Assorted Musings

The following are a handful of random topics that I probably should not have devoted as much thought to as I have:

Aliens 4:

    In the 4th installment of the 'Alien' franchise, Sigourney Weaver's character Ripley has died 200 years ago, but a biotech company has brought her back to life by cloning her DNA. She then proceeds to team up with a ragtag band of misfits (what a shock that it isn't a well-quaffed group of croquet-playing Princeton grads) to kick some alien butt. About halfway into the movie, the group stumble upon an abandoned laboratory. Ripley, who is now armed with a colossal machine gun/flame thrower combo, soon realizes this is a room filled with failed earlier attempts at cloning her. As she breaks down in tears of sorrow and horror, we see jars with grotesque disfigured versions of her lining the walls.

    As she rounds a corner she encounters what seems to be the most devastating discovery of all: A hideous and pitiful malformed jumble of limps and joints laying on a lab table, with the face of another Ripley clone sticking out of it all. In a pained voice the clone looks at her and says "...please...kill...me..."

    Tears streaming down her face, Ripley slowly nods and says "okay." She then steps back, raises the gun, and as the music swells dramatically, proceeds to open fire......with the FLAMETHROWER!

    The second I saw this part, all I could think was that if I were the clone I would be screaming, "You douchebag!! I meant the GUN! Shoot me with the gun! What kind of asswipe mercy kills someone with a flamethrower?! Oh, this hurts so bad! I hate you so much right now!!"

Pretty Baby:

    From time to time I will meet new parents and their babies and I will tell them that their child is very cute, to which they will usually reply, "Thank you." Now, you usually thank someone when they compliment something you did, like, "Hey Burt, great job on that presentation at work." "Thanks man," or "You guys rocked, that guitar solo was sick!" "Thanks a lot." But why are you thanking me for this? The kid is cute. It just happened that way. You didn't really do anything special to make it happen, unless you're about to follow up by saying "Yeah, the wife and I bought this book called 'Seven sex positions to ensure and attractive baby.' It's pretty strict but obviously it paid off. It includes a comprehensive diet plan as well as some warm up stretches. One time I nearly tore my ACL doing this one move where I was supposed to wear rollerskates, but in the end it was totally worth it. I mean look at that kid! So cute. You see her pretty blue eyes? That's thanks to a little move called 'The Wheelbarrow.'"

The Lighting in Grey's Anatomy:

    I have only ever seen a handful of episodes of the ever-popular 'Grey's Anatomy', but there was something I noticed that distracted me so much that I couldn't really get into the plot. It seems that at Seattle Grace Hospital it's a common practice to perform complicated surgeries in a very dark room where the sole light source is shining directly into the surgeon's face. To me, this seems hazardous. If any of the Grey's Anatomy writers ever read this, I have an episode idea for you: Dr. McDreamy is performing a surgery and says "Nurse, scalpel please." The nurse holds it out to him, and he gropes around blindly for it in the dark room, ultimately impaling his hand on it. He cannot operate for 6 weeks, and he's so depressed about it we see a montage where he develops a drinking problem, starts wearing black eyeliner and listening to The Cure and asking people to refer to him as McDoomy from now on.

    I understand that this type of lighting can heighten the drama and that's why it's used, just please give some sort of reasoning for it. It's easy. At the beginning of the surgery scene, have the doctor say something like "I can't believe someone got a flashlight lodged in their brain in the 'on' position and I need to remove it while it shines at me AGAIN. This is getting monotonous."

Placentia, California:

    REALLY? You named your town Placentia? I bet the local board of tourism constantly pulls out their hair and says "How the EFF are we gonna get people to come here??"

Secret Service Agents:

    I cannot recall seeing a movie in which some bad guys went after the president or some congressperson and the Secret Service agents actually stopped it. They always seem to get their asses handed to them like immediately. Apparently they don't teach you how to defend against being pistol-whipped in Secret Service school. That seems to be their kryptonite. If there's any truth to the movies, their job seems to be to turn kidnapping the president from a ten minute job into a fifteen minute one. 

    Perhaps the American government struck a deal with Hollywood years ago, saying, "Whenever you portray us in films, make sure to make us look like a bunch of well-dressed boobs who like nothing more than to take unexpected naps on the floor of the oval office." Then, if someone tried to attempt something in real life, they would be unpleasantly surprised to learn of the agents' mad protecting skills.

Local Business Names:

    I've noticed when a local business is Asian-owned, a fairly substantial amount of time the owner's name is Wang. I have seen a restaurant called "Wang's Wok" and some sort of business called "Wang's Consulting". These names are somewhat unfortunate, but this last week while driving I could have SWORN I saw a sign for "Wang's Massages." This is just too much. It immediately makes me think one either goes there for a wang massage, which is inappropriate, or that some guy there is going to attempt to massage my back using HIS wang as a massage tool, which I am not on board with AT ALL. Wang, please sell your business to your brother. Unless his name is Dong.