A Perfectly Cromulent Blog

Your weekend entertainment options

There's The Devil Wears Prada (3.5 stars), for those who'd like a humorous and well-written movie. Especially if your wife or girlfriend nixes your Superman plans.

Superman Returns is still in theaters, after grossing a mere (estimated) $35 million its first two days. Kids will like it, so take them quickly, before it's pulled.

Me? Ill be at home watching the World Cup quarterfinals. Go Germany.

A sobering thought from the shank of the evening

Bill Hicks is still dead.

And Denis Leary, Carlos Mencia, Larry the Cable Guy, and Dane Cook all have television shows.

Alan E. Ball Will You Please Go Now

Against my better judgment, I queued up the final season of Six Feet Under in Netflix. The Wife and I were faithful viewers through four seasons, missing the final one only because we were unwilling to keep shelling out $20 a month while waiting two years for the next installments of The Sopranos and The Wire.

I liked SFU at first, but the enjoyable black comedy of its early episodes quickly gave way to the angst-ridden laughless middle seasons. By the end of Season 4, I'd had enough, and I documented as much here at the time.

Enough alleged friends of ours sang the praises of the final season to make us give it another shot. And for a while (we've watched three discs out of five) it looked like they might be right. David and Keith's attempts at raising kids has been pretty amusing, as has Billy's descent into madness (but maybe that's just me). Plus, the elder Fisher makes an appearance (in one episode), which conveniently took place just after I'd subjected The Wife to a five minute diatribe about his absence.

And then there was tonight's episode, "The Rainbow of Her Reasons." Honestly, I don't know whether to blame creator Alan Ball or writer Jill Soloway...whatever. All I know is that the depiction of Claire's entry into the working world is one of the reasons people in that wide swath of America people on the coasts so amusingly refer to as "flyover country" hate Hollywood's guts. Certainly, some blue collar professions (roughnecks and firefighters chiefly) garner a modicum of respect (or not, depending on your view of Armageddon), but it never fails to amuse me how writers with no knowledge of an office environment view cubicle jockeys. Judging from what I saw tonight, they see them chiefly as sub-literate chuckleheads with no purpose in life save getting drunk and/or laid at every opportunity and quoting Mike Myers movies.

If the chance arises, however remote, that I rub elbows one day with these so-called gliterati, I hope I'm tranquilized enough by free libations to avoid urinating on everyone present. And I hope Mr. Ball and company realize the success of their show didn't rely solely on failed art school students and self-loathing gays. Plenty of 8-to-5ers watch quality programming, and few - if any - talk like Austin Powers.

And still no appearance from Beppo, the Super Monkey

My review of Superman Returns is up (2.5 stars). I admit, I went in with somewhat diminished expectations. The trailers never really did it for me, and even the fairly glowing advance reviews didn't assuage those nagging doubts. So I allowed myself a brief moment of hope during the first part, which included the rather impressive space shuttle/airplane rescue. Maybe Bryan Singer could go three-for-three with superhero pics, I thought. Maybe the voices in my head are wrong this time.

As it turns out, it was something of a mixed bag. The Thing That Walks Like A Man, whose knowledge of DC Comics rivals that of even the esteemed Dr. Elmo, was less forgiving. I felt the first half mitigated some of what came after, and made up for Singer's (hopefully) unintentional portrayal of the Man of Steel as a bit of a creep. We both agreed, however, that one aspect of the film (which I don't describe in the review and which I won't spoil here) damages the end product almost irrevocably.

The review does go into some detail about Lex Luthor's unbelievably lame plan for world domination, so be forewarned.

I think kids will enjoy the movie, if that helps. And again, the action scenes are first-rate, but the whole thing ended up leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

On the plus side, The Wife and I saw The Devil Wears Prada last night, and we both agree it's one of the better movies released this year.

"That's life in the fast-paced, slam-bang, live-on-the-razor's egde, laugh in the face of death world of junior league soccer."

