They are way too curly.

I maybe spent too long writing an e-mail this evenin...morning, so I don't want to take too long here. (The e-mail was totally worth it though). Regardless, I was planning a mostly odds and ends, plus thoughts on To Have and Have Not.

So, basically, twice the stuff I would normally have... whatever, it's another 11 blogs for a month, it's a party, so first up.

I got the car over night for work on saturday or sunday, okay, according to my notebook this was sunday. Anyways, I was listening to the radio and this song that I don't know if I've ever heard before comes on, and I wanted to post the lyrics. And yes, I do realize, pretty much all the time.

The Flaming Lips - Do You Realize
Do You Realize, that you have the most beautiful face
Do You Realize, we're floating in space
Do You Realize, that happiness makes you cry
Do You Realize, that everyone you know someday will die

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes, let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It's hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn't go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

Do You Realize, Oh Oh Oh
Do You Realize, that everyone, you know,
Someday, will die

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes, let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It's hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn't go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

Do You Realize, that you have the most beautiful face
Do You Realize

***

Yeah, so onto something that's the exact opposite of songs about our mortality: the newspaper strip Mother Goose and Grimm. Generally, it's kind of lifeless, gag wise and artwise- EXCEPT! when Grimm makes this expression.



(and as for the strip in question... I know I haven't given you much context to get the job he's trying out for... I think it was for a piloting gig? I didn't really get it, and didn't really care to work on figuring it out- I just saw his expression and went "YES!" and tore it out of the paper.)

***

To Have and Have Not is a weird jumble of a book. It starts out very exciting, with a drive by shooting that happens on, I don't know, page 5, and I thought that was pretty cool.

Then we went to a boat and talked about fishing some more (Hemingway and his fishing) but even that was relatively exciting, what with a giant fish nearly pulling a newbie fisherman off the boat.

But the jumble comes from the narration and focus. It starts first person with Harry Morgan, then goes third person but still with Morgan as the lead figure, then the last third of the book has a heavy focus on Richard Gordon, philandering, mostly successful writer. And then there's a brief chapter at the end where we look at the occupants of several yachts, boat by boat, before resting on this one woman who is cheating on her husband with a guy that she knows would only cheat on her if she married him, and it doesn't matter because both men are too drunk to satisfy her, and then we get a Hemingway style sex scene of her masturbating in such a way that I'm sure a great many people would read this and think "what's happening? why is she telling herself she loves herself? Is she crazy?"

No reader. No she is not.

It's the back teaser blurb that's getting me: "Harry Morgan's) adventures lead him into the world of the wealthy and dissipated yachtsmen who throng the region, and involve him in a strange and unlikely love affair."

That doesn't happen.

Yes, his (spoiler alert) dying body is driven through the rich yachtsmen dock or whatever. Does that REALLY count? And everyone else in the book was poor. Morgan met with two rich people in this book. The human smuggler that he then killed for the sake of personal security, and the tourist (I think that's Richard Gordon, but I may have mixed him up with another character) whose wife Morgan called a whore.

Harry Morgan was not a nice protagonist. But, credit where it's due, he took all those chances for the sake of his family, and his lasts thoughts were of his wife... well, okay, not counting his final words almost 40 pages before the end of the book, which I take to be the conclusion of this story:

""Don't fool yourself,... Like trying to pass cars on the tops of hills. On that road in Cuba. On any road. Anywhere. Just like that. I mean how things are. The way that they been going. For a while yes sure all right. Maybe with luck. A man."...

"A man," Harry Morgan said, looking at them both. "One man alone ain't got. No man alone now." He stopped. "No matter how(,) a man alone ain't got no bloody fucking chance."

He shut his eyes. It had taken him a long time to get it out and it had taken him all of his life to learn it."

I added a comma up there for clarity's sake, but you could probably figure out the meaning on your own.

