CHANGE JAR STATS
++ As of February 7, 2005,
the change jar was 41.3% full.
++ I last emptied the change jar
on August 11, 2004.
++ The change jar is projected
to be full on October 21, 2005.
[See change jar photo here]
Perhaps feeling guilty over slapping me with a $1470.39 body shop bill and for depriving me of Hot Pockets, the Universe showered me with good favor last weekend. In National Lacrosse League action Friday night, the Colorado Mammoth savaged the San Jose Stealth 18-6, and it wasn't that close -- the Mammoth mostly stopped shooting with seven minutes to play. The Mammoth improved to 12-3 and clinched first place in the Western Conference, giving them a first-round playoff bye and home floor advantage in the second round.
Perhaps you care nothing about professional indoor lacrosse. How very unfortunate for you!
In the fourth quarter, Mammoth captain Gary Gait scored on a rocket from the slot to record his 1,000th NLL point. The game stopped for several minutes as 18,274 fans chanted the name of the all-time leading NLL scorer, and as players from both teams feted (not fellated, Skippy -- that's something different) the greatest lacrosse player ever. But the most spectacular play of the game came when Jay Jalbert charged the Stealth net on a breakaway, leaped from the top of the crease and slammed the ball home over the left shoulder of the San Jose goaltender. Without breaking stride, Jalbert ran to the end boards and jumped up on the ledge, where he stood for several seconds and pounded the glass to acknowledge the fans.
Verily I say unto you: if you like sports and you live in Anaheim, Buffalo, Calgary, Denver, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Rochester, San Jose, Toronto or Vancouver; and you haven't been to an NLL game, you must go. I'm still hoarse from yelling.
The good times kept rolling on Saturday, when I learned that the lovely and amazing Trillian had exercised her rights under Article IV of the Chaotic Not Random Bill of Rights and sent me a package filled with wonderful gifts, including:
a 2004 Chicago Cubs Fan Guide
A CD containing 12 episodes of the BBC radio production of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (the Vogons have British accents. Who knew?)
Two Clif Bars (Chocolate Brownie and Peanut Toffee Buzz flavors)
Two PowerBars (Chocolate and Raspberry & Cream flavors)
Thank you, Trillian! May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. Um... never mind about that. I meant to say that the Double Play Baseball game is delightfully cheesy, beeping and vibrating and playing tinny music when you hit a home run. It was manufactured by an American company -- Excalibur Electronics in Miami -- but appears to have been programmed by Eastern Europeans who got all their knowledge of baseball from a dog-eared copy of Sports Illustrated left behind by a Peace Corps volunteer. When a batter gets hit by a pitch, the game proclaims it a "DEADBALL." It refers to runs as "points." The little umpire has a puzzling "D" on his shirt. The pitchers throw from 111 up to 158 miles per hour (looks like someone forgot to covert from kilometers per hour). The game has a 39-point mercy rule, and does not allow for extra innings in the event of a tie -- did Bud Selig assist with the design?
Here's the best part: Double Play Baseball comes with two handheld units that you can connect with an included USB cable. Now I can play Double Play Baseball with a friend! This gives me an idea for my plane trip to North Carolina this weekend:
KILGORE: Hello.
GUY SITTING NEXT TO KILGORE: Hello.
K: Would you like to play baseball?
G: What?
K: Baseball. Double Play Baseball? [Holds up both units]
G: No, I don't think so. Thanks anyway.
K: Okay.
[Five minutes pass.]
K: How about now?
G: Huh?
K: Do you want to play baseball now?
G: Um, no. I'm reading a book.
K: Okay. [Starts playing Double Play Baseball by himself. Game makes loud beeping sounds and plays tinny music.]
[Five minutes pass.]
K: Are you done with your book yet?
G: What?
K: Are you done with your book yet? 'Cause we could play baseball.
G: No, I just started it. And could you turn the sound off? It's distracting.
K: Okay. Sorry. [Turns sound off. Starts making loud beeping sounds and baseball noises with his mouth.]
[Five minutes pass.]
K: How about now?
G: What about now?
K: Are you done with your book yet? 'Cause we could play baseball.
G: No, and please stop making those noises. I'm trying to read.
K: I'll let you be any team you want except the Rockies.
G: No. Thank you anyway.
K: Okay, you can be the Rockies.
G: I don't want to play, no matter what team I get to be. I just want to read my book.
K: Okay.
[Five minutes pass.]
K: I have to pee.
G: So go to the bathroom, for chrissake!
K: Can you come with me? We could play baseball. I'll be in the bathroom, and you can stand on the outside, so I could be sure you weren't cheating. You could be the Rockies, and I would be the Broncos. I bet I would win. [Yelling] BRONCOS! [Wipes runny nose on sleeve.]
G: I don't want to play, goddammit! And I wouldn't cheat anyway! Jesus!
K: Tell me about the rabbits.
G: What? K: Wapner. Definitely time for Wapner.
G: I'm moving to a different seat. [Gets up and walks away.]
K: [Yelling] Hey, mister! You forgot your pretzels!
G: [Doesn't look back.]
K: [Takes pretzels.] Sweet.
I like online dating. Perhaps you think that online dating is for nerds, losers, freaks, momma's boys, and all other species found in the genus Romantic Failures. You're partly right -- people who use online dating have found that traditional methods of meeting people have not worked for them. Examples of people who use online dating include:
People who communicate better in writing than they do in person.
People who are dragging around a huge dealbreaker that makes real-world dating impractical (such as: lack of desire to father children).
People who lack the aggressive, type-A personality necessary to march into a crowded club and shout at attractive members of the opposite sex over the trance beats of DJ Snickers.
People who were not lucky enough to meet someone in school. (My sister and all of my married friends met their spouses in high school or college.)
People who have decent personalities, but find it difficult to strike up conversations with strangers.
People who are so money, and don't even know it.
People who have somehow failed to randomly encounter the love of their life in noisy, smoky establishments that depend on the sale of alcoholic beverages for the bulk of their revenue.
Unfortunately, other kinds of people use online dating as well:
People who want to present photographic evidence that they own a white cat.
People who wish to dispel any doubts that they have located the exclamation point on the keyboard:
I never hesitate when i see something i want !!! (probably because it's so rare that someone catches my attention) Oh yeah, i am just a cool chick, all your friends will adore me, i am "one of the boys", but not!! Love Hockey, and Football. Love Dave & Busters! I am looking for someone to evolve with, someone whom i find fascinating! Nothing sexier than a man that radiates confidence, success! a man needs to wear the pants, in order to get respect! i work out seven days a week! [From an actual profile]
People who, by some miracle, have not yet been beaten to death with a tire iron:
There is a high probability that you will find me very appealing on the physical, mental and emotional level. Physically, I am very good looking and athletic i.e., tall/dark/handsome. Mentally, I am razor sharp and matured. Emotionally, I am secure, confident and extremely capable of love, lust and passion. I exhibit a combination of style and substance and have an outgoingly pleasant personality. I have a cosmopolitan background and am cultured, refined, well read/traveled and classy. I am extremely passionate and give everything my heart and soul; be it family, friends, work, romance, sex or anything else. I am a man's man and a sensitive soul, both at the same time. [Also from an actual profile. Thanks to Trillian for finding this guy.]
