Musings on 300 and the Tao of Acoustic Ceiling Scaping

Well...I finally got around to watching the movie "300." I wanted to watch it when it was new, but due to lack of time and funds, was unable to. Now that I finally have, what can I say? Hmmm...it was better than "Signs."

I knew going in that it was basically a live action cartoon. I know it was chock full of that old ultraviolence, with a decent dose of gratuitous nudity. Let me be the first to say that I have nothing at all against either of those things; I just expect my movies to have more than just violence and nudity. Maybe not much more, but at least touch.

I must admit, I was a bit handicapped going in. For one thing, I had that old high expectations thing working against me. A more severe handicap was the fact that I actually know a bit about the bottle of Thermopylae, and the invasion of Greece by Xerxes the Great. I shouldn't let little things like that both me. What movie actually follows history, after all? But what the hell was with all the f*****g mutants? And why was Xerxes a Moorish giant covered in piercings? What was up with that? What about the metal-masked guys? And the war rhino? The war rhino, brought down by a single spear? Yeah. I also found it interesting that King Leonidas seemed to be played by the love child of Sean Connery and Mel Gibson. At least he had some decent lines. No one else did. Suffice it to say that disbelief was a bit stretched by gas spewing aliens who melt in water, however. So, was there nothing good? I really liked the bondage gear. And the homoerotic posing. I found humor in the way it was made clear that the Spartans were to tops and the Athenians were the bottoms. Much of the dialogue was quite amusing as well. Then, there was the cinematography. Simply beautiful. No sarcasm intended. The movie was worth watching simply for the balletic grace of the fight scenes. It's amazing that blood spray and hewn limbs can seem so much like a work of art. It is definitely worth seeing, though I'll likely never watch it again.

Now, to shift gears, this past Tuesday, I had a Really Bad Day--. A bunch of really fun conversations occurred, leading to much anger and depression. This, of course, lead to thoughts of alcohol. Too bad I'm not really a drinker. Our first solution was to go b***h to my friend, Clint. We drove out to his tattoo place after discovering that the number was disconnected. We got there, but...it wasn't there. Come on Clint, how the hell can we advertise for you when you don't let us know when you move?

The next plan was to go to Calvin's. We did that thing. Upon arriving, we left.  Even if he happened to be home, he would probably pretend not to be anyway.  So we went to Ray's. 

  Ray was home, and after giving us his telemarketer's glare, he let us in.  He is our friend.  I didn't feel like talking by this point, preferring to be quietly depressed.  Ray said he was about to go work on a house he was "flipping", and invited us along.  I learned how to scrape the blown "popcorn" off a sheet-rock ceiling, and learned it was good therapy indeed.  You just spray some water on the ceiling, then scrape it with a giant windshield scraper looking thingy.  Great fun.  Not much better for depression than physical exertion.  No point to all this.  Just sharing   And how is your life?