Hellboy, Sandman and the fate of the world rests on what is growing in my fridge.

I finally got around to watching Hellboy II: The Golden Army on a cheap, Chinese DVD. I started watching, but the subtitles threw in random, inappropriate words and phrases. Something about having sex and brushing teeth seemed to be a theme.

My Father said that it was one of the worst movies that he’d ever seen. The reviews at the time seemed to be favorable, though. Maybe Dad doesn’t appreciate the fine art of action movies.

No, it was pretty horrible. And it wasn’t just the subtitles. It was largely predictable and clichéd. Some reviewers felt that the movie had some kind of depth because the antagonist mythical figure kept telling Hellboy that the humans think that Hellboy is a freak. That theme was done in the Batman and Spiderman series – and better. Hellboy’s treatment is weak and formulaic at best.

The Golden Army was supposed to be “seven times seventy soldiers”. When they showed the whole army, it was thousands strong. Yah, I know they’re just CGI anyway, but can’t a computer count to 490?

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I’m still impressed with Neil Gaiman’s graphic novel series Sandman. The 8th book reminded me of 1001 Arabian Nights, because it was full of tale-within-a-tale-within-a-tale stuff. When you’re into it about 4 levels deep, you’re like “Who is telling this story now?” But just go with it, and eventually you come outside somewhere.

I’m also quite impressed that the series never settles down into a formula. It’s constantly surprising me. Sometimes it focuses on the Sandman himself, but most of the time, he is only a tangential player in the series that bears his name. There is almost never a protagonist who fights an antagonist, so the story path is never predictable.

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Even though few if any real conservatives really liked McCain, they can not stand the thought of Obama. So the only real solution would be to have some kind of place marker in the Oval Office, like “Be back in 4 years, thank you for your patience.”

Obama has tripled the number of troops in Afghanistan since he took the oath of office. Obviously, that makes him a weakling in the eyes of the world. It also makes him three times stronger than the Bush-Cheney administration. Now he’s guilty of the high crime and treasonous charge of Directing Troops while Democrat.

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The best place in domestic US for wind farming is an almost barren square of land in south east Wyoming. It’s about 100 miles north of Denver. Cheap land, lots of wind and no neighbors. That’s a score waiting to happen.

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One reason that there’s such a hangup about electric cars is that you can’t recharge a car in five minutes. Yes, that’s a problem, but there’s several ways around it. My thoughts are that you could develop many small batteries that burn out one by one. That way, you go to the recharge station and you exchange your burnt out batteries with full ones. If you start with 100 cells, and burn out 20, you wouldn’t have to replace all 100, you could remove the burnt ones or just some of the burned ones if you don’t have enough money. You’d need interchangeable batteries and some readout on each to show that it’s live rather than burned. We’d need government regulation and corporate leadership, so you know my idea will never work.

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With a degree of trepidation, I volunteered to clean out the refrigerator at work. I sent an email to the department to confront any future complaints. I veered off course at times. Example:

Complaint: You should have saved my nice Tupperware.
Response: Throughout human history, there is a long and heartbreaking littany of senseless destruction. When Alexander burned the sacred Pharsi city of Sousa in 330 BC, countless, irreplaceable treasures were lost. When the Goths sacked Rome in 409 AD, again, valuable historic artifacts were obliterated. And, in 1532, Spanish conquistadors melted down the gold artwork of the entire Incan civilization. Your Tupperware, I am sad to say, is but an unfortunate addition to this tragic list.

This is actually the short version of the story I was prepared to give. I was going to include a diatribe that depicted their non-biodegradable molded HDPE container as a relic that shall outlive even the great technological culture that spawned it. One million years from now, it will still not only survive, but also contain the remnants of your long forgotten lunch within its confines. By then, the lunch has mutated into a lethal strain of flesh eating germs. Suddenly unleashed, they digest all multi-cellular life on Earth. A billion years later, a new sentient race evolves and traces its ancestral roots back to your Tupperware. The vessel is then held aloft as the sacred Cradle of Life. Know now, dear Tupperware holder, that you personally may be long forgotten and gone, but take great comfort in knowing that your prized possession will sit in a vaunted seat of prominence atop the highest of pillars in the heart of a sparkling (albeit non-human) city, with a golden statue of your smudged fingerprint. This is the ultimate triumph that only through today’s hellacious sacrifice could be made possible.

But I didn’t channel my inner Kurt Vonnegut or Douglas Adams, and I sent a relatively more benign missive. I did get one compliment, a note that her husband was also a history buff. But I also got a whole lot of “What the hell?”

So how sucky does one’s job have to be where the highlight of my day is that I cleaned out the departmental refrigerator? Yah, about this sucky.

At least I got thanks from one or two people instead of pure hatred from everyone as when I cleaned up at my job in 2001. If you ever have a surreal nightmare about the worst place you have worked, it wouldn’t match the freakish actuality that is Kentucky State University accounting department.
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So I’m down to the last few hours of the second season of “24” and I’ll be gosh darned if the bad guy didn’t just kill his female second in command. They introduced her and killed her in the same episode. The evil guy says “I’ve got to go. Come here and give me a hug.” Then he knifes her. Career advice – if you work for a boss that tried to nuke Los Angeles, be suspicious of a warm and fuzzy hug, especially a hug that lasts five minutes.