We were going to go see it during the day, when tickets were cheaper, but Gremlin forgot and slept through those hours. So...we went when it cost more, and was more crowded. Which means we ended up sitting really close to the screen. But...that was kinda my choice, because I didn't want to sit between Drunk and Drunker....

Unfortunately, we got there in time for the previews, which means I was subjected to the Twilight sequel's deplorable morphing CG. Ugh. Wow. Really? Did you have to reveal that in the preview? What the hell is wrong with you people?

And then there was this other stupid kiddie movie, and all I remember is a Stone of Gayness, and some idiot making a wish for something to be a dung beetle, and then becoming...not a dung beetle.

So, yeah. Bad previews. Then, we leap right into the movie. Or, actually, we leap right into an FPS. I assume it's the perspective of the somehow-able-to-fly-without-brooms Death Eaters flying around London, destroying a bunch of shit, and possibly kidnapping Olivander. Not...entirely clear. Mostly, it just gives you the feeling that they were too cheap to hire anyone else, and went directly to the company making the Half Blood Prince videogame for the rendering.

Are we finally in the movie now? Oh good. Yes, there it is. There's Harry -- not at the Dursley's, but out in the muggle world, breaking the stupid secrecy thing by reading The Daily Prophet in a muggle cafe, and flirting with the waitress. We don't get to see Dumbledore torturing the Durlsey's, which is...sad.

Then we're off to get Slughorn...who...isn't really as described in the book. Instead of being a relatively clever fat guy, we've got this not-so-fat guy who appears to be suffering from one senior moment after another. Also, more videogame quality CG of the house being cleaned up.

After that, Dumbledore apparently ditches Harry mid-apparition at the Weasley's -- or, rather, in some weird swamp that's somehow right next to the Burrow. Insert whimsical stairs and bad comedy routine about 'Harry's wandering around the house' here. Also insert badly forced inter-character chemistry here.

I may've missed a scene here. Or they switched everything around, because then we're in an unnamed, perpetually rainy part of...who the hell knows where. I can only assume it's supposed to be Spinner's End. But it's day...ish. And Narcissa Malfoy is apparently being played by a rather old Rogue from X-Men.

...and I think I've made my point. Except:

They left out some very important memories. Like, 80% of the memories. You don't see the Gaunts. You don't see Hepzibah Smith. You don't see Tom's first murder. You find out -- incorrectly -- that the ring belonged to Merope Gaunt. Harry -- movie Harry -- is completely unprepared to hunt down horcruxes. He doesn't know about the cup, or that Voldemort returned to Hogwarts to get the DADA job [and, apparently, cursed it when he didn't get it].

You never really find out that Minister for Magic has been replaced, or that the Ministry is arresting people that aren't actually guilty of anything. Or who/what Fenrir Greyback is. Tonks and Lupin are just thrown together in an apparent relationship in this movie. The Burrow is destroyed. There's no Bill and Fleur, which means there's no wedding in the next movie. There's no mention of Arthur's new job. And, apparently, Mrs. Weasley's been taken over by the Dursley's -- not wanting her kids to return to Hogwarts, and not trusting Dumbledore to protect them. Not exactly in character.

There was also no funeral, which...kinda seems...wrong.

I think the most disappointing part of the entire movie was when the children watching it didn't suddenly start crying as one when Dumbledore died. I was really hoping for that.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the movie was everything I expected.

Edit: It seems I forgot to mention the weirdness that was the kid that played young Tom Riddle. Instead of a bright, confident, manipulative boy, they've got this cold, blunted, obviously sociopathic kid. It doesn't really fit.

It was good. Reasonably accurate, with some glaring differences that...probably were for the best. Because the original ending was a teensy bit convoluted, and probably a little difficult to get across in only three hours.

Looking back, I probably should've tried to insist on not seeing it until I had painkillers, because I knew I was going to end up with a headache.

See, I've got this problem with movies. They flicker. Apparently, they're even adding flicker to digital movies now, to make them feel more...authentic to everyone else. Which completely defeats the purpose of digital, as far as I'm concerned. Because that flicker? I can see it. And it hurts me.

A lot.

I probably would've been fine, though, if it weren't for the popcorn. See, I'm kinda beginning to suspect something was wrong with the popcorn -- or, at least, the tiniest bit of the first batch of popcorn I ate.

