Batman Strikes…?

On Saturday, apparently, a 17-year-old was killed after being hit by a train on Batman: The Ride at Six Flags Over Georgia. The kid had climbed two six-foot-tall fences in order to get to the restricted area under the roller coaster–where several signs warn that the area is dangerous and off-limits). Apparently, from what is known at the moment, he and a friend were trying to take a shortcut into the park. Now, I’m sorry…

…but that is stupid; nobody should have died that day. A 17-year-old should know better. The real question is: where was the supervision? The young man was part of a church group. Now, I know a teenager–especially at that age–isn’t required to have supervision, but, obviously, this one needed it.

This is a case where the accident was completely avoidable. There were no mechanical malfunctions or operator error or any other such thing–only stupidity. And damn I hate saying something like that, especially when the person in question is gone form this Earth. Anyway. It is what it is. I feel sorry for the family that has to deal with this. It’s terrible.

It’s hard to be mad about this accident when you realize a person lost their life. I know Ron White says, “you can’t fix stupid”, and maybe that’s true, but we’ve all done stupid things in our lives; I know I have. Still…not sure I’d do this one…

Batman is not to blame, though, in any regard. It is what it is, too: a piece of heavy machinery. And with that comes a certain level of danger, obviously.

Writers Block

For the past few weeks–not sure why–I’ve had severe “writers block”. I usually get this when I become frustrated with a particular problem with a storyline, which I think is the cause here. I’ve lost all motivation, because I can’t think of a solution to this tough scene in my historical fiction. Plus, I’ve wanted to reinvent the story, as I feel the plot is too similiar to other stories I’ve either read or seen. Heck, this whole thing as me dead creatively it seems–and when that happens it drags me down entirely.

Also, I need to write a review on Doctor Who for TV-Reviewed.com, but I just haven’t found the way I want to review the past two episodes, which has been a two-parter. I think I’ll do it as two reviews, but I’m just not sure where to go with it otherwise. Hopefully, I’ll think of something tonight. Luckily, the show is taking a break for a few weeks, which will give me time to catch up. Next week, though, Burn Notice starts up, which I’m stoked about, yet that’s another thing to review. I feel different on it, however.

I’m excited about watching the show, and I believe I’ll have no problem there.

The Love Guru…Right…

Let me start off by saying I’m a fan of Mike Myers’ comedy. But, sadly, The Love Guru is far from being either Austin Powers or Wayne’s World–or even So I Married an Axe Murderer. Well, I guess you could say it’s a combination of all the silliness he’s ever come up with, plus a vast library of unoriginal sex jokes–way too many of them, honestly. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like a good, well-placed sex joke, but when you over do it like Myers has here, it becomes old quick–like hearing the F-word repeated over and over again does.

The Love Guru, to me, was not worth the $7 admission fee. Sure, it had some (a few) funny scenes in it; who doesn’t like seeing a little person shot across a hockey rink like a puck? Right… Thanks Vern. That was very…uh…inspiring. Oh, and there’s nothing quite like a powered, rolling Guru-cushion–complete with back-up alert–to get a laugh from the audience. And, it was amusing when Myers’ character, The Guru Pitka, got his beard dyed pink from eating cotton candy. However, there’s simply not enough original material here to satisfy me or any other Mike Myers’ fan, let alone an average moviegoer.

Plus, there wasn’t enough of Jessica Alba–there never is–to go around. Sure, she showed up in a low-cut dress with boobage–insert trademark–bulging, but there weren’t enough scenes with her to make the relationship between her and Pitka believable.

The Love Guru quickly gets irritating. I had been warned ahead of time by several negative reviews, but I thought those reviewers were nothing but a bunch of squares. Well, I must be a square then, too, because I didn’t much care for this movie. If you haven’t seen it yet, just wait for it to come out on…Scratch that, skip the DVD–even if it’s in the bargain bin someday–wait for it to show up on TV. That way you’re not out any money on this shameful film.

I wanted to like The Love Guru–I really did. However, in the end, it’s just another pathetic attempt at cashing in on expectations. Hell, Timberlake, who stars as the film’s antagonist, was more entertaining here than Myers, and that’s saying something.

A Wii Story

For some reason last night, I got this hankering for messing around with my Nintendo Wii. So, I pressed the power button on one of the controllers, expecting the system to start up, but, to my horror, nothing happened. Notta. No matter how many times I pressed the power button on either the controller or the unit itself, there was nothing. It was if the thing was simply dead.

