I'm now sporting a much cleaner and professional cut, but it doesn't photograph anywhere nearly as well.
I mean damn.
(I promise that someday there will be actual content forthcoming again, but that day is not today. Maybe tomorrow.)
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Since this Blog is Only About Hair Now
I now present the picture that was the final straw in convincing me that I should get a haircut, and at the same time is quite possibly my favorite picture ever taken of me.
I'm now sporting a much cleaner and professional cut, but it doesn't photograph anywhere nearly as well.
I mean damn.
(I promise that someday there will be actual content forthcoming again, but that day is not today. Maybe tomorrow.)
I'm now sporting a much cleaner and professional cut, but it doesn't photograph anywhere nearly as well.
I mean damn.
(I promise that someday there will be actual content forthcoming again, but that day is not today. Maybe tomorrow.)
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Vainposting and the Art of Not Caring
My long term battle with my hair is well documented.
At this point, we've sort of come to an impasse - I don't like it, it doesn't like me, and we've accepted that fact. There was a bit of a scuffle very early in January, when it refused to conform to anything remotely professional looking and I responded by cutting it all off to within an inch of my scalp. But that was resolved pretty squarely in favor of the hair, when I got the pictures back from my January visit to Austin and I looked like the world's most confused and drunken escaped mental patient in every single photo.
But lately I've just let the hair do its growing thing, and it's been perfectly happy to just there lie like a bushy mass on my head. Part of this hair indifference included letting semi-professional hair people do pretty much whatever they wanted to it for the first quarter of the year. When Jordan went to cosmetology school for a month and needed a hair dying model person, I volunteered my unruly mop for a coloring. And then the next month when his friend David needed a model as well, I signed up for a second coating without a thought.
People kept just politely nodding their heads and secretly rolling their eyes when I said that I really didn't care what my hair looked like, but I quite literally meant it. I would still attempt to tame it into something respectable on the off chance that it might finally have given up the battle, but I had truly decided to make a concerted effort not to put too much stock in how my hair reflected my worth as a human being.
And omigosh, it's so great. I realize now that the difference between great hair and normal hair is so much wider than the difference between normal hair and bad hair. And that the difference between bad hair and truly horrible hair is the widest gap of all. Or more plainly - there's pretty much nothing I can do to my head to get out of the normal-bad range, and no one in the world is going to care one way or the other.
So now I go with all out non-caring - I wash my hair in the morning, towel it dry, and then run my hands through it until it's roughly flat on my head. And then I don't mess with it for the rest of the day. Except on occasions when I'm in the privacy of my own home and I wear a headband to keep the hair out of my eyes, as previously disclosed. It's so awesome. And functional.
Plus, it doesn't look that terrible.
Okay, maybe I do look like I've wandered straight out of an 80's movie, what with the feathered nature of how it now falls. And sure, it's gone from 'mildly bushy' to 'so bushy that it brushes the ceiling of car when I get in' while rapidly approaching 'white boy afro' levels. And yes, I have grown out my sideburns down my chin, to offset the 80's look of the upper hair by doing a throwback to the mid 1920's. ...Wait, I forget exactly where this whole story was going.
Um, hair. Yes. Not caring is awesome. I never want to go to a barber ever again. We'll see how long I can hold out. We're currently somewhere around month three. I probably give it another three weeks, roughly, or until I can see my hair at all times in my field of vision. That's usually what causes me to snap. But maybe my willpower and self image have gone up so much lately that I'll be able to last for ages without caring what others think of my crazy 80's mane.
(Yeah, seriously, three weeks)
At this point, we've sort of come to an impasse - I don't like it, it doesn't like me, and we've accepted that fact. There was a bit of a scuffle very early in January, when it refused to conform to anything remotely professional looking and I responded by cutting it all off to within an inch of my scalp. But that was resolved pretty squarely in favor of the hair, when I got the pictures back from my January visit to Austin and I looked like the world's most confused and drunken escaped mental patient in every single photo.
But lately I've just let the hair do its growing thing, and it's been perfectly happy to just there lie like a bushy mass on my head. Part of this hair indifference included letting semi-professional hair people do pretty much whatever they wanted to it for the first quarter of the year. When Jordan went to cosmetology school for a month and needed a hair dying model person, I volunteered my unruly mop for a coloring. And then the next month when his friend David needed a model as well, I signed up for a second coating without a thought.
People kept just politely nodding their heads and secretly rolling their eyes when I said that I really didn't care what my hair looked like, but I quite literally meant it. I would still attempt to tame it into something respectable on the off chance that it might finally have given up the battle, but I had truly decided to make a concerted effort not to put too much stock in how my hair reflected my worth as a human being.
And omigosh, it's so great. I realize now that the difference between great hair and normal hair is so much wider than the difference between normal hair and bad hair. And that the difference between bad hair and truly horrible hair is the widest gap of all. Or more plainly - there's pretty much nothing I can do to my head to get out of the normal-bad range, and no one in the world is going to care one way or the other.
So now I go with all out non-caring - I wash my hair in the morning, towel it dry, and then run my hands through it until it's roughly flat on my head. And then I don't mess with it for the rest of the day. Except on occasions when I'm in the privacy of my own home and I wear a headband to keep the hair out of my eyes, as previously disclosed. It's so awesome. And functional.
Plus, it doesn't look that terrible.
Okay, maybe I do look like I've wandered straight out of an 80's movie, what with the feathered nature of how it now falls. And sure, it's gone from 'mildly bushy' to 'so bushy that it brushes the ceiling of car when I get in' while rapidly approaching 'white boy afro' levels. And yes, I have grown out my sideburns down my chin, to offset the 80's look of the upper hair by doing a throwback to the mid 1920's. ...Wait, I forget exactly where this whole story was going.
Um, hair. Yes. Not caring is awesome. I never want to go to a barber ever again. We'll see how long I can hold out. We're currently somewhere around month three. I probably give it another three weeks, roughly, or until I can see my hair at all times in my field of vision. That's usually what causes me to snap. But maybe my willpower and self image have gone up so much lately that I'll be able to last for ages without caring what others think of my crazy 80's mane.
(Yeah, seriously, three weeks)
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
When Good Cars Go Bad
We all knew it had to happen eventually. My Car of Awesomeness (who is rapidly approaching his first anniversary with me) has started down the dark path that the Truck of Malfunction forged many, many years ago.
I know at first I was a little worried when, less than a month in, we had that brief period where the car was possessed by Satan. But that was resolved in general short order, and there had been no problems since. (Unless you count the fact that it burns through gas so fast that I can literally watch as the gas gauge goes down, which is slightly demoralizing in an age where one gallon of gas costs more than a 12 pack of Coke. But let's not get into that.)
Then, about two months ago I started to notice that my left front tire was a little flat. Almost imperceptibly, but as time went on, it definitely got flatter. So I ran by a gas station, filled it back up, and fully intended to go get it checked out at the tire place.
But time passed and I grew complacent. It wasn't actually getting any flatter anymore, it was just one of those things. And then when it did start to get noticeably flat, I ignored the problem until my car actually started to pull towards the left. And again, I simply filled the tire with air rather than going to the store.
What can I say? I was young. And foolish. And the tire place was totally like at least seven miles up the road.
Okay, so maybe the car isn't so much heading down the TOM path of destruction so much as my own carefully crafted path of willful ignorance, but follow along, it's an exciting story.
----------------------
All of this rising action and foreshadowing leads us up to last weekend when I am supposed to drive out into deep East Texas for my Mom's family birthday lunch. As is our family tradition, the diaspora of our clan is temporarily put on hold, as we return together for a single meal on each member's date of birth. Usually held at a delightfully colorful theme restaurant.
We decide to shoot for a late afternoon meal, as going to church Sunday mornings always adds an extra element of complexity to the proceedings. I head out from Dallas just at 12:00 so I should arrive roughly at 2:30-2:45, with some spare room for traffic to make the 3:00 meeting time. I once again notice that my tire is looking a touch low, and thus do a quick fill up before I embark. (Note: this would be the third fill up of its kind in under 2 months. Lord knows I never was called the brightest bulb in the box.)
Things go great as the trip begins. Traffic is super light, I have both the new Hush Sound album and a copy of the latest offering from The National to obsess over/dance around to all the way up there.
Now the trip from Dallas to Longview is a relatively simple one. There is only one highway involved, and it is basically a straight horizontal line connecting the two cities. The only thing of note about the drive is that there is pretty much nothing in between the two places, besides a plethora of empty or cow-ridden fields. There is one city about 30 minutes outside the Metroplex, then the turn off for the only other mid size city (Tyler) and then nothing for upwards of 80 miles.
So of course, my tire chooses the dead center of this Nothing Span in which to completely blow out. I actually had about 15 seconds of warning about this, luckily, as my car started making a peculiar *Wwhoomp* *Wwhoomp* sort of noise as a precursor to becoming completely undrivable. This causes me to slow from 75 to 65 mph, which is probably the only thing that saved me from untimely death, as I still nearly careened straight off the road I was on and into a nearby creek. Instead, I slam on my breaks and am able to instead just crazy swerve my way over to the side of the road, minus a large portion of my tire.
After a couple of fun moments of hyperventilating, personal body checking to make sure all limbs were still intact, and nervous laughing, I make my way out of the car to survey the damage.
I pull out the jack and spend an agonizingly long period of time lying on the ground trying to find the lip of the car body that I'm supposed to brace it against. Then I spend an even longer time lying on the ground attempting to figure out how to pump up the jack using only this coat hanger-like apparatus that was packed in alongside it. Once I get the car up in the air and the old tire off, I'm able to see just how bad a blowout it was - nearly a 5 inch hole on the interior wall of the tire. It looks like the exit wound of a particularly nasty shotgun blast. I have a brief fever dream while lying on the side of the busy highway of an armed robbery gone bad in the interior of my left front tire - their last job before they were going to go straight too - until I shake myself out of it and get the little tiny spare tire attached to the car.
I'm wildly impressed with my tire changing abilities (which, yeah, I probably shouldn't be, but come on. Show of hands, how many of you would think I could change a tire under my own power without dropping a car on my head?) but now face the fact that I'm going to have to drive at least 60 miles in any one direction before I'm going to find civilization advanced enough to help me get off this Baby's First Tire that I've got going on.
Getting up to 60 mphs is an epic feat and strain for my car at this point, so we stick with about 55 mph, all the while wheezing down the highway as we are passed by 18 wheelers, uHauls, and even old people driving those giant camper houses on wheels, with dumb names like The Summer Breeze, or The Elegant Pelican. I'm thoroughly humiliated for my fancy luxury sedan, but at least it's still operational and we aren't in a sort of Deliverance/Wrong Turn situation where I'm forced to go wandering through the woods for help.
I decide to just head for Longview, as it's probably the closest and biggest place that I can reach without dying, and make it there with little further issue, although minus a large portion of my dignity. I arrive at the restaurant and the hostess blanches at the sight of me, probably thinking that she's going to have to rush some bum out of her fancy establishment. Finally for once I have an excuse for getting this look, as I'm pretty much covered head to toe in gravel, brake dust, jack grease, and God knows what else.
Being pretty sure that there isn't a place that could help me at this point anyways, I enjoy a nice leisurely (if soot covered) dinner with my family, who has awesomely waited around for an extra hour and a half just for me, chowing down on chips and what have you while placing side bets on what sort of disaster had befallen me this time.
Afterwards I make the long journey home to Dallas on the Tire of Stunted Growth, and find that if you just come to accept the fact that everyone on Earth is going to angrily rush by you, usually while flipping you off, driving can be really quiet and relaxing. Almost therapeutic. I'm not sure that it was worth the extra 2 hours of transit time, but it wasn't as horrible as I anticipated.
Still, getting the bird from the elderly driver of The Regal Eagle? It sticks with you.
----------------------
The next day I was able to get two new front tires and a front end alignment (the real reason for the blowout, apparently, insomuch as my alignment was far enough off that the inside of the tire was getting worn down about 10 times faster than it should be) with almost no trouble, assuming I didn't mind mortgaging my first born against the costs. Seriously, owning a fancy car is cool and all, but who would have ever expected that an expensive car would have associated expensive repair and maintenance costs? That shit just comes out of nowhere.
So to recap - stupidity and lack of CONSTANT VIGILANCE against potential car problems causes tire explosion and near death of the driver, but plucky ingenuity saves the day over said stupidity and everyone survives, just minus all their disposable income for the month.
Oh, and the bastards at the tire place totally lost one of my lug nuts on the tire they replaced. Which will take them as long to fix as it is taking the city to repair my gas at home. (Meaning they'll both be in place sometime around my 40th birthday.)
Woo and hoo.
I know at first I was a little worried when, less than a month in, we had that brief period where the car was possessed by Satan. But that was resolved in general short order, and there had been no problems since. (Unless you count the fact that it burns through gas so fast that I can literally watch as the gas gauge goes down, which is slightly demoralizing in an age where one gallon of gas costs more than a 12 pack of Coke. But let's not get into that.)
Then, about two months ago I started to notice that my left front tire was a little flat. Almost imperceptibly, but as time went on, it definitely got flatter. So I ran by a gas station, filled it back up, and fully intended to go get it checked out at the tire place.
But time passed and I grew complacent. It wasn't actually getting any flatter anymore, it was just one of those things. And then when it did start to get noticeably flat, I ignored the problem until my car actually started to pull towards the left. And again, I simply filled the tire with air rather than going to the store.
What can I say? I was young. And foolish. And the tire place was totally like at least seven miles up the road.
Okay, so maybe the car isn't so much heading down the TOM path of destruction so much as my own carefully crafted path of willful ignorance, but follow along, it's an exciting story.
----------------------
All of this rising action and foreshadowing leads us up to last weekend when I am supposed to drive out into deep East Texas for my Mom's family birthday lunch. As is our family tradition, the diaspora of our clan is temporarily put on hold, as we return together for a single meal on each member's date of birth. Usually held at a delightfully colorful theme restaurant.
