Real American Hero

This summer’s movies area all about super heroes, shortcuts, and poor body image.

The first one off the assembly line was Thor. In the comic books, Thor was an ordinary mortal/often absent doctor David Blake who’s transformed into an Asgardian God of Thunder by picking up a stick.

Seriously, a fucking stick. That’s the entire origin story. In the movie, he’s a bare-chest super-hunk who picks up a hammer and transforms into Thor.

Put on a fucking shirt and go fight the Frost Giants, Thor.

Then there’s kissy-time, despite the fact that the Thor in the comics hasn’t had a steady or even occasional girlfriend for about fifty issues.

Then there’s the Green Lantern, who’s greatest super power is having abs.

The Green Lantern’s deal is that his power ring does all the work for him. Whatever he thinks of, the ring will create. There’s no reason for him to ever work out a day in his life. Yet, he looks like this in the movie, because tickets must be sold.

Then there’s Captain America. It’s a story about a wimpy kid who gets turned into a bona-fide super hero using drugs.

This is probably the right image.

What about X-Men: Yadda-Yadda-Reboot. This is how Professor X is supposed to look:

This is how he looked in that movie:

If you can guess, there’s a common theme between all these movies, and it’s an American one: shortcuts get you results. If you’re a 90 pound weakling, take 210 pounds of steroids and punch some Nazis in the face. Problem solved! Also, American audiences only have time for Nines and Tens. Jack Black was once cast for the role of the Green Lantern. I shit you not. That movie, thankfully, was never made because he’s a 3, and that’s a stupid idea. When it was made, they went overboard. Fans wanted Nathan Fillion for the Green Lantern, because: Firefly. He’s only like an 8.5 by Hollywood standards, so it went to Van Wilder and history wad made? Who knows anymore. I haven’t seen any of these movies, because even as huge comic book fan, they suck even by my very low standards. After all the Daredevils and Elektras, I’ve learned my lesson. For every Sin City, or V for Vendetta, there’s a Hulk, or Superman Returns.

Ordinary Man

Since the San Diego Comicon is going on right now it’s a good time to mention that Superman comics have sucked for the past year. Issues #700-713 have been absolute garbage. To recap the year-spanning saga: Superman has been walking across America. Not in the manner of Forrest Gump, mind you, as Forrest Gump ran across America. Also, he coined the, “Shit happens,” catch phrase while doing it. Superman has done nothing but bum around and be racist. They even pulled an issue because it was too “controversial.” The controversy was a flashback to Superman helping a young Muslim boy use his powers for good. So in addition to being boring, it’s also racist. Superman comics would be more exciting right now if instead of fighting crime with super powers, he sat at home eating chips, because at least then a whacky neighbour could show up and it could deviate into a hit sitcom. Supergirl comics are more exciting right now. I shit you not. She’s going to college and fighting psychic genetic clones in disguise that are allegories for the Facebook creator.

Nothing that’s happened in Superman: Grounded, has made any sense up until this point. Nothing. First of all, he comes back to an anti-Kryptonian Earth after New Krypton is destroyed and get spat on by a woman who tells him he could have miraculously cured her husband’s brain tumour had he been on Earth, and met her husband at random out of the 6.8 billion people on Earth, and used his X-Ray vision on her husband by pure happenstance and given him his very unprofessional diagnosis, then used some hitherto unknown super power to remove it. It’s probably the most WTF moment ever in Superman. It’s supposed to be humanizing for him, but really, it just makes the woman look like a psycho bitch of epic proportions. Of all the people should could have blamed for a brain tumour, Superman is pretty low on that list, especially since she just established he’s been away from Earth for a whole year. Instead of hitting her so fast that the punch would be invisible, and thus Superman, standing in front of a crowd of witnesses who could testify he never even flinched, could never be found responsible for the gaping hole in her chest, he sulks away, then decides to walk across America to get back in touch with your Average Joe.

The Average Joe sucks, though. That’s why the comic is supposed to be about Superman. He’s the opposite of the Average Joe. Also, he has super hearing and super telescopic vision. If he wants to see what’s going down with America, he can take a microsecond and look. He doesn’t have to walk down every street and shake your hand. There’s millions of police officers, fire fighters, and hospital workers trained to take care of people in cases of emergency. No one needs to call Superman when their cat’s stuck in a tree.

