Jerry Bruckheimer: So, that last one we made, the uh...
Michael Bay: The Transformers?
Bruckheimer: Yeah! The Transformer things. You know, we need this next movie to be even bigger, right?
Bay: Yeah! I was thinking that!
Bruckheimer: So you know what we're gonna do?
Bay: Yeah?
Bruckheimer: In order to top all those awesome robot fights and special effects?
Bay: Yeah? Yeah? What are we gonna do, Jerry?
Bruckheimer: Two words, bro: More. Humans.
Bay: Yeah! More...more humans?
Bruckheimer: And not just any humans! One-dimensional humans that fall into easily stereotyped categories! We'll have the bumbling government suit guy, the horny college kid computer whiz...and that's not even counting the ones we're bringing back from the other movie!
Bay: I'm...I'm sorry, Jerry, I just don't see it.
Bruckheimer: Well, you will, Mike, you will! I mean, if people thought those kids and his parents were funny before, well just wait till they see the wacky stuff they'll be doing in this movie! And none of it to do with robots! I mean, people will forget this movie has anything to do with robots at all, they'll be so busy laughing at these hijinks!
Bay: Jerry, I don't know, I think what people want is more robot fights.
Bruckheimer: I hear you, Mike, I hear you, and I like what I'm hearing. More robots. Well, I'll tell you what we're gonna have, Mike: More. Robots.
Bay: Yeah!
Bruckheimer: That's right, Mike! More robots that are all the same color and therefore difficult to distinguish from one another in the few fight scenes we're gonna have!
Bay: Wait. Jerry, did you say fewer robot fight scenes?
Bruckheimer: Oh, yeah, you heard me right, bro! What did we have, like, about one third of the last movie was robot fighting? The audience, they've seen that stuff already! It's old news, and this movie is gonna be all about moving forward. So, we're gonna have the robots on screen a lot, but they'll probably only actually be fighting for about, eh...say fifteen minutes of a two and a half hour movie?
Bay: What?
Bruckheimer: Oh, yeah. I mean, the robots are gonna be busy talking to each other, making bad puns, almost saying naughty words that we can't put into a PG-13 movie, creating gross ethnic stereotypes...
Bay: Are you kidding me? Jerry, do you not remember Jazz the black Autobot?
Bruckheimer: Remember him? Buddy, I designed him! And you know what? He might be dead, but we're gonna do him one better. We're gonna have two robots who perpetuate offensive stereotypes of the black youth in America! They're going to be vulgar, they're going to be annoying, and maybe we'll even shoehorn in a pointless reference about them being illiterate!
Bay: Why would we have something in there about robots needing to read?
Bruckheimer: So we can point out the ones that can't, Mike! I'm telling you, these two robots are going to be even better CGI creations than that Jar Jar Binks guy! People'll be watching them going, 'Wow! These guys are way wittier and more contemporary than that Jar Jar! More offensive, too!'
Bay: Well, Jerry...
Bruckheimer: Robot balls!
Bay: E...excuse me?
Bruckheimer: I was just thinking, that's what else was missing from that first one, was a big, silver pair of robot balls hanging down between the legs of one of the bad guys!
Bay: You're kidding right?
Bruckheimer: Nah, it'll be great! And they'll be big wrecking balls, like from a construction vehicle.
Bay: Gosh, Jerry, you don't think that's being too subtle?
Bruckheimer: Hmm...You're right again, Mike! We'd better have a character point them out to the audience in case they don't notice the ENORMOUS SILVER ROBO-BALLS!
Bay: Jerry, I mean this is starting to sound-
Bruckheimer: Maybe an old robot that walks with a cane...
Bay: What?
Bruckheimer: And a little robot that'll hump a girl's leg!
Bay: Okay, Jerry, that's enough!
Bruckheimer: There'll be so many robots that serve no purpose other than to be funny and not fight, it'll be the greatest-
Bay: JERRY!
Bruckhemier: ...Huh? What?
