fine whine

"You can never go back" -- Nirgal

Back when I was a high school student, I had a backpack.

There were a number of things that made mine different from everyone else's, though. First, it was made by a company called Drifter that makes simple but very durable bags out of parachute canvas. This backpack is still in great shape and probably will last another decade, particularly since I haven't used it much since graduating from college. Having served me well for over nine years the bag has seen more than its share of different contents.

In high school I carried a small toolkit with me in the side pockets. I had a nut driver (basically a wrench for two common sizes of nuts and bolts), a flathead and phillips-head screwdriver and a utility knife. Oddly enough, even after I started carrying my multitool--which had a replacement for each one--I probably still kept those in the backpack pocket anyway. But I digress.

Attached to the strap closing that pocket were a number of rolls of tape. Sometimes I had a roll of duct tape, black electrical tape, and even for a while some gaffer's tape. Always I had there a roll of masking tape, though.

A lot of other students had customized their backpacks in various ways, sewing or gluing patches to them and drawing or painting them. Such was not an option for me, however, since I knew with some certainty that this bag would be lasting me well into the days when I would no longer need it. Though I'm sure I was a humourous and witty fellow back in high school, nothing I could have done to it would likely be very collegiate.

That said, I did not want to leave it plain. Hence the masking tape. With a permanent marker from another pocket I was able to write and draw slogans, sayings and doodles and temporarily attach them to the bag.

After a while, I'll admit, it got a little out of hand. What started as a rotation of two or three strips of tape turned into a bag covered with tape curling at the edges and tearing in the middle. I had things that were meant to be witty and others merely inflammatory. I had NUKE EARTH FIRST! on there twice, once with the emphasis on the planet and the other with the emphasis on the radical environmental group. This I followed with PAVE THE WHALES and things like IF CRYPTOGRAPHY IS OUTLAWED ONLY OUTLAWS WILL 10111010... and I USED TO BE SCHIZOPHRENIC BUT NOW I'M JUST LONELY.

No bumper sticker too dull nor statement too trite was safe from being stuck to my bag. Sometimes I relied on odd juxtapositions, as in the case of TRUST NO ONE / BUT / EAT YOUR BEANS which I never did quite understand but thought was amusing.

I sometimes used quotes, too, from Emerson (WHOSO WOULD BE A MAN WOULD BE A NONCONFORMIST) and characters more fictional, such as Nirgal, mentioned above, who is found in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars novels (Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars). The quote (YOU CAN NEVER GO BACK) that I used is somewhat cryptic, but I knew what it meant to me. Once something (or somebody) has changed, there is no return. I knew this in high school even, and only understood it more as the years went on.

On the other hand, some things never change. It has come to my attention that Tobe Hooper, maker of the "classic" Texas chainsaw massacre has released The toolbox murders. I will say nothing more about this film.

I would much rather discuss Zach Braff's excellent Garden state, a film which I thoroughly enjoyed watching yesterday. In it, Braff's character Large goes home to Jersey for his Mom's funeral and to pick up pieces left over nine years before. Or something like that.

There's a great scene early on that has Large sitting on a couch, surrounded by a buzz of activity from sped-up partygoers and other hubbub. He's sitting still and everybody else is zooming around him. I know exactly how that feels.

It becomes obvious from this and other scenes that Large is not the person who left town so many years ago. He encounters a lot of people who recognize him but he remains distant. The only person he becomes close with is Sam, played excellently by Natalie Portman. She shows more talent in this movie than most I've seen her do since Leon: the professional. Peter Saarsgard puts in a good turn as the only friend with whom Large is really able to reconnect, albeit still from a distance. I found myself thinking that he'd be a convincing son of John Malkovich, and I later discovered he'd played that very role in The man in the iron mask. Go figure.

As for homecomings, though, the movie's right on. Every time I leave somewhere coming back is more and more different. Last month when I went back to Evanston I'd found so much that had changed, from people to buildings and everything in between. Of course, I didn't write and direct a movie about it, let alone such a good-looking and intelligent one.

It gives me pause to realize how much Mr. Braff has done onscreen and off and to know that he's just about my age. I look at what I do, and then I watch something like Garden state, and I get all sad and envious. Why can't I write stuff like that? Other than the lack of drug use and friends who know Klingon and a Hollywood career and a psychologist father and a disabled mother and a secondhand motorcycle, I'm not all that much different from the character in the movie. I can only assume the same for Zach, at least metaphorically, or that he's really, realy good at writing believeable characters. So where's the great story about coming back to suburban Ohio? Not anywhere on this site, I'd wager.

