"Experimental Film"

It's a Lion!

 

Retro Spider-Man Video Game Commercial

Does the Green Goblin actually boast about having a "gang of Nazis", or have I just misheard that entirely?

Am I a Bad Person...

Does not wanting to watch the "Hope for Haiti" telethons make me a bad person? I tried watching the "Canada for Haiti" telethon, but it was so dull I couldn't stand it. The band that came on was pretty lousy, although I admit that they were probably just not my thing and others may have enjoyed them. But the banter from the hosts was simply exhausting. I have no idea what Ben Mulroney was talking about at one point, but he'd have been better served piping down and letting Rachel McAdams speak up. And the less said about Brent Butt's pre-taped "comedy bit" the better. I figured by pledging I did my part though, and now I'm watching the Simpsons and Justice League with relatively little guilt. Barely more than I usually have hanging over me.

But still, does not watching it make me a bad person? Probably. I'm not though.

So... 2009, huh?

Kind of a 'blah' year. Uneventful really. Not that I'm averse to things being uneventful -- better that than horribly, gut-wrenchingly, painful. But still, not really much of a year. Kind of like 1999, which was equally uneventful (if not more pleasant in some ways).

Thing that strikes me about 2009 is how fast it flew by. Seems like the other day it was October. And before that, spring. I didn't accomplish as much as I'd have liked to this year. Wrote a little, read a little. Saw some things I wanted to, did some things I'd been meaning to get around to. It wasn't a great year for me personally. I hit some pretty low ebbs. Felt awfully lonely at times. That might've contributed to the way the year felt, especially how fast things went by from the summer-on. Things got pretty crummy around June, and from there I got the swine flu, then my mood took a hit again, then I got the H1N1, and now my mood's not so great...

I did come to a few conclusions this past year. For one, I think I'm officially over Journey. Pop culture's killed "Don't Stop Believing", which is kind of weird since it's not really that great a song? I was already pretty sick of it, and then Glee comes along.

Also I figured out why Alicia Silverstone's body of work never quite clicked with me. Turns out she's just not a very good actress. Not sure how this occurred to me. I might've been thinking about Miss Match. Remember that show? I was a cute enough premise, but it didn't really do it for me. Turns out it was probably the person playing the title character that futzed the whole thing up. But I digress.

So, I suppose here's a tip of my hat to 2009. Here's hoping 2010 is a little brighter though. Or barring that, 2011.

Updates?

Sorry for the lack of updates lately, but things've been a little busy. I've been getting some good stuff accomplished though (even if there's still a list of things I've yet to get to) so it's good. All the same, I've been feeling kind of unfulfilled. I usually get this way around the holidays, so it's probably just all that.

Hoping I have something eventful happen worth sharing, or at least that time stops speeding by and I remember when a week's passed so I can update on time. Man alive, 2009 went by fast. If I didn't know for sure I was around for it, I'd swear there wasn't a summer this year.

Made-Up Words (and Other Randomly Useless Thoughts)

Made-up words I don't mind (even if they're describing something I have no interest in or if it's kind of gross):

Blog
Bacne
Frolf

Made-up words that get on my nerves:

Tween
Cankles
Vlog
Shizzle
Videographer
Asshat

That's all that comes to mind at the moment. I think I'll reiterate my distaste for the word "tween" though. I mean, sure "pre-teen" is kind of lame, but what's wrong with calling a kid a "kid"?

...Sorry about this, but this is the kind of junk that's been circling around my head this weekend. I blame the flu. And that Swiss Chalet commercial with the dad who takes his seemingly estranged daughter out to dinner. I mean, what's going on there? Have they not seen each other for a while, because they seem awfully casual about it if that's the case. But then, you have the mild discomfort exhibited by the daughter, which would imply she hasn't seen him in a while, along with him referring to something he used to do when she was a kid -- the cranberry sauce on the nose -- another sign they've been apart. It's a vexing commercial. Granted, I may be trying to read into it too much, but then, wasn't the point of it to get me interested in the food and not the backstory of the fictional father and daughter?

Yup. That's the junk circling around my head this weekend. Charming, hm?

 

I'm Not Dead...

