What is there to say about Transformers 2? Well... there were a lot of stupid explosions and a lot of stupid robots and Megan Fox is stupid hot. Really, that last one is the only one that really matters. Miss Fox stole the scene this time around. Every single scene she was in, in fact. She is so insanely smoking hot that I was nearly able to forget about how I paid $8 to watch someone's CGI portfolio.

Locked doors are complex mechanisms to navigate. Those of us who have encountered them (and gained entrance) do so, often at the expense of our humility and energy.

Imagine our approach: stealthy and ghastly (as is taught in the opening sprawl of Lackinen’s “Habituated Drunkard” [a warm piece of tripe no doubt, but it is a competitive misery for most occasions]) vomiting a bit of last night’s meal (coffee grounds and cigarette butts) onto the doorstep. We listen first for an alarum and we watch for the sigil of our beast-King (should He discover we are about, we will lose bragging rights with the Round of Hired Men). Then, if all seems plain and good, we accost the door for not being open by decrying its very purpose: “This door shall not remain locked! I am a yeoman at the court of Kubla Kahn! I have slaved in his pleasure dome! I have served the Abyssinian maid! I deserve a means of access!” The door will remain shut of course, no more upset by our insane ramblings than a mosquito might upset a rock. Yelling accomplishes nothing, that is, and once we have finished wasting our breath we might understand that even the door has a purpose. That purpose, often, is to keep crazies just like us out amongst each other, and not inside where we might feast upon the warm meats of small children. Without that acknowledgement, we are left to assail the door with our best pejoratives and will achieve nothing more than blackening the fiend here and there with our enthusiastic vitriol.

...and we have no one to blame but ourselves for the stout ignorance of the door to our desires, for, it has no ears, no eyes, no way of knowing that we despise its existence. One would gain as much progress assaulting the sun or a bowl of macaroni! And yet we are prone to this misdirected abuse, and only because we assume that a door should not be locked; that it should, in fact, entertain every possible motive we might have for its use. How presumptive of us!—that our desires should be considered before all else; that we require an unhindered path and though the door is most happy to perform the job for which it is best suited, our passage is of the greater value. Somewhere there is middle ground, where we might first rattle the doorknob as a compatriot, as a comrade, as a friend. Where we might consider first that our affectless foe is not an obstacle to be overcome, but rather, a partner to be persuaded into our service.

Gifts work well: Glorman’s Door-Glow is an excellent treasure to engender your first, friendly overtures; doors are also quite keen on sandpaper and apples; and one must never overlook the stupefying effect of old poetry read with an Irish brogue. If gifts and soothing talk fail to weaken a door’s defenses, you might resort to more drastic ministrations.

Should you first test their mettle, the most efficient use of your energy is to time a friendly knock (soft and delicate and only with the first three knuckles on your left hand, unless you are right handed, in which case you are best disposed to knock with your right hand while your right knee is raised to ensure that you will not drive the door back upon its hinges) with a friendly hail (beginning as the low keening of a mule pulling a cart for no less than 3 hectors and rising to the brilliant susurrations of an exploding Madagascar palm tree). The desired result of which would be someone on the other side granting your entrance. That is, of course, if you don’t already have a key or other useful instrument—any of a selection of large, blunt weapons—that might better give you passage without debasing yourself to the whims of another human. If you do have a bludgeoning device handy be prepared to use it without hesitation or remorse upon the door or gate or wall, or large animal blocking your path.

-Dave