To The Metal

OK, so the episode plot was a little generic.  Beyond that, the show has potential.  I believe the challenge here will be how Dusku’s acting chops can carry the role, she pretty much IS the show right now.  She’ll need to convincingly play whatever role is programmed into her each week, while Joss Whedon and his co-horts work out the glitches that periodically pop up in Dushku as far as memories which haven’t been wiped, or how they affect her current mission.

I’ve seen some reviews compare it to “My Own Worst Enemy.”  They may be similar in that we have a human being programmed like a machine to do a task… That’s where it ends though.  MOWE made the mistake of full disclosure from day one, there was no real mystery in it, and essentially what you got handed each week was a ‘fish out of water story.’

With Dollhouse, Dushku’s “Echo” is a blank.  She joined the program, had her memory wiped (or did she?) and each week she’s dropped into any number of situations with any number of memories… Each memory has its own story, its own dynamic, not to mention the mystery that is Echo herself…  Heck, tack on the underlying organization, and you have oodles of plot lines that Whedon is again expertly weaving into another round of legendary story telling and entertainment.

I thoroughly enjoyed the pilot, and am looking forward to the coming episodes.  The tie in and cross promotion of Terminator (Summer Glau) is just another perk.  Good job Mr. Whedon, keep it up.

Lets just hope the network doesn’t fuck it up like they did with Firefly and Angel now.

Had a dream last night where I caught up with a girl who I haven’t seen in… probably 7+ years…  Honestly, I haven’t had a dream about them in probably as long.

Later on in the dream, I’m talking to one of my friends, and mentioned my previous run-in.  I comment on how well her life is going…

So my friend looks me in the eye and asks “So when are you going to start living?”

…and then I woke up.

I just keep looping it in my head… and I wonder… Am I really living?  How will I know?

Pretty sure everyone’s heard Christian Bale going off on the Director of Photography while filming Terminator 4 at this point… Personally, I agree with him. Nothing infuriates me more when someone blindly starts screwing with my work, mind you I haven’t actually gone off on anyone as bad as he did…

But I’m not being paid millions to do my job, far from it. If someone paid me millions, and the same dipstick messed it up not once, but twice? They’d be on the floor. I’m not that mature or professional yet.

Christian Bale flips out on Terminator 4 movie set.
Techno Remix of the above.

When I really think about it, when I stand back and look at it, all I can wonder is – what the fuck happened?

It’s coming up on the end of year 0. My latest experiment with dreams came to an abrupt end on February 13th, 2008. I’ve gone from enjoying my job, planning my future, moving onward and upward – to jumping head first into the insecurity and instability of this modern world… completely alone.

It stinks to make plans and have them stolen. By my hand or by fates, either way, I was not supposed to be on that path. Maybe it’s a good thing it all fell apart. I can’t imagine making mortgage payments in an economy where I’m not even sure if I’ll have a job 2 months from now.

Still, I miss not being alone, always having that one person who I completely click with standing by my side. It gets mighty cold where I am, and it doesn’t really matter what I try – nothing really brings me satisfaction or any sense of pride.

Yes, I’m bitching. I’m not whining. I do have an idea of how to get on top of this, but I’m also wondering what the hell to replace this massive glowing purple VACANCY sign hanging in the center of my chest with. I take my joy in doses these days. Most days I just stare at walls, or fill the silence with inane banter.

I’ve tried to nail down some joy in the old familiar places, but what I’ve realized along the way is that the simple fact of my life is that I am not where I planned to be. I’m a stranger in a familiar land, teetering at the crossroad of easily a dozen paths – lacking the hubris necessary to just pick a direction and GO with it.

Every time I go with it, I fall. Every time. I can’t finish anything anymore. I know that once I’ve finished something, it’s done. The journey is over. I’m stuck in a washing machine on spin cycle and constantly expecting some gentle soul to come along, open the door, and let me out. I’ve got a level of uncertainty in my life right now that I’ve quite honestly never faced before.

