At the Movies: The Last Airbender

The Last Airbender movie is an appalling adaptation of the animated TV series.

There was no character development, and the audience was shown what happened without any explanation why and sometimes even how. Just this is what happens next, nothing behind what the characters might have been thinking or feeling, which in the TV series is the main factor behind their decisions.

But besides the complete lack of character development, there was also so much more missing from the movie.

I understand that the creators only had a couple of hours to squeeze the entire book into. But that's just another reason why the movie shouldn't have been made ... or they should've split the book into two movies like Warner Bros have done with the last Harry Potter book. Maybe then there would've actually been some character development as well as other important things that were in the TV series but not in the movie, like the Kyoshi Warriors.

If they do decide to make the second book of The Last Airbender, it's going to be almost impossible for them to introduce the Kyoshi Warriors, which is going to ruin the future Last Airbender movies.

They also really should've included Aang's trip to the Crescent Island to visit Avatar Roku's temple ... oh, wait, that whole trip falls under character development. Never mind that then.

But the characters in The Last Airbender were mere shadows of their TV series counterparts. Zuko just comes across as extremely bipolar. Sokka is just weird and not at all funny (they didn't seem to realize he's the comic relief). And Katara is even more useless than Cat Woman in the sixties Batman movies (Cat Woman at least managed to pose a genuine threat to Batman at times). In the TV series Katara is a powerful Waterbender and almost kills her North Pole Water master when she tries to prove that she's worthy of learning Waterbending from him (yet another important thing the movie completey skipped).

Only Aang seems to keep his character from the TV series, although in the movie he's not as happy go lucky as he is in the TV series. They didn't quite catch his irrepressible trickster (yip yip!) nature. But still, Noah Ringer did an amazing job as Aang.

In total, The Last Airbender was completely lacking as a movie. It's a complete waste of two hours, and hopefully it won't have its two sequels.

The Cat is Really an Alien Spy

Sometimes I really have to wonder if Shego (pictured left) really is a cat. She

does some very uncat like things most of the time, like playing in water. Not to mention her intense curiosity about everything.

And I mean everything.

I know that cat's are curious critters (curiosity killed the cat, after all). But Shego's curiosity seems to go way beyond normal cat curiosity.

Then there's her obssession with pushing things off the edge of things just to see what will happen to them when they land. Seriously, she just watches them fall, and seems to get a thrill when they break upon landing. What kind of cat does that?

But this leads to the question if Shego's not a cat, then what is she?

There's a whole host of possibilities as to what she could be. But I think she's an alien spy, sent to Earth to learn our ways.

I can hear you muttering that I'm jumping to conclusions. But I've watched the cat closely and it all seems to fit;

I've never seen a cat get so much enjoyment watching things break.

And then there's the TV watching factor.

Watching TV isn't all that weird for cats, I know. I've had cats that have watched TV in the past, and my current cat sometimes watches TV. But the difference between those cats and Shego is that they would watch just about anything if there was enough movement on screen. Shego is different. She only pays attention to the TV when I'm watching the news or documentaries (and sometimes even when I'm using Wii Fit to work out). She looks as though she's trying to learn as much about us and the planet as she can.

That is very suspicious. And definitely screams alien spy.

I mean, she was a real cat when we got her as a kitten. But while she was still growing, she was taken and replaced with an alien in her body, which explains her small stature.

But now she's nothing more than an alien spy in a cats body. It's the perfect disguise for alien spies!

Valentines Day and the Diabolical Plan to Get Rid of Single People.

Listening to the radio and the special Valentines Day ads today, I didn't really think anything of the ad for the cheap burgers at the Bended Elbow today.

At least not straight away.

But it did eventually dawn on me that there is absolute nothing romantic about going to the pub for a cheap meal of burgers.

Who the hell would be wooed by that?

Don't get me wrong, the Bended Elbow is a nice enough place, with good food. But it's a place you go for a meal when you want to get absolutely shit faced that night. It's not a romantic place to go to eat. Especially not with cheap burgers.

So who the hell would be wooed by a cheap meal of burgers at the Bended Elbow?

The answer no one would.

At least no one who is going on a romantic Valentines date tonight. That ad was aimed at all of the sad, lonely, single people.

The Bended Elbow clearly wants to get any sad, lonely single person foolish enough to venture out in public today off the street, so that the happy, shiney couples aren't confronted with this ugly reality.

It's pure brilliance!

