Randomness

What a strange week.

I'd like to start off by thanking all the people who went out to vote. In Colorado, 90% of registered voters made it out to make their opinions heard, and that is just amazing.

In other news... Rumor has it that there is going to be a movie made based on the board game Monopoly. Yes, you read that correctly. Not sure what kind of storyline you attach to a board game about greed, but hey, why not? Hollywood's out of ideas anyway, right?

On second thought, perhaps you could make the movie a metaphor for our current floundering economy because of greed. But nobody watches those things.

Obama toured the White House on Monday with Bush. They played at being civil while, in the back of his head, Bush laughed like a drunken orangutan over the fact that he was handing off one of the worst economic situations in the country's history.

Anyway, I just started reading Watchmen, the supposedly brilliant graphic novel by Alan Moore. After seeing previews for the movie that made me drool in anticipation, I figured I'd give the novel a whirl before seeing the film. I'm not terribly far into it, but I am thusfar impressed.

I recently finished reading The Killing Joke, also by Alan Moore, because I have a fascination with The Joker. Putting aside the silly things that the Joker does in other, more cartoon-y comics and movies, there are very few works - novel, comic, movie, or otherwise - that take the time to really explore the psyche of this villain, and I think that's a damn shame. Too often, people just resort to senseless violence and stupid humor when writing about Joker, and that seems wasteful to me. Here is one of the more intriguing bad guys in modern literature, and his character is so often wasted on piddly contrivances and shallow characterizations. The Dark Knight was the first work I saw that truly explored the nuances of Joker's character and what it is that makes him tick. After doing some research into the matter, I stumbled across The Killing Joke, which, upon reading reviews, was attempting to do exactly what I was looking for: delve into that twisted mind. And it did an admirable job. Another graphic novel, The Joker, just came out. I'm eagerly anticipating reading that, as it too is supposed to cast off the cheery, hollow facade so many other authors use to portray Joker and show us a truly dark side. I can't wait.

One of the most developed bad guy characters in literature is Hannibal Lecter. I saw Silence of the Lambs on VHS (whoa, what's that?) when I was about 7. It took me weeks to get the image of the skins hanging off the cage, backlit by the white light that made them look angelic out of my head. That one scene started a deep fascination with the character Hannibal Lecter. Through the course of 4 well-crafted and meticulously researched books (and 4 movies which were not, generally, up to the same standard), Thomas Harris brought the character to life, gave him flesh and bones, twitches and peeves, but most importantly, he showed readers the true psyche of the man. For those of you that have only seen the movies, you have done yourself a great disservice. As great as Silence of the Lambs was, and as horrible as the rest of the movies were, they just do not go into the depth that the books do. Without the depth, many of the actions taken by Hannibal do not make any sense. They seem random an unplanned. Say what you will about the depraved and viscerally horrifying things that Hannibal did, but there would be no denying the sheer brialliance of the execution.

Some of you may read that and label me prime serial killer material, but I assure you I have no intentions, deisres, needs or otherwise to kill people. I am merely fascinated by the things that push the mind (particularly the brilliant mind) into territory that dark.