The Best Of Times, The Worst Of Times

Saw Grindhouse the other day. Thought I'd talk about the two films that make up this odd double bill before talking about the thing as a whole.

Up first is Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror, a whale of a Zombie cum Disaster Movie. What it lacks in story (which is grade-z all the way), it makes up for with exploding everything. (Speaking of explosions, it's good to see that Rodriguez adheres to the theory put forth in Contamination: that the human body is merely an exploding bag of blood.) And the cast of mostly late '80s/early '90s character actors (who knew Jeff Fahey was still in the business?) appear to be having a good time. Movie even has the common decency to be funny, and has a spot-on Carpenter-esque music score. It's a dumb, yet highly-entertaining good time.

And then we come to Death Proof.

I'll start out by saying that, while I'm not as obsessive about his stuff as some fans, I consider myself a Quentin Tarantino fan, and have seen all of his movies (Reservoir Dogs included) in the theatre. That being said, it's been 10 years since he's committed anything watchable to film. And Death Proof is no exception.

The idea of a psychotic stuntman who commits vehicular homicide is actually a pretty good premise. I could see how you could make an entertaining 90 minute feature out of that. But Tarantino goes another direction. Kurt Russell, who plays the aforementioned stuntman, has possibly 15 minutes of screentime, tops.

The rest has been filled with scene after scene after scene after scene after scene (and onto infinity) of inanely witty dialogue. (Actually, saying "scene after scene" is a bit of a misnomer, because it's actually just a couple of scenes that go on for about half an hour apiece. Someone I saw the movie with thought maybe they'd forgotten to edit the movie. I wondered if they'd slowed the projector down to four frames per second.) And the dialogue can only be called witty if you think the stuff written in bathroom stalls is a little too highbrow. It's hard to believe this dialogue was written by the same guy that wrote Pulp Fiction. (Maybe Roger Avery is a better writer than previously thought.))

The awful writing isn't the film's only flaw. It's full of material "sourced" from other movies (even his own); it's got more stolen material than a Carlos Mencia standup routine. (But that's Tarantino's trademark: being a clever plagiarist.) And, much like I didn't realize that I could be bored by a lightsaber fight until I saw Revenge of the Sith, I didn't realize a could be bored by a car chase until I saw this movie. And that's not a good thing for a pseudo-Car Chase Movie.

I hate to say, "I told you so," but I did kinda predict that Death Proof would be unwatchable. And it pays off in full. Really, a completely awful movie; the worst I've seen this year.

And now, the thing as a whole.

The idea behind this whole venture was to replicate the "grindhouse" experience: two low-budget, grade-z exploitation movies shown as a double bill. And while Planet Terror and Death Proof get the tone and material right, they are big budget movies with high-priced stars. There's something false about trying to pass off these extremely costly and well-produced movies (particularly Planet Terror) as cheapo exploitation movies. It's like comparing Saving Private Ryan to that war movie you and your buddies made in the backyard with a video camera: same material, $50 million difference in budget.

The films incorporate little tricks to make these silk purses appear to be sows' ears. The clicks and pops on the soundtrack, the excessive film grain, the overexposed and skipped film frames (a trick Rodriguez uses with some artistic flair) are all clever ideas, but they kinda disappear after a while. And the "missing reel" gag gets old after approximately one use. (Again, a trick well utilized by Rodriguez, who segues from a sex scene to the beginning of the Apocalypse. Oh, and doggie style is an impossible position with a peg leg like that.) It's a nice try, but the movies are more blockbuster than bargain basement. (To see a recent movie that does it right, check out Jim Van Bebber's Deadbeat at Dawn.)

It's not all a waste, however. I liked the retro film snippets that connect the films, and some of the fake trailers have a nice period feel. (As someone who's seen a lot of trailers for these kinds of movies, I think Edgar Wright's trailer for Don't! just about nails it.)

All in all, I'd call it a failed experiment: the parts are mostly better than the whole. (It also doesn't help that the better of the two movies comes first.) Maybe if Tarantino had made a movie that wasn't a complete piece of shit, this would have worked out better. In fact, it can work out better for you. And here's how you do it: Find a theater that's playing both Grindhouse and The Host, the Korean monster movie. Go to a Grindhouse showing that starts about two hours before a Host showing, and watch it all the way through Planet Terror and the trailers in the middle. And then leave, and go see The Host. What you'll end up with is a great Monster Movie double feature in the same amount of time.

And you won't have missed a thing by walking out of Grindhouse. Trust me on that one.