Everyone knows that sad, lonely single people (and they're the only kind of single person) always want to eat to ease the pain of their suffering. And everyone also knows that burgers make a pretty decent comfort meal (as a sad, lonely single person, I can confirm this). Add a pub background to this comfort meal, and the sad lonely single people are likely to drink to help ease their pain. So making the burgers cheap tonight is the icing on the cake! It means that the sad, lonely single people have more money to spend on alcohol.

So all of the happy, shiney couples get to enjoy a romantic night untarnished by sad, lonely single people, while the Bended Elbow makes a massive profit from the same sad, lonely single people. And the sad, lonely single people get to drink themselves into forgetfulness and possibly make themselves less sad, lonely and single.

It was almost the perfect plan.

But I cottoned on to them, and now that I know about it, I feel that I have to go out and ruin it.

Won't be too hard to do. I just have to get dressed up in my best sad, lonely single person outfit, and wander around the swankiest restaurant and/or cinema with a massive tub of ice cream. My tracky-dacks even have some of last night's meal spilled on them (yes, I'm a bit of a grot when I eat. But I'm a sad, lonely single person, so leave me alone). So I just need to spill some food on my t-shirt and I'm set.

I just hope that Cupid doesn't send his minions after me for ruining Valentines Day for so many shiney, happy couples.

At the Movies: Burlesque

For a movie with so much potential, Burlesque was an uninspired disappointment.

Maybe if Lindsay Lohan had starred in it as originally planned, it might have been somewhat successful. All of the singing probably wouldn't have been done by just one star alone.

The plot of Burlesque wasn't even all that original - I'm going to spoil it here, so if you don't want it spoiled, stop reading now! - A small town girl leaves said small town for the big city. Small town girl can't find a job in the big city. Small town girl finds a strip bar where she desperately wants to work at. Small town girl begs for a performing job, but ends up getting a waiting job. Small town girl gets robbed of all of her money. Small town girl gets a chance to prove herself and ends up performing. Strip bar where small town girl now performs finds itself in some sort of trouble. Small town girl, through the power of song, saves the strip bar. Everyone lives happily ever after.

Sound familar?

It should.

Burlesque is just a musical rip off of Coyote Ugly (I'm sure some people needed to be told that). But what's worse, is that Burlesque doesn't even have any memorable songs. All that can be remembered of the songs is that Christina Aguilera belted out all of the songs with that amazing voice of hers, and for something different, Cher sang the two songs Aguilera didn't.

It was actually really disappointing to see all of the wasted talent. The makers of Burlesque didn't make any use of the amazing voices of Alan Cumming (although don't get me started on the confusion surrounding his role) and Kristen Bell. No use was even made of Diana Agron.

If there was any singing to be done, it all fell to Christina Aguilera and occassionally Cher. And if Aguilera's voice wasn't enough to carry Burlesque, then there was the massive list of stars to fall back on. Besides Agron, Bell and Cumming, Eric Dane and Cam Gigandet also starred alongside Aguilera and Cher.

The makers of Burlesque clearly weren't relying upon any kind of originality when they made the film.

But like I said earlier, the film could've been saved if Lindsay Lohan had've starred instead of Aguilera. For one thing, the singing probably would've been shared equally among the stars (and maybe Bell and Dane would've gotten themselves a villian song). And what's more, everyone knows that only Lohan can save anything with the power of song; a school talent show through to her mother's second wedding has been saved through the power of Lohan singing a song.

Burlesque is definitely not a film I want to see again. I'd be more than happy to forget what little of the film I do remember. Next time I want to watch a film like this, I'll just stick with Coyote Ugly.

The Mystery of the Escaping Dogs

So our dogs have an amazing Houdini like ability to escape from the back yard.

Sure, parts of the fence are dodgy and easy for anything smaller than a cow to get through. But that stretch of the fence has been completely sectioned off from them, and the rest of the fence has been lined with bricks so that they can't dig under it.

That worked.

Kind of.

It at least stopped them getting out during the day.

Except now they get at at night. Only at night.

It's because that they were only getting out at night that at first we were inclined to believe that some local neighbourhood shits were letting them out through the gate. Probably just for laughs (losers).

So naturally, we chained and locked the gates so that this wouldn't happen anymore.

It didn't help.

As soon as it got dark, the dogs were magically out of the yard.

The others were still inclined to blame the local neighbourhood shits ... after a couple more extensive searches of the backyard to locate any holes that may have been missed the first few times around (there weren't any).

So the local neighbourhood shits were the likely culprit.

However, I don't believe it's them.

There's another explanation. And it's much more likely than the local neighbourhood shits looking for laughs.

It has to be Horry.

I should probably explain who Horry is for this to make sense.

