The Most Fucking Retarded Movie...

is Richard Donner's 1978 superhero piece of shit, Superman.

First off, Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) is the ugliest woman in that entire fucking movie, and that includes Martha Kent.

Secondly, Lex Luthor shouldn't be surrounded by morons and incompetents.  The man's a filthy rich genius, he can afford better help.

Third, and most fucking important is that I can't stand it when a movie, television show, or whatever doesn't follow it's own rules.  You see, every universe has a set of rules that make it work, and the universe of 1978's Superman is no exception.  If Superman exists in that universe and his powers function the way they do because of the reasons they give, then fucking awesome.  Those are the rules.  However, now that you've established those rules, you can't go fucking with them!  Logic still has to function, even if it's a logic that includes Superman.

*Spoiler alert, in case you haven't seen a 32 year old movie.*

I'll buy, in the universe of the movie, that the rotation of the Earth is what controls time.  It's insane, and makes no fucking sense, but I'll go with it.  However, time works like time does.  If you spin the Earth to make time reverse, then every fucking thing goes back in time.  The car un-crushes, the damn un-collapses, the fissure in the ground seals up.  It will even reverse the death of an ugly bitch.  What it will fucking not do is allow for Jimmy Fucking Olsen to be in the middle of nowhere, right where Superman left him before he reversed time.

Yes, this entire argument is based on Jimmy Olsen not being at the Hoover Dam.  It pissed me off that much.

The dam began to collapse, Superman saves Jimmy, Lois dies, time is reversed, and somehow in that reversal of time, Jimmy Olsen exists in a bubble of unaffected time and remains right where Superman left him.  Bull Fucking Shit.  Not to mention that if Superman can travel so fucking fast that he can make the fucking planet rotate in the other direction then he can fucking fly fast enough to stop two fucking nuclear missiles.

"But he couldn't fly that fast until the death of Lois pushed him beyond his limits" you say.  Fine, fuck you.  Then he should have kept time fucking flowing backwards until the missiles hadn't been launched yet then go and fucking stop them.  Reversing time just enough to save Lois didn't fucking save the other countless lives that the detonation of a nuclear missile causes, whether directly or indirectly from the ensuing earthquakes.  Letting that missile detonate, and possibly killing people in the process, was irresponsible of Superman.  Besides, fuck that noise, if he can reverse time then he can go back in time and save Jonathan Kent, or stop Hitler or all sorts of shit.  And don't give me that shit about his dad telling him not to fuck with human progress, that's bullshit.  Dude's a superhero, if that's not fucking with natural human progress then I don't know what would.

Other than that, not a bad movie.  Gene Hackman makes a good Luthor, Reeve made a good Superman, and I kinda liked the character development of Clark/Superman.  It was a good film, up until the end.  Wipe the last 20 minutes from your memory, make Lois attractive, and give Luthor some descent henchmen and it would be a fucking awesome movie.

Seriously though, that bitch is ugly.

Lots of Shit

I've been a bad blogger, but I've got legitimate excuses this time.  Kind of.  We went on a 48 hour honeymoon, I got a job, and overall shit has been busy the last few weeks.  Now it's all starting to slow down and form a regular schedule, which I like.  So on with the rambling.

First off, the job.  As some of you know, I went to school to study television broadcasting.  It was, in my opinion at the time, a poor man's film school.  However, I fell in love with television (and radio, to a lesser extent) and pined away at getting a job in television after my schooling ended.  A year and a half later and thanks to a friend, I'm working in television.  I am a Master Control Operator for a hub of local/regional stations.  It's a good job and I like it, and if you know me then you know how rarely I say that I like a job (in fact, this may be the first time).  I'm pretty excited about it and I'll talk your ear off about it if you let me.  That being said, let's move on.

Wendy and I now have a two income household (see above), so it's time to think about the future.  With a gross increase of 80% to our cash flow the possibility of getting a larger apartment, a new car, or other things has opened up and I intend on capitalizing on some of them in the next year or so.  Especially the "other things" category, in which progress has already begun.  Mostly I'm stoked about the stability this income provides, and that I finally feel like I'm pulling my weight in this relationship instead of continuing my favored position of Professional Freeloader.

