The Frogurt Is Also Cursed

WOW

If this trailer doesn't make you want to run out and buy this game right now, there's something wrong with you ...

It looks absolutley stunning. And yes, it's out now!

2:29 PM

Spoken Like a True Rocker

Some rock n' roll wisdom from Kid Rock:

"F**kers in Hollywood who want to use the camera to be like, 'Guess who I'm f**king now?' and 'Oh, stop the war!' - all that shit just makes me sick."

6:33 PM

Friday Quiz

UPDATE: The link below was bloggered, but it's fixed now.

We all knew I would find a quiz like this one day.

We all know grass is green, beer is good, swimsuit models are hot, social security privitization is necessary, and that my result on the Simpson's Personality test would be:


You are Mr Burns

"Excellent"

9:18 AM

But I'm feeling better today ...

Yup. Threw my back out shoveling snow this weekend.

As the snow began to gather on the ground Saturday night I scoffed. "Melted by Monday", I thought to myself. As it grew to 5 inches by late Saturday morning, I scoffed again. I thought to myself, I'll let it snow all day, do a quick, half-assed shovelling job in the late afternoon, and it will all be melted by Monday, Tuesday at the latest.

Well, the snow kept falling. I was literally the last house on the block to shovel. Even the elderly couple two doors down had cleared their sidewalk. So, off I went.

By this time it was no longer snowing. It wasn't sleeting or raining either, it was slushing. Giant globs of slush fell from the sky. Harder than water, softer than ice. This environment mixed with the 5+ inches of snow on the ground and created 5+ inches of compacted, layered, slushcake.

It felt like I was shoveling engine blocks. But I had to clear the sidewalks before night fell, or I'd be hacking my way through 5+ inches of ice in the morning. Or so I thought.

The next morning was warm. The previous days rain had worn down much of the snow and slush and ice. The roads were clear and wet, the sidewalks safe.

Halfway through the day I noticed a pain in my back near my hip. It hurt when I walked, moved, or breathed. It got worse during the day and only felt better when I was laying on my back in bed. Even sitting at the dining table was uncomfortable.

So, after American Idol I lurched to bed. I'd never lurched before, but when you can't straighten out your back, and the pain gets worse when you move your left leg, you tend to move by bending forward at a 45 degree angle and swinging your left leg and right arm alternatively.

And so my physical transformation from thin, young, latin guy to Wilford Brimley continues apace ...

12:28 PM

New Friday Quiz

Here's a personality quiz I liked.

Of course, judging your personality is only half of the equation. Judging your behvior is also necessary to get a more complete picture of a person. But there's no way to do that annonymously online.

My results:

Wackiness: 14/100
Rationality: 56/100
Constructiveness: 62/100
Leadership: 34/100

You are a SRCF--Sober Rational Constructive Follower. This makes you a White House staffer.

You are a tremendous asset to any employer, cool under pressure, productive, and a great communicator. You feel the need to right wrongs, take up slack, mediate disputes and keep the peace. This comes from a secret fear that business can't go on without you--or worse, that it can.

If you have a weakness, it is your inability to say "no." While your peers respect you, they find it difficult to resist taking advantage of your positive attitude and eagerness to take on work. You depend on a good manager to keep you from sinking under the weight and burning out.

Of the 97391 people who have taken this quiz since tracking began (8/17/2004), 7.6 % are this type.

I'd say they are 85% correct.

3:09 PM

Sports News

Well, we've entered the black hole of male existance.

Unless you're entertained by rolling billboards going in circles, we've hit the period of time between the Super Bowl and March Madness where there is nothing happening.

Sure basketball is still on, but they are on their all-star break. College basketball is winding down and no one really cares about it until the conference tourneys.

But the week of the Super Bowl I heard something on Steve The Homer True's sport talk show that pissed me off. It's about the Packers Super Bowl loss to Denver.

