O to the B to the AMA

"I want to volunteer for Barack Obama's campaign," my mom said the other night, over a half-eaten flan. "Your stepfather thinks I'm being naive, because Hillary's going to win the Democratic nomination, but I want to do it anyway."

With me in my twenties, and her other two children in their teens, my mother has been bitten by the political idealism bug. She grudgingly voted for Gore, and then Kerry, in the last two elections, but, as it was for many others, this was a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils.

Intrigued by her sudden optimism, I checked out Barack Obama's official web site, www.barackobama.com. The guy undeniably has charisma, but I also like his health care plan and I respect that he took a stand against the Iraq war from the start, unlike my own state's John Edwards. I ended up filling out a volunteer information form to work with his campaign. Who knows if the Obama campaign will ever reach my little red state, but it's such a relief to actually feel good about a presidential candidate instead of tolerating him.

So, in honor of my mother, I'm posting the "I've got a crush. . .on Obama!" YouTube video here, in the upper right column of my blog. You can also click here to hear it on YouTube. My favorite part is where the girl in the video is watching the 2004 Democratic convention and slowly lowers her "Kerry 2004!" sign to the floor when she first sets eyes on Obama. You can also visit Obama Girl's web site at www.barelypolitical.com

PIRATES ON THE BRAIN

This coming Saturday is the second annual Pirate Day at the children's book store where I work part time. Although I'll be at my other, full-time job that day, I've been on craft duty, creating a cardboard pirate ship with holes cut out for the "cannonball toss" game.

As if that weren't enough pirate-y goodness, we finally managed to see Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End on Sunday evening. As we were discussing Orlando Bloom's relative merits on the way home, Jeremy and I realized we had just watched two entirely different movies based on our interpretations of a key Orlando Bloom scene:

Midway through the movie, said Mr. Bloom is held captive on a certain ship, and is escaping the brig each night to tie a dead body to a barrel and toss it overboard, leaving a trail for the ship's pursuers to follow. Jeremy, trusting in the stultifyingly dull nature of our Orlando and his character's general goody-two-shoes image, believes that Mr. Bloom selected these corpses from the victims of one of the ship's numerous battles.

I, on the other hand, have arrived at an entirely different conclusion through the power of deductive logic.
Fact 1: We see the trail of bodies in the water over the course of at least two days.
Fact 2: A ship's crew would not keep a rotting pile of corpses on board any longer than necessary. They would heave them overboard right away, friend and foe alike.
Fact 3: Orlando Bloom's character is desperate to reach the ship that is following his captors, because he believes it is his only means of rescuing his father from a fate worse than death. He has already betrayed his best friends and true love in an attempt to save dear old dad.

Therefore, since there are no handy, already-deceased bodies lying around, I conclude that Mr. Bloom must be desperate enough to make his own corpses, killing off a crew member or fellow captive each night to use for his barrel trail.

Jeremy says I'm sick, that the filmmakers made a simple error in logic. Nevertheless, I think my interpretation makes the movie - and Orlando Bloom's character- much more interesting. Even if I am sick, I think I'll stick to my guns until someone proves me wrong; it's much more fun that way.

YOU HAVE CHOSEN. . . POORLY!

In a fit of giddiness Monday night, Jeremy suggested we rent the movie Eragon and get drunk. This is the movie version of the bestselling Y.A. fantasy-adventure novel of the same name, written by a 15-year old kid who was obviously watching a lot of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings at the time. Ten bucks says whenever the author gets around to finishing his trilogy (yes, really), the evil emperor ends up being our farm boy-hero's dad.

I was on the fence about the plan until I found out that not only was Jeremy Irons reprising his "gruff, cynical mentor" role, but the movie featured John Malkovich as the evil king Galbatorix (click here, you get the idea). Since nothing is better than a hammy John Malkovich, I couldn't say no.

Now, finding the perfect movie to both mock and watch all the way through is more difficult than you would think. While, say, Battlefield Earth is appallingly bad and full of risible lines, not to mention a scenery-chewing John Travolta, it's actually so awful that it becomes unwatchable about halfway through. On the flip side, you have movies so unrelentingly mediocre that they aren't quite ridiculous enough to be laughed at. If you've ever seen the direct-to-video sequel to the Dungeons & Dragons movie, or any fantasy/horror movie starring Richard Gere, you know what I'm talking about.

Eragon hit that perfect blend of awful and watchable that only Kevin Costner's The Postman has been able to do for me in recent years. As soon as the expository voiceover paused long enough for John Malkovich to intone, "I suffer without my stone. Do not prolong my suffering," I knew we had hit bad-movie paydirt. Eragon had it all: headstrong, two-dimensional heroes, said heroes ordering a two-ton fire-breathing dragon around as if she were a nanny goat, a love interest who spends most of her time unconscious, gratuitous CGI, loose, nay frayed, plot ends, and marvelously failed emotional manipulation.

I only wish we could have seen more evil Malkovich hamming it up as he ordered his minions about. The end of Eragon basically demanded a sequel, if not two, but I'm worried John Malkovich will come to his senses and stop slumming it with the Eragon series.

LET YOUR GEEK FLAG FLY

I've had my head stuck deep in an unexpected freelance assignment for the past two weeks. Jeremy's friend Phil is a roleplaying game designer, and he's been working on a game book called Changing Breeds, for White Wolf publishing company, where your character can transform into all kinds of animals, from house cats to elephants. One of Phil's other freelancers suddenly dropped out a few weeks ago, so he called to ask if I could pick up 10,000 words. It was close, but I got everything in to him, and the manuscript and contracts go off to the publisher today. Needless to say, I haven't had a good sleep in a while.

My mother called in the middle of my writing frenzy and wanted to chat. "What are you up to?" she asked.

I hesitated, because somewhere along the line, she developed a distaste for roleplaying games. I think it might have started with my father and uncle's sessions of Dungeons & Dragons in her basement when they were still married, or maybe in the '80s, when religious conservatives started howling about how D&D caused kids to turn into parricidal maniacs. I could hear her saying, "Oh. Well, that's. . . interesting," while thumbing through the phone book for a psychiatrist.

Listen, I told myself. You are a grown woman. You're working on a project you enjoy in an industry you like. You live 160 miles away from your mother. So what if she doesn't like your hobbies?

I took a deep breath. "I'm working on a freelance project for a roleplaying game," I said after an uncomfortable pause.

"Oh," she said. "Well, are you having fun?"

"Yes," I said.

"Are they paying you?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Well, that's good."

Thankfully, since my younger brother and sister hit puberty, my mother has lightened up a little. I'm married, gainfully employed and haven't been lighting things on fire in the garage or torturing small animals. So what if I'm a monstrous geek? It could be much worse.

Toward the end of the project, Jeremy ended up doing a short section on owls for the book, as well. We were both up Sunday night, writing and editing together until about midnight. We had been talking about finally getting around to seeing the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie, but despite not leaving the house, last night was one of the best, most fun nights we've had together in a long time. Some people go on dates, we write roleplaying game supplements. I guess that's weird, but it made us happy.

What I've come to realize over the past few years is that it doesn't matter if the things people my age are supposed to enjoy - clubbing, huge parties, shopping - don't really interest me. If I want to spend my time writing, creating "monster books" for a Harry Potter party, reading a book, or watching bad movies with Jeremy, there's no reason why I shouldn't. People are so much more interesting and varied than the movie industry and fashion magazines make us out to be. What makes my neighbor happy is playing the pipe organ in his basement and raising goats; what makes me happy is staying home on a Saturday night to write. Yet we still wave to each other over his fence.