“Here you go, Sally, but If I have to come back and rescue this cat one more time, I’m going to leave him at Chinese restaurant… in China.”

Superman exists to punch space robots in their metal faces, so the whole universe knows not to fuck with Earth. Exactly zero seconds should be spent rationalizing why Superman does what he does. He’s Superman. If you’d never heard of Superman before, you’d know what his deal was the second he showed up wearing tights and a cape and started blowing out forest fires with his damn mouth.

Yet, they’ve spent a whole year on this ridiculous plot line where he just travels around like a damn hippie. Who wants that? At one point there looked like there was going to be a secret reveal involving a subplot about a woman invading his nightmares, but that hasn’t played out after thirteen issues.

This is literally worse than any of the Superman movies. I’m not just talking about the Richard Pryor vehicle, I’m talking about Superman 4: The Quest for Peace. Plus, it feels like it’s gone on longer than Smallville, and with fewer results.

This is why DC needs the reboot, because of shit like this. Somehow the series got up it’s own ass and they forgot how to draw space monsters. Horseshit.

A Clean Bill of Health

In the past six weeks, I’ve been to the Emergency Room, had a blood test, two cardiographs, an X-Ray, an ultra-sound, and finally a HIDA Scan to see what was wrong with me. The result? Nothing. I first had to go to the hospital due to severe chest pains. There’s no knowing what a heart attack feels like until you have one, and I haven’t had one yet, and I was worried that was the cause. Turned out it wasn’t and my heart was fine. The doctor looked at the results of my blood test and X-Ray and thought it might have been gallstones. The ultrasound showed it wasn’t that either. My gallbladder was enlarged, however, so I had to move on to a HIDA Scan to see if it was healthy. It turned out it was. So I took every test I could take at the doctor’s orders, and I still have no idea what happened. I was out of commission for a whole day with chest pain that spread into my back, until I could barely stand up, and there were times I couldn’t even so much as lie down. Did I have some sort of gallbladder attack? Is that even possible? Who knows? There’s no point in pursuing it further unless it happens again.

Thank God I live in a country where health care is free, though. I’d hate to go through all that just to learn nothing was wrong with me, and end up with an enormous bill. Worse still, I could have needed surgery, compounding my financial problem with health problems. How do people survive in those situations? I was already trying to figure out how I’d pay the bills if I had to take time off work and go on short-term disability. If you add hospital bills to the mix, then you’re looking at bankruptcy.

The turnover time was pretty good too. People complain about long waits in our health care system, but if you break down everything I had to go through, six weeks is a good time. I was tended to immediately when I went to the hospital with chest pains, and when they figured out it wasn’t really my heart, it was a relatively short period of time before I moved on to the next stage. The longest wait was for the ultrasound and HIDA scan tests to come back, which took a week each. The HIDA Scan itself was booked in a relatively short period of time.

So I guess Canada kicks a little ass. I feel bad for Americans.

The Church of Phil

Hello, and welcome. By reading this, you’ve already taken the first step towards acceptance at the Church of Phil. It is also the last step. Welcome aboard. Please note that any deserters will be thrown into the Pit.

This is now your orientation. Allow me, your new Lord Emperor King God to explain the benefits and features to the Church of Phil.

Origins:

The Church of Phil is a giant tax dodge. So was your old religion. Deal with it. From that point, I slapped together a bunch of B.S. to keep your placated. Honesty is an integral part of the Church of Phil, because if I ever find out you snitched on me to the Feds, you’re going into the Pit.

Beliefs:

We believe that we should pay no tax. We also believe you should pay me. 80% of your earnings will be deducted from your account. This is non-negotiable, and will be written off as a charitable donation. You may cite it when filing your taxes, but you are disavowed from paying tax, even under threat of imprisonment. The remaining 20% of your income should be used to buy me gifts. You may keep your material possessions for yourselves, as they are tacky and out of date. Please note that your possessions may be used to barricade our compound from the Feds.

We at the Church of Phil also believe that I created everything as an extension of myself, and that I am the centre of the universe, which is me-shaped. You were made in my image, but obviously not as attractive as me. You’re welcome.

You shall have no Gods before me, but you can have Gods behind me. Those are the ones you should pray to, because I don’t really care about your problems. If those other Gods don’t like it, then maybe they should get off their high horse. I should be the only one on a horse anyway, brandishing a sabre and posed as if about to lead a charge, Phil helps those who help themselves, by having those people help themselves. Some situations may require you to seek medical attention from a trained professional. In those cases you should let someone else help you. Not me, though.

