odd thought from this morning: if darth vader is so powerful in his use of the force (and if you believe the midachlorian talk from phantom menace, destined to be, like, one of the most powerful jedi ever, with the jesus power to bring balance to the force (though, he apparently does this by killing the rest of the jedi, not very christ like)) why does he need his vader suit to live? i mean, damaged body is too much for his powers to handle? he can't simply will his lungs to keep breathing with the force? he couldnt's find some bizarre little swami on the edge of the universe and figure out how to use the force to grow a new hand, or new eyebrows (apparently, they've been digitally removed in the latest release of return of the jedi)? just sayin'

napoleon dynamite was oddly watchable, occasionally funny but nowhere close to actually being good. they tried way to hard to grab a cult audience, the napoleon character never did anything remotely redeeming, and was barely even harsh in an amusing way

and, while i can understand people having trouble with the formulaic ways of house, do they not get that er is just as formulaic, that law & order and csi are in the damn dictionary under formulaic? obviously, if you are not into science or medicine, house won't do much for you, regardless of whether you like the characters, just like if you don't care for murder mysteries, law & order and csi won't appeal much to you, even if you like the science. but, how can those shows be so popular and people question the formula of house?

the other rental from yesterday's venture to blockbuster was shaun of the dead. saw it in the theater and had to rent it so the family could see it. gotta love the british humor mixed with horror and social satire. it's like that one line from dawn of the dead about the dead doing what was familiar in life, going to the mall. but, here we get the convenience store guy and the homeless guy walking around with their hands out, the soccer kid still kicking his ball around, and the working stiffs (already zombie like before) just lingering about waiting for stimulating lights or noise

and, in politics and war, apparently, our troops were so angry after being attacked while on a lunchbreak that they went out after curfew through mosul. brings to mind that footage michael moore had in fahrenheit 9/11 with the troops invading that iraqi house seemingly in the middle of the night and expecting cooperation from tired, scared women with guns in their faces. how dare they shoot at us while we're eating, but we can do whatever we want to them at all hours of the night

a few hundred people showed up for the funeral of teh woman who had her baby cut out of her... that is, the woman who had her baby forcably kidnapped as opposed to the quite-common-now scheduled c-sections all around the country, though i'm sure those kill women from time to time as well. small missouri town, a woman who was nobody while she was alive, but crowds must gather to mourn her, cause cllective mouring for strangers is the way of things in this country. kids shoot each other at school and we gotta pile up flowers and photos and candles and pretend it had anything to do with us (and not in a constructive way, like, say accepting our responsibility in promoting a society that creates these situations and only reacts afterward). we're a bunch of reactionaries dying for a chance to react... to anything. we love it when rich guys get accused of murdering their wives and dumping them in san francisco bay cause we can all get together and cry fro conner and laci and get our daily hate on for scott. we love it when our towers are razed by passenger planes cause we can be wounded without being touched and cry out for revenge, for war, war on anybody and everybody who might have ever sat in the same mosque as those involved. we love our tragedies, and in these days of omnipresent media and live team coverage, big brother everywhere looking over our shoulders at each little death, we can all line up to be first to mourn. we can wait through hours of traffic and stand in line to mourn a past president or make a pilgrimage to the outside of a courthouse to cheer on a death sentence. we can go to missouri (missouri, where i'm sure most of this country never really cares to go) to mourn some woman who died violently, nevermind all the other deaths across this country. sure, urban deaths, gang murders--those get their mourners too; they get their makeshift alters and shrines, with photos and candles and stuffed animals and flowers, but if they get any mention on the news, it's local and it's for one night only. a white woman in middle america dies, it's national news. a pregnant white woman dies, by the hands of her husband or by the hands of some crazy woman in the throes of the horrifying feeling of her own baby dying, and it's a national tragedy, worthy of new laws if not new wars. and, we don't have to look into causes so much as long as we can still cry over the result and write the whole thing off, in this case, as a crazy woman doing a crazy thing, she oughta fry

nevermind the so-called culture of violence that puts bush's culture of life to shame, nevermind that people generally don't "snap" and do crazy violent shit without already having serious problems, nevermind that this woman meant nothing to any of us last week