Bay: Jerry. I can't let you do this to this movie. I mean, you've gone on long enough with this. More humans? Almost no robot fighting? Robo-balls? Jerry, people care about this franchise. These are characters they've grown up with, characters they've shared with their kids, we can't just crap all over them like this! We need some integrity, we need some copy-editing, some...
Bruckheimer: Did I forget to tell you we're paying you $10 million dollars to make this movie?
Bay: ......
Bruckheimer: Michael...?
Bay: ......Robo-balls, you say?
------------------------------------------------
THE MOVIE IN FIVE WORDS OR LESS: Terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Kicking teenagers out of the store isn't my favorite part of the job, but you wouldn't know that to work with me:
In my younger days, specifically my summer-between-junior-and-senior-year days; my twelve-hours-awake-twelve-hours-asleep days; my walk-four-miles-to-my-friend's-house-to-watch-anime-until-it's-late-enough-for-all-of-us-to-go-to-Shari's-and-drink-soda-for-five-hours days, I recall a moment where a waiter friend of ours had a conundrum.
My friends and I were, as the previous sentence implies, hanging out at Shari's late at night, drinking soda and ordering food as needed. We were, to understate the situation, regulars. Nearly every weeknight, from about 9:30 PM to 2:00 AM, a group of no more than eight but no less than three of us would make the trek and hang out at the restaurant, talking about video games and movies, repeating ridiculous catch-phrases we had created for ourselves, and sarcastically discussing everything we could think of. It was exactly what we would do at our houses, but with free refills.
We had outlasted several rounds of management and waitstaff in our heyday, and at this particular time in our layabout careers we were pretty good friends with most of the employees. One particular night, a friendly, funny, completely insane waiter named Travis was helping us. He seated us, took our drink orders, and came back with a question.
'Guys,' he said, pulling up a chair to the table, 'did you see that group of teenagers by the door?'
Craning our necks out of the booth to see, we implied that, Yes, we did.
'I hate them,' he said. 'They are being rude, and they are being loud, and they are being-'
'Teenagers?' one of us offered.
'Yes! And I hate them!' He sighed. 'And I just wanted to come over here and vent really fast, so thanks.'
'Wanna get rid of them?' I asked as he turned to leave.
He spun on his heel and brought his head down to the table, 'GOD, YES.'
'What you need to do,' I told him, 'is go over to them with a box of crayons. Like the ones you give to small children so they can color their menus.'
'Crayons? Yeah?'
'Crayons. Yeah.'
'Why crayons?'
I smiled. 'Inside of five minutes, those little punks will be throwing their crayons at each other, at other patrons, and at anything that walks by their table. You'll be able to toss them for disorderly conduct.'
He gave them their crayons, and before ten minutes were up, we watched them walking out the door, swearing and glaring the whole way out.
I mention this not because I think it's a great story (though I do), but rather to show that I have, for some time, had a healthy disdain for teenagers. I don't know when it started, but I think it stems from when I was in the eighth grade and I started spending more time with my oldest sister and her friends than with people my own age. She had recently (a few years prior) graduated from high school, and so she was officially a Grown-Up, she and her friends. And the fact that they let me tag along and do things with them, and even laughed at my jokes and listened to what I had to say, made it so that I began to associate myself more with them and their general age group than with my own.
I began to look at teenagers scientifically, as subjects to be studied, rather than as my peers. There were exceptions (I did have some friends through high school), but by and large, I spent my time with people older than myself, and took on their prejudices and opinions. Specifically: Teenagers sucked.
Looking back, no matter how much I tried to distance myself from the general jackassery and solipsism of adolescence, I still succumbed to the impossibility of it all. Just like every teenager. And while my lack of self-awareness during adolescence is a wonderful subject, one that I'm only too happy to go into painful detail about, it is not the purpose of this writing.
The purpose of this writing is to say that I still can't stand 'em. I just wanted to make it clear that my distaste for teenagers started long before I worked in retail.
We had a group of about five of the little worms visit the toy department this evening, and I make no bones about the fact that when I see a group of them I enforce as many rules as possible in the hopes of driving them away from my workcenter. Call it social profiling if you like.