My DVD player hasn't gotten much rest lately, but first this:

I'm finding it less difficult than I expected to not go watch the just-released trailer for the upcoming Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy film. It isn't that I don't want to see it, but rather that I'd like to be more surprised when I see the film in the theater. Much like the way I approached the recent Star Wars prequels (and I continue to do so with the next one), seeing promotional stuff only when forced to do so.

After all, when Darth Vader's dark helmet looms in front of you, thirty feet tall, and his voice booms out of speakers surrounding you, there's little you can do to ignore it.

Speaking of things to ignore, it has come to my attention that there are remakes in the works for both The Poseidon Adventure and Logan's Run. Tonight I threw in Soylent Green to watch while I wash the dishes and I'm distracted trying to think of the ways it would be remade (and it likely will be in the next couple years, mark my words). I'm drawing a blank, but that probably won't stop somebody else from trying it.

A week ago I watched the original Texas chainsaw massacre, by Tobe Hooper from 1974. It was horrid. The more horror movies I watch the less I understand their appeal. It is said that this is a classic of the genre, for being all the more creepy for having the majority of the violence appear off screen. As such, the film is disturbing and creepy without being altogether frightening, or so they say.

Well, I say they're full of crap. This movie is crap. It has a little bit going for it in the way that it fleshes out the characters (at least the ones who aren't the killers) but all of that goes out the window as soon as the first victim opens the screen door of the ersatz slaughterhouse. Perhaps it happens even before, once the strange hitchhiker starts to go crazy in the van. Throw in some violence onscreen and off, mix with a trippy art-movie/bad-drug-trip montage and bam! instant horror classic. One can only wonder with which sensibilities they remade it a couple years ago. Hell, the original had spawned more than a couple of sequels, one starring Renee Zellweger before she could land better roles, but then again so did Critters (sans Renee, that is). I found myself needing to toss in Monsters, inc. to get the metaphoric bad taste out of my mouth, as it were.

Incidently, there are rumors on imdb (and probably elsewhere) about a prequel being made for release in 2006. Mark your calendars now, I guess.

Another horrible movie I watched recently was The Master of Disguise. If this is what is supposed to entertain our children then the future is bleak indeed. Dana Carvey has apparently learned the wrong lessons from fellow SNL alum Adam Sandler about making centered around dim-witted characters with stupid accents. Brent Spiner's character looks embarrassed every time he farts (and he does it many times) and it's patently obvious that he isn't exactly acting. The revolving door of elebrity cameos is unremarkable other than it includes Jesse Ventura, showing that it is possible, after all, for him to appear in a movie and live to tell the tale. Skip this movie.

Within days of surviving The Master of disguise I found myself steeled for another SNL graduate's film, Elf starring Will Ferrell. Director Jon Favreau's had his own share of hits and misses, but I was pleasantly surprised with how this ended up turning out (and I'm sure he was too). Though it was eminently predictable and syrupy-sweetly sentimental, it wasn't offensive and I found myself really liking the characters. I didn't have any children around to test their reactions, but I'd think this movie would be far better for them than that evil Master of disguise. Oddly enough The Polar express this last Christmas season tackled much of the smae ideas, about belief and whatnot, but I don't recall churches (and PR firms) trying to pack Elf's theaters full of people. Probably because they were already there, actually wanting to see that movie for what it is, not for some tenuously allegorical connection tacked on later after a bad box office turnout.

Speaking of being bad at the box office, I get the impression that audiences didn't quite know what to do with Sam Raimi's commissioned remake of The Grudge whereby he had hired the original crew, director and all, and merely swapped out some of the actors with Folger's crystals. No wait, he slipped in Bill Paxton and Sarah Michelle Gellar, who surprisingly does quite well. This is what a horror film should be, a rising sense of dread coupled with ordinary objects taking on an air of supernatural malice. Overall it shows just about the same amount of the 'villain' as did Tobe Hooper's movie, but so much more was made of so little. The back cover of the DVD found the need to mention The Ring (which I took to mean the remake) and while stylistically there are some similarities there are no more between these two movies and The Grudge and any other movie with a house and some people in it. Check it out, sometime. I think it might still be running in the dollar theaters, trying to get somebody to realize that it's far better than any other horror movie churned out lately.

Somewhere along the line I watched Kurt Russell and Halle Barry take down a plane full of terrorists in Executive decision, but overall it seemed just a bit too stylized and seemed to be trying too hard to be smart to be taken seriously or look stylish. This was a movie made with a formula and an assembly-line mentality, unlike The Grudge which broke with many conventions and had an efficient film crew that nevertheless turned out a very individualistic film. I link the two only because this paragraph is about one and the previous about the other. They don't deserve to be in the same sentence otherwise, and not just because Steven Seagal's in Executive decision. That's just another strike against a movie that isn't worthy of being at the plate in the first place.

