 12:30am and began reading. I finished two hours later with 110 pages under my belt, and went to bed.

I got up the next morning and my wife had already read the first 85 pages of her book. She had gotten up early with the kids. At around noon, my in-laws came to take away the kids so we could have the house to ourselves. We planned to do nothing but read, unplugged from the TV, computer, radio and anything else that could inadvertantly let a plot point slip.

We commenced reading at around 12:30pm, 12 hours after I first started. My wife reads faster than I do, so I quickly lost the lead as she got 50 pages ahead of me. Then she took a nap. I seized this opportunity and read 100 pages past her in the 2 hours or so she was down. I woke her up for dinner. We got take-out. After dinner, we resumed. We periodically asked where the other was. "Page 426." "12 pages behind you!"

There was a space of time where we didn't know if we'd finish that night or not. I was still 40 pages ahead of my wife, but she was catching up quickly. Dinner was big and heavy and the story got a bit thick at one point. But then the book gained enormous momentum around 10:30pm and I felt myself wake up. I was turning pages faster and faster and I was less than 200 pages to the end. I was afraid I would gasp or make a noise to indicate something huge happening and I didn't want to spoil anything for her and vice versa once she passed me.

I retreated to the basement to finish. With 50 pages to go, I heard my wife. "You done?" She called down through thick tears. I told her I hadn't and stayed until I finally did finish. I didn't cry even a little bit. It was a good ending.

We stayed up for a while discussing the book, amazed that we did it in 24 hours. Well, 24 hours exactly for me (I finished at 12:30am on Sunday morning) but only a little more than 12 hours for my wife. Granted, I slept in those 24 hours, but still...

There's no point in reviewing the book. Either you know you want to read it or you know you don't. I thought it was great, with a few complaints that any finale is going to provoke. No ending is going to please everyone. But I think the Harry Potter series is an extraordinary achievement and don't envy J.K. Rowling's future. How could she possibly write another book and have it not be compared to Harry Potter?

So with Sunday unexpectedly open, we saw the 5th Harry Potter film. It was disappointing. The books are so rich and the films are so empty. Like the last movie, I felt like this one was an illustration of the book or a 2 and half hour trailer for the book. It hit all the major plot points but missed all the emotion and character development. It simply hopped from one event to the next without giving you enough time to care. That said, Helena Bonham Carter was excellent as Bellatrix LeStrange, and the character of Grawp was incredibly well done, I thought. Professor Umbridge was absolutely horrible in the book. She was so anger-inducing to read. I wanted to reach into the page and throttle her. In the film, she was barely irritating. All the films look great but anyone who judges Pottermania on the films just doesn't get it.

TYPOS
I just saw a great kids' book. Notice I put the apostrophe at the end of "kids," making it plural and possessive. That means the book is for kids, not a kid. Anyway, the book is called "The Greedy Apostrophe."

It's (it is) about a kind of job site for punctuation marks. The apostrophe gets a bit greedy and jumps onto all the signs, making them possessive instead of plural; SHOE'S, etc. I thought this was a fantastic book for children as well as adults. In my lifetime, the use of apostrophes has gotten noticeably worse, to the point that I am embarrassed. I often erase erroneous apostrophes with my finger if they're on a chalkboard or dry-erase board. I often tell store workers that their signs are wrong.

To be honest, I usually just roll my eyes at the hand-written signs, the garage sale signs and the like. But the "professional" mistakes get my goat big time. It's gotten way too easy to print signs and make professional-looking inkjet printouts. In the old days, it took lots of planning and craft to create a sign, so it was checked over several times by a professional who knew how to spell. When I see a car store sign that proclaims in huge letters: AUTO'S, I just want to scream. I mean, it's POSSIBLE the owner's name is Auto, making "Auto's" accurate, but I doubt it.

Thanks to our rapidly declining public school system and a society that equates caring with weakness, we are inundated with so much bad grammar that we get used to it. On more than one occasion I have found myself adding apostrophes where they needn't be. Now, OK, I can see goofing on "its" and "it's." But again, people who make signs for a living should know the difference! (IT'S always means IT IS. Everything else is ITS)

Sometimes it's sheer sloppiness that could've been easily fixed if the author had bothered to read over the text after it was written. Another issue is random capitalization. For example: Buy Two, get one free! Why would you capitalize Two?