Harry Morgan's tale is of one man who takes everything upon himself. His first mate is a useless rummy. He can't trust the smuggler who hired him to keep his mouth shut, so he's got to kill him. He won't give it up when he's shot up and on the run from the law, and it costs him his arm. He won't tell his friend the bar tender about his dangerous last mission, because he knows the bar tender would object (rightly so, it WAS too dangerous). He could have even tried to pursuade the cooler heads amongst the bank robbers he was ferrying away to protect him from their violent and murderous comrade Roberto- instead of trying to kill them all (very literally) single handed.

All in all, I'd rather have edited this thing down to three separate short stories. Maybe more, it's all in how you divide it.

I started reading "For Whom The Bell Tolls" and THAT'S the one with the "no man is an island" quote at the beginning. I had mixed it up with To Have and Have Not, seeing as it's sort of the photo-negative thought to Morgan's attempts to be an island.

And once again, I've been here way too long. 6:42 in the morning, I've got 11 hours before I've gotta be out the door and on the way to the movies. Hmm, earlier if I want to get a haircut (my side burns are WAY too curly.)

It'll probably be 3:04 (!) by the time I hit publish post!

No- I didn't give myself enough time to write on my blog hereabouts, and now it's 11 to 3am, and I'm tired, and I want to sleep!

Actually, wait, I think I've done 9, I only need the last two for my quota... still, with me working the next three nights in a row, I'll be pushing it.

I finally went to join up with the gym near my house. It's kind of lame that they don't have a track, but I guess I can go running "outside" wherever that is.

AND the girl that signed me up was really cute, so that's a plus for sure.

AND I worked out for like, a while, but now my elbow hurts, so I guess I didn't take it as easy as I wanted to.

AND I got to use the bike machine thing, which is cool.

Enh, I'm less happy about using a treadmill, that's like... running on a treadmill! You don't go nowhere's! Am I a hamster? That and I kept veering a little bit to the side... gotta straighten up and run right.

I'm glad I still enjoy the gym thing, even though it's been so long and I'm now working with weights significantly less heavy than I was before. Got to work back up there- but it's only a matter of time!

And I still haven't found the thingy I liked from the track and field centre for ab work outs- yeah, I definitely need to catch up on my ab work outs, especially as I'm so insistent on wearing these tight t-shirts.

Um, hung out with a buddy downtown for a bit, taught some high school girls at McDonald's what the Legion of Super-Heroes pin on my back pack was (it was Legion of Super-Heroes) and directed them to the mondo comics site.

But none of them knew it was Donatello on my backpack. Kids today, they just don't know the important things.

Also, some dudes my age ALSO didn't know it was Donatello... so are people crazy? How do you not know the sensitive guy that everyone brings their problems to if Splinter isn't around? Unless it's a technological problem, then you always go to Donny first.

And how else are you going to remember what Corey Feldman sounds like? The Feld-dog!

Uhp- 3:01 that means I'm already supposed to be gone. If, uh, if you thought I talked about Donatello way too much just then... just replace the scenario with a more socially respectable comic book subject.

What's that? There isn't one?

Hey, just pretend I was talking about Watchmen, that always works. Whoops, 3:03.

But that Jazz kid does seem pretty cool though.

So I'm driving my buddy home, wait, so I'd already done that, and I'm driving back up that hill in the rain, and just as the Beastie Boys are doing the opening bit to "Intergalactic" (Intergalactic/Planetary-Planetary/Intergalactic- dunununuu) and a bolt of lightning forks down, bisecting the night sky. It was sweet.

An article I read in this weekends Toronto Star told the story of Storm, a baby with a purposefully undisclosed gender, and Storm's family- two loving parents, 5 year old brother Jazz, and 2 year old bro Kio.

I wish I hadn't read about this in the Star like it was "big news" for people to either like or dislike immediately. I'd rather have seen this in some obscure psychology journal framed as the social experiment it is.

I like that people assume this is a terrible idea or a great idea... how about we see where it goes? Like, give it twenty years, and see how the kids are doing then?

But I am irked by the parents pointing at their eldest son, again, who is 5, with his pink accessories, long braided hair, and little self written book about gender, and saying, "see? This is how REAL children are when we don't apply our preconcieved notions of gender on them."

