Having recently seen the film event of a lifetime, I figure it deserves, at least in passing, a spoiler-free blogpost. Snakes on a Plane. I must say that I was impressed. It began around 9:50, before the "midnight" showing began at 10:00. Showing up at the theater, something seemed amiss. As I neared the ticket booth, it became apparent what was wrong: snakes. On everything. Every movie poster had been switched to a "Snakes on a Plane" poster. There were rubber snakes taped to every horizontal surface and hanging from every conceivable point on the ceiling. The theater staff were dressed as flight attendants. My ticket was housed in a Continental Airlines ticket holder, with pertinent flight information. The electronic marquee listing what was playing on each screen read, instead of the movie's title, "Now Boarding Pacific Airlines Flight 121." There was a series of warning signs, as per the pamphlet aboard ever plane I've been on, displaying what to do in case of a rampant outbreak of snakes on a plane. All this and I hadn't even seen the movie yet.
Sitting down with Scholl, Randy, (I sat here), Doug, Wheeler, and Phil, I prepared myself for a letdown. This was, after all, a Hollywood production. Surely it couldn't live up to it's own hype. The intarwebs had been ablaze with "Snakes on a Plane" as a concept more than a movie. T-shirts, parody posters, and theme song contests all released before anyone had even seen so much as a teaser trailer. Then the movie started.
For the first twenty minutes or so, Uncle Doug had the audacity to voice the opinion that the rest of us were unfortunately thinking: "Where are all the snakes?" I must admit that the "plot" leading up to why there were snakes on the plane was lacking. It's a good thing, then, that the plot was simply an excuse to get the snakes on to the plane. We meet a select cast before the plane takes off, replete with stereotypes one expects in a b-movie thriller. The Paris-Hilton-esque blonde ditz with a yapping rat-dog in her handbag, the rich elitist snob complaining about being bumped from first class, the two brothers going on their first flight alone, the stewardess on her last flight ever, the effeminate doesn't-know-he's-gay guy, and, of course, the germophobic rapper and his entourage . . . this movie had them all. As they take their seats, the tension rises with the view of a countdown timer, and we all know what its counting down to. The plane continues on through a turbulent storm (which conveniently lasts most of the film). The timer reaches zero. Then there are snakes. On the plane. EVERYBODY PANIC! The first half-hour of snakes on the plane is gruesome, to say the least. I can't say that I was surprised, but my constitution almost gave out in one particularly horrific encounter. Aside from that point, the movie was terrific. It delivered all that it promised and so much more. At no point during the film did any of the characters take their roles seriously, which was rather the point of the film. There were points I laughed uproariously, there were points I cheered. Overall, I wish everyone could have been there opening night. The experience was at least 25% of the fun of the "movie event."
p.s. Because the theater had such a surplus, I now have two different Snakes on a Plane movie posters. Glee!
Friday, August 18, 2006
Let's do it Again!
An update?! Who approved this? And what am I doing over here?! Hmm . . . Well, I suppose as long as this is here, I might as well say something. A lot has happened since *looks down* October 30, 2005?! Gyeh, this is overdue. So my life since then, in summary, has included getting engaged, passing all my classes, getting married, taking my new wife to see TSO in concert, starting the spring semester by moving in to MSH, getting a job at Whataburger, passing all of those classes, getting fired for "workplace violence," getting a job with LeTourneau grounds, and getting my first 60 on WoW. I think that covers everything. Oh, I also agreed to run a D20 Modern campaign in there somewhere. Of course, as most "regular" readers know (sidebar: can my readers be considered regular if I haven't updated for over nine months?) my blog is not about my life. This blog is, in fact, entirely about things which are amusing, interesting, or otherwise engaging my attention. If you'd really like an expansion on any of the above points, just leave a comment and I'll make another post concerning your request.
First on the list: Pandora Internet Radio
Pandora Radio is brought to listeners by the Music Genome Project. This station, unlike most other radio stations, will ask for a song or artist you enjoy listening to. Then, using that data, it will create a playlist of songs with similar qualities. So far, it has managed to create for me a Nobou Uematsu themed list, a BT themed list, and a Thousand Foot Krutch themed list. I'd say that's a pretty darn good for an internet radio station. As well, I have never had any lag between songs, any loading time, or, despite their threats, any ads.
Nextly comes to us from the meme of Snakes on a Plane: [Blanks] on a [Blank]!
[Blanks] on a [Blank] is the natural progression of the steadily increasing fervor raised from the idea of a camp B-Movie called "Snakes on a Plane." The fans, with a video camera and way too much free time, compiled various shorts filling in the animal and vehicle with their preferred comedic devices. What came out were some of the funniest parodies of SoaP yet created. Particularly notable is "Tarantulas on a Hovercraft," though all merit a glance. I should note that all I have seen thusfar include the "catchphrase" of the film, so there is an explicit language warning.
