Hrm.

Fact: I have 218 items in my Netflix queue.
Fact: I've had the three discs I have now out for more than a month.
Conclusion: I want to see a lot of movies, but I'm in no rush.
Conclusion: Those were some expensive rentals.

The Out-of-Text Retcon

Retcon is short for retroactive continuity, which basically means that something stated later on alters events that already occurred, sometimes completely. It tends to come up fairly often in comic books, but there are tons of other examples in the Wikipedia article linked to there.

What got me thinking about this was that J.K. Rowling "revealed" this week that Dumbledore was gay. You know what? I don't care if he was gay. The sexuality of old men wasn't really a topic that was explored by the books themselves. This is going to have a lot of people up in arms, but it doesn't actually matter at all because Rowling took the wussy way out. What bothers me isn't that she's made this decision about Dumbledore's character, but the fact that she didn't put it in the freaking books.

In a text chock-full of gradual revelation of plot-changing details, much of which falls under the retcon heading, why shy away from one more? Is it to avoid getting the book banned in more locations? I don't know. It just bothers me that an author who is so widely read can change everybody's perception about her story without using legitimate means to make that change. It feels very cheap.

I'll be interested to see how this affects the next movie. I wonder if Michael Gambon will try to play swishy. I wonder if he can play swishy.

Ultra-fresh!

Like everything I post worth checking out, this one came from Digg. A couple of observations: Does it seem to you that every video you see on Youtube has a 4-star rating? Also, this really makes me want to listen to some Apocalyptica. It still amuses me to no end to know that something like Apocalyptica exists and is actually awesome.

You know what I hate?

I hate the idea of those tall paperbacks they're selling now. They're the same width as normal mass market paperbacks, but just taller. They represent a threat to the uniform height of the bookshelf contents. It's bad enough that I have to deal with the spine colors not matching; now I have to step carefully on online purchases, checking the dimensions to make sure they're not freak books. Do these tall books represent some sort of increased readability? Less page turns? There has to be some reason to turn your back on reason and handsomely level bookshelves. Or is it just insanity?

I guess I'll just have to get everything leather-bound.

Aw man!

Now that the final Harry Potter book has been leaked in its entirety, I have to avoid the internet until I can finish the thing on sunday. Not that it will affect this blog much.

Ha ha.

GRAGHRRAGH!

In its infinite wisdom, The CW has seen fit not to include Veronica Mars on its fall schedule, which basically means it's cancelled.

May the network perish in a fiery inferno that burns with the brightness of justice satisfied.

Musical extravaganza!

Here's a couple of music-related youtube videos that I think you'll enjoy.

Flight of the Conchords, formerly New Zealand's fourth-most popular folk parody duo, is pretty funny:



That one came via Jordan via Seth via who knows where. There are more here.

I may lose Man Points over this one, but I really dig on this one. It's Imogen Heap and this funky looping gadget recreating an entire electronic song live. I think it's righteous that there are talented people performing in that genre and that she can do her stuff live without just singing over samples. I love her voice and the layering in the song is very well done. Yay.



That one was from Digg, and I thoroughly dugg it. (NINJA EDIT) I just wanted to update this to say that, while I enjoy her music, she scares the crap out of me and I think I'd run away from her in real life. (/NINJA EDIT)

And in case you haven't laughed at something ridiculous today, here's a guy playing the Legend of Zelda theme on an 11-string bass.



I can just imagine this guy buying a bass:

Guy's Friend: Hey, man, look at all these 4-, 5- and 6-string basses. Certainly they must be enough for every possible bassing configuration!
Guy: Oooh, look at that one.
Guy's Friend: That's ridiculous!
Guy: This one goes to eleven.
Guy's Friend: But why not just buy a 5-string and a 6-string? What's the point in having 11 strings all on one bass?
Guy: This one goes to eleven.

I hope he does other stuff on that bass besides just tap. You may as well buy a piano or a dulcimer if you're gonna play like that.

This concludes the musical extravaganza. I hope you were completely extravaganzed.

Apathy (or, an open letter to Dennis)

An inquiring mind once wrote in the comments section:

Dude, it's like May. I'm ignorant as of the current state of Jack Bauer statistics and your opinion of Spiderman 3!

Well, Dennis, if you must know, I'm holding off on compiling 24 statistics until the season's done because I've grown immensely bored with it. Not the statistics, the show. Plus, I couldn't really come up with anything funny to say every week. Perhaps I'll be better able to amuse you after these last five episodes coalesce into a giant ball of death, ridiculousness and TV-14 swears. So you'll hear about this shortly after the two-hour finale on the 21st.

Spider-Man 3 was just very much not good. I want to preface this by saying that I almost always come away with, at the very least, a neutral opinion of movies that I see. I rarely feel that a movie has been bad enough that having seen it was a waste of time. Spider-Man 3, however, came close.

I think Sam Raimi fell asleep with his face on the Overbearing Schmaltz key. You know, the one right next to Scroll Lock. Multiple times we're looking dead-on at Peter Parker crying all-out my-dog-just-died double-chin-grimace style. There's no little-kid crying in Spider-Man! For some reason, every single little bit of the everyday life stuff (the stuff that makes Spider-Man different than, say, X-Men) was unbearably dull.

I don't think the big problem was that there were too many villains, but rather that nothing was really done with any of them. Sandman was cool, but, like Dennis said, he probably could have had his own movie. He was pretty much wasted in this. Venom looked cool, but was mostly pointless. Uh... in fact, Dennis already said all of this. Goblin was okay, but probably mostly because James Franco brings back warm fuzzy Freaks and Geeks memories.

Don't even get me started on the horrible, horrible, final-act Exposition Butler. Oh, this was unforgivable. Here's a hint to movie-makers from someone who will consume nearly every piece of cinema you put out there: when you are using a previously unseen butler to steer your plot in a different direction, you need to throw away your script and start over. Do it.

Two more thoughts:

1) How in the world did Bryce Dallas Howard come from this guy? And have this guy as an uncle? HOW?

2) Dennis, you better watch yourself. I hear if you make fun of Bruce Campell, or any scene he's in, his chin comes and kills you while you're asleep.

It should also amuse you to know that I'm so lazy and apathetic that I started this post 5 days ago and am just now finishing it.