LOST (spoilers galore! Look out!)

Oh my God.

Lost owns me. This week's episode was so good, my mind is reeling. Aside from all the plot points, just the way they went back and filled in holes. The story telling is great. If you're not watching this show stop what you're doing and buy the first season, watch it this weekend, then bit torrent the first two episodes of the season so you're ready for Wednesday.

I don't even know why I bother to post this as I'm just going to keep talking about it with Jess, Kat and Bryan and keep having more and more stuff to say.

• First, the numbers being a code to stop some sort of countdown? A countdown which is the numbers added together (plus a couple of zeros)? What is the countdown? What's behind the magnet wall? Why aren't they sick?
  
• The shark?? With the Dharma symbol on its tail?!? Oh my lord, thank GOD for dvrs!
  
• That symbol is all over the hatch, so is the shark part of the security system? Is the hatch part of the security system? Does Desmond upkeep the monster/shark/etc?
  
• Jin being alive, but captured by "others"? Are they the real others? Jess suggested they may be tail section survivors, which could be true, since the girl from the bar (who we know was in the tail) is alive and there.
  
• Desmond's riddle? What was that? It's "what did one snowman say to the other snowman", and I'm told it's been said before by Michael/maybe Hurley. Who is Desmond really waiting for? Right now I assume Jack.
  
• Michael gave Walt the polar bear way back in the day - so Walt's connections with polar bears grows. Right now I assume he created the polar bear with his mind, as his conversations with Locke suggest. The stuffed bear helps explain why he "liked the pictures" in Hurley's comic book.
  
• We still don't know how Desmond got to the island, or how he could have been in LA a few years ago to see Jack when he seems to have been on the island for longer than that?
  

Sooooo good. Did you notice how they only progressed the hatch story to the same point as last week, but still gave us tons of new information? Okay, most stop now. Only five days until the next episode...

New Orleans? What's that?

Good to see the world is learning from what happened in Lousiana
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050929/ap_on_re_eu/italy_flood_barriers

Dream Cars

I'm not that far away from a day when I can buy a new car. Sometime within the next couple years I hope to trade in the tried-and-true Neon for a nice car that will make driving back and forth to Madison/Milwaukee a treat. Plus I love dreaming and talking about this sort of thing (I'm only considering new cars at the moment). The cars I am currently considering:

• Audi A4 2.0T: I'd love to have the quattro, but the cost of that puts the price far above the others I'm looking at (almost to $30,000). I'd love four wheel drive for the winters, but I can do without. Obviously a very nice car, with an Audi tag on the back.
  
• Saab 9-3 Sport Sedan: I'm starting to like this car more and more. A couple thousand cheaper than the Audi, better HP, same warranty, looks nice, and it's technically a GM car, so the repairs should be much cheaper than an Audi. My Dad drove a 9-3 for years and loved it, so I also feel a sentimental attachment to Saab.
  
• Volkswagen Passat Sedan 2.0T: Not sure about this one. It's ugly, but it's cheaper ($24), and has some nice features. It also has a slightly better powertrain warranty than the Audi or the Saab.
  
• Nissan Maxima SE: Amazingly its more expensive than the Audi, Volkeswagen and Saab. It's got 60 HP more than the rest, and pays for it with slightly worse mpg due to its V6. Worse bumper-to-bumper warranty, but lots and lots of ammenities. I feel like if I'm paying this much for a car, there's something that smacks me wrong about it being a Nissan. Nice car, though.
  
• Pontiac Grand Prix GTP: Probably too expensive, at $29, but over 300 HP, every feature you could want, and it's a nice big car for those long trips. It gets the same mpg as the Nissan, but runs a 5.3L V8. This would be a seriously powerful car, but I'm guessing the price/insurance runs it out of consideration.
  