I have been saving some examples of all kinds of this stuff, which I think I'll share now.

This is a scan from the local paper:

Did you catch the problem? Read the headline again. If a doctor can't be bothered to be accurate with his ad, I'm not taking any chances with him touching me.

This was taken at a local carnival.

OK, we all see the extra apostrophe, but what REALLY gets me is why the author felt it was OK to put an apostrophe after Oreo but not after zeppole. Continuity, people! If there were two mistakes, I would think the author believed the apostrophe was correct. To have one only means that he/she simply didn't care.

At a TGI Friday's:

Ok, the joke is that instead of happy hours, this place has ECSTATIC hours! Only they ruined it by misspelling ecstatic in big bold letters that probably cost hundreds of dollars to make.

Here's an ad from Labelle's, a camera store:

Not only did they perform the abominable "apostrophe/no apostrophe" blunder, but they misspelled PURCHASE, possibly the most important word to a retail outlet. Kind of like a head of state mispronouncing NUCLEAR...anyway...

Now, this next one is from the website of a horror movie, called "Captivity."

Grizzly images? Really? You sure you don't mean GRISLY? Or is this film rated R because of brown bears?

And now, the créme de la crème, a pizza restaurant in Baldwin, NY:

The cover of the menu:

Under new what? Do you mean MANAGEMENT? Not very encouraging. And minimum Order? Why is order capitalized?


The inside (my highlights):

Full Topping. Dude, pick a design, capitals or no capitals.

Christino Pie: More random capitalization. Do you want fresh mozzarella or Fresh mozzarella? Too bad they don't have FRESH mozzarella.

Jamaican Beef Patti. I dated her in High School. I wish! Maybe they mean patty?

I won't even go into the category of "charcoal."

second page:

At least they're consistent, but no apostrophes in "heroes."

The correct spellings are Powerade and Nestea Iced Tea. Powerade is a drink. A Power Aide is a superhero's assistant. And folks, it's ICED TEA, not ICE TEA. Tea that is iced, unlike ICE CREAM which is not ICED CREAM for whatever reason.

I was doing a search online for other apostrophe problems, but I ended up finding TONS of them, which is encouraging. I decided not to post all of them, but this one I felt was worthy of mentioning. It's from www.HenryTheThirst.com:

He writes:
i confess that i haven’t really mastered the apostrophe, that i was knocking on thirty before i realised that there is no apostrophe in ‘its’ unless you are abbreviating ‘it is’. i would rather write about clothes for children than childrens’ clothes or children’s clothes. but i DO know that when it comes to apostrophes they certainly shouldn’t be doing this…

but look at what’s happening; there’s a weird sort of maverick, punk-rocking logic behind it all. why is there no apostrophe at all in ‘ploughmans’?
well, that would mean two ploughmen, which would be silly, so no apostrophe there. i like making up words and i do it all the time but the chalkster here is like a wild west outlaw when it comes to punctuation. ride into town, rob the bank, shoot the sherriff, make your horse go WHHIHHIHIHHNN on its back legs and then gallop off while everyone is still picking their jaw off the ground.
“wha?”
“it’s THE TOAST’IES KID! yee hah!”

So keep your eye's open and if you find any mistakes, send them to me! (I did that last one on purpose!)

