Belligerent and Numerous: charity

Monday, November 12, 2007

Charity Man, Charity Man

In continuing the theme of charity and goodwill I've got going with the rice and my lack of vocabulary - y'all know I'm big on the Donors Choose, right? It's totally the best charity, because you get to pick out individual things to fund - right down to the classroom if you'd like. You know exactly where your contributions go and they're directly felt.

In just this past year I've been able to help autistic kids get context recognizing computer equipment AND send a busload of kids to the aquarium to see a real live shark. That's a pretty awesome non-profit, if I do say so myself.

And anyways, since I need a whole lot of good karma to survive, building it up by funding individual school projects seems like as good a method as any.

All of that to say that the last project I picked for funding - Clay and Origami for Inner City Dallas Kids is still $115 dollars short, and the timeline is already half over. So if you have some spare cash, you should look towards helping small children learn how to fold cool animals and/or shape them out of clay.

Because all kids should know how to fold things, and you know you could use the extra karma.

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I swear I'll get back to longwinded stories about injuring myself soon enough. (Also a recap of a crazy homecoming weekend, which saw me out in the world, doing real things. Crazy!)

Thursday, November 08, 2007

Rice Vs. Vocabulary

Have you heard about Free Rice?

It's an online vocabulary game that donates 10 grains of rice to the WFP for every word that you correctly identify the definition of. It's pretty cool, in that you can do something good for the world (in a completely non-participatory way), and I really like that it strengthens the correlation between literacy and societal awareness.

But mostly, omigosh, I am obsessed with getting my Vocabulary Level up. Because I like to think of myself as pretty well-read, but I'll be damned if I can't get past level 45. It is destroying my way of life, and I swear this site is trying to make up words. I mean: "Nonesuch?" Isn't that the fake thing from Huckleberry Finn that they used to scam that one town? Or did I recently suffer a stroke?

Still, you should go play. Vocabulary is awesome. And won't you think of the children?

(But also, when you're thinking of the children try not to think of all the grains of rice that you are potentially depriving them of when you miss a word. Especially the easy ones. It will just make you sad.)

Where My Opinions Count

(500) Days of Summer - Let's start with the caveat that this movie is nothing but a stacked deck against me. You've got Joseph Gordon-Levitt (seriously my favorite actor in the world), in a funny role of a guy unsure of what he wants to do with his professional life while his love life is in constant turmoil. Oh, and Regina Spektor songs keep playing in the background. If there is such a thing as a movie marketed directly to me, this is it. But y'all, this movie is so good. Not in a traditional storyline sense. Or even in an acting sense (although JGL is on fire the entire way through). It's about the feeling it gives you - liberally borrowing from every cliche available - musicals, old black and white cinema, jumping timelines, everything - all working in concert to give you the feeling of a relationship as it ends, and the things you remember. The overrall impression is so great that I forgive the minor quibbles I have (hammy sidekicks are over the top, Zooey Deschanel is playing her stock character #2, much as she has for the last 4 things I've seen her in). This is my movie of the year, right here. Absolutely stunning.
Push - So much better than I was expecting that I may have wrapped myself so far around that I actually enjoyed it. There are some terrible, terrible parts (the Casio-grade Music of Love that they played every time that Chris Evans and Camilla Belle were in the same room, for instance). But Dakota Fanning was pretty great, and I'm up for anything that gives Cliff Curtis or Ming-Na more work. I can't believe I'm saying this, but it's kinda too bad that it tanked - I could totally be up for a sequel.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - Got my nerd on and wrote a whole boring essay on it.
Let The Right One In - A good movie that gets better the more I think on it. Despite being a mildly gory vampire movie, it's surprisingly subtle. They don't try to hit you over the head with anything, it's all underplayed. The mother's soft neglect, the father's hints of homosexuality, even the parallels that can be drawn between particular characters - nothing jumps out at you. That, combined with the natural way that Oskar and Eli's relationship is handled, paints something like a real life picture that just happens to have a vampire somewhere in there. It's more than a little unsettling, especially the way the bullying keeps escalating as the movie continues. Overall, the movie's a little methodical for my tastes (I like my supernatural horror scary, not just ungodly depressing) but it's undeniably a great film.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - So bad I exceeded the character limit. If you care enough: Go Here
The Hangover - Delightfully vulgar and meandering. That's pretty much my the sum of my thoughts. "Genuinely and shockingly funny" is another soundbyte I could add in there as well. After seeing his Fiona Apple music video, I always assumed Zach Galifianakis would remain an unacknowledged American treasure forever, since the combination of that plus his standup act had still left him in obscurity against all odds. But I am gleefully overjoyed to be proven wrong. May he blossom and go on to larger-scale fame. He made this movie.