Seinfeld @ MindSay

            Saturday night, the wife and I went with some friends to see 30 Days of Night, the new movie about vampires terrorizing the town of Barrow, Alaska, for…thirty days of night.

            I knew we were doomed as soon as I walked in and saw about twenty other people in the theater.  You know what I’m talking about.  We’ve all had a movie ruined by at least one jerk that thinks he or she is the only person in the theater.  I knew that in a crowd of twenty there had to be at least one.  I wasn’t counting on sixteen. Unfortunately, that sort of thing happens more and more these days.

            Children too often are brought to movies they don’t need to see.  Surprisingly, no rugrats turned out for 30 Days of Night, but how many other times have we tried to enjoy a little sex and violence while enduring a nearby child talking incessantly, kicking our seats, or crossing in front of us every five minutes on their way to and from the bathroom?  It’s really fun when a kid behind you soils their diaper, and no one has the decency to take them out.  People with children should stick to Disney movies, or stay at home and wait for the DVD.

            I realize you can’t really blame a child for acting like a child, but adults who act like children in the movie theater just need a punch in the mouth.  Why can’t anyone sixteen or older go to the toilet by themselves?  Every time one of the gals in the last row got up to go Saturday, four friends followed suit, stomping down the stairs like a herd of Clydesdales.

            Cell phones are another annoyance.  Perhaps the only thing more irritating than the woman two rows down gabbing all through the trailers was the bozo directly in front of me constantly flipping his phone open and shining that damn blue light in my face.  He apparently had opted to go to the movies rather than attend a wake, but someone at the funeral home was kind enough, or, rather, tasteless enough to email him photos of the body in the casket, which he had to look at over and over, and then pass around for the other members of his party to gawk at.

            Don’t you hate it when people decide to eat their evening meal at the movies?  The couple behind us couldn’t have had enough hands to carry everything they bought at the concession stand.  I listened to crinkling wrappers and rattling bags throughout the first half of the picture.  One of them must have been a messy eater, for constant wiping with noisy, rough paper napkins could be heard during most of the second half.

            One thing I failed to realize going into 30 Days of Night was that it’s a comedy.  It must be.  Every time a vampire took another victim, practically everyone who was guilty of any of my aforementioned grievances hee-hawed like a jackass.  The more gruesome the killing, the funnier it was.  I fail to see the humor in someone’s throat being ripped out, but then that’s just me.

            I’ve yelled out “Shut up!” once or twice in a theater, and I’ve turned around and glared at many a person who thought I enjoyed having the back of my seat kicked; but remember that episode of Seinfeld where George decided to do the opposite of what his instincts told him to do?  A guy behind George in a theater kept bugging him, so George turned around and basically went postal on the guy to the delight of the other patrons.

            Perhaps if more of us had George’s gumption, going to the movies would be a more pleasant experience than it has become; and better yet if more people used a little self-control and common sense.  If you engage in the sort of activities I have described, just bear in mind that no one paid $7.50 to watch you.

 

© 2007 by J.D. Lewis

 

I suppose that by now, everyone and their mom has commented about the tragedy at Virginia Tech. Like every tragedy, I'm tired of it already. I think it's interesting that the same people who complain about violence on TV and in movies will sit in front of their TV for days and days watching the same home video footage of a real life shooting. I don't know...I guess these national tragedies never get to me in the same way they seem to tug at everyone else's heart strings. Perhaps I'm a cold, heartless bastard who is incapable of feeling too bad. I usually go "Wow" and follow it by an indifferent shrug and a means of diverting my own attention back towards something more meaningful to me like reruns of Seinfeld. If there's no personal connection for me in particular, I just can't bring myself to do the whole "Hands Across America" thing and pretend cry or any of that. So yeah, there's my take — I don't care all that much.

In lighter news, Curb Your Enthusiasm still rules.

Oh yeah, King Crimson? Still awesome.

    I know some of you are going to be angry, seeing as you were probably hoping for me to talk about Seinfeld, so I apologize, even though I'm probably going to talk about it eventually.
    Now, I know I should have a topic, but I don't. I'm just gonna rant. It's fun: You get to vent, say random shit, and be totally inappropriate! People will flame me for it though, but hey, that's 3 pros to 1 con.
    So my computer's mouse is out of juice. I hate that. It's a wireless and ball-less (I know what you thought when I said that) mouse. It's nice when you don't need to worry about cleaning the ball chamber (again, I know what you thought when I said that) or giving the wire space to move.
    But it can be a set back: when it runs low, it will turn itself off whenever it's not in use every 5 seconds; you need to press a little button on the bottom of it to turn it back on. And I'm lazy, so I'm not going to replace the battery until it's fully empty. Stupid piece of crap...
    In other news, my school's annual fund raiser named "The Drive" it up and running. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, meaning all of you, it's technically our Mid-Winter break. We have half-days for a week, with no homework of tests.
    Every day ends with an all school assembly where we're entertained and enticed to sell $1 tickets to everyone we can get. If I sell enough, I could win stuff like a Zune, or, if I was lucky enough, get all the money I got from people back. So if I sold $500, I win $500. In actuality, I never get past $210, so yeah.
    For those who don't win fabulous prizes, if the whole school sells enough, we start getting Fridays off. Yeah, 4 day weeks and 3 day week-ends (I wish Sprint incorporated this into my cell phone plan).
    As for what happens during the half-days, we go to homeroom and watch movies, etc. for 30 minutes before we go to our classes. But my homeroom always watches Seinfeld, so it's not really a big change (HA! I told you I would mention it).
     But this is a double edged sword: Our teachers need to squeeze in more information into 4 days instead of 5.  We usually get at least 10 Fridays off. So they last to the end of the school year. Yay!
    Any way, my mp3 player is almost dead. It's 512mb piece of crap, and I'm glad that it's approaching the Styx. Because it'll get me an excuse to buy a Zune. Sure, I could just buy one, but my parents would accuse me of wasting my money...blah blah blah.
    My guild in Guild Wars is dead. My sister and I are running the remaining 4 members of it on 1 account....Which we barely have time to get on anyway. We're hoping that people will recruit others because we made them all officers now and it will grow without much of our effort.
    I'm considering getting a new game for my DS, but I don't know which one to get. I want Mega Man ZX, Final Fantasy III, or Castlevania Portal of Ruin, or Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow but my chances of getting any of them are pretty slim because my parents will admonish me for buying a game that I won't have time for....That's what an emulator is for. Right?

    Well for those of you who were patient enough to read the torrent of thoughts I've been wanting to vent, I thank you and would like to remind you that Valentines Day is only 3 days away (so your girlfriend/wife doesn't yell at you). Laterz.
   

A few things that stand out from this clip:
The wacky serial killer-ish look that Michael Richards is sporting nowadays.
His repeated use of the term "Afro-American". I haven't heard that one since the heyday of Archie Bunker.
The Letterman audience giggling for some odd reason.
Jerry Seinfeld chastising the audience for their giggling.

Of course this attempt at image repair was a flop...the only way that Richards can save his career is to claim that he has some type of substance abuse problem, check into a rehab facility and upon release give a tear filled interview to Oprah Winfrey.

Upon being heckled by a couple of black guys at a comedy club, these are the words that came out of the mouth of Cosmo Kramer: