We've had the first roach sighting of the new year! And where does it show its ugly, insidious face? My bathroom while, mind you, I'm incapacitated by pants around my ankles. This is my life. My life is war. And while I've fought against genocide my whole life, I'm taking out as many of those scurvy little bastards as I can. I hate them so much. I don't hate them more than snakes, well, maybe I do hate them more than snakes. I'm afraid of snakes, but I hate roaches. Snakes I just don't want to ever, ever be around.

Speaking of snakes (stay with me here, it's gonna be a bumpy ride) I watched a show on Discovery about snake attacks. All of these people were telling stories about constricting snakes and nearly dying from them. You know what I say to those people? Those people that keep twenty foot pythons as pets? You deserve your painful death my fellow citizens of the world. You deserve whatever that snake does to you because you can't tame a snake. You wanna know why? It's brain is too small. If a snake doesn't attack you, all that means is that it isn't hungry and/or you don't seem like a threat. With a twenty foot python it's only a matter of time.

But...more disturbing than all of that...ANACONDAS STALK YOU. I put that in all capital letters because some pieces of information are really, really important, and I didn't want you to miss that one. Once again it pays to be fat because most likely an anaconda looks at me and thinks, eh--she's too big to eat. But all you slim kids who strive to be healthy and live long, long lives? Totally screwed. You know what your health is going to get you? Eaten by an Anaconda. That's right--and that's assuming you don't get kidnapped and sold into human trafficking before that. It's a harsh life out there for pretty people; I won't lie to you. And if you're a virgin just give it up now--if, by some miracle, you avoid the human traffickers AND the anacondas, you're totally being sacrificed to the dragon. Of course if you're the town whore you get burned a the stake as a witch...

I think I understand why people are agoraphobic. It's a dangerous, dangerous world out there people.

P.S. Yellowstone is a super volcano. Geologically speaking it could erupt anytime.

Be afraid, be very afraid.

Get ready for it--here comes my response to Dr. Zhivago.

First, fairly early on in the movie it becomes apparent that the two people don't end up together in the end and that's always strike one in my opinion. Second, he's married but in love with Lara, a woman who bewitches all the men around her because she's beautiful: that's original. Third, the music blows. Three strikes you're out.

Now, we'll start with the music because it's famous and everybody quotes it and thinks it's just so darned amazing. I'm over it. I've heard the theme song many times (who hasn't?) and found it trite and repetitive, but assumed that when I heard the full score along with watching the move I would be moved by its majesty. I wasn't. It's still trite and repetitive three hours later. Moving on...

I hate movies where old dude falls in love with beautiful, slightly broken woman at first glance. When I say hate, I don't want you to misunderstand me or think, for even the briefest of seconds, that I don't mean to imply absolute disgust and revulsion; I despise these movies. To top it all off dear old Doctor Z, the man we are all supposed to love and support and admire, cheats on his wife with his true love whom he goes on to write an amazing book of poems about.

Let's digress for a second and examine what it would mean to be this wonderful man's romantic partner either as wife or mistress. As wife you are loved, but ignored--respected but never enough, eventually left to your own devices (not wholly his fault with the revolution going on and those damn commies) but never truly yearned for. As your mistress you are loved and worshiped--it's impossible to miss the Petrachan conventions in this movie, especially with her named "Lara." Ayn Rand couldn't be that obvious and she writes 1,000 page books, complete with 90 page speeches at the end to make sure you got the point. Regardless, at the end of the day, it breaks his heart but he sends you off for your own good to have his love child on your own and die nameless in some laborer's camp. What are you gonna do when you're trying to love each other amid the Russian revolution? It's all the communists' fault.

Okay, so Dr. Z is a man, and thankfully Alec Guiness is there at key moments to remind us how good of a man, and after three hours the impression is that he was better than some and worse than others. Oh, I'm moved by the depth of that message. Lara is a freakishly flat female lead. She's tough, but she has to be. Seduced by a man with complete power over her at 17 and married to a man who assumes complete power and then abandons her not long after, a chick's gotta toughen up. But everyone that comes in contact with her is at least "a little bit in love with her" if not more. Because she's beautiful? Her personality is developed nearly enough explain her charisma otherwise.

