Tintin: Not Too Terrifying After All

I've been watching the development of The Adventures of Tintin with a bit of excitement and some trepidation. Going in to the movie, I knew it would be difficult to separate my feelings for the source material from the experience of watching the film - always a danger when going in to any adaptation. Judging the film on its own merits was a bit difficult, but, all in all, The Adventures of Tintin made for a fun moviegoing experience.

Part of the reason that it was so difficult to look at Tintin as a separate experience from the comics is that there are SO MANY different stories brought together. The Adventures of Tintin was meant to be an adaptation of two Tintin stories - The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham's Treasure, but I noticed prominent scenes and characters from at least FIVE different stories mashed together. It's probably not something that would bother most people; however, I'm not sure that the selected scenes worked together well.

It makes sense that, when introducing a new intellectual property to the masses, you'd want to select more recognizable elements to attract the largest audience possible. All the different scenes selected for Tintin do work well...ish. I noticed a few lapses in logic during certain transitions between set pieces - getting the characters from one recognizable locale to the other didn't always make sense. Maybe someone who isn't so familiar with the Tintin comics wouldn't be bothered so much by it.

There's a big tonal change from the comics to the movie as well. The comics emphasize comedy a bit more, while the movie's more about the action. Unfortunately, this means the comic elements of the movie (ie. the Thomson/Thompson pairing) feel out of place - but not cripplingly so.

As for the action... well, it's AWESOME. Fight scenes that last only a panel or two in the comics are extended for several minutes, and, while it is a bit over the top, it's a LOT of fun to watch. Especially notable are Tintin's escape from an enemy boat and a flashback involving Captain Haddock's ancestor and the pirate, Red Rackham. The animation allows for some amazing stunt choreography that wouldn't really work in any other medium.

Speaking of the animation, I'll admit to being a bit worried about the Zemeckis-style motion capture, but it actually works really well. Tintin himself and the villain look GREAT, and the other characters, whose exaggerated features come straight from the original art, aren't off-putting at all as I first thought they would be. Seeing these character in motion is actually pretty delightful - you can see the essence of the actor behind the character (Daniel Craig and Andy Serkis do especially well), but the visual is all animation, and pretty well-rendered animation at that.

The 3-D still sucks, though, and adds just about nothing to the experience.

Surprisingly, I think my favorite part of the movie is the opening title sequence - which sounds like a diss, I know, but isn't meant to be. I never really realized it before, but I'm a bit of a sucker for a well-executed title sequence, and Tintin has one of the best I've ever seen. I'd almost say the movie's worth the price of admission just for the opening credits.

The rest of the film, though, is pretty great, despite some weaknesses in the writing. The motion capture is good, the acting is fine, and the action is top-notch. The Adventures of Tintin probably won't win any awards, but it's definitely worth a watch if you're into some good action.

Braddy Reads Leadership and Self-Deception

I'm not really much for business/self-help books, but I read this one after a friend recommended it... mainly to the absurd number of leadership positions I had come down with (I got better).

The Arbinger Institute's Leadership and Self-Deception discusses how people tend to let their inflated egos get in the way of accurately assessing and responding to the needs of others. Mainly, the Arbinger Institute seems concerned with how this self-deception (which they describe as being "in the box") inhibits productivity at work; however, they DO detail why this attitude can be damaging to home life.

Basically, being "in the box" means adopting an attitude that reduces other people to objects or obstacles. Someone in the box can't acknowledge the needs of others because he or she is too caught up in their own selfish needs while actually condemning others for being selfish themselves. It's an important point, and most people (myself included) could benefit from looking into their self-deception.

However, the book seems to be more concerned with advertising the Arbinger Institute's program. The business slant is evident right up to the use of near-meaningless slogans like being "in the box." Reading the book felt a bit like living inside a Dilbert strip. You could probably get a bit more of the personal touch reading something mean for an individual, like the Alcoholics Anonymous handbook.

Not that I've actually had any reason to read Alcoholics Anonymous... ahem...

The Half-Moon Thong

Can't BELIEVE I'm making another post on sartorial decency...

Let me start by saying this: I LIKE women. I really do. I also like LOOKING at women. It makes me happy. Of course, since I'm a practicing Christian, I feel GUILTY about looking at women, but I still LIKE it.

That said... Ladies, please hitch up your pants.

I'm not really a "sagging" detractor. I don't buy into some of the more pervasive arguments from naysayers about sagging, but I also don't get why people feel the need to show off their particular brand of underoos. If you want to sag with your boxers, I guess you can go ahead. Thug life forever or whatnot.

