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Posted on 7 January 2010 by bangpitcher

All right. So this is the movie that changes movies forever. Hot damn.

The best part of the whole IMAX/3-D/Digiwhateverthef**K fourteen dollar experience was that the glasses they gave me were the same kind the Visitors wore in the good version of V back in nineteen-eighty-something.

I’m old. I admit it. I realized today I’m old enough to have made a kid at 18 who’d now be turning 18. If I had. Which I haven’t.

I digress.

I can’t get used to all the CGI. I didn’t give a damn about this film. Didn’t care about the characters, didn’t care about the landscape. It’s all so gawd-awful unreal that it’s impossible to lose yourself in it. It’s like the new Star Wars movies: there’s no grease, there’s no blood, there’s not even any goddamned DIRT. Willing suspension of disbelief only goes so far. Especially when nobody gets dirty in the f**king jungle.

And I don’t like the 3-D. When I see 3-D I want to see something that wows me. Bullets flying at my head, spears and arrows and flying dinosaurs shooting out of the screen. Granted, this was far less gimmicky but it loses something. You were fully aware of the two dimensional plane – it was like watching a play on stage: nothing crosses the front of the stage but you can build in three dimensions between the front of the stage and the back of the theatre. That’s precisely what it was like.

Ho hum. I am just about as underwhelmed as I was when I first saw the trailer that was making every dime store retard cream his shorts. Big, blue, unrealistic things at war with rapacious humans. Like I said, ho hum, I’ve seen this before.

I suspect it’s a bad thing when you’re cheering at the final assault on the big blue hippies like it’s the chopper scene from Apocalypse Now. I was hoping and praying the blue hippies would all get wasted because nobody stands in the way of the US military. And hell, in humans vs. aliens – I’m always on the side of the humans.

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2010

Posted on 1 January 2010 by bangpitcher

Damn. It’s a New Year. And thanks to Carson Daly I know it’s a new decade.

I spent the birth of the current century in Gettysburg drinking a toast to the Queen. I wish I’d known better.

The last time I remember a change of decade I was celebrating the end of “my decade,” the 80s. Only to find out later that the really formative decade in my life was the 90s.

What a shitty time to use as your formative decade.

And now it’s the “teens.” Again. With our youth-oriented culture, how insufferable do you expect this decade to be?

Can’t be worse than what we’ve been through. And there’s always the hope that we’ll actually line extra-Constitutional traitors up against the wall and execute them. I’m looking at you, Speaker Pelosi. Aw, hell. I’m looking at the entire Congress. And the Executive Branch. And more than half of the Judicial.

Fuck it. Let’s just shoot everybody in the Federal Government and call it a day. OK?

Happy New Year.

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Theme

Posted on 31 December 2009 by bangpitcher

It’s only 10 AM and it’s already been a day. A perfect end to this perfect year.

That would be sarcasm.

Woke up this morning with the alarm as usual. As I hit snooze and turned on the radio I thought, “Wouldn’t it be funny if this deactivated the alarm and I overslept.”

An hour later, it wasn’t so funny.

Got my shit together and scrambled out the door into a snowy wildland. Don’t know where my hat is. Know where my gloves and broom/scraper thing are but they’re buried under three feet of someone else’s Christmas gifts in my fully-packed trunk.

Fine. Head out with no fuel onto New Jersey roads that won’t be fully cleared of snow until sometime in July. Marvel at the pristine state of ALL the private lanes, driveways and parking lots along the snowchoked municipal roads. Deal with drivers doing 15 in a 50 with their hazard lights on.

And all the while think, this is the perfect end to this year.

I’ve spoken before about the themes each year seems to adopt. Typically the theme reveals itself earlier. This year waited until the very last minute to coalesce. But it’s so perfect, it was worth the wait:

It’s Murphy’s First Law — “Anything that can go wrong, will.”

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2009 – Year in Review

Posted on 30 December 2009 by bangpitcher

I am absolutely hardwired to be a pessimist. I always suspected this of myself, it’s been confirmed in looking back at seven years of End of Year Reviews. I claim every year has been the worst year ever. I suppose that’s possible, but I doubt it. I wonder why I only ever remember the bad shit, and none of the good.

It’s been an interesting evolution. The world changed – we thought forever – in 2001. In 2002 we all waited on tenterhooks to see what direction things would go. In 2003 my life seemed to be moving in the right direction. 2004 was another year of anxiously awaiting developments. 2005 was up and down, very bad thingsTM happened and yet I made a move and a change and thought that maybe things would improve. 2006 was, hands down, the worst of ’em all. Culminating with all my efforts to make a move and a change dashed against the concrete wall of bitter reality. 2007 was a busy year at work but also a time to consider another future move. 2008 was a doozy. Started slowly, ended slowly, but was a hell of a hoot in the middle.

And now, 2009. Another truly shitty year. I really can’t find many high points. I took another trip in March which helped. But I ended up doing something I never wanted to do again in a place I loathe. And the fall saw nothing but death and destruction stalking the land. There must be something to these 3 year cycles. ’06 & ’09 – peas in a pod. Christ, what’s next?

January

  • I skipped the Inauguration. Couldn’t bring myself to spend a very cold day with four million people who hate my guts.
  • Watched it on TV instead.
  • Saw some movies and otherwise had very little to say. Life in your Dad’s basement is not conducive to great inspiring adventures.

February

  • I got a job. Perfect way to re-enter the work force: a part-time seasonal position. Sums up the economy nicely I think.
  • It was an auspicious day.
  • Spring begins. Just knowing that somewhere, someone is playing baseball in the warm sunshine makes it easier to deal with the general snow and icy foulness of your average northeastern February.

March

  • On the road again!
  • I precipitously fled New Orleans. ‘Cause if I didn’t, I wasn’t sure I ever would. Funnily enough I met a guy later on in the year who didn’t leave. Until the storm.
  • “It’s all Blood you see.” — The Player, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. A week or so of death. I visited the death scenes of JFK, MLK and the King. The X in the middle of the street still gives me the creeps.

April

May

  • Moved to New Jersey and started some work.
  • I saw a very disappointing Phillies game.
  • Another month with nothing to say. Maybe because I didn’t have internet for half the month?

June

July

  • Oh! That’s why I didn’t write anything. I disappeared.
  • “Now there’s another dirty word, ‘Job’.” — General Melchett, Blackadder Goes Forth. And then I got a fscking job.

August

September

October

November

December

And finally, the year is over. Good riddance. Another year of limbo to look forward to with the consolation that, Hey! At least it can’t be worse.

Right?

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Limbo

Posted on 28 December 2009 by bangpitcher

This is the limbo week. The best week of the year.

All the Christmastime niceness is past.

The New Year offers a fresh start only a week later.

So you have a whole week to be a complete bastard to everyone you meet and then wash away your sins with a midnight toast.

Go forth my friends and do evil. Empty your mind and blacken your soul for rebirth and renewal are coming soon.

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