First, allow me to apologize for addressing you, the readers, directly. I've tried in the past to keep this impersonal and detached, but I feel like being apologetic today. Bear with me, please, or come back tomorrow when I write about some movies.

I've given up on trying to get myself entirely caught up to the present day, site-wise. Stored in a safe location I have unfinished posts from many days of the previous two months, but I don't even have blank drafts after last Tuesday and I don't want to fabricate any. Chalk it up to the winter blues or whatever but I'm just not going to mess with it.

That said, once I get my computer situation settled (my hard drive died two Mondays ago, losing a lot of things) and my Palm re-synchronized, I do still intend to publish, on their appropriate days, my B-Fest comments and whatnot. I'll point that out when it happens.

Lately I've watched some decent DVDs, and I'll eventually give them a nod as well. Overall, though, I just don't have enough to talk about to fill up another seven days that I can't just say in the coming days and weeks. I had some vaguely timely thoughts last week, but other than wanting to talk about morons paying hundreds of dollars for goldfish surgery, I've long forgotten any of it.

Rather than fabricate that last week, though, I'm going to be up front about skipping it entirely.

Why, why is this, you may ask? Why am I not diligently updating my site, my memory dump for posterity (and because I forget things)? I was so good about it last year, posting something, whether it be a silly one-liner or a silly (three-liner) haiku, or an actual bit of insight (some of which were vaguely worth reading).

Well, I was good about it until last November. I think I got bummed out about failing to write my novel, and haven't gotten back into the swing of typing inside little boxes since. I'm slowly publishing the dregs and the drafts of January so it will eventually , but last week will remain blank.

So thank you, dear readers, for sticking with me. It can only get better from here.

I hate to admit it, but I'm giving serious consideration to dismantling part of my desk. There's a file cabinet near the middle of where my cube joins my neighbor's, and that's where we have chosen to stick an extra chair.

Said chair obstructs my filing cabinet, however, and now that I'm trying to be all organized and stuff it's getting frustrating to shove the chair around every couple minutes.

So like I said, I'm contemplating taking the sucker apart and moving it around. I've got a set of rolling drawers that are nearly useless--actually, I'm just not using them well and they came pre-filled with some odd junk, including three staple removers, some batteries, and a bottle of Elmer's glue. I'm giving serious thought to just swapping these all around.

Anything, of course, to think about being productive rather than doing so, I suppose.

Another year passes and I fall prey to the ritual I've yet to miss for at least a decade: watching the Superbowl. I didn't even know which teams were playing until two weeks ago, but was able to pick up enough snippets and tidbits (from a conversation in which I was but a silent observer) then to survive simple exchanges now about the game. I wanted to root for Philadelphia primarily because they're the underdogs, and because I don't know offhand of anybody who's a die hard fan of either team to goad or prop up.

Jessica and I ended up watching it by ourselves. 'Twas a big change from past years of big, gala parties thrown by friends, but this year neither of us got around to finding a party to attend nor planned one of our own. Which really isn't that big of a deal anyway, as it wasn't that great of a game to watch, with lackluster commercials and an adequate but not spectacular halftime show. Then again the really good parties have little at all to do with watching the game and mostly with just hanging out. After all, I didn't find out until long after it'd happened about the whole wardrobe malfunction thing, despite being in a house with three TVs showing the game.

Our single TV was tuned into the game over the airwaves, and Fox made sure to tell us every twelve minutes that they were simulcasting it in HDTV, as though we would otherwise let our expensive HDTV tuner and massively wide-screen TV go to waste showing the low-definition, poor people version. Oh wait, we don't have HDTV or a big screen, poor us.

Except that the game wasn't worth it. It was obvious enough even with fuzzy reception that McNabb and company just weren't playing together well, and that the Patriots were all a bit overconfident and lazy. Nobody even got around to trying to score in the first quarter, after all, which lasted several hours and allowed Fox to reveal the real stars: the commercials.

Ford had one for their upcoming Mustang convertible that was vaguely amusing once, but they made sure to play it at least six times. This is, mind you, for a car that you can't even buy for a number of months. Boy, am I hyped or what!

The Pepsi folks got lazy too, re-showing the same P. Diddy in a Diet Pepsi truck one three times, twice in a shorter, worse version.