At first I didn't see them; just the evidence of them. Playground balls scattered through the aisles, candy wrappers on the ground, like animal droppings in the wild. Finally, a small Nerf football came flying over an aisle and one of them ran around the corner to catch it.
He saw me and stopped. I showed my lack of enthusiasm plainly on my face. When I am helping or dealing with teenagers in any way, they have already exhausted any benefit of the doubt my virtue of their age. This was clear to the young man who encountered me.
I dropped my arms to my side, raised a disdainful eyebrow at him and asked, simply, 'Really?'
'Umm...' he began, truly testing his vocabulary, 'I guess not.' He picked up the football and walked back to his friends.
I saw them more and more over the next few moments, always limiting their horseplay when they knew I was just around the corner. They seemed to have gotten the hint and so I went about my business.
Moments later, I saw them tossing giant play-balls amongst themselves, bouncing them off shelves, targeting display signs. One of them got a bullseye and a signing display came crashing down.
'You see, guys?' I yelled at them (yes, yelled), coming down the aisle to them, not caring about the other customers watching us. 'This is why we tell you not to play around in the store.' One of them began making a show of cleaning up the mess and I snapped at him to leave it. Another had been zipping through the aisles on a small scooter.
'Is that your scooter?'
'Yeah...'
'Get off it, now. Don't ride it in my store. Is that your basketball?'
'No...'
'Put it back on the shelf. Next time I have to tell you guys to stop doing anything, you're leaving the store. Got it? Stop being stupid.'
'Man, who's being stupid?'
'You guys are. Stop.'
They left minutes later, taking their brilliant futures with them.
I know...I know that someday my son will be a teenager. This is why I spend as much time as I can with him now; because I know that someday I will have to stuff him into a barrel and feed him through a hole in the side for ten years.
And I will miss him. But I know that, someday, he will understand.
Someday.
My friends and I were, as the previous sentence implies, hanging out at Shari's late at night, drinking soda and ordering food as needed. We were, to understate the situation, regulars. Nearly every weeknight, from about 9:30 PM to 2:00 AM, a group of no more than eight but no less than three of us would make the trek and hang out at the restaurant, talking about video games and movies, repeating ridiculous catch-phrases we had created for ourselves, and sarcastically discussing everything we could think of. It was exactly what we would do at our houses, but with free refills.
We had outlasted several rounds of management and waitstaff in our heyday, and at this particular time in our layabout careers we were pretty good friends with most of the employees. One particular night, a friendly, funny, completely insane waiter named Travis was helping us. He seated us, took our drink orders, and came back with a question.
'Guys,' he said, pulling up a chair to the table, 'did you see that group of teenagers by the door?'
Craning our necks out of the booth to see, we implied that, Yes, we did.
'I hate them,' he said. 'They are being rude, and they are being loud, and they are being-'
'Teenagers?' one of us offered.
'Yes! And I hate them!' He sighed. 'And I just wanted to come over here and vent really fast, so thanks.'
'Wanna get rid of them?' I asked as he turned to leave.
He spun on his heel and brought his head down to the table, 'GOD, YES.'
'What you need to do,' I told him, 'is go over to them with a box of crayons. Like the ones you give to small children so they can color their menus.'
'Crayons? Yeah?'
'Crayons. Yeah.'
'Why crayons?'
I smiled. 'Inside of five minutes, those little punks will be throwing their crayons at each other, at other patrons, and at anything that walks by their table. You'll be able to toss them for disorderly conduct.'
He gave them their crayons, and before ten minutes were up, we watched them walking out the door, swearing and glaring the whole way out.
I mention this not because I think it's a great story (though I do), but rather to show that I have, for some time, had a healthy disdain for teenagers. I don't know when it started, but I think it stems from when I was in the eighth grade and I started spending more time with my oldest sister and her friends than with people my own age. She had recently (a few years prior) graduated from high school, and so she was officially a Grown-Up, she and her friends. And the fact that they let me tag along and do things with them, and even laughed at my jokes and listened to what I had to say, made it so that I began to associate myself more with them and their general age group than with my own.