Horry is the ghost that haunts our house. He has been haunting our house since Halloween 2009. Apparently we pissed him off when we went to the cemetary and tried doing a seonce (his grave was one of a few just chosen at random). To encourage him to show himself to us, we offered him some punch (I don't really blame him for getting pissed at us; it was horrible punch). When that didn't work, we gave him some more punch to try and appease him for disturbing his rest.

It didn't work, and now we have Horry's angry spirit haunting us.

And it would seem that he gets his kicks by letting the dogs out of the yard at night. Maybe he's hoping that they'll get hit by a car or something.

But it's the only thing that really explains how the dogs are only getting out when it's dark.

I'm not really a great ghost buff, but I'm pretty certain that ghosts are stronger at night, which makes sense, since it probably requires a bit of effort to magically (or ghostically) move them from one side of the fence to the other. Horry probably can't do that sort of thing during the day. Plus, it might give his little game away if he does it during the day and gets spotted.

And if it was local neighbourhood shits letting the dogs out, they would probably unchain the dogs and then run. Or at least leave the gate open and/or just starting taunting the dogs in some way or form.

Horry, however, doesn't do anything (as far as I can tell) to the dogs while they're tied up ... although it might explain why Back-up sometimes starts carrying on for no reason at night.

The Locked Up Back Part of Our Garage

So the last time I tried having images in this thing, it backfired and didn't work. Let's hope things go differently this time around.

But we finally decided to have a look inside the back part of the garage. It's been locked up tight since the boys moved in. I don't actually know why we haven't busted our way in for a peak.

Maybe waiting for permission from the landlord/real estate agents ... we're polite that way.

Well, we finally got that permission from the new landlord over the weekend.

So in we went this arvo.

As you can probably see, it's full of shit from when the house was renovated. I don't actually know why there's so many doors, windows and toilet bowls in there. Not to mention so many cans of white paint.

But whatever.

That's what we found, and we scavanged the best stuff we could find to do repairs and the like. And also to do up the garage so that we can sit and drink in there instead of the house.

I Do Not Wish to Alarm You, But ...

I believe that our old childhood fears of the monster under the bed may have been correct.

Yes, I know. Scary isn't it?

But I sense that you don't believe me and want some proof.

Well, unbelievers, I'm watching one of the cats. She's in front of my bedroom door and is really spooked by something in there (and I know it's not some burgular, because I've been home all day).

She keeps getting up, trying to work up the nerve to go in there, but then crouches back down again, trying to hide herself from whatever's in there.

I can hear some of you saying that it could just be one of the other cats spooking her.

It's not another cat! The rest are out in the lounge room with me.

How about another monster, I hear you ask.

That's a reasonable question, because there's quite a few monsters that haunt bedrooms ... actually there's only two; the one under the bed and the one in the wardrobe.

My wardrobe is closed tight, and if it was that monster spooking the cat, then she'd be in my bedroom acting all weird and spooked.

It has to be the monster under my bed.

And if you unbelieverswant further proof, then the cat in question just nerved herself up and went into my bedroom a couple of seconds ago. She jumped about a mile in the air and bolted from my bedroom when she reached my bed.

Proof that the monster under the bed does in fact exist.

Although, I don't know why I'm happy about this.

How am I going to reach my bed without the monster under it getting me? I don't actually trust the frame enough to do a running jump (the only way to avoid getting caught by the monster under the bed).

This is a bit of a dilemma.

A Second Trip to the Shops

Before I get started, I'd like to point out that, yes, I do inedeed live a wild life. Going to the shops twice on the same day. Pretty wild stuff.

But I assure you, the wildness ends there. I'm not going back to the shops for a third time today. That would just be crazy.

The trip the second time round was so much more boring than the first. I put that down to the not having my iPod with me. I never realized how much I relied upon it to keep me entertained while I wait for the bus.

Although not having the iPod with me did give me a chance to notice the almost complete lack of old people. I guess I answered my earlier question. They only venture forth from their houses in the morning, when all the dangerous young people are still at home asleep ... also maybe the heat drove them back to their houses as well. I can't be sure.

I probably wouldn't have noticed this if I had've been plugged into my iPod. I tend to zone out while I'm listening to it.

And the shops were just as busy this afternoon as they were this morning. But the afternoon crowds were just young families and bored teens, counting down the days until the can return to school (little known fact about teens; they do actually enjoy school. No matter how much they say otherwise).

I had plenty of time to notice all this while I waited half an hour for the bus.

I had been hoping to catch an earlier bus than the one I ended up getting, since I only really went out to pay that damn phone bill (which was cheaper than I had thought it was. Don't know how that happened). But then I had to return to Coles for the choc mint ice cream that I have been hanging out for since Saturday (curse my desire for choc mint ice cream!). I also had to get kitty litter. But the kitty litter was an after thought, really.