I'd like to congratulate the U.S. soccer team on another auspicious showing in the World Cup. While their early exit probably didn't come as a surprise to anyone other than ESPN's announcers, it was great to get reminded again of what a great player Landon Donovan is. Pity he never actually, you know, scored. Must've been fretting about his hairline.

I'm also glad David Beckham finally scored a goal, because - to me - nothing puts you in a celebratory mood better than watching his loving wife Posh jumping up and down in the stands, barely jostling the two ossified cantaloupe halves attached to her cured, skeletal frame. Stirring.

Would it be too expensive to fly Brazil's fans in for every game?

The central figure of this year's World Cup has got to be Russian referee Valentin Ivanov. Sunday night's match between Portugal and Holland saw four red cards, a tournament record, and 16 yellows. There have already been 23 send-offs, which is a new record, and the quarterfinals haven't even started. The again, the Dutch really can't blame the ref, considering they had 20 freaking shots on goal.

You read it here first, Ghana will beat Brazil today.

Then again, I also picked Italy to the beat the USA. Which reminds me, that was a horrible way for the Italy-Australian match to end. And since I've been lurking on enough soccer message boards to pick up some of the lingo, I can can now confirm that the Italians are, in fact, "diving cunts."

The Argentinians, too. Unfortunately, they're probably going to win, meaning we'll all be right there when Maradona has his next heart attack.

Review Recap - 6/23

It's probably far too late to save some of you, but here are a couple reviews from the last few weeks:

Nacho Libre - **1/2 - I freely admit, two beers and a double whiskey helped my appreciation for what is ultimately an unfunny film. What can I say? I'm a sucker for Mexican wrestling.

Click - ** - Stupid Adam Sandler tricks are a weak spot of mine, or were until circa 1997. Nothing I say is going to keep this movie from grossing $50 million, but I do what I can.

Stay tuned. Reviews for Superman Returns and The Devil Wears Prada are coming next week.

Only if Ben Affleck plays "Red-Shirted Security Guy #3"

After Syriana and The Bourne Supremacy, I can't help but feel like this might be a step down for Matt Damon:

Yahoo Insider reports that J.J. Abrams is very interested in casting the Oscar-winning Damon as a young Captain Kirk in the upcoming 'Star Trek' movie that he's directing and producing.

He's so interested that he's apparently already sought support from the original Kirk, William Shatner who "gave his blessing. J.J. got his approval" says a source.

Rumor has it that the new movie would center on Kirk and Spock's early days at a space academy.

This smells like bullshit to me, unless Paramount isn't so much looking to jumpstart the franchise as they are to score some quick cash. Damon's star power would definitely up the box office total from the last Star Trek movie ($43 million for Nemesis, the lowest grossing film in the series), but there's next to no way the guy woulg sign on for more than one.

Still, if true, it couldn't hurt. For too long Paramount has illogically (heh) banked on a built-in audience for the TV cast, and the declining returns have repeatedly proven this wrong. In fact, stand-alone movies would certainly work better at this point than trying to launch another television series, especially after the lackluster performance of the last two. Why not just sell the name, cast, and/or mythology to whoever wants to hang a film on it, kind of like how they turned the Simon Says script into the third Die Hard movie.

Just imagine the possibilities...

Romance? How about Short Circuit 3: They're Having a Baby (starring No. 5 and Data)?

Epic? Locutus of Arabia, or maybe Once Upon a Time in Antos IV.

Comedy? Forget it, Galaxy Quest was already a better movie than most of the originals.

Remake? Treasure of the Sigma Erandi System perhaps?

Noir? Either The Melkotian Falcon or Kei Largo works for me.

I'll give up before I get to Pon Farr and Away.

Hopefully this won't result in the revocation of my Iron Maiden fan club credentials

By the power of YouTube, I have been able to waste an unspecified amount of time tracking down long forgotten videos and favorite artists. I won't bore you with most of them, except to present a video introspective of Tanya Donnelly, ex-Throwing Muses, Breeders, and Belly, and possibly my longest running musical infatuation.