Apparantly, Andy Reid talked about the Packers loss during the week as he prepared his Eagles for the big game:

It did not surprise Levens when Reid, who was the Packers' quarterbacks coach in '97, brought up Green Bay's Super Bowl loss in a recent meeting with the Eagles. Reid told his team that the Packers lost focus during the week leading up to the Super Bowl and warned the Eagles not to repeat the mistake.

Then he called Levens into his office.

"I guess he thought he might have offended me by saying something like that," Levens said. "One of the trainers came to me and said, 'Andy wants to talk to you.' I went in there and said, 'The only thing I was offended about was that you didn't give me the ball in the second half.'

"That's when he said he'd tell me the real story once I retired."

It is still a mystery why after gaining 62 yards in 12 carries in the first half, coach Mike Holmgren gave Levens the ball just seven times the rest of the game, including just once in the final 15 1/2 minutes after the Broncos took a 24-17 lead. In the second half, the Packers could neither solve Denver's blitz nor keep running back Terrell Davis from running up and down the field.

Levens still feels he could have helped solve both problems.

"I have not come up with a logical explanation as to why we didn't run the ball in the second half," Levens said. "The biggest thing was keeping them on the sideline. We run the ball, grind the clock out and give our defense a chance to rest and then our defense is fresher. We came out and they couldn't stop the run in the first half.

"One of the most heartbreaking things (Broncos tight end) Shannon Sharpe has ever said to me was when we got back to Atlanta in the off-season, he was like, 'Tell Mike I said thank you for not running you because we still haven't stopped you yet.' All I could do was walk away from him. That's all I could do."

So, Steve The Homer True asked another former Packer coach (I forget the name) about it. What's the mystery?

He said: Mike Holmgren's ego was so big, that he wanted to prove that they could stop the Denver blitz with his passing attack. He wanted to do it HIS way so that the glory would come to him and his brilliant passing scheme.

That's it.

Everyone wanted to run the ball but Mike.

Denver couldn't stop Dorsey.

I've always known that the Packers beat themselves that day, ...now it's out in the open.

The Packers lost by one score. They had the ball in Denver territory with one minute left on the clock. It was a close game. How different would it have been if the Packers were able to run off some clock and tire the Denver defense, keeping them on their heels?

Not to mention the momentum they would have had.

That game still stings. Last year's loss at Philly and time has overtaken some of that sting, but I don't think I'll ever be totally over it.

At least now I know who, specifically, to blame.

2:24 PM

The Notebook

Yes, I accidentally saw "The Notebook" yesterday.

How do you accidentally see a movie?

Well, I had been convinced it was a schlocky chick-flick full of unrealstic settings, people, dialog, situations, and emotions, ...and wanted no part of it. However, the wife was keen to see it, so she rented it and invited me to watch with her.

I'm a supportive guy, so I hung around the living room to keep her company while it was on, taking care of the baby, checking email, reading articles online, etc. I was watching it enough to follow the story closely. Actually, I was searching it for stereotypes, cliches, and holes that would allow me to mock it silently to myself.

And while I did find a few, ...the movie was actually interesting, held a few suprises, and got better with each scene. By the time I shut down the computer and the baby fell asleep, I was in deep enough that I had to finish out the movie.

Now, it's true that I am unable to walk out on movies. Once I start them, I have to finish. That's partly why I start so few of them. The only movie I ever wanted to walk out on was Dude Where's My Car, which is the worst movie ever made by anyone anywhere at anytime. It is completely with a single redeeming scene, phrase, word, or sentiment. I consider myself poorer for having seen it. That's how worthless it was.

Anyway, The Notebook does start out slow, in fact I think you could miss the whole first 30 minutes and not miss much. But it really picks up about 1 hour into it. Dual story lines shift between the present and the past. Half-way through you think you have it figured out, but suprises await in the final 45 minutes.

