On Bad Movies

Or, why "Plan 9 From Outer Space" is better than "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes."

I saw Ed Wood today, and it got me thinking.

Okay, Plan 9 was a bad movie, but it was trying to be bad. You can tell that they were trying, even if everything else about the movie was bad.

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes premise is meant to be humorous, it's trying to be funny.

Plan 9 is not trying to bed, so it becomes so-bad-it's-good. You have fun trying to make fun of it. Killer Tomatoes is meant to be taken seriously, meant to be so bad it's good. It's smart enough to know what it is, and then it becomes pretentious. The enjoyment from an ironic distance can't be enjoyed, because you know that's how it's meant to be viewed. Ironic distance is distance from how it's supposed to be viewed.

There's a scale of -1, 0, and +1.

For a movie like Schindler's List, that's a +1.
Normal movies are on a O scale.
Bad movies, like Plan 9, are -1.

Now, ideally, so-bad-it's-good enjoyment because the movie thinks it's a 0, but it's a -1.
With some movies, you go in thinking it's a 1, but it's a +1.
But Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is bad because it knows it's a 0, and it's a 0. There's no enjoyment.

That is my formula for so-bad-it's-good.

I Got Nothing

So I'm just gonna show you a pretty picture.

It's from the Louvre when I was over there about three years ago. It's one of the ones I remember. The school group all wanted to go, but I wanted to stay. Eh, I can look them all up on the internet, like I did this one.

My Adventures In Telemarketing, Or, Why I'm A Bastard

Okay, this is as close to an exciting war story you'll get in telemarketing, so listen up, listen good, soldier.

Okay, now the goal in telemarketing is to go home. That's the main incentive, that's what you want to do - to end the torment... they say this, that's the goal.

The goal was 240 to go home.

Now, I'd been doing pretty good that night, and I got a really large donation, the hugest I've seen in weeks - 75 - from a family that was trying to get their youngest son a passport. So yeah, hurray for immigrants. I got 250 - I got home.

I was feeling cocky, so I saunter up to the front, saying that I've got enough. Only now I go up, someone else's taken my trip home! Damn him or her!

(While I was up there, I was supposed to ring the bell, but I decided not to - that would get the boss yelling and all these people clapping, really distracting loud noises meant to boost morale. Because really, when you're talking on a phone, don't you really want really loud background noise?)

Then it's 8:30. The cheeky young boss(TM) announces that the person who gets the most by 9 will get to go. Hurray.

I get to do very well, ending up with about 100 dollars - which is about what we get from calling people up who donated before. (We like to say it's one-time.)

Only, the problem is someone else has claimed my throne. The cheeky young boss has announced it.

It's this nice older lady who I talk to sometimes. We compared how much we got sometimes, friendly competition.

In this, it's a constant "Whose is bigger" contest at this job, who's gotten the most money. I usually fail.

But this time I won, because she only had 95 dollars, which the boss announced.

Only now, I say to the guy I'm talking to that I'll have to call him back. Without introducing myself. After asking how he's doing.

(This is quite a change. Usually, no matter

So then I'm running up, telling him that I got five more dollars.

She's disappointed, questioning, "But...but you announced me first, I told you first..."

"Sorry, but she got five more dollars than you!"

So then I got off half an hour earlier,

And I go home, and I'm happy, and she's disappointed. The competition runs deeper now, thicker, like a cut in muscle.

Boy, what a good job.

Because I Have Nothing To Talk About

This article makes me feel better about going to a college nicknamed "Rye High."

Whatever, it's supposedly the best journalism school in Canada, so eh.

The title of the article: Who needs Harvard? People with a lack of ego, who need to feel bigger about themselves; rich kids who need to go there or else dad's cutting his trust fund; people who want to go.

I need a MySpace page, because I am a stupid twenty-year-old.

I might take a graduate degree, who knows.

Oh, stolen from Andrew Sullivan:















It's from a protesting Israeli attacks on Hezbollah. Interesting picture, I thought.

Oh, and I want to play this game.















Why hasn't something made this game earlier? Why?

Dawn of the Dead as a video game. Yeah, I'll play that.

Crazy Stuff

All the heavy water in the world can be used to make a hydrogen bomb so big it could create a black hole, says physicist John Wheeler.

Just as there was a white Taj Mahal in India, across the pond, ruins across the pond from it suggest there could have been a Black Taj Mahal.

The Soviet Union was aetheist. So they really wanted to prove evolution. To do this, they had Ilya Iranov try to create a humanzee, a cross between the two.

You Know You're A Nerd When...

Like Jeff Foxworthy's redneck schtick, I'm composing a list of nerdy things, specific instances where you know that you're a nerd. Not a fake nerd, not a cool guy saying, "Oh, I'm not so cool," in a faux attempt to be humble, but true, honest to God, nerd-dom. If you don't know the references I'm making, congratulations. You're not a nerd.

Let's begin.

- Video games get to you emotionally.
- Bonus Point - You cried at the death of Aeris.
- You ever wondered who would win in a fight.
- Bonus Point You ever wondered who would win in a fight, Galactus or Unicron, and you write up fight statistics, and you argue on message boards.
- You say "That's not right! He would NEVER DO THAT!" in any reference to something in fiction.
- Bonus Point - You write an angry letter to the company, with a lot of swear words and explicit references to the issue.
- You write a fanfic sequel to a video game.
- Bonus Point - You write an erotic fanfic sequel to a board game.
- You play role playing card games (Dungeons and Dragons, and the like.)
- Bonus Point: You dress up, have all the cards, all the decks, and sometimes you're the Dungeon Master. And you play with ten-year-old kids.
- You play video games too much.
- Bonus Point: You play a Japanese RPG with no English text and you play it on your modded PlayStation 2.
- You jerk off too much.
- Bonus Point: You jerk off to Sailor Moon.
- Extra Bonus Point: You jerk off to hentai of Sailor Moon.
- Extra Special Bonus Point: You dress up like Sailor Moon, and jerk off whilst dressed as Sailor Moon while singing the Sailor Moon theme song.
- You're a furry.
- Bonus Point: You're a goddamn furry. Go into a pile of garbage and drown, so that we don't even have to deal with disposing of your body.
- You're Doomed Point: You write erotic furry fanfic of a Japanese RPG based on who you think would win in a fight and which deals with all the logical inconsitencies in the show, while dressed up as the preteen girl from that Japanese RPG and you're jerking off while doing it.

Things I Saw This One Guy Wear

I saw this guy at work. I don't know his name, I don't know his family, I don't know his likes/dislikes, I don't know whether or not he worships the prophet Muhammed (p.b.u.h.) But I do know that he's stupid.

How do I know this? Because of what he wore this one day.

Like a Confederate flag t-shirt with sweat pants, or 500 dollar pants, fashion choices say something about you. Personally, if you combined a Confederate flag with 500 dollar pants, I'm not quite sure what statement you'd be making. Probably an interesting one.

This guy had one a pink polo shirt and military fatigue style sweatpants.

Seriously, what kind of mixed message are you sending there?

"I'm tough, I wear military fatigues, I'm a commando - but I'm also slightly andrognyous, pink shirt wearing guy, who's in touch with his girly side."

So yeah, don't wear that. Or I'll punch you. Like I imagined doing to that guy. For serious.