We decide to shoot for a late afternoon meal, as going to church Sunday mornings always adds an extra element of complexity to the proceedings. I head out from Dallas just at 12:00 so I should arrive roughly at 2:30-2:45, with some spare room for traffic to make the 3:00 meeting time. I once again notice that my tire is looking a touch low, and thus do a quick fill up before I embark. (Note: this would be the third fill up of its kind in under 2 months. Lord knows I never was called the brightest bulb in the box.)
Things go great as the trip begins. Traffic is super light, I have both the new Hush Sound album and a copy of the latest offering from The National to obsess over/dance around to all the way up there.
Now the trip from Dallas to Longview is a relatively simple one. There is only one highway involved, and it is basically a straight horizontal line connecting the two cities. The only thing of note about the drive is that there is pretty much nothing in between the two places, besides a plethora of empty or cow-ridden fields. There is one city about 30 minutes outside the Metroplex, then the turn off for the only other mid size city (Tyler) and then nothing for upwards of 80 miles.
So of course, my tire chooses the dead center of this Nothing Span in which to completely blow out. I actually had about 15 seconds of warning about this, luckily, as my car started making a peculiar *Wwhoomp* *Wwhoomp* sort of noise as a precursor to becoming completely undrivable. This causes me to slow from 75 to 65 mph, which is probably the only thing that saved me from untimely death, as I still nearly careened straight off the road I was on and into a nearby creek. Instead, I slam on my breaks and am able to instead just crazy swerve my way over to the side of the road, minus a large portion of my tire.
After a couple of fun moments of hyperventilating, personal body checking to make sure all limbs were still intact, and nervous laughing, I make my way out of the car to survey the damage.
I pull out the jack and spend an agonizingly long period of time lying on the ground trying to find the lip of the car body that I'm supposed to brace it against. Then I spend an even longer time lying on the ground attempting to figure out how to pump up the jack using only this coat hanger-like apparatus that was packed in alongside it. Once I get the car up in the air and the old tire off, I'm able to see just how bad a blowout it was - nearly a 5 inch hole on the interior wall of the tire. It looks like the exit wound of a particularly nasty shotgun blast. I have a brief fever dream while lying on the side of the busy highway of an armed robbery gone bad in the interior of my left front tire - their last job before they were going to go straight too - until I shake myself out of it and get the little tiny spare tire attached to the car.
I'm wildly impressed with my tire changing abilities (which, yeah, I probably shouldn't be, but come on. Show of hands, how many of you would think I could change a tire under my own power without dropping a car on my head?) but now face the fact that I'm going to have to drive at least 60 miles in any one direction before I'm going to find civilization advanced enough to help me get off this Baby's First Tire that I've got going on.
Getting up to 60 mphs is an epic feat and strain for my car at this point, so we stick with about 55 mph, all the while wheezing down the highway as we are passed by 18 wheelers, uHauls, and even old people driving those giant camper houses on wheels, with dumb names like The Summer Breeze, or The Elegant Pelican. I'm thoroughly humiliated for my fancy luxury sedan, but at least it's still operational and we aren't in a sort of Deliverance/Wrong Turn situation where I'm forced to go wandering through the woods for help.
I decide to just head for Longview, as it's probably the closest and biggest place that I can reach without dying, and make it there with little further issue, although minus a large portion of my dignity. I arrive at the restaurant and the hostess blanches at the sight of me, probably thinking that she's going to have to rush some bum out of her fancy establishment. Finally for once I have an excuse for getting this look, as I'm pretty much covered head to toe in gravel, brake dust, jack grease, and God knows what else.
Being pretty sure that there isn't a place that could help me at this point anyways, I enjoy a nice leisurely (if soot covered) dinner with my family, who has awesomely waited around for an extra hour and a half just for me, chowing down on chips and what have you while placing side bets on what sort of disaster had befallen me this time.
Afterwards I make the long journey home to Dallas on the Tire of Stunted Growth, and find that if you just come to accept the fact that everyone on Earth is going to angrily rush by you, usually while flipping you off, driving can be really quiet and relaxing. Almost therapeutic. I'm not sure that it was worth the extra 2 hours of transit time, but it wasn't as horrible as I anticipated.
Still, getting the bird from the elderly driver of The Regal Eagle? It sticks with you.
----------------------
The next day I was able to get two new front tires and a front end alignment (the real reason for the blowout, apparently, insomuch as my alignment was far enough off that the inside of the tire was getting worn down about 10 times faster than it should be) with almost no trouble, assuming I didn't mind mortgaging my first born against the costs. Seriously, owning a fancy car is cool and all, but who would have ever expected that an expensive car would have associated expensive repair and maintenance costs? That shit just comes out of nowhere.
So to recap - stupidity and lack of CONSTANT VIGILANCE against potential car problems causes tire explosion and near death of the driver, but plucky ingenuity saves the day over said stupidity and everyone survives, just minus all their disposable income for the month.
Oh, and the bastards at the tire place totally lost one of my lug nuts on the tire they replaced. Which will take them as long to fix as it is taking the city to repair my gas at home. (Meaning they'll both be in place sometime around my 40th birthday.)
Woo and hoo.
Monday, May 05, 2008
A Primitive Lifestyle
About 5 weeks ago, I came home after work and really wanted some cookies. Because I am incredibly handy around the kitchen like that, I set out to whip up a batch from scratch. And by scratch, I mean I added an egg to the Betty Crocker pre-made cookie mix and then spooned the results on to a cookie sheet. I tossed the sheet into the oven and set the timer for 13 minutes, practically drooling in anticipation.
When the alarm (finally) went off, I shook myself out of my cookie-lustful stupor, wiped my chin, and wandered back into the kitchen, expecting shortly to be able to stuff my mouth full of warm chocolaty goodness. Except upon inspection the cookie dough was in the exact same condition as when I put it in the oven.
"Fool!" I thought. "In your haste you forgot to preheat the oven. Now you will have to wait another 15 minutes before you can gorge yourself." I was very sad.
Until I looked over and realized that I had set the oven, it just wasn't getting hot.
This sounds way less ominous than it should, but right at this second you should hear the soundtrack that accompanies my life rise in dreadful anticipation of a horrible reveal.
Because while it may look like just a lack of cookie-making power one night, this one event was the foreshadowing of oh so much doom to come.
----------------------
We fast-forward to today, where I am still unable to cook anything. Because the city has shut off our gas. And by the current rate of things, they plan on never turning it back on.
----------------------
I feel like I already discussed my problem from a couple of months ago, where my hot water heater kept abruptly refusing to heat any water. Most commonly whenever I was actually in the shower, mid-way through the chorus of George Michael's Faith. But just in case I haven't - the boiler for my condo complex kept repeatedly failing over the course of several weeks. After (futilely) replacing the heating coils multiple times, the HOA board realized that it was actually a problem with the natural gas line going to the boiler. They put an above ground gas line directly to the heater while the real line was fixed, and everything seemed peachy.
That was until the moment 5 weeks ago when the gas line repair company came in and did the test to check the new line. Which indicated that there were at least two, possibly as many as four, huge gas leaks in the overall existing system in our complex, not just the one going to the water heater. And huge is sort of an understatement - according to one workman, had one of these leaks actually ignited it could have easily taken out our entire block.
My faith in urban safety now completely undermined, the city shut down the gas and has been systematically replacing the whole setup. Which apparently takes the entire length and breadth of time itself, as we are now approaching day 40 without the hint of gas. Do you know what sort of primitive lifestyle one must lead if you have a gas range stove with no gas to power it? Lemme tell you, it is not pretty.
Mostly it involves foraging in the wild (read: eating fast food for every meal), or subjecting yourself to eating radioactive matter (anything zapped in the microwave for extended periods of time). I have easily gained 10 pounds of weight, mostly in the form of french fries, which have directly applied themselves to line my torso, or in tiny microwaved hamburgers, which I feel go straight to my thighs.
Had I expected this little gas siege to last the rest of time, I might have sped up the plan that I put into motion over this weekend: buying an electric skillet to offset this new, even more wildly unhealthy lifestyle that has been thrust upon me. Unfortunately, my taste in skillets runs very cheap, as I'm already poor from the never ending eating out and the surprising expense of pre-made microwavable meals. So the skillet I ended up purchasing tends to only heat things in a very specific manner. Namely: Poorly, most kindly described as 'wildly uneven.'
Thus, to the two other food options we add a third: preservative-laden fast food, radioactive frozen meals, and alternatingly raw and burnt self-prepared delicacies. And not even I will buy the idea that something half raw and half totally blackened actually averages out to properly cooked. I'm a forager, not an idiot.
So still, we are left eating basically hand to mouth, wandering the streets looking for food made by others, all the while wondering if someday they will ever give us back the power to sustain ourselves on our own. And if so, will that day will arrive before I reach the weight of a killer whale, can no longer move under my own power, and approach all problems from the couch while wielding a reaching broom?
The answer most definitely seems to be no, but I lie in wait nonetheless - my pre-made cookie mix at the ready, an egg sitting in the refrigerator, under glass affixed with the words "Break in case of emergency. Or the ability to bake cookies," next to a tiny little hammer.
Someday, my friends, someday.
When the alarm (finally) went off, I shook myself out of my cookie-lustful stupor, wiped my chin, and wandered back into the kitchen, expecting shortly to be able to stuff my mouth full of warm chocolaty goodness. Except upon inspection the cookie dough was in the exact same condition as when I put it in the oven.
"Fool!" I thought. "In your haste you forgot to preheat the oven. Now you will have to wait another 15 minutes before you can gorge yourself." I was very sad.
Until I looked over and realized that I had set the oven, it just wasn't getting hot.
This sounds way less ominous than it should, but right at this second you should hear the soundtrack that accompanies my life rise in dreadful anticipation of a horrible reveal.
Because while it may look like just a lack of cookie-making power one night, this one event was the foreshadowing of oh so much doom to come.
----------------------
We fast-forward to today, where I am still unable to cook anything. Because the city has shut off our gas. And by the current rate of things, they plan on never turning it back on.
----------------------
I feel like I already discussed my problem from a couple of months ago, where my hot water heater kept abruptly refusing to heat any water. Most commonly whenever I was actually in the shower, mid-way through the chorus of George Michael's Faith. But just in case I haven't - the boiler for my condo complex kept repeatedly failing over the course of several weeks. After (futilely) replacing the heating coils multiple times, the HOA board realized that it was actually a problem with the natural gas line going to the boiler. They put an above ground gas line directly to the heater while the real line was fixed, and everything seemed peachy.
That was until the moment 5 weeks ago when the gas line repair company came in and did the test to check the new line. Which indicated that there were at least two, possibly as many as four, huge gas leaks in the overall existing system in our complex, not just the one going to the water heater. And huge is sort of an understatement - according to one workman, had one of these leaks actually ignited it could have easily taken out our entire block.
My faith in urban safety now completely undermined, the city shut down the gas and has been systematically replacing the whole setup. Which apparently takes the entire length and breadth of time itself, as we are now approaching day 40 without the hint of gas. Do you know what sort of primitive lifestyle one must lead if you have a gas range stove with no gas to power it? Lemme tell you, it is not pretty.
Mostly it involves foraging in the wild (read: eating fast food for every meal), or subjecting yourself to eating radioactive matter (anything zapped in the microwave for extended periods of time). I have easily gained 10 pounds of weight, mostly in the form of french fries, which have directly applied themselves to line my torso, or in tiny microwaved hamburgers, which I feel go straight to my thighs.
Had I expected this little gas siege to last the rest of time, I might have sped up the plan that I put into motion over this weekend: buying an electric skillet to offset this new, even more wildly unhealthy lifestyle that has been thrust upon me. Unfortunately, my taste in skillets runs very cheap, as I'm already poor from the never ending eating out and the surprising expense of pre-made microwavable meals. So the skillet I ended up purchasing tends to only heat things in a very specific manner. Namely: Poorly, most kindly described as 'wildly uneven.'
Thus, to the two other food options we add a third: preservative-laden fast food, radioactive frozen meals, and alternatingly raw and burnt self-prepared delicacies. And not even I will buy the idea that something half raw and half totally blackened actually averages out to properly cooked. I'm a forager, not an idiot.
So still, we are left eating basically hand to mouth, wandering the streets looking for food made by others, all the while wondering if someday they will ever give us back the power to sustain ourselves on our own. And if so, will that day will arrive before I reach the weight of a killer whale, can no longer move under my own power, and approach all problems from the couch while wielding a reaching broom?
The answer most definitely seems to be no, but I lie in wait nonetheless - my pre-made cookie mix at the ready, an egg sitting in the refrigerator, under glass affixed with the words "Break in case of emergency. Or the ability to bake cookies," next to a tiny little hammer.
Someday, my friends, someday.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Fall From Grace
In honor of the fact that just 4 days ago I commented that I hadn't done anything clumsy in at least a month, and was thinking about changing my About Me line.
I brought my lunch in to work, because I knew I had a closing that would be funding around noon. It was a good lunch: fruit cup, chocolate chip granola bar, 4 mini frosted donuts, and a can of coke. I tend to think of diabetes as an eventuality in my life.
At the tail end of my consumption, after I had finished all the food and was just working on the Coke, I had a phone call and needed to reference some paperwork at my desk. I shifted around so I would have the phone cradled in the crook of my neck and could hold the two pieces of paper I needed. After I gave over the relevant information on the file, the caller put me on hold while they went to confirm my information.
In my infinite wisdom at that point I set down one of the pieces of paper and take a drink of the Coke. Unfortunately I wasn't paying adequate attention, because instead of lining up the popped top with my mouth, I approached it at a 90 degree angle, which spilled a crazy ton of Coke all down the front of my nice white dress shirt. Unfortunate-er, the Coke then started to pool on my desk chair, rapidly soaking my crotch.
Thinking quickly, I set down both the Coke and the paper, and leaned forward while reaching down to raise myself up off the chair with both my hands. It was a more than a little awkward, but as I couldn't well stand up while still having the phone up against my ear, it was a workable solution, I thought.
