Run silent, run deep

One of the many fortunate breaks in my life is that I have never seen Steven Seagal's masterwork, Under Siege. (Additional fortunate breaks include having never seen its, shall we say, less illustrious sequel Under Siege 2: Dark Territory. Mind you, I think it qualifies as a misfortune that I somehow know the full title of that movie off the top of my head.)

Now, despite this cultural ignorance, I know the movie is set on a submarine, and involves Seagal kicking people in assorted places with tremendous force, all the while being--and I must confess this last part is a mere presumption--under siege somehow. This is how I feel right now.

Allow me to explain, and in so doing clarify that I have not kicked anyone as of yet, forcefully or not. I am home alone. I am hunkered down in my living room. It is pitch black, except for the light of this screen. It is, in a moderate dose of pathetic fallacy, Hallowe'en night. And I just want the little fuckers to hurry up and get home already.

From this lead-in, you might be reasonably expecting some sort of typically bloggy diatribe about how it's a silly holiday and materialism blah and tooth decay blah and Mexican paganism blah and humbug this and that. Nope. Not really my thing. This is a more specific complaint with the situation I find myself in tonight--being spirited in heart, but miserly in brain and light in pocket, I do not possess a thrilling little metal bowl full of miniature chocolate bars, or a carefully-prepared selection of candied apples, or even a bag of bulk candy corn.

(Digression: Jesus. Candy corn has not passed between my lips in at least ten years now and I still shudder at the very thought of that deeply vile shit. A worse still option would be whatever those horrendous individually wrapped quasi-caramel candies were, you know, in the orange papers with the ghost and bat graphics, consistency of a chewier-than-average crayon, colour of an iron-rich stool, taste of nothing naturally found on God's green earth? Those. Are they still even made? Even in lead-laden factories in China?)

So as to avoid breaking little hearts, I had resolved to (a) not put out an intricately carved Jack O'Latern (this was a surprisingly simple step) and (b) turn off the porch light (something I actually failed to carry out until reminded by Dina.) Both goals achieved, I kicked back in one of my housemate's delightfully comfortable leather chairs, powered up my housemate's delightfully 42-inchy 42 inch flatscreen, and activated my housemate's delightfully no-longer-not-working hi-def box.

Indeed, this hi-def box's status as a fully productive and functioning member of the household was so new, at this point I'd yet to have the chance to drink of its bounty at all. And at the risk of drawing snickers for my ludditry, I should confess I don't believe I'd ever really intimately gotten to play with HD before in my life. So, naturally enough, it was a matter of dire seriousness that I put this emasculating state of technovirginity behind me.

However, the evening's programming lineup was in no mood to pay heed to this momentous milestone in my life. I went cranking through the channel guide in the hopes of findings some show that would really crack the whip behind the pixels' asses and prove HD's utter and total superiority. Let the fact that I wound up settling on Wheel of Fortune speak to the distinct lack of vibrant eye-candy on offer tonight. Words do not do justice to how much better-proportioned the board looks when framed in an 16:9 aspect ratio, minus all that needless airspace. And Vanna White's crows feet? Totally visible in closeups.

But then some tapping, softly at my chamber door! Cue pair of cute children, seasonally attired, who seemed to be under the impression that I had candy for them. Red-faced, I disabused them of that notion, sent them away empty-handed, and gently raped their childhood.

Back inside. The living room lights had already been off. Off go the hall lights, and what bleeding light from the kitchen might creep through out to the street out front. There. The house, to at least my eye, had been well and truly Jehovah's Witnessized to any rational outside observer.

Back to my throne. Jeopardy!'s on in a minute of two. Let's see what sort of heretofore-unknown aesthetic fireworks high-definition Alex Trebek is capable of.

But no. Thumping noises are coming from the porch. I turn and see three dark silhouettes, extending roughly 4-and-a-half-feet above floor level, faces pressed against my bloody front windows. They're verifying the existence of a warm body in front of the gorgeous 42 diagonal inches of rich, vibrant, high-definition colour. And generating even the slightest bit of movement had been a distinct mistake. The sound of victorious knocking is almost instantaneous.

So again out come the childhood-insulating excuses. I'm apparently waiting for my friend to come by and he was supposed to be buying enough candy for both of our houses. And I'm really sorry. Oh, and their costumes are pretty neat. The tears seem to be held in check at least until they're out of earshot. The eggs, too.

It would seem glorious 1080i broadcasting, aside from being able to facilitate a more thorough understanding of Vanna White's true age, can draw sugar-crazed children all the way up a dark driveway, onto a dark porch, and up against a dark window, all from a tiny sliver of flickering light visible from the sidewalk. And this poses a dilemma. Either the TV goes off, or I have to look forward to staring down a continued stream of young costumed faces for the rest of the evening.

I wish I was better at being an asshole. Then I wouldn't be sitting motionless in my own house, tapping on a dimmed laptop, occasionally glancing at a blank TV screen.