Large Piles

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It has been an odd sort of week as the following days after a holiday weekend usually are, only amplified by visitors and having today as a holiday, too. I'm even more disoriented than usual as I wondered where the copy of Presso was this morning [comes on Saturday]. :)

Last night Jarkko rang me while I was in my odd mood to match the odd week and informed me that we were going to be seeing a movie at 8p if there were any reservation cancellations. He said something about Orlando Bloom and the title and I went home to walk Otava. I asked before the movie what the premise was and when I heard 'the crusades', my mind computed Bloom+Holy War=3 hour epic that is not anywhere close to being comedy which, I suppose, is a good thing since 3 hours of comedy might be hard on the bladder as you try to laugh.

As we sat down and waited for the movie, a pair of actors were running around in front of screen which I assumed was a bit of absurdist theatre as a plug for some of the arts around town. It made no sense until I heard the guy say 'nice teeth' and it became clear that the whole thing was a live action commercial for a certain brand of toothpaste that conveniently had a brochure in the drink holders. On the backs of the seats, Nokia also had glow-in-the-dark ads for some new model of mobile. Maybe it's because I'm old enough to remember going to movies when you had to be on time because the movie started on time with only occasional trailers, but fuck these advertisers who make us prisoners of their incessant pitches and, well, fuck the theatres too. The ads showed a little bit of unusual creativity but, c'mon, glow-in-the-dark ads in a theatre where your light-seeking eyeball keeps being drawn to it? Assholes. There seem to be no boundaries anymore with regard to when, where and how we are hustled by an ever increasing amount of advertisements. I fully expect toilet paper to come with ads and the toilet to play a jingle on flushing any day now.

On the bright side, the movie was quite good. I drooled over Jeremy Irons briefly and thoroughly enjoyed the fact that this movie will likely make the list of movies the Catholic church urges its followers not to see due to objectionable content. Devout Catholics who believe the Crusades were a highlight in the history of christianity will likely be quite offended as I don't expect fanatical Mel Gibson and his sect to be snapping up tickets. I may just have to go see it a few more times to encourage more movies like this in these crazy times. The movie did leave me with the same questions I have when reading the news: Why do the crazy idiots seem to get people to follow them even knowing that without water in a desert against the natives they're dead? Why are the sane people usually agnostic and so rare? Why do religious fanatics still abound and why hasn't anyone burned Vatican City and salted the smoldering ground as a reminder of its thousands of years of corruption? Some questions are eternal. I also thought about what would happen if someone discovered a document that revealed that Jerusalem was not the holy site people have fought so pointlessly over for thousands of years. What if it was really atop Mt. Ararat in Turkey? or some rock long since covered in sand out in the Sahara?

The best quote of the week was from a sure sign of great economic times in the US, a programmer turned pooper-scooper professes his love for St. Bernards in a moment of zen-like wisdom. :)

St. Bernard (dogs) are my favorite customers since they poop in large piles which are easy to find.

And then he goes on to say....

It sure beats computer programming because it's flexible, and I get to be outside.

He's right about technology being even less exciting than scooping poop these days. Hmmm....