Okay, did y'all just hate the Matthau or what? Because I haven't heard a fucking peep today and I spent two nights busting my ass writing it. (Er, I mean, traveling back in time for it.)

The only person who remotely commented on it was my brother, who has a DNA-connection to it and is thus doomed by genetics to be tickled by the premise.

God. Man. I'm hypersensitive today. I'm at work, still, and I could just eat somebody's throat right now. Like just take the little white sporks in the lunchroom and use them as makeshift knife/fork-tools and chow down on that shit. GROWL. Stay away, white coats. I'm hungry for esophagus.

What is wrong with me? I'm a total whiny bitch this week. What if Margaret Cho does a google and sees me talking shit about her? Why am I not at the park having a picnic right now? Why am I not being prescribed happy pills?

I think this is what being 28 feels like. Just a fucking crazy vortex of ... WHIGGGAWOO! I really wish I'd gotten all that angst out of my system when I was 23, like a normal person.

Lots to read today, including a brand-spanking new journal entry (this IS still a journal site, right?) featuring time travel and Walter Matthau.

Also, here's the full review I did of The Secret Lives of Dentists, which should give anyone considering marriage or dentistry pause, and a short review of Tron 2.0 (which deals neither with marriage nor dentists).

Happy reading!

Yes, I said Margaret Cho is the dumbest person on the planet earlier. That doesn't mean she's not funny. In fact, the dumbness probably contributes to the funny.

She is not very smart, though.

But because she's a comedian and not a NASA engineer, things have turned out nicely for her. Life works out that way sometimes.

I just got back from more dental work (hey, I only had to pay a $50 deductible total for all these visits. Maybe my insurance plan doesn't suck after all), so not only am I late with these, I'm also numb about the upper lip. Have you ever tried eating a mini chicken sandwich from a snack machine and Diet Dr. Pepper with a numb upper lip? The sandwich, the numbness, all of it, is wrong on several levels. Nevertheless:

Ali G Indahouse: They completely snuck up on us with this movie, which sucks because there are about three or four people on staff, including me, who would have loved to review it. The British reviews make it sound awfully raunchy, which is not a bad thing -- but considering I skipped Johnny English earlier this summer, it seems wrong to go see this when in my own small way, I dissed Rowan Atkinson. Maybe they'll rush this to HBO the way they're rushing it like a laxative through theaters.

Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star: Once upon a time, I really liked David Spade. He was great in the undeservedly poo-poohed The Emperor's New Clothes, but after that, he just fell off my moviegoing radar. (Along with most of the rest of America, it seems.) The trailers for this movie make it look awfully tame, which is a shame because I think people like Spade best when he's in rampaging asshole mode. Which reminds me: Why isn't there a big summer movie about a rampaging asshole? It could be called Ass Hole and the sequels could have cute lettering like, "AH2," and "AH(3) (The Ass Hole, Re-Pooped)"

Herod's Law: It's time for me to feel guilty again for missing an Important Film From Mexico and not knowing a damn thing about what the politics surrounding the film mean. Guilt guilt guilt. I'm a sucky Latino.

The Order: This movie was originally called The Sin Eater, which is a much better title. This new title could be about a busy restaurant during a lunch rush, or a military chain of command, or somebody paying for a sweater at the Land's End Web site. It's about Catholocism and a renegade priest? That shit plays great in Mexico, but here? You end up with Heath Ledger. Sorry director Brian Helgeland. Good luck getting that L.A. Confidential sequel going. Oh, Shannyn Sassofrass is in it, too. Did y'all know she appeared (really briefly) a few times on Mr. Show? It doesn't sound like the Mr. Show folks are all that fond of her either.

The Secret Lives of Dentists: I'll post a link to the review I wrote as soon as it's posted, but for now all you need to know is that it's depressing and Campbell Scott is in it. But Campbell Scott is really good. So it's kind of a mixed blessing of a movie.

