The Puppet Master

Did you hear that? It's the sound of a long-term crush evaporating into a cloud of dust.



Bye Elijah. We sure had some fun times though, right? Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, all those LotR movies? Or that time I bought your horrible coming-of-age movie with Mandy Moore because it was on sale at Blockbuster for $3? And that other movie where you were supposedly Rosario Dawson's girlfriend*?

I hope one day that I can get over this (How the break-up went in my mind: "We're through! Whenever I close my eyes, all I see is The Puppet Master!"), or that you were at least paid extremely well for those 150 seconds of airtime. (Let's go crazy, indeed.)

I have to go now.

(*Note: yes, now I see the error, boyfriend not girlfriend, but really let's not kid ourselves - in that relationship you all know who would be the boy.)

Over Involvement in Networking

I have been horribly misinformed about the nature of all these social networking sites. Everyone has always said that MySpace is the gross one, Friendster is the old one no one uses anymore, and Facebook is the cool, sensible one.

I'll give you those first two points. Most people take their MySpace page as a chance to unleash the unholy spawn of garish html and every ugly .gif file they've ever seen, cross it with automatically playing background music and stupid polls along the lines of "what type of Carebear would you mostly likely marry if required", and then shake it until you can't read any of the information displayed. It's like the whole place is run by 14 year-olds with ADHD and Aspergers. Which is probably closer to the truth than I'm comfortable with.

And the number of people I know who use Friendster can not only can be counted on one hand, if I somehow managed to lose three fingers from that hand in some sort of cooking or fireworks related mishap, I could still do it.

But Jesus people, Facebook is one of the creepiest things I've ever seen. Now, granted, I just joined up with this place yesterday - I already felt bad enough about not updating a blog and a MySpace page, I didn't need the additional guilt of a third page that I ignore. But on cursory examination, is there any purpose to this place beyond stalking everyone you already know?

I think it's mostly just that little running tally of every single movement of every one your friends that is throwing me off. Why on Earth am I informed of every change in mood, every change of picture, and friending of everyone I know? Not only am I suddenly stalking all these people, I'm doing it without even meaning to. And if you actually wanted to stalk someone? Sweet lord, it's a round-the-clock Internet stakeout that takes absolutely no effort at all.

Plus, everybody can see everything I'm doing! This isn't good for my paranoia.

There are some nice things - the picture sharing is amazing, and the resultant image tagging is a very nice use of meta-level data that I think is the next logical front of the Internet. The lack of excessive customization gets rid of the horribly juvenile feel of the MySpace. And the grouping and tracking system is well done, if a little hard to navigate.

But seriously, I can't get over the stalking bit. Maybe it's just something that you get used to over time. Everyone else eased their way into the pool, whilst I just dove in headfirst hours after everyone else.

For now, though? Cree-py.

The Mighty Resurgence of Claire Danes

Lately, as a public service I try to keep my movie reviews over there on the sidebar, so to not completely bore my readers out of their minds with my incoherent thoughts on every damn movie that has the misfortune to flash before my eyes.

That said, I loved Stardust so much that it gets its own full post. It's such a delightful, funny, and infectiously happy movie that I fully demand that everyone I know go see it. (And quickly, as based off of it's first weekend gross I don't expect it to be around in the theatres much longer).

A bare bones review to get you started, as the publicity for it has been so bad there's a good chance you've never even heard of it:

It's your traditional fairy tale turned on its ear (everyone and their brother immediately brings up The Princess Bride, but it's not really a good frame of reference). It's based off the Neil Gaiman novel, and it really shows throughout. A quick character rundown, which fills in the entire plot for you:

Claire Danes is awesome (and lets her hair do most of the emoting for her) as a star that has fallen to Earth, whom everyone wants a piece of. Michelle Pfeiffer digs right into her juicy role as the wicked witch who specifically wants the star's heart (which is apparently tasty, and allows for a kind of immortality). And Charlie Cox (who is an unknown, but is also crazy hot) is the bumblingly earnest young man (a part that is always at the center of Neil Gaiman's stories) who is pitted against all the forces of evil. You also throw in Robert De Niro, stealing the entire damn movie as a misunderstood pirate captain, along with another 15 or so additional colorful characters (and Ian McKellen narrating the whole thing!), just as icing on the cake.

It's pretty standard fare as far as fantasy movies go, but all the stock pieces stack up to one of the most enjoyable movies I've seen in ages. Plenty of humor, decent special effects, and some of the sappiest love story bits possible (which really are the best kind). Recommended so hard.

A full review follows below, but it's a bit more spoilerish, so I would ask that you refrain from reading ahead until you've gone and seen it (as you had better be doing right now).

I always enjoy a Neil Gaiman twist on a traditional story, and in this case I am fully on board with his take on a fairy tale. The love storyline is a bit rushed at first, but Danes and Cox make it work. There's a little line near the end about how 'love can look surprisingly a lot like loathing' or similar that is a nicely worded nod to that. And actually, the writing throughout is pretty uniformly well done - there is nothing so effective to me as some dry British writing.