I've just had to spend the last week in bed because of the H1N1 virus getting the better of me. And by better I mean making me sweat while I'm freezing cold and get such splitting headaches that if hurts to much to think to keep my eyes open.

Better now though. My temperature's down, not coughing up phlegm, and the only headaches I've gotten in the last little while can easily be attributed to the sedentary state of my brain after lying in bed watching NCIS and Reba reruns for a solid five-six days. I'm just kidding. I never watched Reba, and I only sat through NCIS because Charles Durning was guest starring in the episode and the man does good work.

But no, not dead. Slightly bowling ball-ish, but not dead. And sorry there wasn't an image to accompany this. I found an image of a skull inside a bowling ball that would've gone perfectly with the whole "bowling ball-ish" thing, but as an image alone, it's confusingly oblique at best.

Speaking of confusing, I'm surprised I got the H1N1 after my noted debacle with the swine flu from earlier in the year. I didn't think you could get the same flu twice in a year... I figured it was like how a husband and wife can't be tried for the same crime -- you know, you don't have to worry about it. Gah. My brain hurts. Gonna go.

Thoughts at the Moment...

• The pilot episode of "V" was pretty good, but it might've been better as a mini-series or movie rather than a series with a five-year plan.

• Hammacher Schlemmer makes a nice catalogue.

• The Starbucks instant coffee is actually very good, especially for those of us who like coffee but are lazy.

• The Will Ferrell movie "Stranger than Fiction" was pretty good, and yet I have no strong desire to see it a second time.

• I think I prefer the Nestle brand water to other kinds of water, except possibly Evian, but even then it's twice the cost of Nestle, so there you go.

• I think I read too many comics. If I were a smarter man I'd stop reading so many of a monthly basis and start buying the collected editions. They're cheaper, take up less space, fit nicely on a bookshelf, and give you a whole story. Granted you have to wait at least two months after the story finishes to finally get to read it and there's a good handful of books that actually read better as single issues, but if I were a smarter man I'd make the switch for most of the books I read.

• I don't read like Pizza Pizza pizza. Specifically their pizzas with tomatoes, green olives, and black olives. Something about them... not that great. Their cheese and regular veggie pizzas are great though. But their olives taste funny.

• Heath Ledger's Joker was pretty good. Not that I want to see that become the standard of all other media versions of the character, but you could do worse borrowing some aspects of that take.

• Sometimes it hard coming up with good fodder for blog postings, so writing down a lot of random junk gets the job done on occasion.

• The other day I couldn't remember if I'd told a friend about something or dreamt I'd told him it. Or whether or not I'd actually done the thing I told my friend about. I now I can't remember what it was I may or may not have told my friend I may or may not have done. Ah well, I suppose.

Here's Something Pretty Neat

Here's my all-time favorite Looney Tunes cartoon, "Scaredy Cat". It's a great Chuck Jones cartoon and really, surprisingly messed up for a cartoon made sixty years ago. There's some really twisted stuff in there, and -- if you know your Looney Tunes -- an absolutely perfect ending.

Enjoy!

Thoughts on a Saturday Morning

I was up early this past Saturday and Sunday and I noticed two things while checking out cartoons both mornings.

1) Sunday mornings have better programming than Saturdays these days. Not that the Saturday morning really matters all that much these days when you have 24 hour cartoon networks and other specialty channels offering similar programming, but when did this all happen? Not only that, but only ABC and CBS air Saturday morning programming anymore, and even then it's either stuff aimed at the coveted 3 to 5 year old demographic or live action Disney Channel pap. What happened to FOX Kids (see above) or ABC's One Saturday Morning or NBC's live action bad sitcoms? X-Men and Spider-Man and Batman shouldn't be on Sundays. They should be on Saturdays, followed by Three Stooges reruns. And I'd like to think the fact I'm only half serious makes this more palatable than the other crackpots in their mid-twenties who waste time griping about Saturday morning cartoons.

2) I saw a Barbie commercial that featured Aqua's Barbie Girl song. As someone who remembers how Mattel tried suing Aqua over it, that is hilarious. I'd like to think there's someone at Mattel who can appreciate the irony that they're forking over cash to Aqua after all that business.