Nope. No. Really? Don't pretend you aren't instilling your own values in your kids. You have definitely not taken the nurture out of "nature and nurture", whatever you may think.

As the great Homer once said- "kids are great, Apu, you can teach them to hate the the things you hate!"

It's a shame that Jazz ALREADY (again, at 5!) doesn't want to go to school to avoid getting made fun of by the other kids. That's pretty crazy.

Relatively superfluous entry, but even so...

Not a lot going on, but I've got the day off and I'm chilling out, so I should make an entry while I've got the chance.

Well, I got to watch "The Road to El Dorado" and "Kung Fu Panda" on tv today. El Dorado really takes me back, we watched it a bunch in the old days, but we never owned it ourselves. My bro says we got it from the library to watch all the time, so maybe that's it. But if we've got it on VHS somewhere I wouldn't be surprised.

We had the soundtrack, we played it on roadtrips, I'm not sure who amongst us sang along, I was always too busy singing.

Now that I think about it, man that's a great soundtrack. Even at the time it sounded of adventure (the TRAIL we BLAZE- is a path uncharted) and wistfullness (someday, maybe years from now, or tomorrow night, I'll turn and I'll see you...) and that's without factoring the years of nostalgia piled on by now.

That was in the car that had a CD player, then our NEXT car didn't have one, and now we have one again. Maybe there were more cars in between there, but I think that's right.

Reminds me of the thing that is PVR... DVR? I don't know! Ever since the old VHS broke down in, I don't know, 2000, we've never been able to record shows. And all the while I've been sitting around waiting for reruns, dudes have gone from THAT bit of technology, to moving comepletely beyond it and watching the shows online whenever.

Worst future ever! Jetpack! Jetpack!!

Went on a good run yesterday, my legs have a delicious soreness. But I've definitely gotta make the trip to pick up some shorts and shoes. The jeans and steel-toed shoes were probably a mistake.

I've got a collection of pants, shorts, and uhh well, those are the two things that just don't fit me, the other thing is a collection of socks with holes in them. I've bought new socks, but I still haven't thrown out the old ones.

AND there's the weird collection of security guard shirts I've acquired through no fault of my own. The guy was supposed to pick them up a month ago!

Hmm, I need to do laundry. So I guess... yeah, okay, see you later.

One has the energy to write posts in the morning after honey cruellers. Cruellers DeVille.

Finished a two night stretch of work, have three days off. That's how it works, you see.

Encumbered by my various luggages- chair sort of cushion thing, full to bursting backpack, my jacket that I really did not need last night, and a nearly fossilized laptop (more on that later) it was slower going home today than usual.

But that's okay- because three days off!

Walking through York Mills subway station, the guy with the guitar looking for change (aren't we all?) starts playing Sounds of Silence and I love that song.

So I stuck around- because three days off- and sung along, did the wicked sweet drum beat for my own benefit "ch-k, tch-ku du daaaaaa"

I thanked him for the song, apologizing for my lack of change. I offered my unopened back of harvest trail mix (dried pineapple!) but he declined. I was hoping he'd decline.

The bus driver waited for an older lady to cross the street to hop on. Cool by me. (for the record, it'd have been cool even if I didn't have three days off)

Got home, shedding that luggage like a second skin, to emerge bare armed and much lighter, with a Tim Hortons gift card in pocket, to get something for my poor rumbly tumbly.

Head held high, enjoying the early morning air, sunshine, everything. I hopped the fence, that's what fences are for, before opting for a window seat to enjoy my toasted turkey sandwich on whole wheat with a honey mustard sauce, AND a little chocolate milk AND a honey crueller donut.

Back home, opening the fridge, I see I was left with shepperd's pie after all... I still liked the trip to Tm Horton's regardless.

Found two old letters for me I'd yet to open- one had hearts on the envelope! They were both just credit card things...

