Capsule Review: The Island

The Island is mathematically equal to parts: the clonus horror.

Yes, that “parts: the clonus horror.” The one that MST3K ripped, and the one that I’ve seen two or three times in its MST3K variant.

They’re so much the same movie, that I’m honestly shocked that seemingly nobody has mentioned it. (disclaimer: I don’t get out much.)

Anyway, on to the math: take the exact same plot. Remove the critically acclaimed only you can prevent crotch fires! scene, but add a touch of hi, I’m Scarlett Johansson, and I’m hot. Take something away and add a bit of something else, and you end up back where you started. Q.E.D.

An IM conversation

Courtesy of RahRah3896:

8:31pm HAYHAY! I BET YOU DON’T KNO WHO THIS IS!!*

8:34pm UGH YOU DONT TALK MUCH!`

9:10pm I GUESS YOU WONT EVER KNO THEN WILL YOU??

I bet they’re right—I don’t know who that was. Call it a contextual guess.

Fantasy time

I’ve become quite disillusioned with my office, as of late. Actually, it’s less that my disillusionment has increased and more that my ability to hold my tongue has been compromised. We’ve officially surpassed ludicrous speed, and many of my coworkers are ready to crack. One—the one I would say has the best overall picture of how the office works, who does what, and where things go—gave her notice last week. It’s a huge blow to the office, IMO, but things are so out of whack that I doubt most of management will see it that way.

Enough talk about a topic that gets me easily riled up, though. I have a theory on—nay, a solution for—how businesses can avoid creating such disillusioned employees. This revolutionary idea would also reduce overall workplace stress, and help businesses keep their priorities straight.

Once a quarter (say), management should line themselves up in a row. Their employees then walk past, and have the opportunity to either kick their bosses in the junk, or not.

(This may be more effective with male managers than female ones, I admit.)

How many managers would continue to be asslike, if they knew that it’d give them The Big Pain in the near future?

The President has been kidnapped by ninjas

I, however, am not a bad enough dude to rescue him. :(

UPDATE: It is actually the President’s daughter who has been kidnapped, and the zombie people surrounding me don’t look terribly ninja-like. And, for what it’s worth, Leon S. Kennedy don’t have even a quarter of the cool moves that Snake does.

I could totally take these MFers down, if I could only peek around corners. And head shots should definitely drop people—zombies, ninjas, whatever—with one shot. Manalive.

My head…

This last weekend was by far the strangest weekend ever. Although unreported in the media, about a month earlier some eco-terrorists attacked a nearby laboratory that was doing tests on chimps. They freed the animals, and in doing so unwittingly let a “Rage” virus into the wild.

I apparently contracted that virus, and on Friday was all-but-out-of-my-mind furious. I didn’t bother clocking in at work that day, because killing people on the clock isn’t exactly career-enhancing.

That irrational rage carried over into Saturday, causing me to bail out—at the last second—of attending John’s Christmas party that evening. Perhaps not surprisingly, I also took 4-5 hour naps each day, above and beyond a full night’s sleep.

(Incidentally, it’s really weird to be damn near as furious as you’ve ever been, and to simultaneously recognize that there’s logically no reason for you to feel the way you are.)

By Sunday my anger had dissipated, leaving me to my excessive sleep. That continued through Monday (another stellar day of little work done), and only started petering out yesterday. Today’s the first day that I really survived the whole day without collapsing partway through.

That thing completely wiped me out. Trip to Costco? Three hour nap. Thinking about going to work? Two hour nap. Ugh.

Despite (i.e. because of) my weakened condition, in yesterday’s meeting I managed to ask my boss, in not as few words, if he really expected us to buy the bull he was selling. [In short, I am Asok in today’s Dilbert.] The meeting afterwards was full of awesome stuff, such as fallacious slippery-slope arguments, complete rewrites of history, and ham-fisted “I want it this way so I’ll keep talking until you agree with me”-fu.

I think I’ve established myself as not-a-fan of current practices. I expect that I’ll be out of a job once I’ve finished automating the office (I also suspect that I’d already be out, if I weren’t in such a critical position)—and, knowing human nature, my bosses will likely play nice with me, while their dislike of me festers, until that day arrives. Fun times are (most likely) ahead.