Next to Freddie Mercury.

First, we have "Not Too Soon" by the Throwing Muses. From the bad blonde dye job to the ubiquitous (for the early '90s) leggings, she was everything a poser indie rock fan could want. And Kristin Hersh is mercifully silent.

Next, Belly's "Feed the Tree". This one is from their first album, Star, though I tend to think both it and King are quite underrated. And dig that pirate blouse.

Finally, Tanya solo on "The Bright Light" (off 1997's Love Songs for Underdogs). Mellow gold.

Belly was the first concert The Wife and I saw when we were dating. I think - deep down - she realized that if Ms. Donnelly had pointed me out in the audience, David Lee Roth-style, so the roadies could escort me backstage, that would've been the end of our short relationship. Curiously, that didn't happen.

It's cool, I think we had the same arrangement for her regarding Angus Macfadyen.

Surprise surprise surprise

Even though it presents essentially the same information anyone who's been paying attention has been hearing since mid-2003, tonight's Frontline - The Dark Side - was a particularly comprehensive and damning look at the machinations behind the decision to go to war in Iraq, the pressures put on the intelligence community by the White House, and the depressing ease with which Tenet and the CIA folded under that pressure.

You'll be able to watch it online Thursday.

"Poison, poison...ah, tasty fish."

A blast from the past, courtesy of The Thing That Walks Like a Man:

He asked if I'd shown it to She Who Shall Not Be Named Yet. Considering my daughter is still a bit leery of the talking tornado on Elmo's World, I think I'll hold off on exposing her to the Boschian imagery of Satanic cleaning solutions and Smog Monster style F/X.

I used to put my stickers on Mom's tupperware containers in the fridge. Hilarity generally did not ensue.

Sports Genius

I hate Vegas.

Actually, that's not really true. If you do Vegas right, it's pretty fun. For myself, I can't stay more than two days. Any longer and the atmosphere of hilarity and desperation I initially enjoy so much gives way to fatigue. Fatigue with stale air and weak drink, fatigue with glandular freaks clad in "Hottie" t-shirts, and fatigue with the "New Year's Eve sensation." You know what I mean, the feeling you should be having a good time even if you'd rather just take a nap.

I'm also not much of a gambler. Oh, I understand the games, and can actually hold my own in poker, blackjack, and craps. But I'm a coward: if I start losing, I pack it in. I'm also stingy, meaning I'm not usually willing to cough up the initial outlay to get a decent head of steam going.

I also like betting on sports, and when I'm in Vegas, I usually check out a sports book or two. I like playing the parlays, and yesterday, I thought I'd hit upon a great one with today's World Cup matches. I stood to win about $100 provided Portugal, the Czech Republic, and Italy all won. Pretty safe bets, right?

Yeah. Unless Ghana beats the Czechs 2-0 and the US ties Italy. That tends to throw a wrench in your plans, and shit like that is why, this weekend, I hate Vegas.

Oh, and I put $5 on Texas A&M to win the BCS for The Wife. Her payoff if they succeed? A cool $350.

King Carlin vs. Annzilla

Hm, maybe "Annguirus" would be more accurate. Not as many people would get it, though.

Wondering what George Carlin thinks of Ann Coulter? You'll get a chance to find out this evening when the two are guests on The Tonight Show:

"Tonight" host Jay Leno might want to consider wearing referee stripes on Wednesday's show when Ann Coulter and George Carlin are his guests.

Coulter, the acid-tongued conservative with a new book out, and Carlin, the quick-witted, antiestablishment comedian who's in the voice cast for the new animated film "Cars," were booked at separate times for the NBC late-nighter, a spokeswoman said Monday.

But the duo's meeting could produce serious fireworks for "Tonight," which usually limits its political fodder to Leno's bipartisan monologue jokes.

Coulter, author of "Godless: The Church of Liberalism," has drawn fire for attacking the four New Jersey widows who pushed for an independent commission to investigate the September 11 World Trade Center attacks in which their husbands died.

