In the middle of the afternoon, I had to stop my car in the road to let two deer cross in a md dash for the woods. They had been frightened by a car coming the other way. As I watched them run for cover, it occurred to me that they were probably right to be frightened, as humans are their primary predator.

There are estimated to be 30 million deer in the United States, and roughly 5 million of them are killed each year by humans. By comparison, there are 340 million humans in the United States, and roughly 120 of them are killed each year by deer. Those numbers certainly work out in our favor.

On the other hand, consider that nearly 75,000 humans are killed each year by a human (including suicides). We also happen to be our own primary predator.

You're 625 times more likely to be killed by a human than a deer. Oh, my.

Maybe running for the woods isn't such a terrible idea.

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I go out of my way to be kind of a dick to people in the hope that they'll leave me alone. I do this even to my own family, especially my Mother's sister, Kelley.

My aunt has a very soft spot in her heart for dumb animals, which is why she has a house full of cats and tolerates a handyman who is literally too stupid to use a shovel effectively. Because I'm so much trouble, Kelley had this handman bury her most recently deceased cat. But the location he selected turned out to be full of tree roots, so he dug only a shallow hole and covered the shoebox coffin with a thin layer of dirt and a paving stone.

Can you guess where this is going?

In the night, another animal detected the decaying corpse's scent and dug it up. But not fully. The excavator didn't have the strength to remove the whole cat from the box. Kelley later discovered the dead cat's head emerging from the ground, like something from Pet Semetery. (And yes, there were maggots involved.)

Desperate for help, she bit the bullet and called me. So my strategy of being a dick ultimately resulted in my having to dig up a dead cat and re-bury it properly. In the rain.

As a reward for my hard work, my aunt gave me this:

Please click for sound.

Lesson learned. From now on, I'll be twice the asshole!

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Google suggested that I would like to read an online article titled "People are less satisfied with their marriage when their partner is not interested in social interactions, study finds." That's not a very interesting headline, is it? But I did click on it, if only to see if I could learn why some scientist was studying the obvious. I still don't know.

What I did learn is the term "social anhedonia," which Wikipedia defines as "a disinterest in social contact and a lack of pleasure in social situations." WebMD puts it even more plainly: "You don't want to spend time with other people." That's why I love WebMD; it's talking directly to me!

I'm sure there's a spectrum for this social anhedonia — extreme cases are apparently linked to schizophrenia, which the voices in my head tell me I don't have — but I'm certainly on it somewhere. There's a reason I'm typing this in a basement in an otherwise empty house in the middle of the night.

I do enjoy spending limited amounts of time with friends, but "limited" is a key word in that sentence. I am keenly aware of my distaste for social interaction, and that self-awareness is a key part of why I am not interested in getting married. (I also don't much care for being touched by other people, which is apparently something psychiatrists call "physical anhedonia." Who knew?)

There have been other studies that say that married people live longer. People who spend time with friends live longer. People who are awake while the sun up live longer. In other words, people unlike me live longer. But if I have to be married, spend time with people, and wake up with the sunrise, why would I want to live any longer than I have to? That's not a reward, that's punishment.

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EPISODE FOUR: SURVIVAL, PART TWO

Cobryn knew he was a great pilot. All pilots thought that of themselves, of course, but Cobryn knew that he really was. He could have flown for one of the galaxy-wide conglomerates if not for all the red tape that came with those types of jobs. Filing debriefs and sitting through human resources cross-species dating seminars didn't have anything to do with flying. Sure, those jobs came with great health benefits, but they were boring. Cobryn just wanted to fly.

Although, right now, the prospect of health insurance seemed pretty enticing.

"Dammit, I need more speed," Cobryn urged.

Quig barked a laugh as his tiny clawed fingers danced over the bridge's engineering console. "The power core has taken so much damage it's a miracle I've still got life support working. This is as fast as you're going to get."

It wasn't fast enough. The Chutoi shuddered as another another energy blast slammed into her hull.

Cobryn looked at the many, many warning lights blinking across the pilot console. It was almost hypnotizing. Minimal thrust, pitch and yaw control... he might as well be flying a rock.

"There go the last of our shields," Sahara complained. "I'm open to ideas here. Anyone got anything?"

