A writer, reloaded

Blockbuster launched a unlimited 2 DVD at a time rental for 15 dollars per week upfront, a promotion the Poet and I have pursued aggressively this week. See, unlimited rentals means unlimited and allows for multiple trips per day. If one can stand piling in the car again, and mingling with the snot monsters rubbing their greasy digit all over the display cases, the only constraint is the amount of time required to watch another movie.

Such promotions work for the customer. They work overtime, in fact. At last calculation, 15 bucks divided by the the pile of DVDs rented, brings the cost per title stands to roughly 75 cents. And twenty-four hours left!

There is a drawback with the buffet pricing rental policy, though.  When tasked with renting so many movies, the amount of time spent considering any single one in the store declines–sometimes with disastrous results.

Consider this tragedy:

Tuesday, I plan to see Transformers 2 in the theaters. So I figured I’d refresh my memory by renting the first Transformers movie. And some Megan Fox gawking never hurt anyone.

Cruising through the action section, in the T’s I pick up a copy of a flick with a massive robot emerging from an explosion, titled Transformers. Or so I thought. Damn my naivete.

Only when the movie began playing did the deception unravel. In 2007, the same year Transformers was released, another movie about alien robots attacking Earth hit the market. Note the title.

Swear to God. Trans-f-ing-morphers. If it was watchable, I might have forgiven the duplicity. But no, five minutes in I wanted to claw out my eyes.

Even more horrid news. The director and writer are still alive and plan a Transmorphers 2. Bastards.

Leaving this morning for three days in Hershey and Lancaster, PA. Perhaps the hard partying Amish will throw one of these at me:

Urban Legends–an American, nay a human–guilty pleasure.

Here’s a nice debunking of 13 very popular myths.

Grasshopper has left the building. To a better place, you student of the arts. To a better place.

With the passing of another academic year, tomorrow high school seniors take their first steps into a world of wonder and promise, tinged with traces of uncertainty and a splash of danger. Recent world events have proved that no matter how much policy makers believe they understand players in the global political theater, those in charge might overlook the possibility of a third act plot deviation. Twas always this way, me thinks.

But of these soon to be former students, I can remember my high school graduation, not like it was yesterday, but rather like it was a lifetime ago. I would hardly recognize the person in the white suit jacket and tie now as myself. Pictures are not going to jog the memory, since many of the pictures from that era disappeared in a curious theft years ago.

Curious because the thief–or perhaps thieves, sometimes it takes a village–passed over framed Ansel Adams prints and jewelry settled upon a Jerry Garcia styled Build-A-Bear and my yearbooks. Maybe the pawn shop paid sentimental value. Probably not.

So who really knows what I really looked like in that fateful period. Really, it no longer matters. What matters is the day came and went, and all the experiences since that moment and most especially those to come.

There’s a pretty amazing world out there, and lots waiting for these graduates as they learn about themselves and the people they really care about: The cast of Jon and Kate and Project Runway.

And should the flames peeking through the open keyhole of their future make the doorknob to hot for handling just now, they can immerse themselves in college for the next four to seven years.

Hey, it beats working.

For Memorial Day Weekend, I co-hosted the first party ever held in the humble apartment. Perhaps the prior tenants held a bash or two, but in the nine plus years since their occupancy . . . well, that I can vouch for the absence of any such events. By party, I mean a social gathering of more than four people, none of whom are relatives.

This is one of the benefits of The Poet: she has a way of drawing the right people together in the same room. Unfortunately we both had so much fun, forgot to capture the event on film.

But the book trailer for The Last Track made its first public exhibition towards the end of the evening.

I think it went over well. We’ll see how everyone else takes to it in August . . .