From Hundreds of proofs of God’s existence, which is entirely splort-worthy:

CALVINIST ARGUMENT, a.k.a. TERTULLIAN’S ARGUMENT
(1) If God exists, then he will let me watch you be tortured forever.
(2) I rather like that idea.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

I had no idea that God catered to sadistic voyeurs.

No text required:

I’m not mad! There really is a film with flying fish and an egg!

But TVTropes does it again.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JImcvtJzIK8]

I’m following TVTropes on twitter, which is a very, very dangerous thing to do. I am a troper myself, although I try to stay away because it’s so addictive. I’ve wasted hours clicking randomly through that site and have occasionally been reduced to enfeebled gales of tearful, gasping laughter.

Today I made the mistake of clicking on one of the tweets and then following a link. And another. Until I came to Chekhov’s Gun. This trope is named for the playwright Anton Chekhov, who said:

“If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”

It’s an instruction to the writer to maintain narrative concision. If the reader doesn’t need to know that the character has two buttons and a half-chewed stick of gum in his pocket, why tell him?

Unfortunately this can all-too-often lead to a certain degree of boredom. When I can see something coming a mile off, a story really has to go to extra effort to keep my attention. Don’t expect me to hang on by virtue of dramatic tension when you’ve flagged the critical component early on. It was blatantly obvious, for instance, who Kaiser Soze was, and as that constituted the main point of the film I found The Usual Suspects incredibly tedious.

Which brings us to Signs, Shyamalan’s melodramatic and ludicrous effort to pitch a celebrity death match between God and the Greys.

I mean, come on. Intelligent enough to cross millions of light years of space, and yet they pick a planet with a surface that’s more than 70% covered by water, which has the same effect on them as aqua regia does on human flesh? And not wear hazmat suits?

However, it now has one redeeming feature. This line from the TVTropes entry for Chekhov’s Gun:

Let’s face it… Signs could very well have been retitled Chekhov’s Gun: The Movie.

We need a Chekhov’s Gun drinking game.

Here’s how sad a Marvel fan girl I am.

I have now seen X-Men: The Last Stand four times.

Four. Times.

Four.

That’s two squared. Hell. That’s the first prime number to the power of itself.

It’s three times too many. I can be forgiven for scampering to the cinema to see it when it came out because X2 rocked like a Gibson Les Paul, but that first viewing really, really, really should have told me all I needed to know.

That it sucks. That it sucks harder than robot whore with a faulty pressure sensor.and an over-specced pump.

The thing is, I had to have the DVD to complete the set. And then there was no point having the DVD without watching it at least once. After that I watched it again, just to make sure, one rainy Sunday afternoon when I was alone and feeling sorry for myself. Then it was on telly last night so I figured what the hell.

I keep watching it looking for a little spark, a hint, a glimmer of something halfway good, or at least decent, or if it can’t manage decent then how about promising? You know, the way Gabriel being the Left Hand of God made Van Helsing worth watching. Somehow. Despite the hair.

You’d think, given that HJ is still in there playing Logan, and Sir Ian McKellen is reprising the Magneto role and acting everyone else’s socks off by managing to look dignified and not like a complete twat in that stupid bloody hat, that there would be something in there to save it.

But no. There isn’t. There just isn’t.

Damn you, X3. I have given you four opportunities to show me some sign of redeeming yourself and every time the fastball special makes me want to cry out of sheer frustration and the casual way Mystique is discarded causes my very guts to boil with the infuriating implausibility of it.

And yet, and yet, you are still better than Ghostrider. I’m going to pretend Nicholas Cage had a mysterious accident in the Bermuda Triangle shortly after making Con Air.

There really is a comparethemeerkat.com

These ads are just awsome. I can’t get enough of them.

Plus they make me want to buy sweets. NOM.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fko71hzo2pg]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i80LecgQt9w]

Find the rest of their videos here.

Viked from estaratshirai.

A cat saying “OM NOM NOM”.

For real.

Dude!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XccWmHnDbF8]

In a BBC news report about Pamela Anderson writing to express her concern about a planned cull of Mumbai’s stray dogs (many of whom are rabid, sick or wounded):

Medical professional Samir Guliyani, a cyclist, said “maybe killing is not the best way but stray dogs are a menace”.

“The way they suddenly pounce on bike riders is dangerous. Something has to be done and they have to be off roads.”

On the subject of Pamela herself, Mr Guliyani said: “She is hot but why is she writing to the municipal commissioner?”

Right on, dude! Pamela “Don’t call me babe” Anderson may have enormous boobies suitable for drowning swimmers to use as life preservers, but WTF business is it of hers if Mumbai takes the next logical step to save its population from an out of control pack of rabid, feral dogs after previous sterilisation prgrammes failed?