Without giving anything away, the movie builds to an emotional climax where the dual story lines collide with themselves and reality. As the viewer, you are forced to contemplate the implied sacrifices, resolve, and anguish behind the circumstances. The pieces of the stories fall into place like a shattered mirror in reverse, and the picture becomes clear and heartbreaking.

You cannot see this movie without shedding some tears. Now, I'm an easy mark for sad stories. A single tear is not hard to wring out of me with a good love story, but this movie nearly opened the floodgates.

It hits you hard, then it hits again, and again. It's almost not fair. You cannot have an emotional reaction to movie you don't care about. This movie took a hostile viewer like myself and forced me to care about the characters and their plight. It's impossible to resist because it forces you to look at your own life and your own relationships in a new way. Most love stories won't tred on this territory, which is why this movie is different.

So, if your girlfriend, wife, mistress, date, escort, or sugar-momma wants to watch this movie, ...go ahead tell her you'll do it just for her. Because it's not that bad. In fact, I liked it. It's well acted, has a couple of nice sex scenes, and isn't dripping with syrup like you'd expect. It hits hard, and puts a twist on a typical love story that is refreshing and powerful.

I pronounce these wilds fit for travel by the standard, superficial man. But bring some Kleenex.

1:38 PM

Oh, Sweet Jeebus ...

This guy's site kinda gets right to the point, eh?

9:05 PM

Japan Wrap-Up

For some time the wife has been experiencing a frustrating, depressing, funk. It stems from her inability to have friends of her own here in the US, her inability to go anywhere on her own, and her lack of autonomy.

This causes her to get irritated at the slightest quirk, mis-step, or inconvenience. She gets in a huff, usually storms off at a rapid pace, and continues doing everything at a rapid pace until she calms down, ...which is usually never.

Recently, (in advance of our trip) she's added "everything American" to her list of grievances. However, once in Japan, she missed her homelife here in the USA. "Tiresome" is the best way I can describe life in Japan, ...it is often tiresome.

After experiencing it with a new eyes, I think she saw this a bit clearer, but this just added to her frustration. Instead of visiting all her friends and having a lot of free time to re-connect with Japan, she had to deal with all the frustrations of transit, the close-quarters of staying with family (in 1 bedroom apartments), and the frustration of dealing with certain members of her family.

So, the trip was filled with countless episodes of her huffing about. Here's one great example:

Setting: We're at a department store.
Context: She owns 4,767 bags and or purses. Actual non-exaggerated number is roughly 30. Also, I long for a 46" DLP widescreen tv. Price tag $2400. We are not planning on having this any time soon because it's not a "needed" item.

She wants a new "Baby's Bag", what we Americans call a "diaper bag" for carrying formula, diapers, supplies, etc. Ok. We look for and purchase one.

Then, she starts looking at purses. She "needs" one because nothing she has goes with her winter coat (which I am not fond of in the first place, picture Raisa Gorbachev circa 1989).

But, I'm a good husband. I say nothing.

She finds a nice one.

"How much is it?"

"$90.00"

"Wow. That's expensive." I say this because it's a very simple, small bag. Not remarkable in any way.

"No, that's cheap. Everyone has more expensive bags than this."

"What do you mean."

"Everybody is having this. $200-400 bags. All women have them."

"Ha ha, I don't think so." I say this because no women I know has a bag that expensive, ...at least not that I'm aware of.

"Look, see her bag. That's a $500 bag. Probably more." She points out a simple dark-colored bag being carried by another shopper.

"Ok." Not wanting to argue, I try to make my point by getting her to see my perspective on this. Maybe some women have expensive bags, but that really sounds like a luxury to me. Not a necessity, right? Am I out of line here? We're a one income family, and it's not a huge income at that. So, I say the following. "Well, I could easily say that all of my friends have new computers and widescreen tvs, therefore I should have one, right?"

Now, maybe this wasn't the best line of conversation, but it's what I went with.

Her reaction?