I began to look at teenagers scientifically, as subjects to be studied, rather than as my peers. There were exceptions (I did have some friends through high school), but by and large, I spent my time with people older than myself, and took on their prejudices and opinions. Specifically: Teenagers sucked.
Looking back, no matter how much I tried to distance myself from the general jackassery and solipsism of adolescence, I still succumbed to the impossibility of it all. Just like every teenager. And while my lack of self-awareness during adolescence is a wonderful subject, one that I'm only too happy to go into painful detail about, it is not the purpose of this writing.
The purpose of this writing is to say that I still can't stand 'em. I just wanted to make it clear that my distaste for teenagers started long before I worked in retail.
We had a group of about five of the little worms visit the toy department this evening, and I make no bones about the fact that when I see a group of them I enforce as many rules as possible in the hopes of driving them away from my workcenter. Call it social profiling if you like.
At first I didn't see them; just the evidence of them. Playground balls scattered through the aisles, candy wrappers on the ground, like animal droppings in the wild. Finally, a small Nerf football came flying over an aisle and one of them ran around the corner to catch it.
He saw me and stopped. I showed my lack of enthusiasm plainly on my face. When I am helping or dealing with teenagers in any way, they have already exhausted any benefit of the doubt my virtue of their age. This was clear to the young man who encountered me.
I dropped my arms to my side, raised a disdainful eyebrow at him and asked, simply, 'Really?'
'Umm...' he began, truly testing his vocabulary, 'I guess not.' He picked up the football and walked back to his friends.
I saw them more and more over the next few moments, always limiting their horseplay when they knew I was just around the corner. They seemed to have gotten the hint and so I went about my business.
Moments later, I saw them tossing giant play-balls amongst themselves, bouncing them off shelves, targeting display signs. One of them got a bullseye and a signing display came crashing down.
'You see, guys?' I yelled at them (yes, yelled), coming down the aisle to them, not caring about the other customers watching us. 'This is why we tell you not to play around in the store.' One of them began making a show of cleaning up the mess and I snapped at him to leave it. Another had been zipping through the aisles on a small scooter.
'Is that your scooter?'
'Yeah...'
'Get off it, now. Don't ride it in my store. Is that your basketball?'
'No...'
'Put it back on the shelf. Next time I have to tell you guys to stop doing anything, you're leaving the store. Got it? Stop being stupid.'
'Man, who's being stupid?'
'You guys are. Stop.'
They left minutes later, taking their brilliant futures with them.
I know...I know that someday my son will be a teenager. This is why I spend as much time as I can with him now; because I know that someday I will have to stuff him into a barrel and feed him through a hole in the side for ten years.
And I will miss him. But I know that, someday, he will understand.
Someday.
Friday, June 12, 2009
A lot of people have come into our store to crap on the floors this year:
A middle-aged woman came into our store a year ago, walking with a purpose. Her face showed intense discomfort as she approached the service desk.
'Where is your bathroom, please?' she asked quickly, her voice sinking lower by octaves.
'Just around the corner!' is what the helpful employee had been about to say, pointing in the general direction, but all that was said was, 'Just around the...' and the friendly smile turned to horror.
Abject horror.
As the woman walked away towards her destination, the intensity in her face became desperation, until she disappeared behind the door marked 'Ladies.'
Our plucky employee, eyes still stinging from opening so wide, shakily reached towards her walkie-talkie; somebody had to warn the store , she thought, and this was her hour.
Her voice quivered with fear as she pressed the talk button and, barely above a whisper, said, 'Clean up. Clean up to Guest Services. Clean up to the front entrance. Clean up to the women's restroom.'
The attendants approached with caution, because they could smell it before they saw it. As they rounded the aisles, paper towels and sanitizer bottles in hand, their fears were confirmed. From the front entrance of the store to the guest service counter and looping around to the restrooms, following the path of the woman, were several small trails and mounds of human waste.