So that fossilized laptop. I brought that to work with me last night so I could type out my comic reviews ahead of time (snitches get stitches yo) it runs windows 98, and it turns out it doesn't even have a USB port for me to transfer the files over. Gotta find a floppy disk to get this done. After sleep.

Man, that laptop. That was like our only computer after we returned the homeschool program one in 1999. The only one with internet access- we had an even older computer hanging around. Wonder where that one is, I had some fanfics on that one. I made it so you needed a password to exit the screensaver. Naturally I forgot my password.

That laptop- I don't think the battery works anymore, gotta keep it plugged in. And turn it on in safe mode, because the whole thing is on the verge of a nervous crashdown.

If I want to keep writing on laptops I may have to get a model from this millenium. Or at least this century.

Came up with an idea for a quasi-autobiographical comic (fine, for faux legitimacies sake, "graphic novel") that boils down to my years of experience running; growing up physically sheltered because of constant bouts of bronchitis, my less than successful track career, to running to work and arriving more or less on time, but super sweaty and red faced, to now and some of the problems I've been having running-wise lately (buy the book to find out what!) all of which would be told using the visual vocabulary of a Flash comic, you know: speed lines, dynamic angles, struggling against- self, in this case.

The opening line would be (mirroring most Flash comics):

My name is (whatever name I'd choose here, probably not my own).

and I'm NOT the fastest man alive.

Yeah, this seems like a good idea to me.

***

So there's a thread on the facebook about some dudes going to Quebec for the long weekend, and myself and one other guy make a comment. Then the post originator says- if there was room you should come along.

What's great is, the OTHER guy says thanks for the offer, but he's already got plans. Well, hold up, that offer wasn't very specific, maybe the offer was directed at myself?

So I'm enjoying this because I keep imagining the scenario where I point out that maybe the offer was to me, followed by "one of us is sure going to feel awkward about this later." Maybe it's him, and his assuming the offer was for him is hilarious, BUT if the offer WAS supposed to go to him, and I'm way off base on this one, then it's awkward for old Isaac- and that's even funnier!

Maybe you had to be there... I haven't really had to verbalize this little scenario, I've been enjoying it in my head since yesterday morning. I was actually lying in bed thinking about it, and laughing to myself.

So trust me! This whole thing is totally funny.

Don't believe me, eh? Maybe I'll put it into my comedy routine just to spite you!

That would probably be a terrible idea.
...
Actually, maybe not...

A Moveable Feast

Had a dream where a bunch of people had "died", but could still be visited via some kind of limbo cafeteria. At the time, it was a pretty impressive little cosmology.

But then the NEXT NIGHT I dreamt I was at a table with big wigs from DC and Marvel, and had a cheque for ten thousand some odd dollars slid over to me to come work for DC. I woke up before I got Marvel's counter offer.

I thought that was pretty cool.

I blew through "A Moveable Feast" in one day at work. I'm impressed, I didn't have to fight my way to stay awake to read it. There's been a time or two where his tracts on bullfighting and fishing have been good sedatives, but this book, a memoir from a man at the end of his life about the biggest, most famous time of his life- it's no wonder it's a fascinating read.

Particularly fun were the portraits of Gertrude Stein (brilliant but lazy), Ezra Pound (universally beloved amongst the crowd), and F. Scott Fitzgerald (brilliant but sabotaged by his wife- as Hemingway wrote: "Scott did not write anything any more that was good until after he knew that she was insane." <-pretty funny line if you imagine him shouting the word insane.)

I like that he calls his kid "Mr. Bumby" and his cat "F. Puss".

There's a story about Hemingway asking Ezra Pound what he thought of Dostoyevsky, and he replies "To tell you the truth, Hem, I've never read the Rooshians." And so "Hem" is disappointed because he's excited about the prospect of sharing this love with someone he eminently respects, and is dashed to learn he hasn't read it, and by extension doesn't care about it. I've run into that kind of disappointment myself.