In her book, Coulter accuses the women of "reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much."

An appearance by Coulter on another NBC series, "Today," led to a prickly exchange with host Matt Lauer over her comments on the widows.

I'm not sure what NBC's infatuation with Coulter is, but the fact that this dingbat gets so much air time is maddening even in these days of televised wife swapping and bug eating. I don't even know if Carlin plans on acknowledging her presence, but it stands to be pretty amusing if he does.

Which leads me to a related question: how many variations of the seven dirty words can be applied to Coulter?

Smack my Boll up

I cannot begin to tell you the number of people who forwarded this to me yesterday (though Michael was the first). Loath as I am to link to AICN, it's pretty worth it:

Towards the end of the filming of Postal, the five most outspoken critics will be flown into Vancouver and supplied with hotel rooms. As a guest of Uwe Boll they will be given the chance to be an extra/stand-in in Postal and have the opportunity to put on boxing gloves and enter a BOXING RING to fight Uwe Boll. Each critic will have the opportunity to bring down Uwe in a 10-bout match. There will be five matches planned over the last two days of the movie. Certain scenes from these boxing matches will become part of the Postal movie. All five fights will be televised on the Internet and will be covered by international press.

To be eligible you must be a critic who has posted on the Internet or have written in magazines/newspapers at least two extremely negative articles in the year 2005. Critics of 2006 will not be considered.

Folks between 140 and 190 pounds, send an email to info@boll.kg.de and help Uwe prove that he isn't a bad filmmaker through physical violence.

Well, he certainly isn't going to prove it through his films.

I appreciate the thoughts, guys. I really do, but there are a few problems:

1. I have yet to review an Uwe Boll movie. Alone in the Dark wasn't screened for critics (or anyone else with functioning retinas), and my procrastination with regard to BloodRayne finally paid off when Felix reviewed the DVD at Film Threat. There are a number of APCB-related blog entries, but I don't know if these count.

2. I also may be disqualified for writing an entry sort of defending the Bollinator earlier this year.

Okay, I just re-read it, and it's not a defense so much as it is an attempt at gaining some perspective.

3. I'm outside the weight parameters. Why it was set at 190 is a mystery to me, considering some of the more...Rubenesque internet personalities are well past that. The opportunity to appear in Postal isn't quite enough to get me to don the Vision Quest Hefty bags and dehydrate myself down to the requisite weight. And at 225, I'd probably have to cut off an arm as well.

4. Does Boll even understand weight class? There's a big difference between 140 and 190. Then again, the kind of people he's calling out probably don't even know how to properly throw a punch

5. And screw boxing, what about K1 or Pride fighting rules? Dangle the prospect of getting some ground and pound on Herr Boll and you'll have people coming out of the woodwork.

The hell with it, I say we get Takanori Gomi, tell everyone he's Chris Gore (they even have similar hair) and send him. The entire fight wouldn't be long enough to upload to YouTube.

"Ben, you're always [biking] here and there"

"You never wear that helmet anywhere"

If Roethlisberger decides to ride his motorycle without skull protection in a state where he isn't legally required to do so, that's his prerogative. It's also his ass (and jaw, and nose), as they say, and if he doesn't want to invest that fat NFL salary into some kevlar for his massive cranium, things like this are going to happen:

Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger broke his jaw and nose in a motorcycle crash Monday, but doctors said they had successfully treated his multiple facial fractures after hours of surgery.

Roethlisberger, the youngest quarterback to lead a team to the Super Bowl championship, was taken to Pittsburgh's Mercy Hospital, where he underwent seven hours of surgery after the late morning accident.

It was unknown whether the accident would affect Roethlisberger's chances of playing this season, when the team hopes to repeat its Super Bowl victory of earlier this year.
[...]
The 24-year-old Roethlisberger was not wearing a helmet, Pittsburgh police said. He has said he likes to ride without one, a habit that once prompted a lecture from Cowher.

