15 June 2010

If you have a short attention span, this post is for you

I saw Zombieland on Friday. I was looking forward to it, especially since someone told me they thought it was better than Dead Snow. It was so not better than Dead Snow. Frankly, I thought Zombieland was lacking in that fundamental zombie-movie ingredient: zombies. Seriously, where were all the zombies? The zombie threat felt so weak. There seemed to be entire areas of the countryside that were zombie-free and I’m surprised there weren’t more survivors. There was one awesome scene after they arrived in Hollywood (I don’t want to spoil it), but it felt like the entire movie was written just so they could have that one scene. More than anything, it made me yearn for Shaun of the Dead.

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The facility that my gym is in also has an arena, and I noticed on Friday there was a huge line-up of well-dressed people waiting to get in, which is unusual. On Saturday morning, the place was crawling with more well-dressed people: men in suit and tie, women in floral print dresses and cardigans. I felt totally dirty walking through them in my gym clothes. They were all wearing nametags and I got close enough to read “[Something Something Something] JEHOVAH!” I surmised it was some sort of Pro-God conference, unless the three words I couldn’t read were “Who Doesn’t Exist?”

I left the gym and started to walk home, and the side streets around the gym - even blocks away - were lined with cars. As I was walking away I kept passing well-dressed people wearing the nametags, all of them on their way to the gathering. It was almost absurdly symbolic, the atheist fighting against the crowd of believers. And, probably because I’d seen Zombieland the night before, it also felt vaguely apocalyptic, but in a way I can’t really describe. They were still going at it on Sunday when I was there. The doors to the arena were open and I could see them all filing up the seats, probably the best-dressed audience that arena has ever had.

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The dumbest internet comment I saw last week was:

“…I'm not saying it's a good situation for this young woman to have a child but don't point fingers when you don't know the reality of the situation and why things are as they are.

Oh yeah, while you point fingers, take a look at where your thumb is pointed.”
I know what they intended to say, which is something to the extent that when you point a finger at someone, the four remaining fingers are pointing back at yourself. But what they actually wrote makes no sense. When I point all my fingers, then my thumbs are pointing either up/down or to the side. Does that mean that God is to blame? The Devil? The person beside me? And, assuming that “fingers” is a typo, and they mean “finger,” then my thumb is pointing in the same direction as my pointing finger, or else it’s pointing at God again. Man, this commenter sure blames God for a lot of things.

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Speaking of fingers, the corpse of Galileo was missing a couple up until recently when Galileo's missing finger and tooth (!!) were found. Someone had stolen them at some point in history, while the body was being relocated. This story really disturbs me. Firstly, who looks at the rotting body of one of the greatest figures in the history of humanity and takes a souvenir? Secondly, who takes a tooth and a finger as that souvenir? Thirdly, who, once those items are recovered, puts them on public display instead of giving them back to Galileo? It sounds like a PT Barnum exhibit – come see the Severed Finger of Galileo!

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This is neither here nor there, but Sue Sylvester is one of my favourite characters on TV at the moment. This page has compiled a list of great Sue quotes, my favourite (from this subset) being:
 ‘’I will go to the animal shelter and get you a kitty cat. I will let you fall in love with that kitty cat. And then on some dark cold night, I will steal away into your house and punch you in the face.’’
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Also in the news:
Council OKs new bus terminal for Dartmouth


It’s about freakin’ time. That terminal is so crowded and unsafe. In my favourite part of the article, the bus drivers who attended the meeting about building the new terminal described their “disgusting” working conditions (there’s no drinking water or bathrooms at that terminal for the drivers), and one of the councillors publicly apologised to the drivers for the bad working conditions. What about the bus riders? We have to put up with disgusting conditions as well. Where’s our apology?

Can you tell that talking about Metro Transit makes me bitter? They’re going to tear down an “urban wilderness” to build the bus terminal. Honestly, I can’t think of a better description for the Dartmouth bus terminal than “urban wilderness.” No word yet on if the modern art will be installed at the new location.

2 comments:

Lianne said...

Dead Snow scared the crap out of me. Really. I had to watch it through my fingers.

Ellie Fish said...

Oh, yeah. There were times I couldn't look at the screen during Dead Snow. I take that as the mark of a good horror movie.