Reality Bites

   As most of you know by now the movie The Hurt Locker won the Oscar for movie of the year, and this makes me very angry. My civilian friends keep asking me why I'm so mad, because most of them enjoyed watching it.  Simply put it's because the movie is full of lies, exaggerations, and ugly people. 'But it's a movie' they say, 'of course it's not realistic'. That's strange.. because the back of The Hurt Locker box says 'Powerfully Realistic'. Yet this movie is about as far from realism that a movie can be (this claim includes all movies about time travel, and vampires, but excludes any movies starring the Wayans brothers).
    Don't get me wrong here- I'm not a stickler for all military realism. The military uniforms in the Transformers are a ridiculous hodgepodge of different branches, but no one cares because America is fighting off evil giant alien robots, and nerds like Shia Labeouf are getting with impossibly hot women like Megan Fox (still not convinced that she's not an evil alien robot here to destroy monogamous relationships). The point being that  it's not the realism, it's the claiming to be real that disturbs me. Although I will say that there is occasional fantasy movie that breaks rules of logic as well. X-Men 3 is a prime example of what I like to call fantasmical stupidity.
    In the climactic scene of the movie Magneto rips up the entire Golden Gate Bridge and relocates it so that his minions can cross the bay to Alcatraz and capture the mutant boy wearing a livestrong bracelet http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKc4BWvWtuM. Let's assume for a moment that Magneto has developed his power over the metallic elements enough to move a 4200 feet long and 746 feet tall steel bridge a couple miles. Plus the bridge was full of cars and trucks at the time making its weight approximately a billion tons. The Alcatraz prison on the other hand, which is surely reinforced with steel just like the bridge, is only 3 stories in height, and if my calculations based on google maps satellite imagery are correct then it can't way more than a thousand tons. So if Magneto is SO powerful why didn't he just rip up the foundations of the prison and take it to his evil hideout instead of relocating a bridge for an obviously suicidal frontal assault? Fantasmical stupidity at its finest- and that is why X-Men 3 will never live up to its predecessors.
     When I first thought about writing this blog entry I considered writing a list of all the mistakes the movie makes, but my list became way too long and boring. Instead I decided to describe just how outlandish The Hurt Locker is by writing my own movie script, but this one is the medical equivalent, I call this version The Hurt Locker: McDoogie Returns with a Vengeance

Scene 1:
Time: It's Go Time!
Place: Decatur Memorial Hospital

Doctor McDoogie: Alright nurse what do we got?

Nurse 1: His heart was removed by a medicine man while his body was put into a pit of burning lava. It doesn't look good.

McDoogie: I don't like your attitude nurse. Now get me a juice box.

Nurse 1: Yes doctor. But wouldn't you like to put on your gloves first before you start operating?

McDoogie: If this guy is going to die I might as well be comfortable while I'm working on him.

Nurse 2: Doctor what meds should we give him.

McDoogie: Do what you think is best.

Scene 2:
Time: 3 hours later
Place: Plane flight to Washington D.C.

Flight Attendant: Is anyone on this flight a doctor. We have a medical emergency.

McDoogie: I'm a heart surgeon. What seems to be the problem?

Patient: There seems to be a tumor growing out of my ear.

McDoogie: I'm going to have to operate right now. Stewardess I'll need your best cutlery and a juice box.

Flight Attendant: But you're a heart surgeon, shouldn't we just wait a few hours and get him to a hospital so that someone who is trained to work on brain tumors can help this man out?

McDoogie: No.

Scene 3
Time: Weekend
Place: McDoogie's home

Mrs. McDoogie: Honey I'm so glad you are home. Samatha has been waiting all week to play with you.

Samatha: Hey daddy wanna play Operation with me?

McDoogie: Sure.

GhhZZZZZ!

Samantha: Yeah I won!

McDoogie: This is lame - I'm going back to work.

The End
       For those of you who never saw the movie or don't ever plan to- my entire family both immediate and extended- trust me when I say that the script you just read was the exact replica of the movie. Silly right? If McDoogie didn't convince you that The Hurt Locker is ridiculous surely nothing will.

      CNN would have you believe that there are a few in the military who actually liked The Hurt Locker http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/showbiz/2010/03/09/afghan.troops.hurt.locker.reax.cnn. As always the liberal media is leaving out all the facts. Those veterans that they polled who enjoyed the film fall into three categories.



1. FOBbits- the military slang for those who never leave the F.O.B. Forward Operating Base, and thus have no concept of deployment reality and are therefore sissies.

2. T.B.I.- Traumatic Brain Injury. Some vets have been hit so hard from explosions their brains are not functioning correctly, thus The Hurt Locker reminds them of their moms blueberry pancakes.