Those who sin, or piss me off, shall spend eternity in the Pit. This is both physical and metaphorical, as they will have been thrown into the pit before their demise. For those who live up to my high expectations, they get sweet fuck all, but at least they’re not in the Pit. Oh, what’s that, you’ve been a good person all your life? What do you want, a cookie? I’m not here to reward your for your behaviour. I’ve got orgies to attend.

Lifestyle:

There will be sexy orgies, but you’re not invited. You’ll be too busy digging the Pit. I need that thing to be deep enough that no one can get out, especially you, since you’re already in it digging. Other fun activities include:

• Slavery
• Forced labour
• Labour camps
• Indentured servitude
• Working without pay, or compensation

Dinner will include whatever you can eat before it can eat you. It’s a dog-eat-dog world, and you’re part of the pack. Yes, there will be cannibalism. Consider that your Eucharist. There’s not going to be much down in that Pit besides you and a shovel, and a bunch of hungry, pissed-off people, and I’m not too sure about the shovel part yet. I can’t have you digging your way out of the Pit now, can I?

Suicide Bombings:

Those of you lucky enough not to find yourself in the Pit will be required to suicide bomb yourselves to keep our aggressors at bay, that’s a no brainer. Bear in mind, the only virgin awaiting you in heaven will be you, so kiss your right hand goodbye before you go. You must also provide your own explosives, and choose your own targets. Points will be awarded for size of explosion, difficulty, originality, swimsuit, and your battle-cry. The winner will be awarded a commemorative trophy, in which any chunks we find of you will be placed, assuming they’re yours. Members of the Pit are prohibited from suicide bombings as the resulting explosion may vault them out of the Pit.

HST VS. GST/PST

In B.C., we paid Goods and Service Tax along with a Provincial Sales tax, which combined form 13% on most purchases, until our benevolent leaders decided to combine GST/PST into the HST Harmonized Sales Tax, which costs 12% on fuck-near everything. Notice how I said “nearly” everything. If you went to a restaurant, for example, you would only pay 7% for your sales tax. Now it’s 12%, which is more. This came at a time when the economy collapsed and the job market dried up our current Recession. Somehow, paying more tax would magically pull us out of this quagmire. Taxpayers, of course, were outraged as there is nothing “Harmonized,” about the tax. The Liberals who introduced it tried to put a spin on it, but you can’t convince the voters that a changed tax isn’t a tax grab, especially since it is. Now there’s a mail-in referendum to annul the tax. I received the ballot in my mail after the mail strike ended. I looked it over, but do you know what I see?

Two options: Keep the HST, or go back to the GST/PST. There’s no third option, which is not to pay taxes at all.

And why should I? If were going to get all revolutionary with our referendum vote, why not go all out and let the people say what they really want? If the government doesn’t like the radical idea of not having to pay tax, then maybe they shouldn’t be in power. Money, after all, is just a concept. A $20 bill is useless unless you can exchange it for goods and services. The services you acquire for paying tax are, of themselves, imaginary. They’re paying for roads you’ll never travel on, police you’ll never call, and feeding the poor you’ll never know exist. Ask yourself this: if the poor are taking all your hard-earned tax money, why are they still poor? It’s a losing game. Even if you review the entire budget and how every tax dollar is spent, you’ll never be able to put a face to virtually any of those services. People get mad as hell if their cell phone provider bills them for hidden fees on extra services they don’t want: why should they passively accept it when their government does it to them? Especially since they’re being charged tax on those extra services?

The answer to this, of course, is all out Anarchy, followed by a Communist Dictatorship ruled over by me and my robot minions, but people are far too passive these days. They’ll send their loved ones overseas to fight terrorist bogeymen, but they won’t do so much as knock over a mail box if they think it’ll improve their lot.

That’s why I’m proposing a second alternative to not paying tax for all you rational pussies: the Church of Philogy. By creating my own tax-free religion, we can enjoy all the benefit of today’s non-Post Apocalyptic Commie-Fascist Dictatorship. You are free to go about your daily lives free from the violence and bloodshed my global anarchistic revolution would bring about, but are legally able to refuse to pay any and all taxes on religious grounds. Sounds too good to be true? It is! Which is the best part of my plan.

