Screw DVDs. I now have a one-item list.

I've got a new item for my birthday list*:

Snakes on a Sudoku!

Here's a quick quote from the promotional packaging:

"When we said we wanted to combine the excitement of Snakes on a Plane with the intellectual stimulation of sudoku, everyone said we were crazy. Well, who’s crazy now? We totally took regular sudoku puzzles, got rid of those safe 3-by-3 squares, and replaced them with deadly snakes. There are over 1,500 snakes in this book, and Agent Flynn isn’t here to help you. Are you ready for the challenge?"

I'm going to have the best birthday ever.

* September 8th. Mark your calendars. I'm turning 23. The big one.

This isn't the first time that Xena's broken my heart.

I know everyone's upset about Pluto - believe me, I am too - but doesn't anyone besides me find a lot of the hubbub about it a little... funny? This is an excerpt straight out of The L.A. Times:

..."I feel like something's missing," said Micaela Chambers, 39, of Granada Hills as she played with her son outside the science center. Tombaugh said she too was disappointed. "But they had to get that mess straightened out. There's too many planets."

Though Pluto's taxonomy had always been a point of contention among scientists, it was Brown's discovery last year of UB313, which he nicknamed Xena, that forced the IAU's hand. That's because Xena was at least as large as Pluto, and possibly larger. If Pluto was a planet, how could Xena be denied?

As unpopular as the vote may be, it was the only reasonable scientific choice, he said. "There are eight really large objects in the solar system," Brown said. "They are special."...

Oh, Xena. Look at this mess you've made. Can't you see what you've ruined?

I mean, I just don't think this'll ever be the same - I just want them back like they used to be. When we were all together and happy and no one ever had to go to special "meetings" to decide what would happen to us.

You don't think Pluto had it hard enough already? Poor kid was running a whole different orbit than the rest of us. We barely saw him. Fell in with this new crowd we'd never seen before - he said they understood him better, that they were "more like him" than we were, that we wouldn't understand. Charon went with him, of course, the little guy follows him everywhere.

But now he's gone. I guess he's gone for good.

It's a good thing I had my feet up.

This strikes pure, unadulterated terror into my heart.

"Two live diamondback rattlesnakes were released in an Arizona movie theater during a showing of the new film 'Snakes on a Plane,' " reports the Internet Broadcasting System:

Authorities said pranksters released the young venomous rattlesnakes in a dark theater at the AMC Desert Ridge near Tatum and Loop 101 in Phoenix.

The two snakes caused a panic in the dark theater, according to the report.

"That to me is very scary," herpetological association representative Tom Whiting said. "I would hate to be watching a movie about snakes and have a rattlesnake bite me."

Why couldn't they have been more considerate and released them in the theater showing "Barnyard: The Original Party Animal" instead?

He makes a good point. Except, of course, for the fact that there are children at "Barnyard: The Original Party Animal!" Go ahead guys, release live snakes into a theatre full of kids!

I'm horrified, and yet, deep deep down there's a part of me that goes, "y'know, that's actually kind of a funny idea."

Oh, don't make that face at me! I said it was "deep deep down." I would never do something like...

y'know, if they made a sequel...

I'm sorry, but you're just going to have to keep reading.

This is a long post that became a very long post, which in turn became a dissertation of a post, which in turn became a number of smaller but still sizeable posts. This is the introduction to the introduction of those posts, and so I'm sure you're tempted to stop right here rather than read further. But you can't. You can't stop.

I've been developing this theory for quite a while. I feel that it's finally time to unveil it.

This could change everything.

The Introduction of the Theory

Or, I could make scathing remarks about famous people, too, if you'd give me half a chance.
There are a lot of film critics in America today. Every major newspaper and magazine has at least one or two, sometimes more than that in order to offset the huge amount of films released by Hollywood each week. These critics are very individualistic, but they have a huge number of similarities: They've seen a lot of movies, and a lot of "films." They know their François Truffaut from their Jean-Luc Godard, their Apocalypse Now from their Full Metal Jacket. They know why City Lights is the greatest of Chaplin's works. They make scathing remarks about the decline of Orson Welles. These people either really know their stuff or are desperately pretending that they do. These people have strong opinions.

But they also all have the same opinions, and I find this a little strange. When a movie comes out, virtually all critics will be united in their opinion of it, a seething mass of cynicism and revulsion, or an applauding crowd of laud, glory, and gold stars. You've probably seen this, and so you know: these people think alike. That's why people refer to "the critics" as a group that seems to combine the worst elements of 1984 and Communist Russia.

On one level, of course they do. These people are intelligent, thoughtful people who love movies, and naturally they will each, individually, appreciate good filmmaking and denounce poor workmanship. So there's a logic behind their solidarity. But each of these critics have a similar thread to their reviews that doesn't follow this pattern, that in fact completely belies this: the pattern of the Free Film.

Keep reading. I'll explain. It gets more fun as it goes. But first, we have to get technical.