I'm pretty sure I could make up my mind on Hemingway and move on now, but I've still got three books on deck to read through. I've just started To have and Have Not, which starts of with an exciting shooting and hooked me in fast. I'm not looking forward to For Whom the Bell Tolls... actually wait, according to the back it isn't about bullfighting, but the Spanish civil war. So maybe that will be better. I'm kinda over reading about bullfighting. And of course I'm finishing everything with The Old Man and the Sea.

(on an unrelated manner- dude! Norm Macdonald is the first guest on Conan tonight!)

I went to see Hanna with a couple of friends tonight, it was good, with a sound track almost as awesome as the new Tron movie (of course it's hard to match PERFECTION). I still talked too much for my liking, but I was a little funny, and more importantly I did get to do more listening than normal, and that was the goal when I headed out the door tonight. But boy do I get sabotaged by the threat of awkward silences.

It's like: "..." (one second)
and then "..." (two second)
(and that's alls I can stands) "Hey okay, how about I say something high-larious?"

But yeah, listening happened, I'm pleased about it.

(on another unrelated manner- The Ted Turner bits on Conan are the best, definitely my favourite part of the program when it shows up- and now I've seen the Norm section. It was a knee slapper. I actually slapped my knee... okay, upper thigh. It still counts.)

Cake is around. That's as far as it goes.

I tried to log on to the blog spot on my ACTUAL days off, but it wouldn't let me, and now I'm knee deep in a three day work-athon.

(Knee deep is apparently one day in. I guess tomorrow will be chest deep. I should pick up some water wings.)

I corralled my brother Jordan to do a picture for my reviews this week. I had an idea for a little strip I thought would be funny, but was obviously busy writing the reviews proper. But Jordan's an artist!

And the result is so funny. SO FUNNY! I can't really get over it.

http://www.themondocomics.com/2011/05/action-reviews-to-astonish-6/

^- that's the link. Yes, I could just post the drawing itself, but come on! Look at my reviews!

If only for this picture.

Mwahaha- have I inadvertantly tricked my brother into starting a webcomic?
No, probably not. But that's be awesome.

It's been a week since my birthday, and cake only just got around to being eaten. But I was at work. And now it's almost 7:30am, and I need to NOT eat sugar before bed, and go to bed, like a responsible adult. I can have birthday cake for breakfast once I get up at 3.

Sure hope it doesn't all get eaten by then, that would really suck.

Really hot and sweaty when I got in this morning. Gradually coldened showers are pretty great. (Can't just hop straight into a cold shower right away- that's cold!)

NO- Isaac! Don't you eat that cake!

Hurrah for sensible moderation and stuff...

A Farewell to the Last Good Country. Also The Battler

I kind of got hit in the gut with the idea that I don't expect people to come through for me. I made plans to go see someone, and we did, but the past few days I wasn't REALLY expecting anything to come of it. That's a huge problem. That's ridiculous! What's my deal? Man that sucks.

It'll seem less earth shattering after I get some rest, but argh, I kinda suck right this second.

Finished "A Farewell to Arms" this morning. It's got a really sad ending that hits close to home. I heard that a lot of Hemingway's stuff could be described as "his life but with this change..."

I also understand that this was his first big novel, what put Hemingway on the map at 30, so I reckon this is the what if he lost his first wife at the time he was most in love with her.

Then again, the portrayal of their relationship is about the same as that of Nick Adams and his sister in the short story "The Last Good Country", so that's kind of weird. Maybe that's why Hemingway never published that story (or finished it for that matter) until it was put out posthumously.

Reading through the collected Nick Adams stories I finally came across that OTHER Hemingway story that I'd read before, the second one after The Old Man and the Sea (which I'll be re-reading soon, bringing things full circle) the one I read in my modernisms class back in the day. Turns out it's the short story "The Battler" about Nick getting thrown off a train and meeting up with a crazy old boxer. Well, that's what happens, not so much what it's about.

I'm hesitating as far as prescribing a meaning to the piece, I'm not sure the author had any meaning in mind when he came up with it. It'd be one thing if the author was all "I'd like my audience to make up their own mind about the piece" or even just a "yeah, there's a meaning" without going into details, but Hemingway is more of a "well, that's life" kind of guy.

