Geoff Ross is Famous

You missed it. I turned 25. There were both fireworks and nude woman. I may have been asleep at the time, but I’m pretty sure both were present. And reese’s peanut butter cups. Those three things make for a perfect birthday. Plus a rocket car.

Four things. It takes four things to make a great birthday. And I had all four. Except for four of them. Other than that all were present and accounted for. And I saw Wall•E. That did happen and that was awesome. Highly recommended.

I survived the overnight shifts with nary a scratch on me. Aren’t you proud? Aren’t you…*sniffle*

The first casualty of switching to a night schedule is my perception of time. I still feel like it should be Sunday instead of *looks it up* Wednesday?! Holy balls, I have to go to work today! *scampers*

p.s. Draft Three™ is moving along slowly, but surely. Somehow it has actually grown a full page longer. I believe in the long-run that this is a short-term weight gain.

I was in Boston yesterday. I had never been before. Or, if I have, I don’t remember it. Boston is a beautiful town. I’d like to visit again when I have a bit more time. Yesterday I was in the city that Belichick built for one reason only.

Cupcakes.

Nights. The playground of vampires and, allegedly, lycanthropes. I am soon to join them except I won’t be trolling for blood and violence: I’ll be working. Yes, Ladies, Gentlemen, and self-aware Gerbils, the official switch to the night shift has begun. Over the next handful of days (all of my measurements are super-precise) I will adjust my sleeping schedule to shun the sun and embrace the moon.

I’ll send your greetings to Neil Armstrong’s footprint.

My Great-Uncle Don passed away yesterday. I didn’t know him well, but that doesn’t lessen the tragedy of it all. Uncle Don, you will be missed.

I don’t like the Hulk. It always seemed like it was a guy who get really sick when he got mad. Violently sick. Most superheroes embrace their superhero-ness. Even Spawn grasped onto his savior role even though, in his case, he was some kind of creation of Satan. But not the Hulk. When he wasn’t smashing things he was the nebbish Dr. Banner who just wanted to be left alone. In 2003 they made a Hulk movie which was creatively titled Hulk. It was directed by Academy-Award winning director Ang Lee and written by Academy-Award nominated screenwriter James Schamus.

It was terrible.

When I heard that they were making another Hulk movie my first thought was, “Didn’t they already make this?”. And once I heard that this was not a sequel, but instead a reboot I was even more confused than before. Why reboot a franchise you had just started? Shouldn’t we wait a little longer before dipping in that pool again? Needless to say I wrote off The Incredible Hulk as a failure before it had even been made.

The Incredible Hulk is directed by the Non-Academy-Award winning director Louis Leterrier. He is a practitioner of modern French action movies which aren’t necessarily in the french-language like The Transporter, Unleashed, Léon: The Professional, The Fifth Element (a personal favorite), and, um, The Transporter 2. I want to call that genre Fraction. The script is written by Zak Penn who brought us X-Men: The Last Stand…the worst movie in the X-Men franchise. Not exactly a recipe for disaster, but not one for much hope either.

I never intended to see The Incredible Hulk. I was going to see The Happening. But, the reviews turned very sour on that film adventure. So, with that option eliminated I went to see the big-budget Fraction™ that was The Incredible Hulk. What the first film lacked was a lot of Hulk smashing. What it had in abundance was a lot of melodrama. That ratio was skewed the wrong way for my taste and the tastes of everyone else. All this movie needed to deliver was the very opposite of what the first movie delivered.

Oh, it delivered.

In the end The Incredible Hulk delivered on the one expectation any movie-goer had for the green monster: HULK SMASH! And for 114 minutes straight that’s just about all that happened. Yes, it was thin on character development, plot, and spoken words, but, my God, did you see him rip that hummer in half? That was awesome! He beat that guy to near-death by throwing him into a tree. I’m pretty sure he was using an NYPD cruiser as a hammer at some point. It was brilliant. Well, as brilliant as a violently sick person beating the crap out of every would-be assailant could be. That’s still pretty brilliant. I didn’t like the Hulk, but I sure do now. This is a popcorn movie I can heartily recommend.

Iron Man was better, though.