More unfortunately still, though, I didn't stop to think that my desk chair was on wheels, and that my arms are much less stable than my lap. I overbalanced on my arms and the chair went shooting backwards out from under me. With nothing holding me up and already leaning forward, I fantastically thumped, forehead first, into the edge of my desk with my entire body weight.
The phone then popped out from my shoulder and knocked me in the eye on my way down to the floor. I was just sort of lying there stunned for about a second, until my desk chair came rolling back up to me, having rebounded off the desk behind me. Such was the force of the initial push. It lightly bumped up against my shoulder. . . and the puddle of Coke it contained sloshed over the side of the seat and directly onto my face.
And as I was laying there, covered in soda, with no doubt a huge bruise forming on my forehead and possibly my eye, I could vaguely hear the tinny sound of the person on the phone, from the dangling receiver: "I-i-is anyone there? I thought I hear a crash."
Monday, March 03, 2008
Love of Consumerism/Hate of Situation
Today I love:
- Vampire Weekend and Jenny Owen Youngs' Batten the Hatches, the two albums I got this weekend. I've had them both on repeat on my iPod for 2 days straight and still can't stop listening. Of particular note: Youngs' Voice on Tape, a song which I cannot get out of my head, and frankly don't even want to.
- This bag of Hershey's Hugs in my hand, who's dual chocolaty goodness is the only thing keeping me alive at this point.
- Brandon Sanderson. Particularly these two books of his, which are just amazing, and easily qualify as the best fantasy writing I've come across in the last 5 years. Have you ever been so into a book that you couldn't sleep until you finished it? That was me with the second one. Except not only would I not go to sleep, I wouldn't physically put the book down - carrying it with me as I took out my contacts, brushed my teeth, ironed my clothes for the next day. . . I was completely unconscious of this fact too, until I was actually in bed about to turn out the lights for the night when I realized I was still reading a book. So good. Also, as an offshoot of this.
- Tor Books, who sent me the first of those as a free eBook, as part of some sort of literary promotion. It was definitely a worthwhile gamble on their part, as it got me to go out and immediately acquire the second book in the series less than 30 minutes after finishing the first, so good on them. They also keep sending another book each week. Which is sweet, except for the fact that the last two they sent me I already owned. Along with the respective sequels for both books. I guess I'm just already too deep inside their demographic. Still, LOVE.
Today I Hate:
- My throat, which has swelled shut for unknown reasons. There is fiery pain whenever I swallow, and croaking noises whenever I try to speak. Do you understand how that might inconvenience someone who's job it is to answer the phones all day?
- Dallas drivers, particularly the Honda Accord who tried to sideswipe me on the way into the office this morning. Because he didn't feel like obeying the giant flashing yellow arrow indicating a lane closure until he was actually at said arrow, and then mistakenly assumed that he had right-of-way to take over my lane since his was gone.
- And also the BMW in my parking garage who tried to run me down once I was on foot, by driving 30 mph in an enclosed garage, while on his cell phone, driving the wrong way down a one way lane, and then veering into the parking spot I was standing in, waiting for his distracted, reckless ass to pass.
- Additionally, a small note to the driver of said BMW - if you are doing the three things noted above (speeding down the wrong way of a one-way lane while on a cell phone) and you try to root around in your passenger seat, resulting in a swerve that almost kills a pedestrian, when you slam on your breaks to stop, please don't honk your horn and yell angrily at the pedestrian. Because in case you didn't notice, it was your negligent ass that was wrong, and had it not been for the car dodging ability of the guy walking, he would now be plastered on your windshield. Particularly considering that your oh-so-amazing response time with those breaks had you shuddering to a stop three feet past where he was standing. That would be why he was able to look at you through your passenger-side window, with a look that indicated he was ready to drag you out of the car and beat the crap out of you, despite his generally non-violent persona. Christ.
If it's okay with everyone else, I'm just going to call this day a draw and hide in my living room until first light tomorrow. I'm pretty okay with the balance I've struck.
Friday, February 29, 2008
TV Wrap Up (Alt Title: Screw You Too, America)
For those of you playing along at home in the game entitled "Jason Watches American Idol," the current results are: 2 weeks passed, 3 of Jason's top 4 contestants already eliminated. Including my very favorite, Alexandrea, last night in the most egregious wrong ever committed on American soil.
If Brooke gets sent home, I will entirely refuse to watch the show again this season.
Also, I can see and hear empirically that that small Mormon boy, David A., is a very good singer. And he's inappropriately humble and cute about it. But sweet damn, why do I want to punch him in the face so much? The only thing stopping me is the fact that he completely lost his shit when Alexandrea was eliminated. Like, falling-over-sobbing-into-the-warm-embrace-of-Crazy-Hot-Luke-Menard-during-her-singout levels of shit losing. That was nice of him. But seriously, that's the only thing keeping him off my Most Hated List.
OH, AND - David Cook? You are officially dead to me, after that interview this week, wherein you used the phrases "word nerd," "enamored with word meanings," and "vocab" unironically. Do you remember that scene from The History Boys where they're giving that eulogy about "[someone's] love for words, and language"? Of course you don't, because I am the only person in the world who cares about that movie/play. But still, this was exactly like that, only one million times worse. I'm talking Taylor Hicks levels of revulsion.
Dead to me.
----------------------------
I stopped watching Lost twelve episodes into the second season, when I realized that it was doing nothing but pissing me off every Wednesday night. Questions upon mysteries, upon riddles, upon Matthew Fox's smug face, I'd had enough.
Then I found myself in front of the TV the night that this season started, and they had a one hour "catch up on the last 3 seasons" Cliff's Notes episode before it started. I figured, what the hell, and tried it out. While the recap was basically telling a story that had absolutely nothing to do with the first 2 seasons that I had watched, it was sort of interesting in its own right and I went ahead and watched the season premiere. And I've been rehooked ever since.
I have almost nothing to say about this whatsoever, except that I loved the episode last night more than any other hour of TV that I've seen this year. I make no excuses for the fact that I love the pure sap that was The Time Traveler's Wife, and this was like a fanfiction episode of what would happen if Lost and TTTW did a crossover episode. Sort of sappy, sort of confusing, sort of science fiction. My kind of TV. Good play, Lost.
If Brooke gets sent home, I will entirely refuse to watch the show again this season.
Also, I can see and hear empirically that that small Mormon boy, David A., is a very good singer. And he's inappropriately humble and cute about it. But sweet damn, why do I want to punch him in the face so much? The only thing stopping me is the fact that he completely lost his shit when Alexandrea was eliminated. Like, falling-over-sobbing-into-the-warm-embrace-of-Crazy-Hot-Luke-Menard-during-her-singout levels of shit losing. That was nice of him. But seriously, that's the only thing keeping him off my Most Hated List.
OH, AND - David Cook? You are officially dead to me, after that interview this week, wherein you used the phrases "word nerd," "enamored with word meanings," and "vocab" unironically. Do you remember that scene from The History Boys where they're giving that eulogy about "[someone's] love for words, and language"? Of course you don't, because I am the only person in the world who cares about that movie/play. But still, this was exactly like that, only one million times worse. I'm talking Taylor Hicks levels of revulsion.
Dead to me.
----------------------------
I stopped watching Lost twelve episodes into the second season, when I realized that it was doing nothing but pissing me off every Wednesday night. Questions upon mysteries, upon riddles, upon Matthew Fox's smug face, I'd had enough.
Then I found myself in front of the TV the night that this season started, and they had a one hour "catch up on the last 3 seasons" Cliff's Notes episode before it started. I figured, what the hell, and tried it out. While the recap was basically telling a story that had absolutely nothing to do with the first 2 seasons that I had watched, it was sort of interesting in its own right and I went ahead and watched the season premiere. And I've been rehooked ever since.
I have almost nothing to say about this whatsoever, except that I loved the episode last night more than any other hour of TV that I've seen this year. I make no excuses for the fact that I love the pure sap that was The Time Traveler's Wife, and this was like a fanfiction episode of what would happen if Lost and TTTW did a crossover episode. Sort of sappy, sort of confusing, sort of science fiction. My kind of TV. Good play, Lost.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Oscar Silence
This year marked the first time in ages that I didn't have some manner of thing going on in relation to the Oscars. For a while there I had a weird streak of dying my hair a different color at the same time as the show (that's finally over, thank goodness), and lately there's always been some manner of party, or at least people over to crack wise and mock all the fashions.
But due to a magical thing called Forgetting That the Oscars Were This Weekend, I had the whole day to myself. And you know what? It was pretty sweet. Because I found that if you watch the entire show with the sound muted while reading a book, it's a really pleasant experience. You miss none of the winners and still get to see all the fashion and the reactions, plus you don't have to listen to the horrible presenter banter or the host's stale jokes (sorry Jon Stewart, but seriously). And the most painful part of the whole night for me, the acceptance speeches, suddenly become wonderfully fascinating, in the sort of way a deranged mime might be fun to watch for a while.
I'm totally sticking with this kind of Oscars forever now, because it didn't even seem that long, since I had a good book to occupy my time.
Some general notes on the night:
But due to a magical thing called Forgetting That the Oscars Were This Weekend, I had the whole day to myself. And you know what? It was pretty sweet. Because I found that if you watch the entire show with the sound muted while reading a book, it's a really pleasant experience. You miss none of the winners and still get to see all the fashion and the reactions, plus you don't have to listen to the horrible presenter banter or the host's stale jokes (sorry Jon Stewart, but seriously). And the most painful part of the whole night for me, the acceptance speeches, suddenly become wonderfully fascinating, in the sort of way a deranged mime might be fun to watch for a while.
I'm totally sticking with this kind of Oscars forever now, because it didn't even seem that long, since I had a good book to occupy my time.
Some general notes on the night:
- There weren't any horrible dresses this year, which was ever so sad. Not even Marion Cotillard's fish dress was able to get more than a derisive scoff from me. Poor form, crazy dressmakers of the world.
- Best Moment of the Night: Tilda Swinton winning Best Supporting Actress. Meaning that, for the first time in forever, the person who I thought gave the best performance of anyone all year actually won in the their category. Seriously, I loved her performance more than anything and didn't expect her to win in the slightest.
- 2nd Best Moment of the Night: Once winning for Best Song, and the resulting two acceptance speeches. I actually turned the sound on for both of them. I couldn't be happier. And how cute were they?!
- Worst Moment of the Night: Marion Cotillard? Really? I didn't know it until they actually read the winner, but oh man I really, really wanted Ellen Page to win that award. At least she looked super cute. Although did Michael Cera just not attend? I never saw him once.
- Worst Ongoing Trend of the Night: Absolutely no love for Atonement (except for score, which: obviously) all the way through. It was expected but still ultra annoying. Totally the best movie, totally shafted. Ah well.
And that's that. Man, I feel really refreshed, and completely out of opinions. Plus I got through 260 pages in my book at the same time. It's a good day.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
A Product Placed Cola Shame
(NOTE: After I wrote this ridiculously long thing up, I decided that it was too dorky even for me to put up. Then I realized that I have no shame and really need blog filler. So it's going up about a week late. I'm sorry. Not for the lateness. For the content. So sorry.)
You guys, I was so sure I had gotten over it. After my brief flirtation with joining the seething masses of teenage girls and Frnak, I had made it an entire year without succumbing to the American Idol machine. Sure I would still watch, but it was only because I had a fake TV crush on that one guy from last year. I never even came close to picking up a telephone, and I would estimate that I only watched about every other episode. Even my crush wasn't that strong - I mean the boy made sound effects for a living. It would never have worked between us.
I assumed it was all just a fad, a scary Coca-Cola induced fad, and I had grown past the creepy devotion and Pavlovian phone dialing.
And then this season happened. With the whole writers' strike and the absence of any other new shows on TV, guarantying that I wouldn't have anything else to take up my time, I've been dragged straight down into the swirling vortex. As usual, the audition episodes were literally unwatchable (I think the longest I made it through was 8 consecutive minutes before something horrifying made me wince so hard that I changed the channel without touching the remote. All I needed was my brain waves and the immense shame powering them) but oh my, how addictive the Hollywood pare-down audtions are. It's like a fantastic car crash that you can't look away from, because more and more cars just keep barreling into the flaming wreckage, completely ignoring the fact that there is a huge pileup already there.
And now those are over, and today is officially the best day: The first day the initial bio pages are released for the top 24 contestants. I don't know why I love them so much, but they really, really speak to me. Particularly the part of me that likes to mock people. Because seriously, if you've never read them before, you have no idea what's in store.
Come along, as I recap the most intriguing parts of the different bios. Even with the reduced information this year (usually they're chock full of snark, this year they've learned their lesson and pared down the scary), there's still a trove of hidden gems. I also will make my entirely superficial judgments about them all, since as per usual we haven't seen more than 10 of the 24 sing at all. It's like they want to make this a popularity contest or something. The nerve.
Anyways, Lord help me, they're all below the cut, so as to hide most of my shame.
(Note: While I am a horrible person, I'll try to be a least a little bit sensitive to the fact that some of these contestants are approximately 9 years old, and cannot necessarily be faulted for what they say. Just thinking about a scenario in which I would be interviewed for a national TV program when I was 16 causes me physical pain.)
Alaina Whitaker - The fact that her bio and personal interview is so perfectly normal makes me hate her on principle. Plus, what's the deal with that last line about being "pretty good at shopping."? Is she making a joke? You would think so, but this is American Idol. One should never assume. Tentatively, though, she is not horrible. Sigh. What a way to start.
Alexandrea Lushington - Two for two with the inoffensive pages. Actually, I secretly like her most of all the girls, so I'm thrilled that she didn't have a terrifying bio. Also, she has the best quote of all the contestants.
Amanda Overmyer - Independent of the fact that she looks like a cross between Booberella from The Simpsons and an American Girl doll, she can actually sort of sing. That doesn't sway me though, when you factor in the Harley riding too. There's only so much (note the quotes) "rock-n-roll" I can take, and she's way over the line.