So people who use online dating don't differ much from regular folks: mostly normal people with a few jerks thrown in to season the stew. Probably you fit in with at least one of the groups I described above, or did at some time in your life.
Online dating has ridiculous advantages over real-world dating. You can look through a pool of hundreds of possible mates instead of whoever happened to stop by the bar at the same time you did. You can approach a woman without having to buy her a $6 Tanqueray and tonic. You can screen for a score of attributes, including income, religion, and childbearing preference, and avoid embarrassing conversations later. You can exchange a couple of emails so that by the time you talk on the phone or meet in person, you've already broken the ice. Some dating sites have installed personality testing so that members can assess their compatibility before meeting -- it sounds like pseudoscience, but in fact I've found the results to be eerily accurate.
If you're a guy doing online dating, you need to read Trillian's helpful and hilarious three-part series "Women, The Internet and You: Tips for Men Who Use Online Dating Sites." (See 3/19, 3/25, and 3/26.)
Women who post pictures of their pets on their online dating profiles. I'm not talking about pictures of the women with their pets -- I'm talking about pictures of the pets all by themselves. Why would I need this information? No man has ever said, "Wow, she sure has a cute kitty. I need to email her right away," or "Jesus, that's one ugly dog. Guess I'll move on to the next profile."
Right now you are saying, "Gosh, Kilgore, I knew you didn't like children, but am I to understand that you don't like animals either?"
Actually, I like animals just fine. It's their owners I can't stand. When I see these photos, I have nightmare visions of myself on a Date Gone Wrong, nodding dumbly over unagi and California rolls while CatFncy1972 tells endless stories about every cute thing Felix has done since 1995. I see myself sitting stiffly on a couch while Buster bounces on my lap, trying to lick my face as Dogg_Lovr squeals, "I think he likes you!"
No thanks. I'm looking to date you, ma'am, not your pets.
The final 30 seconds of basketball games occupying 20 minutes of real time. You've seen this before, right? Team A has the ball and leads Team B by three. Team A inbounds the ball and Team B fouls immediately. Now we get to watch somebody take uncontested shots while nine of the world's best athletes stand around and admire each other's tattoos. Team A makes both free throws and now leads by five. Team B calls a timeout, and the TV station goes to commercial. Hey, are you excited yet? We come back from commercial, Team B drives frantically downcourt and chucks up a three-pointer. We'll be charitable and say it goes in. Team B calls another timeout. (Of course they have another timeout. Basketball teams never run out of timeouts.) The TV station goes to commercial. Back from commercial, Team A inbounds, immediate foul, more standing around, Team A up by four, timeout, commerical, boring, boring, BORING. And there's still 19.8 seconds on the clock!
This strategy rarely works, and it introduces tedium at a stage when the game should be most exciting. Compare the end of a basketball game to the end of a baseball game, where the tension grows in the late innings. Or to the end of a hockey game, when the losing team pulls their goalie and six attackers crash the net in the frantic final seconds. Or to the end of a football game, with one team driving to get within field goal range as the head coach struggles to manage the clock.
I don't think anything can be done about this. Likely it's a problem organic to the sport, like intentional walks in baseball or the Detroit Red Wings franchise in hockey. But Chaotic Not Random isn't about solving problems anyway.
While we're discussing basketball, can we stop calling the fourth round of the NCAA Tournament the "Elite Eight"? It's obvious what happened here: somebody coined the snappy "Final Four" to describe the semifinal round, and it stuck. Then somebody coined "Sweet Sixteen" to describe the third round, and it stuck because... well, I'm not sure why it stuck, because it's dopey and little-girlish, but at least "Sweet Sixteen" mirrors the alliteration of "Final Four." This left an an uncomfortable void between "Sweet Sixteen" and "Final Four," so somebody came up with the artificial "Elite Eight." Not only does the phrase have awkward rhythm (because the stress in elite falls on the second syllable), but the "e" sound differs in elite and eight, so the phrase lacks the alliteration that make "Final Four" and "Sweet Sixteen" roll off the tongue.
Call it the quarterfinals if you like, or the fourth round, or the round-of-8, or create a new term that establishes assonance between some superlative and "Eight." But let's get rid of "Elite Eight."
Grocery carts left in the middle of the parking lot. How lazy are you people, anyway?
People who don't catch movie references. My department had a potluck today, and when Blondie posted the sign-up sheet a week ago, I wrote in:
Kilgore: fava beans and a nice Chianti
Nobody got it. Oh, all the ladies in my department thought Kilgore had made a major funny, because I had proposed bringing alcohol to an office potluck! Such edgy juxtaposition of concepts! I got lots of comments over the next week along the lines of, "Well, you can leave the fava beans at home, Kilgore, but make sure you bring that Chianti!" Nudge. Wink. I smiled and chuckled while gritting my teeth and swearing to never again cast my pearls before swine.
Finally the Controller, a deeply religious man who has never had a drink in his life, peeked into my cubicle and said, "Hey, Hannibal." Apparently he's not so pious that he avoids serial-killer movies incorporating cannibalism and mutilation.
The tagline for ESPN's series of "Nimrods" commercials. I really like these commercials about Watersmeet Township School in Michigan, which nicknamed their sports teams the Nimrods in 1904 and has retained that name until today. The commericals are silly and touching and completely true -- that elderly man in the tool shed is Dale Jenkins (Watersmeet Class of 1940), and he's singing the actual Nimrod fight song.
But the ad's tagline reads, "Without sports, who would cheer for the Nimrods?" Well, ESPN, "Nimrods" is the name of a sports team, so without sports the Nimrods wouldn't exist anyway. Thanks for playing!
ARTICLE I. You have the right to four original posts a week, on a variety of topics ranging from my desire to sleep with Meredith Baxter-Birney to my desire to sleep with Laura Linney. When I cut and paste from a news article or from another blog, you have the right to original commentary exceeding the length of the pasted text. You have the right never to endure posts that read, in their entirety, like this:
You guys gotta check out this shit! That's just wrong!
ARTICLE II. You have the right to read posts unspoiled by flawed spelling, punctuation, or grammar. If you catch a mechanical error in CNR, you have the right to send me nasty emails, ridicule me without mercy in the comments, and tease me until I run from the room crying.
ARTICLE III. You have the right to read a review of every movie I watch. You have the right to expect that I will write these reviews unencumbered by experience in or education about the art of filmmaking.