"We've done considerable damage to the Garbools' flagship," said Striker. "More than I would have anticipated, honestly. However, the three Wolf Pack vessels have us surrounded and are closing the net. If we cannot outfly them—"

"I'm doing my best," Cobryn snapped. What he didn't say, what he knew everyone else already knew, was that his best wasn't going to be good enough.

The radio crackled to life. "Crew of the Chutoi, this is the Wolf Pack Fenris, Bronson speaking."

"I really hate that guy," mumbled Striker.

Bronson continued, "Don't worry; we're not going to shoot you out of the sky. I want you alive. I intend to make you my personal slaves."

"Death first!" shouted Sahara.

"He can't hear you," said Quig. "The microphones lost power minutes ago."

"Is slavery really the worst option right now?" Cobryn asked. "Death seems so... final."

Again, the Chutoi shuddered as the Fenris's gravity beam seized her. This proved to be the last straw for the power core. Its insulators shorted out, and the core's remaining energy was discharged as electrical feedback through the ship's systems delivering a nasty, numbing shock to Cobryn's hands.

"I suggest we prepare to be boarded," said Striker.

Cobryn rubbed his pained hands. Yes, he sure could go for some of that corporate health care.

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140/2149. Cop Land (1997)
Sylvester Stallone is very good in this modern crime drama where the cops are the robbers. Of course it helps that the rest of the cast includes DeNiro, Keitel, Liotta, and about a half dozen other fantastic talents.

Commit crime and drink Coke!

142/2151. Foxy Brown (1974)
Pam Grier is on a mission to avenge the death of her government agent boyfriend, who was killed by a narcotics gang... after being tipped off by her own brother. There's some unintentional silliness in here, but the entire film is worth the climax.

Sell out your sister's boyfriend and drink Coke!

143/2152. Alligator (1980)
Foxy Brown's Pam Grier plays the title character In Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown, where her love interest is played by Robert Forster. I mention that because by coincidence, Forster is the lead actor in this mediocre killer monster movie. And no one even drinks Coke in it! (The closest it gets is the one kid nearly eaten while wearing an "I'm a Pepper" t-shirt.)

144/2153. Matinee (1993)
I really enjoyed this heartfelt love letter to the creature features of the late 50s and 60s set during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I mean, I love movies about the movie business, I love atomic monster sci-fi films, and I love coming-of-age stories, so it's sort of tailor made for my specific interests. But I think everyone will appreciate John Goodman's conman with a heart of gold.

Watch movies and drink Coke!

More to come.

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128/2137. To Hell and Back (1955)
The story of the most decorated United States soldier of World War II, Audie Murphy, as told by... Audie Murphy! Murphy's participation, though wooden, is the only reason this movie works; it's just too hard to believe that such a character could exist in the real world.

129/2138. The Whistler (1944)
If you're a fan of the Golden Age of Radio — and who isn't? — you no doubt recognize The Whistler as an anthology series of suspense stories. The movie version focuses on just one story (more or less) as a well-intentioned Richard Dix at the end of his rope is drawn into a number of life-or-death situations. I actually liked it more than I like the radio show.

131/2140. McEnroe (2022)
John McEnroe and his friends and family tell his life story in this autobiographical documentary. This was done in a similar style as the Tony Hawk documentary I watched earlier this year, and I thought this one superior, largely because McEnroe is more willing (or capable) of investigating some of the worse/private aspects of his life story in addition to the happier/famous moments.

You might say that archival footage doesn't count as product placement, but they didn't have to use this particular shot.

132/2141. This Is Joan Collins (2022)
Another autobiographical documentary, this time for the Dynasty star whose career had a lot of ups and downs (and #MeToo moments). She's quite charming.

133/2142. The Animal Kingdom (1932)
Speaking of charming women, Myrna Loy is herein supposed to be playing the proverbial gold-digging wife who tries to corrupt her artistically-minded husband, but I choose to interpret her character as a well-intentioned sophisticate working to save a wishy-washy gadfly from throwing away his fortune on drunks and whores. Casting is everything!

134/2143. Men in White (1934)
More Myrna Loy, here playing the exasperated fiance of Clark Gable's selfless driven doctor who has made the mistake of knocking up a nurse... and then operates to save her life after her illegal back-alley abortion goes awry. Welcome to the future, everybody!

More to come.

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EPISODE THREE: THE SABOTAGE, PART FOUR

Cobryn watched helplessly from the control booth window as Bronson stepped over Striker One's limp body and faced Sahara. The Wolf Pack lieutenant wiggled his finger at Sahara in a "come hither" gesture. Sahara shook her head in refusal. The roaring crowd was eating it up.

