Mild movie disgruntlement.

Rented a few movies to watch this weekend, as I mentioned in the post about Iron Monkey. Iron Monkey, of course, kicked MUCH ASS. Both literally and figuratively. I haven't bought it yet, but that's because I'm going to FKO this weekend and want to rein in my spending before I go. Might buy it in Canada - a surprising number of my souvenirs are things that I could have gotten at home, but are nonetheless special because of where I bought them. Anyway, Iron Monkey was cool, and something about it - probably quite a few somethings - is gonna show up in VicMage.Asia, I just haven't decided what yet.

The other movies this weekend, though... the other movies did not fare so well. The first was Rush Hour. This movie did not make me happy. Chris Tucker was moderately annoying, but given his performance in The Fifth Element, he was positively sedate. I could've dealt with that, I suppose, but he was only the symptom of a larger problem, namely: the American bits weren't entertaining. At all. At least not to me. I've never been a big fan of the genre whose movies can be summed up like this:

Roguish Cop: Oo! A case! And it is hard!
Authorities: Bad cop. You can't have the case.
RC: Screw you, I'm doing it anyway.
Authorities: *splutter* Bad! We'll fire you!
RC: Look, I have solved the case.
Authorities: ...

Every time - every single time - Americans appeared on screen, that genre of cop flick came crashing down on the movie and sent whatever enjoyment I had screeching to a halt. I've watched parts of Beverly Hills Cop, although not all of it, and I enjoyed that; that was because I was in awe of Eddie Murphy. The little I saw of Axel Foley convinced me fairly quickly he belonged in the pantheon of modern American tricksters, alongside Ferris Bueller (whom my high school Forensics team prayed to as the God of Liars when we needed particular eloquence at a match) and Wile E. Coyote. Chris Tucker's character seemed to be trying very hard to be like him, but it didn't work for me. Too shrill, not enough style, too many bugged-out eyes, I don't know. The American cops and FBI all seemed to be badly drawn caricatures, too, and entirely too arbitrary to be believable. I could've dealt with them a bit better if I had any kind of sense that they were acting like real or even semi-real cops, rather than People Set Up For Chris Tucker To Prove Wrong. Nothing there at all.

Jackie Chan, on the other hand, felt weirdly restrained. I mean, sure, he had that neat escape sequence when Chris Tucker was driving him around the city after picking him up at the airport, but for the most part Jackie seemed entirely too serious to be his usual self. I don't know what it was. By the time the movie was an hour along, I was so unnerved by the lack of enjoyment I was experiencing that I tried fast forwarding to the fight scenes. It wasn't worth it. Maybe if Tom Wilkinson's part had been written a bit better, or if they'd come up with a way to train HIM for the hand-to-hand scenes. That would have been cool. I still look at him and think 'that's the one cadhla says is a boggan in The Full Monty', so the idea of him having to fight Jackie Chan is just inherently amusing. Sadly, though, this did not happen. I gave up before the final fight scene and wished I'd just bought Iron Monkey already.

The other movie I rented this weekend that did not make me as happy as I had thought was Mulan. I've seen this one before. I enjoyed it in the theatres. I'm not sure what happened since then... probably it has something to do with my rampaging case of Sinophilia running head-on into Disney stuff that I remembered fondly, combined with the 'oooo' factor I had experienced when watching Great Conquest: The Romance Of The Three Kingdoms, another animated epic of ancient China. The Disney flick was much more stylized and much more clearly targeted at a young American audience, rather than at adults or even older teenagers. I tend to feel kids can handle much, much more than people give them credit for, so Mooshu and the cricket alike grated on my nerves this time, as did several other things. The songs weren't even all that great, although I really liked them the first time. I mean, it's a good movie... it just wasn't a spectacular movie. I dunno. I would've felt better if I'd rented it at Dollar Video instead of Blockbuster, I guess.

I will admit that the visual design of the Huns gave me some ideas for VicMage.Asia. Tibet's not a nice place, in that world. And I really did like the use of rocket weapons, that's always a nice historical touch. And I just plain like the look of Chinese armor, so the rendition of the soldiers in battle gear was cool - and much simpler than the stuff that made my arm drop off when I drew it for my web page. (Then again, that was ceremonial or parade wear, not battle gear.) Ah, well.

