The Sex Files

Saw The X-Files: I Want to Believe this past weekend...me and apparently four or five other people in the whole country. Actually, I lost another stupid bet to G. over this one. I bet him 20 bucks that the flick would make at least 20 million its first weekend. We added another 5 dolla bet on top of that: if it made 25 million, G. would have owed me 25 bucks. If it made 15 or less, then I owed him 25. And that's what happened, cuz it only made 10 million. What the fuck?! I think every shitty Scary Movie ever made has come away with at least 20 million the first weekend. Ah well. I couldn't have anticipated the juggernaut that The Dark Knight would become (even in its second week) back when we made the bet, and I couldn't have predicted that, six years after the show ended, creator Chris Carter et al would come back to the table with a fairly conventional thriller and no new paranormal ideas (the only paranormal thang here is a psychic, and one of the FBI agents mentions that Mulder and Scully have dealt with psychics three times before). Apparently, we were supposed to be wowed here by the fact that Scully and Mulder are, y'know, doin' it. And it's implied that they've been doing it, off and on or maybe on all the time, for the last six years. Or, hell, maybe they've still never done it at all, because we don't actually get a sex scene. Maybe the paranormal idea here is that a man and a woman can sleep in the same bed and and snuggle but never fuck. G. thought they'd been living together all this time, but I thought Scully wuz just visiting Mulder for the occasional booty call. Of course, if they are sleeping together, the hilarious thing is that they're still calling each other by their last names! And, by the way, don't play a drinking game where you do a shot every time Scully says "Mulder," because you'll be on the floor of the movie theater choking on your own vomit before the film is half over. Seriously, one third of the words in this film must be "Mulder." That's any easy way to write a script. Is Scully worried that she might have early-onset Alzheimer's and is gonna forget who her lover is if she doesn't say his name constantly? Anyway, despite all the goofiness and lack of originality, I still dug this flick, but G. thought it wuz shite.

Batman

We went to see Batman: The Dark Knight last night. The very first thing I noticed, having lived

here for many years now, is how much Gotham City looks exactly like Chicago. The buildings,

the street scenes, and even the business names in the street scenes of Gotham City are very eerily similar to Chicago. It's a good thing that the Caped Crusaded did not fly off the Sears Tower or fight the Joker on the Hancock Building. That would have been even creepier.

Hey what ever happened to his sidekick Robin. Holy Bat Dung Batman !!!!

Dark Knight At Midnight

Caught the 11:59 p.m. Thursday show of The Dark Knight this past week, and it pretty much kicks as much ass as everyone says it does. Oh, Christian Bale's Batman voice is ludicrous (he sounds like he smokes five packs of cigarettes a day), as are the Caped Crusader's stupid speeches about morality, good, evil, white knights, and all that horseshit. But to make up for that, the Joker's many voices and laughs are creepy cool, and his speeches are a lot more coherent and entertaining. In fact, I'm pretty sure that director Chris Nolan avoided making another boring as fuck movie like Batman Begins by saying, whenever things started to lag in this film, "Hey, let's have another Joker scene." Heath Ledger's Clown Prince of Crime is electric in every single frame, and all the teenyboppers out there might have gone to the theaters this weekend to catch a glimpse of a dead dreamboat, but it's the Joker that will haunt them. Of course, the movie is long, but there's a lot going on. I wuz worried that Nolan would be jugging too much to inject D.A. Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) and more generic mobsters into this film, but somehow it works to show what true villainy is when ordinary criminals are stacked up against a monster like the Joker, and Harvey Dent is a good heroic everyman to embody that battle between good and evil (and good becoming evil to fight it). That's why we don't need the speeches. It's all acted out already.

And then we lost another...

Another politico gone. I rarely agreed with Snow, but respected him so very much. The day he started his job as Press Secretary, he was all choked up and talked about it being his dream job. And he was really good at it. We mourn again....

My own quote of the day

My kid asked me if I can get her a BlackBerry.

I said sure, and she can pick a whole bushel.

I've got your stimulus package right here

Every once and a while, I'm reminded of why I love America...

