I'm planning to attend as usual... anybody know the actual start time on Thursday?

Hadn't occurred to me until now that more proof of existence is required to post here than some believers ask of God.

So if any gods are lurking and reading this - first one of ya to pass a Captcha test, I will worship you.

And... go!

To me it reeks more of Jr. High where there's that girl you really really like but you're being creepy about it so you scare her off and then you become super-extra-desperate creepy trying to win her back.

Er, I mean... I hear that can happen.

Interesting to contemplate that if you could just magnify that image far enough, at some point it would turn into porn.    Weird alien porn.  A couple billion times over.

So maybe that's what God's worked up about - he can't survey one iota of his Creation without seeing somebody doin' it.

See, THIS part of Christian belief I have no argument with at all.   

Let's assume there IS a God.  Let's even assume that it's the Christian God, who really did do all that stuff in the books.   So, we're talking about a being that is capable of creating universes.  How the hell can we know what that thing is thinking, and why?  It's just like Dr. Manhattan - it lives an existence that we can't comprehend.  Who the hell knows how it defines "morality"?

If we could poll ten housecats I bet we'd find they believe that humans are all-powerful, but immoral. Because humans can put food in the dish but they don't always put food in the dish and that is totally fucked up.

So if God is real, then I am completely on board with the argument "you can't comprehend what he wants or why he does the things he does".    But in the end, so what?  Because I don't think he is real.

Which, if you're an outsider like me, seems ridiculous because Judaism, Christianity and Islam are far more alike than they are different.   They would be, since they're all inter-related.   And really, moderate practitioners of all of the above DO realize that.    It's why they can and do co-exist most of the time, because they are able to see that there's not that much difference other than dress codes.

Fun Fact:  If you're going to do business in the Middle East and there's a chance you'll be exposed to risk of kidnapping by fundamentalist loonbats, some companies will actually give you an orientation about what to do if it happens.  Basically it's "So You're a Hostage, Now What?" I haven't had the pleasure myself, but a colleague has - and here's the 101 version.

He was issued a little pocket Bible and was told to always carry it with him.  If kidnapped, he was to read from it and pray a lot, and even to resist a bit if the kidnappers tried to take the Bible away. 

Why not a Koran?  Because unless you really have studied the Koran and can follow all the rituals, you're not going to pass as a Muslim.   But even the most fundie Muslim recognizes that Christianity may not be the True Religion... but it's pretty close.

What you don't want to be is a heretic with no faith at all.  That, your kidnappers will not like one damn bit.

To go back to the original analogy, most reasonable people can accept that you like Ledger's Joker more than Nicholson, even if they disagree.  But break into that conversation with a hearty "Who cares, Batman is bullshit anyway" and they will all hate you.

Well, I saw it last night.  And in full IMAX 3D HFR Kitchen-Sink-O-Vision, too.  Never seen a feature in IMAX or HFR before, figured what the hell.  Short answer, didn't hate it at all.  Very pretty. 

So just as with LOTR: never read the book, don't know what's supposed to happen, don't know or care what's been added or left out or "ruined" etc.  Just wanted to see a movie.   And that movie was... very busy.  Many things happened, but not all of them seemed to matter.   

Bear Guy served no function that I could see - which makes me suspect he must show up again in Movie 3.  If he doesn't then shame on you, PJ.  Fifteen years ago you decided (correctly) that Tom Bombadizzledoozzle didn't actually matter to the plot of LOTR and cut him out.  You better not have done the opposite with Bear Dude or I shall be very cross indeed.

There was an Elf King-person who proved that not all Elf rulers are as well-written or acted as Galadriel and Elrond.  He sneered and said stuff that probably wasn't important.

Then there was a theme park ride with barrels that was really fun and made me want to buy a beer for everyone in the WETA previs department.  Meanwhile Legolas and Lost Lilly killed enough orcs to fill a school district.  I wasn't sure why, but whatevs.

And then Surprise Stephen Fry as the Mayor of Bartertown-on-Thames - a lengthy sequence featuring another Aragorn wannabe and a lot of delightful art direction.  It was okay, but my favorite part was when it ended.

There was a very well-done dragon voiced by that actor who's in everything now.   His scene with Bilbo was the best part, and a nice reminder that Bilbo was in the movie. 

Then all six hundred dwarves ran around while the dragon chased them and not one of them died which makes me worry that we're gonna get through this entire saga without one goddam dwarf getting killed.  Because if that's the case then they should have cut about six of them in the first draft.

Meanwhile in another movie Legolas killed more orcs because he really really hates orcs. And Gandalf went off to look at rocks and visual effects but that didn't matter because we know he doesn't die.

Also there were spiders.  The spiders were cool.

Didn't hate it at all, it held my interest the whole time and at least the dwarves didn't do more musical numbers.

Well, it wasn't going to be just any Western, it was going to be a JERRY BRUCKHEIMER western.  This is a guy who probably couldn't make a romcom for less than 150 million.

I finally got around to watching Lone Ranger just last week, and after all the hate I found it wasn't AS bad as I was braced for.  Don't get me wrong, it's not GOOD either.  

btw, I'd been hearing a lot of talk about the awesome "train crash scene" and when it happened right at the very beginning I thought, yeah, pretty spectacular.   As anyone who has seen the movie already knows, that wasn't the big train crash scene, which comes at the finale.   

So it's not hard to see how the thing cost 250 million.  It's just hard to understand why.

Wow.  That's like the selection at Hell's Triplex.

Coming next week:  After Earth