Triple Decker... OF JUDGMENT

Funny story about judgment. In the fourth grade, we were doing the qualifier thing for the spelling bee, and it came down to me and another guy in my class on that very word. I added an e between the g and the m, because I could see a poster nearby that said that if there were an e and the word change (i.e., judge to judgment) started with a consonant, you kept the e (as opposed to the judge to judging transition). It was, of course, patently wrong, but given my almost pathological need to be right (which is somewhat ironic given my southpaw status. I may or may not have misused irony, but I have way too many word to write to give a shit about that) (Also, side note, I hate déjà vu when the re-experiencing is colored by the memory of the previous experiencing. As for what brought this up, I'm currently enjoying my attempt at pad thai/stir fry (the rice noodles got a bit glommy toward the end- I think I needed to try the stir fry part earlier or skip it), but I'm having déjà vu of eating this and thinking that a cockroach is about to scuttle out of it. This is not because I have ever seen a cockroach come scuttling out of my pad thai/stir fry, but rather just because of how I experience déjà vu. It is a truly harrowing experience that will not prevent me from continue to scarf down my pad thai/stir fry, because a.) it is delicious and b.) it's now 10 in the evening, and I have not yet had dinner.) as well as the clearly posted example of the poster, I was able to convince the teacher to allow a challenge from a dictionary. Bear in mind, in hindsight, I was clearly, patently, absolutely, beyond the shadow of a doubt such that Punxsutawney Phil would have looked down on the snow-covered ground of Gobbler's Knob (heh) and said, "Well, my good fellows, I do believe that it shall be an early spring this year," (which would have come out as some squeaks and chatters, since he's a groundhog and all) and been strutting around the hill to the cheers and shouts of a thousand bleary eyed Pennsylvanians (as well as a disgruntled Bill Murray) wrong. Yep. Give it a minute and re-read that sentence. Maybe diagram it.

Bill Murray will look on as you do so, but no one will believe you.

Anyway, yes. I was wrong. I know that now. You all know that. The teacher knew it. The other student knew it. We all freaking knew it.

Well, apparently everyone except for Webster's Dictionary, who showed that having the e was an acceptable alternate spelling. It went on for another word, and I ended up going to the spelling bee, where I lost. I don't recall the word, but I do recall the excellent Prairie Incident of 2001. (In 2001, I was in the Junior Beta Club, and we went to some convention that was honestly about as terrible as you'd imagine when you get a whole bunch of seventh and eighth graders in one building. You could have powered Hong Kong for a year with the sheer awkwardness oozing out of us. Anyway, I was in a spelling bee at that and actually got through the first round, which was farther than I had gotten in elementary school. For the second round, I got the word "prairie." You know how to spell prairie. I know how to spell prairire praree prairie. Unfortunately, in these spelling bees, you cannot change your letter order or choice once you have started to spell the word. In a fit of dysarthria (which is a word, Firefox, despite what you seem to insist), I said, "Prairie. P. A. R," and then realized my mistake. Knowing that I couldn't go back and correct it and was clearly disqualified, I figured I'd have some fun. "Prairie. P. A. R. A. R. X. Q. J. P. Phi. Shta. Hu. Three. Ampersand. Ghayn. Sweet potato. P. R. A. I. R. I. E. Prairie."  (Okay, fine, it was only the English letters in there. I wish I had gone with some punctuation and numbers, but I didn't think of those until after the fact.)) But this isn't about the Prairie Incident of 2001.

The other option was the classic, "You sit on a throne of lies." However, as we all know, Lance Reddick beats Will Ferrell any day. Plus, he'll be in Oldboy, which will unfortunately likely be terrible.

As for the fellow I beat in the fourth grade spelling bee, the last I saw of him was on Facebook the other day, wherein he was commenting on a link about how "Courts quietly confirm MMR Vaccine causes Autism." Unfortunately, he wasn't commenting with a, "Hey, didn't Wakefield use shifty methods and have some pretty egregious conflicts of interest? And hasn't his study's publication and the decline in vaccinations resulted in a resurgence of measles (which can have severe neurological complications down the road), polio, and pertussis?" No, it was more along the lines of, "Good on you for posting this link. It's about time somebody stood up to Big Science and made sure that we're learning the TRUTH."

Because scientists are just raking in the dough right now.