Amy Jean Davis - I think the correct word is ukelele, Amy Jean. Oh. Right, "a little guitar." I see what you were trying to say. Yeah, misplaced modifiers are no one's friend. An enemy of grammar is an enemy of mine.
Asia'h Epperson - Yeah, we can see your picture right there, Unnecessary Apostrophe Girl. You aren't allowed to claim make-up as a talent, unless we're talking clown make-up.
Brooke White - Y'all, I loved her before I read this bio. Now? "Beautifying"? The stupidest quote of the 24 (which is saying so much)? I'm just gonna pretend this whole page doesn't really exist. I love me a dramatic cryer on this show.
Carly Smithson - Oh, you're a crafty one. With your whole "Irish" thing, and your "perfect pint." It's not gonna work on me. I will remain strong. Probably for at least 2 weeks. And then you'll sing an awesome angry indie chick song that I love and I'll fall into your robotic spell. Damn you in advance, Irish temptress.
Chikezie Eze - Other talents: None. Niiiiice. Awesome name, though.
Colton David Berry - Sweet monkey damn, someone save me from all the jailbait this season. I'll refrain from comment, other than to say he was in a mortal lock with Brooke for the worst quote ever attempted, and just barely lost out. Oh, and "since I was young"? He's lucky he isn't within my slapping distance. Embryos aren't allowed to reminisce about when they were young.
Danny Norriega - A relevant conversation:
David Cook - Quotes Road House and manages to ogle Mandy Moore through text. Then he gets the best joke line of all the contestants with his Other Talents. Means I think he's awesome and will thus be gone by end of February.
David Hernandez - I really think this guy might actually be a robot in human disguise, and he's taken on the tiniest accent to hide his not-complete mastery of speech. Also, his roving eyebrows are the scariest facial feature of any of the contestants, including the white shock of hair on the one girl, and the plethora of other piercings on everyone else.
Garrett Haley - Looks a little crazy/alien, and his eyes seem to be strangely oriented on his face. Also, I wouldn't put it past him for that thing on head to actually be a wig. Plus - way to narrow down the timeline of when you started singing to 3 full years. Wildly informative. (I'm being overly mean, I actually like this one.)
Jason Castro - White-boy dreads. I utterly refuse.
Jason Yeager - Seems completely un-hateable, except for the fact that he seems to be suffering from the same hair coloring disease that's affecting the Overmyer girl. Also, old man is old. I hope he does well.
Joanne Borgella - Girl, I love DAUGHTRY too. Sometimes we can't help it. But we will have issues if you keep bringing up the plus-sized girl thing all season long. I get my zaftig discussion fix from ANTM, I am here to see cute gay boys dance around on stage.
Kady Alexis Malloy - The fact that you qualified Freddy Mercury "of Queen" makes me hate you for no understandable reason. I'm sorry dear, sometimes these things happen.
Kristy Lee Cook - Even though I don't like her, she totally wins the award for best bio page. There is so much nuance she's packed in to such a tiny space. Qualifying that she only likes Young LeAnn Rimes (totally implied: not the older, whorish Coyote Ugly LeAnn Rimes), the word cowgirl as a verb, a subtle dropping of her "pro" singing career at 13, and a casual mention of cage fighting in Talents. This girl has it all. Watch the fuck out for this one.
Luke Menard - If by "29" you mean "36," yeah okay. But whatever, we don't discriminate against The Hotness here at Belligerent and Numerous. You come right in.
Michael Johns - Even older than the 36 year old we just went through, but is totally going to crush the one, since he's got A) the accent and B) all the face-time during the auditions. I'm just gonna go ahead and say it, though. Not that hot.
What? You heard me.
Ramiele Macrowon Malubay - Best name, worrying quote. Means she's totally been taking notes from Sanjaya. Bonus points for being the first person to correctly modify her limited talents at musical instruments without butchering the English language too much. Minus points for having 40 favorite artists. This girl is just all over the map.
Robbie Carrico - I can't get past the hair to formulate any other thoughts. My only emotion towards him is the overwhelming urge to drench him with a fire hose.
Syesha Mercado - See, this one did not count hair or make-up as one of her strong points, so I just think she got on the bad side of the photographer's assistant. Anyways, nothing else to say, she's another one of my favorites.
My Top Three Boys Before Hearing Anyone Sing: Colton (with the Gay Hair), David Cook (with the Ugly Face but Good Bio), and Garrett (the Alien Looking One).
My Top Three Girls Before Hearing Anyone Sing: Alexandrea (with the Military Garb), Brooke (who's Bio Doesn't Exist in my Mind), and Syesha (with the Hair and Makeup from a Forgotten Age of Clowns).
You guys, I was so sure I had gotten over it. After my brief flirtation with joining the seething masses of teenage girls and Frnak, I had made it an entire year without succumbing to the American Idol machine. Sure I would still watch, but it was only because I had a fake TV crush on that one guy from last year. I never even came close to picking up a telephone, and I would estimate that I only watched about every other episode. Even my crush wasn't that strong - I mean the boy made sound effects for a living. It would never have worked between us.
I assumed it was all just a fad, a scary Coca-Cola induced fad, and I had grown past the creepy devotion and Pavlovian phone dialing.
And then this season happened. With the whole writers' strike and the absence of any other new shows on TV, guarantying that I wouldn't have anything else to take up my time, I've been dragged straight down into the swirling vortex. As usual, the audition episodes were literally unwatchable (I think the longest I made it through was 8 consecutive minutes before something horrifying made me wince so hard that I changed the channel without touching the remote. All I needed was my brain waves and the immense shame powering them) but oh my, how addictive the Hollywood pare-down audtions are. It's like a fantastic car crash that you can't look away from, because more and more cars just keep barreling into the flaming wreckage, completely ignoring the fact that there is a huge pileup already there.
And now those are over, and today is officially the best day: The first day the initial bio pages are released for the top 24 contestants. I don't know why I love them so much, but they really, really speak to me. Particularly the part of me that likes to mock people. Because seriously, if you've never read them before, you have no idea what's in store.
Come along, as I recap the most intriguing parts of the different bios. Even with the reduced information this year (usually they're chock full of snark, this year they've learned their lesson and pared down the scary), there's still a trove of hidden gems. I also will make my entirely superficial judgments about them all, since as per usual we haven't seen more than 10 of the 24 sing at all. It's like they want to make this a popularity contest or something. The nerve.
Anyways, Lord help me, they're all below the cut, so as to hide most of my shame.
(Note: While I am a horrible person, I'll try to be a least a little bit sensitive to the fact that some of these contestants are approximately 9 years old, and cannot necessarily be faulted for what they say. Just thinking about a scenario in which I would be interviewed for a national TV program when I was 16 causes me physical pain.)
Alaina Whitaker - The fact that her bio and personal interview is so perfectly normal makes me hate her on principle. Plus, what's the deal with that last line about being "pretty good at shopping."? Is she making a joke? You would think so, but this is American Idol. One should never assume. Tentatively, though, she is not horrible. Sigh. What a way to start.
Alexandrea Lushington - Two for two with the inoffensive pages. Actually, I secretly like her most of all the girls, so I'm thrilled that she didn't have a terrifying bio. Also, she has the best quote of all the contestants.
Amanda Overmyer - Independent of the fact that she looks like a cross between Booberella from The Simpsons and an American Girl doll, she can actually sort of sing. That doesn't sway me though, when you factor in the Harley riding too. There's only so much (note the quotes) "rock-n-roll" I can take, and she's way over the line.
Amy Jean Davis - I think the correct word is ukelele, Amy Jean. Oh. Right, "a little guitar." I see what you were trying to say. Yeah, misplaced modifiers are no one's friend. An enemy of grammar is an enemy of mine.
Asia'h Epperson - Yeah, we can see your picture right there, Unnecessary Apostrophe Girl. You aren't allowed to claim make-up as a talent, unless we're talking clown make-up.
Brooke White - Y'all, I loved her before I read this bio. Now? "Beautifying"? The stupidest quote of the 24 (which is saying so much)? I'm just gonna pretend this whole page doesn't really exist. I love me a dramatic cryer on this show.
Carly Smithson - Oh, you're a crafty one. With your whole "Irish" thing, and your "perfect pint." It's not gonna work on me. I will remain strong. Probably for at least 2 weeks. And then you'll sing an awesome angry indie chick song that I love and I'll fall into your robotic spell. Damn you in advance, Irish temptress.
Chikezie Eze - Other talents: None. Niiiiice. Awesome name, though.
Colton David Berry - Sweet monkey damn, someone save me from all the jailbait this season. I'll refrain from comment, other than to say he was in a mortal lock with Brooke for the worst quote ever attempted, and just barely lost out. Oh, and "since I was young"? He's lucky he isn't within my slapping distance. Embryos aren't allowed to reminisce about when they were young.
Danny Norriega - A relevant conversation:
Him: "He's the gay one."David Archuleta - Again with the tiny instruments. Sigh. This one, I think, is the force to be reckoned with. Although I also thought the same thing about Will Makar, and we all know how that turned out. *sniff*
Her: "ONE?"
David Cook - Quotes Road House and manages to ogle Mandy Moore through text. Then he gets the best joke line of all the contestants with his Other Talents. Means I think he's awesome and will thus be gone by end of February.
David Hernandez - I really think this guy might actually be a robot in human disguise, and he's taken on the tiniest accent to hide his not-complete mastery of speech. Also, his roving eyebrows are the scariest facial feature of any of the contestants, including the white shock of hair on the one girl, and the plethora of other piercings on everyone else.
Garrett Haley - Looks a little crazy/alien, and his eyes seem to be strangely oriented on his face. Also, I wouldn't put it past him for that thing on head to actually be a wig. Plus - way to narrow down the timeline of when you started singing to 3 full years. Wildly informative. (I'm being overly mean, I actually like this one.)
Jason Castro - White-boy dreads. I utterly refuse.
Jason Yeager - Seems completely un-hateable, except for the fact that he seems to be suffering from the same hair coloring disease that's affecting the Overmyer girl. Also, old man is old. I hope he does well.
Joanne Borgella - Girl, I love DAUGHTRY too. Sometimes we can't help it. But we will have issues if you keep bringing up the plus-sized girl thing all season long. I get my zaftig discussion fix from ANTM, I am here to see cute gay boys dance around on stage.
Kady Alexis Malloy - The fact that you qualified Freddy Mercury "of Queen" makes me hate you for no understandable reason. I'm sorry dear, sometimes these things happen.
Kristy Lee Cook - Even though I don't like her, she totally wins the award for best bio page. There is so much nuance she's packed in to such a tiny space. Qualifying that she only likes Young LeAnn Rimes (totally implied: not the older, whorish Coyote Ugly LeAnn Rimes), the word cowgirl as a verb, a subtle dropping of her "pro" singing career at 13, and a casual mention of cage fighting in Talents. This girl has it all. Watch the fuck out for this one.
Luke Menard - If by "29" you mean "36," yeah okay. But whatever, we don't discriminate against The Hotness here at Belligerent and Numerous. You come right in.
Michael Johns - Even older than the 36 year old we just went through, but is totally going to crush the one, since he's got A) the accent and B) all the face-time during the auditions. I'm just gonna go ahead and say it, though. Not that hot.
What? You heard me.
Ramiele Macrowon Malubay - Best name, worrying quote. Means she's totally been taking notes from Sanjaya. Bonus points for being the first person to correctly modify her limited talents at musical instruments without butchering the English language too much. Minus points for having 40 favorite artists. This girl is just all over the map.
Robbie Carrico - I can't get past the hair to formulate any other thoughts. My only emotion towards him is the overwhelming urge to drench him with a fire hose.
Syesha Mercado - See, this one did not count hair or make-up as one of her strong points, so I just think she got on the bad side of the photographer's assistant. Anyways, nothing else to say, she's another one of my favorites.
My Top Three Boys Before Hearing Anyone Sing: Colton (with the Gay Hair), David Cook (with the Ugly Face but Good Bio), and Garrett (the Alien Looking One).
My Top Three Girls Before Hearing Anyone Sing: Alexandrea (with the Military Garb), Brooke (who's Bio Doesn't Exist in my Mind), and Syesha (with the Hair and Makeup from a Forgotten Age of Clowns).
A Minor Retraction
So maybe I was a little hasty with my last bout of ranting and raving.
Because apparently if you aren't home after the first delivery, you can arrange with UPS to go to their shipping center and pick up a package that same day, provided you don't mind the drive. Which, at this point in my epic OCD-level quest for video games, I'm totally fine with.
So I arrange with the UPS guy to pick up my package at their processing center, which is on practically the diametrical opposite end of Dallas from my house. Indeed, it's almost out near the airport like I suspected. But per his instructions, all I need to do is get there before 8:30pm. Since I've been hit with the American Idol sickness (see my upcoming post of epic, epic shame) I decide to head out there right after work, so I can be back by 7:00pm. I make the heroic trek down there, only to be told that no, I cannot have my package.
Because apparently the guy I spoke to was a bit confused on the specifics of this pick-up thing. Same day pick-up only occurs in the very precise half hour window of 8:00-8:30pm on the day that you schedule the pick-up. Seriously. You have an exact 30 minute span of time in which you must arrive, submit your order and get it processed, otherwise you have to rearrange a time and try another day.
So I drive back home and remake the exact same trek an hour and a half later. The lengths to which I will go to get this box are ridiculous, especially since there's really not that much I want to play right now. At this point it's just a matter of pride and determination. I will get this thing today, dammit.
When I arrive back at UPS (at 8:03), I am informed that they still cannot find my package, but I should wait around until all the truck drivers come back, in case they still have it on their truck. I wait another 28 minutes until I'm the only customer left in the place. The woman who cannot find my package looks over at me and realizes that, based on the fanatic gleam in my eye, she's not going to get to go home tonight until she finds my package. She takes off down to the warehouse herself to check on the last of the trucks coming in.
