Terrible Analogies

This weekend Karin took the kid out to dinner to show him off to some friends.  Feeling a bit lonely, I decided to google the word “alone”.  This is what I found:

1. Alone

What you’re not. Although it may seem like there is nobody there who cares about you, who is like you, or can be a friend to you, there is someone miles and miles away who would like to be there with you if they knew you were calling.

This is a message to all of the lonely and depressed people out there on their computers, reading definitions of words they’re feeling in hopes to find some comfort, if only for a short while. Regardless of whether you’re reading this in five weeks or in five years, and regardless of whether I’m still browsing this site regularly or dead in a car crash, just know that tonight, I was feeling very lonely, crying out for you.

You’re not alone. I’m not alone. We’re not alone

Thanks Urban Dictionary for making me feel a little less lonely.

To celebrate the fact that I’m on call this week (boo!), please let me present to you (for no apparent reason) Louis Armstrong:

You can’t see it, but I’m throwing the devil horns as hard as I can, unlike this cat from High Fidelity who doesn’t know the difference between the death fist and a shaka:

Yeah man, that’s very metal.

I always found it odd that metal has its own hand symbol, but opera/country/folk/etc doesn’t.  You can’t legitimately throw up the horns at a jazz club, a job interview, or a church picnic and honestly look people in the eye come morning.  It’s a shame really, because the horns are the ultimate, innate expression of everything that truly rocks.  It’s the physical expression of what your soul feels is the epitome of cool.

Long live the devil horns.

Mulling over my 2500+ DVD / Blu-ray collection this weekend, I was in the mood for an action/adventure type of flick. Equilibrium? No, too preachy. The Road Warrior? No, too gritty. Ronin? No, too good (save that for later). Ah…what’s this? Peter Jackson’s King Kong? Well, I hadn’t seen this since its release. I had completely forgotten that I even owned a copy, so I decided to give it a spin.

Bouncing downstairs with King Kong in hand I threw it into the PS3, settled down with a glass of Sam Adams, and prepared to be entertained.

Unfortunately, what I witnessed could not be classified as “entertainment”.

Not to put too fine of a point on it, but Peter Jackson’s King Kong is perhaps one of the worst movies ever made. I find it hard to believe that the same guy who filmed the Lord Of The Rings trilogy managed to create this stink of a movie. Overproduced, poorly acted, and overly long are perfect descriptors for this embarrassment of a major motion picture release. I could only bring myself to watch up through the dinosaur stampede scene before jumping from the couch and angrily pushing the eject button with furious rage.

I felt used, belittled, and manipulated.

Now I know why I couldn’t recall anything about this film.

I had had enough. No, Peter, I’m not scared by skulls. Please stop with your dramatic slow motion zooms onto every skull on the island. No, Peter, I don’t feel like your 80’s era special effects drew me into the action. I felt like you were mocking the audience by making us watch the deck hand as he did his best Curly Howard impersonation, running in an obvious cable harness as the “ground” fell out from under him (note: this was the scene that solidified the painful, gnawing notion in my belly that I was watching a film that was worse than Dead Ringers). And no, Peter, Jack Black is not a dramatic thespian capable of eliciting an emotional bond between the viewer and his character. In fact, I was hoping that you would be breaking from script and offing Black in the first miserable act.

Question for you Peter; did you even pay attention to the way in which King Kong was swinging and thrashing about the character of Ann? Any normal mortal would have had their neck snapped in an instant. Now, I know I’m supposed to suspend my disbelief here. I mean, after all, this movie is about a 25 foot gorilla…but come on. I dare you to revisit this scene and tell me how Ann didn’t have her delicate neck snapped in two, show any visible signs of whiplash, or at least pass out due to the rough treatment from said ape.

As I write this post I’m skimming through this film on my computer. Skipping to the end I’m greeted with the most cringe worthy tag line of the entire movie. The way in which Jack Black utters the classic line “It was beauty killed the beast,” I was half expecting him to break out into a Carrot Top inspired object-oriented comedy bit routine. I’m still unsure how he managed to hold back the giggle that the obvious twinkle in his eyes betrayed. Black must have known that he didn’t have the acting chops to carry this flick. How he ever got the part I’ll never know.

To think that I wasted $15 on this film during its initial DVD release. What a waste.  I’m going to purge this movie from my internal data bank (again) by throwing in a copy of Bad Taste tonight. At least that movie was bad in a cool sort of way.

Some days I feel like slamming my head against the wall…

I swear, this gets funnier each time I watch it. What’s wrong with me?

I’m sorry, but I have to get this off of my chest.

Every time the wife and I turn on the Food Network and happen upon the show Unwrapped:

I can’t help but be reminded of this:

It gets to the point that I become so distracted I begin to tune out Unwrapped out and flash back to the many hours I wasted sitting in front of the TV as a child, thinking about how badly I wanted to run through the Double Dare obstacle course.  *sigh*