ARTICLE IIIa. I realize that nobody really wants to read reviews of every movie I watch, but give me a break -- those are easy posts to write when I need to pound one out from work. As compensation, when I post movie reviews, you have the right to a supplementary post on a half-developed topic too weak to stand on its own (such as, say, a CNR Reader Bill of Rights).
ARTICLE IV. You have the right to leave glowing praise in the comments, post a link to CNR on your blog, invite me to speak at your high school, email me naked pictures of your sister, or do anything else necessary to meet my desperate need for approval and fill the black, aching void at the center of my soul.
ARTICLE V. You have the right to see an Involuntary Celibacy Watch counter when my current sexual drought reaches 100 days. When a drought ends, you have the right to know the date and time when I achieved penetration. I reserve the right to estimate times of penetration, as I am badly nearsighted.
ARTICLE VI. You have a right to freedom from tired blogging clichés, including but not limited to: Quizilla quizzes, 100 Things About Me, The Friday Five, Right Now My Mood Is _______ icons, and Unconscious Mutterings.
ARTICLE VII. All rights not delegated to the readers are reserved to Kilgore Trout.
Jackie Brown (1997)
Starring Pam Grier, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Forster, Bridget Fonda, and Robert De Niro.
Directed by Quentin Tarantino.
Kilgore rates it: 5 (out of 10)
I loved Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. I hated Kill Bill. But, being an optimistic and magnanimous guy, I figured Kill Bill : Quentin Tarantino :: Dogma : Kevin Smith, and put Jackie Brown on my Netflix list. Come on, Quentin, I thought as I slid the DVD into the player. Time to push your record to 3-1.
Quentin now stands at 2-2 on my scorecard (well, maybe 2-1-1, since I'm being magnanimous). Jackie Brown is an entirely unremarkable con job flick. I can't say much to applaud or condemn this movie, except it drags on at least an hour too long. Skip this one unless you have 151 minutes to spend watching characters you don't care about plod their way through a tepid plot (adapted from a novel by bad author Elmore Leonard) with few surprises and an unsatisfying resolution.
CHAOTIC NOT RANDOM MOVIE QUIZ! How annoying is Samuel L. Jackson, anyway?
Wings of Desire (1987)
Starring Bruno Ganz, Otto Sander, and Solveig Dommartin.
Directed by Wim Wenders.
Kilgore rates it: ? (out of 10)
Wings of Desire tells the story of an angel who leaves his life of ministering to people in pain to become human and pursue the love of a beautiful trapeze artist. If you think that sounds like the shitty 1998 movie City of Angels, starring Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan, then you get a gold star -- City of Angels is an American remake of Wings of Desire, a German film. But the two movies have little in common. City of Angels is a Big-Budget Romance, and Wings of Desire is a Very Serious Euro-Arty Film. The action consists mostly of the angels eavesdropping on people's thoughts, which sound like poetry. Do your thoughts sound like poetry? Neither do mine. Fully 70% of my thoughts are either "I'm hungry," or "Boy, I'd like to fuck her."
Anyway, I didn't get it. Wings of Desire includes little straightforward dialogue, so I spent more than two hours reading subtitled poetry and listening to the whooshing sound of Very Serious Art flying over my head. This movie was recommended to me by DrReverend, who probably reads Ulysses on the toilet and listens to Rachmaninoff on his way to work.
The Wicker Man (1973)
Starring Edward Woodward and Christopher Lee.
Directed by Robin Hardy.
Kilgore rates it: 6 (out of 10)
A decent mystery with a nifty twist at the end that I didn't see coming. Big ups for ridiculing Christianity... hell, I don't know what else to say about this movie, except it was pretty terrifying when they burned the wicker man.
Mystic River (2003)
Starring Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburne, and Marcia Gay Harden.
Directed by Clint Eastwood.
Kilgore rates it: 6 (out of 10)
WARNING! SPOILERS! WARNING! SPOILERS!
WARNING! SPOILERS! WARNING! SPOILERS!
WARNING! SPOILERS! WARNING! SPOILERS!
Was I supposed to believe that Dave (Tim Robbins) killed Katie? What would have been his motive? I didn't buy that his kidnapping and molestation as a young boy would have caused him to start offing young women 35 years later. And how convenient to the plot was it that Dave happened to kill a pedophile on the same night that Katie got murdered? How did he know that guy was a pedophile, anyway? I don't think pedophiles are dumb enough to have sex with kids in their cars on public streets. The only reason to have Dave kill the pedophile was to set him up as Katie's murderer so the filmmakers could pull the switcheroo later. But the switcheroo doesn't work if I don't believe the initial suspect actually did it.
So they pull the switcheroo. Am I now supposed to believe that the mute kid and his friend shot Katie and then beat her to death with a hockey stick? What was their motive? Because the mute kid thought Katie wasn't good enough for his brother? You have got to be kidding me. Katie was hot. If my brother had been bringing home a hot chick like that, I would have been thrilled for him. Mystic River should have won an Oscar for Least Believable Switcheroo. (For good switcheroos, see Wild Things or The Sixth Sense.)
Was I supposed to believe that Sean (Kevin Bacon) let Jimmy (Sean Penn) get away with killing the wrong guy? Sean struck me as a by-the-book cop, and I didn't believe he would let that go. And what was that crap at the end, with Sean making playful gestures at Jimmy during the parade, as if the MURDER OF AN INNOCENT MAN was some kind of private joke?
Bad script, then. And the slow, ponderous direction that worked well for Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven proved less effective here. The acting was fantastic, though, with exceptional performances by Penn, Bacon, and Fishburne. Too bad great acting can't make a great film all by itself.
If you believe in God, please don't give me a sad look when you find out I'm an atheist. Don't shake your head sadly, as if I were a lost little boy at JCPenney. Don't say, "I know you believe in something," or, even worse, "But God believes in you, Kilgore." Don't give me a book to read, unless you are prepared to read and respond to my 25-page rebuttal. Don't tell me about the time you dropped an iron on your foot, and at that very moment the phone rang, and it was your sister telling you her dog just got hit by a car.
Don't witness to me about the joy and peace that comes with accepting Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. I was a fundamentalist Christian for a few years in my early twenties, and I'll tell you all about the guilt and shame that came as bitter side dishes with my Christianity entree. I spent those years hating myself for not praying hard enough, or for not proselytizing enough, or for daring to have a sexual thought. And don't tell me that it's different at your church. I attended services at the Church of Christ, a sect so strict that we only sang a capella because the Bible does not specifically authorize the use of mechanical instruments. (Think that's weird? Some Churches of Christ teach that to use lots of little cups during the Lord's Supper, as opposed to one cup, is apostasy and will land you in Hell.) I attended services at the liberal Congregational United Church of Christ, whose members believe that potluck starts at 11:33 a.m. on the last Sunday of each month. I attended services at an unnamed church with a rock band where people lifted holy hands to God, and a young preacher with a sharp suit harangued his flock from behind a clear plastic podium, and people spoke in tongues while others writhed on the ground after being slain in the Holy Spirit. I've probably been to your church, too -- did you ever notice a skinny, nervous guy who couldn't take his eyes off your daughter?
