Wall.E...Un'Review'd

Bananas. Bread. Whatever vege is on my list. Canned stuff. Packaged stuff. Efficient as a robot through the sections. Never backtracking. Done in minutes. Dairy and meat, if meat, the very last, logically. Before that, on to my favourite ten to fifteen minutes of getting groceries early Saturday morning at my friendly neighbourhood Great Canadian Superstore. Electronics and DVDs!

Wall.E, the latest Pixar treat recently released to DVD and that BlueRay, on the playbill, playing from 14 inches through 42, across all those nifty display teevees. A couple sets set to closed caption, for the hard of hearing, and...me. I'll pop up CC just so I won't miss something in some mumbler movie.

I wouldn't presume to review Wall.E. Didn't buy Wall.E, though I will, sometime. And didn't properly watch it, as such. No couch. No munchies. Not catching it from the start. Only stood there, in the electronics department at Superstore, likely longer than my ten to fifteen, taking it in, between the dry goods and going for milk and meat...or eggs. I'm a flexible, even opportunistic, omnivore. A proper review may pop up here, sometime, for I could do with the writing exercise. But for now then, only proper to leave that to the proper reviewers.

Nooo, mine only in passing like a review. Really, only jottings how I felt about the bits I saw, which had an immediate effect on me. Even though I didn't catch Wall.E from the start, I got it. Immediately. Hit me, just the same as Silent Running hit me as a kid the first time I saw it.

Wall.E's humankind have messed up as badly. Used up the good Earth. Our very last hope germinating in an old boot... .

Now, Wall.E...not the little robot, Wall.E, who's the hero in every way here...but the movie, the movie as idea that is Wall.E, is just this side of eco-heavy-handed. If Silent Running was Bruce Dern's flower power fist held high, Wall.E is the cartoon hand slap across the face. But it's the same message. Can't help myself: I'm wired to like messages along with my pop culture. And Pixar's delivered again, in that wonderful way of theirs, the right dose of lightness and humour, blended with wow'ing technical beauty, that makes it easy to swallow the spoonful of preaching message:

Know where the OFF button is...

Get plenty of exercise...so we aren't outlived by the cockroaches, and the things we've left on when we go.

Love Among the Imported Produce

She invited me to step out, brave only that little, which was a lot, dance some even…take a chance…as if Busby Berkeley really made the world.

Saw her beaming at me from the banana table, far from her Guatemalan plantation life. She didn’t say her name, of course. But it had to be…Carmen…or, Miranda. Miranda…that fun-loving party gal on the Chiquita banana sticker.

I’d felt something missing before Miranda. Needed that little extra jazz. And Miranda only ever easy-going, expecting only my commitment to the sunnier side of life.

My Saturday night on the town…Miranda.

And, home, Sunday morning…the Land O’Lakes girl, though she still won’t tell me her name…for before her I’m simply content to kneel.

Saturday, Nov 15 '08...What to Rant About...hmmm?

About eighty pounds…That’s all it is. Felt more like…eighty-four. Just tapped the numbers through the calculator here at work. Saturday groceries hauled home in back of the pick-up. Two boxes’ full. Groceries in boxes, rather than twenty pounds of potatoes, and the rest, tumbling about the back of the truck. Also easier then simply carrying in a couple boxes.

Nothin’ there, not really, to rant about.

Grey November morning over Vancouver. Raining round the edges. Mild enough that after hefting in a couple boxes I feel it refreshing running round in a t-shirt.

No rant there…Nope.

Of course, I could work up a full head of steam over my hair-raising adventures bicycle commuting…but I don’t wanna go to the dark side. Not today. It’ll leave me surly as a sith, and I want my head light…comedic, even…because I have my bit for Mage Hunting to edit, tonight, or Sunday, and some plotting to plot; and…possibly even satirical I’d like to plot that plot.

It’s the bike, Monday through Friday. The pick-up on weekends: for the picking-up of things, and gadding about the greater distances. Just gadded the short stretch in to work. A bit of work I want cleared. Blew kisses at the lane-swervers who clearly feel fifteen K over the posted speed limit’s still unbearably slow.

Oooh…careful…almost a rant there. I want to rant, y’see. Only not so I burst a blood vessel.

I did my civic duty this morning – Yesss!

After hefting in potatoes and milk, and whatever I’m having for dinner tonight. Usually, I’ll study the great political issues, listen to the…um, dignified debates. Usually, prepare my list of names: voting for a version of Vancouver’s city council balanced, left and right. But, not this election. A small, hushed-up matter of public money for bailing out a 2010 Olympics developer. So, I voted as only I could…marked the names of every opposition candidate.

As if that should make all the difference...

There. A…rant.