It was probably sixth or seventh grade.
(maybe i should not admit that, since it’s a little bit late for the childishness i am about to describe, but whatever–those that knew me won’t be surprised by that, and those that don’t know me, well, who cares about them?)
we were playing marvel super heroes. which is like playing army, or whatever, you know–role playing. except you’re wolverine, and captain america, and all that. i believe i was wolverine. that’s who i always wanted to be.
we were in the back woods behind my house, these couple of friends of mine and me, and they were chasing me, and i let them. i let them run after me, and when they caught me, i said, “except now that you got here, i just disappear, because i was really a hologram this whole time!’
well, that didn’t fly with them. they accused me of making that up at the last second to avoid getting caught. this was not the truth, i really had thought of this idea, but i had also known that if i had stopped play to say, “ok guys, i’m a hologram now, but you don’t know it, ok, so let’s go!” they would have then said, “oh, i can tell you’re a hologram, and i don’t fall for it,” or something like that. no, the only real way to make them play along was to not tell them anything until the last second. that way they couldn’t pretend to figure it out.
my idea did not go over, and it ended in a fight and the cessation of the game. i was very upset, because they didn’t believe me that i was playing fair. cause i was! i had really thought about it! i wasn’t lying!
this is a long-buried memory that came back to my mind after seeing the (horrible) movie “perfect stranger” as an assignment for my newspaper reporter job. see, this halle berry/bruce willis picture has a few twists and turns, but the end has this one BIG twist and turn that you didn’t guess because, well–because they didn’t give you the opportunity. they just basically throw you this whole “and here’s something that happened earlier that you never saw and could therefore never have anticipated!” idea. the end. roll credits. ain’t that somethin’?
well, no, actually. that’s nothin’.
see, in this world of m. night shyamalan and christopher nolan , it has been proven that you can fake out your audience, leaving all the clues, and still keeping everyone guessing. you just have to be good at it. and those filmmakers are few and far between.
this movie is bad in a lot of ways. making IM an important means of interacting takes away a lot of personality and also condescends to the audience as if this is a new and exciting thing. the suspense is terrible, the story is all over the place. it’s basically awful. but all that pales compared to the fact that basically, the whole movie is a setup for a twist that’s not just stupid, it’s out of the blue.
we have a deal, filmmakers. we audiences are sophisticated at this point–if we see a train coming at us onscreen, we will not run out of the auditorium like d.w. griffith’s audiences did. we understand movies. treat us with some respect. that’s all i ask.
we’re not all sixth graders anymore.
this is me at south by southwest. it’s on the web, so that makes me famous, right?
my diy shirts is blowing up, yo.
monday felt like tuesday.
all day tuesday i thought it was thursday.
i don’t even remember wednesday.
so how can i be amazed that the week is almost over?
time is weird.
i have declared war.
but like our president, i don’t want to declare war on something that can fight back, or that someone might say didn’t do anything to deserve a war. so i have declared war on weeds.
one of the interesting aspects of being a young homeowner (young in the “i haven’t owned a home long” sense, not in a “look at that kid buying a house, how can he do that?” way) is that i now have a lawn to care about.
a lawn. like, i might break out a pipe and walk outside, and survey my lawn, and say, “yep, needs a good fertilizin’.”
and there’s these crazy weeds that are taking over, and so i have to get out there and fight ‘em. and fight ‘em i do–with a vengeance.
allow me to set the scene:
last summer, i bought a sprinkler with a timer on it. that timer did not work, i found out the next morning, after watering the lawn for almost eight hours. and killing it. so that left a lot of dirt, which the weeds are really seeming to enjoy. they grow so fast, shooting up everywhere–a good rain (which we have had a lot of lately), and i have more weeds than blades of grass
but i have gone out there, and i have pulled them out by their roots, and i have found that it’s quite fulfilling. there’s a sense of accomplishment that comes with pulling a whole plant out of the ground roots and all. (i didn’t hold it up above my head screaming victoriously, but i wanted to.)
you might even say it’s become a little addictive. when stopping by sis’ place to let her dogs out, i found myself running around her yard, pulling up one after another.
and now, today, while mowing, i found myself slowing down to pull one up, then laying it under the mower, and backing over it like i’m some sort of james bond super-villain. no, it wasn’t enough to pull the weed up, i have to back over it with mower, chopping it into a million tiny bits. (and laugh. i laugh evilly too.)
the war on weeds continues, and our lawn shall be a haven for nothing but good, pro-american plants soon enough.
prepare the “mission accomplished banner.”
Filed under: random
hips do lie.
in fact, i can’t think of a body part that lies more. even the mouth tells the truth sometimes. but hips–hips shake, and they mean nothing other than “i like this music.”
words should not be read into hips.
i just thought you should know.