If you can justify your faith with intellectual and philosophical arguments, then I welcome your company. If you can bring something a little stronger than the standard cosmological, moral, teleological, and ontological arguments, I might even buy you lunch. And please don't bother with Pascal's Wager. You can figure that one out for yourself.
"Intellectual and philosophical arguments," by the way, does not mean vomiting a mess of half-digested Bible verses all over my clean carpet. You should avoid this tactic unless you really know your stuff. I've read the entire Bible, and I probably know it better than you do. I'm not shy about pointing out the parts where God orders genocide, endorses misogyny, condones slavery, and dirties his hands with violence of every barbaric kind. Push me too hard, and I'll ask you to reconcile the four contradictory versions of the Easter story, or ask you to play with snakes and drink poison, as recommended in Mark 16:9-20.
Don't ask me to prove that God doesn't exist, because I can't use the logical laws of this universe to prove the nonexistence of the being that supposedly created this universe. (Many atheists disagree.) I take the skeptical view -- called "weak atheism" -- that the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, immortal, perfectly good and benevolent being is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence. I have never seen any such evidence (nor have I read any proof of God's existence that achieved anything beyond illustrating the author's faith), so I do not believe in God. I take the same position on the existence of dragons, unicorns, and Britney Spears' musical talent.
I wonder: if God so loves the world and wants us to believe in him, why doesn't he make his existence obvious? I suppose you will answer that God wants us to have faith in him. But if God created me, and endowed me with five senses with which to gather information about the world, and gave me the faculty of reason to interpret that information, why wouldn't he reveal himself to me through these gifts? God wouldn't expect me to use faith to pick a mutual fund or navigate a busy street, so why, on the question of his own existence, would he shrug and say, "Sorry, kid. You'll have to rely on superstitious mumbo-jumbo to answer this one."
Answer me that. And get your "Footprints in the Sand" poster out of my cubicle.
Apparently there's some kind of college basketball tournament going on these days. I haven't been watching, because I don't care about college sports.
Right now you are gasping. "How can you not like college athletics?" you are saying. "You'd rather watch spoiled, steroid-addled millionaires playing at half-speed than amateur athletes playing only for the joy of competition and their passion for the game?"
If you're 98 years old, recalling your days rowing for Rutgers against Dartmouth, or if you follow Division III women's field hockey, then you got me. Yes, the overwhelming majority of college athletes are true amateurs whose athletic careers will end when they graduate. But we enter a different world when we talk about big-time Division I basketball and football. The NCAA -- spinning what King Kaufman calls "The Big Lie" -- claims that the young men shooting hoops for Duke or playing cornerback at Nebraska are just "student-athletes" taking part in an extracurricular activity, like when you competed on the speech team in high school. The stinky little difference here is that in college sports, everyone gets to stick their grubby hands in the money bag. The schools rake in millions from gate receipts, TV deals, and sales of merchandise. The coaches cash huge paychecks and sign endorsement contracts. The TV networks make gobs of cash selling time to advertisers. The NBA and NFL save big by not having to create a professional developmental system (like baseball's minor leagues). The fat and greasy NCAA defends all of these moneyed interests. In short, everyone gets rich except the laborers (a.k.a "student-athletes"), who play for nothing, and can lose their eligibility for holding a job or accepting a free taco platter.
Except the athletes don't play for nothing, and everyone knows it. And don't bother pointing out that the athletes get free college educations, because at big-time schools they don't have to go to class, and everyone knows that too. Academic, recruiting, and coaching scandals tear through the college sports world so often that we become numb. Rape allegations at Colorado? La la la, I'm not listening. March Madness is on!
LOCAL MAN FORCED TO DOWNGRADE FROM HOT POCKETS TO LITTLE JUAN BURRITOS
DENVER -- Recent financial problems have forced Kilgore Trout, 30, to replace the delicious Hot Pockets-brand stuffed sandwiches he normally eats for lunch with cheaper, not-so-delicious Little Juan-brand frozen burritos, sources reported Wednesday.
"I ate my last Hot Pocket yesterday," said Trout, removing a red chili Little Juan burrito from the microwave in the breakroom where he works. "It was the Four Meat & Four Cheese Pizza variety, filled with sausage, pepperoni, Canadian-style bacon and seasoned ground beef plus mozzarella, parmesan, romano and cheddar cheeses with a zesty pizza sauce wrapped in a crispy crust. That was so tasty -- I ate it in little tiny bites to make it last."
Although generally conservative with his money, Trout has recently made several major purchases, including a digital music player; a Timex Ironman running watch; and a plane ticket to Raleigh, NC. On February 25, he bought a 1991 Honda Accord with flawless leather interior, and got into an accident four days later. The resulting $1470.39 body shop repair bill, he says, "made me rethink my financial strategy."
"I guess I should be grateful that nobody was hurt in the accident, and that I have enough to cover the repairs, but fourteen hundred bucks is a lot of money," said Trout. "I can get Hot Pockets for $1 each with my Safeway Club Card, but still, that's the kind of luxury I just can't afford right now. These Little Juan burritos are 20 cents apiece."
"You know, they're really not bad," said Trout, biting into the Little Juan burrito as his eyes welled with tears.
Public reaction to Trout's announcement was overwhelmingly negative.
"Kilgore Trout knows full well that not only are Hot Pockets filled with the rotting flesh of dead animals," said a Madison, WI, man who asked not to be identified, "but Hot Pockets are manufactured by Chef America, which in 2002 was acquired by the evil Nestlé multinational corporation. I think Kilgore Trout is getting what he deserves."
Economic experts agree that Trout's decision mars an otherwise improving U.S. economic picture. "By switching to a cheaper brand of frozen convenience food product, Mr. Trout has signaled his lack of confidence in this economy, which is standing precariously at the brink of recovery," said one White House economist, who called upon Trout "to do his patriotic duty" to not only switch back to Hot Pockets, but "to buy one of those big plasma TVs, or at least an overpriced pair of sneakers."
At of press time, Nestlé's stock price had fallen 7¾ points.
Sobbing uncontrollably while barreling down the wrong side of the interstate with a quart bottle of off-brand whiskey jammed in my crotch.
Your mom.
Boarding a bus with only one other person on it, sitting down next to that person, and spending the rest of the ride picking my nose.
That thing I used to do. You know... the thing. That I'm on the state registry for? And I have to take the Norpraxamine? Yeah, that thing. I mean, I gave that up for good, not just for Lent, but I still think that counts.
