Warning: this post is all over the show

And did I spend 2 hours writing a post this afternoon? Yes, I most certainly did. And did I forget I was at uni where Blogger quite often has problems and absent mindedly hit the 'Post and Publish' button before backing up all those words? Yes, I also did. And did all my work consequently evanesce into the virtual ether? You can bet your bottom dollar it did. Sonofabitch.

But because I care about you, my reading public (hi to all 3 of you), and because according to Kazaa I have to wait another 56 minutes before I finally download the first episode of Samurai Jack, and consequently check out what all the fuss is about, what better time to rehash what I wrote down this afternoon - with important additions, of course. What with the early hour and all, this may screw up my recent efforts to live life in the sun, rather than in the dead of night like (insert your favourite gothic reference figure here...Vincent Price, perhaps? I guess he was on film sets with big lights all the time. So, er, not Vincent Price at all then), but I will just have to risk it, I simply can't let Nic updating and Si updating twice (!!!) go unanswered, and I'm told I should post more often by various people, and I KNOW I should post more often. So this afternoon's post will rise like the Pheonix from the ashes, better, faster, stronger than before. (That's the Six Million Dollar Pheonix, obviously.)

This afternoon, for example, I failed to note that Bach was a genius. He was, you know. Mozart one-upped him by being a child prodigy and a genius. Beethoven was also a genius, and he was deaf, so this makes him perhaps king in the genius states, with his claim to tragically ironic genius. In my ears right now, however, is Khacaturian, who in my humble opinion was not a genius, but was certainly good for some pretty fantastic glissandos (although, as a trombonist, I'm clearly biased). Music sharing is great, it is impossible (or difficult) to find the classical music you want on CD around these parts, the variety seems to be random, or maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places, but the right place to look is the internet. Yay the internet. I am filling up my Mum's computer that I am not even supposed to use with illegal music. Nice one. (Albert Einstein of course was also a genius, but I still can't find his 3rd Symphony for Comb and Paper, even online. Curses.)

Also not a genius is Patrick Warburton. Now don 't get me wrong, despite his (apparent) non-genius status, he was pretty damn funny as the voice of Kronk in The Emperor's New Groove, he was pretty funny guesting on 'Seinfeld' and 'Malcolm in the Middle', and he was perfectly cast as the eponymous hero in the live action version of 'The Tick'. However, I figure his career is in jeopardy, following his appearance in a movie called Big Trouble. Once again, and it must be said more often than not, random factor (like a tractor) fails as a reliable method of video selection. It brought us Druids, it brought us Partners (Casper Van Diem and Vanessa Angel, together at last...what exactly were we thinking? I'd claim we were spaced out on hard drugs at the time or something, but it's simply not true) and now it brings us this. Now I'm not prepared to categorise the film as being as bad as those first two, but it let me down by promising quite a lot. Firstly, it starred, in addition to Patrick Warburton, Tim Allen, Rene Russo, Stanley Tucci, Dennis Farina, Jason Lee, Tom Sizemore, Janeane Garofolo and Omar Epps. This, as the back of the case explained, is indeed an ensemble cast. Secondly, it was apparently based on a book by Dave Barry. Dave Barry is pretty funny. (Here is his blog, which proves it.) This would also bode well, you think. But NO. Poor, poor, POOR. I laughed about 3 times. It was like Americans trying to do a Ben Elton book, but worse even than that sounds. I don't think it helped that it was directed by Barry Sonnenfield, who has stated that he thinks the perfect length for a movie is 90 minutes...no Barry't , it isn't, and it definitely isn't 85 minutes, especially when you have 10-15 characters and you give them all about 5 lines each. What was wrong with Get Shorty? That was 1 hr 45 mins and it was a great movie. Go back to that way of doing things (the way of making good movies), for God's sake.

And can we please find a decent use for Janeane Garofolo? Someone? She's funny, damnit! And I think she's quite attractive, too, although perhaps this is just me, but it certainly made The Truth About Cats and Dogs a bit hard to take (What's the matter with you, lead actor guy? Just go out with the supposedly unattractive one! Uma Thurman is spoken for anyway! Other movies lost on me include: 40 Days and 40 Nights. In this wacky comedy, set well outside the bounds of reality, Josh Hartnett must live without sex for {gasp} 40 DAYS! That's as long as the biblical flood!!!! That's some kind of a comedic situation!!!! How will he do it? Doesn't the human body shut down completely after just 2 hours and 37 minutes? Hmm, this bitter and twisted bracket must clearly come to an end).

Must pause now to watch long anticpated cartoon. Back in a bit with a verdict...

Wow, that was cool, except for the annoying video hangups every so often. You'd think after nearly 2 weeks of downloading I'd get something that worked properly. Oh well, mustn't grumble. There was much style, and learning the various fighting methods of the ancient world, and vengeance against a shape shifting demon - and it ended on a bit of a cliffhanger. Damn, 160 megs worth of Episode 2 to get now.