Today's pulp survival tip is #9: If you're headed for your goal and encounter a room where the floor is alive with snakes, bugs, or any other kind of crawling creature, give real consideration to finding an alternative route. You might still have to cross the bugs - but you'll probably have to make a fast escape and you'll be much happier if you don't need to worry about running away from bugs or snakes as well as people and/or the Supernatural Menace.

Okay, that's just freaky.

Co-worker came up to me wailing that her neck hurt. Apparently she'd turned her head and WHAMMO - much pain, much stiffness. Normally my instinct would be to wonder why someone was telling me this, as I'm not a nurse or whatever, but I've been studying shiatsu and acupressure-type stuff off and on since I was eight years old and first read about reflexology massage. Anyway, I started working a bit on her neck, mostly with thumbs and pressure points. It helped a little, but damn, the entire muscle that ran from the back or her neck to the shoulder blade was like a rock. One of the deltoids, I think, it wasn't the trapezius...

Gave her a packet of raspberry leaf tea and told her to steep it for 10 min. as it always helped when my lower back started seizing up. (My body is apparently not sufficiently entertained by standard-issue monthly cramps, and believes that the nerve impulses need to be rerouted to my lower back instead.) The freaky part was that my brain was very busily compiling a list of things that needed doing, including finding a better variety of tea for this (something nice and relaxing for preference), the use of alternating warm and cold gel packs, and, er, acupuncture needles. Anti-inflammatory painkillers were briefly considered but instantly tossed aside - I'm not sure why. Those are for use with headaches, or chronic pain in a joint that's in the process of healing from an injury that causes the inflammation. This? This just roared up out of nowhere. I'm almost sure there could've been some kind of move that involved twisting/stretching/pushing, too, but I know no chiropractic, only the basic pressure points... Thing is, I haven't even properly studied acupuncture. I've got two textbooks on it, I just haven't read them yet. I just saw what probably would have worked. I ought to check that out when I get home, see if the image was anything like correct.

grrr.

I swore back in September that I would never make fun of accountants as long as I lived, because the stuff my Red Cross chapter was doing to make absolutely sure that everyone who gave money got properly thanked for it - and that the money went where the donors wanted it to go - was absolutely mind-boggling. How people can keep so many records so accurately and not go insane is beyond me. I just had to input it all to our fundraising software and tie out with the accounting office every afternoon, making sure that stuff for the WTC went to National and stuff for the fire in our home chapter went to local disaster funding and stuff for the fundraiser gala was credited to that, etc...

But I am about ready to SLAUGHTER our new chief accountant. Sir, exactly what part of 'Gift Type: Pay-Cash', as opposed to 'Gift Type: Cash' or 'Gift Type: Pledge' did you not understand? You're the chief accountant! You're supposed to know that when it says 'pay-cash' - which only ever shows up on pledge payments in the forms that I give you - it means 'do not count this towards the total amount given by this donor, because they already received credit for the pledge'. You're also supposed to know that yes, it looks like the donor retroactively decided to make that money into a pledge payment after the fact, because that is what we discussed the last three times you came into my office with that donor's documentation in your hand, and what I discussed the last eight times our CFO came in. You know? The CFO? The one who actually knows the system? The one who made sure a month ago that my accounts reconciled with yours and matched properly and came out accurately, whom you really should've asked about this donor's account in the first place?

You've been in my mini office three, possibly four, times today to repeatedly ask questions about the fundraising software that I'm reasonably sure I answered the first time. How hard is it to understand that you have $27,000 listed for a specific donor, while my accounts only show $5,000, $5,000, $5,000, $5,000, and $2,000 given for the past year, and that this does not add up to $27,000? Hello? Which part of 'I do not know where you got your total, but it has nothing to do with the numbers I entered' did you not understand?

AAARGH!

Someone go get the CFO and have her explain it to him. I'm in no mood to talk to the chief accountant right now. And I know he's probably going to complain about my being short-tempered with him, even though I tried to stomp it before it got anywhere, but he's asked the same questions every time he's brought this account before me, and this time he tried to justify himself by saying 'remember, I don't know the fundraising software'. What is there to know? The column says 'pay-cash' or 'cash', and 'pay-cash' has only ever appeared on pledge payments before! What's so hard about reading that column before looking at the column with the gift amounts in it? Aargh!

(pant pant)

Okay. Sorry. I'll be good now. Gotta go breathe quietly for a while. sorry.

Oh yeah - if anyone's interested, I bought a CD at lunch that looked more impressive than it turned out to be. It's up for sale at eBay. This is it.