Although I was relieved not to cross paths with that crazy old man again. That wouldn't have been cool.

But then maybe he would've provided me with some amusement while I waited.

A Trip to the Shops

I was always under the impression that Thursday mornings was the time of the old people. The one time of the week when they all come out en mass, and roam the streets with impunity, staying in the safety of their homes the rest of the time.

But apparently the morning of (the supposed) pension payment day isn't the only time they swarm around the shops and the bank.

Maybe it's a morning thing for them (I'm usually still in bed until late morning or early afternoon). Maybe they also come out on Wednesday mornings as well as pension day mornings.

Who knows.

It's just one of life's little mysteries, I guess.

But, back to the point;

There were a lot of old people out and about today while I was out. They were clogging up lines wherever I went ... which was admittedly only the bank and then Coles.

Old people everywhere!

And worse!

Long lines! The bane of my life after crowds (which I don't need to say are always full of stupid, stupid people).

But there was worse to come.

Oh yes, it got worse. Unbelievable as that sounds.

When I was leaving Coles, I happened across a crazy old man in the doorway. I know he was crazy because he was just standing there talking to himself (and there was a definite lack of an ear piece or phone). But not only was he crazy, but he also seemed to have eyes in the back of his head; he constantly walked where I went as I tried getting past him. He even made sure to walk in front of me all the way to the bus stop.

Thankfully he stopped his bizarre pursuit of me there. But that's probably because I went no further than the bus stop.

After that, I was alarmed, though not surprised, to see more oldies on the bus. But none of them seemed crazy nor in possession of something mystical like eyes in the back of their heads.

But then, I really wasn't paying attention by that point. I had plugged myself into my iPod and had zoned out.

And now I'm safe and sound back at home ... until I venture out again, because I forgot to buy kitty litter while I was out, and I still have a phone bill that I should probably pay.

I Haven't Written for Awhile

Well, as the title clearly states, I haven't written anything for awhile now. And it's actually really bumming me out that I haven't.

So the whole point of this entry is to look at why I haven't written anything.

Although, I don't know why I chose to write it right now, since it's meant to be some kind of stream of consciousness thingy, with all of my attention on this. That's not going to happen, because I'm keeping an eye on the time so that come 5pm I can turn the TV on and watch Avatar: The Last Air Bender (I'm not sure if it's meant to be Air Bender or Airbender, but whatever). And then after that I'll be enjoying some all new iCarly.

So clearly, my attention isn't really going to be 100% on this blog.

But back to the point;

Why I haven't written anything for such a long time;

Ah, well, laziness, I guess.

I just haven't been bothered to actually get around to writing anything. I mean, I'll turn on my computer with the intention of actually writing about something, but I never do. I just procrastinate until I finally come to terms with the fact that I have no intention whatsoever of writing anything.

And yet, I always promise myself that nect time I'll actually write something ... I don't know why I do that. It seems like a complete waste of time and effort on my behalf.

But I think another reason why I haven't written anything for such a long time is because I just haven't had anything to write about.

Again, this ties into the whole laziness reason.

I blame the sudden heat on this though. Because it's been so cold, and then suddenly we're facing temperatures in the high 30's or low 40's, it's a bit of a shock to the old system. Even for somebody who doesn't mind the heat. All I've done on these last few hot days is just sit in the darkened house trying to stay cool and watching TV.

I guess I could sit here and try to think up a whole lot more reasons why I haven't written anything for so long, but it all probably ties back to the whole leaziness thing.

I mean, I could totally use the fact that I'm completely broke as a reason. But not having money doesn't stop me from going out for a walk and observing the world and the idiots who inhabit it.

So I think I'm going to end this post now. I'm happy with the reason I've come up with ... well, I'm not happy that I'm so lazy. But I'm happy that I have found out why I haven't been doing anything constructive lately. And if i just keep on continuing trying to find reasons, then I'll just be in denial about the whole laziness thing.

So not looking for anymore excuses.

Although is laziness really an excuse?

Has saying "I was too lazy to do that," ever worked and gotten people out of trouble for not doing something like homework?

I seriously doubt that it has.

Teacher; Why haven't you done your homework, Jimmy?
Jimmy: I was too lazy.
Teacher; Well, that's alright then. No detention for you, Jimmy.

Ok!

Stopping that now. I've clearly had too much coffee and need to get out of the house. But I have established that laziness isn't an excuse. It's a reason.

And on that note, I'm leaving now.

With five minutes to spare until Avatar; The Last Air Bender starts!