And will prompt several more, no doubt.

I think helmets should be mandatory, myself, but it's not illegal in many states (Pennsylvania and Texas being two of them). The odds are so fantastically against you in a helmetless crash, I tend to view the exercise as a sort of high-speed thinning of the herd. I'm sure Roethlisberger was insured, which means the only financial strain will be put upon the Steelers organization, who are as we speak sitting down to rewrite Big Ben's contract to include a helmet clause, if not a prohibition on riding motorcycles altogether.

I'd have absolutely no problem with folks riding helmetless if everyone who did so also filled out an organ donor card. At least that way someone benefits from their stupidity.

Don't be fooled

My review of Cars is up at Film Threat, and it is erroneously marked with a 3-star rating. I actually gave it 1.5 stars, but since the FT guys are currently in Sin City covering CineVegas, I don't expect it to be changed before some time this afternoon.

On another World Cup-related note, it looks like Carlos Gamarra is going to have to hire a bodyguard when he gets back to Paraguay.

At the Copa, Copa Mundial

Lotta sports type things happening in the coming weeks. You've got the Stanley Cup finals, but I have next to no interest in either Edmonton or Hartford Carolina. I enjoyed playing the Whalers in Sega NHL '93, but that's not quite enough to hold my attention. Then you have the NBA championship, which pits Dallas against Miami. As a Houstonian, I am morally obligated to not pull for Dallas, aside from that, I've never been that big of a basketball fan.

Which leaves that other big event everyone's talking about: the World Cup. I follow soccer about as much as the average American, which means I occasionally sit through SportsCenter when it tells me how much it matters to the rest of the world.

But I'm certainy not one who generally derides soccer for the hell of it. The game can be exciting to watch, the players are truly athletic (especially those Eastern Europeans, who have no problem hauling ass up and down the field after smoking a few cigs on the sidelines), and 5.5 billion people can't all be wrong. Sure, the guys on the field flop worse than Bill Laimbeer, but it's all part of the spectacle.

And anything that stands to cost the global economy several billion in lost GDP is pretty amusing from a cultural standpoint.

But who to cheer for? Obviously in the first round I'll be pulling for the U.S., but realistically, I'm going to need a backup team. My options include:

Brazil - The easy choice, as they're the odds-on favorite. However, I'm not really comfortable rooting for soccer's equivalent of the New York Yankees, especially when I have no genetic Latin predisposition to do so.

Though they do some of the most, er, colorful fans.

England - Becks! Rooney (cleared to play)! They should advance easily out of Group B, and they also happen to be the only team I actually have an article of clothing for (a jersey purchased for me by dear old Dad some time in the '90s). Okay, so it's not much of a reason.

I speak English...

Germany - I always end up pulling for these guys once the smoke clears and there are only four teams left. Not that they've been very accomodating in recent years. Nonetheless, I can avoid offending my Teutonic ancestors by cheering for Ballack and company against Costa Rica today.

Iran - You laugh, but anything that keeps their nuclear technicians away from work is a good thing in the long run.

France - I worked with a French guy back when France won the soccer and rugby World Cups in the same year. His insufferable smugness would've been enough to keep me from considering cheering for them, except nobody else in the office gave a shit. And one would be unwise to underestimate Thierry Henry or Zidane.

Italy - I still haven't forgiven them for Roberto Benigni.

Mexico - A Mexico Cup win would result in parts of my neighborhood looking like Rio during Carnivale, which would be a nice change from yuppies walking their whippets up and down my street.

Any of my domestic readers care about any of this?

Hail Hydra

For all the trumpeting this morning regarding the death of al-Zarqawi (CNN even broke out the size 24 font), it seems celebration is a bit premature. The guy wasn't a Blofeld-ian supervillain, and his death won't cause the insurgents to slink away into the shadows. Reality will set in once people realize IEDs and car bombs are going to keep going off without him.

Somebody certainly seems eager to capitalize on the situation, however, as President Bush is preparing to hold a news conference at 6:30 AM. How prompt.

