Saturday

Saturday

A few random bits and free association, as I stagger headlong into the weekend...

I notice real lack of posts from the writer of this blog this week. That annoyed me, that I hadn't posted anything. I'd been a little busy, but I figured I'd have sat down to write something. But nooooo. Tommy is a lazy so and so.

And then, last night, when I figured I have something to say, the wireless connection is thrown off by the round of thunderstorms we had running through the area.

The thunderstorms were cool. Lots of purple and blue flashes of lightning. Lots of booming thunder. It's because I've watched too much TV and too many movies in my life, but thunderstorms make me think about the segment of the Twilight Zone movie, "Terror at 30,000 Feet" with John Lithgow. There weren't many movies that scared me as a little kid, but this segment scared the bejeezus out of me. Especially when Lithgow has pulled the shade to the window, working to convince himself he didn't see a monster out on the wing of the plane in the flashes of lightning. And then, Lithgow pulls up the shade...

It was pointed out to me a couple of years ago that I look away from a window any time I'm opening a shade or a blind. I was doing it unconsciously. I don't want to see any scary gremlins.

There's a great moment on the show Third Rock from the Sun, when John Lithgow's character meets a character played by William Shatner, and they compare notes about traumatic airplane flights. The Shatner version of "Terror at 30,000 Feet" for the original Twilight Zone TV Show is probably my favorite episodes from that series.

But I think about the movie segment first, because it's the one I saw first. It's the one that worried me to my soul

I think it's about time I went to the eye doctor. It's been too long. My eyes have b een getting tired lately, and a couple of times in the past couple of weeks I've developed a headache.

Wrasslin Fans? I highly recommend the WWE's Chris Benoit/Hard Knocks DVD release. I've gotten both discs over the past couple of weeks off of Netflix. The WWE people have probably put together the most comprehensive collection of a person's work to put on one of their discs.

Since they acquired the video libraries of ECW and WCW, they've put together some really nice collections. The Ric Flair collection was great, but I'd have appreciated a few more promo's and other work Flair did in the mid 80's. The Mick Foley collection just kind of glossed over his work in Japan. But the Benoit disc contains A LOT of the promo work and angle material from his time in ECW, which is where I first saw him. And it's got three or four matches from his time in Japan, with each of those matches having a couple of different commentary tracks.

I'm not playing on EBay much right now. I've bought a couple of books recently, after a long hiatus of Ebay playing. I've made myself stop, because last week I found myself bidding on a complete set of the old Saturday Night's Main Event WWF show, and then praying that somebody outbids me. But I think I'd still like such a set, if only to see the old school WWF angles again.

I say that, because I watched Chris Benoit on his disc, I keep thinking about the British Bulldogs, and especially the Dynamite Kid. I didn't notice until I watched an old Wrestlemania just how similar Benoit and Dynamite Kid are in their styles. Benoit mimics his idols in many ways.

Changing the subject, the Cubs won again. I noticed that they finally moved Sosa down lower in the order. He batted in the five spot last night, with The Moistest Alou hitting cleanup behind Nomar, who batted third. In this configuration, they managed to hit six homers and demolish the Astros 9-2.

Now, if we can convince the guys that it's okay to go out and manufacture a run now and then, instead of thinking the only runs worth scoring are the ones that come from balls flying out of the park, we'll be okay.

The Filthy Hippy's convinced me to head down to Dragon Con for a day in a couple of weeks. He wanted to go for more days, but there are a couple of people at my job on vacation that week, and I couldn't snag those days. It's just as well, it's money I could save for something else instead of using it on hotel fare.

Warren Ellis (whose research blog, Die Puny Humans, is one of my daily reads) is going to be there. I'd like to meet him. And hug him. Although I'm not very good with standing in lines, so we'll see how that works out for me.

Harlan Ellison will be there, too. The couple of books I bought off Ebay were copies of The Glass Teat, and The Other Glass Teat. Commentaries on Television, in general, but also on the social and political environment of the time. He wrote these columns for the Los Angeles Free Press back in 1969 through 1972 (or so...I don't have the books in front of me). Good stuff. Lots of Anti-Nixon rhetoric. What struck me is how many of the complaints Ellison levels against Nixon's Silent Majority would probably apply to the current administration.

It works in cycles.

And also how much of the commentary against stupidity in TV (and movies and books) still applies.

Stupidity knows no cycles. It's constant.

Well. That's what I got. It ain't much, but it's what's in my brain. These words, and lots of little bugs.