You’ve Been Erased

Every now and then there’s that particular movie that makes you go “wow”. I just finished watching Eraser. Now, I’ve never seen it before, obviously, and I know it came out way back in 1997, but, well, that doesn’t matter, because it’s more awesome than some of the more recent action flicks I’ve seen, such as Transporter 3, which I was thoroughly disappointed with.

Eraser…hmm…might just be Arnold’s best work. Everything from the final–or what appears to be the final–showdown between hero and villain to the witty one liners and the fast pace, man this movie has it all. And I don’t normally say that. In fact, the pace of Eraser is almost perfect. It has the lulls where needed and when the action hits…it hits, and it feels original, too–or, at least, fresh twists on old action flick chestnuts. I think one of my favorite scenes is where the mafia guys use a front-end loader’s shovel to deflect bullets–yes, it’s been done before, but the surprise was when the three of them popped up out of the shovel and mowed the bad guys down with some withering fire. That was completely unexpected. Another scene that stood out was in the vacation house. Arnold stabbing a bad guy through a door with a knife. That was inventive for sure. Then, there was the SecurityTek facility where he was attacked by three guys coming out of an elevator. Luckily, he’d already popped one and used him for a human shield that the others shot into. But, what was just brilliant, was when Arnold’s character pulled the pins on two grenades attached to the guy’s vest. When he kicked the guy into the elevator…I was like, “Damn right.”

OK. OK. I’ll calm down now. Yeah, lots of testosterone going on there. Anyway. The writers and producers of Eraser (along with Arnold and all the other excellent actors in this film; including, yes, Venesa Williams) did an excellent job creating, what I think is, a timeless action movie. If you’ve never seen it, well, you should–that is, if you love action movies as much as I do.

Snow in South Carolina

Snow in South Carolina isn’t unheard of, but it sure isn’t a common event–and that’s especially true for snow in March.

Well, I guess Mother Nature this year decided to have a little fun. She must’ve decided that we could use some bad weather, ice included with the snow. Things started at about 2PM or so in the afternoon last Sunday. We’d had rain all day that morning before the temperature went down, so the ground was already saturated. In fact, there was a spot in my backyard where a few sizable puddles had begun to collect. It wasn’t, like I said, until two that the rain turned to snow.

It surprised the heck out of me since I don’t usually watch the news to keep apprised of such flippant things as the weather. I had heard a few people at work mention the possibility of snow, but I just thought they were either A) out of their minds or B) just kidding. Yet…there was snow. And for about up until midnight it kept falling, building up and up. In fact, we got a total of five inches of snow! Now, that’s a rarity for sure. Heck, since I’ve lived here, we’ve only gotten maybe 2 inches at most. I know back in ‘87, the year before I moved here from Michigan, they had gotten about a foot–so that had to have been a pretty big event for the folks around here. Damn, hard to believe I moved down here when I was nine–way back in 1988. Gees. I’m old. Anyhow.

My brother had gone up to a hockey game in Tennesee with some of his friends of his on Saturday and didn’t return until late Sunday. By the time he got back the driveway was completely covered in the white stuff. In fact, I knew he was home only because I kept hearing an engine revving up and tires squealing. Why? Our driveway is steep. There was so much ice under the snow he couldn’t get any traction. He me laughing, too, because he kept trying and trying. I had to go down there and tell him just to leave his car. I mean, heck, his ass-end wasn’t hanging out into the road, so what did it matter? And I obviously wasn’t going anywhere in that shit.

The next day afterwards, my dad came over to help my brother out with the car–to see if he could, at least, get it further up the drive, with the ultimate goal being into the garage if possible. Of course, my brother was about useless. My dad, since he’s driven in snow a bunch more times than anybody else I know around here, did the actual driving. My brother pretty much just stood in the garage and watched. I got the shovel out–a spade, the only thing I’ve got–and dug in front of the tires. Lo and behold that worked, too. About halfway up, though, the tires couldn’t get any traction again. The neighbor was outside with his kids. He asked if we needed any help and I told him to come on over. We tried to push, but we just kept sliding on the ice.

Eventually, my dad rolled back a little and then was able to get enough traction to move past the ice patch. I think in all it took about fifteen minutes for us to get my bro’s car back into the garage. Man, now I know what people are talking about when they say, “I hate snow.” Yeah, I’m starting to agree with that sentiment. I used to enjoy a good snowing when I was a kid and, with it being such a rare event down here, I used to pray for it. Well, I think I’m past that part. In fact, I think I’ll be asking God not to drop the stuff, now. I can live without it.

The funny thing about it all is that today it got up to 85 degrees.