The Matrix Reloaded is fabulous. The car-chase sequence alone is worth the ticket price--only when it was over did I realize I'd been holding my breath for twenty minutes.

If there's one thing the first movie has that this one doesn't, it's the blood-curdling revelation of what exactly the matrix is. I saw The Matrix for the first time only a few weeks ago, on DVD, and beforehand Ereck judiciously refused to tell me what the matrix is, even though I begged him.

That is some horrific shit, almost as horrific as what really happened to the crew of the Cygnus in The Black Hole.

I was thinking that for an equally effective surprise, The Matrix Reloaded could have revealed that the matrix is really the real world, and the real world is really the matrix. Or something.

Pass the joint.

For reasons that couldn't possibly interest you, mild summer nights like this one always make me think of reruns of "Dave Allen at Large."

Crazy anxiety dream last night. Dreamt I was taking some kind of math or science test, and not doing well. As I struggled with the exam, the thought occurred to me that my mind had undergone some kind of chemical change that rendered it incapable of learning about topics in which it's not interested.

Come to think of it, that's the story of my thirties so far.

Among other things, I ascribe the dream to the fact that I was recently trying to demonstrate to myself that the Pythagorean theorem works. I didn't have much luck. Math never was my strong suit.