$19.99 Well-Unspent

I faced a dire test of my Vow of Video Game Chastity today.

Whilst wandering the red-shirt’d aisles of Targêt, I came across what looked like an old-school Atari joystick packaged in plastic. Noticing an As-Seen-On-TV logo, I investigated further. Turns out this joystick actually plugs into your TV via AV cables and has 10 old-skool 2600 games built into a chip in its base. All you need is the joystick, your TV, and some AA batteries. Twenty bones. Friggin’ awesome. It had, um, let’s see. Asteroids, Missile Command, Centipede, Adventure (which I always wanted to play, and still sort of do), er, something called Gravitar, Atari Circus (?), and some others I can’t remember. If it’d had Pitfall, I would have gone for it. As it was, I picked it up and returned it twice before finally walking away. Phew.

The Tailor of Panama

This was a pretty cool flick! I mean, it’s no The Tuxedo or A Gnome Gnamed Gnorm or Leprechaun n’ Tha Hood, or whatever Ja-El and Bobby have been watching lately. But if you like kind of slower-paced “spy” movies (ie, not like James Bond) this is a good one... it’s basically a kind of dramatic comedy, or “dramedy” (like Frank’s Place). What I’m saying is, this movie is pretty funny in addition to the serious elements, which surprised me. I haven’t seen too many thrillers that try to be funny without being parodies. Anyway... Pierce Brosnan plays a sort of low-key parody on Bond, in that he’s a womanizing MI6 agent, but he’s a total sleazebag and a bit of a doofus. All the characters are really well-developed, the end is very clever, and all in all it was one of the better two hours I’ve spent movie-viewing lately. It was really just a very unique movie.

Oh, the tailor maks a couple of suits, but the whole thing isn’t about that, if that changes your opinion.