This week's vexing moral dilemma

Next week, I have two movies screening on the same night, and I'm in a bit of a quandary about which one to see/review.

The choices:

Nacho Libre

PROS:
- Jack Black is a love him or hate him kind of actor, and I've been a fan ever since his Tenacious D days.
- I also enjoy the manly spectacle of lucha libre, so much so I almost fired off an angry letter to the editor of the New York Times after Lewis Beale incorrectly described Nacho as the first movie to bring Mexican wrestling to the big screen. I would've signed it "El Santo," however, which might have ruined the effect.
- Midgets, I'm told, are always funny.

CONS:
- It's directed by Jared Hess, the man responsible for the criminally overrated Napoleon Dynamite. If his latest effort continues Napoleon's trend of deliberate peculiarity, I'm in for a long evening.
- Even I might be forced to admit that Black's shtick is getting a bit old.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

PROS:
- Forgive me, but this looks hilarious. I love the idea of the redneck gaijin (Lucas Black) using his Grand Theft Auto skills to compete with - as Pink Floyd once referred to them - the "wily Japanese."
- Black was good in Jarhead...and American Gothic. Granted, he was all of 14 in the latter, but still.
- Sonny Chiba is in it.
- They destroy over 100 cars. That has to rival The Blues Brothers.

CONS:
- Uh, it's a Fast and Furious sequel, and one in which Paul "Into the Blue" Walker didn't deign to return. That can't be good.
- "Drift racing" just sounds dumb.

Thoughts? I promise to take any and all feedback to heart when making this difficult decision.

The Tuesday of the Beast

It's June 6, 2006, a day that - thanks to it's dubious connection to an odd little book written a few thousand years ago - seems to be causing an inordinate amount of anxiety among our fellow Americans. I'd hoped to mark the occasion by settling down to read the latest in the Left Behind series, but I have a screening tonight. Bummer.

You, however, can celebrate this auspicious day in a number of ways:

1. Head up to Hell, MI for their 666 Party:

Live entertainment and a costume contest are planned. The Gates of Hell should be installed at a children's play area in time for the festivities.

Colone has been in touch with radio stations as far away as Seattle that are raffling off trips to Hell in honor of 6-6-6.

Resident Jason LeTeff wasn't particularly enthused.

"Now, here I am living in Hell, taking my kids to church and trying to teach them the right things and the town where we live is having a 6-6-6 party," he said.

Dude, you're like, 60 miles from Detroit. Your kids are well aquainted with perdition.

2. If you're expecting a baby, you could distract yourself in an effort to avoid giving birth on this unholiest of days:

Both women were thanking heaven the due date on their calendar didn't fall there. If you're an expecting mother who reads into numbers, then June 6, 2006, could be a bad day to have a baby.

“The Devil. Satan. The end of the world,” a hospital worker said.

According to Christianity, the number of the Devil, the sign of the "Beast," is 666.

It has long been tied to the coming of the Antichrist, which might explain why doctors at Centennial Hospital are inducing so few labors that day and why several women are said to have moved their delivery dates.

“I'd feel like my child would be forever bad,” Hembree said,

I thought Nashville already had an Anti-Christ. I call him Toby Keith

3. There's always that remake of The Omen (reviewed here by you know who) out in theaters today. It's not great, but it's nowhere near as bad as you may have been led to believe.

Oh hell heck, let's see an excerpt:

For starters, the idea of a child being the son of Satan is only terrifying when the child doesn’t look like something out of an Edward Gorey painting to begin with. Harvey Stephens, the original Damien (he also has a cameo here), was a mostly normal looking kid, which had the desired effect of making us distrust all children from that point on. A mere glance from new Damien Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick would likely make you run screaming from your local Chuck E. Cheese.

Sage words, and finally...

4. You could risk eternal damnation by eating this yogurt tube I found in my refrigerator this morning:

See you in hell.

"A marriage can't be reconciled in a few hours, Homer. It takes a whole weekend to do that."