However, I've seen how some women with their low-rise jeans deliberately make sure their skimpy thongs are visible above the waistline, and that's a practice I just can't get behind... partially because I'd have to look at their half-moon thong hanging out the back.


There's a REASON men who sag so much you can see their Great Posterior Crevice are often ridiculed - it's usually a sign that they're either too distracted to pay attention or too slovenly to think it matters. Same holds true with women. Personally, when I see a woman's thong riding up in the back, I tend to think of some of the women I've seen come through the mental health system - and those are usually people who are so stoned out of their minds that they can't remember how to work a belt.

That's not exactly the "sexy vibe" people are trying to give off, I think.

Again, maybe I'm overstepping my bounds here in demanding all women conform to MY definition of modest attire (and on the internet, too, where everyone has to do what I say). It's a sight that's bugged me a bit too much recently, though, so there you go. End verbal vomit.

Just remember: what would Richard Blackwell do?

Locker Love Affair

Isn't that the way it goes?

I had the idea for the girl's face in the foreground as a starting point, but it's the other two character designs I wound up liking best.

For a Good Time, Email This Chick

And by "good time," I mean "almost definitely a scam."

I have two email accounts, as most red-blooded Americans do. Anyone with only one email account is likely a communist or some other subversive. Unfortunately, one of my accounts appears to have been hacked... or something.

I checked my Hotmail address today (sileny_spisovatel@homtail.com - it's Czech, shut up) and found about 20 "delivery failure notifications" in my email. Trouble is, I didn't send that many messages (heck, I don't think I have that many CONTACTS). So I go to my sent box, and I find a bunch of messages with the above picture and the following text:

Ciao! Dovrebbe essere inusuali a ricevere che messaggio sento. Consenti mi presento;). Mi chiamo Tatyiana, e sono da Russia... La mia età è 25 anni.. Io sono tipo attraente, onesto, dignitosa, con un senso dell'umorismo..:)

Actually, I don't think anyone who reads this speaks Italian, so I won't post the whole thing... at least, not before running it through Google Translate:

Hello! It should be unusual feel to receive that message. Allow me introduce myself:). My name Tatyiana, and are from Russia ... My age is 25 years .. I'm like attractive, honest, dignified, with a sense of humor ..:) And I hope this e-mail is not difficult to you.

I am real woman who has a goal I want to make sure this is not this kind of questionable email that people send all around the world .. The report inet and something new for me and I've never done that before I look for a friend, my companion, and my future husband all my life The only thing I want is to find a person who will love and take me as I have .. I went to the shop and I opened kafe-page Web site Nirvam strange way and I managed to send an e-mail is written with the assistance of the employee who works here. I also send my beautiful pictures to you so you might know me.

I believe that you are interessatti meet new people and the will I answer to me, please contact me my email [What followed was NOT an email, but a dubious-looking web URL].

I hope for your quick news, Face... Your new amigo Tatyana

I gotta hand it to whoever has been sending out these emails - they really did a good job of creating a completely believeable Italian-speaking Russian woman who randomly sends mass emails out from a Czech email address. I especially appreciate the way they coopted English speaking colloquialisms to create the image of a, "like attractive, honest, dignified" woman.

Also (and this is no lie): "Face" might be my new favorite farewell EVER.

Joking aside, I'm deleting that email account today. Anybody got an extra hammer and sickle?

Things I'll Love Forever: White Christmas

I don't watch a whole lot of Christmas movies during the month of December. Most of them suck eggnog... not that I'd ever single out a possibly-beloved Christmas classic to hate on it *cough*. I did get the chance last night to sit down with White Christmas, one of my all-time FAVORITE Christmas movies when I was a bit younger. After watching it again for the first time in several years, I noticed a few imperfections (what in the name of Krampus are they WEARING?), but it's still an excellent film.

• The concluding scene, when the soldiers present at the inn and sing "The Old Man," never fails to get me a little teary-eyed.


• When I grow up, I want to be Bing Crosby's voice. Any time anyone else starts singing with him, I start yelling at the television until Bing's just singing solo again.


• I kinda miss movies that are completely unashamed to have big dance numbers. Most movies set up some kind of gimmick to frame dance sequences and remove them from what's "really" happening in the film (I'm looking at you, Chicago). Other movies present dance numbers ironically or with a great big wink to the audience (Enchanted and The Muppets both do this). While that's all well and good, it gives me the impression that film makers are EMBARASSED to film dancers. However, Vera-Ellen, Danny Kaye, and John Brascia prove that a little dancing is nothing to be ashamed of, and a LOT can be pretty darn cool.