First off, to answer some basic questions you might have as to why the government would allow me, your new Lord Emperor King and Personal Super-Saviour, to have tax-free status, I believe I already explained that with the violent revolution thing. Plus, you will be acting as my suicide bombers. I’m not talking about run-of-the-mill suicide bomber either. You don’t get into super-heaven by walking into a crowd and blowing yourself up. That doesn’t earn you any “eternity” points. You need to use creativity. I want you to jump off the Empire State Building and blow yourself up the split second before you hit the ground. I want you to drive a runaway train towards another train heading the opposite direction on the same tracks containing another suicide bomber and you both blow yourselves up simultaneously as you collide. I want you to make it the American Idol finals and blow yourself up as you sing the high note of your victory song. I want you to get a job defusing bombs, and after saving the city from certain disaster, blow yourself up as you wipe the sweat from your brow. These are merely suggestions.

At this point, you should be asking, is this a cult? Nyeso. It’s a cult, but with status, which is the same as religion. Plus, you get to enjoy all the great perks of being in a cult, such as:

• Forced slavery Super Happy Fun Time
• Re-Education Education
• Animal Sacrifice Good Eats
• Human Sacrifice Sports
• Virgin Sacrifice Romance
• Poisonings Kool-Aid
• Mass-Suicide Vacation-Time

Plus, wild-sex orgies. For me, not you. I might tell you about them, though, so you can live vicariously through me.

Now if you’re still confused as to whether or not this religion is right for you and your family, here are some of our beliefs.

No tax: Tax is against our religion. If anyone tries to force you to pay tax, you should immediately detonate. That’s just common sense. You will, however, be forced to give me 80% of your earnings, and one kidney. How is that different from tax, you might ask? You ask too many questions. To the Pit with you. I shall accommodate your curious mind, however, by telling you that it’s not a tax, it’s a charitable donation, which is tax-deductible, but please remember that you’re not paying taxes. Also note that if you don’t pay your taxes, you get audited. If you refuse to pay my mandatory donation, you’ll be thrown into the Pit. After I’m through with it, the government isn’t going to want your money anyway. It shall be soiled. Note that I only require a mere 80% of your earnings. You get to keep that 20% as spending money for cigarettes and chewing gum. I’m not going to have you coming to me every day asking for money because you want to go to the movies. I’m not a wallet. You can keep your worldly possessions too, because they’re tacky and I don’t want them. They may be used as barricade one day when our compound is raided, so keep that in mind. Real wood furniture is harder to break through than the particleboard crap you get at Ikea. What if you don’t have any earnings? Get a job hippie. Otherwise, gas, grass or ass: nobody rides for free.

This may sound convoluted as an alternative to the HST, but it’s not. All you have to remember is that any opposition to me or my ideas and beliefs will have you thrown in the Pit.

Interesting….

I tried looking at my own blog just now to see if my last posting worked, and this is all I can see:

http://search.microsoft.com/?mkt=en-GB

Which is odd, because I’m using Google Chrome for a blog that’s a Google service.

I hope this gets cleared up. Looks like a hack job.

No.

What the sweet holy fuck? Look at this:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/miscellaneous/e9b4/?cpg=164T&link

These are 2-D glasses. They’re glasses designed for watching 3-D movies in 2-D. I have just one thing to say about that: No.
The 3-D movie fad is already peaking. Sure, there’s dozens of 3-D movies out this summer, but they’re all available in 2-D as well, and the 2-D costs less. Why would you go to a 3-D movie if you don’t want to see a 3-D movie?
Here’s how they work.

They’re basically 3-D glasses with the same lens in each eye. Brilliant.
Of course there’s families out there who have to take their kids to see fucking Rio, or Kung Fu Panda 2 in 3-D, or else they’re terrible parents. My wife always comes along for these excursions, but she doesn’t necessarily like 3-D. That’s because of the glasses, thought, which she has to wear over her regular glasses. A lot of other people get headaches from these movies. Then there’s people who just can’t see in 3-D.

Note to self: turn safe search back on before googling “Leela.” I know there’s an image out there of her using 3-D glasses, but I can’t be bothered to go through 80,000 images of fan-made porn to find it.
These fuckers cost $8.99 plus shipping and handling, though. So you’re basically paying the price of a ticket again to go and see a movie in a format you don’t want to see it in. I know this must be a niche product, and some people could actually use the convenience of not having their brains made to feel as if they were being sledgehammered through their skulls, but fuck.