"Do something," Cobryn urged.

"What?" asked Quig.

"Anything!"

Quig's claws flew across the console, and Cobryn was relieved to see the arena floor around Bronson begin to rise, trapping the lizard man. Sahara hustled over to Striker One and began helping him to his feet. The crowd's roars faded and quickly returned as boos.

"You better hurry up and release the slaves from their pens," said Quig. "I don't think we have long."

Cobryn had already identified the slave pen master control, and it didn't take a computer genius like Quig to figure out which button freed them. It was helpfully labeled "Do not press this it frees the slaves!" Cobryn pressed it.

It didn't take long for someone to notice.

Somewhere outside the control room, an alarm went off. The Wolf Pack spectators began to flee the stadium, forgetting about Bronson, Sahara, and Striker One in their haste to confront a slave uprising. Cobryn didn't give them good odds: slaves outnumbered Wolf Pakers on this asteroid ten-to-one. The only way they could regain control was through the computers in this control booth.

"I've opened the arena doors for Sahara and Striker One," said Quig as he moved to the exit. "That's all we've got to do. We can meed the others at the ship and get off this forsaken rock."

"I'm right behind you," said Cobryn. He turned to the console Quig abandoned. Cobryn knew a thing or two about computers himself; if he could lock the computer down, the Wolf Pack was doomed. Fortunately, the computer system was idiot proof.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO LOCK COMPUTER TO PREVENT ALL FUTURE ACCESS? [Y/N]

Cobryn gleefully pressed the "Y" button and was rewarded with a smiley face and timer counting down from five minutes. Once the countdown was complete, the computer would only be useful as a doorstop.

Quig was long gone by the time Cobryn got to the door. The sounds of combat and death screams echoed through the corridors, but the path leading out to the ship hanger looked clear. Cobryn punched the air in celebration. After the Corona's Light, it felt good to be ensuring the death of the right people for a change. Take that, slavers!

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EPISODE TWO: THE ASSASSINATION, PART FOUR

Quig had never cared much for philosophy, and he certainly hadn't lived a squeaky-clean life, but this mission was making his fur tingle. He forced himself to watch as the scanner tracked the plasma torpedo to its target before reporting his latest morbid success. "Scratch the last escort. That's two more lives lost."

"We wouldn't be able to outrun them on departure," Sahara said by way of justification. "It had to be done."

Maybe it was necessary, Quig conceded, but did it have to be done by him? He'd spoken out against her original plan to fly the Corona's Light into the sun on the grounds that too many relatively innocent people would be killed. Yet somehow, in her newer, "kinder" plan, Quig had ended up with all the deadliest tasks. He suspected that wasn't an accident.

First, in deference to his superior programming skill, he had been assigned the task of using the bridge computers to modify the security droid protocols, which had undoubtedly resulted in some crew fatalities. Then, ostensibly because only he had the necessary talent, he had been required to alter the ship's life support system to flood Eye One's state room with toxic gas, killing Eye One as well as his butler, chef, secretary, and bodyguards. Finally, with Cobryn busy preparing the Chutoi for departure and Striker One confirming Eye One's death, only Quig was available to rejoin Sahara on the Corona's Light's bridge and eliminate the fighter escorts. That was what, at least a dozen sentients dead by his hand now? He was legitimately a serial killer.

He reminded himself that their goal was the dismantling of a system-spanning criminal organization. If some people had to die on the way to that greater good... well, it was a rat-eat-rat galaxy.

Sahara interrupted his gloomy thoughts. "Before we depart, let's teach these dogs a lesson they won't forget about crossing the Wolf Pack. Jettison a suite."

Quig moved to the abandoned captain's station and found the sequence that would fire Eye One's luxury state room slash escape pod. A moment later, he felt the floor vibrate slightly as he triggered the pod to fire away from the superstructure. Trapped by the sun's gravity, all evidence of how Eye One had been killed would soon be burned away. No one would be the wiser that he was killed by a small band of freedom fighters....

Except, Quig realized with a start, someone would surely realize that the occupant of the only pod launched was one of the solar system's most influential criminals. That someone was sure to kick over every anthill on every planet until they found who was responsible.

Quig thought fast. But what if Eye One's wasn't the only pod launched? That just might work.

