You're all sadistic bastards. Or at least the ten of you that voted for "ghost hotel with a Ouija Board" in last week's poll are sadistic bastards. That one came in at number one so sometime in the next few weeks I'll be spending the night at the allegedly haunted White Eagle Saloon and Hotel in NE Portland. I'll be taking a camera but the $8 board game that will enable me to communicate with the place's ghosts? Fat chance, especially after reading the "Criticism of Ouija Boards" section on Wikipedia. Plus, I'm too cheap and lazy to go down to Toys 'R Us to buy one. Sure, the boards are supposedly fueled by the involuntary movements of players' hands but I'm not taking any chances. I don't need any spirits, demons, spooks or leprechauns following me back to my place. Everyone knows they're always late with rent, never do the dishes and rarely, if ever, obey the "sock rule." Check back here in a few weeks for a write-up.
The administrators at My Space never responded to my email. I guess I can continue pretending to be 99 years old without fear of having my profile deleted. Or maybe I should switch it to 96 to really throw them off. Regardless, it's an empty victory. If they had taken the bait, I might have wound up on Dateline, as reader "Rip Tatermen" predicted a two weeks ago.
Has anyone out there been to Ken's Artisan Pizza? It's a fairly new place on the east side. I'm not really interested in artisan-style pizza but I hear its building is constructed out of century-old timber and pieces from a long-gone Jantzen Beach roller coaster. Sounds neat.
I caught last night's debut episode of 30 Rock, Tina Fey's answer to Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. One of these shows plays like a banal episode of ER meets Saturday Night Live, the other is funny. One of these shows thinks it's incredibly daring for criticizing broadcast TV (*yawn*), the other is more interested in jokes about strippers and cats. One of these shows is actually entertaining, the other one sucks and stars Matthew Perry. I'm sticking with the comedy version of the concept with the stripper gags, Alec Baldwin and entourage members that wear Trailblazer jackets in the middle of Manhattan.
The Departed is a great movie until the final 30 seconds. The "shocker" ending drags the whole thing down a few pegs. If you're a Netflix subscriber I would recommend Infernal Affairs, the movie this one is based on. It does a better job of playing up the moral ambiguity. Plus, Infernal's ending is perfect.