• Speaking of dancing, the number "Choreography" nearly makes the whole movie worthwhile for me. It's a brilliant meta-commentary on the state of dance in musical theater, and it STILL feels timely and fitting over fifty years later.


• Not all the musical numbers are winners, but, surprisingly, the military numbers rank among my favorites ("The Old Man," "What Can You Do with A General," and "Gee, I Wish I Was Back In The Army"). No one, and I mean NO ONE, does martial music like Irving Berlin.


• While the plot of White Christmas has very little to do with Christmas (actually, the movie's based on an earlier film with almost the exact same story), the MESSAGE of Christmas still comes through. Christmas is a time to focus on love, compassion, and good will towards men. White Christmas has those elements in SPADES.

The show's certainly dated, and some of the writing's a bit wobbly, but White Christmas is a great film, and I'll love it forever.

Some Old Sketches and a Christmas Charcoal

Merry Christmas!

So it's been a LONG time since I last posted any of my drawings... mostly cuz I haven't done many. Whoopsie.

Here are a couple I just DEEMED to finish. I started BOTH of them back in September, but I didn't ink them until today. Enjoy.


I like the idea of cynical motivational posters. Also, I like libraries. A series of depressing pictures endorsing literacy should satisfy both of those interests.

Back when I was taking my art class, my instructor looked at a couple of my sketches and recommended that I shade in the ground with charcoal. I really liked the idea, and I plan to use it in the future (this picture just used pencil).


Hey, it's these guys!

I don't know if I actually have a concrete story or anything planned for the Dead Poets' Sorority. I just think it's a fun band name.

My main complaint about the above picture is Samantha (that's the girl in the center). I didn't plan her position out very well, and I had kinda gotten tired of inking when it came time to do her wardrobe. Also, I think I made the other two characters look related. That wasn't my intent.

Stippling and crosshatching take a LOT OF TIME - and it's difficult to make a picture look nice with those techniques. At least, it is for me. I've actually ruined a couple of pictures I've worked on in the past. Still, I think this one turned out all right.

My favorite part of the picture above? The Hendrix-looking guy in the poster.

Dream: Pirate Roles

My alarm didn't go off this morning. I woke up about ten minutes before I had to be in to work. Luckily, I only live about ten minutes away FROM work, so I still made it on time. Unluckily, that means certain daily rituals (like my morning ablutions) had to be omitted. I had a lock of hair looping out from the side of my head like a coffee mug handle that, thankfully, seems to have settled down now.

The cool thing about sleeping late, though, is that I got to experience a pretty wicked awesome dream for a bit longer.

So I was an actor, see, in a play/movie about pirates. The cool thing is that the director liked me enough to cast me as two different roles - and BOY, were they different.

The first character I played was a stoic seaman, the kind that never smiles while swinging deftly from the riggings. The director of the play gave me a photograph of how he wanted me to portray the character - a sailor in a white cap, unsmiling as he tied a hefty rope around his waist.

"Why is this man tying himself up?" the director asked.

"To keep from falling off the ship," I said.

"No," the director said, laughing at my naivete. "He's PLANNING to fall."

My mind? Totally blown right at that moment.

Sadly, I didn't get much time to explore the role of the second pirate - but I think this guy would have been even MORE fun. He walked around with a bit of a drunken swagger - similar to, but not so effete as Jack Sparrow - and he wore a pretty rad pair of red sunglasses. This character's scenes took place in an underground sewer, complete with blasts of steam and red lighting.

I remember one line of his:

"Down here, men, you gotta LIVE your sex!"

I have no idea what that means, but I'm pretty sure this guy was going to be awesome.

Wish I Said It First #15

#15

"By the same token, sexy is not exploitative, and exploitation is dishonest. Reverse that chain and you can see that, whoever you are writing, if you are honest about them, fair to them, and allow them their moments of brilliance, you can create that sexiness without it becoming pandering. Sexy is not a visual trait - that's titillation. Cheesecake, beefcake, those are entirely visual matters. What makes someone sexy - what makes anyone sexy, in my opinion - is less how they look than how they do. Competence is sexy. Capability is sexy. Confidence is sexy. Smart is sexy. A character who clearly embodies these traits in some capacity or another is a character who is going to be attractive."