So far marriage feels exactly as it did before.  Nothing is different aside from the lump of black alloy-based ceramics that encases my finger, trapping water and destroying my flesh.  And even that is getting better every day.  The reasoning behind this, as I discovered today, is because of the fundamental nature of Wendy and I's relationship.  We met as two lonely people looking for companionship and we became friends instantly.  Soon that friendship matured and we became honest-to-goodness best friends.  That, I believe is the secret to our relationship.  No matter what, we always have been and always will be friends on the most basic of levels.  For some strange reason, knowing that I made a life long best friend and that I get to spend the rest of eternity with my best friend means everything to me.  I love her more than anything, and I am so happy to be her husband, her lover, and her friend.

And I think I'm going to end this here, because none of what I wrote made any damn sense.  It's late, I'm tired, and I shouldn't blog just because I was inspired to by others.  However, it was a good catch up post and I'll try to write something a bit more focused tomorrow.

Wedding Bells

We got married.  I am a married man.

Nothing feels different and I don't expect it to.  I'm really happy, she's really happy, and we're happy together.  The whole thing doesn't seem real, it looks odd to see my last name on her Facebook account, and having a ring on my finger feels strange, but that's it.  I expect the adjustment will happen slowly and without notice.  I'll probably goof up and call her my fiancee a couple of times, but that will go away in a week or so and I'll probably get used to the ring in a few days.  The name thing will be odd for a while just because changing a name is a process that takes time and has to be repeated everywhere.  It's probably a million times more odd for her.  I can't imagine what it must be like learning to sign a new last name.

I don't have a whole lot to say about the matter.  Now that it's done and over with it's time to get back to business as usual.  Kind of.

Hopefully I'll have a job soon and we can get a bigger apartment (and maybe a new car in a year or so), then maybe we can discuss things like dogs and kids.  We're both a little old for children, but I'd still like to try.

I've been committed to this woman for over a year now, so that hasn't changed.  If anything it's a safeguard to keep me from running from my problems, though I haven't done that in a while either.

I wish I knew if it changed anything for her, if any new expectations or feelings have appeared.  I expect things like that will take time to discover for both of us.  The important thing is that the core of our relationships remains the same, we were both completely honest and ourselves before and will continue to be.

I've never been happier in my entire life.  I have someone to love and who loves me, I have a partner in crime and best friend, and I have a whole lifetime ahead of me with her.  My only regret is that I didn't find her (or she find me) sooner.  :)

Television So Bad Its Criminal

I love crime shows on tv.  It all started with Quincy M.E. re-runs and Law & Order (the good, old school L&O when it was about the crimes and not the detectives personal lives), then I fell in love with CSI and NCIS.  Now it's Castle, a great show staring the always badass Nathan Fillion.  I love Castle, the crimes are imaginative (except the Strangers on a Train episode that every fucking crime show ever must rip off at least once), the characters are interesting, and it doesn't suffer from either staleness or campy-over-the-top-ness.  That being said, it makes the same fucking mistakes that every cop show ever makes.

Mistake #1: Phone Traces
Every fucking cop show/movie ever that has had a phone call traced has subscribed to the bullshit that traces take time and if the bad guy hangs up early then they won't be able to find him.  This is utter and complete bullshit that any moron with a brain can see is bullshit.  Don't believe me?  Try it at home.  Have your buddy call you, and before it rings twice I bet you have his name or number pop up on your caller ID.  Guess what, you just traced a phone call.  And even if it comes up blocked or anything else then all you do is call the phone company and say "I'm the police, who just called 555-5555?  And give me the address while you're at it."  Ta-da!  Phone number, name and address, and other information associated with the call are automatically and instantaneously recorded the second the call is placed.  It only takes as long to trace a call as it does to dial the call.
Cell phones are a bit trickier than land lines, as per their nature they move around and aren't tied to a physical address (and can be bought anonymously at places like Walmart).  Tv shows tend to get cell phones mostly right, thanks to obvious tools like GPS and cell-tower triangulation, which are real things that really work.
Calls that some expert hacker dude/spy has routed through payphones in Oslo are beyond my knowledge.  I imagine it's completely possible to do such things and to disguise your tracks while doing it, but that level of deception is beyond the abilities of most criminals in most cases.