They leaped into action. Wet floor signs sprung up as if from nowhere, sanitary gloves were donned with the skilled knowledge of a surgeon.
Backup was requested.
But not a sound came from the women's restroom. Five minutes passed. Then ten, then twenty. Employees would venture boldly inside to ask if anyone needed help. They would return, broken, speaking of the horrors that awaited those foolish enough to do the same.
After nearly half an hour, waiting and hoping, the door opened and she emerged. The swing of the door brought smells which promised chaos and death to the poor women unlucky enough to be deemed 'The Cleansers.' The woman made no eye contact, and her face was a mask; neutral, unspoken. She gathered her skirts about her and made for the door, where she disappeared into the mid-day breeze, never to be seen again.
And those men who saw her leave that day all say the same thing: That no woman had forearms that large, or legs that muscular and defined. No real woman's hair came up and showed netting and false colors beneath it, a wig of lies. No true female had an Adam's Apple so pronounced, nor a voice so deep.
Indeed, it was the sound opinion of all who bore witness to this harrowing tale that the woman who destroyed the serenity of the entry-way that fateful afternoon had not been a woman at all. She was a he. A transvestite.
A weirdo transvestite.
Weeks later, the call goes up over the walkies: Clean up to Grocery. Clean up to Pets. Clean up to Health and Beauty. Clean up to the Checklanes. Those of us who had weathered that fateful day, whose scars were still raw with rememberance, braced ourselves and responded.
It was as we had feared.
We grimaced and got to work. This was our lot in life- to clean up the hazards of retail that threatened to destroy our profits and sales forecasts; to remove the horrors not meant for our customers. Mutterings of, 'They don't pay me enough for this,' could be heard throughout the store. And those whispers and complaints were right- they did not, could not pay us enough for this.
It was a dirty job. But, as they say...
The evidence came forth minutes later when one of our cart attendants found a motorized cart in the parking lot with a pool of filth in its seat, overflowing onto the side, then the wheels, then the ground.
The tale of how it was cleaned is not one for the weak of heart, and it shall not be recounted here. But there were tears that day, gentle readers, and they were wept most bitterly.
The months passed, and while the scars were still strong, the pain of the memories faded away. Stories became legend, and our lives, somehow, went on.
Until a day, one week ago, when one of us came upon a re-sealed box, on the floor in the infant department.
Its contents were sealed from sight, but not from smell. The scent wafted through the air, telling its wretched tale to all foolish enough to wander into its domain. Many fell to this ill breeze, having neither the constitution nor the desire to defeat it. Until...
A hero arose. Walking deftly to the box, he took it quickly in his gloved hands, fearlessly opening its hideous maw.
Inside, there was a child's toilet training seat, befouled by its intended demographic. Besides the matter, however, another sight met our hero's eyes- an opened package of wipes, which had been used for its purpose as well. 'How,' he wondered, 'does a person have enough time to open this box, the wipe package, the plastic clamshell around the training seat, and fill it to the brim, but not have enough time to reach the restroom? And how do we never catch these fiends in the act?'
He knew the answers would have to wait; that there may, in fact, never be answers to these burning missives.
He moved quickly to the night manager's location, and in a voice that brooked no argument, declared, 'We need to go to the trash compactor. Now.'
They hurried to the backroom and hurled the foul thing into the depths, where it lay with its kin until the day it would be taken away forever. And he went away, seeking neither praise nor compensation. He was simply doing his job.
And so I did today, as well. I didn't seek praise or thanks for cleaning the stains we found at the front lanes. I simply grabbed some gloves, sprayed some sanitizer, said a prayer, and got to work.
I would have only come up empty-handed if I had tried for sympathy. We are retail workers.
And we've seen it all.
'Where is your bathroom, please?' she asked quickly, her voice sinking lower by octaves.
'Just around the corner!' is what the helpful employee had been about to say, pointing in the general direction, but all that was said was, 'Just around the...' and the friendly smile turned to horror.
Abject horror.