ANTICIPATION

So, did you see the Sopranos finale? It's been talked about a little bit recently. And the one thing I noticed about everyone's review of it: Nobody said it was satisfying. Loads of people HATED it, and many people thought it was BRILLIANT and the rest were simply perplexed. But nobody said they were satisfied. Nobody felt a sense of completion. I'm not arguing that that's right or wrong, I'm simply examining the concept of anticipation.
If I've learned anything in this life...and that's a BIG if...it's that it's far better to want something than it is to get it. Everybody loved waiting for the Sopranos to end, but much fewer loved it ending.
At the end of July, the final Harry Potter book is coming out and I'm not above saying that I am SO excited! My wife and I are shipping the kids off to the grandparents' for the weekend so we can sit at home and do nothing but read the books. Part of the reason for this is so we can just soak, uninterrupted in Harry Potter's final epic story. The other reason is so that we won't be unwittingly assaulted with spoilers. People just love to give away the ending. They ruin the anticipation. Several years ago, when Regis Philbin still hosted Who Wants To Be A Millionnaire, we used to watch it religiously. One morning, I read in the paper that on tonight's episode, the contestant's special "phone-a-friend" guest would be none other than Rosie O'Donnell! Not that I'm huge fan of Rosie, but I was robbed of the surprise that the friend was not the guy's father-in-law, not his college roomate, not his little sister, but a celebrity. OK, granted, it's a little weak as far as shockeroo moments go, but it was the principle of the thing. I wrote to Newsday and complained. They published my letter under the title: NEWSDAY SPOILED HIS FUN. I admit the headline shamed me a little, but I still stand by my point of view.
Another anticipitory event going on right now is Apple's iPhone. People are lined up like crazy to shell out over $600 for a gadget. Luckily I have Apple stock, so I'm watching in anticipation of the stock surging! But why would you buy the first ones out of the gate? Let them get the bugs out, expand the memory and drop the price. The ipod started out as a 5gb, black and white-screened music player. Now, it's 80gb, plays movies, TV shows, podcasts and music in full color, for basically the same price as it was when it started 5 years ago. Imagine how incredible the iphone will be in 5 years.
My generation grew up with Sesame Street, Electric Company and Schoolhouse Rock. It was part of our collective DNA, just from growing up in the 70s with a TV in the house. I remember having this part of my brain reserved for fond memories of Sesame Street when it was great, and all these other shows, including The Magic Garden. All of these memories were only in my mind, becuase there were no VHS tapes or DVDs or reruns of any of these classic old shows. But thanks to new DVDs and Youtube, I've rewatched all my old memories in the context of my adult life. The idea of being able to watch an Electric Company episode again made me very escited. I couldn't wait until the DVDs came out. I followed every step of the process, from aonnouncement to cover art release to the actual DVD. I admit that I loved watching the episodes again, but I am now robbed of the childhood associations I once had with these shows. I still love for my kids to watch them because they are miles better than anything on TV now, but it's not a special part of who I am anymore.
There was a Simpsons episode many years back, in which a character bids on an item at an auction and then, upon winning it, says, "I have-a the buyer's remorse." I remember that was the first time I ever heard that phrase, "buyer's remorse," but I knew exactly what it was. How many times have I been driven insane with the desire to buy something, only to hold it in my hands afterwards and go, "...oh...." You get caught up in the wanting, but the getting rarely pays off. The wanting is a deliciious ache in your belly that is telling your brain that "this isn't over yet, there's more to come!" Once the event arrives, the path is closed. So it becomes time to anticipate something else.
My wife was searching and searching for an addition to our china pattern; some slicer or something. She finally found it online and couldn't believe it! She waited for the package to arrive and last week she got it! She opened it up and held it and went, "...oh...It's not that pretty." This is what I'm talking about.
Just think about how lame this blog post is. Then think about how insane you were going that I hadn't poisted in months! See? Even I will let you down if you want me bad enough! By the way, this is post 100. Whee!

The Bee

For the last few days, a gigantic bumblebee has been hovering by the front of my house. This monster seems to notice when I'm outside, because it likes to come near me and brandish its butt at me. I kid you not. I took a few dozen pictures with my Nikon D50 digital camera with manual focus. Do you know how difficult it is to focus on a bumblebee who's darting around in 3D space? Well, very difficult is the answer. Click on the photo for the page o'bees.

I saw 300 last night. It was pretty outstanding. It's another one of those "no-real-sets" movies, where the entire thing is shot against green-screen, and just like Sin City, which was done the same way, it's super-stylized and ultra-heightened.
There's no real plot to speak of, beyond this: Sparta is a land of bad-asses who will NEVER surrender or show weakness, and Xerxes is a god-king who wants them to surrrender and show weakness. It's basically a bunch of battle scenes, but the art direction is so mind-bogglingly good that you can forgive the lack of story and the corny dialogue. The trailers and YouTube clips don't do the film justice, because trailers don't linger lovingly on an image. The film does. There are plenty of times where the action slows to an almost-freeze frame, so you can marvel at how gorgeous it is.
It's unbelievably violent, but done in such an unrealistic way that it doesn't get nauseating. I've also heard that people are treating this as a metaphor for the War on Terror. Some people say Xerxes is Bush and some say Leonidis (King of Sparta) is. First, you must consider that the movie is based on a book from before Bush was in office. Second, if you can't tell if the filmmaker is comparing the hero or the villain to our president, then it's not a very good analogy. Third, it's a war story. That doesn't automatically mean that it's SUPPOSED to remind you of the one we're in now, but of course, when you see a movie, or read a book or look at a painting, you bring with you your own thoughts and experiences. Most of our thoughts, regarding war, are connected to Iraq right now. That's it.
I don't think this is a deep, philosophical movie. It's simply a beautiful, blood-filled good time.

JURY DUTY PART 2
So today was the day I was be on a real live jury. I drove in and parked on the farthest possible spot from the building I needed to go in. The wind was brutal. It was said that the wind chill was -10F today. I finally got in and was told to go to a certain room. I got to that room and inside was a scruffy looking guy and a man in a suit on a cell phone. I asked where to sit and was told, "anywhere." I knew the client and his lawyer were here, but I didn't know if it was the defendant or the plaintiff. As I waited, more people came in and it quickly became clear that both the scruffy guy and the suit-man were both jurors, like me. After an hour or so, we were ushered into another room, where we waited some more. With nothing to do, I just looked around the room. The shiny, reflective table top that we were all seated around created the illusion that the people opposite me were the Jack, Queen and King on a deck of playing cards.
Finally we were brought into the COURT ROOM! We filed into the jury box. I was very excited. The stenographer was there, as was a judge and a woman who did nothing until we were all seated. She then announced the trial name and number and left. The judge welcomed us, told us the basic details of the case, and then told us that the case was settled this morning. He thanked us for our time and dismissed us.
I get to do this again in six years.

So, apparently there's a cable TV documentary coming out that claims to present the tomb and bones of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. When asked about this, Rev. David Knapp of the Full Gospel Christian Center in Port Jefferson Station, New York had this to say:
"This is all hocus pocus. Jesus died and rose from the dead and left the tomb and went up to heaven."
As a non-believer, I find that quote very very amusing. Showing a box on TV is hocus-pocus, but convincing people that one person in the history of history was able to rise from the dead and then the entire mass of that person traversed space, unaided by machine, against gravity, is the most plausable explanation. I suggest to Rev. Knapp that he replace the first period with a colon, thusly:
"This is all hocus pocus: Jesus died and rose from the dead and left the tomb and went up to heaven."

JURY DUTY
This past Friday, I had to call to see if I was selected to join the jury duty pool. They told me that I had to appear on Monday morning, not at the court complex 5 miles from my house, but the one 30 miles away. So this morning, after driving 45 minutes in the snow and slush, I sat in the big room with dozens of other bored and frustrated souls, reading my book. About 8 years ago I was in the very same position. That time I sat around all day and then was told I had served my country well and to go home.
This time I waited not longer than an hour before I was called in with a dozen others into a tiny, bare white room with two opposing lawyers. They asked us all kinds of questions and in the end I was selected as juror #6 in a 6-juror jury. We'll be hearing a case next Tuesday. Should be fun!

Oh, and in honor of the Oscars, I bring this piece of juvenility...I mean, "original piece of mixed media art":

INLAND EMPIRE
I think I've been a David Lynch fan since before I ever saw any of his work. I was attracted to "art" movies and "experimental" and "cult" movies. I knew everything about Rocky Horror before ever seeing it. I was captivated and intrigued by everything I had read about 2001: A Space Odyssey and Eraserhead before I ever actaully saw them.