"Fine." She slaps down the bag and storms off. You've seen those low-budget shows like Benny Hill where they show someone walking away or running away real fast by fast-forwarding the tape and it's really funny? That's what it looked like.

I literally have to jog to keep up with her.

Now imagine about 160 similar scenarios played out over 4 days.

That was my vacation.

But it wasn't all bad:

Lunch at Iron Chef Hiroyuki Sakai's restaurant at top of a skyscraper was absolutely to die for. I've never tasted anything so exquisite. My heart went weak just from the smell of the entre', and I nearly wept when I tasted it. The food separated my mind from my body, ...I was in a different world, a completely different world. After finishing, I thought, now I can die.

Every person, and I mean every single f-ing person on the planet should eat food that good once in their life. Just once. It's worth it. And I'm not talking about a 5 star restaurant in town, ...I mean a restaurant that gets 5 stars on the global scale. Sitting there on the 67th floor of a Shibuya high rise we could see Mt. Fugi and the other mountain ranges that encircle the Tokyo region. We could see most of the city, the pulsing freeways and walkways, the glittering towers with video facades, ...it made the whole trip worthwhile.

Also, I got a chance to see Sideways on the plane ride back to the good old USA. And I have to tell you, every man should see this movie. I haven't laughed so hard at a movie since ....well I don't know when. It's a total "guy" movie. It's brilliantly written, brilliantly cast, and brilliantly acted. Did I mention it was funny? It's "Swingers" but with slightly older men. Men past their prime instead of in the middle of it.

Most of all, it's not an "arty" film at all. While the artistry is there, it's not the point of the movie. Too many films try to be art. This film just tries to be honest. It get's 5 of 5 stars from me.

So, that's it. The baby slept almost the whole plane ride home. I slept for most of it as well. We actually had to wake her up so we could change her before we landed. We sailed through customs and the baggage check to find a sunny 50 degree day waiting for us.

Home. Reunion with the World's Naughtiest Dog (WND). Apparantly, the WND was extra cute while we were gone.

My dad took my car in for repairs while I was out. Nothing major. So, my car was sitting in their driveway. The mechanic (a family friend) drove it over to my parent's house. Upon hearing my car pull up, the WND went bezerk.

Even after seeing I was not there, she went nuts.

For days my car sat in the driveway, ...yet the WND would sit at the window and stare at it, whinning, waiting. One day she got so anxious, that my mom had to let her sit in the car by herself for a few hours just to calm her down.

Once again under one roof, we were all happy again. I've already vowed that I am not going back to Japan next year, but that could change.

I'm just glad to be back in the world. Dinners together, weekends together, late night snacks together.

Last night the baby was up really late. She was really punchy and cranky. Laughing one minute, moaning the next. We brought her to bed with us to try and encourage sleep, but she wanted to horse around instead. All three of us under the same covers, the baby and the wife giggling away uncontrollably. The baby was wildly swinging her rattle out of frustration, banging both my wife and myself in the face repeatedly. She somehow got alhold of the drawstring on my wife's sweatpants and starting chewing them. After they were completely soaked, she started sucking them like straws. She eventually rattled and chewed and wriggled herself to sleep between us.

Best. Night. Ever.

2:54 PM

Friday Quiz

Here's the most serious quiz so far. It's a personality quiz based on your responces to color. You just click the colors according to how they make you feel and your personality profile is based on the order of the selections.

Here are my distressing results:


Free personality analysis from ColorQuiz.com.
Generated on Fri Feb 11 12:13:54 2005.

Your Existing Situation
Seeks to express the need for identification in a sensitive and intimate atmosphere where esthetic or emotional delicacy can be protected and nurtured.

Your Stress Sources
Unfulfilled hopes have led to uncertainty and apprehension. Needs to feel secure and to avoid any further disappointment, and fears being passed over or losing standings and prestige. Doubts that things will be any better in the future and this negative attitude leads him to make exaggerated demands and to refuse to make reasonable compromises.

