Cleaning House, Mamet's "The Unit", McTiernan Busted, and Diet Coke Doesn't Cause Cancer!

I cleaned my apartment today. I don't mean I just picked up my dirty clothes off the floor and made the bed -- I pulled this place apart and put it back together again with nothing more than good ole'-fashioned elbow grease (and a variety of cleaning products). I mopped, I scrubbed toilets and bathtubs, dusted, scrubbed and sanitized counters, windexed mirrors, vacuumed, sterilized the cat's bathroom and eating area, and then I did laundry on top of all that. I'm not saying all this because I want everyone to give me a cookie, but because this is just about the only thing I did today. I have not a thought in my head. All I can think about is the sweet oblivion of sleep between fresh clean sheets. So I'll talk about the one thing I did that wasn't cleaning, and then two things I read on-line just before I started this post. Then I'll be done. Let's begin.

As I was folding underwear, I watched the last half hour of the new David Mamet-produced TV show on CBS called "The Unit". It's actually not bad: Dennis Haysbert (the black president from "24") is always fun to watch and the writing's not bad. Though it has that "CBS look" which sucks. I think Les Moonves must have seen a desaturated episode of "CSI" and said, "I want all of my 1-hour dramas to look like that!" And so they do. I don't get it. These shows have big budgets, talented DPs, why do they still insist on making their finished image look like every other show on that awful, fear-mongering network? Why do they make it look only as good as "TV"? HBO's stuff looks like it could play in a theater, most of the time Lost looks as good as some studio releases, so what's going on with CBS?

Also, before I get to the reason for the Diet Coke photo, John McTiernan, the brilliant director of Die Hard, Predator, and Hunt for Red October, was charged yesterday with lying to the FBI. It has to do with that whole Anthony Pellicano wiretapping thing that's been going on in Los Angeles for years but had been way to boring for me to actually follow. But now this makes it interesting. McTiernan was one of the top directors back in the 80's, but totally lost whatever mojo he had by producing utter crap like The 13th Warrior and Rollerball. I don't want to prejudge anything, but it looks like he's still chugging along on the downward trajectory of his career because he's working on something called Crash Bandits (not to be confused with the PS game "Crash BandiCOOT") which is described as "an action-adventure ... which involves the hunt for treasure aboard a plane downed in the jungle." National Treasure meets Predator sans alien? Doesn't sound like McTiernan's triumphant return to decent filmmaking. Oh well.

And finally, like manna from Heaven, this story falls from the sky into my life. It takes the fear away, and makes me want to live again. Aspertame, the sugar substitute in Diet Coke that makes it a low-cal drink, does not cause cancer. I'm in the clear, dudes! I read this on-line a little while ago and announced to Peggy, triumphantly, "I can drink Diet Coke without fear!" To which she said, "You've been drinking it anyway." To which I said, "Yes, but with fear!" I don't have to be afraid anymore. I can drink liters of the stuff everyday without worry some pulsating tumor is going to appear on my neck years down the line and cut off the flow of blood to my brain. This is great news and I thought I'd share.

All done. More tomorrow.