Mad Bank & Bad Move $$$

Ah, well I didn't make it to the library but I biked the much further distance to the bank in order to get my finance$ in order. After I was done, I realized I was in the same shopping plaza that houses the illustrious Tempe Cinemas, famous for charging 3.00 to let you see kinda-old movies in theaters with maybe a dozen other people so you can always have your own row. They also have an arcade which does not just exist but is excellent and well-patronized, and, for God knows what reason, a huge animatronic display of some crazy Muppet-looking things (adult-human-sized) playing in a band. The music plays furiously loud as the furry dudes' fingers mash a keyboard, a child's drum kit, and a classical guitar in "time." The weirdest thing about the whole insane diorama, though, is that is has a big plexiglass wall around it with a huge, obtrusive sign giving some dire warnings about touching the display. The sign and the wall are just aggressive enough to completely distract from whatever twisted pleasure may be gotten out of watching furry robots mechanically gyrate, which fact kind of makes you wonder what is the goal is having this obviously expensive display right out front in the first place. Anyway, air conditioning and relative darkness are other amenities, so I can't complain.

I saw 88 Minutes, with Al Pacino, that movie where he gets a call telling him in a creepily basso voice that he has 88 minutes to live (Tagline: Jack Graham has 88 minutes to solve a murder. His own.). Starts out okay... he's a forensic psychologist who has solved brutal serial murders... we get a taste of his home and work life and personality.... he gets the plot-thickening call... and some weird stuff starts happening. For like another hour or so. Stuff so weird, in fact, that you start to get excited like in a good mystery: "boy o boy, how are they gonna explain this? How did the perp know Al was gonna make that move? Is it someone close to him? Is there something even more sinister going on? So I'm all excited by the nail-biting suspense (literally; my thumb is sore now cuz I bit too much off) when it turns out that the ending is unsurprising, uncomplicated, fails to resolve a lot satisfactorily, and is worst of all implausible!

I think what irked me the most though is that the ending refused to morally engage with Al Pacino's character, who I really liked. He's this very visible forensic psychologist, he teaches at a public university where his students all hate him, he's unmarried and cantankerous, he drinks too much and takes advantage of women, he looks just awful, especially in the hair, beard, skin, face, body, and appearance departments, he constantly contradicts himself with respect to fact and opinion..... In short, he's a public expert witness whose testimony is often crucial, and with all this power over truth, he's started to get confused over what that is himself. And tells lies he believes are true, and which sometimes turn out to be so. So, he provided very fertile ground for a compelling, if unsettling, conclusion! But this failed to materialize, and I was left unsettled without feeling any emotion, or internal tension. It was the same vague, nauseated disillusion that I get after watching a particularly horrible episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and it makes me almost want to believe that Harold-Bloomesque crap about art, about how it reinforces or confirms our moral values and provides us with trusted companionship..... cuz this movie definitely didn't, and it definitely didn't.

Anyway, I'm back home and my mom is frying pork chops, which makes me want to DIE.... but I think that if I just pretend I have some crazy disease for which this diet is the cure, I won't feel so tempted. The idea that I might be allowed to eat other food just makes it worse; I have to convince myself that it's just not an option, like owning a jet ski.

Here is a picture of me. Look dont touche ! haha :D ..$$$