As the woman walked away towards her destination, the intensity in her face became desperation, until she disappeared behind the door marked 'Ladies.'
Our plucky employee, eyes still stinging from opening so wide, shakily reached towards her walkie-talkie; somebody had to warn the store , she thought, and this was her hour.
Her voice quivered with fear as she pressed the talk button and, barely above a whisper, said, 'Clean up. Clean up to Guest Services. Clean up to the front entrance. Clean up to the women's restroom.'
The attendants approached with caution, because they could smell it before they saw it. As they rounded the aisles, paper towels and sanitizer bottles in hand, their fears were confirmed. From the front entrance of the store to the guest service counter and looping around to the restrooms, following the path of the woman, were several small trails and mounds of human waste.
They leaped into action. Wet floor signs sprung up as if from nowhere, sanitary gloves were donned with the skilled knowledge of a surgeon.
Backup was requested.
But not a sound came from the women's restroom. Five minutes passed. Then ten, then twenty. Employees would venture boldly inside to ask if anyone needed help. They would return, broken, speaking of the horrors that awaited those foolish enough to do the same.
After nearly half an hour, waiting and hoping, the door opened and she emerged. The swing of the door brought smells which promised chaos and death to the poor women unlucky enough to be deemed 'The Cleansers.' The woman made no eye contact, and her face was a mask; neutral, unspoken. She gathered her skirts about her and made for the door, where she disappeared into the mid-day breeze, never to be seen again.
And those men who saw her leave that day all say the same thing: That no woman had forearms that large, or legs that muscular and defined. No real woman's hair came up and showed netting and false colors beneath it, a wig of lies. No true female had an Adam's Apple so pronounced, nor a voice so deep.
Indeed, it was the sound opinion of all who bore witness to this harrowing tale that the woman who destroyed the serenity of the entry-way that fateful afternoon had not been a woman at all. She was a he. A transvestite.
A weirdo transvestite.
Weeks later, the call goes up over the walkies: Clean up to Grocery. Clean up to Pets. Clean up to Health and Beauty. Clean up to the Checklanes. Those of us who had weathered that fateful day, whose scars were still raw with rememberance, braced ourselves and responded.
It was as we had feared.
We grimaced and got to work. This was our lot in life- to clean up the hazards of retail that threatened to destroy our profits and sales forecasts; to remove the horrors not meant for our customers. Mutterings of, 'They don't pay me enough for this,' could be heard throughout the store. And those whispers and complaints were right- they did not, could not pay us enough for this.
It was a dirty job. But, as they say...
The evidence came forth minutes later when one of our cart attendants found a motorized cart in the parking lot with a pool of filth in its seat, overflowing onto the side, then the wheels, then the ground.
The tale of how it was cleaned is not one for the weak of heart, and it shall not be recounted here. But there were tears that day, gentle readers, and they were wept most bitterly.
The months passed, and while the scars were still strong, the pain of the memories faded away. Stories became legend, and our lives, somehow, went on.
Until a day, one week ago, when one of us came upon a re-sealed box, on the floor in the infant department.
Its contents were sealed from sight, but not from smell. The scent wafted through the air, telling its wretched tale to all foolish enough to wander into its domain. Many fell to this ill breeze, having neither the constitution nor the desire to defeat it. Until...
A hero arose. Walking deftly to the box, he took it quickly in his gloved hands, fearlessly opening its hideous maw.
Inside, there was a child's toilet training seat, befouled by its intended demographic. Besides the matter, however, another sight met our hero's eyes- an opened package of wipes, which had been used for its purpose as well. 'How,' he wondered, 'does a person have enough time to open this box, the wipe package, the plastic clamshell around the training seat, and fill it to the brim, but not have enough time to reach the restroom? And how do we never catch these fiends in the act?'
He knew the answers would have to wait; that there may, in fact, never be answers to these burning missives.
He moved quickly to the night manager's location, and in a voice that brooked no argument, declared, 'We need to go to the trash compactor. Now.'
