Snow-haters and a police raid

Well... our town's idea of a police raid.

I was paying for my lunch at the courtesy booth yesterday afternoon, and this drunk woman was standing at my left elbow, swearing a blue streak at "Lola" the courtesy booth manager about something or other. I very nearly reached into my purse for my shiny new cellphone to call the police and ask them to do something about this obnoxious freak, but I decided against it. I stepped away to go have my lunch, and when I got back ten minutes later, there were two police cruisers outside the store. All the cashiers and sackers who weren't doing anything were staring at the three cops who walked in, just as I got to my slot, and some of them started asking me what was up. Fortunately, "Tracy", one of the supervisors was right there to explain it. Apparantly, the drunk woman had reached into the courtesy booth and tried to grab the change drawer that one of the clerks was counting change into, so "Lola" had to read her the Riot Act. Three of the managers had to hold the drunk down while someone -- probably either Lola or the store manager -- called in Our Town's Finest to haul her away to the cooler. I imagine there's going to be a blurb about it in the "Town Crier"'s police log.

I'll admit, this was much easier to deal with than the hideous people who are whinging about the snowfall we got the other day. All one-half of an inch of it. You'd think this was Denver and the five feet of snow they got at Christmas, or Santa Fe, New Mexico, where people were pinballing around the streets as they tried to drive their cars because they don't have sand/aalt trucks like we do.

Movie Review: "A Scanner Darkly"

****1/2 out of *****

Very edgy and paranoiac, disturbing without making your skin crawl, and the graphic novel-like effect created by the rotoscope animation only adds to the off-kilter feeling. I'll have to read the novel it was based on to decide how good an adaptation it was, but that's something I've been meaning to do (I discovered Philip K. Dick wrote it in 1977, the year I was born, which gives it some personal significance). It's a little bit of a challenge to follow, but that's the nature of the beast. We can also add this to the growing list of lower-tech, social science fiction movies that have started to make the genre more accessible to people who normally don't watch or even think much about science fiction. And the acting was so natural, you often forget you're watching a sci-fi movie: I particularly liked Robert Downey jr as the imperceptively malevolent know-it-all Barris and Woody Harrelson as the slightly hyperactive Luckman (who reminded me of my crazy friend Mark, at least in terms of personality and energy). Keanu Reeves as Officer Fred/Bob Arctor counterpoints these guys' scene-chewing antics very well: he may not be Laurence Olivier, but his ability as an understated actor brings balance to the film. I think if they'd cast someone who emoted more strongly, it would have unbalanced the film, plus, it would undercut the poignancy of Fred/Arctor's predicament and his descent into a self-created oblivion... or an oblivion that has been foisted on him...