Over this last week I have purchased seven DVDs from Blockbuster locations that are dying here in Halifax. Now, I love my DVD collection and its extensiveness, (as shown in this here not even up-to-date list) so I am quite pleased to be adding to it for the first time in quite a while.

That said, with every DVD I add to the collection I also add to my annoyance, because I know I shouldn’t have a DVD collection at all. At the place where human technological development is, there is simply no need for it. Ideally all the movies (and music and so on) would be kept in a vast repository online where we could all see the movies we want, when we want. These physical copies of the movies that I so enjoy are entirely pointless. And yet I still like them. It’s rough being a greatly self-contradictory fellow.

Of course, when DVDs are finally an obsolete technology, this collection is going to seem like a lot of wasted time and effort.

(For the record, I’ve just realized that one of my new seven DVDs is Fullscreen. I didn’t even know they still had those.)

So, before work on Friday I wanted to finish the story I started last Friday the Thirteenth, so I did that. Since I’m not getting much work done on the Hover Head story I wanted to do, it is good to something with those characters again. Too bad I had no real idea what I was doing and I wanted to get it done before work (on Friday the Thirteenth) and thus ended with a story where even the characters don’t know how to end it. Oh well. The best thing about finishing a story is that it clears a little bit of space in my brain, and that has been accomplished. So that’s good.

Haiku!

Irresponsible!
You let the tiger get out.
Go to your room, Bill.

I had a movie idea the other day that I figure I should write down to prove I had it before it is inevitably made by someone else: Undead Monsters playing Russian Roulette while talking about their lives. Possible ending: the bullet goes through the ghost’s head and hits the mummy.

Okay, I wouldn’t have thought that this would ever be something I needed to clarify, but I am now stating, for the record, that I, Patrick D Ryall, am not Batman.

Almost without fail, any time I wear my T-shirt with the Batman symbol on it in public, I will be called “Batman” by somebody I don’t even know. The only possible information I can infer from this is that the only difference between me and the real Batman is the symbol. I mean, who am I to judge? I’m used to my face because of the hours I spend daily examining while I swear at myself in the mirror. Other people who see me only once or twice on the road don’t know the subtle differences between me and Batman that I do.

To help everybody learn, I’ve created an image that you should all print out and post in store windows, elementary school classrooms, and synagogues.

I mean, the only other alternative would be that people are just stunningly unoriginal and think that calling a person in a Batman shirt “Batman” is fresh and exciting. But that would speak poorly of the general populace, so that surely can’t be it. If that were the case there would have been a decade of people saying “Run Forest, Run” every time they saw someone running.

(Actually, there was this one time when I was walking down the road and some guy who was selling something called me Batman as he tried to get me to check out his wares. When I said that I wasn’t interested and didn’t stop he protested something like “Aww, but Robin did” which did amuse me.)

Kiiip and I went out to see Paul this weekend and I shall now comment on that: I thought the movie was pretty good. It does not stand up in my head with Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, but it amused me and that’s what matters.

Haiku!

Suppose the bears come
and we’re all unprepared.
What will we do then?

Here’s a thing: I don’t like mayonnaise. I do love cucumber sandwiches and wraps. I don’t know how to make a cucumber sandwich without mayo. It’s a complicated problem. What else do people use to make sandwiches? Butter? No way. Mustard? I do like mustard, but I don’t think it’d work with cucumber. Just the act of putting the mayo on the bread (or tortilla usually) is unappealing to me and I always end up with bits of it on my fingers. Usually if I get food on my fingers while preparing it, I can like it off, but with mayo it is just annoying.

Why am I ranting about mayonnaise? Because I ate a cucumber wrap while writing this, that’s why. Now the Internet knows.

“Honestly, you Canadian kids.” In my previous reviews of Canadian Heritage Moment things I have mentioned that I feel the most important aspect of them is their quotability. This one is made up of nothing but awesome quotes. “With glasses, you know, a secret identity”, “That’s it, a bullet. He’s faster, no, he’s faster than a speeding bullet” “Fly no, but he can leap over tall buildings”, “See what your cousin Frank says in Toronto” and so many more! Other countries: If you ever suspect someone of being a Canadian spy, quote this and see how they react.

Anyway, this one is about young Canadian Joe Shuster in Cleveland in 1931. He’s explaining an idea he has had for a comic strip about a powerful superhuman man who, of course, turns out to be Superman himself, father of the modern superhero! I love the way the whole thing is staged. Shuster is rambling excitedly to a woman named Lois who is trying to make sure he doesn’t miss a train, but he just won’t shut up about his idea because he is so happy with it. “This guy is faster than anything, I swear!” he says it like he’s talking about a real dude. It’s just a fun setup. Wikipedia doesn’t tell me who this woman is meant to be, saying that Lois Lane of the comics was based on a woman called Joanne Carter. In all likelihood the Lois of the commercial is a fictional friend of Shuster used to help drive home the point that Superman is being created and, indeed, this exact scene probably never played out in the real world, but as a piece of country morale boosting for Canada, it just works so well.

To top it all off, we end with a bit of the Superman movie theme as we see the original Superman sketch (ostensibly we’re not meant to know who he is talking about when we first see the commercial, but my first seeing it was too long ago for me to judge it with that bit of mystery still intact). This is some solid gold kryptonite over here (only it does not remove superpowers). I’m giving it Five and a Half Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake. Quite probably this is one of the best of these commercials.