David S. Atkinson's Blog, page 257

Happy National Punctuation Day!

Happy National Punctuation Day!

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I Can’t Understand Why “Parole Violators” Had Such A Limited Distribution

I don’t know how many of you have seen the movie Parole Violators, but I can’t see why that movie didn’t have a wider distribution. A writer friend of mine named Joe Simmons loaned this movie to me, though the only place he ever found it was in a gas station DVD bargain bin off some highway in South Dakota. Surely this deserved a little better marketing than that.

I mean, setting aside for a moment the poorly delivered and utterly pointless dialogue, the horribly choreographed fight scenes where hits frequently and obviously do not connect with the targets, and the utterly generic characters and plot…well, there wouldn’t be any movie left at all. Still.

I do note that people often say that 80-90s cop action films all followed a formula and how easy it would be for them to make one. However, most people then actually made a movie using the formula. The Parole Violators people didn’t. Instead, they apparently went ahead and just filmed the formula itself.

How can you beat that? How could that go direct to extremely, extremely limited DVD release?

Imagine a female fight scene that ends with a person backing up to accidentlly impale the back of her skull on a protruding nail. Imagine that this is somehow sufficient to enable her body to hang in the air from the nail. Now imagine the victor of the fight saying: “Hope you had your tetanus, b*#&!”

Now, Parole Violators wasn’t the worst movie I’ve seen…but dear lord it wasn’t good.

France Brings Us One Step Closer To No More Toddlers & Tiaras

I don’t know if anyone reading this cares, but France has brought us one step closer to getting rid of Toddlers & Tiaras. The full goal is nowhere near accomplished yet, but this is an important step. I can’t tell you how happy this makes me.

Now, some people might just tell me not to watch Toddlers & Tiaras. However, that isn’t particularly helpful. It isn’t me who watches it; it’s my wife. If I want to be anywhere near my wife, which I do, then I have no choice but to be exposed to the show. Granted, most of the time I have earmuffs on and a book when it’s on, but still.

In any event, France is riding to my rescue. It isn’t a law yet, but France’s upper house of parliament has voted to outlaw beauty pageants with contestants under the age of 16. Violation would be a criminal offense. I can only hope that the lower house approves the law. After all, first France…then the rest of the world (I hope). If there were no more kiddie beauty pageants, then Toddlers & Tiaras would be no more.

I am filled with hope and joy at the beauty of the coming world.

“Dumb And Dumber” Fails To Interest Me In “Dumb and Dumber To”

I know a lot of people liked Dumb and Dumber. Heck, a couple guys from my fraternity even showed up to a formal one time wearing awful pastel tuxes by way of homage to the movie. However, I didn’t care for it. Given that, I’m really not looking much forward to the sequel, Dumb and Dumber To. I’m probably not going to even see it.

Oddly enough, I really wanted to see Dumb and Dumber when it first came out. The previews looked hysterical, and I was fond of both Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels. However, then I saw the movie. I just didn’t find it funny. There were a couple of scenes that made me smirk, but for the most part the movie was just painful for me. It wasn’t fun.

I guess I just don’t expect Dumb and Dumber To to be much better. Frankly, I expect they’re probably going to be repeating gags and/or cashing in on the name recognition of the old one. As much as some people may like Dumb and Dumber, I do note that they waited quite a while between the movies, perhaps like they were waiting for people to forget that it wasn’t that funny. However, I haven’t forgot my disappointment.

In any event, I hope other people enjoy the new movie, but I’m not going to be intentionally seeing it. I just don’t hold out much hope.

Guess Where I’m Going To Be Tonight

Guess where I’m going to be tonight. Unless you have inside information, I bet this one will be tough. I’m going to take in my first professional hockey game. I’ll be in a suite at the Colorado Avalanche game.

Why would this be so tough to guess? Well, I’m not exactly a sports guy. Coming from Nebraska and not being really into the Huskers, I never really got into going to sporting events much. I used to go to Royals games once a year or so, but I’ve only been to one Husker game ever.  The College World Series only once.

This is a lot more odd in Colorado. I used to go to Rockies games a couple times a year when I lived a couple blocks from the stadium, but that’s nothing for Denver. It took several years for me to get to a Bronco game (only one so far) and I still haven’t been to a Nuggets game. There’s at least a couple other pro sports in Denver (not to mention possibly multiple pro teams within those sports), though I can’t even be sure how many. To be honest, I had to check when I was offered my ticket what sport the Avalanche played and where they played it.

As I said, I’m not a sports guy.

However, I’ll be at the Avalanche game tonight. Should be interesting, and in a suite no less. Even I should have a good time at this.

