We were almost rid of Whitney Houston. She was really down for the count this time, out of the public eye, no longer really famous, possibly having health problems (yeah right).

Now I see she had a new video and album, and let me tell you if the first single is any indication, it's a fabulous album.

That's sarcasm folks.

Now if only Mariah Carey would stay gone, but knowing her, seeing Whitney make a half-assed comeback will only prompt her to attempt the same.

Go read BigStupidTommy. But comeback here when you're done. I need the readership to boost my fragile ego.

Talk to me.

Today I stood at the center of the maelstrom. It was an orgiastic expression of aneristic capatalistic greed led by mob mentality.

Why?

Because I work there, but to paraphrase the words of Dante (Hicks not Alighieri) "I wasn't even supposed to be there today."

Bosses told me Tuesday that I had to come in on my day off, last night to this moring. Then Wed night (my other day off) they tell everyone that people with Thursday off regularly don't have to come in.

Thanks guys, since I cut the out of town vacation with the family to one day.

Then today, what is my job?

Human shield until the time of the big sale, then apparantly to help customers during the sale itself.

I was able to help exactly one customer before the gibbering throng pressed forward and mobbed us.

People suck.

The same people who cut line today, and attempted to wander up to the front right before the sale began are the ones who race up beside slowed traffic on the proper side of a merging road, and then get pissed when you don't let them in.

I suddenly have much less respect for humanity around me.

Therefore today I am taking part in the national purchase boycott that I first read about on disinfo.com. I will buy no merchandise today, though I will buy groceries, though not from my employer.

People the world isn't going to run out of T.V.'s today, or DVD players, or Computers. I promise.

You can trust me, I'm from the television.

Two movie posts in a row, but this one had to be said.

I rented The Scorpion King yesterday and I have a few things to say about it.

This is a film that recieved thunderingly negative reviews when it came out, and justifiably so. Twenty minutes or so into the lackluster action, badly directed scenes and largely expository dialogue, without thinking about it, I started reading a book. If this film can't keep my interest for twenty minutes but I can watch Fellowship of the Ring for 4+ hours, there is something wrong. Both films are fantasy, but one succeeds in making a believable world of fantastical creatures, while the other succeeds in creating a world pulled directly from prophouses in Hollywood.

Middle-Earth is convincing, 3000 B.C.somewhere around Gommorah is not.

This movie isn't worth an in depth review, i'm already tired of talking about it and trying to think of structure, so here are some points I have about it in no particular order:

I am tired of historical fantasy films that feel the need to have heavy metal or rock soundtracks. Legend is better with the classical score, and I can't get into Ladyhawke because of the bad synthesizer music.

I liked this movie much better when it was called Conan: the Barbarian. Everything is there, down to the beatiful woman/love interest using magic to bring the slain hero back to life.

I don't know if Dwayne Johnson can act or not, this movie is no indication. Apparantly Michael Clarke Duncan can't either.

Instead of telling us the villan is the baddest swordsman on the planet, show us. We got nothing more than him beating up Egyptian Ninjas in practice fights, and blocking arrows with a sword. He's a conqueror, show him fighting in battles.

If those Akkadian arrows have enough force to throw people 10 feet into the air and back 40 or so feet, why fight with swords at all? They are so good at blending into their camouflage, why do they need to fight hand to hand?

Why the need for the funny side-kick?

Could this films action and villans look any more like Mortal Kombat the movie?

Apparantly, wrestlers with the exception of Terry Funk just cannot act like real people on film. They always have to ham it up.

Enough about this crap. I just hope this Helldorado that Dwayne Johnson is currently filming turns out better than this. I believe it is a western, so that means next he should do a modern film (Spy Hunter) then one set in a post-apocalyptic future (Duke Nukem).

Punch Drunk Love is a film for everyone who has ever kicked in a series of plate glass windows or destroyed a restruant bathroom, or those who have wanted to.

Everyone else, you just won't understand.

Average Adam Sandler fans, you won't understand.

To understand this movie you have to know where it is coming from, otherwise you'll just be as uncomfortable as a 60-year-old grandmother of 8 watching a live performance of the Rocky Horror Show amongst an audience of hairy drag queens and touchy-feely-neo-pagans.

Adam Sandler's Barry Egan feels the weight of the world and it has crushed him into a corner, where he hides from everyone because he's sure they're like he sees his sisters, overbearing, obnoxious, and loud. They'll treat you badly, they'll laugh at you. Then they'll do something nice for you, only to pull the rug out from under you later so that they can laugh at you some more. He lashes out at inanimate objects when he can no longer control his rage, and this puts him even more on the outside, and makes other people look at him like the freak that he is sure he is after years of emotional abuse from his sisters.

