I Don't Know What I'm Going to Write About Yet -- I'll Probably Put a Real-ish Title on the End of This Though--Summer (of love?) and Movies, and Zero

Ah!

Spring!

That time of year when a young man's fancy turns to love.

Or so Hobbes said to Calvin once.

He was probably quoting something else, but whatever.

That was the first place I saw the phrase.

But that's not what we're talking about.

No, no.

We're talking about Summer.

Why?

Because I said so. And I write the blogs.

*sigh*

So what happens this summer? Well, two things. Well... much more than two things happen (trillions upon countless trillions of things happen, depending on how you count moments and happenings). But, as it were, two things of actual import that we shall discuss happen this summer.

One, Madagascar 3 comes out. (I haven't heard for sure, but I'm willing to bet you can see it in 3D if you want.) Two, Prometheus comes out... on the same day, no less.

June 8^th's most compelling movies...

What IS this newfangled fascination with good movies? What happened to the good old days when Hollywood could push out any sh*t they wanted to, and we'd leap to see it, literally screaming "TAKE MY MONEY!!!"???





I'm secretly hoping my little flying man will become the meme for "Take my Money!"

Okay, so we're still in that era, aren't we? Need I mention Avatar? (I know, I know, many of you loved it... but, really, it was awful. It was--no joke--the only movie I've ever walked out on. It was that stupid. I spent the last ninety minutes or so in the arcade wasting money and waiting for my friends to give up on the movie. Actually, "arcade" is a bit of an over-statement. The theatre I was at was so small it just had a few games set up in the main lobby. I did buy a drink while I was out there though, so, win, I guess. My friends briefly wondered if I had died in the bathroom.
Madagascar 3 and Prometheus are just two exceptions to the bad-movie rule. (Or, so I'm hoping. Technically I haven't seen them yet. But, judging from their previews, and the past work in their respective series, and the past work of their respective creators...the odds are ever in my favor.) That last line was a Hunger Games reference, in case you're a plebeian and didn't get it.

Speaking of The Hunger Games, I still haven't seen the movie. I loved, Loved, LOVED the books, but my sisters said the movie was an awkward shadow of a ghost of the glory of the books. Which got me to thinking: Do ghosts cast shadows? Deep, I know.

But... do they?

Anyway, the below is rehashed from a Facebook note I wrote once. I think it's worth repeating myself to flesh out the rest of this blog.

I read that certain cultures in the ancient world (in fact MOST cultures in the ancient world) did not know about zero. This idea intrigued me. I began to think about it: how does someone not know about nothing?

Imagine this:

Bob: "Hey, Frank! Long time no see! How's life?"
Frank: "Howdy, Bob! It has been a long time. Life's good."
Bob: "What you been doing since we last met?"
Frank: "Well, I got married."
Bob: "You? Married? How many kids do you have?"
Frank: "Uh..."
Bob: "Come on, how many?"
Frank: "I don't know."
Bob: "You don't know?"
Frank: "I mean I can't say."
Bob: "Why not?"
Frank: "I don't know."
Bob: "Frank, can you count?"
Frank: "Yes! I love to count! I'm the countin' master!"
Bob: "Then count your children."
Frank: "I can't."
Bob: "Why?"
Frank: "I don't know."
Bob: "You don't know how many kids you have?"
Frank: "No."
Bob: "You don't know how to count?"
Frank: "Yes I do! Watch... 1, 2, 3..."
Bob: "Okay. I believe you. Now do you know how many kids you have?"
Frank: "Sorta."
Bob: "You 'sorta' know how many kids you have?"
Frank: "Well, yeah."
Bob: "Try counting them? Please?"
Frank: "It doesn't work like that."
Bob: "Frank... Something's wrong with you."

Or this:

Bob: "Hi, Frank. Goin' fishin'?"
Frank: "Yup. Haven't started yet though."
Will: "Hey, Frankie! How many fish you caught?"
Frank: "One!"
Bob: "I thought you said you haven't started yet."
Frank: "I haven't."
Will: "Then how many fish have you caught?"
Frank: "One."
Bob: "How did you catch a fish before you started?"
Frank: "Don't be silly. You can't catch fish before you start fishing!"
Will: "You said you had one."
Frank: "That's as low as I can count." :(

Okay, for all you literalist historians and/or mathematicians out there (you know who you are, you're the one getting all ready to correct my misunderstanding of the differences between nothing and the mathematical concept of zero) let me say this: I freaking Know!