OK, so it's in fact Thursday now, or technically Friday, and this has become another multi-day post. What was I blathering about? Oh yes, Janeane Garofolo, funny and pretty sexy and, without some decent roles, in danger of becoming a female version of Chevy Chase. Er, not that Chevy Chase is sexy or anything. Damn, the spectre of homoerotic blogging raises its ugly head again...this is not an incitement to quad-man action....leave it Dan! Leave it! Perhaps I can counter the comments that I can already see being made by giving you some other innuendo fodder to play with...I can honestly say I was unexpectedly and somewhat terrifyingly woken up this morning when my brother's girlfriend jumped on me. In bed, no less.

The post didn't get finished last night because in a vain effort to not sleep through the day again I went to bed, only to foil myself by polishing off the remaining 150 pages or so of King Solomon's Mines before going to sleep. It was pretty cool, if you could get past the occasional casual racism that was, I suppose, a sign of the times in which it was written, and the characterisation of the narrator (Quatermain, a South African game hunter) - and for the day it was probably pretty enlightened. Zulu warriors are referred to as the 'finest specimens of manhood I had ever seen' etc., have personality traits, truly befriend and aid the white heroes as pretty much equals, lay down their lives heroically, and so on, and Quatermain also says right at the start of the book when introducing his story that he does not like the word 'niggers' and has known 'natives who are gentlemen'. So it isn't horrendous. But then you get offhand remarks like 'I didn't like to hear that tone of voice from a native', people are referred to as 'Kafirs', and when an African girl who has become mutually enamoured of one of the white characters is killed, Quatermain, while not happy about it, essentially goes, 'Ah, well, it was probably just as well she got stabbed, since there would have been trouble in the long run, everybody knows black people and white people shouldn't get involved romantically.' On the other hand, the character Good, who is the one in love with the African girl is quite emotionally devestated and 'was never the same again'. So it's hard to know exactly what the author's position is, but as I say my impression is that he was probably pretty enlightened for 1885.

Aside from the dodgy aspects, the book is all jolly energetic stuff, crossing impassable deserts and fighting enormous battles, dealing with evil witches, and escaping from tombs / treasure chambers in the inside of mountains, and the three central characters, Quatermain, Good, and Sir Henry Curtis are all of that unflappable, stoic character type that you would expect (and I have ranted about in previous posts) in other adventure stories of the period. Good for example is an ex-navy officer who never removes his eyeglass, and Sir Henry is an English peer, and both are always saying things along the lines of 'well, see you later, unless, as is most likely, we are all dead.' By far the best line of this kind came on page 182 though, and had me laughing out loud at 6:45 in the morning:

Before we finished examining those extraordinary relics of remote antiquity, Infadoos came up, and having saluted the Silent Ones by lifting his spear, asked if we intended entering the Place of Death at once, or if we would wait until after we had taken food at midday.

Excellent. Lunch, followed by a little excursion to the Place of Death. All in a day's work for us bold European explorer types in the uncharted interior of darkest Africa. In the event, because it is only 11 o' clock, they end up going immediately, and taking lunch along with them. What do you say Carruthers, a spot of croquet, followed by tea and cucumber sandwiches at the Place of Death? You have to love that British reserve.

I see the final episode of Buffy has aired in the States. To all those cynics dismissing it as just another piece of US television with no real merit (you know who you are), I say ha.

I saw The Matrix: Reloaded a second time and my inital enthusiasm was tempered somewhat, I'm in agreement with at least a few of the criticisms made by Torshin for example, although perhaps not to the same degree . I still think it was damn good however, and unlike some others can express no annoyance at the length or nature of any of the fight scenes, apart maybe from Keanu clearly becoming Virtual Keanu at a certain point in the scene with him versus the Smiths. The philosophical aspects though are definitely more in your face this time which is to the detriment of the movie. I think this is probably a result of the Wachowski brothers trying too hard to live up to the reputation they created for themselves with the first flick as the mysterious zen-like masters of the "action movie with intellectual content" (TM). I will say that seeing the Animatrix collection and playing the video game, Enter the Matrix, did add to the total experience, although 'so why should I have to watch a bunch of short films / play a video game to properly enjoy the movie?' is certainly a fair question. I still enjoyed it immensely though, and I'm obviously not alone. Having downloaded the preview for Revolutions, (I then discovered it was also the end scene of the game, which explains, if you've seen it, why and where Niobe and Ghost are sitting in the dark at the start and end of the clip, having that conversation) it must have been since uploaded off this computer at least 20 times. Clearly, despite some criticism and over-harsh calls of 'you've lost the plot' from some quarters, the Wachowskis (and Warner Brothers) are not going to be losing too much sleep over their lack of money or fans. I look forward to the opinion of my foreign correspondent in Japan ;) on the film - she has to wait to see it (haa-ha!), but she will undoubtedly have much to say on matters such as these.

Yesterday afternoon I wrote a big reminiscing thing about the Chateau, and how I will miss its hallowed (if poorly joined) halls. However, I think on reflection that this can wait until closer to D-Day. There are, after all, 5 weeks of potential memory creating time yet left to us. Make me proud, people.

Ah, and that will about do for now, I feel. A formless and largely useless ramble to be sure, but a 2000 word useless ramble, nonetheless.