Coveting my neighbor's ox or donkey.
Calling up some guy named "Julio" and asking if he wants to hang out down by the schoolyard, then hanging up while laughing maniacally, and suddenly feeling very, very alone.
Buggery.
Combining baking soda with water and Barbeque Corn Nuts crushed into a fine powder, then cooking the mixture, and selling the resulting rocks to third graders. (NOTE: Technically, I am not violating my vow to the Lord Jesus by replacing the Barbeque Corn Nuts with Nacho Cheesier! Doritos, or cocaine.)
Douching as a means of birth control.
Explaining that, when you assume, you make an ass out of you and me.
Donning green clothing, sneaking into the homes of people named "Boddy," and bludgeoning the man of the house to death in the billiards room with a candlestick.
Last Sunday afternoon, I turned on ESPN, which was airing a professional bowling tournament.
Hmmmm, I thought. If ESPN is showing bowling, what's on ESPN2?
Answer: The Killerspin Extreme Table Tennis Championship from the UIC Pavilion in Chicago. I watched, totally engrossed, as Grecian Kalinikos Kreanga crushed Korean Kim Taek Soo 11-6, 11-9, 11-7. This ain't the ping-pong you played in your grandparents' basement. World-class table tennis features blistering action, with players smashing the ball from fifteen feet behind the table; amazing athletes displaying unbelievable reflexes in close-up action; and hot chicks.
I like unusual sports. I hold a season ticket for the Colorado Mammoth, a professional lacrosse team. During my flight to London last December, I eagerly watched highlights from the Rugby World Cup in Australia. While the rest of America watches gymnastics and basketball during the Athens Olympics this summer, I'll be searching for team handball and badminton coverage. I love watching people who have trained their entire lives to excel in some obscure activity.
(I realize, by the way, that some of these sports are popular elsewhere and are "unusual" only to Americans. Well, fine -- I'm an American, and rugby and badminton are unusual to me, and you can kiss my ass.)
Freddy vs Jason (2003)
Starring Robert Englund, Ken Kirzinger, and some interchangeable, taut-bodied young people.
Directed by Ronny Yu.
Kilgore rates it: 2 (out of 10)
If you're about thirty years old and drowning in nostalgia for the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th franchises, you might want to rent Freddy vs Jason. Just make sure to have a large supply of vodka tonics, a fellow nostalgia-soaked friend, and a large carnivore (hamburger, canadian bacon, pepperoni, and sausage) pizza from Nicolo's. Because Freddy vs Jason is a bad movie, useful only for its vast array of unintentionally hilarious lines like, "This says they took too much Hypnocil." (Yeah, I know you don't get it.) The final, pseudo-apocalyptic battle between the title characters will disappoint you. Just rent it, get hammered, and wait for the Hypnocil line. You're welcome.
Thirteen (2003)
Starring Evan Rachel Wood, Nikki Reed, and Holly Hunter.
Directed by Catherine Hardwicke.
Kilgore rates it: 7 (out of 10)
An affirming and heartwarming tale for those of us who will never have children, Thirteen is a horror film for breeders. As I watched, I imagined fathers of preteen girls installing bars on their daughters' bedroom windows and trolling eBay for chastity belts after watching this story of fucked-in-the-head Evie instructing good-girl Tracy in the ways of truancy, shoplifting, slutty dressing, fellatio, whippets, and self-mutilation. Holly Hunter plays well the alcoholic single mom who tries to be her daughter's mother and best friend at the same time, and falls apart as Tracy's life spins out of her control. Also, she gets naked in an obvious ploy to oust Patricia Clarkson from her post as Actress To Whom Kilgore Trout Most Desperately Wants To Make Deep, Sweet Love, Even Though She's Like 45 Or Some Shit.
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Starring (voices) Chris Sarandon and Catherine O'Hara.
Directed by Henry Selick.
Kilgore rates it: 7 (out of 10)
I didn't much care for the plot of The Nightmare Before Christmas. I didn't care for the dumb songs that clog the film. But I like this movie for the dark and beautiful animation -- the spindly, angular Jack Skellington; the oddly sexy, stitched-together Sally; the mayor of Halloween Town, whose head swivels around depending on his mood; and the ghost dog Zero. My goal in life has become to have two dogs, named Spackle and Zero.
Okay, you know how when a woman dumps you, and she says, "You're pathetic in bed," and "Don't ever call me again," and she does it in front of all (well, both) of your friends, and then she laughs and walks out and slams the door so hard your Run Lola Run poster falls off the wall, and the glass breaks and goes all over the place, and while you scurry about picking up the glass and wondering how you're going to get all the glass grains out of the carpet, one of your friends mentions that if he were writing a story in which one of the characters got dumped in a really horrible and publicy embarrassing fashion, he would avoid the device of making a glass object fall and break -- "It's such an lame and obvious metaphor for the shattered state of the character's brittle psyche," he says, helping himself to another Guinness, "like something someone would write in a small-town writer's workshop," -- and then your other buddy, the one with the curly blond hair and the trust fund, his cell phone rings, and it's your girlfriend (well, ex-girlfriend) asking if he'd like to get together for coffee sometime, and when you ask how your ex-girlfriend got his cell number, he coughs and changes the subject to hockey, and you don't sleep at all that night, and you call in sick the next day, and you just sit around your apartment with the lights off, not even watching TV or anything, and you think about calling her, because maybe she was just having a bad day or was on the rag or something, and a couple of times you even pick up the phone and dial the first four or five digits, but then you hang up because she did tell you not to ever call [her] again, so if you called her she would think you were stalking her, and you're not the stalking type, but you kind of (at first glance) look like the stalking type, and you're afraid that if you call her she might freak out and call the cops, and then they would come around and ask a lot of embarrassing questions, and maybe even haul you downtown, or she might just mention to a few people that you're stalking her, and then if, just by coincidence, her apartment building caught on fire or if she died in a terrible car wreck, people might think you had set the building on fire or cut her brake lines, so you just put the phone down and wonder if you should turn the lights on, because keeping them off is such a lame and obvious metaphor for the darkness that lives inside the black vortex of your soul, and you sleep a little bit that night but not much, and the next day you call your boss and tell her that you won a trip for two to Maui on a radio contest, and the catch is that you and your girlfriend have to leave today, in fact, you need to be out the door in like twenty minutes, so you'll need the next two weeks off, and your boss is obviously not happy but says okay, and of course you don't go to Maui -- you just sit around in the dark until about noon or so, and then you eat a meatballs & mozzarella Hot Pocket and put some pants on and go to Hobby Lobby, where you get some pipe cleaners and some glue and some little googly eyes and stuff like that, and when you get home you make a 1/8 scale model of your girlfriend, and then you make for a doll a little pair of jeans and a little blouse out of some bits of fabric, and, well, it's okay, and kind of cute, but you get to thinking how much better it could be if you could make a 1/8 scale model of a particular green dress that your girlfriend used to wear (and probably still wears, just not for you), because she looked lovely in that dress, a