Does it get much better than this?
It's cold outside - you can smell fireplaces throughout the neighborhood; someone's burning piņon pine and you can't help but channel Santa Fe - and damp. But it's cozy inside: a warm computer on my lap, a hot cup of tea (Kousmichoff Smoky Earl Grey, the best in the world) by my side, and a really bad movie on TV ("Boa," one of those terrible "original Sci-Fi Channel Productions"; this one's about a huge snake that lives in... Antarctica?).
Boy, wouldn't you think one could blog up a storm in those conditions?
Maybe I'm too comfortable.
Saaaay, let me ask you a question. Have you seen "Matrix: Revolutions" yet? (If not, skip this part...spoilers are just ahead.)
If you have, I have another couple of questions for you. First, you know that scene where Trinity ("Trin," to those of us who know her really well), Morpheus and Seraph are in a Mexican standoff with the gang at that fun and wacky Merovingian's hangout? You know the scene...the one where about 80 people are standing around holding firearms pointed at one another's head, and Trinity's heat is focused on Mero's forehead. She's deadly serious about blowing him away; you can cut the tension with a knife. It's a hair-trigger situation. You can't stir the cliches with a stick. But that's beside the point. Trin delivers her ultimatum, Mero is squirming like the French weasel he is and it's now or never. And then...and then...she pulls back the hammer on her pistol! If it had been me, that little detail would already have been attended to. (Never mind that that particular little action is unnecessary anyway.)
OK, that's a pretty minor thing, but they made a big deal out of it in the movie. It just bugged me.
Then there's those great hulking wearable weapons (APUs?) that were prominently featured in the Zion battle scenes. They were wonders of hydraulics and mechanical joints and questionable gyroscopic stability. I loved 'em, even if they were derivative of the loading 'bot used by Ripley to off the queen in the climax of "Aliens." But, with all the engineering expertise that was obviously brought to bear in the design, why did it require a forklift to reload them with ammo? At the very least, if you had to have another guy run a wheelbarrow full of ammo out to the APU, couldn't you have designed the ammo chamber so that it was at waist-level? If there's one thing that I can't tolerate, it's poor usability and accessibility in my battle machines.
Well, I've enjoyed this little chat, but I need to close with a rare, but legitimate rant. 77-0. That's the damage done to A&M's football program by OU this afternoon. I don't usually waste time (or pixels) on Aggie football, but I gotta tell you... 77-0 (and it was really worse than the score indicates, based on what I've read) is the sign of a poorly-prepared, poorly-coached team that has given up and is coasting, however painfully, to the end off the season. Sure, OU is ranked #1 and undefeated this year...just like they were last year when A&M beat them. Sure, the revenge factor was strong, and sure, OU is probably a better team than they were last year. But, still. This is just pitiful. Three first downs, none in the second half. Never crossed their own 40 yard line. 54 yards of total offense. 12 punts. Franchione had better reassess where his team is and where it's going, and figure out something else.
Let's do this again sometime, shall we? I'll bring the tea.
A&M's offense could at least move the ball last year once they promoted Kevin Sumlin to offensive coordinator.
Sumlin wasn't retained by Coach "Scurry Out Of Alabama Under Cover Of Darkness" Fran, of course.
But he was hired by Bob Stoops, whose strength at assembling a coaching staff is rarely mentioned. And I would say he's been a good addition to Coach Long's offensive staff at OU.
But hey, the Aggies rid themselves of Ol' R.C., right? And that was really important to them for some reason. I hope 77-0 has them feeling good about Coach Fran and the way they handled it all.
Posted by: kevin whited at November 9, 2003 11:16 AMBack to the matrix, You know what bugged me. I think it was in two when they had that scene where they jumped off the bridge (Trinity and the keymaker), onto the truck which just happened to be carrying ducatti motorcycles? Well when they were driving they could have left the police cars easily (I mean in second gear they can go 100). So why did they let them catch up???
Posted by: Rachel at November 9, 2003 03:57 PMKevin, I was embarrassed by the way A&M handled the R.C. affair, although I didn't disagree that the football program needed some changes. As far as the OU game being a "wake-up call" for Franophiles, I really don't think anyone's going to hammer him until he's playing with a couple of his own recruiting classes. But the Big Ags will expect some payback to OU (and to Tech and to Nebraska and to UT [looking ahead to that impending fiasco]), and... bless his heart... Coach Fran better figure out how to satisfy 'em. I for one am not holding my breath.
Posted by: Eric at November 9, 2003 05:51 PMRachel, I'm with you on this one. In fact, I've never figured out why moviemakers ever expect us to believe the scenario in which an automobile driver is "terrorized" by someone on a motorcycle. Even a Geo Metro is more than a match for the quickest bike on a narrow road; one gentle nudge and the cyclist is roadkill.
And, like you point out, there's not a police car on the road that can catch a big-bore bike with a lead.
But, you've got to give Matrix:Rel credit for one thing: its choice in motorcycles. That Ducati is one sweet ride!
Posted by: Eric at November 9, 2003 05:55 PMWell, This OU/Aggie game proves simply that Coach Fran "lost" the team. The team was faithful to R.C., no matter how you break it down, his removal as head coach hurt them. Coach Fran comes in, after one of the most dis-honerable departures from a major football program in the modern era. These A&M players saw that Coach Fran never even told the Alabama players "goodbye." No, the A&M players likely don't trust this coach.
If that wasn't bad enough for the Aggie players, they were forced to watch as their Defensive Co-ordinator *pined* for the open Alabama head coaching job. A great defensive coordinator who was supposed to be coming with their new head-coach only took the A&M job because he couldn't get a head coaching job right then? How do these players feel knowing that not only their head-coach hasn't been at any school for more than three years? How do they feel that their Defensive Coordinator is looking for a head coaching position elsewhere?
Not that these things will happen, but the players feel that it really could happen. The players don't trust Fran. They don't trust Torbush. They are lackluster, and are going to remain that way until Fran gets his own players in or they get a trustworthy coaching staff.
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It needed to be talked about and gotten off your chest. 77-0 is an embarrassing defeat, even for the worse team that ever was. One day I expect to see the Bengals in that position. It would serve them right. They haven't been right since Kenny Anderson retired.
I too am a stickler for believability in my movie farces. So far, the Matrix series has left me sucking my thumb and touching my eyelashes with my index finger all the while holding my blanky with the other hand.
Posted by: Clarence at November 9, 2003 05:11 AM