Anyhoo, yes. All of that, and all of those long paragraphs. I accidentally closed out of this tab a minute ago, but thankfully, it saved automatically. I would not have wanted to try to recreate the last (almost) one thousand words. Now, I know what you're thinking. "Rob, one thousand words already? Why, that barely took you an hour to do! You'll be done in no time- that's almost 63% right there! And the language, it's so vibrant and vivacious, just like the pizza in that one Pizza Hut commercial. That terrible, terrible Pizza Hut commercial that makes us all remember why we never go to Pizza Hut." Well, you would be right on most any other night. Unfortunately, due to the merriment of the weekend (seeing Davidson get creamed by Clemson, having a delightful dinner with my parents, and spending an entire Sunday afternoon and evening in the lab),  I missed the last two nights' worth of blog posts. (Okay, fine, I did four hundred and fifty-two words on Friday night. Is that one thousand, six hundred, and sixty-seven words? No, I believe that it is one thousand, two hundred, and fifteen words short of that lofty goal.) I still missed Saturday, and I still need to do a post tonight, which means that to handle all of those obligations, this post needs to be four thousand, five hundred, and forty-eight words. On the bright side, I guess I've hit about a third of that so far? Okay, fine, I've only hit about a quarter of it. (Note: Those are both estimates, because I can't be bothered with actually checking my numbers right now, because that would just be demoralizing.) Words are hard to do, man.

To say nothing of living in a hotel in the winter.

Plus, the weather decided to get cold here again, which is just wonderful, because it means that despite my four layers and my ample jeans, it is pretty freaking cold in the land of Rob. And, yes, I could probably grab a blanket or something and improve matters, but I'm more worried about my next step in terms of sustenance and you know what? Nobody wants to hear about that. I'm just chewing up words telling you about this, and I'm sure you would all prefer something slightly more substantive in my post this evening.

Now I just need to think of something substantive. But first, I need to figure out if I'm going to have beer or hot chocolate. I DO have a cold, which hot chocolate would help, but this beer is pretty tempting...

Oh, Sebastian Roché, you old rogue, you.

Okay, okay, we'll do a list. Yeah, I know. We'll do a list. God help us.

We're doing a list.

Okay, fine, I have a decent idea for a list, but I really need at least one more good idea for it. Meanwhile, let's see what we have to say about this beer, shall we?

The thought even has Nicolas Cage somewhat sedated.

Okay, so I got the Terrapin Reunion Ale, which is supposed to have notes of cinnamon, vanilla, and cocoa. I'm really only picking up the cinnamon, but that may change. Who knows? As Mr. Roché established already, nobody really cares about that, and I certainly didn't bring enough for everybody, so we'll get on with the list.

Ahem.

Five Great Actors of Lands and Territories Currently or Formerly Under The Control Of The British Empire Who Starred In Underrated Or Rightly Ignored Movies But Did a Pretty Great Job in Them

Okay, fine. The title needs work. Would you rather I spend three thousand words dealing with the title or writing the actual list?

That's what I thought.

Anyway, on we go.

5. Hugo Weaving in Babe

Babe came out in 1995 and frankly did pretty well in theaters before being forgotten by pretty much everybody. It popularized the fourth movement from Saint-Saëns' third symphony and was the origin of "That'll do, ___. That'll do." Impressively, that last bit is one of the most moving bits in an already extremely emotional film, and it got co-opted by a Canadian faking a Scottish accent as a CGI ogre.

Most of the people I've quoted that line to have actually thought that it was from here.

It took the director of The Road Warrior (as a producer), That Guy from LA Confidential, Star Trek: First Contact, and I, Robot, Professor Sprout (TANGENTIAL FORESHADOWING), and the voice of Chuckie (no, not Brad Dourif- that's Chucky. Can't you tell the difference yet?), and mixed it in with a generous once scene helping of... um... Agent Brown (as opposed to Agent Jones) and/or Stark from Farscape?

This is Paul Goddard. Apparently he was also in the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie, which is also amazing, as Dave (a character whom I cannot recognize).

But oh ho! dear readers. There's another agent afoot. See, while Christine Cavanaugh was squeaking her way through the movie (like she did with anything else that required voice work in the 90's), Hugo Weaving was there to bring his fucking A-game. Before he was Elrond, before he was Agent Smith, before he was Priscilla (because, yes, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert came out in 1994, but Babe: The Making of a Legend came out as a short in 1992), before he was V or freaking Megatron (yesssssss), Hugo Weaving voiced the ever-loving fuck out of a dog.