-Greg Rucka, in an interview with Comic Vine

Since I've been bugged so much by the portrayal of women in comics, reading this quote from one of superhero comicdom's top writers really helped.

A Modesty Proposal, or, Braddy's Being Sexist Again

I saw this picture make the rounds on Facebook the other day:


I get that it's a joke... but this poster REALLY ticked me off all the same.

I'll get this out of the way right now - I'm a male, the latest in a long line of oppressive white male so-and-sos, so I'm liable to get a few things wrong. I may even come across as (dare I say it?) SEXIST. Still, if ever there was a forum for sharing one's opinion, no matter how ill-informed, the internet is it.

Please take all the time you want to explain how wrong I am in the comments section below.

I take issue with the poster above, first of all, because it implies that the primary reason for women's modesty is to prevent male misbehavior. I hope we can all agree on how stupid that is - an adult male is fully capable of making his own responsible decisions, regardless of how the people around him dress. If he's not capable of that, he's a disgrace to his sex. It's POSSIBLE (and I know of no other way to emphasize the word "possible" in text than I have just now) that a woman subconsciously invites mistreatment by the way she dresses, but that doesn't make the man's behavior any less reprehensible or reduce his culpability in any way. Period.

I also resent the implication that modesty implies sexlessness... although that does seem to be the case in the picture above. I've seen PLENTY of apparel that is attractive, colorful, and modest, while it still emphasizes a woman's... um... femininity and... sexuality. Can I just say "curves"? Or is that weird?

Finally, I get the impression that this picture sets up a false dichotomy - clothing either expresses sexuality or represses it. To which I say, "Thpbpthpbh!" It's entirely possible that a woman who chooses to dress modestly has something in mind OTHER than hiding her curves...

...feels weird to say that...

There are a lot of things a person can express with their clothing - respect, professionalism, mourning, celebration, relaxation - that have nothing to do with sex. A person's sexuality is ONE contributing factor to their attire, but it's hardly the ONLY one.

Maybe I'm out of line here. I am, after all, a member of the reigning patriarchal religious order which endorses a standard of modesty among its members. As a Latter-day Saint, I frequently participate in the sacramental ordinance, which means I stand up and walk around the chapel to give the bread and water to the congregation. Now, I like to try to keep my thoughts clean ESPECIALLY when involved in a religious ritual, and when a woman is wearing a low-cut dress, and I'm standing over them... let's just say I wish I had Batman around to keep my mind on task.

Is there ANY subject I can't link to Batman somehow?

So, yeah, I appreciate modesty, even though I recognize that women who choose to dress modestly likely (hopefully) do so without feeling obligated to out of deference to my feelings. Even if I've overstepped some gender-role bounds, I hope y'all respect my opinion while I respect your right not to listen to a ^#$%in' word I say.

Merry Christrufflemas!

Christmastime is a great time of year: parties, presents, family, good music... well, some good music, at any rate. And, of course, there's a lot of great food.

And, by food, I mean candy.

And, by candy, I mean THESE GUYS:


I tend not to buy Lindor Truffles except at Christmas time - they're a bit on the pricey side. I guess the Lindt company starts to feel a bit more generous this time of year, because the truffles are often on sale. I actually have a little back of the truffles right by my desk, and... man, does that ever make me happy.

I like to take one of the truffles and pop it whole in my mouth. I don't chew it up right away, though - I let the outer shell melt away until the softer center is exposed. I love the sensation of the soft chocolate dissolving on my tongue - its smooth, creamy, and almost has its own temperature. Simply delightful.

So, of course, my phone HAS to ring when I'm eating my candy...

Seriously, this world's full of Scrooges.

Things I'll Love Forever: Jim Henson's Muppets

I saw The Muppets a couple of weeks ago and have been recommending it pretty frequently to friends and coworkers. Surprisingly (at least I was surprised), a lot of my friends say that they don't like/never "got" the Muppets. I guess I see where they're coming from: I never quite understood what the Muppets were really about until I started watching The Muppet Show in earnest as an adult. Now I can't seem to get enough of them.

