dork peppermint patties

Current Mood: ig-nor-a-moose
Current Music: "Still Loving You" by Scorpions

Jenny and I are very pleased with our current subscription to Netflix. We've essentially exhausted my personal movie collection, so it has allowed us to start chewing through some of the movies we've missed, or even classics that one of us has not seen. Also, it's a lot cheaper (~$20.00 a month) than two $8.50 tickets and $7.00 in popcorn and drinks for a single movie theatre experience.

Recently, we watched Superman Returns. Similar to Batman Begins, I'd not seen any of the previous franchise films (which I'm told is generally a good thing). Most people seem to think that SR was an effects show and not much else, I thought it was pretty entertaining. Perhaps I did get a little irritated by the casual bending of physics, but hey- it's a superhero movie! My favorite superhero movie to date is probably The Punisher.

At any rate, it's not giving away plot to tell you that the setup involves Superman returning to earth after a five year hiatus (he travels to his destroyed home world). The entire movie, then, I was imagining the five year gap being troublesome and annoying to the Man of Steel. Something like this...


Superman couldn't get Lois Lane out of his mind. Engaged?! She was the one woman who made him feel connected to the fallible humans he'd sworn to protect with truth, justice, and the American way. Even worse, he didn't understand why his computer kept freezing up. How was he supposed to maintain his disguise as mild-mannered Clark Kent when this unfamiliar Vista system kept crashing? Even his x-ray vision revealed no problems, and he was toying with the idea of showing the hard drive the business end of his laser vision when suddenly - like a freight train - he felt the urge of citizens miles away from Metropolis needing his help. He stood up, adjusted his glasses, and sprinted for the door, narrowly missing Mr. White.

Out on the busy city streets, Clark quickly scanned the nearby sidewalks. With his super hearing, he knew dozens of helpless hardworking men and women were near death as their building threatened to collapse. He looked around again. The familiar phone booth on the corner of Main and Central Avenues was gone, as was the booth at the intersection of 5th and Washington. He ran to the other side of the courtyard and saw that even the old booth on the corner of Main and Burrard St. was missing!

"Clark!" cried out Jimmy Olsen. "What's wrong?"

"Jimmy, where are all the phone booths?" Superman asked, impatiently.

"Well, you see, Mr. Kent, you've been gone for a while. The past few years have seen a marked growth in the telecommunications industry, while miniaturization and more efficient manufacturing has led to the proliferation of affordable cellular phones that are now nearly ubiquitous."

"I see." said Superman, quietly.

"Furthermore, competition has spread between the major media conglomerates, such that consolidation has become the norm and large networks are being formed, competing for the business of the masses. Verizon, Vonage, AT&T, Cingular, Sprint, T-Mobile, GSM, Nextel, Virgin Mobile, Alltel, U.S. Cellular and -"

"Jimmy! Look over there!" Superman interrupted.

Frustrated, Superman used the momentary distraction to simply take off from the sidewalk, pedestrian observers be damned. He quickly flew several states away and used his super strength to hold up the side of the crumbling office building while the employees were safely evacuated, and then rocketed back to Metropolis, back to his office to change, and then quickly rejoined Jimmy in mid-conversation.

"and you can even use Skype or other freeware programs to set up a VOIP network on your computer to make free telephone calls over the internet! You see Clark, nobody uses land lines anymore except for emergency systems. The last telephone booth was removed from Metropolis several years ago. Why do you ask? And...where are your glasses?"