Why do I think that? Well, I kinda bit into something that tasted like...it's hard to explain, except by smell. You know that smell that lets you know that there's a potato somewhere in the house that's been in the house far too long? Like, months, or years? And it's gone all soft and nasty, and the smell gets everywhere, so it's almost impossible to locate? It tasted like something that smells like that must taste. With a nice topping of rancid salsa.

It was...what you might call 'ungood'. A fairly nasty taste. But I wasn't exactly sure if I was tasting it, or just smelling something really wrong -- like, maybe the guy three seats down from us got some nasty, nasty nacho platter, and it was fucking with me, y'know? It was that kind of taste -- the taste that's more smell than taste, and you're not sure if you're really tasting it, or just...smelling it. Because some smells taste more than they smell.

And the refill on the popcorn was fine. So I kept eating. And I kept drinking my coke. Got through two of those -- and, hey, prompt refills, too. That was nice.

Right toward the end of the movie -- right around...the Mars talk, and Antarctica, I started feeling kinda...bad. In the 'intense pain' sort of way. But it wasn't my head; it was my stomach. Like my steadily-worsening migraine decided that my head just wasn't a good enough neighbourhood anymore, and it had to move somewhere where there were more nerve endings. Not the most pleasant feeling.

Right around the "I'm smarter than your average Bond villain, so I'm going to explain my cunning plan to you, and then let you know that I set my plan in motion thirty minutes ago, ha ha!" speech, I noticed that the normal 'I can feel my heart beating, and my blood flowing through every fucking capillary' effect of a moderate to severe headache had taken on an interesting new...texture. I figured it'd be fine, though, because, hey, there's still movie left. I'll just focus on that, and everything will be fine. I'll just relax enough to lower my blood pressure, and, by the time the movie ends, I'll be able to move again.

...except, that didn't quite work out. Because it didn't stop. And the movie ended. And I stood up. Because I'm an idiot, and I couldn't actually find the words to explain why I shouldn't get up.

Now, most of you have probably never been inside a Movie Tavern, so it's probably kinda hard to imagine a place that shows movies and has food and really, really comfy executive-style office chairs. But they've got...really comfy chairs, and tables for the food, and really wide aisles. And a fair approximation of the stadium-style seating that most cinemas now have. I made it to the big aisle between the rear set of seats, where you go to exit the...whatever the individual rooms are called. And then I just...sat down. Because standing was no longer an option, and sitting in a somewhat controlled manner was better than any other option. Because standing up was some sort of magical signal to instantly lower my blood pressure from...wherever it was to 'oh shit, there's very little blood in my head'.

...then Gremlin reminded me that acting the way I was would likely get EMS called, and I stood up again.

I almost made it to the little exit door from the special room with the screen. Then, everything stopped working, and I got up-close and personal with the floor. It was much nicer than the last time I passed out -- in my own bathroom. That time, I hit a door, gave myself a black eye, scratched up my face, and ended up with a really nasty cut just below my navel. That one left a scar.

Here's where things get fuzzy. I remember saying that I was fine, I just needed a minute, but I don't quite remember getting up. I remember someone offering to get me something -- a chair, or some water. I remember saying, "water would be good," and that one of the employees said he was something that qualified him to administer first aid of some sort. I vaguely remember that this employee looked kinda emo...just, y'know, the hair.

...then the fire truck showed up. And I couldn't figure out why there was a fire truck, except that they'd called 911, and assured me that it was policy.

I remember they sent the ambulance people [who also showed up] off to deal with someone who had an asthma attack, leaving the firemen with me. And then, there was all sorts of new pain. In my finger.

Finger sticks hurt. What the fuck is that about? It always feels like they jam that little automatic needle thing straight into my finger bone, as if there's some sort of magical test which requires bone marrow from my finger. But my blood sugar was okay. So that's good.

I also remember them taking my blood pressure. I was fairly convinced it was going to be high -- mostly because I was confused. It makes a hell of a lot of sense to me now that it'd be lower. But...confused.

Things didn't start making sense until much later, mostly because things got really confusing after that point. Because the fireman offered to give us a ride home. I didn't know they could do that. I didn't know they would do that. I mean, it's a fire truck. It's a big, expensive, special emergency vehicle that goes to save people from fire. It doesn't have seats -- not really. It doesn't have room for passengers [or so I thought]. It doesn't...take people home.