They hurried to the backroom and hurled the foul thing into the depths, where it lay with its kin until the day it would be taken away forever. And he went away, seeking neither praise nor compensation. He was simply doing his job.
And so I did today, as well. I didn't seek praise or thanks for cleaning the stains we found at the front lanes. I simply grabbed some gloves, sprayed some sanitizer, said a prayer, and got to work.
I would have only come up empty-handed if I had tried for sympathy. We are retail workers.
And we've seen it all.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
A conversation between two retail workers that will never, never happen:
Ricardo- Hey, I saw the parking lot was pretty full. Busy day so far?
Gus- God, yes. We're getting killed in here.
Ricardo-All right. What do you need me to start on?
Gus-Well, we've got an awful lot of product on aisle N3 that isn't out of its packaging yet. Coffee makers, blenders, toasters...
Ricardo-Wait, what? They're just sitting on the shelf? Sealed?
Gus-Yeah, I know.
Ricardo-It's, like, three in the afternoon! What have you guys been doing all day?
Gus-I told you, man, we're getting killed! People just keep looking at merchandise, using the graphics and item description on the box to determine if they want it, then putting it neatly back on the shelf when they're done!
Ricardo-Aw, man!
Gus-Tell me about it. So, over on N3, we've got all those sealed boxes, so you could probably start over there. Just rip open the boxes, and make sure you tear up the cardboard so it can't be properly resealed.
Ricardo-Okay. Do you need me to randomly lose the insructions and warranty information several aisles down from where the product normally goes?
Gus-Yeah, that would actually be really cool. I had asked Raphael to get started on that earlier, but I'm not sure where he is.
Ricardo-I saw him on the way in. He had a cart full of half-empty drinks with him, taking them around and leaving them on shelves so that people could knock them over onto merchandise and the floor.
Gus-Good. I was going to do that myself later, but if he's got that, then I can focus on chewing up these sunflower seeds, taking the soaking gob of chewed shells out of my mouth, and hiding it behind these comforters.
Ricardo-You need a hand with that?
Gus-No, I should be able to take care of it.
Ricardo-All right. Well, then I'm going to head downstairs really fast, knock some signs off of the sales merch, then put the sign back up on a similar product that's not on sale so that people can swear at us over a thirty cent price discrepancy.
Gus-Cool.
Ricardo-And then I'll get to work on N3.
Gus-Thanks, man.
Let me be clear: IF WE WANTED THIS TO HAPPEN IN OUR STORE, WE WOULD TAKE CARE OF IT OURSELVES.
Gus- God, yes. We're getting killed in here.
Ricardo-All right. What do you need me to start on?
Gus-Well, we've got an awful lot of product on aisle N3 that isn't out of its packaging yet. Coffee makers, blenders, toasters...
Ricardo-Wait, what? They're just sitting on the shelf? Sealed?
Gus-Yeah, I know.
Ricardo-It's, like, three in the afternoon! What have you guys been doing all day?
Gus-I told you, man, we're getting killed! People just keep looking at merchandise, using the graphics and item description on the box to determine if they want it, then putting it neatly back on the shelf when they're done!
Ricardo-Aw, man!
Gus-Tell me about it. So, over on N3, we've got all those sealed boxes, so you could probably start over there. Just rip open the boxes, and make sure you tear up the cardboard so it can't be properly resealed.
Ricardo-Okay. Do you need me to randomly lose the insructions and warranty information several aisles down from where the product normally goes?
Gus-Yeah, that would actually be really cool. I had asked Raphael to get started on that earlier, but I'm not sure where he is.
Ricardo-I saw him on the way in. He had a cart full of half-empty drinks with him, taking them around and leaving them on shelves so that people could knock them over onto merchandise and the floor.
Gus-Good. I was going to do that myself later, but if he's got that, then I can focus on chewing up these sunflower seeds, taking the soaking gob of chewed shells out of my mouth, and hiding it behind these comforters.
Ricardo-You need a hand with that?
Gus-No, I should be able to take care of it.