cunning garment that revealed only what needed to be seen, and concealed just enough to plant the seeds of fantasy, and it fitted itself to the curves and hollows of her body so well that it seemed organic to her flesh, and she would wear the green dress and smile with her head tilted to the side in that certain way, walnut hair spilling along her face to her shoulders, and to think of these makes your heart hop with pain and strange pleasure, and so you go to a fabric store and search for the fabric from which the dress was constructed, but you can't find quite that certain fabric, so you go to a different fabric store, but they don't have it either, and neither do any other the half-dozen fabric stores you visit that day, and finally some tired fabric store lady asks you to please leave, sir, because the store has closed and she would like to pick her daughter up from day care before they charge extra, and the next day you get out the Yellow Pages and turn to FABRIC STORES and start calling, trying to describe to unsympathetic fabric store clerks the exact combination of color plus weight plus texture, but none of your leads pan out, so you get online and search eBay and dressmaking sites and textile retailers, and finally you find a wholesaler in Albuquerque that just might have it, so you drive six hours to get there, and they do have the right fabric, the exact same stuff, and you just stand there rubbing it between your fingers trying not to cry while the fabric wholesaler guy frowns, and they make you buy an entire bolt, enough to make about a hundred full-size dresses, because they're a wholesaler and not a retailer, and so you swallow hard and drop it on your Visa card, where it has lots of company, and on the drive home you stop occasionally to caress the cloth and once you commit an act of self-abuse at a rest stop just south of Colorado Springs, and when you get home the real work starts, because now you're trying to sew a tiny dress with no pattern, and you barely know anything about sewing except that you're no good at it, so you keep screwing it up, and starting over, and your skin blisters and bleeds from pinching the needle between your fingers, and your eyes get red and sore from staring at the tiny stitches, and you can't finish before your two-week vacation is up, so you call your boss and try to convince her that you need more time because your flight back from Maui was canceled, but she tells you not to bother coming back, and you can expect your final check in the mail in a few days, and you say, "Oh," and put the phone back on its cradle and pick up the little half-completed dress and start sewing again, even though you feel numb and scared inside, and finally you finish the dress, or at least as well as you're going to be able to make it, and you put it on the doll and try to feel the way you felt when she would emerge from the bedroom with the green dress on, smiling and laughing, and always it seemed to you like the first time you saw this woman and that dress, and these memories arouse and excite you on the surface, but mostly you feel empty and alone?
Anyway, what kind of pipe cleaners do you use? Mine keep breaking.
U.S. EXCHANGES CONSTITUTION FOR OIL --------------------------------- Bush: 'Heck, we weren't using it anyway.'
WASHINGTON -- In a move hailed by the White House as "an important step toward establishing democracy in the Middle East" as well as "sound energy policy for the 21st century," the U.S. sold its 215-year-old constitution to Iraq in exchange for a percentage of future oil revenues.
"Today, the American people got the best deal since the Pennsylvania Purchase," said His Excellency the Emperor and Supreme Ruler George W. Bush I, as he signed crucifixion orders for former Supreme Court justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter, and Stephen Breyer. "Heck, I'd almost forgotten that old thing was still around. If the Iraqis want that piece of paper so bad, I'm not going to turn down their billions of dollars in crude oil."
For the price of 25% of revenues from existing oil wells, the people of Iraq now enjoy the benefits of a central government with the power to coin money, to regulate interstate commerce, and to define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas. After long negotiations, Iraq agreed to give the U.S. 10% of oil revenues from future sites in exchange for the Bill of Rights, guaranteeing its citizens freedom of speech, a free press, freedom to assemble peacefully, and freedom of religion.
"We threw in the other amendments for free. I mean, they're not much good on their own," said HEESR Bush I, signing an order to make punishable by death the having or performing of an abortion, engaging in homosexuality, and the practice of non-Christian religions.
Consumer gasoline prices dropped sharply following the announcement of the sale, due to an expected increase in supply. Prices dropped further due to a decline in demand, as secret police arrested millions of Americans suspected of membership in labor unions, civil rights groups, the Unitarian church, or other political organizations besides the Republican Party.
"These suspected traitors have been detained in re-education camps-- er, facilities across the country," said Minister of Truth Scott McClellan at a press conference. "Our Just and Glorious Leader has guaranteed them trials to be held in private no later than 2014, so if they have done nothing wrong, they have nothing to fear. In the meantime, they have been put to work on a variety of infrastructure projects, among them a dam on the Mississippi River."
"By the way, you're all under arrest," added McClellan, as armed soldiers from the Emperor's elite Republican Guard stormed the press conference room.
Crossed out words in blogs. I first saw this device used in a 1999 Sports Illustrated column by Rick Reilly about the rivalry between the Colorado Avalanche and the Detroit Red Wings. Since then, the strikethrough technique has grown mossy with age and stale with repetition. Besides, it's not that funny. It reminds me of Kevin Nealon's "Subliminal Man" character on Saturday Night Live. Remember how much you laughed after seeing that for the fifteenth time? Exactly.
Let's also abandon the habit of using über as a general prefix meaning "very," as in "This burrito is über-spicy," or "My anus is über-ruptured because you didn't use enough lube last night." I approved of all this a year or so ago, when the usage was fresh. But overuse has wrought its usual damage -- now I have a friend who uses über on its own, as in "This chocolate chocolate-chip ice cream with chocolate ribbon and fudge chunks is so über." And last week I noticed a new fetish store on Broadway called "Über." Enough's enough, folks.
(DISCLAIMER: I am not sure Über is a fetish store. I only said it was a fetish store because it looked like one when I drove past at 30 miles an hour. I have not been inside Über, because I have no reason to go inside a fetish store, because I have no fetishes, especially not one for stinky feet drenched in cod liver oil, and you can't prove it anyway.)
Religious pest Jerry Falwell, who believes that Jesus of Nazareth was not only the Messiah and the Savior of All Mankind, but a hell of a defensive end as well. ESPN writer Robert Lipsyte reports Falwell told him that "Jesus was no sissy. If he played football, you'd be slow getting up after he tackled you."
Really, Reverend? I've read the entire Bible, and I don't remember seeing any physical descriptions of Jesus, let alone his height, weight, or university where he played his college ball. (You Afrocentrists can just sit down with your Revelation 1:12-16, 2:18 and your Daniel 7:9. I'll deal with you later.) The Gospel writers -- apparently preoccupied with describing the miracles Jesus performed and his acts of kindness and sacrifice -- did not record his time in the 40 or his personal record in the bench press. For all we know, Jesus was short and slightly built and couldn't have successfully tackled Barney Fife.