Your Restrained Characteristics
Circumstances are forcing him to compromise, to restrain his demands and hopes, and to forgo for the time being some of the things he wants.
Willing to become emotionally involved and able to achieve satisfaction through sexual activity, but tries to avoid conflict.

Your Desired Objective
Seeks affectionate, satisfying and harmonious relationships. Desires an intimate union, in which there is a love, self-sacrifice and mutual trust.

Your Actual Problem
Disappointment at the non-fulfillment of his hopes and the fear that to formulate fresh goals will only lead to further setbacks have resulted in considerable anxiety. He is trying to escape from this into a peaceful and harmonious relationship, protecting him from dissatisfaction and lack of appreciation.

Now I'm going to crawl into the fetal position and think about this ...

12:14 PM

Japan Recap, Part Three

So, with the family once again reunited, we fell into a routine of dropping the daughter at her grandmother's house every morning, driving back to the hotel, walking to Tachikawa station, and train-hopping our way around the city.

On Monday we simply did some shopping, slept late, had a nice lunch, and met my wife's mother and her husband for a sub-par dinner at a family restaurant.

Tuesday had us traveling to Asakusa, a very touristy but wonderful place filled with food and souvenir stalls. Asakusa is most known for it's temples, shrines, and 5-story pagoda, ...but most people seem to go there for the souvenirs.

This is the first place I've visited in Japan that had a large number of foreign tourists about. Lot's of Japanese women taking their foreign husbands through, translating all the memorials, signs, and traditions.

The wife hates history, consequently she doesn't know much about the history of her own country. Her eyes quickly glaze over when I ask her to translate an inscription on a statue or the meaning behind a mural.

I'll post pictures of all I saw later ...

As the sun went down the weather got colder and the wind picked up pace, ...so we hurried off the main path to a large marketplace that offered more shelter. Walking the long lines of storefronts we stopped at a small, quaint, traditional-style restaurant and settled down for hot green tea, unagi, rice, and soup.

The only patrons besides us were 3 men over 70. The wife suggested that this was a good sign. The food is probably very good and very authentic if it is popular with locals. And it was. You could tell each guy came here as part of his daily routine, ...just a small bit of food and quiet to ease the soul.

Wednesday took us to Shibuya and the famous crosswalk that appears in almost every picture of Tokyo, just as Times square appears in most pictures of New York. The Hachiko monument was the highlight for me. It's a statue of a dog named Hachiko.

Some time in the long ago past, Hachiko would come to the station at Shibuya to wait for his master. He came every day at the same time and waited for him. One day his master died while he was away, but poor Hachiko faithfully came to the station everyday for the rest of his life hoping to see his master. He never got discouraged and never gave up on his master. The townspeople felt sorry for poor Hachiko so they would bring food and water for him to eat so he would not starve. The Japanese revere Hachiko for his determination and loyalty, ...the train station is now called Hachiko station and a cute monument sits at the Shibuya crossing. It's a popular tourist stop.

Last stop was the Tokyo hands, ...the Japanese answer to the Harrods. You can get everything there from furniture to power tools to camping equipment to the highest-quality fashions.

This was our last real day of rest. Thursday we needed to check out of the hotel, drive the daughter to her grandmother's, drop our luggage off at her mother's, return to Tachikawa and drop off the rental car, take one train and one cab to get back to her mother's house, then hitch a ride with her sister to her father's house where we would be spending the night.

Talk about a pointless, annoying day. I calculated how long this would have taken had we been in the US, ...total transit time, 20 minutes. Here in Tokyo, this took all day. Literally. It took 9 hours.

1:29 PM

Japan Recap, Part Two

The wife met me at the airport alone because it is inconveniently located about 2 hours from Tokyo and required a car ride and two trains to get there. Not a good situation if you have 8-month old, ...so the daughter stayed at my mother-in law's apartment for the day.