Firemen don't do that, right? They aren't there to give you rides home when you pass out after seeing a movie. They're there to remove you from your home after you set it on fire trying to deep fry a frozen turkey inside.

Except, apparently, they do. Because they gave me a ride home.

The novelty of the situation got me just aware enough to take pictures, because I figured nobody'd believe me. Because it's a fire truck.

They're a little blurry, because I wasn't really steady enough to hold the camera properly. But...pictures -- because it did happen.

Fire trucks, by the way, are not the comfiest ride in the world. The seat was nice enough, but you could feel every imperfection the road has ever had -- and possibly every imperfection the ground underneath it has had since the planet cooled. Seriously bumpy ride.

Also, fire trucks? Are big. Really, really big. And our street is one of those little streets where two cars can't pass eachother on a good day -- where a good day is when there aren't cars parked on both sides of the street. So, that was probably annoying for them.

I spent the rest of that evening in bed, drinking my water -- and then 7up, just to be safe.

I'm fine now. And I've got more stuff to post about, but I'll leave it for later. I've just been a little lazy recently....

Since it's some holiday or other, and I'm supposed to give, I'll provide my very own out of context, ambiguously near-positive single quote:

It's everything you'd expect from an Alien vs. Predator sequel. And MORE!

More, in this case, means less. Because any Alien without a queen is less. I would've forgiven everything if I'd been allowed a good half hour stretch [not all together, mind you] of pure Alien Queenness. Or hey, even some fairly well-lit scenes of any xenomorph. But no, the best I got was some night vision. And that wasn't very good....

There were some serious failings in the character development area, and by that I mean they tried to develop the characters. It just didn't work. You know why? Nobody fucking cares. I sure don't, why should anyone else going to see AvP care? These aren't characters. They're blobs of flesh meant for breeding more aliens so the predator can blow some more shit up. Except, no! No, we must focus on the human element. It's worse than fuckin' Final Wars -- that movie that kinda had Godzilla in it, but it was more about the people than Godzilla.

Basically, what you have here is a movie in which a bunch of people and Michelle Dessler from 24 living in Gunnison, CO, in a time immediately after the AvP Antarctic Weyland-Funded Clusterfuck. The ship [you remember the ship. It was called 'Sequel Device', but...whatever that is in Predator Scribblies] crashes in the woods because the incredibly unnoticed PredAlien happened. And, hey, if you don't remember any of this happening in the first movie, it's okay, because you get to see it all again! Isn't that great?

The Predator tries to blow itself up, but the incredible wrist device of doom fails for some reason. This, of course, leads directly to a father-and-son hunting trip turned facehugger encounter [because The Good Ship Plot Device just happened to have living facehuggers in those big specimen jars].

Disappointment 1: chestbursters from children? Same size. I was so hoping for itty bitty childlike aliens. Why? It'd be cute. I'm a chick. Do the math.

Cut to...strange planet. Predator World! Where High Lord Badass uses amazing technology to see the last minutes of that other Predator's life. And by see, I mean 'see what the other Predator saw', which I guess is why they all wear that face-thing. He takes off, and gets here...well, he gets to Gunnison as if he were driving there from a nearby town. Impossibly fast. Predator World must be the moon.

...and here's where I start to lose track of the order of the film, partly because it's Character Development Time, and partly because it cuts back and forth through reality in a way that makes Highlander look reasonably linear.

There's a guy who's friends with a cop, and that this cop is a cop is supposed to be unexpected or funny somehow. NonCopGuy has a brother who is implied to be in a lot of trouble, possibly for refusing to wear his Pizza Delivery Hat. Brother Guy is apparently intended to be lower class, since he's delivering pizzas to the Female Classmate LoveInterest who lives in a nice house and naturally hangs out with the bastardliest guys in school. There's mild bullying. I'm sure that's why it's rated R.

Then there's Dessler, the JustOffDeployment Army Person of Undetermined Rank and MOS, who has the most ungreatful little brat of a daughter in the world. The kid pulls out a pair of night vision goggles from mom's bag and mutters 'are these for me?' as if they aren't the coolest gift ever. What, was mommy supposed to smuggle a real live Arabian horse home for you instead?

Disappointment 2: You just know this brat is going to survive.