By decree of Kilgore Trout, the following humor devices have been banned for adding excessive quantities of lameness to the Universe:
If my computer breaks, and I have to use the computer of a female coworker who took the day off, you may no longer say, "Wow, you got taller, Angela!" or "Hey! You grew a beard, Angela!" Go find a smelly brown place for your thumb, Jack. I've heard it ten times today, and it wasn't funny the first time.
If I add a large amount of additive A to edible substance B, you may no longer use the formula, "Would you like a little B with your A?" Specifically prohibited: "Would you like a little [coffee with your cream/Cheerios with your sugar/soup with your crackers]?" Ha ha ha. Would you like a little of your face with my fist?
You may no longer precede a humorous quip by specifying the number of words in the coming quip. Not even David Letterman can make this work anymore, and you, Senator, are no David Letterman.
Bloggers who post links to articles and other blogs that force you to open a new browser window. What, you think your blog is so goddam precious that we can't bear to leave for even a moment? Do you see that "Back" button on my browser, you abandonment-complex-having-asshole? If your blog is any good, I'll be back.
While we're at it: bloggers who never post anything original. These people think that blogging consists of copying long passages from articles and other blogs, pasting the passages to their own blogs, and adding two sentences of commentary. These people are apparently unaware of an organ located behind their foreheads (called a "brain") that, when used correctly, will generate strings of words that nobody else has written before. Yes, using your brain this way is harder than using it to store the "Ctrl-C" and "Ctrl-V" shortcuts. But with a little practice, you might develop the skill to write something worth reading.
(There's nothing wrong with copying and pasting, by the way, provided you illuminate the copied text by adding something substantial and original. Two bloggers who excel at this are Bruce at This Is Class Warfare and Mac at Go Fish.)
Doubtless you've already seen this bouncing around the blogosphere:
"The Passion" is showing at the Movies at Berry Square at Mount Berry Square Mall, and the machine that prints the tickets assigned the number 666, the biblical mark of the beast, as a prefix to all the tickets for the film.
The fact that triple-six and "The Passion" have been joined is purely luck of the draw, says Gary Smith, who owns the theater complex.
"It's from our computer and it's absolutely a coincidence," Smith said. "It has nothing to do with the film company or any vendor. It's completely in our computer. Several people have commented on it, but only one made a stink about it."
That person asked for her tickets to be substituted and was given passes in exchange. She declined to talk about it with a reporter, but a family spokesperson said they had found Scriptures that eased their mind on the 666 reference.
"I've got a feeling that the person who wanted us to exchange the ticket thought the devil had something to do with it," Smith said. "They didn't want it in their possession.
"She just said that she had this superstition about the 666 number," said Smith. "She said she just felt uncomfortable having those tickets in her possession."
This happened in rural Georgia, of course. Click here to see the ticket. See Revelation 13:16-18 if you don't understand the 666 reference.
I can't understand a person who spends her Friday night watching a man get tortured to death for two hours. (To be fair, she probably can't understand a person who spends his Friday night huddled in the corner with the lights off, weeping for hours while REO Speedwagon's Greatest Hits plays over and over and over again.) But I really can't understand a person who gets spooked by a randomly generated ticket number beginning with 666. Let's play along for a moment and suppose that Satan caused the ticket number to start with 666. Is that the best Satan can do? If Satan has power to make a computer spit out tickets with certain numbers, wouldn't he have power to make the film projectors stop working, or to make them show a movie of his own devising, say, The Sodomy of the Christ? I just think that diddling with the ticket numbers sounds pretty weak. Nobody failed to see the film because of the ticket number, after all, which would seem to be Satan's objective here.
I think the woman who exchanged her tainted ticket was afraid she might get into a fatal car crash on the way home:
ADMISSIONS ANGEL: Good afternoon. May I see your papers? Welcome to Heaven, Mrs. Jones. Baptism... confession of faith before men... post-marital heterosexual coitus for the purpose of childbearing only... faith... works... unquestioning submission to male authority... very good. Everything seems to be in order here. I'll just need you to empty your pockets into this tray and walk through the detector... thank you. Don't forget your items, Mrs. Jones! [Picks up ticket stub.] Oh, you saw The Passion of the Christ? Did you enjoy it? Yes, I did too. Well, here you go... hold on a moment, what's this? Hmmm...
[Awkward pause.]
Would you please step to the side, Mrs. Jones? [Into shoulder-mounted radio.] Backup to Pearly Gates, please. I've got a 10-666 here. Mark of the beast, that's right. Get here as fast as you can.
You've probably also seen this one (midway down page):
John Debney, who composed the music for "The Passion of the Christ," says he did battle with Satan while scoring the flick.
"I had never before subscribed to the idea that maybe Satan is a real person, but I can attest that he was in my room a lot and I know that he hit everyone on this production," Debney said, according to a lengthy interview that ran on Assist News Service, a Christian news agency.
Debney claims that Satan's image kept appearing on his computer screen while he was trying to compose music. "The first time it happened, it scared me," he said. "Once I got over the initial shock of that, I learned to work around it and learned to reboot the computers and so I would start talking to him. ... The computers froze for about the tenth time [one] day and it was about nine o'clock at night and so I got really mad and I told Satan to manifest himself and I said, 'Let's go out into the parking lot and let's go.' It was a seed [sic] change in me. I knew that this was war. I am not a physical person, but I was really angry on this occasion."
Emphasis above is all me. I always thought that to expel Satan you needed a formal exorcism performed by a priest armed with holy water and Latin phrases and stuff. But it turns out that you can defeat Satan the same way you can defeat The Blue Screen of Death -- just press Ctrl-Alt-Delete. No wonder John Debney was willing to meet Satan in the parking lot. The Prince of Darkness is kind of a pussy.
WHITE HOUSE INSISTS 9-11 COMMISSION RELEASE REPORT IN 'MAD LIBS' FORMAT
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Press secretary Scott McClellan announced yesterday that President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and other White House officials would agree to limited testimony with the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, provided the Commission agrees to release its report in the form of a "Mad Lib," a word game popular with children and stoned college students.
"President Bush cares about children, and he believes that education is the key to America's future," said McClellan. "A 9-11 Mad Lib will be a fun way to educate children about American strength and security, as well as teach them how the parts of speech work together to form a sentence."
"Besides, President Bush loves Mad Libs," added McClellan. "Sometimes it's all we do in Cabinet meetings. I always use the word 'veiny' when asked for an adjective."
McClellan then showed reporters what a 9-11 Mad Lib might look like:
National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice [verb] that a secret [noun] detailing the possibility of a [noun] using [plural noun] upon the [country made strong and stable by the sanctity of heterosexual-only marriages] were [adjective]. Dr. Rice [adverb] testified that [American leader who fights for children, for seniors, for economic growth, for the people of Iraq, and for the environment (rhymes with "push")] did not [verb], or have any reason to [verb], that [raghead] had any plans for an [noun], or even knew that [country infested with sand niggers] existed.
