So how can we improve them? Besides the sensible things, like maintaining a consistent sleep pattern and cleaning up the desk Friday afternoons.

This morning I indulged in leftover dark chocolate pudding – for breakfast – along with my coffee. What other things could help make Mondays better?

• As above, dessert for breakfast!
• Schedule lunch with a friend.
• New shoes!
• Ditch the depressing news on the way to work; listen to NPR, comedy or an audiobook.
• Or, the Tania^TM method – resign.

I’m sure the rest of you have ideas, serious or tongue-in-cheek, please share!

I’m carefully ignoring it, surfing the web and listening to Iron and Wine on headphones as I gave up on the franchise after Alien II.

Still, I catch glimpses of the movie out of the corner of my eye, and I do not get it. What’s the point? Gore, more gore, gruesome gore, slimy aliens doing icky things, and even more gore. And does not a single person have the sense to turn on a light switch? The whole film is shot so darkly that it’s almost painful to watch it.

I enjoy action movies, occasionally gory movies, even gruesome bits when it serves the story. I just watched Taken with the awesome Liam Neeson and enjoyed it very much. The bottom line is that there actually has to be a plot.

I must be getting old. Darned kids! Get off my lawn.

On an existential level, Paris Hilton and her celebrity-infatuated peers are a form of societal malware, propagating themselves through endless self-promotion.

I have never been to her website. What on earth could she possibly have to say of substance or depth? She is the woman who spells ‘hot’ as ‘hott’ and holds auditions for a best friend on a reality show. I realize I’m being really elitist and judgmental, she may read Sartre before bed – still, she’s a train wreck.

The malware report is incredibly ironic.

Oceans Eleven
This one’s a tough call. After all, who can match the Rat Pack? But George Clooney, Brad Pitt, a superb script and excellent pacing make the remake the superior movie in my book.

Thomas Crown Affair
I had high hopes for the original movie, which I actually watched after the remake. Unfortunately, Faye Dunaway can’t hold a candle to Rene Russo, although I do prefer the original, sad ending as being more true to the characters.

Italian Job
The original movie is fun and fast paced, and they both get points for excellent use of MINIs. The ending on the original is frustrating.

Casino Royale
I realize the original version of Casino Royale was shot as a spoof, so the comparison really isn’t valid. Still, the current version of Casino Royale is a worthy addition to the Bond oeuvre – Daniel Craig is an awesome Bond.

War of the Worlds
Please note that I am *not* a Tom Cruise fan. I think he’s gotten where he is today by playing one role really well – that of Tom Cruise. Still, I think the remade War of the Worlds is a nicely done movie – the CGI and special effects available in the 21st century serve this kind of story very well, and Spielberg still manages to maintain the story’s pacing.

I’m also hopeful about the pending Logan’s Run remake – it was the first SF movie I ever watched, it has a good story line, and it’s possible a less-cheesetastic treatment might make for a fairly decent movie.

There are lots of bad remakes out there we can all snicker about – I don’t want to hear about those. Are there any other decent remakes that you would point to and say, “Hollywood got that one right!”?

Sure, there are pros. The process of releasing directly from musician to distributor, in some cases, enables the band to both reap a greater profit from the release and price the product at a more consumer-friendly price. You can buy an album for $12.

Big deal. My time and integrity are worth something, too.

I purely detest shopping at Wal-mart for a multitude of reasons. When Walmart moves into a community, they drop prices and hurt local business – when competition is gone, they raise prices again to the prevailing market rate. The least-price-product model means limited variety of low quality – lots of trinkets and trash. The company pays below-poverty-level wages and its employees are, in Washington, the single largest consumer of state Medicaid services. And on a personal level, the store is incredibly inconvenient, crowded, cluttered and dirty, with undertrained and overworked staff – shopping there is a fairly unpleasant experience.

Janiece said it best with her “E” avatar:

One does not simply walk into Walmart. There is evil there that does not sleep.

This trend of releasing directly and exclusively to Walmart is disturbing. These artists will NOT be getting my business. The first three pages of a Google search on “wal-mart exclusive music” indicates that they include:

• Bruce Springsteen
• AC/DC (ok, I caved there, but shouldn’t have)
• Eagles
• Garth Brooks
• Josh Groban
• Carrie Underwood
• Nickelback
• Shakira
• Taylor Swift
• Keith Urban

What this means for them is that their music cannot be downloaded. (This was part of AC/DC’s objective – they feel that single-song downloads hurt the album-as-art-form.) It can’t be sold by independent music stores. It can’t be easily purchased by those with no Wal-mart in their community, although Wal-mart does have an online, e-commerce interface like any other giant retailer.

Interestingly enough, there are reports of some independent music stores buying up albums by these artists at Walmart and reselling them at minimal markup, unopened, in their own store, just so they can offer their customers a complete artist’s oeuvre.

I can’t believe that anti-competitive, exclusive deals are, in the end, good for the consumer, no matter what the current price point looks like.

Flip of the cape to Jim for the original video in the series that led me to this.

Where else would you hear the terms:

“He’s gonna die… but it’s gonna look great.”
“They’ve got themselves a rocket kind of thing.”
“Well, hopefully that’s our job, to strap rockets onto everything!”
“When in doubt, lubricate.”
“See, science is fun!”
“I think that was one of the most destructive things I’ve ever done. That was cool!”
“It’s not a myth. We’re just idiots.”
“Remember, don’t try this at home. We’re what you call ‘experts’.”

This morning they were:

• Pancaking a car between two semi-trucks.
• Testing the hygiene properties of vodka.
• Launching a person into the air on compressed-air bottle rockets.
• Smashing toes inside steel-toed boots.

They’re having way too much fun. I wonder if they’re taking applications for a logistics manager?

Have you played Spore? It is a single-player online metaverse video game. It allows a player to control the evolution of a species from its beginnings as a unicellular organism, through development as an intelligent and social creature, to interstellar exploration as a spacefaring culture.

It is very addictive, both creepy and cute, and you’ll be showing off your new children to family and friends before you know it.

Disclaimer: I’ve only messed with it once. I liked it, a lot, and thought that it might be pretty addictive. The husband plays with the free creature creator quite a bit, and shows me his new creations quite regularly.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is one of my favorite movies, one of those I’ll stop to watch if I’m flipping channels and happen to come across it. I never get tired of it, and of course Newman’s performance is a big reason why. His stream of consciousness chatter – played off of Robert Redford’s Sundance’s squinty-eyed frustration (mostly at the messes the characters got into due to Newman’s Butch’s hyperactive scheming) – is classic stuff. I’d also point to The Verdict and The Color of Money as favorites of mine from Newman’s career.

The amazing success of the “Newman’s Own” products and the charities they supported were an even better reason to admire the man. I never saw Newman tooting his own horn over the success of that work of service to his fellow man. It was always handled as matter of fact and coolly as the man seemed to be himself.

Newman was a well known hater of celebrity and the hoopla of Hollywood. In spite of that, I can’t think of a greater giant of a movie star than Newman. Anything he did as an actor felt special. Ten Academy Award nominations, with a win and two honorary Oscars give testament to the respect of industry. The legacy of his charity work should draw the admiration of all.