The wife was so relieved to see me. She doesn't get along well with her father's wife, and after living in the US for 10 months, she realizes how tiresome life in Tokyo really is.

You cannot just drive anywhere you want to go, neither can you take a train everywhere you want to go. Every trip needs to be thought out in advance. Often you are forced to make consessions based on how convenient it is to travel there. Even if you are traveling somewhere relatively nearby, if there is no train station there, it can take an hour weaving through the alley-sized streets of Tokyo to get there.

After greeting each other and moving on to the currency exchange, I noticed an American guy who was on my plane being interviewed by a small group of Japanese reporters and cameramen. I guess he is some American baseball player signed by a Japanese squad. I didn't recognise him.

The two long train rides passed mostly uneventfully. On the second train we deliberately walked a long way to a different stop so that we could get on the train at it's starting point, assuring we would have a spot to sit. We did get a seat, but several older Japanese men gave me bad looks. You're supposed to let the old people have a seat when none is available, but I was tired, ...so screw them.

We arrived in Tachikawa later that evening and walked four blocks to the hotel where we would be staying for the next 4 days. Unfortunately for me, I chose the coldest week of the year to come to Japan. Temps were in the low 30's all week and windy.

After unloading, we got into our rental car and drove to her mother's house to pick my daughter. As most of you know, I was convinced that she would have forgotten about me in the 12 days we've been apart, but she remembered. Thank God, she remembered.

She looked different, though. Bigger. She looked less like a baby and more like a small child. Her mannerisms and attitude were different, too. Before, she would just sit and coo and play with whatever we gave her, ...now she moves, grabs everything, and expresses herself to you. If she grabs something she should not have, like an ashtray, and you take it away from her, she will bitch and cry and scream. This is new.

It's wonderful to see that she is developing, but I can't help but notice that soon she will be a toddling terror. This golden age where she's easy to deal with and easy to enjoy is about to be over.

While she is behind in some areas, she is ahead in others. She cannot crawl yet, but can stand if you provide balance for her. She does a lot of baby talk now, but has not tried to associate specific sounds with items or feelings.

She's never liked the peekabo game because she's always instinctively known that you didn't disappear. Put a washcloth up between yourself and her and she'll just move it aside.

She also understands some spatial reasoning, if that's the right term. She loves platic bags for the sounds they make when crushed. I didn't want her playing with a particular bag, so I rolled it up tightly and shoved it to the bottom of a decorative paper gift bag that was nearby. My daughter somehow knew how to retrieve the plastic bag. She leaned over, pulled the decorative bag closer to her, reached inside, and pulled out the plastic bag.

It doesn't seem like much, but I was suprised she knew that something could be inside something else without ever having manipulated those items before.

Anyway, she remembered me, and we drove back to the hotel for a nice, long sleep. For 12 days I had slept alone, ...no wife, no baby nearby. It was so nice to be back in the fold.

11:26 AM

Japan Recap, Part One

As you know, I was out in California for the week preceding my trip to visit in the in-laws. The conference ended Friday afternoon and my flight was not to depart until Saturday around noon, ...so on Friday night I left our nice 4 star resort and headed for a hotel closer to the airport.

I stayed at the Handerly Hotel and Resort, and suprisingly, it's not as nice as its picture. The room was tiny, dark, on the first floor, adjacent to TWO parking lots (yes, two), and smelled like a cheap motel room in the Dells (damp, moldy, damp, cold, and damp). And the porn they offered via pay-per-view was priced way too high. I'm not paying $14 to watch some 90 minute low-budget softcore crap when the internet offers so much more for free.

Oh, and the wireless broadband internet access they advertised? You have to pay for it! $10 a day! So, pay I did because email I need. My growing addiction to Star Wars, Knights of the Old Republic prevented me from really getting my money's worth.