I’m trying to get out of here. Vermont. That place just rings in my mind as the last place I was genuinely happy for an extended period of time. Clean air, friendly people, and a Papa John’s within delivery distance. I don’t know if I want to go there because I don’t want to be HERE, because I’m clinging to the past, or because I genuinely just want a new start somewhere else.

It’s hard to find a gig that’s hours away from where I am now. I’m completely ready to abandon the comforts of familiarity and explore a new environment… I believe that if the right opportunity presents it self if I can somehow MAKE the right opportunity, I can get there. Either way, after nearly 30 years of living, loving, and working in this area… I don’t see how I can survive one more year of sitting still.

I’ll still be around, but it won’t be me. I’ll have burned out, given up, lost any possibility of finding true joy and satisfaction in my life again. That it happened to coincide with the worst job market and economy in decades was just a perk.

Maybe what I need is an Earthquake to break the stillness.

Who knows.

Small town bureaucracy being what it is, you rarely see solutions proposed that actually accomplish anything.

That’s the problem with the town of Warwick’s latest attempt to fix the problem of rowdy bar patrons.

Warwick has some very good bars, all within a few hundred feet of each other. People being people, some get loud and rowdy, and disturb the peace. For some reason, the local town supervisor took a few minutes away from his greenhouse to address the issue… with a law that can both fine and jail an individual for generating a sound greater than 75db which is audible at the property line.

Ever run a blender? That’s 75db. Run that blender on your front doorstep, and you’ve just gotten a $250 fine and/or 15 days in jail.

Now the simple fix to this whole mess is to put more cops on the street. Make the thought of stepping out of line in this town so horrifying that the real troublemakers will go elsewhere – or they will simply fall into line and have a good time like everyone else who isn’t committing a crime.

I dropped off a comment to the story at The Warwick Advertiser today. Give it a read, let me know what you think – and by all means if you live in Warwick – let THEM know what you think.

Watched Bangkok Dangerous tonight, and the one thing that kept going through my mind was… “Wow, Gene Simmons’s acting has really improved since Runaway!”

This is the sort of crap that makes me chuckle…

‘Che’ spurs debate, Del Toro walkout

Challenge these elites, and they fold. Every time.

I hadn’t driven the VW since… Thursday I think. I usually take the truck in on Friday’s, and I didn’t go anywhere this weekend. I get into it this morning, start it up, and make it nary 10 feet from my driveway before the motor starts shaking like mad. I push the gas down, hesitation. GREAT! I immediately guess that there’s a misfiring cylinder.

The check engine light came on after a minute or so, I switched my engine computer over to read the codes and get P0304… Misfire, #4 cylinder. This is when the fun starts, as it is… maybe 10F outside right now, and somewhere over the last 20 years it has become common practice to make engines look like anything BUT engines… So I take the plastic shroud off the motor, then some little plastic device, then a bit of metal which is covering the #4 cylinder, and I’m finally at the coil.

So I unplug the coil, give it a little twist, a little pull, and the damned thing comes off in my hand. It snapped off right at the top of the unit. A lovely electrical-burning type smell also joined the black scorch mark from the core of the coil to where it shorted out and snapped it.

Great. Monday, i’m just about broke, and now I need a new ignition coil for an effing VOLKSWAGEN. Can’t imagine it’s very cheap. So I go to the dealer, to my surprise it was only $25. The parts guy says “When you go to VW training, there are 2 things you do not do… badmouth the company or bring up those ignition coils.” Makes sense to me.

The coil was $25, and the pair of pliers I bought to pull out the rest of the original coil was another $20. Guess I’m not eating out this week, but at least my car is running.

Picked up Star Wars: The Force Unleashed via Gamefly yesterday. After 2 solid days of play – I beat it. The AI is either tedious or idiotic. The controls are overly complex only if you want your moves to be overly complex. The plot line is solid (and better than the last 4 films combined IMHO). The amount of tedium involved in the game was enough to incur outrage over satisfaction though. Tack on beating it in 2 days, I couldn’t imagine buying it new. Rent it, or buy it well used. Star Wars fans will be satisfied, but overall the game is forgettable.