The Last Annoyance Class

Last night was my last level 1 class at Annoyance Productions, it was a fun class. However, I was dissapointed at the end, our teacher was giving everyone pretty blunt/honest notes, and he got to me and was just like, "Hey, you're good, ummm... I like watching you play." He also gave no notes to another guy, Philip. So we got pretty short-changed there, I spent $200 to screw around with beginning improvisors for a few hours a week for a couple of months. Don't get me wrong, it was fun, and the people were extremely nice and talented, and it's not like I'm looking to "grow as an improvisor" or anything, but it put things into perspective for me. With that in mind, I don't think I'll be taking anymore classes right now. I'd love to be involved in Annoyance as a player or house manager in the future, though; the whole group has a good feeling to it.

I'm considering getting into performing somewhere - not paying to play, and having something to work for may make the improv experience more satisfying again (as it was in Madison). What this whole experience has shown me is that I like improv, I love Atlas.

Also dissapointing in the world of improv was a report from my friend Caroline that she quit Atlas. That's sad, she was always very positive and a good presence on stage, but she wasn't around much and she was under-used when she was there. I always liked seeing her when I visited, I hope she's still hanging around, but I fear that won't be the case. Ah well. I feel like Atlas is doing a good job trimming the fat as it's heading into what's going to be a trying winter, but we're also losing some people that should have been core members by now. It doesn't seem entirely right that Bryan and I (especially Bryan) do more work for Atlas/are more inner-circle than most members who still live in Madison. I'm very glad to see people like Thomas getting deeper into it, though.

I'm happy to say the despite these things, our last class was very fun, lots of fantastic scenes to finish on, and we all went out as a group afterwards for a drink. I'll miss my classmates.

Now that that's over, I'm fully geared up to do two things: One) Watch Lost tonight with Maria and scream and laugh and cry and generally be enthralled. Two) Visit Minnesota! I pick up my suit tonight and pack. I'll be leaving straight from work Friday afternoon, so starting tomorrow morning I'll be working, flying, in Minnesota, flying back Monday morning, going straight to work, going home, dropping my stuff off, picking up Maria, and heading straight back out to wine night. So I'm guessing that come Monday night I'll be quite exhausted but happy. It's going to be a heck of a time.

The Good Life

Not Television

I wore a sweatshirt yesterday and today, fall is arriving. I'm looking forward to buying a couple of new sweatshirts, as it is definately time to retire a couple of the old crowd. In a similar cool-weather moment, Maria made us chicken noodle soup last night, which was good. Amazingly, I think that was my first time ever eating chicken noodle soup. I liked it, but it's hard to eat; I spent about 15 minutes eating and only consumed a couple of mouthfuls. Sort of reminiscent of eating crab - too much effort for not enough food in my stomach. After the soup I made one of the individual pan pizzas I bought while grocery shopping, which wasn't so good. Okay, but not good. I need to track down the pizza bread stuff Dan used to get - that looked perfect.

I was just given a very unoffical award at work for diligently recording my hours on a large project we're working on. What kind of award, you ask? Why a big gothic medallion necklace, of course! I'm wearing my pentagram with pride. Okay, that's a lie - it's sitting on my desk with pride.

Speaking of work, our HR person calls me "Dave Ryan" all the time. Not because there's another Dave, but other Ryans. She calls everyone else by just their first name, but she calls Tim John and I Tim Ryan John Ryan and Dave Ryan. Funny.

This upcomming weekend is getting closer and closer - I'm psyched. It's really great how it's like a little reunion. We've got people comming together from at least four states, I get to see tons of people I really like and haven't seen for a while, I can't wait. At this point it's even a big deal to see Pat, plus seeing Kris, Joe, Chris, all the ladies, and Halibus?? It'll be a hell of a weekend. Not to mention getting to see Transporter 2 and Almost Like Heaven. It still amazes me that Minnesotta is only two trains and an airplane away from Chicago.

