The Rabbit Hole

Everywhere I turn, people are trying to spoil The Avengers for me by telling me what to think of it. I don't want to know! So I'm going radio silent until this evening. I hope I make it to 8:30.

Most of the time, I like knowing what people thought going into a movie. I like to have a general feel about the thing and what to expect so I can modulate expectations. But when I'm reeeeeally excited, I need not to know that you thought it was "okay" or "pretty great" or "not so good" (NOTE: THOSE ARE NOT ACTUAL REVIEWS I'VE SEEN FOR THE AVENGERS. I MADE THOSE UP. I WILL NOT SPOIL YOU IF YOU DO NOT SPOIL ME.) I've gone into two movies in my recent life not knowing what to expect, like, at all: Inception and Cabin in the Woods. Both benefited immensely from that, Cabin in the Woods perhaps more so. In a world where everything is known before you get to the theater, thanks to trailers and gossip sites, it's a rare privilege to enjoy things almost without knowing what to expect, you know?

So, yes, text me if you need something, or e-mail, but I'm going to read boring political blogs until I leave work because I cannot read Twitter or any of my usual sites for the rest of the day.

I feel like a cat chasing a laser toy, mentally, today. My head is all over the place. To whit, this list of things that have come up in my head today, either as a result of life, the internet, or just my brain really being that spacey.

-I hate when people say, "I don't want to spoil it for you, so I won't say anything more," and then they go ahead and keep telling you spoilers. This morning, I talked to the new guy at work about his trip to see The Book of Mormon, which I am anticipating seeing at some point, and he just would not stop. Mind you, I didn't even ask about this, he volunteered this information and I, politely, heard him out and suggested he see Avenue Q if The Book of Mormon is his kind of bag. How did I recommend this? By saying it's funny and has good music. End of story. No spoilers. Jesus, was that so hard?

-You know what was a good game? Bioshock. I really loved that game for the gameplay. Yeah, they smoothed things out in the sequel, but honestly, the swapping back and forth between plasmids and weapons became second nature after a while. And there was a photography mini-game! More games need to have photography elements to them. I kind of love that that mechanic is back in the less-than-original "reboot" sequel Dead Rising: Off the Record. But man, Bioshock was goddamned fun, challenging without being impossible, and fucking gorgeous. I should go replay the sequel, get some more achievements or something. I should also buy this shirt, y/y?

-I had a dream where I met Jennifer Hale (if you don't know who she is, shame on you) at a convention (it might have been PAX) and I was so excited to see her and have her sign my female-Shepard-variant cover for the collector's edition of Mass Effect 3. I told her that I've been a fan of hers since Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego? when she was the female detective's voice. I don't know why that detail was so specific in my mind, but yeah. I woke up knowing it was a dream because I'm absolutely too squeamish about meeting celebrities to ever want tot talk to them. This is a nice change of pace from dreaming I've been called out as a failure by my boss and wake up in a panic about how to prove otherwise.

-Assassin's Creed movie!?! On the one hand, Ubisoft, with probably 1/100th of the budget of even a mediocre Hollywood movie, made a pretty goddamned awesome prequel short film about the father of the player character in the second and third Assassin's Creed games. It's beautiful, the costumes ARE porn, and I think they must have gotten the voice actors from the game surgically altered to resemble the characters they play because WHOA. On the other hand, if that's what they can do with 30 minutes and a lot of love and those people were involved in the movie, like at all, SIGN ME UP.

I have never had any interaction with the court system outside of jury duty and traffic court, but from my sample of n=2, I have decided that court is a place where the justice system fucks with you because it can.


Case in point: my trip upstate to get a plea bargain on my speeding ticket. ( Whine. )
I'm not thrilled about the $235 fine, but I really can't complain about the deal I got. I copped to 75 when I got pulled over, and I'd have even accepted 20 mph over, so long as I avoided that bullshit "driver reassesment penalty." The only way to have done better was to get it dismissed, and I'm not going to haul my ass back there to protest a ticket that they absolutely had me dead-to-rights on speeding on the off chance Officer Whoshisface wouldn't show up to Bumblefuck to testify. It's done, and I'll see about maybe taking defensive driving to knock off the points. I lucked out in that my quarterly update on my insurance arrived the mail before I left, and I checked it to see that I can get up to two sub-15 mph over speeding tickets without seeing a change in my rates. I'll double-check that against what they say my rates are as bills arrive, of course, but at least I don't have that headache.



My Dad called me to see how it went, which was sweet. He's heard precisely zip from his lawyer since retaining him. It's possible he hasn't had to go to court yet, but I know it's not going to be reduced to a parking ticket, like this guy seems to think he can manage. So when he gets a ticket for whatever, he'll have to pay the fees and what not. He'll probably hear from the lawyer then. We'll see who had the better plan when that happens.

Racists suck. But stupid racists are hilarious. Case in point: there is a conservative hate group that is actually hating on the upcoming Marvel movie Thor (our May Movie, folks!). Not because the trailer made it look like another $200M exercise in mediocrity. (True fact: at least half that budget was spent on replacing sets that Anthony Hopkins had devoured.) They're protesting because Idris Elba in it.

Personally, I'd protest any movie that doesn't have Idris Elba in it. (HOTT.) Give this man allllll the roles in Hollywood, kthanxbai.

Here's a great take-down of the racists' claims. Look, racism is bad. But with a little more of this kind of racism, we might just kill the whole evil, malingering cancer of racism outright. Bad day to be a racist if these guys are your spokesmen. And I say men, because, let's face it, only a bunch of white dudes would get this far up their own assholes about Idris Elba. (Because they secretly wish it were Idris Elba up there.)