It's Hard To Find Good Help

It must be trying for Vic Mackey to go to work every day, considering the number of traitorous and duplicitous members of his Strike Team that he's had to deal with.

Like Terry Crowley, a Justice Department spy, who tried to get Vic busted for bending the law to the breaking point. Or Lem, who, not only destroyed most of the money from the Armenian "money train" heist, but also wore a wire for IAD to implicate Vic in Terry Crowley's murder. Or Army, who threw the whole Team under the bus by refusing to take a lie detector test that would have cleared him of being in league with Antwon Mitchell. Even long-time partner Shane Vendrell, who covered up the fact his wife stole the missing money train money, threw a racially-motivated beatdown on Tavon and then begged Vic to cover it up, fractured the Team by choosing the money over loyalty, and got implicated in a murder-for-hire plot against Vic when he got in too deep with Antwon Mitchell. (Oh, and he killed Lem.) Almost everyone who has entered the Team's clubhouse has made life hard for Vic.

Which brings us to Ronnie Gardocki. Through the good times and the bad, Ronnie has remained completely loyal to Vic, backing him almost all of the time. When the Strike Team disbanded, it was Ronnie who remained as Vic's partner. Even when Armadillo burned off Ronnie's face in retribution for what Vic did to him, instead of being mad at Vic, Ronnie used his recuperation time to plan the money train heist. If only we all had someone who was that loyal to us; the world would be a better place.

Check out the ongoing saga of Ronnie Gardocki when The Shield starts back up on Tuesday.

Showtime Has Another Winner

Back in olden times, before Henry VIII gobbled his way through six wives and any food he could get his hands on, before Anne Boleyn lost her head, before Thomas More was anything more than a lawyer, this is the setting for The Tudors, Showtime's new weekly series. I happened to catch the first two episodes on Showtime On Demand. (I believe you can also watch them on Showtime's website.) And I rather enjoyed it.

Like most historical dramas, it's fairly dense in the historical aspect, sometimes requiring picking up a history book to understand what's going on. (Like Lord Buckingham's being bitter about not being an heir to the throne due to his family losing The War of the Roses and the subsequent death of Richard III.) However, it's actually easier to follow than HBO's Rome. And, of course, it's filled with the requisite sex and deceit present in every Medieval Times Show. It's a good time.

I think it also marks a shift to where all the good programming is on premium cable. Historically, HBO has always had the best shows, but they currently only have one worth watching. (And that would be The Wire) Showtime, on the other hand, just keeps putting out shows that turn out being some of the best stuff on TV. (Which is a good thing for Showtime, because their original programming is the only reason to watch Showtime.)

Now, if they could just get their movie selection to be as good as their original programming, Showtime might be the new network to watch.

The Final Four Is Set

With yesterday's games behind us, the Final Four are set. But, with this Final Four comes an odd anomaly. Should Florida and Ohio St. win their respective games, the matchup for the basketball championship will be the same as it was for the football championship. And, should Florida win that game, they'll have beaten the same team for two championships in two different sports in the same year. I don't think that's ever happened before.

We'll see how it all plays out when the tourney resumes next week.

Six Degrees Has Another Go At It

It's strange how shows just disappear off TV, seemingly canceled, only to magically reappear sometime later. Like when King of the Hill suddenly started airing after being MIA for nearly a year. Or, when Day Break, the show that replaced Lost, disappeared after a couple of episodes, only to reappear, in its entirety, on the internet.

Or, like Six Degrees, which stopped airing four months ago, just popping back into the schedule on Friday nights. As I mentioned a while back, the show really wasn't that good, and I can see why it would possibly get canceled. But, apparently ABC decided that new episodes of a bad show were better than reruns from the night before.

So, tune in tonight and every other Friday, and see if it gets any better. Maybe Tom Brady's baby will make a cameo appearance.

Marquette Got Smoked

After their first, transitional year into the Big East, Marquette appeared to be ready to do something. They started the preseason ranked, were ranked all but one week of the season (once, as high as eighth), and did pretty well against some big-name schools (like beating Big East powerhouse Pitt twice).

And then they got blown out of the brackets by Michigan State.

Not that I should be surprised. Marquette only seems to be able to advance out of the first round when there's a chance that might beat Kentucky somewhere down the line.

Oh well; we'll see what next year brings.

Another Vegas Legend Goes Bye-bye

And yet another chapter in the ongoing saga of The Dismantling of Vintage Vegas. On Tuesday, the Stardust Hotel and Casino, the last of the once mob-controlled casinos still on The Strip, was razed in the name of progress.