Television
First, there have been changes to the lineup. I have decided to never start Surface. F it, I already had two on the dvr, with no time to watch them. I need to catch up on Suparnatural: Dan & Pat, if you read this, is it worth getting into? Over There is all but dropped, I'll probably offically take it off the dvr sometime soon. I caught the beginning of Commander in Chief last night - bad as expected. The entire thing was just harping over and over how men in power don't respect women and now is the time for a woman to stand up and make the world right.

The Office: I enjoyed it, it wasn't great, but okay. Loved the ending, "He said what?!" That was pretty awesome. I saw that Steve Carrell is going to host SNL this weekend, and Kanye West is the musical guest. This sounds like a great show. I don't really see a way you could put Steve Carrell in a show with at least a couple of decent supporters (Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Kenan (What? Who said Kenan??)) and not get at least a couple of funny moments, right? Right? Will SNL find a way to even break Steve Carrell? I sure hope not. I think I'll record it just to see if SNL has any life in it at all.

Arrested Development: Very nice, "Had anyone in this family ever even seen a chicken?" Haha, the mass of chicken dances was brilliant, David Cross' hair plugs were amazingly gross, the news anchor continues to make appearances, it was great. I hope Tobias has the weird island of hair from now on. Best part, possibly, is when Tobias bursts through the office door doing the impression of GOB (throwing coins in the air and making a feeble noise), and then GOB actually does that at his magic show. Freaking brilliant. I also enjoy that they continue giving people strange cars, wee england was funny, and (as Pat promised) the scenes from next week were amazing. Only thing: do you really get Charlize Theron on your show as a love interest and make her mentally retarded? We'll see about that, Arrested Development.
[Question: They did a whole bunch during the "previously on Arrested Development" that I never saw. Did I miss an episode, or did they just put a bunch of plot into that because they didn't want to show it? If it's the later I'm going to go ahead and call that genius. If not, crap, I missed an episode.]

Gilmore Girls: Okay, let's roll up our sleeves and get down to brass tax. I am very happy to see Rory's going to wake the FUCK up next episode. I was really happy with the ending of this week, where she sees she misses school and then fades to her at the DAR meeting, like if she joins the DAR she completely transforms into this gossipy little hoo-hah that she hates. Good. Maria commented a couple of times that Rory's entire story line is getting dumb, and I must say that I agree - I've had enough of Rory's identity crisis. But this is all part of the fantasticness that is Gilmore Girls. They make you want it so bad, and it seems like the show is ruined, and then BAM! Everything is okay and Dan is screaming into a pillow. I hope that when Rory gets her head straight she'll stop being all cutesy and dumb with Logan (like when they were talking in her apartment, barf me rotten). Also good that Luke was okay with waiting to set a date - I couldn't deal with Luke and Loreli fighting too. I liked that that was a non-issue. All in all, somewhat... LUKE-WARM? Ha ha ha ha, ohhhhh yeah. Let's get the house done (What happened to Bob the architect??), relegate the dog to background prop, get Rory out of her funk and back in school, and get TJ and Luke's sister back on the road, eh? Yeah, let's do all of that and then Loreli and Rory can get back down to eating and chatting.The light is near, I estimate 1 - 1.5 episodes until all is right with the world and I get to giggle again.

Harry Brammer to Return to Brookfield

Holy cow, drop what you're doing and get ready to play Mario Tennis and watch Finders Keepers, folks. It sounds like Harry may be back in Bfield in November. All of a sudden Bfield is looking like a place to visit again. This is throwing my nostalga drive back into high gear. Imagine it: a crisp autumn day, take off work, go up to Bfield, Harry's working in Qdoba*, get a burrito, visit for a while, wait for him to get off work, play some gamecube, eat some chips, drink some sodas. It's almost to pleasant to correctly imagine.


*Note that if Harry ever actually worked in Qdoba it'd be a crime against humanity. Though I'm sure he'd make the best double-wrapped burrito in the biz.