Time Waster

I’ve been wasting my time writing blogs, as evidenced by this:

This is a video made by me, and it sucks. However, this video has received, at 10:00 p.m. Pacific Time, July 7th, 2011; 46,494 views.
My blog? 1,541.
So I can spend my time making stupid videos and get the population of a small town to watch them, or I can write this blog and get the population of a large high school to read it. I’m not bragging by any means. I simply find the statistics fascinating. My all time most popular blog post has received 504 views. My tenth most popular out of 241? 8. Why waste time on writing when I can use any crappy old cam and reach out to people using the same amount of my time?
Blogs and youtube videos are both in an abundant supply, but people would rather watch videos than read. Besides, youtube as a central site has a wider viewing audience. If you’re blogging, you’re doing it solo, or on one of fifteen or so different services, reaching out to a finite community and hoping people stumble upon you by typing the wrong thing into their search engine.
Why the hell did this video get so many views? Is it because it features a Queen song and hasn’t been torn down yet? Did my title or tags meet some kind of search criteria and people are coming to it by mistake? I have no idea. I don’t know if I’ll ever even get a chance to do another. It takes time to do something even this feeble, but it’d be interesting to try.

Casey Anthony and Cleopatra

With the “not guilty" verdict in the recent Casey Anthony trial, Nancy Grace’s head has come closer to exploding, leaving bits of wig and wads of makeup all over the teleprompter. For the past infinity plus months, Nancy Grace has been obsessing over the toddler murder as no one else can. Much in the way reality TV has taken over prime time, child murder has taken over news networks. At first I didn’t even notice the changeover, as I would periodically switch to the 24hr CNN channel expecting news of the world. Nancy Grace became a more predominant figure over time, and now rules over the entire network. If she’s not on the air, whoever is on screen is following up on her same talking points: which is child murder and bad parents. There is no news in America anymore: it was murdered. Now all they can talk about is murder itself.

The sheer level of obsession over this particular, tragic incident borders on “Captain Ahab.” Batman himself spent less time obsessing over his parents’ murders. It is sad, to say the least, but the general public doesn’t have any vested interest in the case except to satiate some primal urge. I can’t understand why violent movies and pornography are so tightly controlled when all they do is cater to a lesser base desire, but material of this sort is splattered everywhere. Why do people give in to this temptation? Why dwell on impotent rage over an event they can’t change, and will never directly effect them in their own communities? There’s actual news happening out there. People are dying down the street. There are worse monsters than this vilified woman, so why has the “news” stopped reporting on anyone but her? It could only be compared to the O.J. trial. That case was different in that O.J. was a fallen celebrity, which makes it all the more juicier, and he had that much-publicized white Ford Bronco chase. No one seeing him try to escape on live TV thought he was innocent: except the jury.

Which brings me to another point. While on trial by jury, the accused was simultaneously before an unwinnable trial by media. Everyone in that court knew what was going on outside the walls. The lawyers played up to it as much as they could while trying to build a name for themselves. The jurors were affected the same way. They finished the trial with a “not guilty” verdict, while everyone watching at home cursed them out loud. Why, if the evidence was so mounted against her?

Money.

If you’re a juror in the spotlight for a brief, shining second, no one is going to pay you top dollar to come out and give an interview if you give the same verdict everyone expects. People will merely cheer you on, and pass you by. Come up with something crazy and they’ll trot you around to every show in the circuit to explain how stupid you are. Meanwhile: you’re raking in the bucks, so who’s really stupid? Think off all the media circuses like the O.J. trial and the Michael Jackson trial that came out with a “not guilty” verdict. Those verdicts gave the case the epilogues for the jurors they needed. Then they went on TV to say, “Oh yeah, I thought he was guilty.”

So it’s a joke, really. If you want to serve justice, turn off the cameras.

Japanese Stereotypes

Traditionally, Japanese people in cinema were depicted like this:

And why wouldn’t they? 9/11 proved that if you fly a plane into something, people will remember.
Then things gradually moved into this territory:

So now the Japanese, no longer the enemy, were fearful, and delicious tasting.
Then, someone remembered that Japanese people know karate and shit, so they became ninjas. This went on for quite some time.

