Linkstew

Based on what I've seen, I'm getting the feeling that I'd choose to watch Tobey and Kirsten a thousand more times rather than watch Anakin and Amidala once.

Well, more the Kirsten than the Tobey, but the point's the same.

"What the fuck does that mean?"

Obviously it means he I want to get in Kirsten Dunst's pants.

So I saw Spiderman today, and the really short version is that I enjoyed it immensely, and I recommend you see it. I'd give it a 4/5.

Here's the short attention span theater version, in four acts:

Act I, wherein we try to acquire free tickets.


• Reason number 1 I'll miss Michael when he moves out: Free movie tickets.
• But we didn't get free tickets today, because apparently they were close to selling out. So we paid $5.75 for a matinee, and it was worth it.
• Michael said the phone conversation went something like this:
  Michael: "Hi, my name is Michael, and I'm a manager at the XYZ theater*, and I was wondering if I could come see the 1 pm showing of Spiderman."
  Clerk who answered the phone: "Hold on, I need to ask my manager."
  
  In muffled voices, off the phone, though Michael could hear:
  Clerk: "He wants to come see Spiderman at 1?"
  Manager: "Tell him 'No you bastard, we've been selling out.'"
  Clerk: "What should I really tell him?"
  Manager: "Tell him 'no'!"
  
  Back on the phone:
  Clerk: "Sorry, he said we're close to selling out."
  Michael: "Oh, alright, I understand."
• * There's some weird Berkeley Movie theater cartel, where the employees of any theater can go see movies at any other theater**. I find it's best not to question these things.
• ** Assuming the theater doesn't think they're going to sell out.

Act II, wherein we watch the previews and talk amongst ourselves.


• UA is still showing Fellowship of the Ring.
• Which reminds me of 1999, when the UA was still showing Episode I in October.
• I guess Episode I being released on May 19th -- a few days before 80% of their customers left for the summer and right in the middle of finals -- didn't work out so well.
• Speaking of Star Wars, I'd managed to avoid all of the Episode 2 trailers but the "Breath" one until today.
• But today, a really long one was in front of Spiderman.
• So I closed my eyes and pressed my hands over my ears, but I still managed to hear way more than I wanted.
• "Hired a bounty hunter named Jango Fett to build a clone army..." -- God Damnit!
• But I didn't see any of it, which is good, because according to Michael, the last 30 seconds (which didn't have much talking) "revealed a lot about a lot of the action scenes."
• But hearing what little I did today wasn't nearly as bad as my roommate my freshman year telling me "Qui-Gon dies!"
• But: I've got my Episode II ticket, for 12:30 am on the 16th.
• Troublesome CS partner or no, my project (which is due at 11:59 pm on the 15th) will be done on time.
• Huh, weird, Episode II is opening on the 16th. That's a Thursday. ::shrug::

Act III, wherein I get nostalgic about comic books.


• We decided they need to make a Deadpool movie.
• Since Deadpool's stories were told mainly as a miniseries, they're nicely self contained and perfectly suited to a movie adaptation.
• Except that Deadpool is such a tiny name that a movie'd never get proper funding, so it'd be doomed to failure.
• Now that so many of Marvel's characters are all grown up, it's too easy to forget that many of the characters started as "kids with weird things happening to their bodies."
• I felt that X-men missed this point completely, but I think that Spiderman captured it pretty damn well.

Act IV, wherein I talk about Kirsten Dunst the movie.


• Kirsten Dunst is really beautiful.
• I was dubious of their choice of The Green Goblin as the villain, but having seen the movie, I think that the story came together wonderfully.
• Even though I was satisfied with the Green Goblin as the villain, Venom's still cooler, and he better be the villain if they make a sequel.
• Admittedly, Venom's motives wouldn't have pulled the whole movie together nearly as well as the goblin's...
• "venom" written upside down in the dark on the piece of brown paper bag I was taking notes on looks so much like "woman" that I spent five minutes trying to figure out why I'd written down "woman".
• I'm not kidding. Look:
  
• If you're wondering why this was such an issue, it's because everything else on that side of the paper was written in the other direction, so I didn't think to turn the paper around. Like I said, I was writing in the dark.


• Seriously, Kirsten Dunst is hot. I'm not kidding. Look.
• I was a little dubious about the special effects, based on the trailers... I was afraid that things would look too plastic. But my fears were ill-founded. Though they weren't top-notch, they got their job done without getting in the way of the rest of the story at all.
• Some of the fight scenes -- especially near the end -- were really violent. I found myself wincing in pain.
• I mean, Kirsten Dunst is amazingly attractive.
• It's amazing how stiff and awkward and forced (and etc) the acting got in the last five minutes of the movie. It made me wince nearly as bad as the preceding fight sequence.
• But it was okay, because even if the acting was bad, it was still Kirsten Dunst, and she was great in the rest of the movie.
• Speaking of Kirst Dunst... I've always thought she was attractive, but with the red hair... wowwow.
• I'm definitely going to buy this one on DVD.

