Who's enjoying himself?
I’m in Munich en route to Genoa. I’ve got an hour and forty-five minutes before my flight boards. But my battery only has an hour and a half of charge left. Munich airport also has only a very limited number of plugs available, so that hour and a half is all I’ve got for the moment. Long layovers usually aren’t so bad, but given that I stripped down my packing to include effectively no entertainment, a low battery, dry red eyes, and a confused body add up to crankiness.
You can never do the same thing the same way twice, when the thing in question is only nominally a thing and is better described as a whole cluster of smaller things. I’m thinking here of traveling from one place to another. The adventure, the romance, of traveling for work is a little bit worn off this time. So, fewer headaches, but that feeling of having moved out definitively into the unknown is also gone. If I was waiting – I’m not saying I was – for a moment – but I’m not saying I wasn’t, if you smell what the Rock is cooking – in which there was no turning back and my feelings finally turned around to steely resolve x/o excitement, well I would still be waiting. If I were. So there’s that.
I also fell asleep on the plane for a while, and my memories of trying to acclimate to local time aren’t especially pleasant, so it could be that this is something of a wet blanket on the process thus far. I was sort of hoping to be able to stay awake from SFO to Munich, nap on the flight to Genoa, and arrive in Italy just in time to crash out for the night. Instead, I have the sneaking suspicion that I’m going to be in for a series of weird semi-sleepless nights before my body finally decides to cooperate with reality so I can get down to the business of getting down to business. I blame the airline for choosing craptacular entertainment for the trans-Atlantic flight.
Kung Fu Panda : Umm… the secret is all in your mind? This may actually be crypto-propaganda for ‘The Secret’ or Scientology or one of those ‘visualize-it-and-you-can-actually-make-it-happen’ pyramid schemes/cults. I have no problem with empowering the children or whatever it is this movie thought it was doing, but the message that believing in yourself is enough to accomplish anything is misleading and wrong. Why is it that the cartoon animals that work hard, do what they’re supposed to, and have natural ability always fail to overcome other cartoon animals whose only real strength is good-natured roly-poly sticktoitiveness? Do you think Michael Phelps won 800 gold medals because he believed in himself? Or maybe it was because his handlers convinced him to devote his whole life to pretending to be a dolphin, an activity abetted by possibility that he is 25-30% dolphin? Also, why is Michael Phelps the first example I came up with? Can a cliche only be countered with another cliche?
Prince Caspian : For someone who didn’t see Narnia One and hasn’t read C.S. Lewis since he was 13, this movie was extremely confusing. It needed less Jesus and more fantastical monsters, or vice versa. Either way, this is a bad movie whose only (questionable) virtue could be said to be the aesthetic virtue of using an true-life deus (possibly also ex machina) as its deus ex machina.
What Happens in Vegas : The best way for two people to fall in love is to act as cruel as possible to each other at all times. This will inevitably lead to passionate romance. Being extremely good looking and friends with Rob Cordry is a plus. Cameron Diaz’s arms were pretty ripped in this one. I hate Vegas and everything it stands for.
Some old TV show starring Roger Moore as a British guy and some other guy as a ‘street-smart American’ who get in a fight about whether their favorite drink should have one olive or two in it, and then fall in love with a magical lion whose power comes from eating the homeless in ancient China. I filled some of the plot points in from other video entertainment. I fell asleep during this one and don’t remember much beyond the opening credits and a bar fight.
Drillbit Jones or Drillbit Thomson or whatever starring Owen Wilson as a homeless guy who attempts to help some misfit high schoolers deal with bullies but instead helps himself to find himself and helps his homeless friends to help themselves to the home furnishings of his new friends/charges/protégés. Was this movie even in theaters? I wrote a suicide joke here but I deleted it. Some things just aren’t that funny unless you can plausibly deny having thought or said them. Suicide is serious. This movie was a joke.
Couldn’t they get Michael Cera to be in this? The poor man’s Michael Cera was a real the poor man’s Michael Cera. Maybe George Michael is pulling a Harry Potter on us and now will only act in stage productions where he gets naked and talks about killing horses or the like?
2 comments:
Glad to hear international travel is still awesome. I heard (on NPR!) that there is new research showing that a supposedly effective way to reset your various circadian rhythms is to fast for about 24 hours, and then eat a big breakfast at a geographically appropriate time.
Downside: If I know anything about el jefe, I can't even imagine how crabby fasting after travelling would make you. But then again, there's strong, and then there's JDM strong.
Oh man, I missed the blogs. Hang in there.
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