I unplugged it from the wall several times and even tried different outlets, but nothing happened. I got that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that I’d probably have to send it off for repair to Nintendo, which was something I didn’t want to have to do; who knows how long it would take for it to be sent off, repaired and then sent back. So, I checked the Nintendo website and, of course, most of the stuff they had you do were simpleton things. But, the “reset power adapter” caught my eye. Now, I thought, surely that wouldn’t do anything. All you do is unplug the power adapter from the unit and wall, which I had already done several times (so I thought), for 90 seconds.

Well, I tried it anyway, and it’s a good thing that I did, too, because the amber power LED came on almost immediately. I guess before I hadn’t waited long enough for the power adapter to “reset”? I suppose the power loss and surge we had had a couple of nights before had screwed something up. Only thing I can figure…

The New Door

With the stability and connection speed of The Planet having been iffy because of the fire, I’m just now getting to this post. On this past Tuesday I finally got my new front door installed. Ya! And it looks and fits damned good, too, if you ask me; the original one had daylight showing all around the top edges when closed, so do the other two external doors. You can see how well those were put in! Anyway, the guy from Lowe’s did an excellent job. I was sort of surprised, of course, because you never know what kind of workmanship you’ll get from a store’s contract workers. But, this guy seemed to really know what he was doing. Here’s the evidence:

As you can see, both the inside and outside look pretty good. On the outside you can probably notice the piece of brick molding on top. There was always a piece of brick molding here, but a new piece had to be installed that is about an inch higher. This is because the original door was a little bit taller than the replacement. I guess from year-to-year things change in the standards of…doors and windows, go figure.

Overall, I think the style of the new door works with the house. The window in the top was much-needed as before the foyer was relatively dark–the other door had no window. Oh, and this door has a peep hole installed–something every door should have in this day and age. Now, all I have to do is paint the door red on the outside like I want, but I’ll wait until after summer to do that; paint probably wouldn’t dry too quickly in this heat, and it’d probably get flies and stuff stuck in it besides. There sure are enough of them flying around out there, those and hornets and wasps and carpenter bees, oh my. Of course, then, I’ll have to paint the green vinyl shutters red as well. Does regular outdoor paint stick to vinyl? I’m clueless. I guess I’ll have to ask the paint guy at Lowe’s.

Smashed Car Windows…

The medium-sized town I live in is starting to become more and more crime ridden. I mean, since I’ve lived here there has always been a small area of town that you could consider a “hood” with drug dealers and junkies and prostitutes–and all sorts of other vermin. Well, now, it seems, the hood is ever-expanding its reach.

Crime is happening in every neighborhood, on every road and street in the town and county. It was never like this twenty years ago. Then again, meth wasn’t as big a deal as it is today. There are meth labs all over upstate South Carolina. Some people are hooked and, like it is with all illegal drugs, they’ll do anything to get their fix–including minor and major thefts.

Yesterday, the newspaper that I work at–Well, the parkinglot was raided by bandits. Nobody saw these guys as they went and starting smashing out a few windows in some of the cars parked along the edge of the secondary parkinglot under the trees. One employee had his in-dash CD player unit stolen, and somebody else had her truck ramsacked; the thieves were basically looking for anything they could get their hands on that they could either sell or pawn.

Now, of course, the newspaper is in a seedier section of town. Prostitutes roam the side of the road here, and I’ve seen a number of drug deals going down. Right across the street are low-income apartments and just next door is an old rundown motel that attracts less savory sorts; hell, its where the prostitutes take their clients. But, in the thirty-five or so years of the newspaper being in its current location, they’ve never had any on-property, parkinglot theft. So, it was surprising to say the least.

I’m glad I always park along the front of the building. That’s mostly because I’m lazy, though, and like to be as close to the front doors as possible, so when I come and go I don’t have far to walk. People were parking in the secondary side parkinglot because of the treecover, which aided the thieves. The shade is what the people were thinking about, though. It gets hot here, and parking under shade seems like a good idea, right? People tend to leave their windows cracked, too. Well, no more.

This morning when I pulled in, nobody had parked under the trees. The area could have had tumbleweeds rolling through it–that’s how empty it was. So, I guess people got the lesson: in this day and age you have to be proactive in protecting your property, and yourself. Even right here in the good ole laid-back South.