Step Into Liquid: If I was going to watch a surfing movie, it sure wouldn't be one with a bunch of dudes surfing instead of cute girls like in Blue Crush. Not that I've seen Blue Crush, but this is a personal guideline I'm going to test out for as long as surfing movies continue to be made.

DVDs: Plowing through the commentary tracks on the Mr. Show: Season Three DVDs, which just aren't as funny as the last set. Saw Weird Science and Animal House, which were both pretty great, and looking foward to starting in on the entire first season of Alias, which my friend Amy has been houding me to watch since the first season actually aired. God, I watch too much TV.

The ceiling had a skylight and we were staring through it, at a patch of sky that was clear and dark, its stars unblanched by city lights.

I didn't understand the real world, not then (not that I do now, really), but it was a subject still fascinating to me. What was it like out there, working, living, being completely on your own?

"Do you ever feel the forces of life just crushing on you? Like, you're completely untethered and paralyzed at the same time, just hanging in the air, with a million directions and no place to go?"

She yawned and pulled her arm from under my neck where it was prone to fall asleep before she did at night. "That's just life, baby," she said, as if the answer was more than obvious.

I thought about that and stared at space. I had more questions, but her deep breaths had slowed and she'd gone away in sleep.

Liquor and I were close once.

We danced. We sang. We vomited together.

Where are you, liquor? Was I harsh in pushing you aside for the sober, responsible life? Did I neglect you, even though you sat patiently in my dining room, surrounded by all your like-minded buddies on the baker's rack?

I drink you a little and you beat me senseless with little provocation. Can't we be friends again? What did you say? You want to be lovers? No. Never again. But friends? You don't like that? You're offended? You're gonna make me choke next time I see you?

Sigh... Why you gotta be like that, liquor?

Holidays, especially Monday holidays, are lovely but they have the effect of pushing the week back in a discombulating way, especially in a deadline/date-sensitive workplace like a newspaper.

The things people are used to doing by routine on Monday are pushed back a day, lumped in with the Tuesday tasks, and some of Tuesday will invariably push to Wednesday; you suddenly have a boxcar train situation and every day you're a little confused. It's like the phenomenom of a long weekend where the Sunday feels like a Saturday and the Monday feels like a Sunday (Friday in this scenario feels like a bonus night, where all the rules don't apply and the usual rationings of sleep-to-drunkenness and work-to-fun are skewed and liberated).

It's different from a Friday holiday, where the goal is escape. You don't care about the consequences; you've worked double time (another ratio that feels skewed) to get out, and it barely registers how much more work, surely more than you would have on the day off you're getting, to make sure that escape pod's wheels are greased and ready as it launches from the platform and into the weekend.

Is there anything worse than getting a Pink song stuck in your head? I was reading a Newsweek late last night and they had a profile of Pink (that's Newsweek for you, setting the standard for forward-thinking journalism) and despite there being no accompanying audio with the article, they did talk about that "Don't Get Me Get Me Started on Me" whatever song where she talks about L.A. Reid (also known as La L.A.) and bam, the song is lodged in my brain and I can't get that fucking verse out of my head. Damn you, Pink!

In other non-news, I watched a ton of movies this weekend including the rest of Animal House (great ending!), the new DVD of Weird Science (I've always loved it and the jokes hold up surprisingly well) and The Secret Lives of Dentists, which was a pretty awful moviegoing experience -- not because the movie was bad (it's actually pretty good) but because the people screening it seemed determined to make it miserable for everyone involved. They were 45 minutes late in opening the theater for people outside waiting, they started the wrong movie in our theater (which meant everybody had to get up and run to the right screening room, making us miss the first few minutes) and then the horizontal hold or whatever you call it in a movie was off, so for about 25 minutes, the bottom of everything was chopped off and nobody seemed capable of fixing it. Most of the people watching just got up and left in frustration mid-way through.

This morning, I'm seeing Lost in Translation, which looks very promising. Hope it's not a fiasco like that last screening.