I Have A Legitimate Perspective In Not Caring What Bo Pelini Said

There are a lot of people upset about Bo Pelini’s recent rant. Some people are upset about the rant, but some people are upset that fans are forgiving him. Personally, I don’t care what Bo said. Further, I think I have a pretty good reason for not caring what he said.

And I do admit, I haven’t the slightest idea what Bo said that got him into such trouble. I’ve heard a little about it, but I haven’t even read an excerpt of the rant or any listing of whatever he said that was so bad. I heard about it a little, but I just didn’t care enough to bother finding out what was such a big deal.

You see, I’m one of the relatively small number of native Nebraskans who never cared about Husker football. I lived in the state for around thirty years and I only ever went to one game. I never went to college at Lincoln and never was much into football or, truth be told, sports in general. I just don’t care much for it.

As such, given that I don’t’ care much about Husker football, I don’t’ care much what the Husker coach said nasty about husker fans or anything else. It just really isn’t on my radar, and I think that’s a pretty good excuse for not being too upset about the whole deal.

Suddenly I Want To Know Who Lily Collins Is

I have no idea who Lily Collins. Up until now, I haven’t cared. I can’t even remember ever having heard her name, so it isn’t possible for me to have cared who she was. Normally, even a mention of her name wouldn’t have made me interested in who she was. However, I heard that it’s apparently risky for your computer to even search her name. Suddenly, I want to know who she is.

Who is she? Why is there so much junk/malware associated with searching her? Why her in particular?

I don’t know, and now I can’t find out. I have a Mac, but Mac’s aren’t less vulnerable to malware/junk on general principle…it’s just that there has historically been less written for it. That’s changing, so I probably still shouldn’t try to find out who Lily Collins is.

Poor Lily. I’m sure she cares that I want to know who she is and can’t find out. Well, I guess I want to find out just a little less than I want to avoid computer crap. Regardless, poor Lily.

Let’s Combine “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” With “Kitchen Nightmares”

With all the different shows the Food Network has these days, I’m kind of surprised that they haven’t already done the idea that just occurred to me. The idea? I think we should combine Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives with Kitchen Nightmares.

Think about it. Doesn’t it get under your skin from time to time how overly positive Guy Fieri is about every restaurant he visits on the show? Sometimes his compliments are generic to the point of meaninglessness, but he is always positive. Most of the time I think that’s a good thing, looking at the good that is there instead of specifically looking for defects, but doesn’t it get a little old after a while?

I just want to see what would happen if Gordon Ramsay went around to all the restaurants Guy Fieri had visited and evaluated them. Would he be as pleased? Granted, they aren’t (I don’t think) failing restaurants that are already known to need help, but what would his opinion be? I guarantee he wouldn’t be as complimentary. At the very least, I think this would be a fun show to watch.

I mean, show a clip of Guy visiting and gushing about the food. Then have Gordon come in and actually perform an evaluation. One then another. I think it’d be a hit.

Of course, maybe I’m just feeling mean. Very few places could probably meet Gordon Ramsay’s standards and  I’m sure it doesn’t hurt to talk about the good things at various places without picking on the bad. Still, I just want to see what would happen.

Literary Food Cravings Killed By Wife’s Unpleasant Experience

I’ll often get cravings for different kinds of food based on something I’m reading. I know I’m not alone on this. For example, I craved Indian food while reading A Suitable Boy. This occurred again recently, but I’m trying to suppress the craving because my wife had a bad experience last time I had this particular craving.

You see, I’m reading Inside, Outside by Herman Wouk right now. As such, I’ve started craving another visit to the nearby kosher deli. However, our last visit to the kosher deli didn’t go so well for my wife.

For one thing, she hadn’t remembered when she agreed to go that ‘kosher’ would mean no cheese on the meat sandwiches. She would have gotten over that, though. The thing she didn’t get over so easily was the beet borscht.

Of course, it wouldn’t have been a problem at all if she’d been reading the menu carefully enough to realize it said ‘beet borscht’ instead of ‘beef borscht.’ Beef soup interested her. Beet soup would not have. However, she missed what the soup really was and ordered it. For those who don’t know, beet borscht is pretty much just a soup of shredded beets. My wife was not pleased.

Needless to say, I’m not thinking my wife would be thrilled about another visit to the kosher deli. As such, though I’m craving the food, I’m keeping this one under my hat.

Hunting The Siamese Chupacabra For Ryan Werner

I heard author/musician/etc. Ryan Werner complaining the other day because Google Images reported to him that there were no results for his “Siamese Chupacabra” search. As such, I thought I’d do something for him:

Now, I don’t really have a good graphics program. However, I did have this Chupacabra image from the Wikipedia Commons, a printer, and a pair of scissors. As such, given that Ryan is such a cool guy, I decided to at least try to do something. This is just the best I could do.

You’re welcome, Ryan. Now we just have to hope that Google Images picks this up for the next time he searches.