Q: Is it leather? A: No, it is PVC

Last night we went to see Watchmen. Let me tell you some things about this movie, Internet. Not having read the graphic novel, and therefore basing my analysis purely on the movie itself:

• It is very long. TOO LONG.
• It had a lot of ads at the beginning because my friends wanted to go to a dumb, busy, capitalist theatre. (instead of the one I usually go to downtown where there are never lines and also no visible signs that they ever make any money)
• There is a guy in it who looks exactly like Robert Downey Jr. BUT WHO IS NOT ROBERT DOWNEY JR!
• I may be stating the obvious here, but I was pretty disappointed in the calibre of superhero outfits. Just once I would like to see a female superhero with a viable outfit for actual crime-fighting. Because you know that woman has problems with (a) chafing, and probably increased numbers of yeast infections; (b) getting killed by supervillains because she HAS NO PERIPHERAL VISION.
  
• 10% of it made me feel physically sick, or it would have if I did not have my hood pulled up over my face. The other 90% made me feel bored.
• It reminded me of the recent Keanu Reeves remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. AND NOT IN A GOOD WAY. Like Philosophy Lite ^TM.
  

I have seriously had about enough of these comic book/graphic novel movie adaptations. I do not like any of them. I should just accept that they are not for me, and stop paying money to see them, instead of watching them and getting upset. But I don't. It's like I have no long-term memory.

Drama 2.0

So awesome: Flickr founder Stewart Butterfield's resignation letter [via 50books]. Any letter of resignation that begins "As you know, tin is in my blood" will get a link from this blog--guaranTEED.

Jim Prentice defends the Canadian Copyright reform act in Parliament, consents to an interview with CBC--I haven't even had a chance to watch/listen to these yet, so consider this link as much for my benefit as yours. (I have trouble finding The Internet later, do you ever have that problem?)

Everybody in my office is freaking out about something, and I'm hoping that if I just don't ask anyone what it is, I won't be asked to make a contribution of any kind. I'm a contractor. It's not my business. I am in the money business.

The USPS Charles and Ray Eames stamps came out this week, and my mom called me yesterday to let me know my dad had already bought me a page of them. Thanks guys!

Tonight I am going to see The Incredible Hulk. I realized in the season 1 finale of Heroes that watching superheroes fight is one of my favourite things. Regular people fighting just doesn't do it for me anymore. Hopefully this movie will fulfil my superhero-fighting-quota for the whole weekend.

this chart from 1o9 compares the BMIs of Marvel superheroes (male and female) with real men and women. Unsurprising conclusion: "The average Marvel female is approaching underweight despite a presumably active lifestyle. This may corroborate sociological and literary observations that in the Marvel Universe, women must fulfil criteria for being attractive by Western standards before fulfilling the criteria of biological realism."

One of the things I love about my paladin is that, despite her oh-so-normative flippy hair and perky breasts, she also has pretty big, sturdy-looking thighs. She looks like she could actually KILL AN OGRE. And then she DOES. (Plus, her breasts don't look like they would actually impede her melee fighting, unlike some female MMO characters, superheroes, etc. Oh, and less back pain!)

I'm feeling a bit stabby today, but as long as I don't move my head, I won't throw up. Probably.

Small assertions of power

My toilet has been broken for weeks. Last month, it ran all day while I was at work, flooding my bathroom floor, and water leaked into my downstairs neighbour's apartment. For the past two weeks, its flushing function has been accomplished with the removal of a wire coat hanger apparatus in the tank. Well, I decided I had had enough. I may be a depressed, unemployed loser, but today I fixed my goddamn toilet. Not only that: I fixed it with an application of brute strength. I took it apart with my tools, I figured out how it worked, I BENT IT INTO THE SHAPE I WANTED IT TO BE, and then I put it back together.

I wish I could say I had accomplished all of this wearing stilettos, but the honest truth is, I was wearing sweatpants, and I actually pulled said sweatpants out of the dirty laundry to begin the task. Nonetheless, I feel pretty good about myself at this moment.

Let this be a lesson to the rest of my sub-standard appliances. You can't beat me, so freakin' fall in line.

(By consulting the archives, I can actually determine that a year ago, in September, 2006, my toilet was already causing me problems. So you see, this constitutes a major victory. Girl vs. the Evironment. Also consider my battle with my kitchen sink.)

Astronauts vs. cavemen; Batman vs. Wolverine, revisited

As I may have mentioned already, I have a love of the movie The Prestige that borders on obsession. My appreciation for this film is such that I don't even really need to watch it to enjoy it; I just think about it. I bought the DVD when it came out, and watching the bonus features was great, this total affirmation of why I love the movie; the director named about 4 things that I had independently concluded are great about it, in a sort of "this is what we were trying to do here" kind of way. It's always nice to know that these things do not happen by accident, that a movie is (or can be) the result of an articulate-able set of ideas, a creative process, and emerge from that process recognizable by the audience. It's such a careful, intentional movie, in which every line of dialogue actually seems to prefigure what is coming. If, as the movie asks, you are "watching closely." It's all very comforting, owning the DVDs of movies one loves so one can be reminded, regularly, of why one loves them.

Synopsis: Jocelyn likes The Prestige. A lot.

Earlier post: "And a pickle for the lady." [January 2007] [Note: since I posted that original entry about The Prestige, I have had the opportunity to ask a number of people about their opinion on the Batman vs. Wolverine issue. Nearly everyone agrees with mine and Meghan's original opinion, which is that Batman would simply be no match to Wolverine in straight-up fisticuffs. The only dissenters are James and Becky, who have made a persistent argument for Batman. Becky also insists that the context is important, and we would need to know which one of them was fighting for good and which for evil.

Jocelyn: Neither of them is evil. [trying to concoct a situation in which two non-evil superheroes would fight each other] Well, maybe they have both been captured by a supervillain. And unless they fight to the death the supervillain will destroy the world, or something.
Becky: That doesn't mean anything. Batman would sacrifice himself.

Maybe so, folks. Maybe so. Thus far the Batman vs. Wolverine question remains unsolved.]