The streak is over

Yesterday, after 114 consecutive days, the temperature in the Twin Cities broke 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Mag works downtown, where the high school wrestling tournament is currently going on, and I saw all these teenagers in shorts and T-shirts when I picked her up from work. Only in Minnesota, I guess. I'm pretty sick of winter. We've got a buildup of ice (we call them "ice dams" here) on our back porch about two and a half feet deep that's been slowly melting into the porch area, creating a disgusting mess. The snow is still so deep that many of the storm sewers are blocked from the melting snow, so when we took Relffits for a walk we were negotiating massive puddles ten feet wide and four inches deep. I know better than to get my hopes up for a speedy end to winter, because we can still get big snow. Arggggh.

Addendum to Law School applications: I posted my essay here.

Any good movies out there?

The Willamette Week takes the occasion of the closing of a neighborhood landmark theatre to wonder why America's taste in movies is so bad. I don't know.

These are the same people who complain there are no good movies out there, but continue to pay to see the crap churned out by Hollywood. No one is forcing any of you to watch the movies you watch in the theaters you watch them in, or rent from the heartless corporate video stores that promote censorship. But you do it anyway.

I blame Julia Roberts. Her movies are so bad, she's so unattractive, she's such a bad actor, and she's so overpaid, that to me, she's a symbol of all that's wrong with America.
I'm not too sure what to think of the string of superhero movies we're about to be hit with. The Guardian has a quick look at the directors being tapped for the new (formerly Incredible) Hulk, Spider-Man, and Batman movies. The one I'm looking forward to is Spider-Man, because it's being directed by Sam Raimi, who was at the helm for the classic Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness titles, which are truly excellent movies. Any movie with lines like, "It's a trick -- get an axe," and "Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun," has to be great, right?


Finally, they can oppress their women, kill their minorities, force guys to grow beards to their waists, but when they start using bazookas to blow up 2,000 year old Giant Buddhas, they've gone too far. The Taliban in Afghanistan are a disgrace to the human race. These are despicable, sick, worthless wastes of DNA. I'm ashamed to share the same world as these monsters.