It also helps that I am a complete sap, and will go "Awwwww" at anything cute, so that when Claire Danes actually falls in love and starts shining, I practically melted in my seat.

Also, I know I said it before, but I am completely smitten with Tristan, the main character. I mean, look at the hotness:

Again, this is probably telling more about me than the movie, but how can you not love him?

Entirely out of left field: Robert De Niro's role is completely unexpected, and really, really hilarious. I know it's mostly just playing against type, but it adds some welcome comic relief and really helps the tone of the movie even itself out. It also really helps advance the plot without too much deus ex machina. (Okay maybe a little too much.) But really, I'll take any excuse to put a transvestite pirate captain who catches lightning in a bottle and moonlights as a hairdresser into a movie, so really there's no way to go wrong there.

Overall, it's a wonderful movie, although I think it overreaches a bit with the number of characters it tries to keep up with. But that's hardly a criticism, more like an abundance of riches. You follow along with Tristan and the star, then you've got the witch and her sisters, add in all the prince-brothers, and then the pirate crew, oh and Ricky Gervais in his lovely little cameo, plus the gypsy witch and the mother... you see where I'm going with this. Even though it's 2 hours long, I'm not sure if everyone was necessary to the plot.

Anyways that's just nit-picking, it's a great, great movie that makes me smile just thinking about it. I consider it required viewing for anyone who doesn't hate joy.

You don't hate joy, do you? Go see it.

How I Met the Weekend

I don't have a damn thing to talk about today. Instead, I'm going to go outside and play with my new car for the rest of the weekend.

(One quick note: IT IS SO AWESOME)

Y'all have fun in my absence.

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Bonus Content: Please enjoy this clip from Family Guy below. It's practically the only potential scene of How I Met Your Mother that could make me enjoy the show any more than I already do.

The Waiting

Summarily presented by the three cups of chocolate infused coffee that I've consumed this morning, I give you the list of things that one can do while impatiently waiting for their auto loan to fund so they can take possession of their new car and finally free themselves from their un-airconditioned iron and steel coffin that was once a truck of malfunction:

• Obsessively check the status page on your web application every ten minutes, waiting for the condition of "Funding" to change to "Funded".
• Try to actually do your job.
• Fail at doing your job by inserting as many Freudian slips as possible in a business setting. ("So you'll take possession of the car -- I mean house, sorry - on the 14th, and you'll be driving in -- wait, moving in -- by the 15th... Cars. What? Nothing.")
• Call the loan department of the bank to make sure the check has been sent out.
• Call the loan department back again, just to make sure that the check is going directly to the dealership.
• Call the loan department one more time, to double check that they have the address of the dealership transcribed correctly.
• Check the status page again.
• Call the dealer (again), let them know to give you a call as soon as they have the check to arrange a pickup time.
• Awkwardly acknowledge that, yes, we have had this conversation a few times before.
• Drive to lunch in your metal oven, constantly cursing, wondering how you have managed to go something like 10 years in this truck without committing suicide, or melting into a puddle of flesh.
• Have 20 minute long internal debate on whether or not driving the equivalent of a sweat box the majority of your life has contributed to your overall thinness.
• Decide that you don't care.
• Eat some chicken nuggets.
• Promise yourself that you won't eat anything in the new car.
• Ever.
• Drive back to work, hit a pothole and feel as if your teeth are going to rattle out of your skull.
• Do a little dance in acknowledgement that this will not be a problem in your new car.
• Apologize to the truck for rubbing the fact that it's getting replaced in its face.
• Check the status page again.
• Cry.
• Go look at the pictures online of your new car.
• Delight in the sunroof.
• Wish that there were more pictures of the interior.
• Have second thoughts about going into such massive debt in order to be able to drive to and from work in relative luxury.
• Go outside for 20 seconds to remind yourself exactly why an air conditioned car is worth the debt.
• Try to decide if you should carry over your stuffed animal that currently sits on the dashboard of the truck to the new car.
• Internal debate on whether stuffed animal in a car is childish or whimsical. Or gay.
• Probably gay.
• Wonder if someone would really try to hate crime a new car, just because it has a gay stuffed animal in the window.
• Go back and look at the pictures again, maybe the color of the car is too vibrant. (Might also be a consideration re: The Gay.)
• Do a RBG color comparison of the pictures of the new car versus a picture of your old truck to determine exactly how much brighter a red the new car is. (Answer: 87 additional points in the red scale, 10 on the green, 12 on the blue).
• Wonder what the hell that even means, and why you did it. Question sanity.
• Wikipedia the car's make, read up on the illustrious history of the brand.
• Get distracted by clicking wiki links, end up at the etymology page on the word euhemeristic.
• Again question sanity.
• Shrug.
• Check the status page again...