Honestly, I had no idea this was in the works. I was just in the Stardust eight months ago, and it didn't seem like a place that was mere months from extinction. But, when Mr. Vegas himself, who had been playing there for nearly 10 years, pulls up stakes and leaves, I guess the writing's on the wall.

In the Stardust's place will be this monstrosity, yet another resort-only property featuring four differently-themed (read: boringly Modern) hotels. Look for it in the next four years.

In the meantime, feel free to reminisce about the Stardust at their still functional website, or at Leaving Las Vegas' Stardust retrospective.

Up next for probable demolition: The New Frontier, home of Gilley's, the best bar in Vegas. What a damn shame.

300 Could Have Been 300 Times Better

I think most of your action-minded fans were geared up to see 300, and, from the looks of the box office, I think most of them did. (With the exception of anyone in Iran, which disapproves of the movie's portrayal of its ancient Persian ancestors. That and the fact I believe it's against the law to watch movies over there.) And The Girl and I were two of the several million that went to see it.

If you love medieval war violence, this is your movie. If you're looking for a well-made movie, well, not so much. While it's nice to look at, with all of its sepia-toned, computer-generated landscapes and armies, its plotting is something that may have been generated by a computer as well. Here's a quick plot summation: Greeks kill hundreds of Persians in battle; Greeks talk about how easy that battle was; Xerxes gets angry over his army's losses; a quick scene of how things are going back in Sparta; repeat until everyone's dead. It's also fairly predictable, even without having read Frank Miller's book. If you can't predict that the hideous freak is going to turn traitor, you may want to consult a neurologist, because your brain has stopped functioning.

I figured after the last outstanding adaptation of a Frank Miller comic that this one would be good as well. But, as anyone who's seen Daredevil or Electra can attest, they usually don't turn out that well. C'est la vie.

I Join The Next Generation

Serendipity is a funny thing. The other day, The Girl was out with one of her friends. The friend regaled her with stories of how her husband had just bought an Xbox 360, and about how cool it was. The Girl has known I have wanted one since they came out, but, being as I'm a cheap bastard, would never spend that much money on myself. The Girl heard how much joy it had brought to the friend's husband, and she figured it might bring some joy to me as well.

And this is how I ended up with an Xbox 360.

I don't know why it took me so long to buy one, as it's pretty goddamn cool. I didn't think gaming in 1080i HD would look this good, but it does. And once I managed to scrape together enough leftover Best Buy giftcards, I bought the insanely overpriced wireless adaptor and got hooked up to XBox Live, where I proceeded to download every demo they had available. (If you're in the market, and wondering whether to go with the Core or Pro setup, the essential 20 GB hard drive that comes with the Pro version easily makes up the price difference.)

The big downside? The spotty backwards compatibility with the old XBox games, which they have been slowly rolling out as they port them to the new console. As someone who owns three of the four Hitman games for the original console, I'm somewhat disappointed that only one is compatible (and no, it's not the one I don't own, which would piss me off even more). Oh, and the fact that the wireless controller just eats batteries.

All and all, a great investment. And if Dead Rising isn't reason enough to buy one, you must just not like having fun.

The Most Confusing Schedule Ever

I've bitched almost non-stop about this new "hiatus season" the networks are trying, and I'm about tired of it. But, it makes me ask just one question: Is House still on the air?

I honestly don't know. I don't even know what they're airing in it's place. I just know that when TiVo is taping The Unit rather than House, House isn't on.

But then, this is Fox, the Home of Nonsensical Programming. They chose to premiere their three most popular shows in January. King of the Hill, one of the longest-running shows on TV, was MIA for almost a year, only to come back with three episodes before disappearing to make room for Seth McFarland's latest abortion. (And when did Sunday become SethMcFarlandDay?) The Simpsons, which usually premiers in November, started in September, and has aired 12 episodes. (I thought there were more than 12 weeks in seven months, but I might not know what I'm talking about.) Plus, on any given night, you'll have no idea what might be airing on Fox. (I believe they've canceled every show that was new this year.)

Which brings us back to House. If I'm not mistaken, House was the first show on all of TV to air its season premiere, waaay back in the first week of September. Since then, they've aired 14 episodes. (For comparison, 24, which premiered in January, has aired 11.) House went on World Series hiatus, post-sweeps hiatus, the no-real-reason hiatus, and now, well, I don't know why it's not on.

Which brings me back to my original question: Is House still on the air?