I should set this up. The Wife and I are in the living room of our house. The series finale of Everwood is on, though I'm reading Paul Feig's Kick Me and not really watching it. Honest.

Anyway, this scene comes on where Doc Brown (Treat Williams) is at the grave of his wife (whose death essentially served as the genesis for the entire show, but that's not important). I make note of the setting, and - in one of my more intelligent moves - decide to interrupt.

This exchange gets a little...grotesque.

Me: You know what make this the best show of all time?
TW: Something completely tasteless and inappropriate, I'm guessing.
Me: Come on, think about it.
TW: Okay: if she rose from the grave and ate his brains?
Me: I was thinking "ate his entrails," but that's a good start.
TW: How about, "She rises from the grave, eats his entrails and then his brains, and then fucks him in the guthole?"
Me: [blinking] Uh, how does she fuck him in the guthole?
TW: With the tombstone, of course.
Me: Yeah, that'd...
TW: Oh, but you'd want the double-action, so she'd have to rip off his own dick and use it on his ass at the same time.
Me: Uh...
TW: I've officially been married to you too long. Now shut up.

Ten years, folks. That's all it took to for my sweet young wife to gaze into the abyss and, in turn, have it also gaze into her.

Some of us take pledges to remain abstinent from sexual intercourse in high school

Some of us have abstinence thrust upon us...

Rather than painfully revisit which of these categories yours truly falls into, I'll simply refer you to this article (via Texas Law Chick):

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Teenagers who take pledges to remain virgins until marriage are likely to deny having taken the pledge if they later become sexually active. Conversely, those who were sexual active before taking the pledge frequency deny their sexual history, according to new study findings.

These findings imply that virginity pledgers often provide unreliable data, making assessment of abstinence-based sex education programs unreliable. In addition, these teens may also underestimate their risk of exposure to sexually transmitted diseases.

"Teenagers do not report their past sexual activity accurately, with virginity pledgers giving more inaccurate reports of their past sexual activity," study author Janet Rosenbaum, of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, told Reuters Health.

Wow...teenagers are liars, and the self-righteous are often hypocrites. And to think I never would have figured this out if not for the diligent researchers at Harvard.

Consequently, rather than rely on self-reports, "studies of virginity pledges must focus on outcomes where we know we can get good information, such as medical STD tests," she added.

Previous research shows that survey respondents tend to answer questions about sexual activity according to their current beliefs, particularly if their current attitudes conflict with their past behaviors. Survey respondents may also underreport or overreport their health risk behavior.

Don't worry kids, older people do this to. Only we call it "discussing your sexual history with your fiancee," and the results are roughly as accurate.

"Can't sleep, clown'll eat me."

And how.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have finally found a picture that incorporates both my fear of clowns and my love of zombies, from the previously mentioned Miss McDonald:

If only she sold prints, I'd finally have something to offset my collection of Orange Julius memorabilia.

"They don't write 'em like that anymore"

"That's for sure."

That's your 2-star review for The Break-Up, right there. I'm waiting for a screener of B13, which already opened, so obviously there won't be a write-up of that.

On an unrelated note, we're watching Transamerica and it never ceases to amuse me that no one in road movies ever takes the interstate. If Bree and Toby hopped on I-70 they'd have been in Los Angeles in four days.

I know, I know...then it wouldn't be a "road movie." Tthhpht.

Well blow me down

The 2006 hurricane season kicks off today. We Gulf Coast denizens are especially skittish this year, for reasons that are obvious and don't require further elaboration. Nobody likes to think about having to hit the evacuation routes again, yet we'll all find ourselves watching the tropical updates for the next six months with a sick mixture of revulsion and anticipation, just the same.

This is also the time of year I trot out my "hurricane porn" entry. Not because I'm especially proud of it (though it is near the top of my rankings for most searched for posts), but because even in the wake of Katrina I feel it's pretty accurate. Moreso, actually.

I'm also not one to deny myself a cheap spike in traffic.

