Revenge of the Nerd

First and foremost, I’m friggin’ pissed.  Some jackass thinks it is going to be a brilliant idea to remake Revenge of the Nerds.  Um, no.  Why mess with a classic?  Oh, wait….there aren’t any classics left to mess with.  I forgot.  What’s next?  Vacation starring Eugene Levy as Clark Griswold?  (though Eugene Levy was in the original….).  Or perhaps they could do Casablanca with The Rock playing Bogey’s role.  Yeah, that’d be grand.  Maybe I should shut up, though.  I’m probably giving some desperate mother fucker actual ideas as I play around.  Seriously, though…  a movie like Revenge of the Nerds should be left alone.  It’s just as funny now as it was in 1984.  The vast, vast majority of the jokes in that movie are timeless.  They don’t rely un pop-culture references.  That’s the problem with comedies today….they rely too much on current events to be funny.  In twenty years, most of this crap won’t be funny anymore because no one will remember what the joke actually meant.  But you take something like Vacation, Fletch, Ghostbusters, or Revenge of the Nerds and it remains just as funny twenty-plus years later.  The jokes are in the smarts of the dialogue.  No cheap laughs (though that’s arguable, obviously), just inspired lunacy.  I’ll take 37, "Ogre, you asshole," gags over a single, "I see dead people," parody any day of my life.  The standards are just too lowbrow for comedy anymore.  Not all around, but in general.  Smarter jokes get lost in the ever-enduring dumbing down of United Statesian society.  ::sigh::  But I know I’m fighting a losing battle here.  I just can’t help but keep fighting.  Fucking movie industry……………you bring me so much, yet spit all over my soul all at the same time.

I heard a question twice today that I’ve probably heard at least a thousand and a half times in my life…..if not more.  The question:  "Why don’t you get contacts?"  I swear to my copy of UHF that I get this at least once a month, even still.  But there are so many answers to this question.  First of all, I have to be up front and say that, yes, I have tried to go with contacts a couple of times.  They’re just horribly uncomfortable.  My eyes are ultra-sensitive to the touch, so I can constantly feel them in my eyes, and it makes me want to scratch them out.  So the odds of me ever actually getting and keeping contacts are pretty much nil.  Aside from that, though, there are other reasons.  First and foremost, my glasses are a part of me.  They help to define me….to set me apart.  Without them, I’d just be some other big dude with a shaved head.  My glasses help me to retain not only my individuality, but also my inherent nerdiness.  Because, let’s face it, I am absolutely a nerd.  And I don’t say it to insult myself or to poke fun…..I’m merely stating a fact.  There’s such a stigma attached to the word "nerd" (thanks in part to the movie I just got done defending), but it is not necessarily a horrible thing to be a nerd.    Or maybe that’s just me defending myself.  Whatever.  Anyway.  Other reasons for wearing glasses.  A large part of it is also vanity.  I think I look much better in glasses than without them.  My nose is kind of long, and the glasses help hide that.  Nevermind that I just generally look better with them, in my opinion………which is the only one that matters.  I guess what I’m saying is that, without my glasses, I’m just not Dave.  It’s been nearly fifteen years since I got ’em (which was the last time I remember crying, by the way….just thought I’d throw that in there).  I was terrified back then because I thought everyone would make fun of me.  I wish I could go back and tell Li’l Dave that it was all fine and dandy, and to be happy with them, because they’re only going to improve you.

Not to mention I can’t see shit without these things.  Four eyes are better than two!

Now Playing in Dave’s Mental Jukebox:  "Taste My Skin" by Anna Tsuchiya, "Revolution Deathsquad" by DragonForce (these dudes are so fucking awesome it’s not even funny), and "Boiler" by Limp Bizkit (had to dig into the mp3 archives for this one)

There was a serious scheduling scare at work today.  For a period of about an hour, it was really looking like I was going to get my hours cut all the way down to thirteen.  As in 1…..3……13.   I was so fucking pissed off that it wasn’t even funny.  I went to the store manager and laid out my case:  "I do a full time job and a part time job on only part time hours, after replacing someone who worked 40 hours a week, and now I get this?"  He professed to have not known I was only getting 13, and vowed I’d get to keep at least my normal 29.  Now it’s going to be time to do a little ass-raping for hours.  This is the kind of thing that can just flat out piss me off.  So look for me to be closer to 40 than 29 next week, written warnings be damned.

Then again, I haven’t done much of shit at work in two days.  Maybe they should cut my hours just to motivate me.  Which, of course, would just motivate me right out the fucking door.  What’s that you say?  Shit creek?  No paddle?  Yep.  That’s where they’d be without someone knowing how to do my job.  Like I always say:  job security.  Love it.

Even though I didn’t like it when I saw it in the theater, I bought Underworld:  Evolution today.  It was only $14, and I’m a collector freak, and I want to give it another chance, and so on and so forth.  Say of me what you will.  I mean, I’m probably going to buy UltraViolet when it comes out, too, and that was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.  I’m still (foolishly) holding out hope that the director’s cut will be good.  Sue me.

This is utterly unimportant, but it’s something I had to divulge to Dewayne at work the other day as he continued to read my story.  The secret is the source of all the character names.  Darin is named after Los Angeles Angels CF/1B Darin Erstad.  Ayme is named after a boss character in Baten Kaitos (I just love the alternative spelling of it….I find it cool for some reason).  Slade is named after Slade (a.k.a. Deathstroke the Terminator) from Teen Titans the cartoon and DC Comics fame.  Rena is named after Rena Lanford from Star Ocean 2</span>.  Ayme’s parents, the Karlins, are named after Chief Karlin in Fletch ("So that’s Karlin with a ‘K’?").  Ayme’s dad’s first name, David, is obviously named for me………just because I’m a vain bastard like that.  Like I said…..utterly unimportant, but I like showing off my level of nerdery and thieving.  So many places I borrow from, too.  Oh, well.  Like the my Collection of Writings diary’s title says:  Creativity is Theft.

And speaking of theft, I think it’s time for me to go steal some Kool-Aid from my fridge and watch a movie (oh, choices, choices).  What a bad, horrible segue that was.  Ah, well.  At least I don’t get paid to come up with horrible stuff like that.  In shame, I shall make my way to the exit…..

Sayonara.