Backdated post: Kwaanza Eve.

Ever notice how much abyssmal, miserable dreck is on television on Kwaanza Eve? And the radio, if possible, is even worse.

I spent most of the day bored out of my skull and going stircrazy because there is literally nothing to do in a small town on Kwaanza Eve. I went to both 24/7s and both liquor stores, and after that half-hour was up, I was done because there was literally nothing else open. I even thought about hitting them again, but how many times can you look at a cigarette lighter with a John McCain characature on it?

I had made a serious mistake in planning the day, you see. I have these little reminders that pop up on my cell phone to do little chores around the house every day ("Fix breakfast," "Take out trash," "Wash dishes. Laundry?" etc.) If I don't have a schedule, I get into these Inertia Spirals where I know stuff needs to be done but I either can't think of what to do, or can't summon the energy to do them, especially this time of year. After I complete them, I reset the alarm for that task to the next day. I decided I was gonna take Kwaanza Eve off and reset all the tasks for the 26th.

It made for a VERY long day.

I got so bored, in fact, that I did a load of laundry just for something to do. While hanging them on the clothesline, I hummed the first line from Sinatra's "Strangers In The Night" over and over and over, and made up in my head new lyrics. Those lyrics ranged from the relatively uninspired "Stranglers In The Night, Exchanging Victims" to the brilliant and sublime "Christmas Sucks My Ass, Fluidic Druids!"

Of course, I left the clothes out on the line all night and it fogged on them. They are wetter now than when I hanged them up.

I watched the VHS copy of Titan A.E. that I bought myself for a buck at a resale shop. I had seen it before, several times in fact back when we had HBO/Cinemax/The Movie Channel, but I liked it enough to buy it. But this version was I think a little chopped up. There was a scene where the creature with the bizarre bowlegs is on one spaceship. Then, suddenly, she's on another, and the people there make no acknowledgement of her arrival. Took me out of the movie for a bit.

When that was over, I watched the copy of Braveheart I bought myself for Kwaanza Eve. I had to wonder if it would be a different movie entirely if instead of Mel Gibson as director, it had say Ollie Stone or Ang Lee.

Would it have, for instance, a scene where Wallace's buddy Hamish confesses that William stirs feelin's in him that a man shouldna be feelin' for another man?

A different movie entirely.