Meanwhile a random worker wanders out from the back and sees me, obviously surprised that anyone is left around. She asks me for my last name. I give it to her and start to explain that the other worker has gone out looking for my wayward package. The girl cocks her head to the side and looks at me with a puzzled expression. Barely even looking over, she reaches out to her immediate left and grabs the only large box left at the counter.
"Yeah, this is your package right here. I don't know what she was looking at."
Rather than pull my hair out and run from the office screaming, I hand over my driver's license and sign for the box. An hour or 14 later, I'm back at home and finally get to unpack my delicious Wii.
It's pretty cool, although the awesomeness was slightly diminished when Frnak proceeded to smoke me at both Tennis and Bowling in rapid sucession. I mean he destroyed me. It was so sad, y'all. My little guy can't bowl to save his life.
But whatever. Wii!
Because apparently if you aren't home after the first delivery, you can arrange with UPS to go to their shipping center and pick up a package that same day, provided you don't mind the drive. Which, at this point in my epic OCD-level quest for video games, I'm totally fine with.
So I arrange with the UPS guy to pick up my package at their processing center, which is on practically the diametrical opposite end of Dallas from my house. Indeed, it's almost out near the airport like I suspected. But per his instructions, all I need to do is get there before 8:30pm. Since I've been hit with the American Idol sickness (see my upcoming post of epic, epic shame) I decide to head out there right after work, so I can be back by 7:00pm. I make the heroic trek down there, only to be told that no, I cannot have my package.
Because apparently the guy I spoke to was a bit confused on the specifics of this pick-up thing. Same day pick-up only occurs in the very precise half hour window of 8:00-8:30pm on the day that you schedule the pick-up. Seriously. You have an exact 30 minute span of time in which you must arrive, submit your order and get it processed, otherwise you have to rearrange a time and try another day.
So I drive back home and remake the exact same trek an hour and a half later. The lengths to which I will go to get this box are ridiculous, especially since there's really not that much I want to play right now. At this point it's just a matter of pride and determination. I will get this thing today, dammit.
When I arrive back at UPS (at 8:03), I am informed that they still cannot find my package, but I should wait around until all the truck drivers come back, in case they still have it on their truck. I wait another 28 minutes until I'm the only customer left in the place. The woman who cannot find my package looks over at me and realizes that, based on the fanatic gleam in my eye, she's not going to get to go home tonight until she finds my package. She takes off down to the warehouse herself to check on the last of the trucks coming in.
Meanwhile a random worker wanders out from the back and sees me, obviously surprised that anyone is left around. She asks me for my last name. I give it to her and start to explain that the other worker has gone out looking for my wayward package. The girl cocks her head to the side and looks at me with a puzzled expression. Barely even looking over, she reaches out to her immediate left and grabs the only large box left at the counter.
"Yeah, this is your package right here. I don't know what she was looking at."
Rather than pull my hair out and run from the office screaming, I hand over my driver's license and sign for the box. An hour or 14 later, I'm back at home and finally get to unpack my delicious Wii.
It's pretty cool, although the awesomeness was slightly diminished when Frnak proceeded to smoke me at both Tennis and Bowling in rapid sucession. I mean he destroyed me. It was so sad, y'all. My little guy can't bowl to save his life.
But whatever. Wii!
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Wii Would Like to Play, Dammit
Sweet monkey damn, I am so fed up with people.
So I finally found a Wii last Tuesday morning, after months of searching - scouring web pages, haunting Target, and generally making an ass out of myself at Gamestop. I really wanted one, for no good reason, except that I really want to be able to play the new Smash Bros. game that comes out next month. It's not exactly a huge deal, and it seems like a whole lot of money just to play one game, but somehow it turned into this epic quest for me, finding this damn game system.
Whatever, it may be weird and dorky, but it gave me something else to devote my time to now that I'm back off the World of Warcraft.
And they aren't kidding when they say that they're hard to find. It's just insane. I was finally ready to give up when I determined that I would have to start getting up 45 minutes early each morning to go on speculative shopping expeditions. That would usually fail.
But then I lucked out and tracked this one down last week on the internets, although it has to come in from Marble Falls.
Which means it's gotta be mailed to me.
Which is fine.
Oh, it won't get shipped until Friday?
Well, I guess that's fine, I've already paid, but guess I can miss one more weekend without it.
It'll arrive on Monday and Frnak will be home to sign for it.
It doesn't come on Monday.
Oh well, it was probably just a President's Day thing, it's coming USPS so I can just pick it up from the post office when it arrives tomorrow.
Oh, it didn't get mailed out until Monday?
That's lame.
But to make up for it, now it's on overnight delivery UPS?
Fan-fucking-tastic.
Because now it'll HAVE to be signed for, and Frnak's at work all week and so am I. Meaning that I'll have to wait until they've done their three attempts (Tues, Wed, & Thurs), and then go pick the damn thing up out at the package center, which is somewhere out in the middle of nowhere by the airport, and it's only open during normal business hours. So I'll get the system something like two weeks after I paid for it, after I drive all over Dallas, the whole reason that I went with the online route in the first place. Sweet.
Why do people have to suck so much? I just want to play a Mario game by swinging my hands around like a fool battling an insect, possible smacking Frnak in the head "accidentally" in the process. Is that too much to ask?
Grr and Arg.
(This post is brought to you by Jason's utter lack of shame that he still plays and whines about video games like a 12 year old.)
Monday, January 28, 2008
Like a Dr. Seuss Tale, In a Way
So I think we're far enough removed from the events now that I can go ahead and tell this story without flailing around like a prepubescent girl. But we'll see.
----------------------
About a week and a half before Christmas, I became completely convinced that there was a mouse in my apartment. I had no direct evidence at first. Only the slow disintegration of the gingerbread house that I left on the dining room table from our Christmas party. As the house wasn't so much made of "gingerbread" as it was "cardboard reconstituted to resemble a hard cookie with gingerbread flavoring," I had assumed it would be fine to leave out and among the elements.
But as more chunks of it would fall off, I became more suspicious, as it seemed very solid and rock-like when we were doing the construction. The final straw came when one morning I found that one of the artificial gingerbread trees in front of the house had been partially gnawed away. As I figured it (pretty) unlikely that Frnak had snuck in during the night and chewed down a bit of tree, I took this as real confirmation that there was indeed a mouse in the house. As it were.
I went to the store to buy some sort of mouse trapping device, after discussing it with Frnak and deciding that it would probably be a bad idea to just kill it outright. That's mean, right? Also, what if it died in the walls? We would have mouse stink, and also possibly a mouse ghost haunting our condo.
Sadly, though, as I was staring at the "humane" mouse deterrent devices in the store, I realized I had no idea what I would do if they actually worked. Most of these things centered around glue. As in a mouse would wander over this trap and be stuck to the glue. As if this solved the problem.
What are these people thinking? One morning I'm going to wake up and find a live mouse glued to a trap. And then what? Do I need to kill it on my own? Drive it to a farm and release it into the wild, minus its feet, which are permanently immersed in the glue? Reason with it until it understands human language and convince it to leave? This is not the mouse from The Rats of NIHM, or that delightful Pixar cartoon.
No sir, the glue was right out. As there was no full-on cage type trap, I was left only with the lethal alternatives. As I had horrifying visions of trying to set up a traditional mouse trap (spring + cheese + SNAP) and losing most of a finger just getting it set, I opted for the old standard of poison. It wasn't the most elegant solution, and it might someday have led to smells and haunting, but I couldn't wrap my mind around dealing with a mouse on my own terms. Poison it was.
My hunting instinct fully honed, I set up these little dishes of poison around various areas of the house and kept the place immaculately clean all the time leading up to and through Christmas.
Immediately we realized that indeed we did have a mouse. Possibly a giant colony of mice, in fact, judging on the amount of poison that was consumed during the first week of trap setting. This box of poison boasted that there was enough materials available to finish off 6-8 mice, and we were burning through the whole thing at a rapid pace. At that point I had visions of the opening scene from Ratatouille, expecting any morning to wake up and find a damnable mouse convention passed out dead in the middle of our floor, or ready to lead a coup d'etat of the apartment.
Either way, I was very tense for about 9 consecutive days there.
(Here we switch to the present tense to do a sort of stream-of-conscious sort of reliving, as I can't objectively run this part down.)
Around day 10 of MouseWatch '07, I'm idly minding my own business and playing around on the computer after a long day at work. Suddenly I sense a bit of movement out of the corner of my eye, and I see this little (gigantic!) brown mouse just sort of wandering around my room, all nonchalant-like, or possibly just horribly disoriented, based on its swerving sort of gait.
I make some manner of noise that I can't do justice to in print, but suffice it to say that even in the mouse's drunken state it recognized the signal of "a 12 year-old girl has just spotted me, perhaps I should hide" and wandered underneath my bed.
Y'all? Let's just pause a second. There was a tiny (gigantic!) brown mouse, alive and presently hiding under my bed. Odds are, if you're reading this, you probably know me. Imagine how you would expect that I would react. And then quadruple it. I never thought I had a real aversion to mice (it's not like they're clowns or something), but sweet damn I suddenly found my real fear of rodents in that moment. And it was under my bed!
I run down the hall to Frnak's room and enlist him to help deal with this situation. We both approach my room in the same manner as you see on a television sitcom when someone suspects that there is a burglar in their house, all peering around corners and easily yelping at light provocation. After examination of the room to verify that the mouse has not changed locations, we begin to formulate plans.
First things first.
Jason: Frank, grab my shoes.
Frnak: [Grabs Jason's shoes. Takes one and hands it to Jason. Takes the other, holds it by the toe and wields it like a club.]
Jason: Not as a weapon! I need to put them on! God!
Frnak: Well how am I supposed to know! We need to be able to defend ourselves.
Jason: (breathlessly) Defend ourselves?! It's a tiny mouse! We are totally bigger than it. But seriously, if that mouse were to run over my bare foot, I would have a heart attack and die right there. Wait wait wait. Are you actually planning on killing it? Oh good lord, you are, aren't you? (*Gasp and point*) And you were going to use my shoe to do it! Those are my brand new favorite shoes and you were going to ruin them with mouse blood!
Frnak: (turns and gives Jason a look)
Jason: Yeah, okay, I'll calm down.
The plan is formulated: I cannot kill a mouse. Frnak is less than certain that he can. I decide then that we're going to capture him and release him into the wild, far far away from our house. Suitably armed for such a task (Frnak's Weapon of Choice: White Styrofoam Ice Chest, Jason's WoC: Black Mesh Wire Trash Can from the Bathroom) I sneak over to the bed and start raising up the...
(Sidebar: What the hell is that thing called? The thing that hangs down over the box spring to the floor? Bed curtain? Hanging... yeah I have no idea. But it's that thing.)
... the thing an inch at a time, tucking it under the mattress, all the while expecting the mouse to come shooting out from underneath, possibly going straight for my eyes. An imagination is a terrible, terrible thing to have and don't ever let anyone tell you differently. Finally the suspense is just too much for me and I decide to just move the bed altogether, indicating to Frnak that he should be ready to ice chest the little bastard the second we see him.
I move the bed to the left. No mouse. To the right. No mouse. Away from the wall. No mouse.
Frnak: If this mouse is a figment of your imagination, I swear to God I will beat you with this ice chest.
Jason: NO! It was totally there! I saw it.
Jason's Mind: Oh my God, what if I'm losing my mind? Imaginary mice? They commit people for that kind of thing.
Fueled by my visions of being sent to the nut house, I give the bed a mighty pull and move it entirely to the other side of the room.
Mouse!
Frnak: AHHHHHH!
Mouse: (runs and hides under my nightstand)
Jason: Dammit! What happened to the plan? You were supposed to catch it!
Frnak: I started to think you were making the whole thing up. I wasn't prepared!
So now we have a mouse under a tiny nightstand. Luckily, due to the fact that my apartment leaks heat faster than anything else in the world, I have already sealed off all of the exits to the room by stuffing clothing at the bottom of each door jamb. We know he cannot get out, it's only a matter of time.
That is until we move the nightstand and the mouse starts making his drunken way towards the closet. There is lots of shrieking and flailing, but little catching of the mouse. Somehow it worms its way through the blockade and into the closet.
There are several more minutes of shrieking, flailing, name-calling, and promises to burn every article of clothing the mouse touches, before finally the mouse is trapped under the wire mesh trashcan in the closet. Now we have a very angry mouse scaling the sides of its tiny prison, which is possibly more terrifying than when it was out on the loose. As Frnak leans down to take a closer look, the mouse turns and hisses at him, unnerving him practically to death. The mouse is a satan mouse. But we soldier on. Using our McGuyver-like instincts we upend the mouse, and seal him inside the trashcan with a piece of cardboard.
We make the very long trek from our apartment all the way to the expanse of woods that borders our apartment complex. I feel pretty confident that he's not going to be able to find his way back, seeing as there's a fence, a ditch, a huge lawn, a driveway, a dumpster, and three other apartment buildings he would have to traverse. Also, the little (gigantic!) guy is seriously lethargic, I'm not thinking he is long for this world anyways. I manage to finally shake him free of the trash can after several scary moments wherein I thought he would extract his revenge on me by forever clinging to the side of the can until the opportunity to feast on my flesh arose. He stumbles around drunkenly for a few seconds and then finally wanders into the woods, never to be seen or heard from again.
-----------------------
I should probably follow that entire story up with the postscript that we were incredibly lucky that a) it was just one mouse, and b) when we found him he had eaten 5 full servings of poison, because seriously had we met that mouse at full strength, it would have bested both of us and would now rule the apartment like a king.
But we did win, and I am happy to report there has not been even a mention of any further mousings, at all. (I've been keeping a vigorous watch over the poison, just in case.) I like to think that it's an all around triumph, even if there was a lot of shrieking and childish name-calling in the process. It's all about the ends, not the means.
----------------------
About a week and a half before Christmas, I became completely convinced that there was a mouse in my apartment. I had no direct evidence at first. Only the slow disintegration of the gingerbread house that I left on the dining room table from our Christmas party. As the house wasn't so much made of "gingerbread" as it was "cardboard reconstituted to resemble a hard cookie with gingerbread flavoring," I had assumed it would be fine to leave out and among the elements.
