Midnight Ramblings

Mr. Anderson is right. I am too sensitive. As always, I'm reading too much into something he's said to me and obsessing over it.

So you know the whole story. Last December, when I went to Sapporo to visit Mr. Anderson, he wanted me to watch this cartoon he discovered called Popee the Performer. It was this very surreal series of CGI shorts about Popee and his friend; this dog who wore masks, I forget his name. They were performers at some sort of circus set up in the middle of a desert, and the general formula is: Popee does some kind of act, the dog upstages him, they get into a duel of sorts, and it escalates to Itchy and Scratchy levels of violence. I thought it was incredibly twisted and had a certain degree of brilliance to it. I think I expressed this to Mr. Anderson by saying, "Yeah, it's pretty cool."

So, here we are, 10 months later. Now that he's ready to come home, Mr. Anderson has finally amassed the complete Popee collection on DVD. He was telling me this today, and he said, "Now, Mark, I know you didn't like Popee, but..." and he proceeded to tell me again why he likes it. And I knew why he likes it, because I like it for pretty much the same reasons. But he began with, "Now, Mark, I know you don't like it." So, I've come to one horrible, horrible, conclusion:

My best friend has been in Japan for so long that he no longer knows me. *sniffle* He doesn't know me any more! *sob* When he comes home at Christmas, I'm going to run up to him, give him a big hug, yell out, "It's so good to see you again!" and he'll just look at me with a quizzical look and say, Shitsurei desu ga, o-namae wa nan desu ka? (Openly weepy voice) I'VE LOST MY BEST FRIEND! WAAAAAAAAA!! HE PROBABLY DOESN'T EVEN REMEMBER WHO MY FAVOURITE DINOBOT IS! *sniff sniff* So, Mr. Anderson, please remember me!

But then, he just might be razzing me, because in this e-mail, we were also debating The Matrix Reloaded. He still believes it's a work of genius. I'm of the growing camp that says, "Yeah, it was good and all, but did the Wachowskis really take it as far as they could? Really, what new did they do?" And it's probably irking him that, even though I think this way, I'll be seeing The Matrix Revolutions before him.

So, one last time for the record, I think Popee the Performer is brilliantly twisted and you should do what you can to seek it out.

And, in other news, I did send off a description of my radio show to the NAIT folks. Right now, I'm trying to decide if I should go with some kind of sequel-related title for the new Chaos in a Box, seeing as to how this is the second go around. What do you think? Chaos in a Box Reloaded? Chaos in a Box: Episode II? Chaos in a Box and the Chamber of Secrets? Chaos in a Box & Robin? I will admit, with Lord of the Rings on the horizon, I'm liking Chaos in a Box: Return of the King.

Next Issue...Return of the Queen, too!