• A lot of my fascination with the Muppets has to do with the mad genius that is Jim Henson. I watched a (lengthy) documentary from 1968 called Muppets on Puppets that illustrated just how talented Henson was. The man appears - well, to me, at least - to be a little shy and unsure of himself in front of the camera. However, put a puppet in his hands, and he's suddenly eloquent, witty, and charismatic. Jim Henson is quickly becoming one of the artists I admire most. And, yes, I do call his puppeteering "art."
• I have a bit of comedic experience, so I know that it's difficult to do comedy without being raunchy. The Muppets, though, seem to manage it just fine, with a heavy reliance on puns and slapstick that, admittedly, isn't for everyone. If you ARE into that kind of thing, though, then the Muppets tend to get away with groaners that anyone else would be ashamed of. The fuzzy puppets make them work.
• Back episodes of The Muppet Show introduced me to a lot of music that I'd not listened to before. Thanks to the Muppets, I have a brand new respect for classic rock and pop artists like Elton John, Leo Sayer, and Harry Belafonte. Also, just about any time you get Rowlf on the piano, I'm stuck to the TV screen. I LOVE that dog!
• I've mentioned how much I love The Muppet Christmas Carol before, but it bears repeating. Gonzo makes a surprisingly competent Charles Dickens, and... heck, all of the Muppet performers lend a surprising amount of sincerity and self-awareness to one of my favorite stories of all time. Also, I have fond memories of arguing with my brothers over whether or not Beaker flips Michael Caine off (answer: I'ma say he does).
• I don't know if its the music, the dancing, the guest stars, or what, but the Muppets seem to me to be one of the greatest "wholesome" groups around. I HATE the word "wholesome," by the way. It makes me think of a box of Fiber One. The thing is, though, that I actually feel good about watching the Muppets - the laughter's genuine, the songs are moving, and... heck, I've actually gotten to care about pieces of fabric wrapped around a guy's hand. That's gotta count for something.

Chalk it up to childish nostalgia if you must, but the Muppets have inspired me, and I'll love them forever.

Except for this guy:

Seriously? He sucks.

Braddy's Big Bollywood... umm... Breakthrough. Yeah, That Alliterates.

I borrowed a movie from a friend last night - Ghajini, a Bollywood film inspired by the Christopher Nolan movie Memento, and supposedly my friend's all-time favorite movie. I'd never seen a Bollywood movie before, and I've always been fascinated by the plot of Memnto, which features a character suffering from anterograde amnesia (an inability to retain new memories following a tramautic event). So I decided to give Ghajini a try. Hooray for new experiences, right?

Just a warning about new experiences - some of them are, like, really extremely crazy.

Ghajini is about the most disjointed movie-watching experience I've ever had - ever. See, I thought I knew kind of what to expect from the movie going in. After all, here's the movie poster:

Hardcore, no?

Now let's take a look at the description on the back of the movie box:

Imagine being one of the most successful businessmen in the country. Sanjay Singhania is a rich businessman who owns a cellular phone company. Kalpana is a model who brags to her friends and peers that she is the love interest of Sanjay, though in reality she doesn't even know the man.

When Sanjay comes to know about this anonymous admirer of his, he decides to dispel her delusions. But on his way he sees a beautiful woman helping the handicapped kids cross the road. Instantly, Sanjay falls for her. Later, he comes to know that she is Kalpana, the same model who boasted of being his girlfriend.

Sanjay gets introduced to Kalpana but doesn't disclose his real identity. Love blossoms between the two.

...What?

As it turns out, there are two plot threads in the movie. One follows Sanjay Singhania, a man with no long-term memory who tattoos his body with clues which should lead him to identify his girlfriend's murderer. The other plot, which unfolds all in flashbacks, follows Sanjay Singhania who falls in love with a woman through a CRAZY mixup.

In the first twenty minutes of the film, Sanjay stabs a man to death. Then, not twenty minutes later, we get this:


and this:


That last picture is pretty darn hilarious. This *NSYNC wannabe is actually the SAME PERSON as the guy on the movie poster. By the end of the film, he completely transforms into a rage-driven, animalistic revenge machine that punches people to death. In the climax, he hits someone so hard that he breaks the other guys neck and his head does a complete 180. The dude is LITERALLY lying on his belly and staring up at the sky in awe AT THE SAME TIME.

I'm not the only one noticing a disconnect, right? It's like I stuck in the DVD to Silence of the Lambs, and then, about halfway through, the movie switches over to a musical adaptation of Hitch. The tone switches with breakneck speed from psychological thriller to romantic comedy to melodrama to straight-up horror DOZENS of times over the course of three hours.

Now, it probably sounds like I didn't care for Ghajini, while I actually... probably didn't care for it much. There was a lot of great stuff - some of the cinematography was FANTASTIC, the music was catchy, and the rom-com bits WERE pretty funny. I have to wonder how much of the weird disconnect is due simply to cultural differences between Hindi and Hollywood films.