From the Huffington Post:

"Nation Buys Porn With Stimulus Package"

President Bush's economic stimulus package, which appears so far to have been ineffective in stroking the economy to life, is giving an unexpected raise to the porn industry. From an Adult Internet Market Research Company press release: An independent market-research firm, AIMRCo (Adult Internet Market Research Company), has discovered that many websites focused on adult or erotic material have experienced an upswing in sales in the recent weeks since checks have appeared in millions of Americans' mailboxes across the country. According to Kirk Mishkin, Head Research Consultant for AIMRCo, "Many of the sites we surveyed have reported 20-30% growth in membership rates since mid-May when the checks were first sent out, and typically the summer is a slow period for this market."

Rotten Tomatoes Is Bullshit

Above: Angelina Jolie, clearly pissed at her makeup artist.

Exhibit A: the film Ultraviolet (2006), an absurd yet sexy over-the-top action thriller, got an 8% approval rating from the compiled critics at rottentomatoes.com. Meanwhile, Wanted (just released last week), an absurd yet sexy over-the-top action thriller, got a 72% approval rating. I will allow the argument that perhaps Ultraviolet is not a vastly superior film to Wanted even tho' I enjoyed it a lot more. However, I will not allow the argument that Wanted is kickass and Ultraviolet is dogshit, which seems to be the consensus of the critics. I simply cannot allow, if I'm maintaining any sort of movie critic integrity, that Angelina Jolie's smoking hot naked ass is worth 64% more approval. I, of course, approve 100% of Ms. Jolie's apparent plan to be naked in all her movies and have hot naked sex in at least half of them, but I can't give her movie's ye olde TXB stamp of approval just because she gives me a boner. And, seriously, not that she's not still hot, but is she riding the white horse again? Having cocaine and wheat grass for breakfast lunch and dinner? Following the same diet as the kids she adopts in third world countries? Cause them cheekbones are protruding ever further as the cheeks sink in more and more. Time to eat a cheeseburger, honey. Anyhoo, getting off track. Wanted is ludicrously unbelievable (tho' still not as unbelievable as Indiana Jones surviving a nuclear bomb), but it's okay as a future DVD rental...and it's also nothing you need to shell out 8-10 bucks for--unless, of course, you just have to see A.J.'s hot naked ass on the big screen. And while Milla Jovovich isn't naked in Ultraviolet, it's still a better film (and Milla, like Angelina, is naked in a lot of other movies--so you gotta give her props for that). Also, here's Exhibit B in my case against Rotten Tomatoes: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull--which blows, by the way--got a 77% approval rating. And Harrison Ford never even takes his fucking shirt off!

And the gas price will be 6 or 7 dollars next summer

So the following is a cut and paste e-mail from a former carpool mate of mine. Even though she lives only three miles from my house- she refused to be in my carpool because my work was six miles from hers. Now, she will not take a guy from my current carpool because he works more than one mile from her work- and she thinks that he will walk two miles for her- everday. How do I answer an idiot like this?

I LOOK FORWARD TO HEARING FROM HIM. THANKS.

Ali Dagenhart
Cad Operator

From: Gerry Becker [mailto:gerry@newcocoffee.com] Sent: Monday, June 30, 2008 9:18 AMTo: Dagenhart, AliceSubject: RE: CARPOOL...
1.6 miles from your work. If you dropped him off at McDonnell and Campus Pkwy them it would be exactly one mile. I might get back with you if we find that more people will join my carpool- this could happen during the next couple weeks. His work hours are very flexible so I assume that would not be a problem.
-----Original Message-----From: Dagenhart, AliceSent: Monday, June 30, 2008 8:38 AMTo: Gerry BeckerSubject: RE: CARPOOL...
GERRY,
GIVE HIM MY E-MAIL...I'LL SEE WHAT HOURS HE WORKS AND EXACTLY HOW FAR AWAY HE IS, ETC.
THANKS.
Ali Dagenhart
Cad Operator
From: Gerry Becker [mailto:gerry@newcocoffee.com] Sent: Monday, June 30, 2008 8:26 AMTo: Dagenhart, AliceSubject: RE: CARPOOL...
This might sound like a joke- so I am being serious here- but I think he might be willing to walk that far. Would you be interested in that?
-----Original Message-----From: Dagenhart, AliceSent: Friday, June 27, 2008 7:03 AMTo: gerry@newcocoffee.comSubject: CARPOOL...
SORRY, I DON'T THINK HE'S WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR. WE WANT SOMEONE IN THE CAMPUS PARKWAY AREA...THANKS ANYWAY.
Ali Dagenhart
Cad Operator