Ricardo-All right. Well, then I'm going to head downstairs really fast, knock some signs off of the sales merch, then put the sign back up on a similar product that's not on sale so that people can swear at us over a thirty cent price discrepancy.
Gus-Cool.
Ricardo-And then I'll get to work on N3.
Gus-Thanks, man.
Let me be clear: IF WE WANTED THIS TO HAPPEN IN OUR STORE, WE WOULD TAKE CARE OF IT OURSELVES.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is frequently wrong, and here's why:
'Changeling' arrived in our mailbox a few days ago, and it took me that long to work up a desire to watch it. There's something about a period piece starring Angelina Jolie as a hysterical, not-without-my-baby Mother that just screams into my ear, 'OSCAR BAIT!!!'
I tend to be biased against those kinds of movies- Benjamin Button, Atonement, Memoirs of a Geisha...each fine movies, but I can't imagine that they were a labor of love the way a movie ought to be. When I watch any of those (and dozens of others...more every year, it seems) movies, I have a hard time seeing past the sweeping scores, the exquisite costumes, the method acting, and the clear metaphor to a good movie. All I see are the already-written acceptance speeches and inevitable critical acclaim written on the DVD cover.
That's the right word, now that I think of it.
Inevitable.
Movies like that seem to tell you that you're not allowed to dislike them. 'Can't you see what a fine job these actors are doing? Didn't you look at who wrote this? It can't miss! We scientifically engineered it to be the best picture of the year!'
And all too often, it works. Crash beat Capote. Forrest Gump beat Pulp Fiction. Looking back, I wonder how many Best Picture winners really stand the test of time.
So, on that subject, we watched 'Changeling.' And about 3/4 of the way through, Mandy turned to me and asked, 'How was this movie not given more attention? Why did Slumdog even get nominated when this movie was out at the same time?'
And she's right.
We've seen four of the five 2008 nominees,
including Slumdog, and even before watching 'Changeling,' I didn't understand all the fuss. Milk was great. Benjamin Button goes on the list of movies that tried too hard. Frost/Nixon was perfect, and may still get my vote (of the nominated films) for Best Picture, 2008. Changeling was at least as good as Frost/Nixon, and still, Slumdog won.
Did the academy not watch Danny Boyle's 'Millions'? They clearly didn't, because then they would have known exactly what his best work looked like, and told him to try harder, better luck next year.
So. 'Changeling.' Good movie. Check it out.
I tend to be biased against those kinds of movies- Benjamin Button, Atonement, Memoirs of a Geisha...each fine movies, but I can't imagine that they were a labor of love the way a movie ought to be. When I watch any of those (and dozens of others...more every year, it seems) movies, I have a hard time seeing past the sweeping scores, the exquisite costumes, the method acting, and the clear metaphor to a good movie. All I see are the already-written acceptance speeches and inevitable critical acclaim written on the DVD cover.
That's the right word, now that I think of it.
Inevitable.
Movies like that seem to tell you that you're not allowed to dislike them. 'Can't you see what a fine job these actors are doing? Didn't you look at who wrote this? It can't miss! We scientifically engineered it to be the best picture of the year!'
And all too often, it works. Crash beat Capote. Forrest Gump beat Pulp Fiction. Looking back, I wonder how many Best Picture winners really stand the test of time.
So, on that subject, we watched 'Changeling.' And about 3/4 of the way through, Mandy turned to me and asked, 'How was this movie not given more attention? Why did Slumdog even get nominated when this movie was out at the same time?'
And she's right.
We've seen four of the five 2008 nominees,
including Slumdog, and even before watching 'Changeling,' I didn't understand all the fuss. Milk was great. Benjamin Button goes on the list of movies that tried too hard. Frost/Nixon was perfect, and may still get my vote (of the nominated films) for Best Picture, 2008. Changeling was at least as good as Frost/Nixon, and still, Slumdog won.
Did the academy not watch Danny Boyle's 'Millions'? They clearly didn't, because then they would have known exactly what his best work looked like, and told him to try harder, better luck next year.
So. 'Changeling.' Good movie. Check it out.
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