For further entertainment, thoughts on LeTU campus:
- Grass keeps growing. Somebody should look in to stopping that.
- There's always another hole that needs digging, but only once did it contain sewage
- Trinity courtyard is now so much worse than it was. You can't hang a hammock from one tree.
- Apparently this was the summer of campus-wide remodeling. New mailboxes in MSC-1, new wallpaper in LH and HHH, and complete remodling of the registrar's office on the second floor of the Library.
- When it's on the baseball field, it's "sand." When it's on the immaculate lawns to promote growth of sod, it's "topsoil."
Finally, an essay by Steve Martin, from his book Pure Drivel. It should be noted that nothing continuing is original work, but is entirely lifted from Mr. Martin.
Representatives of the popular Times Roman font recently announced a shortage of periods and have offered substitutes - such as inverted commas, exclamation marks, and semicolons - until the crisis is overcome by people such as yourself, who through creative management of surplus punctuation can perhaps allay the constant demand for periods, whose heavy usage in the last ten years (not only in English but in virtually every language in the world) is creating a burden on writers everywhere, thus generating a litany of comments, among them: "What the hell am I supposed to do without my periods? How am I going to write? Isn't this a terrible disaster? Are they crazy? Won't this just lead to misuse of other, less interesting punctuation???"
"Most vulnerable are writers who work in short, choppy sentences," said a spokesperson for Times Roman, who continued, "We are trying to remedy the situation and have suggested alternatives, like umlauts, since we have plenty of umlauts - and, in fact, have more umlauts than we could possible use in a lifetime! Don't forget, umlauts can really spice up a page with their delicate symmetry - resting often midway in a word, letters spilling on either side - and not only indicate the pronunciation of a word but also contribute to a writer's greater glory because they're fancy, not to mention that they even look like periods, indeed, are indistinguishable from periods, and will lead casual readers to believe that the article actually contains periods!"
Bobby Brainard, a writer living in an isolated cabin in Montana - who is, in fact, the only writer living in an isolated cabin in Montana who is not insane - is facing a dilemma typical of writers across the nation: "I have a sentence that has just got to be stopped; it is currently sixteen pages long and is edging out the front door and is now so lumbering I'm starting to worry that one period alone won't be enough - that I'll need at least two to finally kill it off - and if that doesn't work, I've ordered an elephant gun from Jessie's, and if I don't get some periods fast I'm going to have to use it..." The magazine International Hebrew has offered this emergency statement: "We currently have an oversupply of backwards periods and will be happy to send some to Mister Brainard or anyone else facing a crisis!" .period backwards the in slip you while moment a for way other the look to sentence the getting is trick only The
The general concern of writers is summed up by this brief telegram:
Period shortage mustn't continue stop
Stop-stoppage must come to a full stop stop
We must resolve it and stop the stoppage stop
Yours truly,
Tom Stoppard
Needless to say, there has been an increasing pressure on the ellipsis...
"I assure to you," said the spokesperson, "I assure you the ellipsis is not - repeat, is not - just three periods strung together, and, although certain writers have plundered the ellipsis for its dots, such dots are deeply inelegant and ineffective when used to stop a sentence! ¿An ellipsis point is too weak to stop a modern sentence, which would require at least two ellipsis points, leaving the third dot to stand alone pointlessly - and, indeed, two periods at the end of a sentence would look like a typo, comprende? And why is Times Roman so important? Why can't writers employ some of our other, lesser-used fonts, such as Goofy Deluxe, Namby Pamby Extra Narrow, or Gone Fishin'?"
In fact, there is movement toward alternate puncuation; consider the New Punctuation and Suicide Cult in Southern Texas, whose credo is "Why not try some new and different kinds of punctuation and then kill ourselves?" Notice how these knotty epigrams from Shakespeare are easily unravelled:
Every cloud engenders not a storm :)
Horatio, I am dead :(
Remembering the Albertus Extra Bold asterisk embargo of several years back, one hopes the crisis is solved quickly, because a life of exclamation marks, no matter how superficially exciting, is no life at all! There are, of course, many other fonts one could use if the crisis continues, but frankly, which would you rather be faced with - Namby Pamby Extra Narrow or the bosomy sexuality of Times Roman? The shortage itself may be a useful one, provided it's over quickly, for it has made at least this author appreciate and value his one spare period, and it is with great respect that I use it now.
First on the list: Pandora Internet Radio
Pandora Radio is brought to listeners by the Music Genome Project. This station, unlike most other radio stations, will ask for a song or artist you enjoy listening to. Then, using that data, it will create a playlist of songs with similar qualities. So far, it has managed to create for me a Nobou Uematsu themed list, a BT themed list, and a Thousand Foot Krutch themed list. I'd say that's a pretty darn good for an internet radio station. As well, I have never had any lag between songs, any loading time, or, despite their threats, any ads.
Nextly comes to us from the meme of Snakes on a Plane: [Blanks] on a [Blank]!
