The Open Matt Project

Why Did They Program Me To Feel Pain?

Apparently the world is going robot crazy. Just recently it seems that I can't read the news without reading about some newfangled machine that's now helping us reach ever father.

Even Berkeley is involved in this robot madness.

My question is this: where's my ROBOT GIRL?

Day of the Dead Review Review

Most of the people who don't like this movie can be grouped into two categories. One, the people who saw the original Day of the Dead and think that because this one isn't the same it sucks assholes all day long. And Two, the people who went to "Dawn of the Dead" expecting deep character development and plot.

For the people in group one, there is no help. My advice to them is to go rent the original or buy the DVD and leave me alone.

For the people in group two, let me just say this:

As far as I'm concerned, if you go to a ZOMBIE movie - that is, a movie about dead people that get back up, unlike in real life, and eat people - you should expect to see zombies. Preferably lots of them, endlessly marching on the remaining human population. They should be scary not in some psychological sense, as in "The Shining", but in the visceral sense that they are fucking dead people walking around and eating living people.

This is why 28 Days Later failed me. The utter lack of zombies, and the focus on the incredibly hackneyed "people are people's most dangerous enemy, not aliens/monsters/robots/etc." Ho fucking hum. If I wanted to see Michael J. Fox's "Casualties of War" with a few zombies instead of VC, I would have lit up a blunt and watched said movie through dirty glasses.

I want to see hundreds, if not thousands, of mindless, bloodthirsty freaks unrelentingly attacking a small contingent of survivors and for said survivors to be at least relatively smart, such that their first thoughts are say... oh, I dont know, how about survival? I want to see them arm themselves as best they can, establish a functional pecking order and go to work escaping/fighting/surviving their way through the movie. The conclusion at the very end, whether or not they survive, is last on my list of important things. If I'm bored to tears by being forced to watch endless dialog for an hour or more, with nary a zombie in sight, I don't care what happens at the end. If I'm kept at the edge of my seat by scene after ever-lovin' scene of gun-blastin', chainsaw rippin', butane tank explodin', skull-bustin', zombie-baby screamin' excitement... well, let me tell you I'll be happy regardless of whether or not those folks live or die because either way, I got my rocks off on the way.

"Aliens", anyone?

That the end of DotD, during the credits (which is even cooler), was a well produced riff on 28 Days Later (IMO, by being in DV) that perfectly pinched off the grim vision the movie portrayed from minute one, was just the cherry on the cake.

Holy Shit and Ham

Dr. Seuss political cartoons? Oh. My. God.

From this:



To this?

Cheese or Wine?

Today I went to go see "Dawn of the Dead." Before you get too excited, I'm not going to review it. It was an amazing movie, I give it a 9/10, and that's that. It's possible I may do a top-50 reasons DotD is better than 28 Days Later, but I wouldn't hold your breath. What sticks with me, and some slice of why I'm writing, is because of what happened before I went in the theater.

I got carded. That's right. The movie is rated "R" and I got carded. This means I have to look 16. As flattering as the thought is, in a weird fugue way, there is no way on Earth I look 16. I couldn't believe it. In fact, when I showed the ticketkid (who was probably nearing 20) my id made his eyes bulge. He couldn't believe it. This was odd enough, but my curious encounter with aging hadn't ended yet.

When I settled into my seat to watch the now-requisite 20 minutes of eardrum-shredding commercials, I noticed a small group of boys come in and sit down. When I say small and boys, I mean they were about 12 years old. The three of them were alone. Now, I'm not some kind of uptight asshole, but what the hell is that? Although I didn't care that much about them being young, what got me was recalling that the ticketguy had said, "yeah, sorry, gotta do it to everyone," on the way in. So Ian explains to me that they simply snuck in. Haven't you ever snuck in to a movie before, he asks.

No. I've never snuck into a movie. My childhood was largely occupied by watching my mother die, playing with computers, and being shuttled from one box where my father could contact me to another box where my father could contact me. It was the Eraserhead version of a sheltered life, and it didn't include sneaking into anything, unless you count the janitors closet in elementary school where I learned to play Dungeons and Dragons.

What bugged me about the kids was the utter failure of the existing system. They had a system to avoid this situation, and I had been processed by it, but then I am faced with clear evidence the system doesn't work! Frankly, I just don't like to see it. I know the system doesn't work, just don't sit it in front of me chomping popcorn and laughing. It hurts my feelings and inflates my alcohol budget.

Which brings me to Jane, one of the people I wrote to in my friendster binge last week. She replied, and we began corresponding through email. She mentions she's going to class, I ask if she goes to Berkeley, and she tells me yes - Berkeley High. I know she's 18 from the Friendster profile, and I have had many friends that age, but there is something that strikes me about her being in high school. Inexplicably, I feel an invisible barrier materialize between me and her. It's an imperceptable shift in my perceptions that's created it and although I think it's related to being older, I don't feel that it's age itself that's causing it.

