January 20, 2002
I was in the movie theater today to see "Black Hawk Down". I'd been
looking forward to seeing it for quite a while, and I wasn't disappointed. It
was a really fast-paced, chaotic film, yet enjoyable to watch... but it
wasn't as good as the book, in my opinion. (In the beginning, one of the American
characters misuses the word 'genocide', which is always very irritating
to see... I could go-on for an hour about my opinions on misuse of the
word genocide.) Anyways, there's this one bad-ass Habr Gidr militia guy in Ray-Bans
whom you see at several key turning-points in the film. He was the closest thing
there was to a villian, but (as always) he looked much cooler than any
of the heroes. When you first saw him, he was standing on the back of an armed
pickup truck with a bullhorn. He gives the order for the truck's machine-gunner
to mow-down a crowd of civilians clustered at a Red Cross food-distribution center,
shouting over the bullhorn "This food is now the property of Mohammed Farah
Aidid!". The instant I laid eyes on him I knew he had "Bad Mutha"
written on his undershirt. Or the Somali equivalent of the phrase. At one point,
when he's rallying the troops to ambush U.S. forces, he brandishes an AK submachine
gun over his head; in that scene, you can tell he's about to kick some serious
ass. Mentally, I was rooting "go, Mogadishu! Go!" Oh, I'm naturally
not celebrating the death of American soldiers in the line of duty, I'm just saying
the movie portrayal of this particular villian made him look cool.
One disappointment:
the goofy-looking guy who played Stuttering Airman in "Pearl Harbor"
played Hard-of-Hearing Soldier in this film. I hope he's not getting type-cast
as comic relief. And some highly relevant things were mentioned in the
book but not in the movie: such as the missteps that eventually made Mogadishu
residents hostile to the U.N. and that many of the Somali militia were hopped-up
on a narcotic called khat half the time.
Anyways, one of the previews before "Black Hawk Down" started was for "40
Days and 40 Nights". It's a romantic comedy about a guy who accepts a bet
to give-up any and all sexual contact for 40 days, including masturbation. So,
naturally, this becomes a sensational deal. People start placing bets on him...
posting updates on him on the I-net, and basically making a huge spectacle of
it. And, his female friends and co-workers found-out- so they predictably began
to put-on all sorts of sexy shenanigans to lead him into temptation. I was sitting
there, watching this trailer, thinking "what's the big deal?? At any randomly-chosen
point in my life, I haven't had sex in months!"
Seriously. I don't
get it. How much sex should I be having? When a guy goes forty days without
sex, it's somehow a huge deal? I mean, if I were to publicly tell all and sundry
that I was going 40 days without sex or masturbation, half of them would say "too
much information" and the other half would say "kudos and huzzah to
you, my tasteless friend" and that would be the end of it. They wouldn't
place bets or make web-sites about me. And certainly no women would attempt
to lead me astray in the meantime with sexy shenanigans. Women don't care enough
about me to do that. There's no way in hell a celibate guy could attract that
much attention.
Hey, howabout this? Starting today, I'm going 40 days without sex OR masturbation and let's see how many women come-on to me? I'm gonna tell ALL my friends and co-workers about me doing this to advertise the fact as obnoxiously as possible. I'm 100% serious about this. No sexual contact until March 2nd. Remember to return in 40 days and see what happens... Oh, and whatever you do ladies, don't try any sexy shenanigans like emailing me nude pictures of yourselves by clicking here. Especially don't do it if you have pert, shapely breasts- I'd simply hate to be tempted into masturbating. Results will be posted March 2, 2002!