Linky linky

If you played video games in the last twenty years, GameSpot’s Greatest Games of All Time should be a heck of a trip down memory lane. I still remember Mega Man 2 quite fondly, and still curse at the annoying laser beams (that were almost as tall as Mega Man himself) that would occasionally shoot out of the sides of the screen and instantly kill you. Worst. Innovation. Ever.

Even if you haven’t played video games in the last twenty years, surely you know about World War II. bs hax, indeed.

Armchair psychologist: why old fogeys don’t get new technology

I continue to fumble around with the new cell phone; I guess I’m still old-school that way. (I only accidently shunted Andy to voicemail once…) It is certainly nice to have a phone any time or place you need one, though—that kind of thing redefines the way the world works. Too bad my poor brain is struggling to comprehend, at any deep level, this brave new (modern) world it’s entering. It now reflexively has me reaching for the cell phone when there’s a perfectly good land line (not to mention one that doesn’t charge per minute for local calls) next to me, and also has me overlooking the cell phone at times when it would actually be handy.

I know I’ll adapt in relatively short order (it’s only been three days, and—as I said—I don’t talk on the phone a lot). Still, I guess this means that there might be a day in which I am an old fogey, unwilling or incapable of fully grasping the ramifications of whatever crazy technology the future holds. It’s not so much the specifics of what that technology does that should trip me up (or, I imagine, has tripped up those who already find themselves in this boat)—it’s the effect it has on how the rest of the world works. I’m not talking about a superficial understanding there, either (I’ve called people on their cell phones for years)—I mean that deep-down, know-it-in-your-gut kind of understanding that comes from being changed by that technology.

I suspect, as time passes, it becomes increasingly difficult to rewire your brain for these successive reformations of the world. Each time takes a little longer to adapt to, until you hit that point where little kids point and laugh at you and your ancient ways. At some point you say screw it, ’cause you both struggle and look like a fool while you try to digest this new change—and you do so for periods that grow to be longer than what you’re really comfortable with.

Nobody likes feeling stupid, right? And we got by so long without [insert technology] anyway, why can’t we get along without it in the future?

Slo-mo Dancin’ Brent

Dance tonight was a mixed bag. Things were going well until my first west coast (essentially my first dance), when I discovered that I had Jabba the Hut for legs. Speed, balance, timing… all suboptimal. Pro tip: Sluggish, off-kilter, off-beat dancing = teh win.

I mean, my legs were dragging so hard they think yesterday is today.

Damn Roth IRA

I’ve spent the entire rest of my evening trying to figure out a decent mutual fund to transfer my IRA into, since the management of my old fund is retiring at the end of the year. (As we all know, the managers—and not the name of the fund—are the ones who make the returns.)

I still haven’t found anything.

I gots me some new digits

I barely ventured out on Black Friday. If the stores discounted their wares heavily, as was rumored they would do, they certainly didn’t discount the things that would have caught my fancy. (I’m not actually sure what things would catch my fancy, but rest assured it wasn’t what was on sale.)

I did make one purchase over the weekend, though:

About once a year over the last couple years, when I think about it, I poke around the various wireless carriers to see if they have any plans that would make any sense for me. Until this year, the answer was always heck no.

Those who have seen Evangelion will remember that there was an episode entitled “The Phone That Never Rings.” That’s my phone. Paying the monthly fees that cell phones ask for is so far out of the question that it’s laughable (though might be justified if I were living on my own, and could cut off my land line); the alternative were pay-as-you-go options, which were equally laughable. (Pay for minutes and then have them disappear if they aren’t used in the next month? Huh? Lose your account—and thereby your number—if you don’t keep your phone loaded with these short-lived minutes? Wha?)

This year, for the first time ever, I found a reasonable pay-as-you-go option that meet my needs. After up-front costs, I’m paying ten cents a minute, and must buy a minimum of $10 of minutes a year to keep my phone going. I’m willing to pay that price for the convenience of a cell phone.

So, woot. I gots me some new digits.

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