But as more chunks of it would fall off, I became more suspicious, as it seemed very solid and rock-like when we were doing the construction. The final straw came when one morning I found that one of the artificial gingerbread trees in front of the house had been partially gnawed away. As I figured it (pretty) unlikely that Frnak had snuck in during the night and chewed down a bit of tree, I took this as real confirmation that there was indeed a mouse in the house. As it were.
I went to the store to buy some sort of mouse trapping device, after discussing it with Frnak and deciding that it would probably be a bad idea to just kill it outright. That's mean, right? Also, what if it died in the walls? We would have mouse stink, and also possibly a mouse ghost haunting our condo.
Sadly, though, as I was staring at the "humane" mouse deterrent devices in the store, I realized I had no idea what I would do if they actually worked. Most of these things centered around glue. As in a mouse would wander over this trap and be stuck to the glue. As if this solved the problem.
What are these people thinking? One morning I'm going to wake up and find a live mouse glued to a trap. And then what? Do I need to kill it on my own? Drive it to a farm and release it into the wild, minus its feet, which are permanently immersed in the glue? Reason with it until it understands human language and convince it to leave? This is not the mouse from The Rats of NIHM, or that delightful Pixar cartoon.
No sir, the glue was right out. As there was no full-on cage type trap, I was left only with the lethal alternatives. As I had horrifying visions of trying to set up a traditional mouse trap (spring + cheese + SNAP) and losing most of a finger just getting it set, I opted for the old standard of poison. It wasn't the most elegant solution, and it might someday have led to smells and haunting, but I couldn't wrap my mind around dealing with a mouse on my own terms. Poison it was.
My hunting instinct fully honed, I set up these little dishes of poison around various areas of the house and kept the place immaculately clean all the time leading up to and through Christmas.
Immediately we realized that indeed we did have a mouse. Possibly a giant colony of mice, in fact, judging on the amount of poison that was consumed during the first week of trap setting. This box of poison boasted that there was enough materials available to finish off 6-8 mice, and we were burning through the whole thing at a rapid pace. At that point I had visions of the opening scene from Ratatouille, expecting any morning to wake up and find a damnable mouse convention passed out dead in the middle of our floor, or ready to lead a coup d'etat of the apartment.
Either way, I was very tense for about 9 consecutive days there.
(Here we switch to the present tense to do a sort of stream-of-conscious sort of reliving, as I can't objectively run this part down.)
Around day 10 of MouseWatch '07, I'm idly minding my own business and playing around on the computer after a long day at work. Suddenly I sense a bit of movement out of the corner of my eye, and I see this little (gigantic!) brown mouse just sort of wandering around my room, all nonchalant-like, or possibly just horribly disoriented, based on its swerving sort of gait.
I make some manner of noise that I can't do justice to in print, but suffice it to say that even in the mouse's drunken state it recognized the signal of "a 12 year-old girl has just spotted me, perhaps I should hide" and wandered underneath my bed.
Y'all? Let's just pause a second. There was a tiny (gigantic!) brown mouse, alive and presently hiding under my bed. Odds are, if you're reading this, you probably know me. Imagine how you would expect that I would react. And then quadruple it. I never thought I had a real aversion to mice (it's not like they're clowns or something), but sweet damn I suddenly found my real fear of rodents in that moment. And it was under my bed!
I run down the hall to Frnak's room and enlist him to help deal with this situation. We both approach my room in the same manner as you see on a television sitcom when someone suspects that there is a burglar in their house, all peering around corners and easily yelping at light provocation. After examination of the room to verify that the mouse has not changed locations, we begin to formulate plans.
First things first.
Jason: Frank, grab my shoes.
Frnak: [Grabs Jason's shoes. Takes one and hands it to Jason. Takes the other, holds it by the toe and wields it like a club.]
Jason: Not as a weapon! I need to put them on! God!
Frnak: Well how am I supposed to know! We need to be able to defend ourselves.
Jason: (breathlessly) Defend ourselves?! It's a tiny mouse! We are totally bigger than it. But seriously, if that mouse were to run over my bare foot, I would have a heart attack and die right there. Wait wait wait. Are you actually planning on killing it? Oh good lord, you are, aren't you? (*Gasp and point*) And you were going to use my shoe to do it! Those are my brand new favorite shoes and you were going to ruin them with mouse blood!
Frnak: (turns and gives Jason a look)
Jason: Yeah, okay, I'll calm down.
The plan is formulated: I cannot kill a mouse. Frnak is less than certain that he can. I decide then that we're going to capture him and release him into the wild, far far away from our house. Suitably armed for such a task (Frnak's Weapon of Choice: White Styrofoam Ice Chest, Jason's WoC: Black Mesh Wire Trash Can from the Bathroom) I sneak over to the bed and start raising up the...
(Sidebar: What the hell is that thing called? The thing that hangs down over the box spring to the floor? Bed curtain? Hanging... yeah I have no idea. But it's that thing.)
... the thing an inch at a time, tucking it under the mattress, all the while expecting the mouse to come shooting out from underneath, possibly going straight for my eyes. An imagination is a terrible, terrible thing to have and don't ever let anyone tell you differently. Finally the suspense is just too much for me and I decide to just move the bed altogether, indicating to Frnak that he should be ready to ice chest the little bastard the second we see him.
I move the bed to the left. No mouse. To the right. No mouse. Away from the wall. No mouse.
Frnak: If this mouse is a figment of your imagination, I swear to God I will beat you with this ice chest.
Jason: NO! It was totally there! I saw it.
Jason's Mind: Oh my God, what if I'm losing my mind? Imaginary mice? They commit people for that kind of thing.
Fueled by my visions of being sent to the nut house, I give the bed a mighty pull and move it entirely to the other side of the room.
Mouse!
Frnak: AHHHHHH!
Mouse: (runs and hides under my nightstand)
Jason: Dammit! What happened to the plan? You were supposed to catch it!
Frnak: I started to think you were making the whole thing up. I wasn't prepared!
So now we have a mouse under a tiny nightstand. Luckily, due to the fact that my apartment leaks heat faster than anything else in the world, I have already sealed off all of the exits to the room by stuffing clothing at the bottom of each door jamb. We know he cannot get out, it's only a matter of time.
That is until we move the nightstand and the mouse starts making his drunken way towards the closet. There is lots of shrieking and flailing, but little catching of the mouse. Somehow it worms its way through the blockade and into the closet.
There are several more minutes of shrieking, flailing, name-calling, and promises to burn every article of clothing the mouse touches, before finally the mouse is trapped under the wire mesh trashcan in the closet. Now we have a very angry mouse scaling the sides of its tiny prison, which is possibly more terrifying than when it was out on the loose. As Frnak leans down to take a closer look, the mouse turns and hisses at him, unnerving him practically to death. The mouse is a satan mouse. But we soldier on. Using our McGuyver-like instincts we upend the mouse, and seal him inside the trashcan with a piece of cardboard.
We make the very long trek from our apartment all the way to the expanse of woods that borders our apartment complex. I feel pretty confident that he's not going to be able to find his way back, seeing as there's a fence, a ditch, a huge lawn, a driveway, a dumpster, and three other apartment buildings he would have to traverse. Also, the little (gigantic!) guy is seriously lethargic, I'm not thinking he is long for this world anyways. I manage to finally shake him free of the trash can after several scary moments wherein I thought he would extract his revenge on me by forever clinging to the side of the can until the opportunity to feast on my flesh arose. He stumbles around drunkenly for a few seconds and then finally wanders into the woods, never to be seen or heard from again.
-----------------------
I should probably follow that entire story up with the postscript that we were incredibly lucky that a) it was just one mouse, and b) when we found him he had eaten 5 full servings of poison, because seriously had we met that mouse at full strength, it would have bested both of us and would now rule the apartment like a king.
But we did win, and I am happy to report there has not been even a mention of any further mousings, at all. (I've been keeping a vigorous watch over the poison, just in case.) I like to think that it's an all around triumph, even if there was a lot of shrieking and childish name-calling in the process. It's all about the ends, not the means.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Of Course there are more Year End Lists!
So I made it through the entire last 4 months of the year with exactly 3 days of illness, right up to New Year's Eve, when I was suddenly, unbelievably, violently ill. So rather than at a party with friends, I spent the last moments of the year freezing in my bathroom. I have absolutely the worst luck.
Anyways, I'm mostly recovered now. So what do we do? We write more year end lists!
First up: Critical Movie List!
Now that I've seen all the movies I plan on for 2007, I can hand out the imaginary awards in my mind. I missed several of the big award movies this year (noticeably - American Gangster, No Country for Old Men, and Charlie Wilson's War) but that doesn't slow me down a bit. Everything gets 5 nomination slots, one winner.
Best Motion Picture
Juno
Atonement
Michael Clayton
Lars and the Real Girl
Sweeney Todd
Notes: In my mind it's a three way race for #1 (Juno, Atonement, and Todd), and it was ridiculously hard to pick out the two lesser movies that made the cut on the best list. I eventually gave the bump up to the two movies with the most impressive acting. Also, it kills me that Zodiac couldn't make the cut.
Winner: In an utter battle royale, I give the win to Atonement, for sheer longlasting value. It's just amazing and it will stand the test of time, whereas I think Juno won't age quite as well, even if I would much prefer to watch Juno multiple times currently.
Best Director - Motion Picture
Tony Gilroy - Michael Clayton
David Fincher - Zodiac
Neil Jordan - The Brave One
Tim Burton - Sweeney Todd
Joe Wright - Atonement
Notes: Jordan gets in by sheer lack of impressive candidates, since I didn't see any of the big director movies this year (American Gangster, No Country, and Into the Wild). This one is more a foregone conclusion than most, although I want to go on record as saying that Joe Wright did amazing things with Atonement, particularly the long shot at Dunkirk, which in any other year would have won him the award in a heartbeat.
Winner: But I was enthralled by Sweeney Todd, and almost entirely due to the direction. Tim Burton wins in a walk, for using his style without apology in a way that utterly enhances a story that is a perfect fit for it. Almost a stacked deck, in my opinion, but it's a textbook rendition of excellent direction.
Best Actor - Motion Picture
James McAvoy - Atonement
Ryan Gosling - Lars and the Real Girl
Johnny Depp - Sweeney Todd
Joseph Gordon-Levitt - The Lookout
George Clooney - Michael Clayton
Notes: I'm allowed my vices - Joseph Gordon-Levitt was flawless in that movie and I will not hear a word against him. And I atone for the preferential treatment of him by putting Clooney in there, even though I don't like him. I recognize a good performance when I see it. But man, seriously, I really don't like him.
Winner: McAvoy appeared at the end and gave him a run for his money, but Ryan Gosling still takes it. An amazing job - I swear, the movie would have been horrible had anyone else in the world had his part.
Best Actress - Motion Picture
Kiera Knightley - Atonement
Ellen Page - Juno
Helena Bonham Carter - Sweeney Todd
Kerri Russel - Waitress
Jodie Foster - The Brave One
Notes: This was the year for women's performances I loved. I would have no problem giving this to any one of the five without a second thought. Even Kerri Russel, who seems like the odd-woman-out up there until you think about her performance in Waitress and realize that she carried a complex movie on her shoulders without making it look like work. It nearly kills me to pick just one.
Winner: Helena Bonham Carter. I can't in good conscience give it to anyone else, although Page and Knightley are so close here that they can taste it. Just an uncommonly great year. But Knightley gets a lot of help in her movie from McAvoy and all the actresses who play Briony in Atonement, so she has a lesser degree of difficultly. And Page is just the opposite - she has the toughest job of all, since her character is written with such hard to swallow dialogue that her performance is elevated just because of what she had to work with. But Carter plays her role so perfectly - she gets Depp to work against, but also has to run the gamut of emotion, humor, and singing. I feel good with her as the big winner.
Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture
Tom Wilkinson - Michael Clayton
Jeremy Sisto - Waitress
Paul Schneider - Lars and the Real Girl
Alan Rickman - Sweeney Todd
Chris Cooper - Breach
Notes: Another tough one, as there are so many options (let's all take a moment to mourn Robert Downey Jr.'s exclusion for Zodiac). Sisto gets a nod for bringing untold levels of menace and character to a role that is so confusingly written, while Schneider gets one for having to play the straight man in the least comedic comedy in a long while. Both are hard roles, but for me it's a straight up dead heat between Chris Cooper and and Tom Wilkinson. Both had difficult parts that could make or break their respective movies...
Winner: But Chris Cooper gets the win in my mind, for elevating his movie from good to great based solely on his performance (Michael Clayton could stand on its own, as we'll soon see). Breach isn't winning a ton of awards by any measure, but he makes what could be an incredibly dull movie riveting, just in the character he creates.
Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
Jennifer Garner - Juno
Saoirse Ronan - Atonement
Tilda Swinton - Michael Clayton
Emily Mortimer - Lars and the Real Girl
Romola Garai - Atonement
Notes: How much did I love Briony in Atonement? Yeah, two perfect performances there, by two different people. We're just lucky Vanessa Redgrave was only onscreen for, like, 5 minutes or we would have serious issues. A quick word of sadness that Emily Mortimer won't get a second of recognition for her great work in Lars, despite how perfect she was.
Winner: Because this is a knockdown, drag-out fight between Garner and Swinton, who are both the actual best things about both of their movies. But I give it to Swinton, hands down. She just has so little to work with, but is flawless throughout the whole movie. I love her so much in this part. (Garner gets a ton of help from the screenplay in her role, just because it gives her so much to work with.)
Other Quick Ones:
Best Screenplay - A fierce but short battle between Juno and Atonement, with Juno taking it by a hair. Even though I think the dialogue is trying at times, it's hard to do comedy and characters well, and the writing there really is great. I'm glad there will be two categories at the Oscars, though, so they can both win there.
Best Original Score - Atonement. Full stop. Just great.