Bravo, Fox, for making your schedule so fucking confusing, all in the name of not airing a couple of reruns. Bravo.

I Sell Out To Corporate America

I've been with my video service, GreenCine, for a long time. When I first decided to sign up for an online video service, I went with GreenCine because, at the time, they had the largest library out there. (They still do, actually, as well as thousands of video-on-demand titles. They even have a sister site which offers nothing but porn.) They were a nice little indie business that carried all of the hard-to-find titles I was looking for.

But, with all of their perks, they have three big negatives that always raised doubt: 1) they're more expensive than everyone else; 2) shipping is about a five day turnaround (they ship everything from San Francisco); and 3) they only seem to carry about one copy of everything, which is bad if you want a new release. And, seeing as how, on a good month, I can turnaround about 20 movies, I thought maybe I could do better.

So, I made a change.

Every time I go into Blockbuster, I'm assaulted with their Total Access video service. Getting that much exposure, I decided to give them a try. And I made a good choice.

Every single obscure movie I could think of is carried by Blockbuster, with immediate availability, even new releases, of which I'm sure they have hundreds of copies. If you want something that comes in a set, they send them in order automatically. If a movie is currently in theatres, you can reserve it in your queue, and is added once it comes to video. And, should I choose to, one day, upgrade to HD video, Total Access offers both Blu-ray and HD-DVD. In a five day period, I got five movies; not bad for a three-out plan. And, it's cheap.

But, this is all pretty standard shit. Where Blockbuster really turns into a Netflix buster is with its stores. Instead of mailing the movies back, if you return them to a Blockbuster store, they give you a free rental on the spot, one for each one you return. PLUS, they scan the movie you just returned, so the next movie in your queue will ship right away. PLUS, every month, they give you a free coupon for any movie or game in the store, which, in light of recent developments, is extremely cool.

I thought I was pretty cool not to have turned to the Netflix Darkside. Turns out, I just needed a better offer.

I'm such a sellout.

The Annual Oscar Recap

-Ellen DeGeneres was pretty funny, not by actually saying anything funny, but by making everyone else feel bad about themselves. Nice.

-First nominee for Word of the Year: "sticktoitiveness."

-The Showing of the Costumes was awkward.

-There's something not right about the thought of Jack Black and Will Ferrell double-teaming Helen Mirren.

-My conspiracy theory regarding the Sound categories turned out to be true.

-Everyone was spared the shame of having to interact with the animated characters.

-Best Supporting Actor, typically the first award, gets pushed back waaaay into the show. Nice pickup by Alan Arkin, btw.

-The screen constantly switching back to 4:3 aspect ratio to accomodate the ticker for the local school closings ruined my HD viewing experience.

-The Reading of the Screenplays was awkward.

-Cars not winning Best Animated Feature ended The Girl's streak of correctly handicapping the Oscars up to that point.

-This whole "penguin movie craze" must end. George Miller: Step away from the cute animal movies, and resume production on Mad Max movies.

-Nice to see Mummenschanz back in action again.

-Through some apparent ballot miscount, Pan's Labyrinth didn't win Best Foreign Film, the one real travesty this year. Oh well; it still won three Oscars. Fuck Hollywood, Viva Mexico!!

-Larry David was not amused by An Inconvenient Truth winning an Oscar.

-The Stiffing of Dreamgirls was awesome.

-Matthew Broderick must be pissed that Little Miss Sunshine won Best Original Screenplay, because the chances of him getting his personal assistant back just went down to zero.

-Ennio Morricone and Quincy Jones are tight. And I wonder if that song will be the first single off Celine Dion's next record. Hmmm...

-A musical not winning Best Song is awesome. And The Girl and I agreed that it would be better if all the performers had just come out and played one of their greatest hits than what they played. I would have preferred "I Wanna Come Over" to whatever it was that Melissa Etheridge actually won for. (Eddie Murphy performing "Party All the Time" would have been good, too.)

-Helen Mirren got what she deserved. Not that there was a doubt, considering she'd won every other award possible for that role.

-Marty Scorsese did the right thing, and mentioned Andy Lau in his acceptance speech.

-And, even with its dogshit ending, The Departed was the right pick. I'll always cheer for Clint, but it was Marty's turn.

Good stuff. See you in 365.

Last Five Movies

Hollywoodland (2006)
Maybe it's the obscure subject material (because, really, who gives a fuck about George Reeves), but I really couldn't get it this. Next thing you'll know, they'll make a movie about the mysterious death of Bob Crane.