Tuesday: BUM BUM BUM

Not Television
Last night was Wine Night number two, a tradition begun by my very attractive girlfriend Maria. We hosted it last week, this week it was in Lincoln Square. A fun night, no question - good people, those writers. You can read about what we ate here: Meals I Have Eaten. I was like two feet away when that picture was taken - I'm a celebrity!

I spent my lunch yesterday hunting for a garment bag downtown. It was suprisingly hard, but I finally found one at Marshall Field's for like 12 bucks. I looked in:

• A Luggage Store: Only bags they had were > $60
  
• TJMax: The only bags they had were > $140!
  
• Some other "cheap" Clothes Store: They didn't have any.
  
• Marshall Fields: Amazingly, they came through for me
  

So that took about an hour, plus I had to eat, it was a long lunch. The only other thing going on is the emergence of a new videogame night! Videogame night comma b, perhaps. Should be fun, we start next week.

I've decided to start playing Advance Wars on my Gameboy, and I wanted to get a copy of one of them (there is a sequel, so there's two games) before Friday so I can play on the plane. I ordered Advance Wars 2 online yesterday after seeing that my Gamefly Queue listed both 1 and 2 as "long wait", usually meaning you won't get it until like your third try. Well, turns out I actually managed to get the first game from Gamefly, and I bought the second one, so now I'm just waiting to see if either arrives in time. Both of them got shipped today, so I'm crossing my fingers. I'm going to end up with an awful lot of Advance Wars on tap.

Television
I actually watched NO television last night (except a little bit of Conan). Tonight I get to watch Arrested Development and Gilmore Girls. After tonight I'll be two weeks behind in Prison Break, and Supernatural, and I never watched Surface. Being out of town this weekend, I don't know when I'll catch up. Too bad I can't watch this stuff on the plane somehow. I think some shows may be getting the axe, folks.

My Beloved Escalators

I take the train to work, and I get off at a subway stop downtown. There are two escalators I take to get up to street level. The lower one has been broken for two weeks, but today it RETUUUUUUUUUUUURNED!



It took the lack to make me realize just how much I love my escalators. They give me a brief rest after the long trek from the train to the stairs, and a rest before having to journey all the way to the second escalator, or the street thereafter. Oh how I loved just standing there, yet being propelled forwards AND upwards. Also adding to my love of having my escalator back is the fact that walking up a broken escalator blows hard. The steps are too big, and they're spikey and try to bust up your shins. Also, for a while they had the escalator torn up, so everyone had to squeeze through the stairs, basically single file, and since people are idiots, this took forever and ever and ever. I used to always walk while on the escalator, but perhaps now I will sit (or stand) back and enjoy the ride.

Alas the second escalator was broken today, but hopefully tomorrow it shall rise again for a full, 2/2 escalator commute. That would truely be escalating.

This is What I'm Talking About

Here's a good example of how Improv in Chicago is weird and sort of off-putting sometimes. This is an email I got from "Boom", an improv show here which stresses stage production, lighting, etc. Seems like a cool show (I've yet to see it), and a while ago I shot them an email asking if they offer classes/auditions. This is what I recieve in return a couple months later...

Dear Improviser who’s asked for more information about Auditions:

Our next round of auditions will be in November in Los Angeles and Chicago between 14 November and 20 November, and then in Amsterdam just afterwards.

They will be by invitation only.

I will send these invitations – and inform everyone on my mailing list that I did so – in early October.

And I will let everyone know when we will have our next round of open auditions.

All Boom Auditions consist of open improvisation -- of scenes, in short form "games" and musical improv. There is little to prepare. In the past we have asked auditioners to write us a few news jokes and bring a 2 person scene they already have written.

Please note: in our auditions, we look for experienced improvisers, not people looking for their first job or students looking for audition experience. And improv is a unique type of performance requiring you to immediately create comedy -- in English -- based on audience suggestions. Actors, stand-up comedians, singers or those with only a classic acting/theater school background rarely qualify for Boom Chicago.