When I checked in, I asked the desk clerk for the best way to get to the airport in the morning. He said they have a contract with a cab company and they will take me for a flat rate of $14. He told me to call the desk 10 minutes before I needed to leave and one would be there for me when I left. Ok.

So, 10 minutes before I leave, I call the desk. A young slacker answers, ...

"Yeah?"

"Hi. I'm checking out in a few minutes and I'm going to need a cab to take me to the airport."

"Ok ..." There was an openendedness to his incomplete sentence that suggested, what do you want me to do about it?

"So, ..."

"Well, I think there's one out there, ...hold on."

I hold. About 60 seconds later he returns from the 10 foot journey to the front door, "Ok, there's one out there now, so you can have that one."

"Well, ...how do we know it will still be there?"

"If not, we'll call one."

I let it go, knowing I had plenty of time to spare, but I wondered what his concept of "service" was. The reason I was calling him ahead of time was to avoid sitting in the lobby waiting for a cab to be dispatched. The fact that one was there now doesn't gaurantee one will be there when I arrive. Not his problem, I guess.

Anyway, sure enough, the cab was gone when I arrived and he had to call a new one for me.

It was a pleasant and beautiful morning nonetheless. I got to the airport early, got bumped up to an earlier flight, got into LAX a full two hours before the international leg of my journey and bought some overpriced gifts at the duty free shop.

My stomache was empty, but I felt like having a beer, so I stopped in at the Expedia Travel Right Cafe, an internet cafe whose concept must have been great. In reality, it is a depressing eye-sore.

First, the place is devoid of music or sound. It has no atmosphere, and despite the bright colors, seems cold and distant. And the decor looks as if they was created by stuffing a Nikelodeon set down Tim Burton's throat, and then watching him vomit. It was offensive to all senses.

To top it off, I had to endure some fool from Chicago while he decided to get plastered before his flight. He downed beer after beer, did a couple of shots, then slammed his last beer just before boarding the plane. I've never understood people who wanted to get drunk before or during a plane trip.

Annoyances aside, I boarded the half-full plane and stretched out, having a row of 5 seats to myself. Unfortunately, we hit some bad turbulance about an hour into the flight. The result of turbulance and having nothing but a single corona in my stomache is nausia. For the first time in my life, I felt sick on a plane.

I held it together with some Rolaids and water, from now on I fly on a full stomache.

Movies on the flight were Mr. 3000, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, The Princess Diaries 2, and Taxi. If you would have come up to me 10 months ago and said, I've got a great idea for a movie starring Jimmy Fallon and Queen Latifa, I'd laugh my ass off. God, it was too horrible to watch.

Mr. 3000 was also a bad, bad movie. Great idea, I think. But nothing about this movie would ever make me want to watch it again. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow was also pretty bad. Mostly, it was boring. It was also overdone with nostalgia. If you look at movies from the 30's and 40's and wish you could have lived during that time, you'll like this movie. If not, you'll find it mostly boring, but slightly amusing. Me, I thought the movie made no sense, had some gaping holes and errors, and is basically a childrens movie.

About 3 hours into the flight some fool from one of the back rows comes into my row. He knocks down the arm rests in three of the seats and proceeds to try and sleep the entire way to Japan with his feet sticking out at me. Oh yes, and he farted approximately once every 1.189 minutes.

For some reason, a small group of itallian guys were on the flight, wearing baseball caps with sunglasses on the visor the whole time, because you know it's so bright on a plane. At one point two of them stood in the right aisle and carried on a conversation with another guy who sat 5 seats away on the left aisle. They literally talked through some poor Japanese guy, and annoyed at least a dozen people until the stewardess made them sit down. How fucking clueless can you be?

Clueless enough to play a movie on your laptop without headsets so the whole plane can listen to the last samurai with you! Eventually, the jackasses fell asleep and stopped annoying people.

I followed suit, and soon enough we were landing at Narita airport.

1:31 PM