Mistake #2: High Heeled Shoes
Every female police detective in a tv show or movie is rocking heels.  They're not usually 6 inch stilettos or anything, but they are still heels.  And they're bullshit.  Office workers wear heels, cops don't.  Heels are the most impractical of shoes we expect people to wear on a daily basis.  You can't run in them, you can't walk across uneven terrain with them, they destroy your feet, and they're not sturdy.  A real police detective who might need to be comfortable, chase a suspect, or walk on anything that's not concrete or asphalt would never wear heels, thus no police detective would wear them on the job (except for court appearances, maybe).

Mistake #3:  High Tech Bullshit
Enhancing security camera footage, fancy see through touch screen smart boards, instant lab results and more are all great examples of high tech bullshit.
You can't increase the resolution on any picture or video (once it's been made) and zoom in on the tiniest detail.  What you see it what you get.  There might be some enhancing in the form of noise filters and such, but you can't zoom in and get a clearer picture and any alteration you make to the picture/video will harm the quality, thus making it more difficult to find little details.
Touch screen smart boards exist.  We used one in college and it was awesome.  However, it wouldn't look all that cool on tv.  Also, you can't see through it and if the actors are facing a white board or a smart board then you can't show their faces and the board at the same time.  Thus the invention of the high tech bullshit we know as the transparent touch screen computer thingy.  Could you build one?  Yes.  Would it work?  Yes.  Would it be practical?  Fuck no, unless you're a camera crew trying to get a shot of actors and the info on the board at the same time (and make it look cool, as well).  Reading anything on a see-through medium (like overhead projector transparencies) is a pain in the ass unless you have a solid, contrasting color in the background.  Also, anything you could see from the other side would be backwards, thus making it useless as something you can look at from both sides.  So why make it transparent?  It makes no sense to anybody but a film/television director and audiences that don't think.
Scientific testing of anything takes time, especially in a law enforcement situation where there is a backlog of shit to do.  You do not get DNA results the same hour, same day, or even the same week (for the most part).  It just doesn't happen.  It doesn't matter how fast the actual test is, a human being still has to perform the test and process the results and the test you need might be the last thing on their to-do list for the day.

Those are only three of many mistakes that irk the shit out of me.  They are glaringly apparent and they should be to all of you as well.  I know they are all done for a reason (dramatic tension, costume design, and audience friendliness respectively) but that doesn't mean they have to be relied on.  Instead of a telephone trace you could have an uncooperative phone company or an anonymous cell phone (who has land lines anymore anyways?).  Detective Kate Beckett could wear fashionable flats or athletic shoes instead (plus who looks at shoes while watching those kind of shows [except me, obviously]?).  And instead of high tech bullshit...  Well, some high tech bullshit has to stay because audiences don't want to wait a week for a test result or have to stare at the back of actors heads while they look at case notes.  But that doesn't make it any less annoying, just more necessary.

However, the zooming in on a crappy security camera video to look at the license plate of a car three blocks away is complete bullshit and relying on it is bad writing.  Stop fucking doing it!

The Eye of the Storm

In my mind's eye I sit in a small, fragile, rotting wooden rowboat with only a single broken paddle.  On the horizon all around I can see a vicious hurricane raging, tearing the sea asunder.  I am in the eye of the storm, a place of calm amidst the chaos.  I know that it is only a matter of time before the tides and winds force me into the maelstrom, so I watch with my heart in my throat, my nerves dancing.

In less than 9 days I get married.  Less than a week ago my car's engine destroyed itself.  My family chose not to attend my wedding and tries to ignore the topic.  I am unemployed with no skills or education.  These are the major stresses of my life at current, each with a multitude of minor stresses and worries within that nibble at my sanity.  Together they form a veritable hurricane of stress, and right now I'm not in a position to do a damned thing about any of it.