His Lordship, Mr. Badass arrives -- and yes, I'm assuming he must be the most Awesome of Awesome Predators here just because he got the message and flew off all by himself -- and shows off how amazing his Wrist Gadget of Doom really is. You inject liquid into it, and it shows you what was floating in that liquid! It's amazing. Also, it would appear that he's on Earth for three seconds before breaking his steathy-thing...but, wait, no, the weird electrical sparky thing it was doing must've just been there to throw us all off, because it still works later in the film.

Also amazing is how he reactivates the other Predator's Wrist Gadget of Doom, and then decides to loot the ship for weapons-and-stuff before it blows up. Or, rather, magically implodes into nothingness with a bright flash.

Disappointment 3: The film could've ended right there if the stupid explosion had behaved as expected.

A few cuts later, and someone must've noticed that Daddy and Junior were missing, because there's the biggest clusterfuck of a search I've seen in a movie this year. Everyone all bunched together, looking in the same place? Yeah, that's going to work. It's a good thing the cops are calling it off. Except the Other Family Member is morally outraged at this decision.

Not that it matters. They're dead. The Predator finds them, and MAGICALLY DISSOLVES THEM. Some other cop sees him doing this, so...he ends up dead, hanging upside down, and possibly flayed. I can't be sure. What I do know is that he wasn't skinned alive, since he ran himself right into the stabby bits that come out of the Predator's arm.

Disappointment 4: The people in this town aren't going to stop reminding you of how stupid they are.

Actually, right around the time they find Mr. Skinless is one of the 'hard-to-suspend-disbelief' moments. The whole coroner's office thing. I just...had a hard time with it all, I guess. But it kinda set the tone for the rest of the movie.

See, at this point, we're out of face huggers. I skipped over that important part earlier, but...we are. There's the PredAlien, and four regular aliens [that I counted, but I'm not very good at counting]. Except...they keep popping up everywhere. Sometimes literally. Like, through the pavement. Because the're in the sewers, which happen to be strangely well-developed yet blended sewers which funnel human waste through those strange sidewalk-bordered manmade rivers like you see in some videogames. And we know they're all in the sewers [and right under the town], because That One Guy and his In Trouble PizzaGuy Brother have to criminally break into the storm drain PizzaGuy's keys were dropped into. And there was a chestburster. And some skin.

...it really only gets worse from here on out. See, the Aliens, trapped by the Amazing Predator Laser Barrier Trap of Doom, just sorta...burst through the city streets. And nobody notices. I mean that. NOBODY NOTICES. There's a van driving by in one of the scenes, and it just continues driving, which is just...beyond stupid. Who would fail to react to the street going poof and a fucking Alien flying out of the hole?

I guess it doesn't matter, though. This is where the dying finally gets 'round to seriously commencing. PizzaGuy breaks into the school's pool with LoveInterestGirl, there's some hinting at what might be future nudity, but the dumbasses from earlier show up [in what might've been a prearranged trap, for all anyone knows]. All four guys end up in the pool for a round of ultra-macho underwater rasslin' while she scrambles for her clothes, and an alien shows up. One guy dies in the pool, and another dies during an attempted through-the-window escape.

Yay.

At roughly the same time, Mr. Skinless' wife and her boss at The Diner are being killed. And Ungrateful Brat sees an alien through her nifty new toy and starts screaming for daddy. The 'see, no monsters' scene commences, and he dies.

Meanwhile, over here in Commerce City Lookalike Land....

There are aliens all over the place. The Predator ends up wounded, and somehow sets the whole place [which turns out to be the power plant] on fire. The fire, of course, is what leads to the call for the National Guard to help evacuate the town. While that call is being made, what's left of the group from the school meets up with the cop and the older brother, and...everyone heads back to the school.

The Predator gets there first, though, and 'cleans up' with his Amazing Unlimited Blue Goo, which not only dissolves humans and aliens alike, but makes water boil away damn near instantly -- he pours some into the pool, the water boils, and it's all gone by the time everyone re-arrives.

At some point, everyone meets up with everyone else. Someone found Ms. Skinless' body at The Diner, and relays the important line: "Her stomach was gone."

...they decide what they need is guns. Lots of guns. So they break into a store.

Meanwhile, the Aliens are hitting the hospital. And we find out that the Aliens have caught The Stupid from the humans.