3. Marines
(Note: There are many scholars that will claim that reasons 2 and 3 are interchangeable, but this logic is faulty because there are plenty of reasons why a Marine's brain isn't functioning properly and should not be limited to just TBI. For example- drugs, abused as a child, hit by a train, licked too many envelopes, crack baby, gasoline fight, former or current resident of Texas, Nickleback, Aids, watched JEM and the holograms as a kid, shot in the face, molested by a priest, American Idol finalist, horrific sunburn, allergic to peanuts, testicular cancer, Yankees fan, or just plain dumb.)
      I guess what's the most troubling about The Hurt Locker is just how little the general public knows about the war and deployments. This begs the question: if that movie can dupe millions of Americans while we are currently engaged in two conflicts what else can Hollywood do? Next thing you know someone will claim that not all vampires are beautiful high schoolers whose skin shines in the sunlight (I'm on to you Libby Presnell).

Forts, Gold, and Plans

   Since I've been here at Ft. Knox, several friends and family have asked me about the gold locked up in the famous reserve vault. No, I have not seen it. No they do not give tours. And no, Mom, I will not at least take a picture of the outside for you. (Those rooftop snipers have beady all-seeing eyes). I do drive by the vault nearly every day, though, and for such an important task of protecting the nation's wealth, the building is frankly disappointing. It's roughly the size of a golf clubhouse, with granite walls and snipers on the roof, of course. The majority of the building is below ground, seven floors, if the rumors are to be believed. When I first realized that the vault was underground, and not an above-ground golden swimming pool like Scrooge McDuck's, it reminded me of an a simpler time in my boyhood when building forts was all the rage. 
     I was about 9 years old and the commies hadn't quite given up on East Germany yet. The Wolverines of Wyoming had fought them off just a few years prior, so I knew quality strongholds were a necessity. And no one really thought that the Rocky - Gorbachev peace talks would hold. I remember having an epiphany on the bus on the way home from school. What is the strongest, most impenetrable fort? My couch pillow, blanket and even plaster board-walled fort was easily defeated. I've got it... we need to build down not up! We could dig a giant hole with one little door and steps leading down to it, where we could do all of our non-commie activities. When I first envisioned this fortress I thought it would be cool to take left over carpet scraps and lay them on the dirt for a nice place to sit, and we could also have shelves to put all of our guns and stuff. Now that I look back on it, my design has a lot of similarities to a cellar.
     I took this new found genius idea of protection and sold it to my neighborhood friends, and we started digging. We had to find a good spot for our fort where no one could see our operations and tools would be readily accessible…which made the garden bed behind my shed perfect. I felt like a regular Tom Sawyer--rallying up the local kids to do his chores. We were making great progress when my older brother Joseph and one of his friends poked in to see what we were doing. I thought we were done for. But after I told him about our ultimate underground hideaway he and his friend actually logged someman boy hours in helping us dig even deeper.
    This operation wasn't a one-day affair, mind you. For several days we would come home from school and go back to work making the fort bigger and bigger. Until finally we couldn't dig any longer. This hole was a monster, at least six feet in diameter and three feet deep. Which means once we put a roof on it, my friends and I could all easily fit inside, as long as we were laying down shoulder to shoulder, that is.
     Disheartened we gave up on the idea of our underground fallout shelter and moved on to more exciting things like blowing up Barbies with fireworks. A week later my mother discovered the child-made crater behind her shed and told me to fill the hole back in. For years it boggled my mind how the dirt that I pulled out of the hole wouldn't all fit back in the hole. Did the dirt grow? If so, is there money in growing dirt?
     Even though my blue prints never panned out, the pit that we dug that week still stands on the top ten list of engineering wonders of the Woodland Hills neighborhood. It was then that I realized my potential to rally people to a cause... and quit before it's complete.

Engineering Wonders of Woodland Hills Neighborhood
(Not listed in order of greatness)
1.  Ammon's underground fortress against communists
2.  Blair's balcony (great for throwing gliders off of and shooting Barbies with B.B. guns)
3.  Dead Man's Cliff (I swear it was a lot bigger when I was younger)
4.  Mr. Brilley's pond and gazebo
5.  Mr. Brilley's rock pile
6.  Mr. Brilley's pasture
7.  Mr. Brilley's driveway
8.  Bubba Morris's jungle lawn
9.  Van Orden's rusty trampoline
10.The bridge spanning the mighty Steven's Creek (also owned by Mr. Brilley)

    Did you know that the value of a gold bar is nearly half a million dollars these days? Did you also know that several countries’ crown jewels, the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution were stored in Ft. Knox to protect them during WWII? National Treasure 3 anyone? Although I can’t find any discernable weakness in the fort’s perimeter, I’m sure Nicolas Cage can weasel his way in…or at least annoy movie-goers across the country trying.