I finally got around to finding a place that rented Eraserhead and watched it. Soon after, Blue Velvet came out, and I became a pretty hard-core David Lynch fan. I followed his progress and ever saw DUNE in the movies. Dune was a horrible mess that changed Lynch's career. It was the only film he didn't have complete control over and it was a nightmare for everyone involved. Many hardcore fans claimed they loved it, but I believe they were just fooling themselves. I admit it has some wonderful elements, but as a film it's pretty awful. So he instead made more very very odd movies and became known as a maker of bizarre films that had a real emotional texture to them, as well as a surreal core. His next projects, Industrial Symphony, Wild at Heart and Twin Peaks, were bizarre enough to please his fans but had a commercial quality to them as well. Then he began his dual-personality puzzle trilogy with Lost Highway. Lost Highway had no traditional story arc. It began as one story, but the main character changes into a different person midway and continues from there. It's incomprehensible, but it's compelling. The next movie was Mulholland Drive. In my opinion, this is his best work. Again, it concerns a woman who seemingly changes personalities. It's certainly not easy to follow, but the storyline can be understood and explained pretty clearly. Now we get Inland Empire, Lynch's latest film.

Lynch told the world his new movie was going to be about "A woman in trouble." I think this was Lynch being playful, as the same tagline could be attatched to Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive. He also announced that his film was shot on consumer-grade digitial videotape instead of film. He FURTHER announced that the film was made up as it was filmed, with no pre-determined plot. Oh yeah, and that it was going to be 3 hours long. I was simultaneously fascinated and frightened. I didn't know if I wanted to sit through 3 hours of crummy looking video blown up to a film screen. But the movie finally came to my neck of the woods by way of the Cinema Arts Center, an art-filmhouse on Long Island.

I girded my loins and drive out to the 8:15pm show. I was excited to be out on a chilly winter night, going to an art film all by myself. It seemed so bohemian. Unfortunately, I was wearing my Mickey Mouse T-shirt with a royal blue fleece over it and my red ski jacket over that. I considered changing into a more pretentious leather jacket with a turtleneck or something, but in the end I stayed true to myself. I followed a very pretentiously arty gay couple, who were all dressed in black and grey by the way, into the theater. The pretentious dirty hippie behind the register told me it was cash only, so I had to turn around and find an ATM at the 7-11 a mile away. As I drove to 7-11 and back, I had this conversation in my head about how these people found credit cards to be part of the establishment and only real cash money was cool. I don't know if that's the case, but I wouldn't be surprised. I bought my ticket and saw another guy in the booth watching Family Guy and laughing uproriously. There's nothing less pretentious and arty than Family Guy. Struck me as odd, is all.

I sauntered over to the café to get myself some (no joke) organic popcorn and a Sprite. As I entered the teeny tiny theater, I could practically feel the people watching me sit down with popcord and a soda as if I was going to be "watching a movie!" There were 5 people in the theater. I stood there for a second and then joked out loud, "Damn, all the good seats are taken!" ...silence...
A man asked if I would like to sit in front of him. I told him I was just joking, but thanks anyway. Then the lights went down and some trailers for some cool, odd movies came on. Then, Inland Empire began. Just as my review of the film does below:

First off, it looked better than I expected. The quality was not exactly film-like, and the autofocus kept going in and out, but for the most part, it was well lit and decent looking. But Lynch obviously likes the freedom of a small camera because he just couldn't help himself getting super extreme close-ups every chance he got. The movie started off a bit weird, but sort of settled into a somewhat traditional linear story. Then it got weird. Not interesting weird, but laughable weird. It was scene after scene of unrelated images that just went on and on and on. After an interminable amou of time I looked at my watch. 1 hour had past. I considered leaving. I've never walked out of a movie before. I had gotten this far, I decided, so I stayed the entire 3 hours. I'll admit there were some moments that interested me, but overall, this was a 3 hour, 11 million dollar experiment. I read people's reviews who say this is his best work. I think those people probably liked Dune, too. I love David Lynch's movies and a lot of his other art as well, but this was a miserable failure, in my opinion. What I mean is, it isn't really a film. It was David Lynch playing around with too much freedom and not enough restraint. I believe limitations of some kind are what lead to great artistic achievements. I don't begrudge him his right to make this film, or many more like it. I simply didn''t enjoy it. The attitude of the whole place was one of pretention and "artier than thou." I like what I like and am not ashamed to say I like Abba and don't like David Lynch's new film. It's sometimes hard to cross the line of arty and popular. Many times people will automatically like something because it's unpopular, and then as soon as it catches the public attention, they switch sides. I like to think I'm above all that posturing.