See, it turns out that...I think it was the PredAlien is able to implant NotReallyChestburstersAnymore directly into people, without having to go through the egg/facehugger stage. Except...it seems to only be implanting women, which is really very dumb, since it's still implanting things through the mouth. If it had anything to do with female anatomy, we'd be stuffing the babies in there through a more...anatomically correct route, wouldn't we?

Oh, also, Disappointment 5: No onscreen Alien/Newborn Baby Hospital Nursery DisplayRoom carnage. Also, no chestbursters in newborns. See earlier disappointment regarding little childsized aliens, revise for 'infant sized'.

Throatbabies aside, litters of little aliens? Very nice. I'm not sure it makes up for the obligatory 'terrorists' joke in the gun store, though.

The National Guard arrive. The National Guard die. The people in the gun store leave the gun store, and find the leftovers of the National Guard, and get in touch with Obligatory Evil Suit Guy, who might be one of the many bastard children of the Cigarette Smoking Man. The survivors are told to go to the middle of town for an 'air lift'.

Dessler smells a trap, because that's totally not what Jack Bauer would do. She wants to find a helicopter instead...which she can fly, being That Chick From 24 and Of Undetermined Rank and MOS. There's a small argument, but since she's the only person who can figure out how to drive the Conveniently Undamaged Stryker, they have to go where she wants to go.

But wait, more survivors! The group splits up. We're left with The Brothers, Dessler and child, and The Love Interest. And some guy who broke off from the other group. The Cop and...someone else went off to the middle of town. The guys who made the terrorist joke [who also happened to be stoned!haha!] got their heads blown off by the Predator in the gun store, way back before everyone decided to run away from the gun store....

The hospital, as everyone watching the movie already knows, is now The Nest, except 'oh, we'd be surrounded by them in the middle of town', so...funny, right? Or possibly stupid, since every last bit of this town is suddenly covered in fully-grown Aliens. And, of course, since the hospital is The Nest, it's covered in those weird nesty structures like we saw in every other Alien film.

The Predator, of course, shows up at the hospital and starts killing things, and dissolving them with his magic blue goo, which he finally 'runs out of'...except it's more like he 'shoves the container down the throat of an Alien' instead of 'runs out of'. But that just means we're getting down to the end of the movie, right?

Of course we are. Because the MidTown people just heard from Mr. Suit [did I mention he's pretending to be an officer?] that the air strike evac is ten minutes out. He says this while looking at a display showing the flight paths of some F22s.

So, time limit. Great. And, hey, iminent death. Things are looking up. Especially over at the hospital, where LoveInterest gets killed by one of those Predator Flying Blades of Death. PizzaGuy, knowing that he's probably going to die a virgin, does that grief-stricken charge into danger thing, and, since he can't do anything right, fails to die when impaled by an alien tail.

The charge into death involved repeatedly shooting at the Predator. All that did was make the Predator lose his gun -- which is okay, because he somehow gained a whip made of Alien Tail at some point. And also, when he gets knocked down the elevator shaft, the gun appears to follow him.

I swear I saw the gun follow. Really, I do. I saw one of the guys pick it up. I saw much scuffling, and I was certain I saw the PredatorWeapon fly out of the person's hand and down the elevator shaft. But...in the next scene, there's Big Brother figuring out how to fire it, which helps everyone get to the helicopter.

After some absolutely retarded firing-of-the-weapon-through-the-helicopter-from-the-inside, they escape...just in time for The Ultimate Badass Showdown. You know it's the Ultimate Badass Showdown because it's the PredAlien vs. His Lordship, the Ultimate Badass. His Lordship takes off his face shield, and tosses his weapons aside, and the PredAlien is somehow forced by partial genetics to just stand around and wait while this stupid fuck disrobes.

Not that it matters, because the F22 Nuclear Bombers have arrived, and, SURPRISE! They drop the amazing, weather-changing, rain-ending nukes right on the evacuation meetup point. The helicopter from the hospital is caught in the blast, but somehow, everyone survives. They're surrounded by Soldiers of Indeterminate Branch, forced to surrender their weapons, and then given first aid....

...then, in one final attempt to have more endings than the cinematic release of Return of the King, you see Mr. Evil Suit walking to some officebuildingey destination which is bound to be some portion of The Company, and delivering the Predator Weapon to the cleverly-disguised-in-the-imdb-credits Ms. Y.