Jessica laughed at the careerbuilder monkeys (of the YEKNOM office). Overall it seemed that they were just phoning in the commercials. When Fox pointed out that they lost $24 million bucks to plug their show 24 I was dumbstruck that the price had fallen so, and yet was so high. Most companies got more attention by releasing their rejected or 'banned' ads on the web in the weeks leading to today, and they paid a lot less for the eyeballs.

And what was with the countertop/bathtub people? I would have given them some slack if they'd joined Nationwide and the snack food company in using M.C. Hammer, but instead they gave us a bathing Dennis Rodman. Next, please?

Fedex went all out with a self-referential piece on the ten components of a successful Superbowl ad, and for the most part they nailed it. Burt Reynolds probably made more money in those twenty odd seconds than he did with Cannonball Run 2. Oddly enough nobody else really followed their formula too closely, except for the odd Budweiser commercial and its ilk.

All in all, disappointing. Every Mustang repeat was another cringe as much as every time Donny McNabb lobbed a pass into the defense's hands. Also tedious was the glass-breaking sound effects used every twelve seconds by Fox to indicate that a number or letter had changed at the top of the screen. Some twelve-year-old must've thought that was really, really cool.

And why the hell don't they put the down and the yards to go on the stupid status bar? This year they occasionally superimposed it with an arrow (in case it wasn't obvious which way the offense meant to go) on the field, but this wasn't enough and at the same time too much. Just put it up top, dammit.

At last, the game ended and was followed by another eternity of the post-game show which was obvious analysis, stealth advertising, and back-patting. I sat through it only because I wanted to see the pilot of American Dad, and frankly, I shouldn't have wasted the time.

The Simpsons episode before it was underwhelming. I think it may be due in part to my habit of watching shows without commercials, but a general response of apathy grew in me more and more as the show dragged on. It wasn't funny and Groenig and company are capable of far, far better.

Seth McFarlane, on the other hand, is running low on ideas. Though to my knowledge there has never been a sitcom about a family boarding an alien and a talking goldfish, headed up by a government agent, but the whole thing seemed blatantly derivative. American Dad is no, and cannot be, Family Guy, but I think it loses a lot in the efforts made to distance the two shows. Most of which is lost seems to be the offbeat humor and biting satire.

That said, it's entirely possible that such is deliberate, that this is the new That's my Bush! and the whole cliche feel to the show is a witty jab at the very conventions it seems to dumbly flaunt. If so, well, let me know in advance next time, okay?

Next year, I think I'll just download or stream all the interesting bits at my leisure afterwards, and reclaim the evening for something more useful than sitting around watching stuff I don't really want to see. Alas, another year.

In what was a disappointing development, we drove down today to the mini golf course only to discover that the person on the phone who told me that they were, in fact, open for golf, was, in fact, completely full of crap. Worse yet it wasn't just Jessica and I that had driven down there but also Scott and half of the twins in tow, whose house we'd stopped by long enough to get a good whiff of the nearby Chinese buffet.

This, of course, meant that we needed to find some Chinese food for dinner, buffet-style. It must be difficult for the people who live near a Chinese buffet not to always be wanting some good General Tso's or orange or peanut chicken or sauteed green beans or pepper steak or... (I could go on for a while here, as some of these places have rather quite large selections) unless they develop some sort of tolerance.

Either way we do not live near such a restaurant so we end up only wanting to eat at one every other week or so. So tonight we treated ourselves at the Super Seafood Buffet, and the food was in fact quite good.

The complimentary fortune cookies (by Kari-out of White Plains, NY), on the other hand, were merely adequate of taste and somewhat puzzling inside. Here's what Jessica found in hers:

For some reason I have always gotten a kick out of sentences (or clauses and phrases) made out of words that can serve as nouns or verbs. In this case (with an extra 't' fudged in) every word can be a noun. It's one of those "Oh. Neat, I guess. Meh." sort of things, but darn it, I notice them. My fortune, on the other hand, was more clearly cut when it came to the parts of speech.

I realize that Valentine's day is a week from Monday, but that doesn't mean that I need a cookie reminding me of it. Moreover, who exactly is that special someone? I think I speak for both myself and my wife when I ask that.

Seriously, though, the two of us do need to go out on another date sometime soon. We've been sitting on another pair of free passes to AMC since before Christmas, but nothing at the multiplex looks tempting enough to waste free passes rather than waiting for the library to pick up the DVDs eventually.

Well, The Aviator sounds to be pretty good, but I'm not interested in fighting for a two-and-a-half hour movie (Jessica's more a fan of the eighty or ninety minute variety) without knowing if the Martin Scorsese who made Goodfellas made it or if it is the work of the man who unnecessarily remade Cape fear.