It's a d'oh day

Went to see the Simpsons movie this last weekend... and wasn't especially impressed. It was very much like watching an extended episode of the TV series but, since I only ever catch the odd episode now and again, I hadn't realised how patchy it had become. There were some funny moments, but if I'd had a sheet of paper divided into two columns - hit and miss - I'd have put far more ticks in the miss column. The plot was uninspired (Homer creates an environmental disaster that gets Springfield sealed in a dome thanks to the Environmental Protection Agency), the subplots were excessive retreads of things that have happened in the series (Marge leaves Homer because he's selfish, Bart decides that Flanders would make a better Dad, Lisa finds 'true love'), and the setpieces were either predictable (Homer's 'wall of death' ride to save the town) or childish (while Bart skateboards naked into town, his groin is hidden by a series of 'clever' coincidences until he goes behind a bush, which shows through only at groin level), and most of the good stuff turned up in the trailers (Homer bouncing between a rock and a bar called 'A Hard Place' while attached to a wrecking ball). The opening scene, which shows the family watching a movie of a TV show, perfectly sets up the Simpsons movie experience when Homer complains about paying to see something that's free on TV, and calls everyone in the audience an idiot (or something like that). The best joke in the movie came during the closing credits, where Maggie spoke her first word: "Sequel?" While that was funny, it did send a nasty chill down my spine. According to the law of diminishing returns, a Simpsons movie sequel would not be worthy of a worldwide cinematic release.

Cut to today, where I'm still off work and - so far - still not doing a bloody thing of any use. News from work has done little to improve my opinions of the company I work for. Quite the opposite, in fact. More rats deserting the sinking ship, and further evidence of the rampant cronyism sweeping through Sales. One of the morons on Classified was recently banned from making Display advertising sales because his 'big client' turned out to be a teenager running a 'business' from his bedroom, with no means to pay the debt (several thousand pound) he'd accrued with his full-page ads running in several of our magazines. This same moron has now been promoted into Display sales to fill a vacancy created by moving another moron from one of our smaller magazines over to our flagship title. It's doubtful that this 'vacancy' was ever advertised, even internally, and this moron's cousin is one of the Commercial Managers, who would have approved the promotion... I'm sure that must be a legal grey area...

I'm meant to be looking into how I can further help this band of self-deceiving, self-destructive cretins, by taking over some of the website-related work... But I think my time would be far better spent updating my CV, writing a letter of resignation, and looking for a new job.