A few quick thoughts on The Tick (flash warning), Fox's new live action rendition of the cartoon based on the comic book:

1. It's so like the cartoon it's actually a little disturbing.
2. I was highly amused, and I'll definitely be watching again next week.
3. My roommates also enjoyed it.
4. If you enjoyed the cartoon series, you'll probably enjoy this.
5. The scene with Batmanuel on the roof still has me laughing, "If you know what I mean." Who puts gum on a roof!?
6. Unfortunately, I don't think it has the right kind of humor for prime time, and I don't really expect it to last very long. =(
7. But, I'll enjoy it while it lasts.

So I just caught up with Fox Sunday on my TiVo, and it must have been one of the strangest evenings of television that I've ever seen. Notably, Futurama and Malcolm in the Middle just kind of left me staring with my mouth hanging open. What I more want to talk about is Malcolm, so let me just say about Futurama that the lead in to introduce the time skipping was totally bizarre, and the time skipping itself packed a really long story into a mere 20 minutes, and the skipping over of so many details of the story just left me feeling

skip

explored two possible ways in which an evening out bowling could have progressed for Reese and Malcolm in parallel. On one path, Malcolm's mom takes the boys to the bowling alley, but stays at the bowling alley, endlessly embarrasses Malcolm, but in the end Malcolm gets the girl. Down the other path, Malcolm's dad takes the boys, everyone except Reese has a great evening, but in the end, as Malcolm is about to get the girl, things go awry. Trying to summarize this entire episode into two sentences does it no justice -- suffice it to say that I immensely enjoyed the episode, and if you ever happen to see an ad announcing this episode, you should make every effort to see it.

I love thinking about parallel realities. Thinking about all the possible what could have beens and what could bes gets me lost in my imagination. Where would I be now if I'd gone to BC instead of Berkeley? What would be different if I'd chosen the Units instead of Foothill for housing my freshman year? How would I be doing in school if I hadn't started working? Who would I be if I'd been born a girl instead of a boy? How would I have developed if I'd said yes instead of no to that girl who asked "Do you like me?" in sixth grade? Et cetera.

That's why I really liked the premise of Sliders (originally another Fox show), though unfortunately it's execution was a little lacking. It's also why Marvel's new comic Exiles, which is based on exploring alternate X-Men universes, got me reading comics again. And why I enjoyed reading the X-Men's Age of Apocalypse back in the day, and quit reading comics right after AoA ended and I realized how much the standard story sucked. And it's also why I like the stories of Jorge Luis Borges so much. For example, in "The Garden of Forking Paths," which can be found in the collection Labyrinths (which I highly recommend), Borges spends a fair amount of time explaining the idea years before it was popularized by TV, etc.

Too bad dreaming about what could have been and what might be doesn't get me anywhere in reality. Pity, that.

My roommate Keith has a comic in The Daily Cal named Collegetown, but because the Daily Cal website (sucks and) doesn't include the comics, he had to make a website for them.

One of his characters is EECS Raccoon, and though Keith insists that EECS Raccoon was a one-shot gag, I'd love to see a spin-off EECS Raccoon comic. There are so many opportunities for the character. Keith's description of EECS Raccoon is so incredibly fitting and makes so much sense that, if nothing else you need to go read about the EECS Raccoon.

Unfortunately, Keith hasn't put all of the comics online yet, and notably none of the comics featuring EECS Raccoon are online yet. And the site is a little broken in Netscape. But that won't stop you from appreciating the EECS Raccoon.

Daryl Cagle collects a ton of cartoons of the variety that don't tend to show up in the Sunday funnies. For example, here is his archive about the retirement (and death) of Charles Schulz.

Fight Club is a great movie, and you should go see it right now (I know, I thought it would suck from the previews too -- but it's not what it seems, so go see it). Check out this mock up emergency flight card used in the movie. It's highly entertaining, and as even funnier with the context of the movie.

I've been killing time all afternoon, waiting for 5, so I can leave and head to Bakersfield/Kern Valley/whatever. I played some Q3 and tweaked with the graphics settings trying to make it go faster. It didn't go too much faster, even stripped of it's beauty, so I left it at the better looking settings, as it is still playable.

I drank some apple juice.

I pondered "Chasing Dogma" for awhile, which is a spiffy comic. I looked at the Clerks and Mallrats DVD's that I just got, which look promising. Ohh.. I love deleted scenes!

I cleaned up the pile of boxes a little that was sitting by the fridge. I packed. I packed some more.

I read Slashdot, and kept refreshing in hopes of an interesting article being posted. I wonder why they wouldn't post my news about Myth: Chimera... Bastards.

I read a letter/note thing from Grandmommy that I got in the mail.

And finally I came to write a bried update on the page... Now.

So last night, I found another groovy online comic, and read through all the archives, as I'm prone to do. This time it was After Y2K, which is more than a little amusing at times. Bill Gates stuck in a bathroom, a geek rehab facility, and Jar Jar being killed in more ways than I can count... It's highly amusing. Unfortunately, just as I got to the end, I realized that each comic had a poll associated with it, with more jokes, and the results page of the poll had a another little comic. Dagnabbit, now I'm going to have to go through the whole thing again.

At least it's amusing, neh?