If I sound pessimistic, please know that I’m trying to be realistic about the skills needed to make the Boom Chicago audition.

Thanks for your interest,
Jon Rosenfeld
Artistic Director
Boom Chicago
www.boomchicago.nl

So first off, I don't mind that they have high standards and they let you know that - that's a good idea, if you hold these standards, don't ask people to come out if they don't meet them. But the weird thing about this email is that he's writing to tell us ("us" being those of us who asked, apparently), that, "Yes, auditions are going on." And, "No, you can not come. We're just going to invite people that we think are good enough to stand a chance. Just be aware that those auditions you asked about are happening, and that you won't be there." See what I'm saying?

Then, in a few weeks, I'll recieve another email from this guy, just to make sure I got the message, "Okay, so now you definately didn't get invited. Remember before when we said you almost certianly wouldn't be? Well, damn, you didn't even come close. Well, I better go, we have this kick-ass party going on over here, and I'd hate to have people see me talking to you!" *click*

Red Zee

We just got a call at work from some backwater search engine called "Red Zee" that wants us to buy ads on their site. It's crap, but the front page is DELIGHTFUL!

Check it out:
http://www.redzee.com/

We Love The King!

Not Television
Short Fridays rule. Today is a short Friday, my boss has declared another early end to the day to go drinking next door at the super-fancy private Chicago Athletic Association. It's pretty fun to go pretend we're all rich while our boss who is actually rich enough to live that way, plus sponsor the rest of us chumps once in a while, picks up the tab. Next Friday is also a short Friday, as I am flying up to Minneapolis for what should be a jaw-droppingly-fun weekend.

Maria and I went grocery shopping last night and I dropped like $130. Ouch. We hadn't gone shopping forever, though, so I was buying stuff like condiments and booze and soap - things I only buy once every few shopping trips. It is so very nice to have food again.

Despite the high total, there were some bargins to be had:

TOP BARGINS

• 3 Tombstone pizzas for 10 bucks (a good deal in Chicago)
  
• Buy 1 get 1 free Gardetto's (a good deal anywhere)
  
• 3 dollar 12 packs of soda
  
• Almost half off decent (Skyy) vodka
  
• Getting the last We Love Katamari from Game Stop
  

What was that last one? Oh my, did he just say? Yes! NEW KATAMARI DAMACY!!! It's lookin' good thus far, folks. I've only played three levels, but they were fun, and looked splendid, and the interface is freaking great. This is the only game I've ever seen that has a button whose only function is to make your character skip and whistle. Also, there is now a co-op game where you and a friend have to amass a certian size combined, running around in the same level (I assume - I haven't played it yet). I can't wait to make twin moons with someone. I do love Katari.

Television
The OC was on last night, it was okay. Seth and Summer are good stuff, they're keeping the show going. I enjoyed Jimmy getting beaten up, and that Kiersten finally went home. Is Jerri Ryan going to kill her and steal her family?? Who cares? Show me Luke. Holy JEEZ, was I hoping for Luke last night. How sweet would it have been if the gangster guys came back to finish Jimmy off and Ryan was going to fight them, but we all knew he was going to get mauled, and then like a 78' Trans Am pulls up blaring the Killers or some shit, and Luke jumps out. Oh my god, I would have died. But alas, it was not to be. Sigh...

I also caught a Cheers episode last night, which was sweet, but that was all the TV I watched, amazingly. There was grocery shopping and ball rolling to do, I suppose.

Of course Wednesday night we watched Lost. It was really good, and legitimately scary in parts. I've been doing a lot of discecting it with friends over the last couple of days, I'm always impressed how much little hidden shit they cram into every episode. I was also just told by a friend that on the DVDs they tell you that they had the first six seasons planned out from the start! This makes me extremely happy - this should gaurntee that the story stays good, that the show sticks around, and hopefully that means they planned on keeping the cast that long. I'd hate to see Hurley leave after the third season or anything like that. Go Lost, go!