-----
Tropical storms and hurricanes are a big deal in the paved swamp I call home, i.e. Houston, TX. If you don't believe me, check out some of these images from when tropical storm Allison breezed through our humble town a couple years ago. It demonstrated both the awesome destructive power of nature and the necessity of having a cooler for the beer you were planning on drinking during the basketball game until the electricity went out.

Our family was lucky, in that neither our home nor our cars flooded. And once the power finally came back on, we discovered that all local programming (we didn't have cable) was fixed on the admittedly impressive images of the aftermath of the storm...for roughly the next three months.

This kind of coverage was understandable with regard to a titanic bastard of a storm like Allison, but it was only the latest in the local networks' long-standing pattern of milking every possible bit of fear and suspense out of viewers at the approach of tropical weather systems. It hardly seems to matter that computer models are roughly as accurate as a Ouija board while a storm is more than 48 hours out, or that storms like Allison are rare beasts indeed, for these days our doughty weatherpersons breathlessly report every developing tropical depression as if the End Times were upon us. Coverage increases in intensity until the tension is almost to much to take.

I call it "hurricane porn."

First, there's the foreplay, which (unlike in actual pornography) can take several days. It starts with Doppler radar and satellite images that grow progressively larger and, dare I say it, more tumescent as the system approaches the coast. Cloud cover grows and the winds pick up, and most TV stations will have reporters positioned along the coast in areas projected to be in the storm's path. These hardy souls eye the camera with come hither looks of dire urgency (I wish I could find screen captures of local ABC reporter Jessica Willey standing on a pier in Galveston during Claudette's rainy approach wearing a soaked-through white blouse - more than ratings were rising that evening, let me tell you). The anticipation continues to build in this fashion until landfall, which is where you get...

Hot hurricane action: water crashes furiously over the sea wall, palm trees whip back and forth in an orgiastic frenzy and street signs waggle suggestively in the wind. Meanwhile, the rhythmically swaying area street lights almost seem to keep the beat for the omnipresent frenzy. This is the period where one sees the most pervasive coverage. TV stations will often interrupt regular programming in order to cut to live shots of their other reporters, who can be found "braving" the storm by standing right in the middle of the heaviest wind and rains. Speaking only for myself, I'd have a lot more respect for a newsperson who did their report from a bar, sipping a beer and leading off with, "You know, you'd have to be a real idiot to be outside on a night like this..." Maybe someday.

Fortunately, the actual hurricane footage can only last so long, as most systems weaken rapidly once they make landfall. This is why television stations are so desperate for that money shot. You'll know it when you see it: a roof flying off a department store and disintegrating, or one of those aforementioned reporters getting blown into a ditch. If the networks are really lucky, they'll get film of a fireman rescuing a baby from a rooftop, or a woman pulled from her car just before it's covered by rising floodwaters. After something like that, you can't help but feel spent.

Once the storm has blown inland, you can finally bask in the afterglow: blue sky shots of boats beached thirty feet above the tide line, hapless shmoes sweeping water out of their bedrooms, and the weatherman telling us it "could've been worse." That's when you light a cigarette and compare property damage with your neighbors.

I'm waiting for the NOAA to extend hurricane season by a month and a half so it can include May and November sweeps.

Hyperbolic local news broadcasts are nothing new. We Houstonians are regularly treated to investigative reports about strip clubs and hard hitting stories about local contestants on "American Idol" and the like. The problem with hurricane porn is the same as with the boy who cried wolf, then the wolf raised him as one of her own and the boy went on to found Los Lobos...or something: it's hard to pay much attention to the stormcrows when the storms keep veering off into Louisiana or Brownsville. Eventually, another monster hurricane is going to hit Houston, and we're all going to be screwed because we're waiting for Jessica Willey's bikini-cam report.
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Post-Rita, I wouldn't be surprised if a number of those who camped out on I-45 for 25 hours might not be a little more inclined to gut it out next time around. We'll probably find out soon enough.