Thursday, April 09, 2009

Act of Contrition

I'm willing to admit when I've been wrong. Previously, I scoffed at the idea of seeing the movie Knowing. Now, having seen it, I apologize to all of my friends who knew better. Most of all, I apologize to Nicolas Cage for ever doubting him. Let me break it down like this:

If you want to see a good movie, do not see Knowing.

If you want to see a great movie, absolutely do not see Knowing.

If, however, you want to see an AMAZING movie, then this is the movie for you. Where does the awesomeness start, you ask? Sure, it's got Nic Cage's ridiculous over-acting. (Witness him bashing a baseball bat against a tree and shouting, "You want a piece of this?" at the aliens. Then try not to die laughing.) But that's just the tip of the good-ass iceberg. You want flaming elk? You got it. How about alien angels? Done. Nic Cage running around looking bewildered? Hell yeah there is. But what about math, you ask? Believe me, there's math. There's shitloads of math.

What more do you need?

Sunday, April 05, 2009

Another Way to Ride Dirty

Ever heard the song "Come On Get Higher" by Matt Nathanson? It's that same type of pleasant little acoustic rock song that gets so much play these days on the pop stations, the type that I just can't stand. At first glance, it's all about love and faith, presented in a syrupy sweet package of earnestness. At second glance, however, it's about something quite different. At least I think so, anyway. I'm going to post some lyrics, you tell me if you agree:

"Come on get higher
loosen my lips
faith and desire
and the swing of your hips
just pull me down hard
and drown me in love

I feel the pull of your heart
I taste the sparks on your tongue
I see angels and devils and god when you come on
hold on...

come on get higher
loosen my lips
faith and desire
and the swing of your hips
just pull me down hard
and drown me in love

come on get higher
loosen my lips
faith and desire
and the swing of your hips
just pull me down hard
and drown me
drown me in love

it's all wrong
it's all wrong
it's all wrong, its so right."

Okay, now take another look, and try to tell me this song's not about cunnilingus.

Because it totally is.

Friday, April 03, 2009

Ultimate My Ass

I'm sure you've all noticed a changing landscape regarding the sizing/labelling of products over the past 5 years or so. Like fast food chains that dropped the term "small," and now they have large, extra large, and colon-buster. I can understand that, as this is America, dammit, and we don't want no small nothin'. Then there's Starbucks, with sizes tall, grande, and venti. Of course, "tall" actually refers to small, and "grande" is medium. Same concept, only trendier, I guess.

But how about labels that just don't make sense? Today I stopped at a gas station/car wash. There were four different levels of car-washing I could choose from. From lowest quality wash to highest, those levels were labelled as follows:

1. Deluxe Wash
2. Ultimate Wash
3. Triple Wash
4. Extreme Wash

So here's the deal. You want to start with "deluxe" rather than "basic" or the like? I understand that. Deluxe just sounds better, and that's the point. But from deluxe, you move up to "ultimate." Here's where it gets problemmatic. How can something described as "ultimate" be only third best? Did the people who designed this system not know what "ultimate" means? Try the following: not to be improved upon or surpassed; greatest; unsurpassed. In other words, they are claiming to improve upon something that they also imply cannot possibly be improved upon. How, you ask? Do it a third time. Seems like if something has already been done perfectly, doing it a third time does nothing. The law of diminishing returns has to come into play.

And don't even get me started on "extreme." Maybe whoever designed this was just a fan of Harold and Kumar. Still, as a wise man once said, "read a book, nigga."