I'm not saying that I understand Barry from a point of view of having lived his family and home life, but I do understand the avoidance of people when all you hear is abrasiveness and stupidity (and when everyone on the road is a friggin moron).

Sandler is wonderfully counterpointed in this film by Luis Guzman as his co-worker and seemingly only friend, who is one of the few nice people to Barry, and Philip Seymour Hoffman as a sleazy mattress salesman/phone sex business operator. However the films other star, Emily Watson who matches Sandler in mostly underplayed performance perforated by moments of high-emotion.

I would like to see the other side of this story, the story of Watson's Lena Leonard, I imagine that she is very much like Barry, and that in the times when she is out of frame her actions are much the same as his.

This is not Paul Thomas Anderson's best film (Magnolia, no matter what Kevin Smith says), but it is his shortest and most dense. Every moment is important, even the pauses. Small touches souch as the way the camera sometimes becomse erratic with Barry's swinging moods are perfectly done.

I give PunchDrunk Love a rating of Trunculent and declare it pleasant.

I love Skee-Ball so much I should be from New Jersey. I just wish that I were better at it. Ever since I injured my primary skee-balling arm in a horrible threshing incident I just haven't been the same. There was a time when they said I could be the finest player since Arte Skrunk, but now I am merely a footnote in the glorious sports history.

After playing tonight for the first time in many years I just have a few observations about the state of today's game here in Middle Tennessee.
1. The lanes have gotten shorter and made of plastic.
2. Call me oldfashioned, but 50,000 points for the center hole? 50 will do fine by me Sonny.
3. I beat both Tommy and Jason.
4. Chuck-E-Cheese is a giant rat and he runs and inhabits a pizza-place for children, does that strike anyone else as disturbing?
5. My tickets won't get me anything good, I wanted a small, clear plastic animal like they gave at Lake Winniepesokah for about 25 tickets. Though, I wouldn't mind having the Crocodile Hunter hand-held game from Tiger, 'cause dammit Tiger games RULE! Screw that Game-Boy advance crap!
6. I learned at Chuck-E-Cheese.com that all these years I could have been earning tokens for my grades, and by my calculations on the grade to token interface on the site, I could have made nearly 17 tokens in my four-and-a-half years of schoolin spread as it was across two grades. Finally I find that grades WERE good for something, and it's too late. I wonder if they would take all of my report cards at once?

Shower Shock Caffeinated Soap
Soap with caffeine infused in it! Believe it. A truly clean buzz...

Truly the world is a wonderful place, one in which you can bathe and recieve a buzz at the same time. Goodbye coffee, hello shower.

Been a while since Iast posted, and Tommy seems to be posting to BigStupidTommy.com regularly. He puts me to much shame.

Speaking of the WB's "Charmed" I saw the first episode that I would consider good the other day. I forget the plot now, which is probably for the best, but the writing and acting weren't too especially bad. The fact that Rose McGowan, Alyssa Milano and Holly Combs are hot doesn't hurt either. Tommy said my brain has probably just rotted from watching too much Charmed.

As I write this I am now watching charmed, and I just figured out who is playing the Egyptian witch or spirit or goddess, or whatnot, it's the redhead who was on Seaquest DSV and played Lana Lang on the Superboy series. Who thought it would be a good idea to cast a redhead as an ancient Egyptian spirit?

I moved the list of things I want for Christmas to my homepage.

Just came back from the Rocky Horror Picture Show an Nashville's TPAC. The most interesting thing about the entire show was the amount of elderly women in the audience and the surprisingly absent freak quotient.

I felt sorry for my friend Gunny since he was the only one shouting things and dancing besides the cast members. Gunny ran some elderly people off with his exclamations. One woman before the show on seeing one of the Transylvanians said "That one's a man." She seemed quite shocked.

Around a third of the audience left during the intermission. There may be a few less season ticket holders next year.

Juxtoposition is the word for the day children.

Good performance, I thought, though the sound kept going out on the microphones, and that is a bit distracting.

There were two Columbias during the show as well, I don't think the regular got to the theatre until late. I don't think the blue-hairs noticed though.

The regular Columbia was hot. Just an opinion.

A 12-year-old-or-so boy sat on the front row between his mother and father, and the expressions on his face were quite good. I'm guessing the parents will have some explaining to do tonight.

I just wish that I had worn my cassock as I did to the halloween party I went to though. Maybe it would have loosened the older women up to see a priest getting into the play and shouting obscenities.