Most ninjas are fond of turtle soup, or are turtles.
In the past thirty years or so, there’s been a small change. With all the anime, robot toys, and efficient cars coming out of Japan, American audiences thought to themselves: Hey, the Japanese people must be a bunch of nerds.
So there was Takashi in Revenge of the Nerds. Of course, he liked robots. What Japanese man doesn’t?

Also: Saki.
The Japanese weren’t just nerdy, however, but generally unhip. So along came G-Fresh in Orgazmos. A hip-hop sushi restaurateur.

Last night, I watched How High on Netflix, which was a mistake. The movie included a Japanese Harvard freshman called Tuan who was basically the love-child of Takashi and G-Fresh. The resemblance was uncanny: a nerdy virgin who was way into the hip-hop lifestyle.

In a movie filled with racial stereotypes (the blackest dudes they could find juxtaposed next to the whitest), they added a nerdy Japanese dude, as if it were automatically required by law if they were making a college movie. I find it bizarre how easily recognizable he was as a blanket stereotype, especially since it’s not that common. Also: the movie sucked in general. I was worried I was the only one to make the connection to two other movies.
   

On the Subject of Mike Myers

I wish to discuss Mike Myers.
Not this Mike Myers:

This Mike Myers:

I was watching Shrek 2 again today, and I realized that in the scenes where Shrek has transformed into a human, he looks nothing like Mike Myers, which is ironic, because as a ogre, he’s depicted as having the save facial features as his actor. Take a look:

Now look at him as a human:

Which is kind of weird, because Mike Myers has played characters in fat suits before, and they still look closer to him than this does.


  

Baby’s First Parade

I took my son to his first parade today, for Canada Day, which is a lot like the Fourth of July, but without all the Tom Cruise. Since we moved, we could walk to the end of the parade route. We could have walked last year too, but we are lazy, lazy people. Abbotsford is a multicultural town, in that it has two cultures: white people and brown people, but the white people are still in your face about it. Case in point, this:

View Full Album

I’ve seen this around town before, but I didn’t have a camera to capture the madness of it. This is a creepy van painted to look like a S.W.A.T. team vehicle, but if you look at the decals, you’ll see that this is the Spiritual Weapons and Tactics van. It’s not just one van, either: they have two. What does a religious group that’s apparently targeting kids with their X-treme logo do with two creepy vans that roam the city? Plus: bonus points for putting Jesus on the “T.” I’m sure he’s thrilled to be associated with you. So if you’re in Abbotsford and the S.W.A.T. team squeals to a stop next to you and someone demands you get in the back of their van: don’t. Hey, maybe these people do good work for troubled teens, but it’s still giving me the heeebie-jeebies.

There was also a youth gay pride group marching in the parade, because gays love them some parade. When you think about it, ever parade is a gay parade. These courageous youths had the misfortune, however, to be sandwiched in between two religious groups, because it’s Abbotsford. It may have been intentional, but then it’s be hard to find a spot in the route that wasn’t between two overtly religious groups. Really, being gay teenagers surrounded by a bunch of Christians who think what they are and what they’re doing is wrong is a fairly accurate depiction of their lives in Abbotsford. I wonder if there were any kids in the Christian floats who would rather have been in the gay pride march, but of course would have been ostracized. Or vice versa: if there was gay teen whose moral values defied them being in the parade, but they went along with it anyway due to peer pressure. Those are the kinds of things I think about. I also thought about the, “It must be low tide at the pier!” joke when I saw a Cheerleader stretching her leg over her head. That is why I’m a dangerous person to society at large.

I saw another float go by with a blonde girl in what was clearly a Canadian Mountie costume she’d bought at a sex shop. The crowd was in my way, so I couldn’t see the sign to tell what the float was supposed to be about. Apparently, a church. I think that’s a better way to drum up attendance than using disguised pedophile vans.

Ever been in any kind of crowd, where you find a good spot, and then as you’re priding yourself on you selection, everyone sort of just budges in. As time goes on, they get further and further to the curb until they’re in the middle of the street, and some cop has to shout at them collectively? It’s nothing new, but it’s still weird. People keep inching forward as a mass, and if you’re not paying close enough attention, you’ll look over and see everyone’s moved ten feet in. More evidence that people are sheeple.