lowered expectations. it's not just a mad tv bit, it's a way of life. as a pessimist, i generally believe all things will go horribly wrong. when people tell me i should be an optimist and look on the bright side of things, i ask them why. they generally come up with some sort of "positive thinking is good" mumbo jumbo and i usually reply to the effect of "but if i think it will suck, i can never be disappointed." lowered expectations are important for all of us. they allow us to say "well, it's not that bad" or "it could be worse" instead of "what the fuck is this shit?"
let's take our president. i voted for him. i'll be honest, i wasn't incredibly pleased with myself for doing so, but i figured if he was half as good as the hype he built up for himself it wouldn't be too bad. sadly, the only change i've noticed is that there's a younger black man lying to me instead of an older white man.
"change," "hope," "yes we can," were his three catch phrases. oh he talked on and on about those things. he was going to pull all of our troops out of the places bush invaded, he was going to give us universal health care and make sure the negotiations would be on c-span, he was going to get a dog from a shelter, and i'm sure there's a bunch more. as it turned out, he lied about it all. not only are the troops not coming home, he sent more. universal health care is a pipe dream and the negotiations will most definitely not be publicized. the dog? well it didn't come through a shelter that's for damn sure. it technically does count as a rescue dog because some rich person pretended to want it only to give it back so the president could have a rescue dog.
and yes, i know he's probably done some good. but this is being written from a negative point of view so i wouldn't name any of it if i could think of any (there was some, right? please tell me there was some.)
all in all though, he hasn't done a horrible job. you may not be able to tell, but i'm generally much less unhappy with the government now than i was with bush in office. i'm just saying had he lowered expectations a little we might all think he's doing a great job.
instead of "all the troops will come home" he should have said "i'd hate to have them there much longer but they may be." instead of "health care for all" he should have said "do you really want to be like canada?" and instead of "i'm getting a dog from a shelter!" he should have said "c'mon, i'm gonna be the fucking president. are you an idiot?" or i guess he could have said "hey middle america, watch how you forget about all that shit when i hire a tranny!"
i'm for everyone having rights and all, but quite frankly some dude who said "i want to chop my dick off" probably shouldn't be in charge of anything...
and then there's domino's new pizza. i tried it today. why? because there were so many fucking commercials telling me how great it was that i felt i needed to. the verdict? meh...
i'll give it one thing, it smells fucking fantastic. i love garlic. anything that smells or tastes like garlic is a-ok in my book. they did nail the garlic butter smell. that of course is suspect in itself. sure they nailed the smell, but often when a giant corporation makes it and it smells good, it rarely tastes good.
i got two pies. because they were $5.99 each and there's a few guys to feed here. let's go bit by bit over the new improved domino's...
crust: smells extra garlicky. tastes like fake garlic butter. it's as if they stole that nasty stuff papa john's includes with every pie and poured it all over the crust. if you lift a slice you can even see where the extra garlic butter stuff soaked in. i'm fairly positive it's not real butter which means it's probably the same as movie theater fake butter which is loaded with fat and chemicals and ultimately gives you heartburn.
cheese: it's supposed to be better. i can't tell. it definitely didn't meld with the sauce the way a real pizza should. instead it sort of floated above it. one bite rips a good portion of it off the slice. never a good thing.
sauce: i guess it's better. can't really tell. it tastes tomato-ey. so i guess that's good.
all in all it wasn't bad enough to ask them for my money back (as they promised) but not good enough to make me ever think "let me get domino's" when i want a pizza. if i ever order from them, and i will, i'll stick to the thin crust because at least that tastes like a yummy pizza flavoured cracker.
i just wish they hadn't hyped it so much. hype gave it something to live up to and it failed. had the commercials said "hey we have new pizza. it's not as shitty as the old stuff we used to make." my review would be an astoundingly positive "definitely less shitty!" it just feels wrong to describe something that's not that good as "better."
finally we have the dead like me movie "life after death." i had recently started watching dead like me again thanks to netflix streaming. dead like me was an awesome show with great writing and attractive women. as it turns out it was based on a book by piers anthony. i wound up reading it because someone who used to be special in my world told me to. she never fulfilled her half of the deal though which i guess should have told me much sooner than i figured out that she didn't deserve to be special.
wow, where did that come from?
anyway, i was excited when i heard the movie was coming out. then heard nothing about it for 2 years. after watching a couple of episodes on demand, i decided to throw the dvd sets on my goozex want list and own them. when searching for "dead like me" the movie came up. the movie? wow. it came out. so i looked it up on amazon.
the folks at amazon were none too pleased with it. because of that, instead of purchasing it, i went to netflix and found it on demand. i watched it last night. what did i think? it wasn't that bad. was it good? would i say you should go watch it? no, not really. don't go out of your way.
it had most of the right ingredients, but it mixed them up in weird ways. it was basically a longer episode of the show but more fluff than substance. they spent a good amount of time reliving the first episode which was good for newbies but then gave those people no reason to want more. for those who'd been watching since the beginning it had reasons to smile and some almost closure. it was definitely better than the people who said "omg this sucks and is nothing like the show, they ruined it!"
it did have one bright spot though. britt mckillip (who occupies the spot up top normally reserved for a redhead). she plays reggie the main character's younger sister. she became smokin hot in the time the series was off the air.
decent writing, 2 hot girls who spent most of the flick on screen together, and tie ins to a show i loved. yeah, that was a good movie. like obama, domino's, it could have been better, but because everyone said it would suck it came out smellin like roses.
and that my friends, is why lowered expectations are important...
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