Time for a good old-fashioned gripe. Here's what's annoying me this week!

1. People who pronounce things wrong.
I don't mean people who don't speak English well or have accents. They are lovely and allowed to speak with accents all their life for all I care, especially if they are British. (Or Australian. Or Kiwi. Or even South African, though I will probably confuse that with one of the others--or all of the others at some point.) I mean people who were born and raised in America and obviously speak fluent English who insist on pronouncing words that they clearly have only ever read on paper in a way that is stupid and obviously wrong, and worse, no one corrects them.

( FIX IT FIX IT FIX IT )

2. People who are anorexic presuming to lecture other people about their eating habits. Yes, this article has to do with the Kevin Smith kerfuffle, which should be discussed in terms of customer service and has instead devolved into "Fatties deserve it." But it's a good read. Because even if you want to make this about someone being fat, end of story, you really, really shouldn't let anyone that obsessed with food tell you what's right and what's not when it comes to a) eating, b) obesity, c) anything else. Obsessed people make very poor philosophers.

3. The fact that I'm probably going to have to buy this expansion.
( I hate this strategy. )

Perhaps you've heard of James Dobson? He's a moral crusader. You know the type--the pseudo-friendly evangelist type that just wants to protect people from their worst impulses, like women working, that sort of thing. He's the sort of curmudgeonly old dude you can't believe is able to survive the daily affront to his delicate sensibilities that is a non-theocratic America.

I happen to reading about a blog post about a horrid abuse of power, wherein a mother asked the police to taser her 10 year old and they did, all because the girl didn't want to shower (!?). The post's author linked this sort of abuse to the kind that is generally encouraged by people like James Dobson. Whether or not you agree with the writer's premise that people who listen to Dobson and enthusiastically spank (if not outright whip) their kids are abusing them, regardless of whether you think spanking is a slippery slope towards having your kids tasered, I think we can all agree that James Dobson is a monster.

Why? Because he wrote this book, with this excerpt in it about how he BEAT HIS TINY DACHSHUND:
( Cut for disturbing content--animal abuse )

This is a grown man who took a belt to a dog the size of a loaf of bread because he felt that was the best way to discipline his dog. I wonder: if he'd had a pit bull or some equally tempered dog, would have been so "brave" as to try and take a strap to it?

Long story short: if you want to pretend that you're qualified for telling other people what behaviors are right or wrong, it is generally not a good idea to write--proudly, no less--about beating up your dog. You. Fucker.

Wow, two uses of that "I hate people" tag in one day!

Before I get into this rant which will pretty much cement my reputation for being an evil librul bebbie killah, a note: I totally support fertility treatments. I am not opposed to them at all. I think anyone who wants to have a kid, who can support one and love one but who has trouble conceiving one should be able to do a course of fertility treatments if that is their wish. (I would prefer more people adopt, but I would never say they had to.)

THAT SAID...

Via Dan Savage, I got to this story about a Mormon Couple who used artificial means to conceive...and then remembered that they're supposed to let God sort out those messy fertility decisions. You know, like how he doesn't make it possible for most women to be able to have six babies at once and have all of them survive? That's totally cool. But removing two or so of them prior to God making that decision so that four, rather than two could have made it? That's MURDER.

I love this one commenter on Savage's post:

"Nature (procreation, not your strong subject) is a miraculous process that we as humans are never going to fully understand we can just admire it and let the process invented by the one who created us take its course. It has worked for millennia, its why you're here, you just have refused to take part of it and that's why you cannot understand it. "

Yep, birthing has worked for many thousands of years. If you weren't a creationist cretin, you'd realize that actually birthing has worked for reproductive method for, oh, millions of years, a, and that actually its killed a shit-ton of mothers and fetuses over those millions, b. It's not a process we can't know unless we take your airy indifferent attitude toward it. It's funny, but if we actually try to understand it, we DO understand it! I mean, the doctor told this couple that if they had all six fetuses develop they'd pretty much all die or be horribly crippled for life. And what do you know? He was right! Isn't that funny how the guy who knows a lot about having babies and keeps studying the effects on people having babies of, well, having babies, he knows stuff? This is nuts!

I would feel bad for these people who watched four of these babies who were clearly not meant to be die, if they hadn't brought this upon themselves. Next time you promise to live by God's will, perhaps you should just hope and pray for that fertility, huh? Losing a few cells in week three is a hell of a lot less traumatic than watching 70% formed babies die from complications you could have avoided.

I found out on Sunday about George Tiller's murder, and I really just deflated. ( There is no way God forgives this. )

Why does it take the judge being corrupt to make this not okay?

The kids are all right. Until a bunch of self-righteous pricks overcriminalize them. Then we create problems that we didn't have before.

Listen to some of the audio from the victims. The last two are especially frightening. These were two kids who hadn't done anything wrong at all, and they got punished.

The last post about assholes on the message boards at TWoP, I promise.

The BSG recapper, Jacob, made some half-assed statement about how men can't be raped and any attempt to depict male equivalents of rape were hollow attempts to equalize something that is inequitable. I respectfully disagreed, saying that the trauma of sexual abuse can't be ranked, let alone place rape as some holy grail above all others. (Not to mention that it is very disrespectful, not to mention sexist, to assume that men can't be violated like women can.)

I got this as a response: The only person saying that, again, is you.

I call it a moral victory that this smarty-smart-smart person resorted to "I know you are, but what am I." I had to respond as much, but they'll probably delete it. I still walk away the superior here. Because I didn't call anyone a smothering asshole for refusing to tolerate dissent.