Kind of like Harvey Pekar, now that I think about it.

Anyways, a weird friendly guy who lives at my workplace gave me a Reece's Peanut butter cup bar (cup bar? is that right?) at like 3:30am. That was pretty cool.

Also, scandalous, got a fortune cookie over the weekend: romance is about to blossom.

And now that that's recorded, I can trash the fortune.

Go Ahead, Make My Day

What a weird day, not for the day itself, but how fast I exhausted myself into stupidity. Okay, I was running on 4 hours sleep, so it's not exactly surprising.

I was trying to communicate for the purposes of hanging out later this week, and it just did not work, and then I fell backwards into a gag when Cool Geoff pointed out the mixed metaphor I was attempting to use straight.

When I finally dove into bed between 7-8pm time seemed to stand still, and I dreamed so vividly that when my bro woke me up at 9:30 for a celebratory birthday McFlurry (man, left to his own devices that guy will just always wake me up. I was told that his impulse on election day was to wake me up at like 1 or 2 so I could go vote, meanwhile I'd only had about 3 or 4 hours at that point and the polls didn't close until 9:30. That was a close one) I described the dream as the story to the Hangover 3, solely starring Zack Galifianakis. Because I couldn't remember the events leading up to a crazy asian guy driving my house bus thing into a building while some friends of mine were falling off the sides of the subway.

What's funny is that my bros reaction was "Isn't it just the Hangover 2 that's just come out?"

Yes, that's- that's why I said Hangover 3.

The important thing is, ol' Jordan got me a copy of both the new Karate Kid movie (dude, that movie is a million times better than the original, just saying) as well as The Rocketeer. That's pretty awesome.

And Simon got me the Dirty Harry- Clint Eastwood movies.

A funny note: I created a concept for a comic strip, starring a Dirty Harry-esque cop, but anachronistically set in the old west. So his coyboy cop antics would actually seem crazily reserved as far as anyone else could tell. And he'd have a briefcase, because... where would you get a briefcase in the old west?!?!

(Simon actually came up with the most hilarious running gag for this strip- that in the car chases, so the horse chases, when the horses get damaged they'd explode like movie cars. Pretty brilliant.)

So at this point I'd never seen a Dirty Harry movie, but I wrote the one strip where he get's his gun shot out of his hand: "Smith!"

-then he reaches for his ankle: "good thing I've got old Wesson here"

But months later I'm actually seeing a snippet from a Dirty Harry movie, and he SAID "I've got my back up right here. Smith, and Wesson."

So my joke was actually totally appropriate if not entirely original. I assume I "knew" that Harry named his 'backup' via pop cultural osmosis.

Why I like Thor, in pictures

I'm going to take a different tactic this evening. I spent the morning (before having to go BACK to bed, I'm a tired guy) scanning panels (okay, often whole pages) from collected volumes of the Walt Simonson run on Thor. You don't really need much context, so I'll just paste all the pictures here, maybe I'll have a line of commentary, but for the most part they'll stand alone in their awesomeness. That's assuming clicking on the images will enlarge them so you can read the text, otherwise I'll have to edit the post and tell you what each panel is saying.

Thor was transformed into a frog. But he's still Thor!




I find Thor basically being surprised by a chair completely hilarious.

Balder the Brave demonstrates both that telltale braggadocio of the Asgardians, but an air of modern humour. It's an endearing anachronism found throughout the Thor books.

Everyone loves dudes hammering armor together. That's what Iron Man taught us. This time it's Thor doing it, and it's magic. Excellent.

And after creating this armor, it sounds like making it in Pittsburgh is the most impressive part of it all. Forget the Odin runes and mystic power- Pittsburgh. Wow! Again, this is weird, and great.

My current facebook profile picture. Thor has taken over an invincible body, and rampages around Hel. It's amazing.

In fact, here're some examples of Thor's rampage.