She noticed the change in my tone and asked me about it. I didn't know what to write (for once) to explain this and gave her my phone number instead. I figure maybe I'll have better odds talking it out. Mountain or mole hill?

Friendster Fun Hangover Not

So in a fit of hangover madness, I blew this morning on Friendster.com taking another whirl on the "meeting people in my network" boat. I think I sent out about 30 or 40 messages to all kinds of folks. I probably won't get any responses, but there was something fun in just writing strangers.

I tried this a while back, and managed to pick up one or two people who felt good enough about me to add me as a "friend." Naturally I don't talk with any of them anymore. Frankly, friendster is one of the least friendly places on the innerweb in my experience and my experience casts one hell of a long shadow. Even my normal, friendly, outgoing personality finds itself somewhat subdued when writing messages or bulletin board posts on friendster.

Subdued is a good word that also accurately describes my current mental state. My hangovers have a tendency to coalesce into a nice solid cheese, lodged firmly under my disheveled haircut. I am in need of a shower. I would absolutely love to have a girl here to put my head on; preferably a girl with a nice soft belly. I'm hungry for Jack in the Box tacos. I would pay 5 dollars EACH for a bag of those tacos.

Sadly, I think only the shower is going to happen. Right now, in fact.

Get Ready

A good, perhaps unhealthy, portion of my readers have expressed a yearning for the old days where I was significantly more morose and despondant. For those readers, I'd like to reward your patience with this posting.

Tonight I decided to untether myself to mid-90's level and simply follow my instincts. I extended myself to my surroundings at Jupiter, as usual, and found myself at the wrong end of a sports team argument. I know precisely nothing about sports. I made no friends there.

I re-engaged with my associates, a small group of IT professionals, and attempted to bridge the gap from cerebral mechanics to emotional experience. I met with some success (miracle of miracles). I brought in a dreadlocked girl and her friend, and found myself explaining the Jupiter rat infestation through personal demonstration. I showed how the rats climb through the thick overgrowth there by climbing up the overgrowth, which was about 20 feet high, and over the wall to the next-door location. I'm certain if I'd been caught I would have been 86ed from the place, but nobody employed there noticed.

It was a moment of true excitement. I loved every minute of it. After I had climbed the wall, I found myself on the other side, with a chain-link fence to go over. My teenage years paid off and I went over it lickedy split. Again, I loved every minute of it.

At the end of the night, better known as "last call", I headed out, got the number of the dreadlocked girl, and decided to walk to Cody's house.

That, my friends, is a long fucking walk. It's just past the rose garden, which is probably a good quarter to half mile from my house. Uphill. But I was feeling myself, and I was feeling like I wanted to go there and not listen to any sort of nattering logic about walking distance.

I walked up there and listened at the door and heard some kind of noise - a TV or radio or something. I knocked, and heard Cody say "just a minute" and open the door. I went in, but found that Liz was in the shower, shitfaced (somewhat like me, except without the sexy independant walking angle) and ready to come out and make yet another scene. Maybe later I'll get into that, but for now, I'll say that I saw it was time to go. I told Cody I wanted to see her, and then left.

I walked home, stopping at the rose garden to watch the moon and think about how time had passed (without passing me by), and then made it home. Hungry as a motherfucker, I whipped up some spaghetti and sauce and sucked it down - before sacking out, fully clothed, in my blessed-by-god bed.

But not before I wrote all this.

Register Not?

Thanks to Mr. Jay Allen and his remarkable MT-Blacklist, it looks like I won't have to set up a registration format for the comments.

*phew*

Time to Register

Sometime in the next week or two you can all thank the spammers out there for forcing me to upgrade to a comment registration system so I don't have to clean out their shit from my site every day.

Thanks spammers!

Dreams

From one dream do we pass into the next, with only its like to compare with.

I watched the leaves rustle outside my window and felt the wind pass through me. The branches were so close, I wanted to reach out and grab them; to swing under them and laugh and fear falling.

And I'm in my father's apartment where I grew up, staring out the bedroom window at the tree outside and wondering if I could jump to them and escape.

And I'm explaining my hope to be a professional escape artist to Denise, with her eyes reflecting my words with shimmering heat.

And Greyhound stops somewhere in Nevada for a smoker break so I hop down, light up and lean back to admire the moon's resonating madness.

And I'm smoking a cigar with shirt stuffers, reflexively laughing at life's freedom by mistaking it for misfortune.

And the day is warmer than yesterday, with caressing breezes and a sun that shines while I'm dreaming.