So Netflix brought me A Scanner Darkly, and I had a bit of a hard time watching it. For starters the description on the back of the little envelope was not really accurate. I won’t ruin the movie for you; but it wasn’t what I was expecting. My other problem, I kept getting Charles Freck and Bob Arctor mixed up, I think it took me half the movie before I worked out that yes these are two different people. This is a bit important since one was a main character, and one was a delusional drug addict … no wait they were both delusional drug addicts but one was much more delusional than the other. And finally the …. oh what the hell do you want to call it, cartoonization? of the movie was distracting.

And I am still waiting for a Hollywood movie to use marketable drug names; Substance Death, Death Sticks, etc are not really great names for a drug. I would suggest happy happy pills but I got a philosophy degree … what do I know.

However, I will rave the scramble suits;those were just awesome.

So despite the movies many flaws I did find it enjoyable. I am not going to say it was a great movie, but I was entertained, I did watch it and it may have took me half an hour to get into it but in the end I did watch it. I thought it portrayed despair, hopelessness, abject stupidity and drug abuse in quite an interesting light; and also quite realistically. The various organizations represented in the movie also made liberal use of fear tactics, something that modern America seems quite fond of. And finally the message that the future sucks and it only gets better by cracking a few omelets and making some hard choices, I liked; I it much more than the happy go lucky version that Star Trek pushes. In A Scanner Darkly technology doesn’t save the world; in fact it goes a long way toward destroying it.

“If Obama gets what he wants, there isn’t going to be a recession in 2010 — there will be a depression.”

“Are we going to declare war on Spain, or are we not?”

I’ve decided I detest Rush Limbaugh, not because he is a loud mouthed, bellicose idiot with a radio show; but because I am a loud mouthed bellicose idiot with out a radio show.  Also he has a multi-million dollar contract and I don’t; another point of annoyance for me.  Once again jealousy rears it’s ugly green mug.

“There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief.” ~ Bob Dylan All Along the Watchtower

Part of the fun of being in charge of the back up jobs is that sometimes you just get to sit and watch a little number slowly grow into a large number. Unfortunately sometimes those little numbers take the better part of 30 hours to get big. This isn’t surprising because there are several choke points in our network and well part of the fun is finding them; fixing them … now that is another matter entirely. Of course since I am technically working while staring blankly at a screen I get to tell people to piss off, leave me alone, and stop interrupting my vacant staring.

So I find myself plugged into my little shuffle and listening to music as I blankly stare.

It is rather relaxing except I think that there must be something horribly wrong with me; I’ve listened to Bob Dylan crooning and I find it rather …. well enjoyable to listen to. If you have ever heard Bob Dylan sing you know what the problem is. So a few repeats of All Along the Watchtower I am stuck pondering is the man a lyrical genius or a floundering warbler. There is no denying that his voice is not very pleasant (i.e. similar to the sound a cat would make when a belt sander is applied to its back) and the lyrics to All Along the Watchtower don’t actually make any contextual sense yet as I find myself staring blankly at the screen I push the rewind button and listen to it just one more time. Maybe I am a masochist or maybe it just is good … who knows?

So, I saw Speed Racer Saturday night. I must admit, after hearing bad things about it, the PG rating, and the fact it is a remake off of a cartoon that has been dead for twenty years I was a little worried that I wouldn’t enjoy it. Plus it was a spur of the moment rental from Redbox and the two and a half hour run time at 10:30 on a Saturday night really didn’t leave me gun-ho for it. But as is often the case I was wrong; I loved the frakin movie!

Warning! I am going to ruin the surprise if you keep reading

If you haven’t had a chance to play around with GoogleLabs I highly recommend that you sign into your Gmail account and take a gander at what they have; you can reach GoogleLabs by signing in, clicking settings (which is in the upper right), then click on Labs under the setting bar.  If you don’t have a Gmail account you are Anti-American and Senator McCarthy Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann is going to ferret you out.