Here's an example of casual punning, something no one would do in the middle of an ACTUAL adventure, but is perfectly normal for an Asgardian. Extra points for using your name, instead of one of your titles: "Hela becomes Heal"

Just before that last panel, we got to see Hela's father, Loki, earn his father of the year mug.

And while I'm at it, let's put down in panels the relationship between Thor and Loki:

And finally, a perfect single page encapsulating everything that's great about Thor. I could pretty much have just posted this and called it a night.

THUS ARE LEGENDS BORN!

A truncated look at Source Code

For what it's worth, I'm glad it'll be another four years before we have to do another election. The constant attack ads are seriously annoying.

And with a majority government there are no more excuses. Get things done! Someone!

And if you're anti-conservatives, this is the necessary rope to hang themselves with. As I alluded to when I said "there are no more excuses".

Before I actually went to see Source Code I invited someone along who I thought would really like it. Turns out she thought it looked absolutely terrible.

It's like buying a present for someone, so sure they'd love it, and then finding out how off base I am.

I was excited about the film because of all the interviews Jake Gyllenhaal had done- I saw him on Conan and... either Stewart or Colbert- and it turns out the man was funny. Hilarious even! It was a whole new side of the guy. For the most part he was just intense staring man.

So two weeks ago now I saw the movie with a couple of buds. The movie goes like this. Uh, huge spoilers, so if you haven't seen it yet, and I really do recommend it, then stop reading. So I recommend you stop reading my writing here... in that case I should just blather on, maybe control-copy off a wikipedia page or something. Anywa, the movie goes like this.

A commuter train to Chicago is blown up in a messy explosion. That sounds redundant, but the idea is it wasn't JUST blown up, but it blew up next to a fuel train for the purposes of spectacle.

This was a warning shot. There will be a bigger attack via a dirty bomb in the centre of Chicago soon after, so the question is who blew up that train, and where is the Chicago target going to be.

Enter the Source Code project. They take a subject (in this case Gyllenhaal's character) and implant him in a digital recreation of the world 8 minutes before the train exploded. Gyllenhaal has to search the train, over and over, getting blown up each time, to find out all he can, to figure out how to stop the imminent large scale attack on Chicago.

How exactly this works is the source of most (if not all) debate my little study group had after the movie was over.

When Gyllenhaal, who was suffering from some memory loss due to the circumstances of the procedure, asked about what this Source Code stuff was all about, he's told in perfect Hollywood science-y vague terms that it's all parabolic quantum calculus, that he wouldn't understand.

Or was it quantum parabolic calculus?

It doesn't matter- but regardless the best Hollywood science technobabble is the kind that strikes a genuine chord with the viewer, that uses a word that you recognize that totally works in the context of the story.

Gyllenhaal (I don't remember his characters name, and I've already control copied "Gyllenhaal" so it's easier to just paste that everywhere. GyllenhaalGyllenhaalGyllenhaal. See? Easy!) keeps confusing the process with straight time travel, trying to contact his father while in the simulation, and just generally effect the outside world. But he's always told: it's just a simulation

***

I've taken an hour an a half off to browse tv tropes pages- it's rough right this second to have the focus to express what was awesome about this movie, because I feel like I have to set it up so much.

The big thing, just to skip to it, is at the end when Gyllenhaal is convinced that this is the last run through on the train, his real body is dead, the program is about to run its course, and even though that's all she wrote- in this run through he stopped the explosion. In those last seconds, he made his time count, and you can sit back and say "that's a good life, all in that moment." It was beautiful.

And then, to Gyllenhaal's surprise more than anybody else's, it kept going. Things didn't just "end" when the program was over. For whatever reason, figuring that out was why I had to set up everything, to get across my reasoning for why this could happen, but for whatever reason- it kept going. He got to have his happy ending, maybe in a world that could end at any time, but definitely in a world where he learned to make every single second count.

It was a gorgeous ending, completely uplifting.

And other than that, I don't feel like getting into the theory on how this was possible in story right this second.

Maybe I didn't spoil so much after all.

Er, except the ending, that was spoiled.