Unfortunately, it may be too late for Ghajini. I'm glad I watched it, but I doubt the movie will ever be a thing I love forever.

But boy HOWDY, did I have fun watching it!

Bedtime Stories for a Busy Week

Geez... I don't know about anyone else, but I'm POOPED.

Month-end is always a busy time at work, and, since we've been short-staffed for several months, I've been more stressed out than usual. All I want is to curl up in bed after drinking a tall glass of milk with cookies and have someone read me bedtime stories while I go to sleep. Is that too much for a grown man to ask?

Apparently not - I've seen several reports this week (but mainly this one) about a series of bedtime stories that air on CBeebies, a children's network in the UK. The program (or programme, if you will) garnered a bit of attention for regularly featuring the stars of Doctor Who - a show of which I'm a HUGE fan. I sat down last night and gave some of these a listen, and... well, they're darn cute. It reminds me of the good old days when I could sit on the carpet and watch Reading Rainbow.

I was the luckiest teenager ever.


David Tennant, who played the Doctor for a good three-four years recently (and also played Barty Crouch in one Harry Potter movie or another) reads a story called "Miki" which, while it's not my favorite story, provides ample opportunity for the delightfully hammy Tennant to pull out some great voices.


Freema Agyeman also delivers a pretty fun tale called "That Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown". Her voices aren't quite as funny as Tennant's, but the sincerity of her indignation when the naughty queen tries to take Emily Brown's rabbit from her is just... well, it's adorable.


Far and away, though, my favorite story was "Crocodiles Need Kisses, Too." The story's something of a riff on "Are You My Mother," but with an adorable little crocodile that scares all the other animals. A good story needs a good storyteller, and Alex Kingston does a fantastic job, imitating animal voices with great skill all while maintaining a suitably hushed, peaceful tone that could easily lull a body to suh-suh-suh-*yawn*-sleep.

Excuse me, I'm getting tired now. Going to sleep - see y'all Monday.

The Great Media Famine of 2011

The roomie and I decided to go the entire month of November without indulging in any frivolous media - no movies, video games, or music for the whole month (with a few well-deserved exceptions). We had several reasons for doing this. He wanted to cleanse his palate, as it were, of some of the more distasteful media influences he had let into his life. I wanted to keep distractions from my writing project to a minimum. Both of us wanted to discover just how much free time we would have to dedicate to other endeavors if we kept pointless distractions to a minimum.

Also, we both got REALLY FRICKIN' BORED!

Things started pretty well, actually - we'd come home from work or school or whatever, and we'd do a bunch of reading, clean the apartment, go for a walk, write a couple thousand words... whatever, you know. Then, we'd look around, smile at everything we'd accomplished, and say, "Boy, we sure feel swell. What an achievement.

"...now what?"

See, we managed to spend our time pretty well, up until about 9:00 at night. At that point, we both kinda realized that we'd run out of things to do. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem - we'd just pop in a movie, break out the video games, or do the funny video rounds on YouTube. However, for a whole month, we decided to forgo those activities completely. As a result, we completely wasted our time on SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT frivolous activities. For example, we read the entirety of The Complete Calvin and Hobbes in about a week, because there was NOTHING ELSE TO DO.

In the end, we wound up missing relaxing movie time. There's a difference between unwinding at the end of a long day of hard work with a good movie and a day completely wasted in front of the boob tube. We gave up the latter, but, in so doing, we weren't ever able to indulge in the former, and that just got us frustrated.

So much so, in fact, that we started making little exceptions to our rules that allowed for some frivolous media to slip in to our lives, like "Movies are okay in a social setting" and "We can watch videos if someone sends them to us ohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifn Facebook." That all probably sounds a little silly, but when you realize that WE were INVENTING RULES to CIRCUMVENT OTHER RULES that WE IMPOSED UPON OURSELVES... it stays pretty silly.

Also - and this has absolutely nothing to do with how starved for entertainment we got - we both decided that Patrick Stewart teaching the Sesame Street crowd about the letter "B" is the funniest darned thing ever.

You know what else starts with "B"? "Beautiful."

Well, it's December now. Going a month without movies didn't really kill me. Hopefully, I've learned to be less dependent on external media stimulation. Hopefully, I'll be more discerning in the things I choose to watch or listen to.

More likely, I'll go home from work tonight and play video games until my brains fall out my nose.