When asked if the Mad Libs format might omit crucial details, making the Commission's report impossible to understand, McClellan answered, "Well, that's the p--," then swallowed hard and said, "The president is ready to fight those who question the report's new format, including homosexual special interests and people who oppose educating our children." He then told reporters that "it's super funny if you use all words like 'fart' and 'poop.'"
When asked for comment, Commission Chairman Thomas Kean said, "I can't [verb] this [inappropriate adjective][expletive]. Why doesn't [America's fearless and intrepid leader] just call me into the [adjective][kind of room], bend me over his [noun], and [verb] me up the [noun]?"
(For information about the 9-11 Commission, see its website. For unanswered questions about 9-11, check out this article. For more links and intelligent commentary about the difficulties faced by the 9-11 Commission, see Norbizness.)
I worked late last night, making up hours missed during January and February, when transportation challenges forced me to spend two hours riding the bus every day. Driving south on I-25 in my new (to me) 1991 Honda Accord with flawless leather interior, I decided to change lanes and checked the blind spot to my left.
I'm not good at checking my blind spots. What I really mean is, I'm too good at checking my blind spots. I don't glance -- I examine the blind spot with a careful, critical eye, as if the Loch Ness Monster might appear in the empty space. What if I changed lanes and smashed into Nessie? Better to take an extra-long look, than to risk broadsiding an angry, bellowing sea monster!
You've already guessed what happened. I completed my appraisal and turned back. Brake lights.
You are fucking kidding me. I mashed down the brake pedal, but not in time to avoid ramming the old truck in front of me. "You are fucking kidding me," I said, out loud this time, and pulled over.
The truck kept going for a few hundred yards, then finally pulled off. I drove ahead to just behind the truck, where two Latino guys stood inspecting their ruined bumper.
I got out. "Are you okay?" I asked.
"Yes. Are you okay?" the guy asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine," I said. I cleared my throat. "Do you have a cell phone?"
He nodded.
"Well," I said, "I guess we'd better call the cops."
"We don't have to," he said, looking sly.
I hadn't expected this. Uninsured, I thought. Or driving on a suspended license, or no license at all. Or maybe they're illegal immigrants. "So you don't want to call the police?" I asked.
He shrugged. "It's up to you."
I calculated quickly. The insurance company would pay for the damage to my car, less the deductible. The accident was clearly my fault, so if we called the cops, I would have to pay a fine for careless driving at least, plus make an appearance in traffic court, plus pay increased insurance premiums, plus hang around on the side of the highway on a winter night, plus fill out a police report, plus meet with an insurance adjuster. I looked at my car. The impact had broken the passenger-side headlight, although the light inside still shined. I lifted the hood. Everything appeared to be in working order, although the edge of the hood had bent under. Probably not much more damage here than my deductible. An easy decision, really.
Spellbound (2002)
Starring Harry Altman, Angela Arenivar, Ted Brigham, April DiGideo, Neil Kadakia, Nupur Lala, Emily Stagg, and Ashley White.
Directed by Jeffrey Blitz.
Kilgore rates it: 7 (out of 10)
Before I saw part of the Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee on ESPN last year, I thought spelling bees worked in a pretty straightforward manner. The judge gives the kid a word, the kid tries to spell it, and either stays or goes, and that's it. But the kids at the Bee display cunning and guile to belie their years. They ask for the judge to repeat the word, and then again. And again. They ask for alternate definitions. They ask for etymologies. They ask if the word involves the Greek root pneumo. They stall and fidget and pucker their brows and ghost-write the words on the backs of the placards they wear around their necks. They ask to hear the word again and again. They purposely mispronounce the word in order to draw hints from the judges. And they are competitive. Dewy-eyed twelve-year-olds they may be, but put them on a stage in front of a mike and they will tear you asunder and chew on your entrails, giggling while you writhe.
The interesting (though not brilliant) Spellbound follows eight regional spelling champions to the National Spelling Bee. They come from wildly varying backgrounds: urban, suburban and rural; white, black and Indian; rich, poor, and middle-class. If you're hoping to see fire-breathing, red-faced parents, you won't find much of that here -- the parents appear to have a healthy perspective on the contest, and seem genuinely proud (and relieved) when their kids misspell their way out of the competition. Neil Kadakia's father comes the closest to obsession; he drills his son on 7,000 words a day and hires French, German, and Spanish tutors to help Neil learn foreign roots. This gets played for laughs later, when Neil, an Indian-American, struggles to spell darjeeling. I recommend Spellbound if you like documentaries on obscure subjects, (although you should watch Hands on a Hardbody first).
(FULL DISCLOSURE: I won the spelling bee in 1987 at John Adams Middle School, then got bounced at the district spelling bee in the second round, misspelling simile. I came back in 1988 to capture first place at the chapter MathCounts competition. See my trophy here.)
Human Nature (2001)
Starring Patricia Arquette, Tim Robbins, Rhys Ifans, and Miranda Otto.
Directed by Michel Gondry.
Kilgore rates it: 4 (out of 10)
More weirdness from Charlie Kaufman, who wrote the wonderfully bizarre Being John Malkovich and the very good Adaptation. But I can only recommend Human Nature if you harbor an insatiable desire to see Patricia Arquette gamboling about naked with fake hair pasted all over her body. The delightful strangeness that seemed so natural in Being John Malkovich is forced and contrived here, plus we only get to see Arquette naked and not Miranda Otto, voted by me as the Hottest Chick from Lord of the Rings.
DISCUSSION TOPIC #1: In 1999, I worked at Sparky's, a 24-hour diner in San Francisco. One day a hostess told me that sometimes celebrities stopped by Sparky's, and told me a story about meeting "Trish Arquette" some weeks beforehand.
"Trish Arquette?" I asked. "Is she related to David Arquette?"
"Well, yeah," the hostess said. "Trish Arquette. You know, as in Patricia? Patricia Arquette."
Do you think people should be allowed to refer to famous people by nicknames, as though they had known each other since grade school? (A Google search for "Trish Arquette", by the way, turned up zero results, while a search for "Patricia Arquette" yielded over 130,000 matches.)
DISCUSSION TOPIC #2: Do you think Insatiable Desires would be a good name for a straight-to-Cinemax erotic thriller starring Shannon Tweed?
DISCUSSION TOPIC #3: Why does anyone give two shits about the Academy Awards? I stopped caring about the Oscars at the exact moment that Titanic won Best Picture in 1997. I guess some people like to watch the shiny people walk down the red carpet and answer insipid questions from idiot entertainment journalists. These are the same people who subscribe to Soap Opera Digest and look forward to the Super Bowl halftime show.
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