[Blanks] on a [Blank] is the natural progression of the steadily increasing fervor raised from the idea of a camp B-Movie called "Snakes on a Plane." The fans, with a video camera and way too much free time, compiled various shorts filling in the animal and vehicle with their preferred comedic devices. What came out were some of the funniest parodies of SoaP yet created. Particularly notable is "Tarantulas on a Hovercraft," though all merit a glance. I should note that all I have seen thusfar include the "catchphrase" of the film, so there is an explicit language warning.
For further entertainment, thoughts on LeTU campus:
- Grass keeps growing. Somebody should look in to stopping that.
- There's always another hole that needs digging, but only once did it contain sewage
- Trinity courtyard is now so much worse than it was. You can't hang a hammock from one tree.
- Apparently this was the summer of campus-wide remodeling. New mailboxes in MSC-1, new wallpaper in LH and HHH, and complete remodling of the registrar's office on the second floor of the Library.
- When it's on the baseball field, it's "sand." When it's on the immaculate lawns to promote growth of sod, it's "topsoil."
Finally, an essay by Steve Martin, from his book Pure Drivel. It should be noted that nothing continuing is original work, but is entirely lifted from Mr. Martin.
Representatives of the popular Times Roman font recently announced a shortage of periods and have offered substitutes - such as inverted commas, exclamation marks, and semicolons - until the crisis is overcome by people such as yourself, who through creative management of surplus punctuation can perhaps allay the constant demand for periods, whose heavy usage in the last ten years (not only in English but in virtually every language in the world) is creating a burden on writers everywhere, thus generating a litany of comments, among them: "What the hell am I supposed to do without my periods? How am I going to write? Isn't this a terrible disaster? Are they crazy? Won't this just lead to misuse of other, less interesting punctuation???"
"Most vulnerable are writers who work in short, choppy sentences," said a spokesperson for Times Roman, who continued, "We are trying to remedy the situation and have suggested alternatives, like umlauts, since we have plenty of umlauts - and, in fact, have more umlauts than we could possible use in a lifetime! Don't forget, umlauts can really spice up a page with their delicate symmetry - resting often midway in a word, letters spilling on either side - and not only indicate the pronunciation of a word but also contribute to a writer's greater glory because they're fancy, not to mention that they even look like periods, indeed, are indistinguishable from periods, and will lead casual readers to believe that the article actually contains periods!"
Bobby Brainard, a writer living in an isolated cabin in Montana - who is, in fact, the only writer living in an isolated cabin in Montana who is not insane - is facing a dilemma typical of writers across the nation: "I have a sentence that has just got to be stopped; it is currently sixteen pages long and is edging out the front door and is now so lumbering I'm starting to worry that one period alone won't be enough - that I'll need at least two to finally kill it off - and if that doesn't work, I've ordered an elephant gun from Jessie's, and if I don't get some periods fast I'm going to have to use it..." The magazine International Hebrew has offered this emergency statement: "We currently have an oversupply of backwards periods and will be happy to send some to Mister Brainard or anyone else facing a crisis!" .period backwards the in slip you while moment a for way other the look to sentence the getting is trick only The
The general concern of writers is summed up by this brief telegram:
Period shortage mustn't continue stop
Stop-stoppage must come to a full stop stop
We must resolve it and stop the stoppage stop
Yours truly,
Tom Stoppard
Needless to say, there has been an increasing pressure on the ellipsis...
"I assure to you," said the spokesperson, "I assure you the ellipsis is not - repeat, is not - just three periods strung together, and, although certain writers have plundered the ellipsis for its dots, such dots are deeply inelegant and ineffective when used to stop a sentence! ¿An ellipsis point is too weak to stop a modern sentence, which would require at least two ellipsis points, leaving the third dot to stand alone pointlessly - and, indeed, two periods at the end of a sentence would look like a typo, comprende? And why is Times Roman so important? Why can't writers employ some of our other, lesser-used fonts, such as Goofy Deluxe, Namby Pamby Extra Narrow, or Gone Fishin'?"
In fact, there is movement toward alternate puncuation; consider the New Punctuation and Suicide Cult in Southern Texas, whose credo is "Why not try some new and different kinds of punctuation and then kill ourselves?" Notice how these knotty epigrams from Shakespeare are easily unravelled:
Every cloud engenders not a storm :)
Horatio, I am dead :(
Remembering the Albertus Extra Bold asterisk embargo of several years back, one hopes the crisis is solved quickly, because a life of exclamation marks, no matter how superficially exciting, is no life at all! There are, of course, many other fonts one could use if the crisis continues, but frankly, which would you rather be faced with - Namby Pamby Extra Narrow or the bosomy sexuality of Times Roman? The shortage itself may be a useful one, provided it's over quickly, for it has made at least this author appreciate and value his one spare period, and it is with great respect that I use it now.
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