All that said, I will probably rent it when it comes out. I often do that when I violently hate a movie that does show some talent, like A.I, or Unbreakable. I hated both those movies, but could see that a lot of talent went into them and aknowledge I may just not be appreciating them as much they deserve. I like to give them a second chance. So we'll see.

Well, we got the mouse. I had worked late and was driving home at 9:00pm when Kat called me up in a panic saying the mouse was poking its nose under the basement door, trying to get into the kitchen. I was very uncomfortable with getting a traditional snap trap or glue trap, so I sprung $20 for a battery-operated mouse-zapper on the way home. It's pretty cool, actually. It takes 4 batteries and you just open the top and smear peanut butter (not included) on the far wall. The mouse smells it, crawls through a little tunnel and when its feet touch the two metal pads on the floor, it completes a circuit and dies instantly. Then, Ghostbusters-like, the light on top flashes to let you know the trap is full. I set it up that night and the next morning I was shocked to see the trap was blinking (not as shocked as the mouse, haha). I opened it up and, yup, there was an adorable little corpse. I just dumped it into a plastic bag and set it up again, just in case we had more. But it's remained empty and no more sightings, so I think we're good.

Of MICE AND VAMPIRES

| just finished Richaard Matheson's I Am Legend. It's a horror novella from the 1950's that is being made into a movie, due out next year. It's a vampire/zombie story, but it's so much more. without giving too much away, I will say it takes the vampire genre very seriously and treats it with nothing but realism and seriousness. The story is grim but gripping and exciting. I HIGHLY recommend it. Apparently it's already been made into 2 movies, once starring Charleton Heston and once Vincent Price. I gotta check em out.

Also, we have a mouse in the house. I spotted it up in the ceiling light about a week ago, but didn't tell my wife for fear of scaring her. Today, she spotted it on her own. It's the cutest little thing! But it's quick and sneaky and we can't catch it. I don't want to kill it, so I'm trying to lure it out so I can catch it. Wish me luck!

AQUA TEEN EXCESSIVE FORCE
I've not blogged in the last few weeks because of "3 Stooges in the Door Syndrome." I'm referring, of course, to the situation where too many thoughts are trying to expunge themselves at once, and they all get stuck, like when Moe, Larry and Curly all try to go through the same doorway. Every time I think of something to blog about, I decide by nighttime that it's too insignificant to warrent a post. Then I regret it and things begin to pile up. So I've mentally sifted and come up with these fascinating nuggets of joy:

So let me start by admitting I fell off the coffee wagon, but got back on quickly. It would appear that the coffee wagon goes very slowly and has big, soft-grip handles on it, making it very easy to get back on once you've fallen. My wagon, did, anyway. Sunday night, I barely slept and was getting a mild cold. Monday morning, I said to myself, "Screw it!" and bought a puny 16oz coffee. I could barely smell it, but it was nice to have. I didn't get any more that day, nor have I gotten any more since. But it's nice to know that if I fall again, I can not sweat it so much.

I also finished a book, HOW I CONQUERED YOUR PLANET by John Swartzwelder. It was incredibly silly and fun. I am still reading a book called THE DEAD HOUR, by Denise Mina. It's a mystery novel in the vein of James Patterson's Alex Cross books. But it's written by a Scot and takes place in Scotland. As an Anglophile, I found all the little differences in language and culture at first distracting and then charming. Everyone in the book says "Aye" and "wee" a lot and it's clearly not thrown in for color, but simply the way these people speak. I'm almost done and I'm enjoying it.

Every day I see news stories that make me want to comment, but everybody else is commenting, so who cares? But this Boston "hoax" has gotten me so enraged and entertained. If you don't know, the basic story is that 2 guys, in an effort to promote a cartoon called "Aqua Teen Hunger Force", posted dozens of little Lite-Brite diplays all over the country. People in Chicago ignored them. People in New York stole them. People in Boston called the bomb squad and evacuated areas and spend a half a million dollars in determining that the silly cartoon pictures were in fact...silly cartoon pictures. Now these 2 guerilla advertisers have been arrested and people are furious and are calling it a hoax. It was not a hoax. A hoax implies an intentional attempt to decieve. This was Mayor Chicken Little being irresponsible. Everyone who is angry at the pair cites "the post 9-11 world in which we live." I don't understand this. The terrorists wanted us scared. They wanted to *ahem* TERROR-IZE us...make us so scared that we collapse under our own fear. Politicians talk about not letting the terrorists win...and then we ban water on airplanes and blow up Lite-Brites in Boston. The best part of this ridiculousness was the press conference that followed the arrest of the two men. They refused to discuss anything except hairstyles of the Seventies, much to the chagrin of the press and incredible amusement of sane, rational people.

