Humpty's Emerald 55: Eggs and..., Omelette, French Toast and..., Cakes and..., Cake and Eggs, Fruitfully French or Fruitcakes, Hot Beef or Turkey, Cheeseburger, Chicken Fingers, Cod and Fries (2), Grilled Cheese, B.L.T., Linguine and..., Beef Liver, Salisbury Steak, Meat Loaf, Rodeo Chicken, Country Fried Chicken, Breaded Veal, Turkey Dinner, Pork Chop

What's Wrong with Yesterday's Menu: The potato fritters are supposed to be the equivalent of tater tots, but in consistency and flavour they are more reminiscent of some unsavoury Hong Kong bean drink sealed in potato dough and fried until all the taste has left but alas, that weird gelatinous granular texture is still there. They'd be better off advertising them as Potato Taste Capsules.

Since I started my online journal I've started to pay more attention to things I find on the web or perhaps in the real world (not as exciting, unless you think that looking at the vacant lot next to the trainyard every day is exciting). I keep little notes on what I want to put in my journal, compose paragraphs, work out various things that have been making me happy or getting on my nerves, and sometimes make point form notes or just scribble down nonsensical phrases (eg. "Release me from the beef!"). Then I log on to my site and write down whatever I happen to be thinking about at the moment. That and my ongoing critical evisceration of the Humpty's menu.

I'm genuinely confused by the reviews of Daredevil. It seems that a number of movie reviewers, all of whom are adults and most of whom once praised films like Terms of Endearment, have gone into the Daredevil vortex and emerged with neutral to favourable reports. How? By definition, movie reviewers have seen other movies and therefore have other movies as a basis for comparison. Maybe there was some kind of movie reviewer convention disaster, and the reviewers are all dead and now all the movies are being reviewed by people who have never seen a single movie in their lives, or maybe all they've seen is Beastmaster or Dragonheart or You've Got Mail, so of course they're going to think that Daredevil is a pretty cool flick. But the rest of us have watched other movies and understand that Daredevil is that increasingly common beast, the high-budget no-talent exalted B-flick.

Writer/director Mark Steven Johnson (yech) last gave us Simon Birch, that loving disembowelmnet of A Prayer for Owen Meany, and now he's proven that sentimentality spans the genres. Doesn't Robert McKee inveigh against the twin evils of voiceover and flashback? And hasn't Johnson (rock on now) now given us two films that are each essentially one long flashback wrapped in a voiceover? Ah well. In Simon Birch, at least, the genre demanded adequate lighting, so that even at night the characters were bathed in a kind of soft radiance like the tears of angels. Unfortunately, Daredevil is lit so that you are not permitted to see the action in the action sequences. Even the light of three pool tables on fire (?) cannot illuminate a bloody rapid-cutting barfight, and we are forced to take it on faith that Daredevil is kicking all the ass.

Johnson also forgets that one of the main sources of tension in secret-identity stories comes from people not figuring out your secret identity every twenty minutes or so. If you watch The Day of the Jackal (the original one), you get excited because the cops and the government spend two hours trying to figure out who the Jackal is. It takes seventeen hour-long episodes of The Prisoner to find out who Number One is. Hell, there's even a little spike of interest in The Seventh Seal when everyone finally realizes that Jurgen Prochnow is an avenging Jesus who's been killing fish and spreading disease and whatnot. But in Daredevil, at least three major characters figure out who's behind that mask. No wait - the priest knows too. Why doesn't he just wear the costume to work every day? It would hardly be a revelation.

VALUABLE LESSONS THAT YOU TOO CAN LEARN FROM DAREDEVIL

1. There is no problem (high speed glass, high speed motorcycles, adolescent thugs) that cannot be solved by repeated backflipping.
2. Blind people cannot produce facial expressions, except when they're wearing sunglasses, and then they smirk uncontrollably.
3. If you really want to relax, try a water-filled steel coffin.
4. If you're not from the Bronx, you don't know how things are done, if by 'doing things' you mean 'throwing Ben Affleck at the ceiling' (worth seeing).
5. The best way to run your criminal business empire is to stand at the window all day atop your personal skyscraper, surveying your domain, puffing on a cigar.
6. Nothing says freedom of movement like skintight red leather.
7. Deadly weapons: paper clips, peanuts, playing cards, swords and canes. Bullets do no harm*.
8. On today's modern computer keyboards, the 'print' and 'delete' keys are situated right next to each other, the better for those difficult ethical decisions. If you choose delete, a magical invisible thumb will hold down backspace for you.
9. Sometimes it's fun to just nunchuk away in the privacy of your own apartment.
10. Our modern world is so topsy-turvy and upside down that the courtroom has lost its ability to dispense justice, and so we need a protector dressed up as a tormentor, a 'guardian devil,' to deal out justice on the street. That is some heavy shit, man.

*For those who have seen the movie, don't remind me of the sniper shot that bores two neat holes through Bullseye's hands and makes him look like a stigmatic Christ begging for mercy from the Devil. High velocity rifle bullets are not so kind to human flesh.

IT'S WARTIME. DID WE PROACTIVELY CALL THE RIVERCATS?

From internalmemos.com, here are selected contents from a Clear Channel memo on what to do in the event of war with Iraq.

"Always err on the side of overkill. Actually, there is no such thing as overkill in a situation like this".

"Don't forget, when appropriate use language like 'a Newstalk 1530 KFBK exclusive' 'a story you are only hearing on KFBK' or 'a story you heard first on KFBK'. Make sure we own being FIRST".

"Start booking guests immediately, regardless of the time. DO NOT worry about waking up people; there's a war going on! Plus we can stash the tape for later use if these folks can't be on call for later. Even guests of national stature won't hang up on you during a time like this. You can't afford not to do it. It is in these first few minutes or hours we'll either win or lose the image".

"YOU CANNOT OVERKILL this story. It's like disc jockeys playing records. When the jock gets tired of it, the public is just getting warmed up. Stay focused and on Topic 'A'. Fresh angles, relentless promoting and pre-promoting. Talk shows are very important for the public just to vent at first".

"Remember to ask me if regular programming should continue to run on weekends and if we have specialty shows that can't or won't talk about the war; we will probably blow them off. Even Dr. Laura. Remember, no fishing shows, gardening shows. We are AT WAR".

"As Rivercats season approaches we need to make sure we are aware of our contractual obligations with regard to interruptions for news of this magnitude. We'll be proactive. Let's set a meeting with Rivercats now and make them aware of War or Terror attack plans? We MUST find a way interrupt for bulletins".

Hoxhah!

parode - exode