The Number 23 (2007)
A movie of which The Girl and I had differing opinions: she thought it got better as it went along, while I thought the opposite. And, when you see it, you too will make the obvious references to Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. Good idea, so-so execution.

The Science of Sleep (2006)
A weird, weird, weird movie that is basically for Michel Gondry fans only. Lots of nice, inventive set pieces, but your head will probably explode trying to decipher the plot (if you can call it that).

Murder-Set-Pieces (2004)
Direct-to-video movies usually go that route for a reason, and this DTV offering is no different. Sure, it's got plenty of sex and violence, but you know you're in trouble when the best part of the movie is the villain's '72 'Cuda. That's not good. Also, a big bonus for being yet another movie that assumes no one watching has been to Las Vegas, and don't know where anything is on The Strip.

It's a pretty slow week when this is the best I've seen, but...

Clue (1985)
One of The Girl's faves, so it gets a semi-annual screening. If you've played the game, you've seen this movie. Good, clean, inoffensive family fun. It's also worth noting this is probably the first time I'd seen Tim Curry not dressed up like Frank N. Furter.

Check it out.

What The Fuck?

Once she unbolted the wreck of the Titanic that was her marriage to K-Fed from her ankle, I thought maybe Britney Spears would go into turnaround, maybe get back to where she was two years ago, before she threw her life in the toilet.

And then she shaved her head.

This just has no upside. As Keith Oberman so aptly put it, I see this ending with a meth lab explosion. Really, the best thing to do would be for her to put a gun to her head and pull the trigger. And maybe Lindsay Lohan could get hit with a ricochet or something. The world would be a better place by half.

The Land Of Misfit Restaurants

As I've mentioned before, I believe the city I live in exists in some alternate dimension, just a little left of the norm. Kinda like The Twilight Zone or Tales from the Darkside, if you will. My suspicions about this theory are confirmed on an almost daily basis.

Like the other day, when The Girl and I were driving about, looking for someplace to eat. It dawned on me that The JVL has the strangest assortment of chain restaurants of any city I've ever been to. Oh sure, we've got your McDonald's and Chili's and IHOP, just like every other city in the States. But then there's others that exist in other cities, but you'd have to combine about eight states just to get the combination that exists here in Janesville. Like Shakey's (which has three locations east of the Mississippi, and this is one of them), Ground Round (which went bankrupt, but lives on here), Hardee's (another dead one, of which we have two), Happy Joe's (which has been around forever, but is otherwise nonexistent around these parts), and Ponderosa (the last one around the region that hasn't been turned into a Chinese buffet). Shit, up until a couple of months ago, we had what I believe to be the last remaining Chi-Chi's in the United States. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a HoJo's or a Planet Hollywood hidden away in some corner of town.

But, I guess being trapped in some wormhole restaurant anomaly keeps us from having to eat at TGI Friday's every night. (Although that would taste good right about now...)

Give Trish Helfer Some Credit

As most people suspect, the only exposure most sci-fi geeks get to women is the eye candy the producers of sci-fi TV shows and movies cast as characters on said shows, to cater to the fantasies of said geeks. (And by "geeks," I'm talking about the diehard fans who have learned the Klingon language, or can accurately render a schematic of a TIE-Fighter from memory.) Whether it be Carrie Fisher or Jeri Ryan, these are the women that geeks fantasize about.

And, from time to time, one of these "sci-fi babes" will appear in FHM or Maxim in a cheesecake spread, designed with just those geeks in mind, because, frankly, if you're not a geek, you wouldn't know who these women were. (Seriously, did you know (or care) that Jolene Blaylock was on Enterprise?) And this is what geeks get: the softest of softcore porn. The women of their fantasies presented in a way that's about as titillating as the women's underwear section of the Sear's circular.

And this is why I have to give Battlestar Galactica's Tricia Helfer some props. She decided to give the fans what they want, and posed nude in Playboy. And added points for doing it while her show's still on the air, instead of waiting until the show is gone, her star had faded, and she's looking to get back in the limelight. No, there she is, naked as a jaybird, during the highest popularity of her show. (I'll admit to watching Battlestar Galactica. Not for Trish Helfer, mind you, but because I think I probably saw every episode of the original '70s series first run. This new one's actually a pretty good show.)

So, as a note to any current and future sci-fi babes, give your fans what they want to see. You're making their wildest fantasies come true. And, non-fans will appreciate it too, because, hey, it's a naked lady!

And there's nothing wrong with that.

