Movies and Reality

I went to see “Eragon” today.  It was pretty good.  It could have been better, but was pleasant enough.    

Maybe I’m weird.  I’ll allow for the possibility.  Why?  Because even fantasy movies usually distract me with something that is not realistic.  I mean, I can be watching a movie about dragons – Eragon, for instance — and the fact that the man on the horse on the ground yells something to the man on the dragon in the air assaults my sense of realism.  This dragon is flying as fast as it can…. for several seconds… and the guy on the horse is heard by the guy on the speeding dragon.   That distracts me.

Eragon was a decent movie, though.  The baby dragon was darned cute.  The fight scenes weren’t very good, though.

I noticed things in Dr. Doolittle 3, too. There is a scene where the rooster with low self-confidence walks into the hen-house.  The hens start berating him and one hen says something like, “As if low egg production is **our** fault.  Hmmph!”   Well…. yeah…. it is, Miss Priss.  Roosters don’t affect egg production.  They affect chick production.  

Another thing about this “family” movie, Dr. Doolittle 3, is the blatant and innappropriate sexualization.  Here we have a teenager — underage and still in school — and in one scene in particular, they are doing “T&A” shots of her.   In one scene, there are multiple close–up shots of her clothed breasts, buttocks, and genitals.  And, she’s under-age.  What is this — lolita porn?!?  And they wonder why kids today are over-sexualized and too early.

Or… “Barnyard”.  I mean… give me a break.  A **cow** is the farm protector?  There is even a sheep guard-dog — a Komondor — in the movie; as well as herding dogs.   But, no…. the dog(s) can’t protect the farm.  No… that job belongs to the **cows**.   Sigh.

This problem I have is not just with fantasy movies, though you would think if I were able to suspend belief long enough to watch the movie, these things would bother me the least in fantasy movies..

So, Shawn read my blog post over on MySpace and took offense that I committed “libel” against her.  Which resulted in more discussion; albeit public. Sigh.  But, hey…. she said, “I wish you well.”

I drove by the helicopter again, and it isn’t for learning to fly.  It’s for “keep this helicopter flying”.  In other words, “be a helicopter mechanic.” Isn’t that much simpler?  Sheesh.

A very long weekend of work, starting Friday morning, has caught up to me.

I have lots more I wanted to post about…. but at the moment can’t think of a thing.

I’m regularly struck by the level of dishonesty and contradiction that is in the typical liberal.  Utopian Liberals are the worst.  You would think by now, it wouldn’t amaze me so much.  It happens so regularly, I should expect it by now. 

To make a long story short, Shawn posted a bulletin on MySpace about the number of “Canadians Killed By Bush’s Oil War”. I commented that it was not a war of oil, and asked why Canadians were there if it was Bush’s war.  Shawn replied giving her opinion and telling me how Americans are so stupid that we don’t know what is going on in our government; how the rest of the world outside of the United States knows more about our society and government than we do.  She closed saying that she respected my opinion if it was different. I responded and addressed her opinions respectfully albeit bluntly; including calling her anti-american bigotry what it is.

Her response?  Within minutes, she removed me from her friends list.  Isn’t that an interesting way to show how you respect someone else’s opinion?  Typical, though.  When emotion can’t face facts… cant’ be justified by facts…. take your toys and go home. Shut down.  Stick your fingers in your ears and scream, “Nyah nyah nyah, I can’t hear you.”  Reality must be so much of a shock to Utopian Liberals that these seem to be the only defense mechanisms that they have to rely on.

So much for diversity and tolerance.

I’m Cursed.

No, I’m not cursed with good looks, money, fame, sparkling personality, charisma….. anything good. I’m cursed by a water spirit of some kind…. specifically one that deals with plumbing.  Maybe that explains my extreme fear of water as a young child.  Hmmmm…. something to ponder.

Anyway… I have been needing to replace a faucet in the kitchen for some time.  Now, I know how to do plumbing.  I know what needs to be done.  I know the steps to do it.  I have the skills and the tools.  The problem is the curse.  I’ve always “joked” that,  “I can touch a water pipe on this end of the house and it will break on that end of the house.” It’s not entirely a joke.  So, quite some time ago my mother — looking ahead and saving money — bought a display model of a **very** expensive faucet when a lumber firm closed. The current faucet finally started dripping enough to warrant being changed, so I set about doing it on Sunday.  (Sunday… the day when stores are closed or close early. What can I say.  I have to help the curse reach its full potential in any way possible, I guess.) Deinstallation and installation went surprisingly easy.  “Hmm… this is going pretty good.” That should have been my warning.  Without boring you with the details, lets just say that it’s not a good sign when you turn on a faucet and hear water running **under** the sink. Quickly turn off the water.  I did.  Check the fittings.  I did.  Find no water on the fittings.  Uh-oh.  Not good.  So, this being a very expensive, high quality faucet, it’s generally not expected to leak from where the hose feeds the spout.  (This is a pull out spray type faucet with a single head.) So, I checked the spout and found that it wasn’t tight.  “No, problem. Just tighten it,” I foolishly thought.  Tightened.  Still loose hose.  “Uh, oh. Not good.”  Disassembled the connection and found that there were parts missing. To make a long story short, the parts for this particular model were not available to buy locally. So, I had to buy a new faucet and got to install a faucet **twice**.  Oh, joy. 

The curse strikes again.

I’ve always wanted to learn to fly… especially a helicopter.  I was driving today and saw a “mobile billboard” for a truck driving school that has a flatbed truck with a helicopter on it as an advertisement to “learn to fly helicopters”.   It’s one of those career training things.

 I thought about checking into it.

I have this innate tendency to think of women as better.  Better than men.  Morally and ethically superior.  Better human beings.  I’ve always been this way.  When I think about it, I know logically that women can be bad or evil.  But, when I meet a woman, for instance, I tend to apply characteristics of goodness to her. I will give a woman the benefit of the doubt.  I will think her general attributes are “good”. I’m learning though.

Rented the Xbox 360 Marvel game.  I’m glad I rented it instead of buying it.  It is not my type of game.  I find them repetitive and “smack a few buttons until the badguy dies” games.  I don’t usually play third person type games either, but some are ok.

I’ve been watching “Heroes” and think it’s pretty good. There are a couple of things I don’t like about it; but they are minor. I like the general premise and the fact that they are exploring unknown connections, and seemingly random events which lead to one event. It looks like one of them died in this last one, but we won’t know for sure until the end of January. Also, there is always Ali Larter to get my attention. She’s something. Wow.

I probably should have clarified in my last post that the Suzuki ride was to film a commercial for the 2007 line of motorcycles. Getting to do the ride would have been neat for several reasons; including getting to do the ride with friends.  Sort of like taking a vacation for 5 days with flying and all — something I haven’t done. Nope, never been on a plane.

But, even the process of filming the commercial would be something that we don’t get to experience.  Being in the commercial would have been neat, too.  So, the whole thing would be something different for all of us.  Completely different for me, because I’m less “worldly” than the other two. 🙂

Seriously, though, there are a lot of experiences that I don’t have which the average person has. That might be good or bad.