villains

Ok, now, let me first be very up front and note that I’m really not a big fan of Disney movies. As a general rule, they tend to take excellent stories and then water them down so much that consuming them does not burn any mental calories. Still, I watch them now and then, and during my career in cinema Disney’s summer features were nearly required viewing. So, between that, occasional rentals, and the fact that I was once a child, I’ve seen most of Disney’s features.

They came up in conversation on IRC, tonight, and I got to thinking about how much I hated Hercules and how much I liked Lion King. By way of brief example, consider the films’ villains. Scar is a Claudius figure to Simba’s Hamlet, and isvoiced by Jeremy Irons. He is methodical, calculating, and pretty evil, but has motivation and all that jazz.

Hercules’ villain is Hades. You know Hades: God of Death, Lord of the Underworld, et cetera. Now, granted, Hades isn’t Satan, but he’s not the Good Humor man, either. But he’s voiced as a quick-talking shyster by James Woods, who has the incredibly poor taste to say things like, “yadda yadda yadda,” “schmooze,” and to talk about getting moussaka stuck in his throat.

[[o s:scar c:”"You’re so weird." // "You have no idea."” a:”Scar, from The Lion King” [[o s:hades c:”Eating worms means I’m evil! Yadda yadda yadda.” a:”Hades, from Hercules”

Lately, Disney’s movies seem to be totally without point. Tarzan, Atlantis, and Mulan were just exercises in effects and name dropping. They invented a complete and comprehensible language just for Atlantis. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the movie’s plot.

At least I’ll always have Scar.

work sucks

Work was better today. Everyone was in, so my involvement in Operation: Fix the Firewall was pretty limited. I tried to write documentation, but mostly I was distracted by little things and shiny objects. I think I’ve determined that having no internet access actually makes me less productive and quicker to tire out. I worked the late shift today, and by 2000hrs I was completely exhausted.

bikes

Yesterday, Gloria and I managed to carry out our interrupted Saturday plans. We went to Musashi for Japanese food, where I had some extremely excellent unagi don, and we took our bikes in for a tune-up. Not only did I blow $135 on new gear (needed gear, but I still resent the expense), but we had to leave our bikes overnight. They’re back now, though, and I’ll get to try out my new gloves and helmet tomorrow. Maybe it’ll be my first day of after work biking – although Gloria’s dad might be in town, so we’ll have to see.

Written on May 6, 2002