No one wealthy enough to afford a suite on the Corona's Light could be truly innocent. Quig triggered the launch of two additional suites. One he chose at random; the other was occupied by the man whose name appeared on their invoice for nabanas. Anyone who imported that much fresh exotic fruit across the galaxy for his personal consumption deserved to die.

Sahara grabbed Quig's shoulder. "What are you doing? I said jettison just one!"

Disappointed that she hadn't understood his intentions, Quig snapped back, "You wanted it to look like that dumb Wolf Pack killed Eye One by accident, didn't you?"

Sahara glared at him, her irritation made more obvious by her twitching antenna. She flicked her eyes sideways; Quig followed her gaze to the captain and the rest of the restrained bridge crew he'd forgotten all about. He gasped at the realization of what he'd done. They must have overheard what he said, and Sahara would never let them live to repeat it. Quig had gotten so good at killing, he could even do it accidentally.

"Go," Sahara ordered coldly. "Tell the others we're leaving. I'll clean up this mess myself."

Quig obeyed meekly. His saluted the Corona's Light captain and crew through the closing elevator doors, knowing he would be the last person outside that room to see them alive.

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I know I just reviewed a batch of movies two days ago, but when I wrote that, these two felt like they should get a separate post. So they did.

103/2112. The Single Standard (1929)
Greta Garbo's capricious protagonist suffers through a series of romantic misadventures that illuminate how differently men and women are treated by society. There are a surprising number of suicide attempts, all of them by men, suggesting that maybe women aren't the weaker sex.

As it happens, I just a few days ago watched a surprisingly similar movie:

119/2128. The Grasshopper (1970)
Jaqueline Bisset's capricious protagonist suffers through a series of romantic misadventures that illuminate how differently men and women are treated by society, this time adding race and homosexuality and youth culture and drugs into the mix. I'm inclined to call this an exploitation film, both for its slapdash craftsmanship and overly sensational subject matter — Jim Brown beats a racist pedophile for raping his wife and is then shot to death in a revenge killing... on a basketball court!

Despite their stylistic differences (which, frankly aren't so different considering the cinema sensibilities of their eras), both The Single Standard and The Grasshopper ask their female leads to carry most of the emotional weight. The former seeks to showcase Garbo's protagonist's 1920s strength while the latter wallows in Bisset's 1960s weaknesses.

Did society change so much, or did Hollywood? Frankly, the key difference is probably that Garbo's movie was written by women, while Bisset's was written by men (including Garry Marshall of Happy Days and Pretty Woman fame). Everyone loses when their opponent is allowed to tell the story.

More to come.

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75/2084. The Beast Must Die (1974)
This which-one-of-these-people-is-the-werewolf movie feels like a made-for-television Hammer horror, and I mean that as praise. The movie literally takes a pause to allow you to make your guess before the big reveal, and I'm happy to say that I got it half wrong.

76/2085. Death Takes a Holiday (1934)
The anthropomorphic personification of Death at the center of this film is a complete ass, and that character deficiency casts an unpleasant pall over the rest of the melodramatic proceedings. I'm sure it makes a better stage play than movie.

78/2087. Dying for Chocolate: A Curious Caterer Mystery (2022)
Another Hallmark Movies and Mysteries original! This one was a little too easy owing to some early seemingly out-of-place exposition during a character introduction, but I'd rather have an easy puzzle than no puzzle at all.

77/2086. The Sapphires (2012)
A spoonful of sugar — or in this case, pop songs — makes the rather harsh medicines of racism, rejection, and death in the Vietnam War go down in this movie very loosely based on a true story. Yes, it's crafted to gather the widest mainstream appeal, but that works in its favor given the subject matter.

79/2088. Born to Sing (1942)
In this Saturday morning matinee kids' fare of the pre-WWII years, a crooked musical promoter steals an ex-convict's songbook then frames the kids who know the truth. The kids plan to turn the tables by putting on the show themselves in a disused Nazi fifth-column meeting house with the help of a gangster with a heart of gold. I wish it was as good as that sounds, but the closing musical number really got on my nerves.

80/2089. Spies in Disguise (2019)
This, on the other hand, is now be my favorite Will Smith-plays-a-pigeon movie. (Snark aside, it certainly doesn't hurt that Tom Holland's protagonist character is named "Walter." That kid has charm.) It's a spy-lampoon that knows what it's parodying and why.

More to come.

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