For everyone who couldn't figure that one out, it's Yutani. As in, the other half of Weyland-Yutani. They have a vague discussion about how the technology is not for this world, and the movie ends.

I didn't stick around long enough to see any AfterCredits bits, if there were any.

Final Disappointment: There's bound to be another sequel.

The best thing about this movie was probably the burger I got with it. And possibly the Hellboy sequel trailer. I liked that a lot. I could've done without the Cloverfield thing, though. I've seen enough of that.

I suppose another good thing was that it provided me with long-rambling-disjointed-post-material. And it wasn't any worse than I was expecting it to be -- I've had pretty low expectations for movies ever since Transformers, personally....

Don't waste your money. See it Second Run, or when it comes to OnDemand -- especially if you have HD. It's bound to look better at home.

I got Hot Fuzz, which was good. I'm a little worried about those guys, though. I'm afraid they might run out of good and turn into those Scary Teen Date Movie types.

I also got Ghost Rider, but I OnDemanded Farce of the Penguins before watching that. I don't know why I did that. Maybe because Bob Saget is a sick person. That kinda prepared me for Ghost Rider, I think. And for my current rewatching of Mars Attacks.

I heard a lot of complaints about Ghost Rider -- about how Nick Cage ruined it all. I suspected that it wasn't Cage's fault, but the fact that it was another comicbook movie.

I think I was right about that.

I think the makers of TMNT [the newest, all CG happy fun animated like Pixar movie] must share my views on that. Indeed, most filmmakers seem to have a version of the rule. "You can't please everyone, and we really don't have to. All we have to do is please the people giving us the money to make this thing."

I'm sure that's a bigger job than it sounds, as pleasing those with the money ultimately involves pleasing the ones buying movie tickets, but some of those people will pay to see anything these days.

Maybe it's just that I've seen too many movies, but I'm starting to get the feeling that they're all coming from some sort of industry-issued blender. You just find the sort of movie you're looking to make in the special cookbook it comes with, add in the things it suggests -- the book it's going to be based on, aspects from other movies you thought might work, a few plot choices, some standard themes, y'know, what every movie needs. Then you pick the blending level, let it sit, and scoop out what floats to the top.

That's kinda how TMNT felt to me. Someone took the original Turtles movie, added a bit of Ghostbusters, mixed in the look of The Incredibles, and maybe threw in some of the original comics, just to say they did. And they got this thing that's just unfortunately preachy and...I don't know. Maybe they should've focused a little more on the monsters. I don't think that would've made me happy, but it would've been nice to see them a little more. Maybe find out more about them, because I bet there's a reason behind them somewhere.

I didn't mean to, but I left this post sitting here unfinished overnight, so I've pretty much forgotten everything else I was going to say. Oops.

OnDemand. I talked about this on the old version of my website, but I'm gonna do it again, because I really enjoyed the shit people thought they were giving me for what I was paying for cable....

My current bill is about $150. I recently dropped the four extra IPs in favour of my own nice little router. Also, it looks like I'm getting my HD box for free. I won't complain about that at all.

What I am paying for is more channels than I need, and very nice high speed cable internet.

Also, I get this really spiffy thing called 'OnDemand'. And most of it is free with my various subscriptions. I've got HBO, Cinemax, Starz, Showtime, some TMC thing -- all sorts of movies under each of them for free whenever I want to watch them. Plus various series...es. Whatever. I've got all of the current Bullshits, whenever I want to watch them. And that's just the premium channels. There's the Free Movies section, which is seperate. Cable Favourites, which includes Court TV, the History Channel, all manner of Discovery Channel subchannels, the National Geographic channel....

I get a lot of free shit. I think there are even free guitar, voice and cooking lessons. Possibly a couple of language things, too. And there's an Adult Swim section.

The only thing I don't have from Comcast right now is their TiVo thing. I really don't care about that, though. HD is really all I want right now.

Back to...what was it, oh yeah, the thankfully free Phantoms. I think all I really have to say is 'Dean Koontz'.

"You see a shotgun and a crucifix. You can only carry one. Which will you take?"

If you say 'cruicifix', you might be at the end of a Koontz story....

...if you're wondering about the title, no, I'm not going to talk about them right now. I'm going to quit for a while because it's time to stare at the ceiling.