personal

Knowing is half the battle

Even though I got up pretty early this morning — well, before 9 is early-ish for a Saturday, right? — I didn’t do a whole lot with the day. I thought I might go see Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, but I ended up not. This evening, though, I did watch the live-action G.I. Joe movie, and…well, maybe I should just let the record of my live-tweeting of the movie speak for itself:

  • And now, even though I am almost certain to regret it, I’m going to watch the live-action G.I. Joe.
  • It’s starting with trailers for The Last Airbender and Transformers 2. This can’t end well.
  • “In the not too distant future”? Is this MST3K?
  • You know, with Eccleston’s Scottish accent, it just might be.
  • There is no CGI in Team.
  • Channing Tatum isn’t exactly what I’d call an electrifying screen presence.
  • Is Brendan Fraser legally required to be in every movie with CGI?
  • I didn’t think it was possible, but this may be *more* cartoonish than the original.
  • Oh good. For a minute there I was worried there wouldn’t be any jetpacks.
  • Aw, Lil Storm Shadow vs. Lil Snake Eyes.
  • When the smartest guy in the room is Marlon Wayans, be afraid.
  • This movie has almost as many unearned emotional moments and pointless flashbacks as it does things blowing up real good.
  • Oh, they must be in France. They nearly ran down a mime in a beret.
  • I am sort of wondering when the movie based on G.I. Joe begins.
  • Oh, the Baroness just made a man lose his balloons. She *is* evil.
  • Oh good. More Jim Henson’s Angry Ninja Babies.
  • These flashbacks belong in a movie where we care about the characters.
  • A movie with robot sharks under the polar ice caps should be more fun than this.
  • And shorter.
  • So, Joseph Gordon-Levitt *can* give a bad performance just like everybody else.
  • I’m going to go out on a limb and say this isn’t a terrible movie. But only because I’m not convinced it *is* a movie.
  • It’s more like a computer-generated string of pure ridiculousness.
  • The plane only speaks Celtic. Of course.
  • I wish Storm Shadow had taken a vow of silence too.
  • “My green screen can beat up your green screen.”
  • Christopher Eccleston would make a good Groundskeeper Willie.
  • “Muhahaha! You and what army?” “MY army.” Yeah, that really just happened.
  • And of course it ends with a Black Eyed Peas song.
  • Not with a bang, but with a whimpering will i am.
  • The movie had a production accountant named Gene Strange. That may be my favorite thing about it.
  • I did not hate that movie. It was too far beyond dumb to elicit any kind of emotional response whatsoever.
  • “American Humane Association monitored some of the animal action. No animals were harmed in those scenes.” All the rest, though…
  • How is “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” not on @rifftrax?
  • Who could have guessed, when The Mummy first came out, that it would mark the *high* point in Stephen Sommers’ pursuit of realism?

I can’t claim to have enjoyed the movie, but I did have fun poking at it. I would seriously rent the movie again if it was available on Rifftrax. But otherwise, I don’t think I want to go anywhere near it again.

Otherwise, it was a pretty boring day, hanging around the house, going for a walk, reading some Kaleidotrope slush. Just a typical Saturday.

The Twentieth

The day got off to kind of a weird start when I logged on to Twitter under my Kaleidotrope account and tried to follow somebody, an editor whose work I admire and respect, and discovered that this person had preemptively blocked me. Well that’s strange, I thought, but there it was at the top of the screen: “You have been blocked from following this account at the request of the user.” We’ve never had any run-ins that I’m aware of, and I hope it’s just an accident or a misunderstanding. I’m disappointed that I’m blocked from seeing this person’s updates, but worried that the Kaleidotrope account is coming across as some kind of spammer. I honestly don’t update it as often as my personal account.

But, nothing really to be done about it, so I put it out of my mind and went to work. And of course, the half day on Friday turned out to be my busiest day of the whole week. I had corrections to make and reviews to solicit and a couple of other tasks I wanted to complete, and luckily I managed to do so just as the one o’clock hour was drawing near. I got home around 2:30, spent some time playing with the dog and watching this week’s episode of Top Chef, and generally just remembering why it’s more fun to hang out in the backyard with my iPad than in my cubicle at work.

Then this evening, I went to the mall and bought eyeglasses. I have the prescription, and while I didn’t get as good a deal as I might have at the eyeglasses factory outlet, I wound up with a decent price and what I hope are a nice pair of frames. I should have them in 7-10 days, so we’ll see I like them as much then.

And that’s really it. More than anything, I’m just shocked it’s already the 20th of August. Where does the time go?

It’s madness!

Not much to say. Had a fun time at the Rifftrax live showing of Reefer Madness. I’d never seen the movie before (nor, in fact, ever smoked “marihuana” before), but it is about as ridiculous a film as you’d expect. The shorts were quite as nightmare-fuel-ish as the ones they played at last year’s Christmas show, but I don’t think I’ll ever look at grass or gasoline quite the same way again.

Grabbed some pizza with fellow cappers tinaw, GizM, and GersonK before the show, and just got home a few minutes ago. Now it’s off to bed.