First, I watched Pee-Wee Herman’s Big Adventure for the first time, which was exciting. Not so much the movie, but watching it with Snorth. See, this is Snorth’s most favoristest movie ever, she has seen it approximately eighty times. So naturally I invited her over to Cricket’s house to watch it in his movie theater. One might find her hysterical giggling and, “Oooh, oooh, best line ever coming up!” and, “This scene scared the crap out of me my whole childhood” annoying, but I found her enthusiasm infectious. I think I enjoyed it more than if I had watched it alone or worse, with Cricket, who is a fun-sponge and has a God-given talent to suck the excitement out of the room merely by walking into it*. As a gift to Snorth I made two animated gifs from the film. One, Large Marge’s epic facial moment (thank you, Tim Burton):
And two, the expression Pee-Wee makes when he is forced to carry snakes out of a burning pet store:
The second thing I’ve been watching is Battlestar Galactica (the new one from 2005, not the older one from the late 70s). I normally don’t care for science fiction, but this isn’t really a show about science fiction. It’s more a show about struggling to survive all alone while something you barely understand tries to annihilate you, which makes it an inherently interesting premise. I have a couple of thoughts about the show.
1. If everyone is wearing the same uniform, maybe you should not hire four handsome strong-jawed chestnut-haired men to play four different roles. I keep getting them confused. If you know the show, it’s Chief Tyrol, Helo, Hot Dog and sometimes Apollo if the camera is zippin’ around enough. What, are there no Aryan Nazi-looking guys in the future? No Anthony Michael Hall-lookin’ folks? That is unfortunate.
2. Does anyone else find the theme song unbearable? I think it reminds me of that damn Sarah McLachlan song they use in all the ASPCA commercials, and I have been trained Pavlov’s-dog-style to hear that “Angel” song and immediately get sad about all the doggies and kitties with their woeful eyes. Gotta say I love all the drumming and didgeridoo-ing in the background of the battle scenes, very tension-filled and exciting.
3. It’s hard to take the mechanical-looking Cylons seriously when they have Knight Rider woosh-woosh red lights on their faces. I always hear Kit saying “Michael” over and over when I see them. That being said, their fingers that just pop out all blade-like are super-rad and I want them. If I was a Cylon who looked like a human (spoiler but not really because that is the premise of the show and is revealed in the first episode) I would insist on keeping the long stabby magic metal fingers.
4. Lieutenant Starbuck is BAD-ASS. That is all I have to say about that.
5. I say “fracking this” and “fracking that” all the time now. It really is brilliant, substituting “frack” for the other f-word. It sounds similar enough that gets the point across beautifully and no one at the FCC can nail you for cursing because technically, you’re not. Between me saying “frack” from Battlestar Galactica and “gorram” from Firefly, I am getting too nerdy for words.
Everyone says that it gets really crappy halfway through Season Three, so I’m bracing myself for that. However, I’m presently in the middle of Season Two and everything’s great, so I prefer to not think about the lameness to come.
*You will know it has happened by the “shluuuurrrrrp” sound, followed everyone putting their heads down on the table and falling asleep.