Best Animated Feature - Ratatouille (I mean, come on.)
Whew. Now I'm exhausted, and I haven't even gotten to TV. This list making thing really takes it out of you. We'll see if we can't get more out later on.
Anyways, I'm mostly recovered now. So what do we do? We write more year end lists!
First up: Critical Movie List!
Now that I've seen all the movies I plan on for 2007, I can hand out the imaginary awards in my mind. I missed several of the big award movies this year (noticeably - American Gangster, No Country for Old Men, and Charlie Wilson's War) but that doesn't slow me down a bit. Everything gets 5 nomination slots, one winner.
Best Motion Picture
Juno
Atonement
Michael Clayton
Lars and the Real Girl
Sweeney Todd
Notes: In my mind it's a three way race for #1 (Juno, Atonement, and Todd), and it was ridiculously hard to pick out the two lesser movies that made the cut on the best list. I eventually gave the bump up to the two movies with the most impressive acting. Also, it kills me that Zodiac couldn't make the cut.
Winner: In an utter battle royale, I give the win to Atonement, for sheer longlasting value. It's just amazing and it will stand the test of time, whereas I think Juno won't age quite as well, even if I would much prefer to watch Juno multiple times currently.
Best Director - Motion Picture
Tony Gilroy - Michael Clayton
David Fincher - Zodiac
Neil Jordan - The Brave One
Tim Burton - Sweeney Todd
Joe Wright - Atonement
Notes: Jordan gets in by sheer lack of impressive candidates, since I didn't see any of the big director movies this year (American Gangster, No Country, and Into the Wild). This one is more a foregone conclusion than most, although I want to go on record as saying that Joe Wright did amazing things with Atonement, particularly the long shot at Dunkirk, which in any other year would have won him the award in a heartbeat.
Winner: But I was enthralled by Sweeney Todd, and almost entirely due to the direction. Tim Burton wins in a walk, for using his style without apology in a way that utterly enhances a story that is a perfect fit for it. Almost a stacked deck, in my opinion, but it's a textbook rendition of excellent direction.
Best Actor - Motion Picture
James McAvoy - Atonement
Ryan Gosling - Lars and the Real Girl
Johnny Depp - Sweeney Todd
Joseph Gordon-Levitt - The Lookout
George Clooney - Michael Clayton
Notes: I'm allowed my vices - Joseph Gordon-Levitt was flawless in that movie and I will not hear a word against him. And I atone for the preferential treatment of him by putting Clooney in there, even though I don't like him. I recognize a good performance when I see it. But man, seriously, I really don't like him.
Winner: McAvoy appeared at the end and gave him a run for his money, but Ryan Gosling still takes it. An amazing job - I swear, the movie would have been horrible had anyone else in the world had his part.
Best Actress - Motion Picture
Kiera Knightley - Atonement
Ellen Page - Juno
Helena Bonham Carter - Sweeney Todd
Kerri Russel - Waitress
Jodie Foster - The Brave One
Notes: This was the year for women's performances I loved. I would have no problem giving this to any one of the five without a second thought. Even Kerri Russel, who seems like the odd-woman-out up there until you think about her performance in Waitress and realize that she carried a complex movie on her shoulders without making it look like work. It nearly kills me to pick just one.
Winner: Helena Bonham Carter. I can't in good conscience give it to anyone else, although Page and Knightley are so close here that they can taste it. Just an uncommonly great year. But Knightley gets a lot of help in her movie from McAvoy and all the actresses who play Briony in Atonement, so she has a lesser degree of difficultly. And Page is just the opposite - she has the toughest job of all, since her character is written with such hard to swallow dialogue that her performance is elevated just because of what she had to work with. But Carter plays her role so perfectly - she gets Depp to work against, but also has to run the gamut of emotion, humor, and singing. I feel good with her as the big winner.
Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture
Tom Wilkinson - Michael Clayton
Jeremy Sisto - Waitress
Paul Schneider - Lars and the Real Girl
Alan Rickman - Sweeney Todd
Chris Cooper - Breach
Notes: Another tough one, as there are so many options (let's all take a moment to mourn Robert Downey Jr.'s exclusion for Zodiac). Sisto gets a nod for bringing untold levels of menace and character to a role that is so confusingly written, while Schneider gets one for having to play the straight man in the least comedic comedy in a long while. Both are hard roles, but for me it's a straight up dead heat between Chris Cooper and and Tom Wilkinson. Both had difficult parts that could make or break their respective movies...
Winner: But Chris Cooper gets the win in my mind, for elevating his movie from good to great based solely on his performance (Michael Clayton could stand on its own, as we'll soon see). Breach isn't winning a ton of awards by any measure, but he makes what could be an incredibly dull movie riveting, just in the character he creates.
Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
Jennifer Garner - Juno
Saoirse Ronan - Atonement
Tilda Swinton - Michael Clayton
Emily Mortimer - Lars and the Real Girl
Romola Garai - Atonement
Notes: How much did I love Briony in Atonement? Yeah, two perfect performances there, by two different people. We're just lucky Vanessa Redgrave was only onscreen for, like, 5 minutes or we would have serious issues. A quick word of sadness that Emily Mortimer won't get a second of recognition for her great work in Lars, despite how perfect she was.
Winner: Because this is a knockdown, drag-out fight between Garner and Swinton, who are both the actual best things about both of their movies. But I give it to Swinton, hands down. She just has so little to work with, but is flawless throughout the whole movie. I love her so much in this part. (Garner gets a ton of help from the screenplay in her role, just because it gives her so much to work with.)
Other Quick Ones:
Best Screenplay - A fierce but short battle between Juno and Atonement, with Juno taking it by a hair. Even though I think the dialogue is trying at times, it's hard to do comedy and characters well, and the writing there really is great. I'm glad there will be two categories at the Oscars, though, so they can both win there.
Best Original Score - Atonement. Full stop. Just great.
Best Animated Feature - Ratatouille (I mean, come on.)
Whew. Now I'm exhausted, and I haven't even gotten to TV. This list making thing really takes it out of you. We'll see if we can't get more out later on.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Like Scrooge, in a Way
Why yes, Christmas was awesome, thanks for asking.
Took two days of the weekend to unwind, finish shopping, and clean my room (it was really messy) and then spent the next two at my parents' place mostly eating, although occasionally opening gifts, giving away gifts, and moving large appliances up flights of stairs.
Delightfully traditional. Sort of.
Had excellent reception for the gifts I gave (a rarity, so yay) and as per usual was loaded down with awesome things through the generosity of my family. But that is only tangentially related to my reason for posting.
See, I've become a crazy old man, virtually overnight. The night before I left for my parents', I received my electricity bill for the last month and almost had a heart attack. In the middle of winter, we managed to use 3 times the normal wattage that we expend in a month in the summer. No, really, truly, and literally, 3 times my August bill. I immediately declared that we would no longer be using the heater in any significant capacity, as apparently getting the apartment over 70 degrees requires enough power to run a normal city block for a week.
Suddenly Frank is in his room, huddled over his laptop for warmth, shivering. Meanwhile, I've taken to wearing a flannel robe over all my normal clothes while at home to retain as much warmth as possible. Seriously, it's like I've become crazy Scrooge over here with Frank as Cratchet. (With the exception that Frank does not go in for any type of maths, and so far as I know, has not fathered any crippled children.)
Also! As part of my extensive haul from this Christmas, I received the DS video game Geometry Wars, something I've been coveting since it came out earlier this month. It is a most excellent game, as I love things that are simplistic, yet colorful that let me blast things. It's the pure essence of what a video game should be.
Sadly, though, it was not made to originally played on a tiny portable system. In its native state, you control the game using two analogue joysticks on a single controller. In order to make it workable on the DS, they have changed the left joystick to a directional pad (up-down-left-right) and the right joystick to a tiny pencil which you use to draw your direction on the touch screen. It's not the most elegant solution, but it's surprisingly effective.
The issue is, for maximum effectiveness with this setup you must hold the system with one hand, scribble furiously with the other, and have a finger available on the holding hand to hit a button on the top of the system. The only way to accomplish such a maneuver is to bend your wrist at a 90 degree angle, brace the bottom of the system with your pinkie and ring finger, extend your middle finger across the length of the back of the system, use your index finger to trigger the upper button, and have your thumb act as a counter weight/directional button pushing device.
Okay, that probably sounds completely unintelligible. The upshot is: within 15 minutes of starting play, your hands will be cramped up into withered claws, from which there is no respite. It's like carpal tunnel within carpal tunnel.
If you try to outfox the game by laying the DS on a surface, there's no elegant way to reach the upper button, so you're left with limited playability. And if you use both hands to hold the system, you are severely limited in your scribbling ability. Neither of which is an acceptable solution to a proper gaming person.
The end result? Not only am I a crazy old man who wears a flannel robe at all times while yelling about wasted heat, my hands are set in arthritic claws whilst doing so.
Yeah, Merry Freezing Christmas, y'all.
(You have no idea how painful it was to type all that out.)
Took two days of the weekend to unwind, finish shopping, and clean my room (it was really messy) and then spent the next two at my parents' place mostly eating, although occasionally opening gifts, giving away gifts, and moving large appliances up flights of stairs.
Delightfully traditional. Sort of.
Had excellent reception for the gifts I gave (a rarity, so yay) and as per usual was loaded down with awesome things through the generosity of my family. But that is only tangentially related to my reason for posting.
See, I've become a crazy old man, virtually overnight. The night before I left for my parents', I received my electricity bill for the last month and almost had a heart attack. In the middle of winter, we managed to use 3 times the normal wattage that we expend in a month in the summer. No, really, truly, and literally, 3 times my August bill. I immediately declared that we would no longer be using the heater in any significant capacity, as apparently getting the apartment over 70 degrees requires enough power to run a normal city block for a week.
Suddenly Frank is in his room, huddled over his laptop for warmth, shivering. Meanwhile, I've taken to wearing a flannel robe over all my normal clothes while at home to retain as much warmth as possible. Seriously, it's like I've become crazy Scrooge over here with Frank as Cratchet. (With the exception that Frank does not go in for any type of maths, and so far as I know, has not fathered any crippled children.)
Also! As part of my extensive haul from this Christmas, I received the DS video game Geometry Wars, something I've been coveting since it came out earlier this month. It is a most excellent game, as I love things that are simplistic, yet colorful that let me blast things. It's the pure essence of what a video game should be.
Sadly, though, it was not made to originally played on a tiny portable system. In its native state, you control the game using two analogue joysticks on a single controller. In order to make it workable on the DS, they have changed the left joystick to a directional pad (up-down-left-right) and the right joystick to a tiny pencil which you use to draw your direction on the touch screen. It's not the most elegant solution, but it's surprisingly effective.
The issue is, for maximum effectiveness with this setup you must hold the system with one hand, scribble furiously with the other, and have a finger available on the holding hand to hit a button on the top of the system. The only way to accomplish such a maneuver is to bend your wrist at a 90 degree angle, brace the bottom of the system with your pinkie and ring finger, extend your middle finger across the length of the back of the system, use your index finger to trigger the upper button, and have your thumb act as a counter weight/directional button pushing device.
Okay, that probably sounds completely unintelligible. The upshot is: within 15 minutes of starting play, your hands will be cramped up into withered claws, from which there is no respite. It's like carpal tunnel within carpal tunnel.
If you try to outfox the game by laying the DS on a surface, there's no elegant way to reach the upper button, so you're left with limited playability. And if you use both hands to hold the system, you are severely limited in your scribbling ability. Neither of which is an acceptable solution to a proper gaming person.
The end result? Not only am I a crazy old man who wears a flannel robe at all times while yelling about wasted heat, my hands are set in arthritic claws whilst doing so.
Yeah, Merry Freezing Christmas, y'all.
(You have no idea how painful it was to type all that out.)
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Shocking Revelation: Computers are Awesome
Last week I wrote about my Christmas extravagance when it has to do with my own selfishness - namely the purchase of a new monitor and video card to replace my current dying unit.
In stark contrast to the extravagance of the purchase itself, I bought both items online rather than in a store. Because the lure of cheap prices, no sales tax, and free shipping speak to my inner Scrooge even when I'm throwing away piles of money.
I am utterly unaccustomed to having to wait for large purchases to reach me by mail, though. If I order anything online, it's usually books or a game, nothing that has any immediacy to it. This thing, though... man. The guaranteed three business day shipping that traversed an entire weekend nearly ripped me to shreds. Having to wait for the results of my mad spending spree makes me infinitely quicker to regret said impulse purchase.
Also, I was still having to work with the old monitor, which by that point would take a liberal 20 minutes to even give me a picture. I attempted to leave the sad thing on for the entire weekend, but I need complete darkness to sleep apparently, and thus it was an untenable situation.
But oh my, on Monday the monitor arrived.
The only word for it was coined by Frank, upon seeing it for the first time: "Excessive."
It is the most excessive thing I have ever seen. 22 inches of wide screen glory that is sharper than I previously imagined possible on a monitor. When you maximize a FireFox window, less than half the screen has any content on it. I can now open full-sized pictures off my digital camera in Photoshop without the slightest bit of scaling. It's the most ridiculously over-the-top thing I've ever owned that is not my Jaguar.
Then yesterday the video card arrived. It's a more modest affair, a last generation card that has been thoroughly outpaced in the meantime. But for me - a guy who was running something that was last generation at least two generations ago - it's an ungodly upgrade.
And just to complete the orgy of spending, I went out and maxed out the RAM on my computer to go along with the rest of the upgrades. This one was less extravagant and more "Duh, why didn't you do that earlier," as RAM has apparently grown so cheap since the last time I bought some that they're almost giving it away. $25 was the total cost to max my ancient machine to its peak performance.
Y'all? I know I say "there are no words" a lot. But really. Suddenly I have an entirely new ultra-functional computer, with a hedonistic-ly ridiculous monitor, and the total cost to me was under $350 dollars.
