Your "I'm Terrified Beyond the Capacity For Rational Thought" Quizo Update

It's been a sort of weekend where a whole bunch of things happened that I was certain would never occur. This is fairly surprising when one considers the staggering vastness of my intellect and my ability to consider the most outlandish possible outcomes of any given situation.

Saturday afternoon, after going to the pub to watch the Manchester United - Arsenal match, which ended somewhat badly for the Gunners, I somehow ended up watching Brokeback Mountain.

Now Brokeback, understand, is a movie where I've never quite understood why I have it on DVD. The first recorded instance of this phenomenon was a couple years ago when, at the Best Buy in Moorestown, I bought the Special Edition DVD of Schindler's List with a bunch of other DVDs. I remember walking back to my car and stopping in my tracks in the middle of the parking lot. I pulled the movie out of the bag, looked at it, and said, "why did I BUY this?" I couldn't conceive of a situation where I would ever actually WANT to watch Schindler's List. Despite the aforementioned vast intelligence and imaginatory ability I couldn't see myself ever sitting around on a Saturday afternoon, bored, and saying to myself, "you know what, I feel like watching Schindler's List." Despite the movie's obvious quality it does not exactly top the list of weekend pick-me-up movies. Brokeback Mountain is the same kind of movie - great, to be sure, but not really something you'd ever look forward to watching.

I did end up watching my DVD of Schindler's List a couple years later, though to be fair I believe it was on a Tuesday night, and I was working at Best Buy at the time. This is a general life situation in which watching Schindler's List will actually improve one's overall mood.

I originally watched Brokeback on my computer when it came out - to this date one of only two films I have ever downloaded off the internet* - and I vaguely remember thinking when I bought it, "why am I spending 17 bucks on a DVD I'm never going to watch?" Saturday, though, I was going through one of the many piles of assorted media littered throughout my space, small mountains of books, DVDs, and video games it would take the National Geographic society to accurately map, when instead of the video game I was looking for** I came across my still-unopened copy of Brokeback Mountain.

For some reason I was possessed by a desire to watch it, possibly caused by the fact that it was still in two-year old shrink wrap. It is of course as good as I remember, but watching it didn't exactly put me in the best mood. I decided to go with my timeworn method of making myself feel better: spending money (aka adding altitude to said mountains of books and stuff).

On the way to the store I was stopped at a light across the street from a funeral home. Sitting there I noticed something outside the funeral home, on the patio.

"That can't be right," I said.

I looked closer.

"No, there's no way that's what I think it is."

I tried to squint a little to get a better look, but I was still seeing something that could not possibly be there.

"There's no fucking way," I said.

The light changed and as I drove past I got a close look at what was outside the funeral home. It was, in fact, the impossible thing I suspected from across the street.

A wedding party.

The whole bunch. Groom, bride - in what I assume was a Valentine's Day-themed dress of white with red highlights - groomsmen, bridesmaids, the whole whack. Standing around outside a funeral parlor and - this is the absolute kicker, the thing that drives it totally over the top and me insane - DRINKING CHAMPAGNE.

I can't live in this world.

JLK



* 1408
** Final Fantasy XII

Your "One Shall Stand, One Shall Fall" Quizo Update

Let's spend a minute or two talking about the Transformers movie, which I saw last week.

Transformers is the greatest movie in the history of ever. It is the crowning achievement of all human endeavor and is the single most important piece of entertainment since the dawn of human civilization, if not before.

Deviations from or disagreements with these statements will not be tolerated. Freedom may be the right of all sentient beings, but if you bitch on Transformers in my presence I will kick your ass right off this planet.

And that's all we need to say about Transformers.

The movie was far and away the highlight of the last week, since the only thing that even could have competed with it (before I saw the movie, at least) was my trip to New York this past weekend to hang out with the New York Blues (the official East Coast Chelsea supporters' club), and that ended with me watching my friend Tim, who was at the time the single drunkest being in not only this universe but through several layers of parallel dimensions on either side of it, asking a prostitute if she knew where the Kwik-E-Mart was. You haven't been mortified until you've watched someone ask a hooker for directions to a fictional convenience store.

You'd think that the only single woman at the party leaving with you and your friend is a good thing, even when said friend's blood has enough alcohol in it to successfully clean your sparkplugs, but trust me - said friend spending a 30-block cab ride threatening to throw up all over you and said single woman and then, after said cab ride, walking up to said prostitute and saying, "hey, do you know where the fucking Kwik-E-Mart is? Come on! I know you do! Where - is - the FUCKING! - Kwik-E-Mart?!" is not repeat NOT a good thing.

This is my life, and it's ending one minute at a time.

Finally, if anyone would like to see the New York Red Bulls play the Los Angeles David Beckhams on August 18 for $25, please let me know by noon tomorrow - the aforementioned New York Blues are getting a group ticket thingy and this is, to my knowledge, the only way to buy tickets to only that game (and not, as they normally make you do, also buy tickets to three others).

That's soccer I'm talking about there, by the way, for those of us who haven't been paying attention.

JLK

Your Strength and Honor Quizo Update

I hope everyone has enjoyed their two-week vacation from the rigors of the competitive trivia world. For my part I have tried to take little mini-vacations the last two weekends and been thwarted at every turn. Ordinarily this would bother me, but since getting a new boss maybe 2 months back work has become such an untenable nightmare that I'm pretty much okay with being anyplace on earth so long as it isn't my office.

This past weekend my vacation lasted almost 12 hours, and I spent about 3 of them watching a late-night showing of Gladiator, a film which bears a number of important characteristics:

1) I have seen Gladiator, and I am not exaggerating for comic effect here, about 20 times. It has some kind of hypnotic effect on me. I distinctly remember seeing it three times in the theatre upon its original release, a record surpassed by only one film* and shared by only two**. If it is on television I cannot turn it off, nor can I stop watching television once I have discovered it is on. Add to this the four - FOUR! - separate times I've purchased it on DVD (once when it came out, once to replace that disc when it mysteriously vanished, once to replace the replacement that I loaned to a friend*** and never saw again, and finally the three-disc Super Tiger Dragon Edition that came out last year) and the fact that I watch said DVDs on the order of about twice a year at least and it becomes fairly clear that I am, suffice it to say, a fan.

2) Gladiator is one of only two films at the end of which I am absolutely guaranteed to weep like a little girl. ****

3) It is also near (if not at) the top of my list of Movies Which If You Do Not Think Are Great You Are Clearly Have Some Kind of Mental Disability, Or Possibly Have A Large Knife Sticking Out Of The Side Of Your Head. A while back Dan (of Das Boot, who we will get to in a moment) was asking around for people's lists of their Favorite/Best Movies in an admirable attempt to gain himself some culture to go along with all that medical book-learnin' of his, and he seemed surprised when I proclaimed Gladiator one of my all-time Top 5 favorite films.***** He should not have been. It is clearly a modern classic, and if you don't think so I suggest you keep such thoughts to yourself lest I find your handwriting has become inexplicably illegible and thus have to mark all of your answers wrong for the next five weeks.

In other news, after Das Boot's historic third win in a row two weeks ago, they have picked a speed round topic which I find perfectly acceptable. However, it will not actually be played until next week, as tonight's speed round will be our (slightly-delayed) classic Memorial Day topic "Dead or Alive." Everyone's favorite.

JLK


















* The Matrix
** Goldeneye and X-Men
*** his name is Jason, and if you're reading this, keep it, you thieving bastard
**** the other being The Return of the King
***** in no particular order: Gladiator, The Empire Strikes Back, The Lord of the Rings (which counts as one movie), The Big Lebowski, and Casablanca