"Why do you persist in chasing my sheep, Mr. Anderson?"

He plays Rex, who I guess is one of the main antagonists in the film? The other one is a cat, but it hardly gets any screen time. Arguably, though, Rex is the only one who gets any actual character development in the movie. No, really. Hear me out. Babe is a pig who is a nice little pig and doesn't want to get eaten. Awesome. Does he really evolve beyond that? He learns a few little lessons, but they don't change who he is- it's just new information to absorb and process. Fly just does her whole maternal thing, the sheep remain sheep, but Rex? Rex goes from the big man on campus, gets CHAINED UP BY HIS OWNER (makes sense and is justified in the movie, but come on- that dog is totes adorb-sauce, and the beer seems to have hit), and then learns a lesson about talking to sheep WHILE SAVING THE DAY. He swallows his pride, rejuvenates his dog-marriage, and saves the friggin' day. And Hugo Weaving sells it harder than he sells El "What the fuck are these Hobbits doing at my council meeting?" rond.

All the Elrond memes are amazing, because Hugo Weaving has the phenomenal eyebrows of a Mentat (MORE FORESHADOWING).

2 (WAIT I MEAN 4). Patrick Stewart in Dune

The period between 1984 and 1995 was a strange time. Neon was all the rage, Vanilla Ice did his thing, and Kyle MacLachlan was somehow the big artsy thing in Hollywood.

No, Mr. Lynch, we don't need any sort of satisfying resolution- we'd prefer a mountain of cocaine and angst.

Sometimes this actually worked (Twin Peaks, I guess? It's on the list), and sometimes, it really, really didn't (Showgirls, of which I once saw a bit on E! Their efforts to CGI a top onto Elizabeth Berkley were hilarious.). Dune was his first venture into film, and despite being directed by David Lynch, it made some degree of sense. It also showed why movies like Dune should never, EVER be made. As a novel, there's a lot of thinking and internal monologue strategizing that has to happen to keep the audience abreast of occurrences. Regardless of the quality of the writing, the book does a really good job of building a universe and letting it make some degree of sense. To show this in the movie, they did a weird voice-over thing that got really distracting while the actors basically did nothing. The sad thing is, I've seen this work before, but Dune (desert planet) was not the place for it to happen.

Yes, because you're supposed to unzip your stillsuit to keep water in, Paul. How could I have missed that?

I first saw Dune in college, and I found it to be pretty meh. However, there were two pretty impressive part of it, and they are Max von Sydow (EVEN MORE FORESHADOWING OH MY GOD IT'S PRACTICALLY FIVE-SHADOWING) and Patrick Stewart.

If you focus beyond Sir Patrick's indomitable stage presence, you may notice that Kyle MacLachlan is about to fight Sting.

Sir Patrick, of course, nails every scene that he's in, even though he's in (what he has called) "the most uncomfortable costume [he's] even worn" (okay, fine, not an exact quote, but I'm feeling dangerous tonight) in the middle of the desert. He shreds on a guitar:

Okay, fine, it's a deleted scene. He still kills it (even if he's not actually playing).

And, despite having the most ridiculous hairstyle in all Patrick Stewart-dom (including when he actually had hair- seriously, it's pretty frightening), he continues to nail everything about the movie.

"I've played Claudius, and you have me as a glorified sidekick? Number One, take care of this."

Welp, having almost knocked over my beer, I think tonight might have to get cut short a little bit. I know that I've broken two thousand six hundred words, which is a solid little bit (and should bring tomorrow to a mere three thousand five hundred... ugh), BUT I will continue the list from here with the likes of Max von Sydow, Sir Ian McKellen, and a certain Irish rogue with a very specific set of skills. Unfortunately, I guess I didn't quite make it to the lofty triple decker standards of my title, but you can certainly levy whatever judgment (or judgement) you see fit.

Oh. Oh, come on, Firefox. You call "dysarthria" a misspelling, but "judgement" is okay? You disgust me, Firefox. Also, note to self (and to the bean counters out there who aren't sitting at my computer): the final word count for this evening is two thousand seven hundred and ninety-five (including the title and this last little bit).