MY SECOND WEEK OF 2007

As you recently read, I was sick my first week of 2007. On Friday and Saturday, January 5th and 6th, I drank no coffee whatsoever, as I was way too sick to even consider it. Normally I can down 48 ounces of coffee aday without a problem. I've wanted to quit for a long time because of several side-effects; like yellow teeth, stained shirts, pants and car interiors, and that late afternoon crash.
When I finally began to feel better on Sunday, I had one single cup of coffee and couldn't finish it, I was still too ill. On Monday, you'll remember, I ended up in the hospital so I didn't have much of my teensy 12oz coffee. On Tuesday, I made a conscious effort to not have any coffee. I felt I'd gone through a level of detox that would be difficult to try again.
Now, today, Monday the 15th, It's been a full week since I've had coffee in my system at all. I can honestly and humbly say I understand much more severe addictions. The smell of hot coffee is still absolutely intoxicating...perhaps more so now. I feel like I've gotten through the physical craving for caffeine, though I still take it in other ways. I think I have more energy during the day, but it might just be the power of suggesstion. But I miss the habit of a hot cup of coffee in the morning. I still occasionally have some tea or hot chocolate to fool my mouth into thinking I had coffee, but it's not the same. I found myself arguing with myself this morning:
"It's been a week, you can handle a single cup. No one will care."
But I fought back and had none. I don't know how long I'll be a complete coffee-less person, but for now I'm taking it one day at a time.

MY FIRST WEEK OF 2007

I began the new year by reading THE ROAD by Cormac McCarthy. I had read in Entertainment Weekly that Stephen King thought it was the best book that he read last year. So I picked it up and was not prepared for the horror and misery that was about to befall me. I found it to be a profoundly powerful book that is unrelenting in its bleakness. It is the story of a man and a boy, trying to survive in a post-apocolyptic America. It is instantly engaging and a quick read. Every review says t he same thing; that it leaves you dazed. One Amazon reviewer commented that after he finished the book, we stumbled outside and was startled by the sun and blue sky. It was an astounding book but not one I can quickly reccommend because of its horrific content.
As I was finishing reading this book at lunch on Wednesday, I began to feel ill. I began to feel cold. I was becoming the characters in the book. It was truly immersive. Then I finished the book and realized I was, in fact, ill. I came home after work, put the kids to bed and collapsed on the couch in the basement. I stumbled into work on Thursday, but left early. I won't describe my symptoms, but I had the flu, bad. I called in sick Friday and spent Friday and Saturday in bed, sucking down Theraflu, Gatorade and assorted pills. It was awful. Sunday was better, though, and I actually did stuff around the house, like take down Christmas lights. I was still sick, but not incapacitated.
Monday morning, I got out of bed, took a shower and left for work. I wasn't feeling too bad at all. I stopped for a banana and a coffee and drove off. About 25 minutes later I began getting chest pains. Really bad. I made the decision to go to the emergency room. I thought it was probably gas or indigestion, but it might be an infection from the flu or something. I signed in and got a quick blood pressure and EKG. Then I sat and waited. Ten minutes later and the pain was gone. I knew it had been gas. But I was already committed. They finally moved me to an exam bed and I waited and waited. Finally they took blood and gave me a chest X-Ray. Then I wated 3 more hours for results. Finally an attending asked me why I was there. I told him I had just eaten a banana and had chest pains. I figured it was probably gas or a piece of banana stuck or something. He pretty much said, "Yup, probably. Go home." Six hours later I left and went to work for a class I had to teach. Everyone who saw me and knew I had been in the hospital asked how I was. "Yeah, yeah, it was just banana pain."
I'm looking forward to the second week of 2007.