I spent a large amount of time in high school and college subscribing to my own version of nihilism, and through that I developed a large degree of apathy.  While limiting, sometimes that apathy is useful.  I've learned that if I can't do anything about a problem at that very moment then I shouldn't waste any time with it.  I apply my apathy and stop caring.  It's an extremely useful talent.

It also has failed me.  I see the storm, and I see that for the next several days I can't do anything to lessen it.  But for the life of me I can't seem to call forth my apathy and ignore it.  Every time I close my eyes I see Wendy and I standing at our wedding altar looking over an empty hall.  I see my car dead on the side of the road, it's replacement engine burst into flames.  I see my family refusing to acknowledge my marriage or life choices.  I see my self living in a cardboard box.  I see the horrors that might be, and I can't shut them out.

I know it's all bullshit.  People will come to the wedding and have fun, my car will work just fine for now, my family will get over it, and I will find work somewhere.  My fears are baseless and irrational, but that doesn't make them any less intimidating.  Each on it's own is a minor thing, but together they are strong.

The storm will pass, with time.  And I will survive.  But that doesn't make the experience any less terrifying.

The First Steps

My thoughts are scrambled, incoherent, a jumble of mixed and matched ideas, words, visions, experiences, memories, hopes, fears, daydreams, nightmares, and utter shit.  If you can follow this stream of mental debris with any semblance of understanding then I congratulate you.

These are my first steps in a wild and new direction in life.  I'm 28, weeks from being married, unemployed, and for the first time in my life, hopeful and optimistic about the paths that lie ahead.  Previous wandering have been confined to the darkness of my own dreary existence, limited by fear and lack of imagination.  Today the sun has risen and shown me a world without paths worn in the soil by my own feet.  I looked out upon a wide landscape with fields of green grass, tall trees, majestic mountains, and clear skies.  The dark and rocky places of the past are still around, littered like the ruins of war, but they no longer dominate the world.  The going won't always be easy, and in fact I expect it to be the most difficult journey of my life.

I have with me a companion, a kindred soul who sees what I see (albeit from her own unique perspective) and shares my excitement and trepidation about the voyage ahead.  I love my travel companion, my friend, my wife.  With her help, this once desolate world is now populated no longer with ghosts and phantoms, but souls made whole by familiarity and friendship.  These kind faces dot the paths yet to be, way-stations on the road, words of encouragement and hope on their lips and helpful hands to guide us.

I hope to learn many things in my adventures, and get to know a few of my demons.  Conquering them is impossible, you cannot defeat yourself, but learning to use them and ignore their influence is possible.  I name them Fear, Jealousy, Selfishness, Ignorance, and Bob.

Sorry about that, I realized I was getting way to into the "journey" metaphor and had to break free somehow.  Anyways, I made this blog so that I had someplace to expand upon my thoughts that wouldn't force them down other people's throats.  When I post things on Facebook and Twitter people are forced to read them, it's right there in front of them.  I don't like to force anybody to deal with my rambling, emotional ass so I decided the blog was the way to go.  Now nobody has to read this drivel unless they wish to, and if they don't like it then they have nobody to blame but themselves and are welcome to not return in the future.

Besides, Facebook limits how much I can rant, and Twitter even more so (though it's amazing how expressive that 140 character limit allows you to be, it's almost preferable to Facebook's 400-something).

Why not just keep an offline journal or diary?  Because writing something that nobody is supposed to read seems very counterproductive.  I've never written a journal that I never wanted anybody to read.  Pouring emotions and ideas into words that you don't intend to share is a waste.  If you're going to do that, you might as well keep them in your head or never save them.  Every idea, every emotion, is an important part of you.  It's a reflection of the world through your experience, and that reflection should be shared.  Not enough people take the moment to shift their perspective to that of some one else, to see the world through the eyes of another.  Not bothering to view things from an alternate perspective is akin to poking your own eye out.  In that spirit, I intend to share my words.

A warning: sex and sexuality are big topics in my life, and I'd like to discuss them openly and freely.  Sometimes it will be intelligent discussions, other times it will be vulgar bragging.  For a person who is supposedly intelligent I can be very crass, though I will try not to be.

I think that about wraps it up for the moment.  I hope this lengthly wall of text hasn't bored you too much.  Thank you for reading.  :)