What's so Damn Hard About Adding Fractions?!? (breaks chalk)

Arun also has a blog now (what's going on?): http://aruninbrooklyn.net/
It's very nice writing, satisfying to read. I'm sure it'll also be very interesting to read stories about him teaching. Good lord, Arun teaching math to a room full of urban 7th graders? Hang on a second while my mind reels...


Not Television

Maria had a party at our place on Monday with a bunch of her new classmates from the Arts Institute, and they were all very nice and suprisingly normal folks. I told her they're the first people I've met here that seem up to the standards I held my friends in highschool & college. So I hope they all become a tightly packed ball of decency in this city that can so often be full of jerks and a-holes (I love the word a-hole, it's always funny).

Atlas just elected our new group of advanced class members (the kids that are potentially going to join the troupe after 10 weeks of class). They're a good bunch, I went back for auditions, which was great. I really miss being around for Atlas - Improv here thus far proves a poor, soul-less substitute.

Television

I watched a lot of good TV last night ("good" means that I like it). Maria and I watched Gilmore Girls, The West Wing, and The Office Premier. Gilmore Girls was back on track, which is great, The West Wing was last season's finale which seemed good (new season starts Sunday), and The Office was really enjoyable. Call me a sucker, but I like that the love story is more pronounced in the American version. Call me blasphemous, but I want them to end up together in this story.

Tonight, of course, is the premier of Lost. I have to go to improv class tonight, so I'll watch it when I get home. Thank god for DVRs. There's also something called "Destination Lost" on before it, which I asumme is going to be dumb. I cannot wait for this premier, I'm very excited.

VERY EXCITED

Second Blog-Wind

Port Smellden just gave me a heads up about Polley and Qualler's Blog. It looks like it'll be good reading.

Two-person blogs sound genious.

Television, Maria, and the Dumb Girl in my Office

So good day yesterday. Normal day at work, followed by a long night of pizza, beer, football and, oh yeah, The OC. Not a bad first episode, seems like it'll be a pretty good start of the season. Nothing especially great, though. Oh, actually, the whole plot line with Kiersten (or however you spell the Mom's name) is awful. I do not care. I also don't like Jerri Ryan much. But the kids are lovable per usual. I personally can't wait to see Seth as a freshman in college.

Maria had a hell of a day yesterday too, she landed a job at the continuing studies office, and met a few nice people at her program's welcome night thing. Good for her, going out and getting shit done. I really like to see that - Maria taking control of her situation. She didn't even get home until almost 11 last night, damn kids.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow, Maria and I are visiting my parents (their refridgerator broke, so my Dad and I are picking up a new one). We'll get to visit with my parents (who I am liking more and more the older I get), see the dogs, and catch a movie in a nice theater where people don't talk!! (F you, Chicago movie patrons!) I'm pretty excited about it. I'm also hoping to see Hilgagilg this weekend, but I can't get ahold of him, and we'll need to try to meet up around my trip to BField.

A girl in my office recently drove her Roly Poly franchise into the ground (it's a sandwhich shop), and she's been dealing with defaulting on all her loans and leases and whatnot via her cell phone at her desk here for the last couple of weeks. It's starting to get somewhat annoying. She's not the nicest person I've ever met (she's fond of telling John and I what nerds we are at least once a day), and she's also not all that smart (she can't think of anything new to say, so she tells John and I what nerds we are over and over). She has a large loan for her sandwhich making equipment which she's been having trouble closing out, so her answer was to close her bank account and tell the company loaning her the money that she isn't going to talk to them anymore and they need to talk to her daddy. She thinks it's unfair they expect her to continue making payments - I am not a fan of people signing things then acting like they don't have to honor the agreement when they don't want to anymore. You knew what you were getting into - it's your fault you couldn't handle it. Anyways, just a little rant there. The good news is she leaves after today (she's just a contract employee), so the office will be happier on Monday. I feel bad for Scott, he's a designer here, and a hell of a nice guy - she's his sister-in-law. Ouch. Must not be fun hanging out with her outside of work.