Something's Happened To Trent Reznor

If you're a Nine Inch Nails fan, you're quite familiar with how Trent Reznor works: release an album, tour for a couple of months, take the next five years to work on the next album. And I fully expected that to be the case after the release of With Teeth. It'd been six years since the release of The Fragile, and I expected things to go as they had for the previous 15 years. But then, something odd happened.

Trent started touring, and hasn't stopped. (He actually played a number of dates before the record even came out.) If I were motivated enough, just within a hundred mile radius of The JVL, I could have seen NIN seven times. Seven times. He's easily played 200 shows worldwide, just on this tour. He's been touring for two years straight.

And he's got a new album coming out in April. And a concert DVD. And there's talk of him releasing remastered editions of all of his other albums.

With this much shit going on in such a short span of time, I wonder if it might be another 10 years before we hear from Trent again. Only time will tell.

The Departed Fucks It Up

I'm usually pretty on top of these things, usually seeing most of the Best Picture Oscar nominees well before I make a judgment call on what's Best Picture. (The exception here is Letters from Iwo Jima, which is difficult to see, due to Warner Bros' odd 400 screen rollout. You'd think they would want people to see it, but, I guess not.) So, I'll admit that I made this year's Best Picture call without actually having seen The Departed. Everybody said it's great, and Scorsese rarely disappoints, so I was comfortable jumping on that boat. Then I actually saw the movie.

I'll preface my comments by saying that I've seen Infernal Affairs (the Chinese movie of which The Departed is a remake) and all of its sequels, so nothing in The Departed came as a surprise to me. In fact, it's a very faithful remake. There are direct lifts from Infernal Affairs in The Departed. And Scorsese follows the movie...right up until the end.

Infernal Affairs, following the scene in the elevator, ends with the scene of the dirty cop coming home and finding his fiance listening to the tape of him talking to the crime boss. It's a great ending: ambiguous, downbeat, rife with sequel possibilities.

But Scorsese changes the order a little. He puts the scene with the girlfriend first, and then the elevator scene. And I was happy with that. But then, Matt Damon comes home, and Marky Mark shoots him in the head. What the fuck?!?

I'm a strong proponent of the fact that a terrible ending can completely ruin an otherwise perfectly good movie. (Anyone up for a rant on Unbreakable?) The only way Scorsese could have ended this worse would be to have The Funky Bunch come in and sing us out with "Good Vibrations." But what we get is still pretty terrible.

Here, I claimed Scorsese deserved that Best Director Oscar. I'm strongly leaning back toward Eastwood again. I'm pretty sure he didn't fuck his movie up.

What I've Learned From 24

Now that I've caught up with the most recent episodes of 24 (thanks, MySpace!), I thought I'd pass along what I've learned over the show's 127 hour run:

-Jack Bauer could make Chuck Norris cry.

-Never involve your family members in geopolitical intrigue.

-The Vice President is a duplicitious motherfucker.

-Everyone needs a dependable guy like Aaron Pierce on their side.

-Los Angeles is the center of all terrorist activity in the US.

-Jack Bauer is undying.

-You can save the world with nothing more than a handgun and a cell phone.

-Well-known character actors are always villans.

-Working in a government office is more dangerous than working in the field.

-The 25th Amendment and the Presidential line of succession get more of a workout than you might suspect.

-They are watching you. All the time.

-You can kick a heroin habit over the course of one really bad day.

-There are more chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons in the US than you would think.

-Thank God for travel time.

-Trust no one. No one.

Random Super Bowl Stuff

Some thoughts on Super Bowl XLI:

-My only comment on the game: if Grossman were actually able to throw a football, the Bears probably would have won. Those wiffeball throws to the other team just didn't cut it. And it was nice to see that the Colts could completely negate the Bears offence, but couldn't stop kick return idiot savant Devin Hester. You can't stop him; you can only hope he runs just one back.

-The commercials all sucked. The only one worth mentioning was the Taco Bell one with the lions, which had a clever Ricardo Montalban in-joke that no one got.

-And apparently, the only big summer movie coming out is Pride, which appears to be an incredibly saccharine movie about a black swim team. I think I remember this movie when it was called Glory Road. Or was it Remember the Titans? I can't remember.

-I must give props to Prince: Even though he's a bad fit for the Super Bowl, he's an absolute fucking trouper for playing out in the rain, and playing well, for that matter. But what was up with him playing two lines of "All Along the Watchtower," and then switching to "Best of You"? Dave Grohl watching at home: "Wait...is that...What?"

All and all, one of the crappier Super Bowls I've experienced. At least the crazy Florida rain was entertaining.