Der Ranten und Raven

Things I didn't like today:

1. People driving ten miles under the speed limit on both Lake Drive and Port Washington Road. I'm apparently a way more aggressive driver than one might expect, but I'm also afraid to pass because the moment I do, an oncoming car will come out of nowhere and kill me. Pick up the pace, people. Everyone knows that the speed limit signs are merely suggestions.

2. I don't know what my Intercultural Communications instructor was doing since last we met, but it was clearly not grading exams or papers even though she said that she would totally have them done.

3. I have no idea what I'm going to write about for my paper on Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse and it's due on Thursday. I'm not sure there's anything in that novel I found interesting enough to talk about for four to seven pages.

Things I did like:

1. I saw a driver do an illegal U-turn at the Port Washington - Brown Deer intersection. Illegal U-turns really drive me nuts for some reason and I was already hurling invective from my car when I see a police car pull out from the adjacent parking lot, flip on the sirens and pull him over into the next parking lot. Justice is swift and all drivers but me are stupid.

2. The evangelists were back in the UWM plaza doing their thing again. Depending on my mood, this could make it onto either side of this post, but I was able to watch them argue with passerby while I had lunch inside. Why on Earth are they so concerned about lust as opposed to any other of the sins anyway?

3. I just realized that talking about the 1954 film Johnny Guitar and relating it to theories of genre put forward by the critics Robin Wood and Rick Altman will be a piece of cake and I can bang out a page on it for tomorrow easy.

And perhaps most importantly,

4. I realized that the one British dad on Flashforward? Mr. Simcoe or whatever? He's totally Comodore Norrington from Pirates of the Caribbean! But without a sword! Or naval skills! Or character development! And he's apparently evil and is working with Merry from Lord of the Rings!

!

In which our hero is accused of being a racist.

At Borders, if you are a member of our club, you get coupons. Lots of them. They offer a discount on any one item. I had to clarify this to a customer who proceeded to act like I was trying to pull one over on her. I respond with slight curtness. She yanks her bag from my hands and walks off in a huff.

This is where I stick my tongue out at her departing back. Supervisor sees this, but shrugs it off. Twenty minutes later, he tells me about a call he received. Customer had called back and claimed she was treated very rudely (and here's the best part) because of the fact that she was African-American. This same supervisor was there while I rang her up, which she must have realized, because she asked for a different supervisor and hung up after being told there was no one else on duty. Supervisor tells me he knows it's BS and then says "I don't think she saw you stick your tongue out, though."

So that was fun.

OMG, Flashforward last night? Totally Godwined itself. And it took them only three episodes to introduce a Nazi! This is right after episode two, with Mysterious-Evil-Guy-Holed-Up-In-An-Abandoned-Doll-Factory-Because-That's-Creepy-Right? trying to kill our heroes.

And speaking of Heroes, shit went down. Sylar's back which is good, Hiro discovers the futility of his power (also good), Tracy is lame (par for the course), and Claire ambles around with no discernible plot function again.

Tekken 6 is out in about two weeks, and it'll fulfill my annual quota of three (3) video games a year to be super excited about, along with February's excellent Killzone 2 and the upcoming probably-excellent Assassin's Creed II. I've been playing the Tekken series since I could express my age on my fingers and I'm eagerly anticipating this installment. It's likely to be the best Tekken game since Tekken 5. If only because you can play as a fat guy and a cyborg teenage girl with chainsaws for hands

When I was like, 14, someone told me I was good at writing and I believed them, so here we are.

I've kinda been wanting to get back into the blogging thing for awhile, and now that a fair amount has changed since where I last left off (for instance, my taste in design), it seemed appropriate timing. We'll see if I get bored of it or not.

Hypnotiq is the least offensive of the alcohol I've sampled since gaining my powers. That is to say, it tastes merely like cough syrup as opposed to poison. But I imagine poison is an acquired taste. I was hardly inebriated by it, but that's because Roommate the First and The Grecian were hoarding it. And I guess someone had to keep the two of them out of trouble as we wandered the streets of East Side Milwaukee at midnight.

This of course, led to Hot Dogs. Perfectly natural. I had this chili cheese hot dog, because I make poor decisions about my health, and DAMNIT I'm enjoying this fast metabolism thing while it lasts. The Grecian ordered something called the "Dogfather" which really tickled me at the time. Again, drinking.

Worked in music again. Pretty dull stuff. Person over the phone wanted to know if we had a CD. The only details he could provide was that it was a collection of German dancing music circa 1600. Dude, the sets of People Who Are German, Dances, and Things That Happened in the Seventeenth Century are all pretty effing huge, and I assure you, the intersection of these sets is no less vast. So maybe google it and get back to me.

But you really came here for my thoughts on television.

OMG House came back! With probably the best remake of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest I've seen! House was being House and I didn't have to deal with Thirteen! Bring on next week! Also, I guess Cameron is leaving. I'm not exactly grieving this loss here, since she was way more hot as a brunette hasn't done anything of import for a while.

Castle was fun, and more people should probably be watching it. Heroes was Heroes as has been established.

I just realized that this blogger template kinda looks like the current FOX packaging.

I caught the premiere for Flashforward, which turned out to be fun, but I'm still worried that it'll turn into a Lost clone. And I'm not all that big a fan of Lost. I'm picturing the screening of the first episode to the ABC execs and they're all, "Damnit Goyer, Lost had a polar bear, and Desperate Housewives had the thing with the ostrich, find yourself a kangaroo or something or else its your ass!"

Roommate the First has a strange girl in his room and I'm resisting all urges to pry. And oh my god, he just closed the door to his room literally as I AM TYPING THIS.