Booyah! Don't have an answer to that, do ya?

It's called comedy.

Learn to laugh.

And I thought I was bad... Sheesh!

Anywho... Ciao!

(Go do some evil!)

~Rafe

In which I Run with Scissors to Save Behemoth from Shorts

Did the title pique your interest? (I almost put "peak your interest" which, I suppose, could have made sense if I was asking if the heighth of your interest was reached when reading the title of this post. But I wasn't... so that would have been wrong.)

Where was I?

Oh yeah!

I was running with scissors to save Behemoth from shorts.

But I'm not there yet... First I have to explain something.

Behemoth and I are brothers. He's the cool one.

Behemoth, aka "the cool one."

In fact, if I may be honest, sometimes I hate am annoyed by Behemoth. He's my "little" brother, he's supposed to be LITTLER than me... not three times my size.

How am I supposed to teach my brother anything if I can't beat him up when he makes a mistake?

Answer: I don't. I stay the hell out of his way, is what I do.

But, we're friends. Despite my never being able to teach him anything via the route of physical abuse, we have been endeared to each other in many ways.

One of the events that resulted in our close, brotherly kinship that neither of us is quite willing to call "love" I will endeavor to relate to you here.

It is an episode of our mutual lives that I like to call:

In which I Run with Scissors to Save Behemoth from Shorts

But you knew that already.

Well, you should know that, despite Behemoth being the "cool" one, as youngsters neither of us kept up with the most recent fashion trends. Actually, whenever possible, we would use last year's clothes!!!!

Okay, yeah, I still do that.

So what?

I'mma geek, I can if I want. -_-

Moving on... One spring day we were hauling out last summer's clothes to see what still fit and what was garbajo. (That's pronounced Garr-Bay-Hoe... my word for "garbage" ... and it has nothing to do with Jorge Garbajosa, who I didn't even know existed until I did a google on "garbajo" to make sure it wasn't slang for something horrible like baby-panda-slapping or anything like that that has no place in my blog.)

It wasn't long before Behemoth found himself by a tub of clothes, looking for anything he could salvage.

Behemoth and the Clothes, happy together in the living room.

As he dug through the box/tub thingamajig, he found a pair of shorts.

"I remember these!" He said, "I wore these every day last summer!"

The saddest part about his exclamation is that (at that time he was VERY young) he may very well have wore them every single day last summer. :\ Either that or the fact that he was surprised he remembered a garment from a mere nine months ago. How bad WAS his memory?

Sorry... I'm digressing again...

The important thing is that Behemoth found his shorts.

He danced off to the bathroom to try them on, and see if they still fit.

Okay, I lie. He didn't "dance" off to the bathroom. Even then he was too cool to "dance off to the bathroom."

I think it's one of the immutable laws of nature that no one can simultaneously be cool and "dance off to the bathroom." Though, one can be a geek and "skip to their loo," which I do on a fairly frequent basis.

Anyway. I continued searching for good clothes.

Wow! I LOVE these things!

After a decent amount of time, I forgot about Behemoth, and didn't realize that he had never come back from the bathroom.

Non-returnance (it's a neology, run with it) from the bathroom bodes only for evil.

Shortly thereafter I heard a small voice from the direction of the lavatory.

"Rafe... hey, Rafe!"

"Yeah?" I answered.

"You remember those shorts?"

"Yeah."

"Well..." He paused. He gulped, "Well, I got them On."

I blinked a couple of times.

"You don't know how sorry I am for you right now."

Talk about TIGHTY whities... only the shorts weren't white... but you get the idea.

"Rafe, can you get me scissors or something, I just gotta get these off."

"Yes! I shall assist ye, my too big little brother!"

I darted off. I got scissors. I darted back.

Remarkably, Jamaal was there.

"Um, Rafe... what are you doing?" She asked.

"I'm running with scissors to save behemoth from his shorts!" I shouted.

"What?" She took a sip of her soda.


*Sigh* I sighed. I quickly explained the horrible situation in which Behemoth had found himself.


"Okay," She looked concerned, "Just make sure he's careful what he cuts..."


"Oh, yeah..."

I think we suddenly shared a mutual horrible thought.

Our horrible thought.

Thankfully, for everyone involved, he did NOT cut anything important.

The shorts became garbajo, Behemoth became a big, cool, deep-voiced man, and all the girls love him. (I'm actually kind of jealous...)

Anywho... that's... that.

Go do some evil!

Ciao!

~Rafe