So yes, life is good. I'm going to Madison next weekend, which will be awesome, and it's starting to get nicer and nicer outside as fall approaches. It's all aces, folks.

Superman II

Holy cow. Have you ever seen Superman II? I caught the last 3/4 of it on tv last night, and it is one of the worst movies I've ever seen, but in that strangely fantastic way. The entire plot could have easily fit into a half-hour tv show, so to fit a feature-length film it is stretched by massive, horrendous and BORING "special effects" sequences.

In case you haven't seen it, the basic idea of the movie is that Superman gives up his powers to marry Lois Lane, but then three evil folks from Krypton show up and take over the earth, so he goes and gets his powers back to fight them.

I'm completely willing to accept the fact that they didn't have computers to do the effects, so they look like garbage. But even adjusting for that fact, this movie is an atrocity. Here are some examples of especially terrible moments:

Four minutes of people being blown away by the bad guys' super breath
Just wind machines blowing people. Maria deftly pointed out, "It's like a Buster Keaton movie." Every gag you can think of - the guy on roller-skates, lady with umbrella, dude on payphone trying to keep talking while getting blown away (TWICE!). It's unbelievable. This entire sequence (and the even longer fight encompassing it) is one long product placement orgy displaying Coke, KFC, Marlboro, KFC, etc. On top of all this, these people were supposed to be standing a few feet away from where Superman was fighting three super-villains, and they're still chatting on phones, buying chicken, and reading papers?

Superman, after giving up his powers, WALKS TO THE NORTH POLE
That's it. It happens, I'm not kidding. He wears a windbreaker.

Superman's Revenge
While Superman has no powers, he goes to a burger joint with Lois, and a random trucker beats the hell out of him (with two punches, an elbow, and a hair pull Superman can barely breath - Lois has to basically lift him into a chair). First, this shows us that Superman apparently has no fighting skills. He's been fighting super villains for how many years? I guess it's all just the super-strength. The man can't even take some jerk truck driver. Second, Superman is a big baby.
The Second Half of this story comes after Superman gets his powers back and beats the bad guys. He returns to this same burger joint (in his Clark Kent clothes) and beats the trucker senseless, causing a lot of damage to the restaurant in the process, then hands the owner a huge wad of cash. So Superman can really hold a grudge. There's a great line when Superman walks in the second time, the trucker calls the food garbage, and Superman says, "Funny, I've never seen garbage eat garbage before." And he really emphasizes the "garbage"-s. It's awesome.

There's so much more to say about how bad this movie is, but a lot of the rest is just in the little things. Like the acting. (One of the bad guys communicates almost entirely in grunts and screams.) The bad guys never really present much of a threat to earth, they seem to just want people to bow to them. If you want to see something really terrible, go check Superman II out.

P.S. Oh man, I almost forgot! Near the end of the movie Superman kisses Lois Lane and somehow erases her memory!

P.P.S.AND there's this whole sequence where Superman and the three bad guys can like disappear and reappear, and Superman can make copies of himself? (This happens in his ice cave, so maybe it has something to do with reflections?)

Racism is Everywhere

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina lots of people have lost their homes and have taken refuge in other states. Jesse Jackson says, "It is racist to call American citizens refugees." I just wanted to draw your attention to that.

Pizza? Oh, Yes Please.

Speaking of pizza, I bought a serious pizza cutter this weekend. It's all metal and looks like a robot might use it to kill you, maybe.

Big Ups to Waffle House

Waffle House senior vice president Steve Wright, hands a Hurricane Katrina victim a bag of ice in Gulfport, Miss., Thursday, Sept. 1, 2005. The corporate office wanted to help the stricken community and promised several days of providing ice and other necessities to the hurricane's victims. (AP Photo/Rogelio Solis)