So, I’m taking over my shift at work. My colleague has just given his change-over briefing, and he’s getting ready to leave, when a commercial for “Pajamagrams” comes on the television. “Only one gift is guaranteed to get women to take their clothes off this Valentine’s day,” the announcer intones.
Now, I already know that the next line will be, “A Pajamagram!” However, the makers of this commercial have thoughtfully left a nice anticipatory silence between the two sentences. Of course, anyone having watched a movie with me since my MST3K infatuation in college knows not to leave such pauses in the dialogue when I’m around. Before the announcer can gleefully inform us that it is a “Pajamagram” which will entice the clothing off of our significant others, I lean over confidentially and announce my own idea about what gift is guaranteed to get women out of their clothes.
“Money,” I say.

Invariably, the Pajamagrams commercial is followed by a spot for Vermont Teddy Bears. The VTB spot apparently takes place in an office whose steno pool consists exclusively of between-jobs porn stars. One of these… ahem… “buxom young ladies” receives a Vermont Teddy Bear from her boyfriend, delivered at work. The dialogue begins in true porn-wannabe fashion:
“It’s so much bigger than I expected!” offers one girl.
“Oh, I could just kiss it and kiss it,” says another.
“I can’t wait to give him my surprise,” finishes the first.
At this point, I look over at my friend and ask him, “Now, do you know what was given to those girls to make them say all of those sexy things?”
He opens his mouth to say ‘no,’ then closes it and thinks. “Money?” he asks.
“Money,” I confirm.

Okay, the real name of the movie is Private Valentine: Blonde and Dangerous. Yes, I watched a chick flick. I figure, at this juncture in my life, am I really doing anything that requires me to keep my testosterone up? NO.

Anyway, there are (believe it or not) some technical errors with the film. In fact, most of the “Army Basic Training” is actually taken from Marine Corps Boot Camp. Rather than give an exhaustive list (after all, it isn’t supposed to be a documentary of Army life), I’m just going to mention two that really need it.

1) Two of the characters–including the main character–wind up hooking up with their drill sergeants after training. I think that this is a VERY bad message to send the young women who might watch this movie.

2) At one point, Private Valentine’s company commander denies her request to be released from training because she is “property of the U. S. Army.” I cannot begin to describe how angry I get every time I hear this nonsense. YOU CANNOT OWN PEOPLE IN THE UNITED STATES. Military personnel are contracted employees.

That having been said, this movie came as close to giving the U.S. military a fair shake as you’re probably likely to see from most of Hollywood. The characters were intelligent and dedicated, and most were there out of a sincere sense of duty or a desire to improve themselves. Brava, Ms. Simpson!

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On another note, February 10th is the release date of W. It’s a fallacious piece of crap made by a pretentious, America-hating piece of crap. Don’t buy it, don’t rent it, don’t put it in your Netflix queue.

Recently, I made an original quote on MySpace which seems to have generated a lot of initial reaction:

“I consider myself to be pro-choice; that is, I support the rights of the baby to grow up and make his own choices.”

Several people have said that they will use this quote, and I’ve asked them to refer to this URL so that anyone who feels like commenting on it may do so here.

Well, I suppose that I’ve waited long enough for my friends to see if they want to.

Gran Torino is a BRILLIANT movie, and I’ll tell you why: not simply because Eastwood’s character dies, but because of the way he dies.

You see, in the standard hippie mentality, individual effort is meaningless. Think about horror movies: either a group survives together, because they all did essentially the same thing, or everybody dies, because the monster is insurmountable. If someone sacrifices themselves for the group, it’s just an incidental crazy man like Randy Quaid’s character in Independance Day. And he wasn’t sacrificing himself for the group; he was more out for revenge.

Clint Eastwood’s character makes a moral decision to sacrifice his own life for his friends. This is something that I don’t EVER recall seeing from Hollywood, and the movie is absolutely brave and brilliant for it. Of course, it is being snubbed at the awards shows, because Hollywood has liberal movies like Milk and Frost/Nixon to drool over.

Hopefully, with the success of movies like this (as well as Dark Knight, 300, and An American Carol) we are witnessing a Renaissance of conservative cinema.

Until now, SED’s have always been a burden to my schedule. We are starting a projected 3-day SED today, and I’m going to use it to fix my sleep schedule so that I’m getting up at 0800 and can get to Church again.

There is always possibility in adversity…