I bet you think running this site is all fun and games. Oh sure, I have an unhealthy addiction for Mahjong that I have been trying to pass off on Anna, but that is besides the point. I don’t get to just lay around all day, watching whatever I want whenever I want. I have, like, a system. A rigorous, temperamental system.

When I first started this column it was meant to be an excuse for me to finally watch certain films I had always wanted to watch when I was younger, but for whatever reason, had simply never gotten around to doing so. But while that selfishly worked well as an initial idea, that wasn’t going to be enough to fuel a column, let alone an entire site. So thus my initial idea inevitably began to expand.

Soon I began to look for films that would push me out of my comfort zone, as well as those that would have appealed to me when I was a youth. From there it was just a hop, skip and a jump to include reviews of true independent films and hard to find foreign films as well. Finally, I began to track down movies that were out of print or simply never released in the US. And as I added on each new group of films, the list of movies I planned to watch and review grew increasingly larger and more daunting.

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The young people of today may not realize just how scary the word Satanist used to be here in the United States. You see, being a Puritanical society most people had a fear of God. But if there was one thing that could scare them even more then God it was Satan. And thanks to Hollywood hits like The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby those fears were suddenly rationalized in celluloid.

Yes those kindly old neighbors are trying to stealthily allow Satan to rape you in your sleep. And yes, the reason your daughter has started cursing and crab walking everywhere is because she is possessed by a demon. And yes, that scary blind man constantly sitting in that chair in the attic is guarding the gateway to Hell.
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You all seem to be a rather astute bunch so I am sure you noticed the complete lack of a Rummaging Through the Old Maids Friday segment. This is because Anna and I went camping this weekend with her parents, her sister and her sister’s boyfriend. We left Wednesday evening from what was to be four days of semi-roughing it in the North Woods area, followed by me racing back to the Cities Sunday afternoon to pull a lovely nine hour closing shift. But to say our plans went a bit awry might be down playing it slightly.

Anna and I both enjoy camping but, unfortunately, never have much opportunity to do so. The biggest culprit is my job, as it requires me to work weekends, and while I do have health insurance and a 401K, in a surprising twist I do not get any vacation time. So not only do we have few days off together, but any trips are financial annoyances due to the lack of vacation time.

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I committed a bit of a faux pas recently, I bragged on an Internet message board at how punctual I have been with my reviews. While I’ve had a few complications in finding the movies I want to review, I’ve been pretty good at getting the film watched before the weekend ends, thus giving me a day or so to write my flowery prose. Then Netflix went and shipped me a copy of Alfred Hitchcock’s Stage Fright, rather then Michele Soavi’s StageFright.

This, as you probably assume, this caused a bit of a dilemma. First off, what the hell do I do for a movie review? Do I pick something different? Or should I just review the film they sent me? But more importantly, how do I write an intro for this?

You see I wanted to write about how I dragged a small group of people to a beer tasting out in St. Louis Park that was taking place at a new specialty beer store that was opening called The Four Firkins. The store was devoted entirely to imported beers and domestic specialty brews. They were having their Grand Opening on Saturday, and to celebrate several local breweries were giving out free samples for people to try. And while Summit is probably the best known of the breweries that were present, I was going because Surly was giving out samples.

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Let’s talk about nipples for a moment. Bear with me, this intro is actually relevant. Certain people seem to be fascinated with nipples. Penn and Teller can’t go more then a single episode of their television show Bullsh!t without showing some of the female variety and my girlfriend can’t go more then a night without threatening mine.

Now before you start thinking I am telling some lurid tale of our bedroom escapades let me reassure you that this fascination of hers has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with dominance. You see many social animal species have varying ways to determine which animals are the dominant ones in the group. Dogs will often physically stand over another to show their dominance, and my girlfriend’s way of “putting her leg over me” and all of her previous boyfriends was to attack their nipples.

It wasn’t long after we started dating that I discovered this rather awful trait of hers. It is violent, uncaring and abusive behavior so I did what her other boyfriends were to frightened to do, I banned her from touching my nipples. It didn’t matter what the context was, any physical contact or even an attempt at such would be met with a swift rebuke.

You see her other boyfriends were scared of her and how she might retaliate if they attempted to gain any form of dominance in the relationship. Would she become more violent? Perhaps even threaten body parts more necessary then male nipples? No, she buckled like a belt at my authority.

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It isn’t often that I struggle to think of an adequate and fitting intro for one of my reviews. I take a lot of pride in trying to find interesting, odd and hopefully unique ways of introducing a reader to the review I am writing. Now sure, sometime I will have the occasional beef with writer’s block but it has yet to result in anything more then a rather minor skirmish with frustration. Often times it even allows me to look at my review from a slightly altered perspective, and that is all that I need to connect with the proper delivery system. But as I write this review I am sitting here, humbly before you, with nothing to offer. Not even a single solitary rambling take that inexplicably turns into a bridge for my review.

Sure, I could tell you about how I went to watch The Strangers this evening, and rather then enjoying the film, I found the most entertaining moment of the entire 90 minutes was when I watched Derek Jeter making a drunken fool out of himself in the theater lobby. I could tell you about that, but since last week’s intro was about my less then eloquent brush with Eddie Izzard it would feel hopelessly like a retread of my previous intro. Kind of like how it felt watching The Strangers.

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