The cinematography was great--the musical instrument theme was a little to Rosebud for my tastes, but it works as a theme throughout the whole movie. The acting was fine, but the dialogue wasn't the most moving ever written. This no doubt aids in the flatness of the characters.

So--as always seems to happen when I watch movies that are considered "classics" of romance--I'm left irritated and unfulfilled. It seems the stories we elevate of human love personify the weakness of people to resist each other, love at first sight, and the idea that sometimes you have a really shitty life, but so long as you loved someone greatly at some point (regardless of ANY context) you've succeeded in some way.

And so the cult of romantic love in the Western tradition continues.

There are so many reasons I'm single, and none of them are surprising.

I had a thing here about not having hot water for four days but no one cares.

Let's talk about Watchmen because that's way more fun.

I read a review from the New York Times and was rendered irate because the movie reviewer hated both Watchmen and V for Vendetta. When I read the review I hadn't seen Watchmen yet, but I knew I liked V and that his comments about V for Vendetta were a gross misinterpretation. After seeing Watchmen I understood the review and how it was the reviewer came to hate it so fervently. This latest movie in Hollywood's mood swing of superheroes is the deepest genre study produced so far. If you don't like superhero movies and/or if you don't know anything about superheroes than you might very well not like this movie. The final line of the review mentioned above (and I'm paraphrasing here) was, "where did the comedy go in the comic-strip?"

This comment encapsulates why some people, perhaps a great many, won't like this movie. Comic books haven't been funny as a genre for a very, very long time--think fifty years or more. Watchmen is an ironic (dare I say satiric?) study of superhero myths and what the reality of our imaginings would look like. It is also a delving (sometimes juvenal delving it's true) into philosophic ideas often commented on by superhero myths: think nihilism, existentialism, and Platonic moral absolutism. But the movie does all of these things reasonably well with very little error; I would argue it possesses no unforgivable mistakes, provided--and this is an important provided--that you judge it based on the conventions of the genre and the overall intention of the piece.

It has some truly enjoyable action, but it isn't an action movie. It has some truly enjoyable dialogue expounding on the human condition, but it isn't a philosophical exploration. It has some romance, but it isn't a love story. It's a superhero movie for a world that doesn't tolerate superheroes or heroics for any serious stretch of time. It deals with issues of humanity extinguishing itself--something we're still in danger of today. It deals with issues of renewable power sources--certainly something we're dealing with currently. And, for every annoying nineteen year old boy that enjoys wading through the philosophical muck produced by Alan Moore and Zack Snyder, it puts into popular conversation ideas about what it means to be a hero or a villain. Most young people, or old people, aren't going to pick up Nietzsche or Foucault. Most people never question what happens to their moral and ethical codes when they sacrifice those very codes to the greater good. Watchmen presents those questions and challenges readers and viewers alike to deal with them. At times it is heavy handed. At times it is outright immature. But it still puts the subject into popular discourse in a way no Literature (notice the capital L) is currently managing. Stories, be they movies or books or comic books, are one of the chief ways we learn what it means to be human. They certainly play a defining role in teaching us the difference between good and evil. A story like this that questions our own basic assumptions that good is simply good, that we don't have to know it or define it because we just know, is certainly worth telling over and over again.

If one understands all of this, and not in some highbrow academic way that thinks There Will Be Blood is all the world needs for artistic contribution to societal investigation, and still doesn't like this movie than I can respect that. Aesthetically it won't be to everyone's taste. I didn't find it flawless. But aesthetics aside you cannot judge Watchmen by the same standard you judge an Oscar winner. You must know what a thing is before you can love it or hate it, and asking where the comedy is in a comic-strip demonstrates, more powerfully than any argument I could make, that one doesn't have any idea what this thing is. Too often, I feel, people love or hate a thing and assume the fault lies with the thing itself and not their own ignorance.

The moral of the story is that no one watches the Watchmen and we all need to watch ourselves--in every sense of the phrase.