As I was saying to someone yesterday, now I have no expectations whatsoever for Christmas this year, as just staring at my new ninja-like setup at my desk fills me with enough joy to eclipse even the most horrendous of gifts. I've reached a pure nerd-zenlike state.
Merry Christmas indeed, y'all!
In stark contrast to the extravagance of the purchase itself, I bought both items online rather than in a store. Because the lure of cheap prices, no sales tax, and free shipping speak to my inner Scrooge even when I'm throwing away piles of money.
I am utterly unaccustomed to having to wait for large purchases to reach me by mail, though. If I order anything online, it's usually books or a game, nothing that has any immediacy to it. This thing, though... man. The guaranteed three business day shipping that traversed an entire weekend nearly ripped me to shreds. Having to wait for the results of my mad spending spree makes me infinitely quicker to regret said impulse purchase.
Also, I was still having to work with the old monitor, which by that point would take a liberal 20 minutes to even give me a picture. I attempted to leave the sad thing on for the entire weekend, but I need complete darkness to sleep apparently, and thus it was an untenable situation.
But oh my, on Monday the monitor arrived.
The only word for it was coined by Frank, upon seeing it for the first time: "Excessive."
It is the most excessive thing I have ever seen. 22 inches of wide screen glory that is sharper than I previously imagined possible on a monitor. When you maximize a FireFox window, less than half the screen has any content on it. I can now open full-sized pictures off my digital camera in Photoshop without the slightest bit of scaling. It's the most ridiculously over-the-top thing I've ever owned that is not my Jaguar.
Then yesterday the video card arrived. It's a more modest affair, a last generation card that has been thoroughly outpaced in the meantime. But for me - a guy who was running something that was last generation at least two generations ago - it's an ungodly upgrade.
And just to complete the orgy of spending, I went out and maxed out the RAM on my computer to go along with the rest of the upgrades. This one was less extravagant and more "Duh, why didn't you do that earlier," as RAM has apparently grown so cheap since the last time I bought some that they're almost giving it away. $25 was the total cost to max my ancient machine to its peak performance.
Y'all? I know I say "there are no words" a lot. But really. Suddenly I have an entirely new ultra-functional computer, with a hedonistic-ly ridiculous monitor, and the total cost to me was under $350 dollars.
As I was saying to someone yesterday, now I have no expectations whatsoever for Christmas this year, as just staring at my new ninja-like setup at my desk fills me with enough joy to eclipse even the most horrendous of gifts. I've reached a pure nerd-zenlike state.
Merry Christmas indeed, y'all!
Monday, December 17, 2007
Long Form Review - The Golden Compass
(Note: Usually movie reviews are pushed to the sidebar, but my thoughts on this movie filled up way too much of it. Which means it really needs its own entry. Vague and specific spoilers abound.)
The Golden Compass - Short Form: A good movie with above par action and acting, that is limited by its story in a very significant way. Also, armored bears! (RAWR!, etc.)
This movie is an object lesson that shows that the eternal debate on whether movies are better/worse than the books that they're based on is utterly useless. Because this movie is a near perfect retelling of the book (Or more accurately, all of the book but the ending. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.) and it is completely hamstrung as a movie because of that.
I would go so far as to say that it's one of the most faithful adaptation of a book into a movie that I've ever seen. Virtually nothing is changed, good or bad, from exactly how the entire plot is presented in the book. When the book had extended scenes of pure exposition, the movie paused the action to have some old British people yammer on for a while. When the book introduced the mythology of witches out of the utter blue without explanation or reason, so went the movie. When the book freaking rips off the jaw of an armored bear and then snaps its neck... well you see where I'm going with this. (Aside: As soon as I realized that they were following the book so closely, I could not wait for the bear fighting scene. And I was not disappointed. That was awesome.)
What I'm getting at, is that book purists should be theoretically thrilled by the adaptation. With the exception of a copy/replace job on every instance of "Church" with "Authority," very little was excised from the meat of the book. Only the flow of the movie suffers - to save time (not a long movie by any means) they often cut from pivotal scene A to pivotal scene B without resolving how they got from A to B. The director never lets the story down to save on length.
But the problem is, the story doesn't translate overly well into a movie. Yes, the action is extraordinarily well done and thrilling, but the whole story has too much of a measured pace and far too much required backstory to be super effective. The book worked because it had time to set up the idea of daemons and the rules involved, and then to build up the world and the mythology around the alternate timeline. The movie has no such luxury - resorting to condensed character traits in single lines of dialogue, clunky expository speeches in place of long conversations, and bizarre announcements of intent. It all just comes off as awkward.
The worst example of this is the entrance of the witch, who literally seems to serve no purpose to the story whatsoever except to act as a deus ex machina device for the ending. And while it sort of is in the book as well, the witches perform a larger function in the book (keying in on the prophecy - the one thing that was cut from the movie that it really could have used), which makes their use less egregious in book form. In the movie it was akin to having a wizard appear midway through your plot for no other reason than the fact that you'll need some magical reinforcements in about 20 minutes.
Don't get me wrong, it's a good movie, but it could have been much better had they took a cue from other really successful adaptations (e.g. the Lord of the Rings writers) and how they adapted the sources to fit their needs. Because really, the LotR books are a perfect example of an awesome story that would be terrible in movie form.
Follow along: In the book version of Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo's decision to leave his home and go on to Rivendale on his little ring adventure is about 8 months long, both in planning and execution, with liberal stops along the way to meet magical creatures and get eaten by old trees. It would be utterly boring to watch that play out on a screen, despite how nice a travelogue and expository device it was to set you up in the mythology.
So what did the writers do? Cut all the dithering about and made it compelling to watch: race against time to escape dark riders, picking up friends as they go along, taking up maybe a week of total time, most of which is entirely offscreen.
Similarly in the case of The Golden Compass, I think it could have easily been adapted in a similar manner. Take some liberties with the source material to make it flow better. Don't be afraid to cut a scene or two of exposition to make time for other scenes to end naturally before jumping to the next item on the list. Fill in the exposition naturally with reasonable asides in those scenes, and trust the audience not to miss things. Done properly (like in LotR) literary purists won't whine (too much) and your movie benefits by being more cohesive.
Or alternatively - since you planned on pissing off the purists anyways by ending the movie TWO CHAPTERS BEFORE THE END OF THE BOOK, why even care to follow the story so closely?
Seriously, the ending is the best part of the book! (Bear fighting excluded, obviously) You even put the goddamn foreshadowing of the end right there in the movie ("It says I'm bringing him what he needs."). It's like you're trying to purposely enrage people who read the book. Yeah, yeah, no one likes a downer ending in a kids' movie, but guess what? It's not a kids' movie any more than it is a kids' book. Mature themes abound. Stick to your guns or go home.
Grr. Don't mind me. I really did like the movie. I just hate squandered potential.
The Golden Compass - Short Form: A good movie with above par action and acting, that is limited by its story in a very significant way. Also, armored bears! (RAWR!, etc.)
This movie is an object lesson that shows that the eternal debate on whether movies are better/worse than the books that they're based on is utterly useless. Because this movie is a near perfect retelling of the book (Or more accurately, all of the book but the ending. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.) and it is completely hamstrung as a movie because of that.
I would go so far as to say that it's one of the most faithful adaptation of a book into a movie that I've ever seen. Virtually nothing is changed, good or bad, from exactly how the entire plot is presented in the book. When the book had extended scenes of pure exposition, the movie paused the action to have some old British people yammer on for a while. When the book introduced the mythology of witches out of the utter blue without explanation or reason, so went the movie. When the book freaking rips off the jaw of an armored bear and then snaps its neck... well you see where I'm going with this. (Aside: As soon as I realized that they were following the book so closely, I could not wait for the bear fighting scene. And I was not disappointed. That was awesome.)
What I'm getting at, is that book purists should be theoretically thrilled by the adaptation. With the exception of a copy/replace job on every instance of "Church" with "Authority," very little was excised from the meat of the book. Only the flow of the movie suffers - to save time (not a long movie by any means) they often cut from pivotal scene A to pivotal scene B without resolving how they got from A to B. The director never lets the story down to save on length.
But the problem is, the story doesn't translate overly well into a movie. Yes, the action is extraordinarily well done and thrilling, but the whole story has too much of a measured pace and far too much required backstory to be super effective. The book worked because it had time to set up the idea of daemons and the rules involved, and then to build up the world and the mythology around the alternate timeline. The movie has no such luxury - resorting to condensed character traits in single lines of dialogue, clunky expository speeches in place of long conversations, and bizarre announcements of intent. It all just comes off as awkward.
The worst example of this is the entrance of the witch, who literally seems to serve no purpose to the story whatsoever except to act as a deus ex machina device for the ending. And while it sort of is in the book as well, the witches perform a larger function in the book (keying in on the prophecy - the one thing that was cut from the movie that it really could have used), which makes their use less egregious in book form. In the movie it was akin to having a wizard appear midway through your plot for no other reason than the fact that you'll need some magical reinforcements in about 20 minutes.
Don't get me wrong, it's a good movie, but it could have been much better had they took a cue from other really successful adaptations (e.g. the Lord of the Rings writers) and how they adapted the sources to fit their needs. Because really, the LotR books are a perfect example of an awesome story that would be terrible in movie form.
Follow along: In the book version of Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo's decision to leave his home and go on to Rivendale on his little ring adventure is about 8 months long, both in planning and execution, with liberal stops along the way to meet magical creatures and get eaten by old trees. It would be utterly boring to watch that play out on a screen, despite how nice a travelogue and expository device it was to set you up in the mythology.
So what did the writers do? Cut all the dithering about and made it compelling to watch: race against time to escape dark riders, picking up friends as they go along, taking up maybe a week of total time, most of which is entirely offscreen.
Similarly in the case of The Golden Compass, I think it could have easily been adapted in a similar manner. Take some liberties with the source material to make it flow better. Don't be afraid to cut a scene or two of exposition to make time for other scenes to end naturally before jumping to the next item on the list. Fill in the exposition naturally with reasonable asides in those scenes, and trust the audience not to miss things. Done properly (like in LotR) literary purists won't whine (too much) and your movie benefits by being more cohesive.
Or alternatively - since you planned on pissing off the purists anyways by ending the movie TWO CHAPTERS BEFORE THE END OF THE BOOK, why even care to follow the story so closely?
Seriously, the ending is the best part of the book! (Bear fighting excluded, obviously) You even put the goddamn foreshadowing of the end right there in the movie ("It says I'm bringing him what he needs."). It's like you're trying to purposely enrage people who read the book. Yeah, yeah, no one likes a downer ending in a kids' movie, but guess what? It's not a kids' movie any more than it is a kids' book. Mature themes abound. Stick to your guns or go home.
Grr. Don't mind me. I really did like the movie. I just hate squandered potential.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Pitfalls of Rationalization
Items I want to talk about but are too short for their own entry:
So my computer monitor is in the final stage of its life, like a dying red giant star seconds before collapsing into supernova (Note: Please do not email me to correct my astronomy. I do not care that my science has failed me. Blame the public school system.).
It now takes well over 10 minutes to display anything after turning it on, and takes another 15 minutes after display for the picture to actually settle into a normal viewable image (as opposed to a shaky wavering mess).
Considering the little guy is now over 2 years old and was the cheapest LCD monitor on the planet when I bought him, I think I ended up getting my money's worth. And I mean that literally, it was the cheapest flat screen monitor I could find anywhere. I bet I got a better deal on that thing than I would have if I had bought something out of the back of a guy's van in the bad part of town.
But that's what happens when your brain works like mine: You have a predetermined budget for a new computer. If you get rid of a) a printer, b) a warranty, and c) a remotely decent monitor, you can get yourself a pretty nice actual computer. Granted it's surrounded by empty space and a piece of junk display, but oh the computer itself is fancy.
Anyways. So now I've got to get a new monitor. Which immediately (also only in my brain) means that I need to get a whole new computer. Because really they're a set, right? You can't get one without the other.
Actually, it turns out this is not true. You are able to purchase monitors independently of computers, particularly when your computer is actually still running very well. It just takes a lot of convincing inside my mind. Because seriously, new computers are so shiny nowadays. All dual cores and wild computing power and enough RAM to run every program on my current computer all at one time.
But considering my previous mandate to "never buy anything again" after I got the new car, along with the state of my work industry, which is bouncing back and forth daily between "Bad" and "Job-Threateningly Horrendous," I was able to talk myself down from a new computer purchase. The monitor, however, is a requirement.
The real news, though, is that it turns out that rationalizing myself all the way down from a huge new expensive computer to only buying a monitor allows my conscience to guilt-free upgrade to a decent monitor, AND a reasonable video card to go along with it. In my brain, the saving from not buying a whole new computer offset the upgrade costs.
I never even thought of that as a rationalization exercise. I fear for my wallet now with these new-found powers. But man, am I ever looking forward to my new swank 22" widescreen monitor. It's gonna be sweet.
- My office building had to disable the thermostat in my office because it was sending faulty signals to the center of our floor, resulting in +80 degree temperatures in some other offices. So now everywhere else in the building the temperature is perfect, and it's about 60 degrees in my office. This is not my beautiful life.
- Am I the only person in world who finds that new T-Mobile commercial absolutely hilarious? The one where the guy keeps obsessively re-recording his voicemail to a girl he just met? Seriously, I crack up every time I see it. This is the second T-Mobile commercial I've loved. I think something is seriously wrong with me.
- My Christmas drive kicked in at least a week too early this year. I'm totally spent on Christmas, and we're still 12 days out. I blame my awesome Christmas Mix CD, which I busted out the day after Thanksgiving. I'm completely ruined for the holidays now. (I'm almost entirely finished with my shopping though. That's awesome at least.)
- Also, sweet unholy damn, I am in the best mood this week.
So my computer monitor is in the final stage of its life, like a dying red giant star seconds before collapsing into supernova (Note: Please do not email me to correct my astronomy. I do not care that my science has failed me. Blame the public school system.).
It now takes well over 10 minutes to display anything after turning it on, and takes another 15 minutes after display for the picture to actually settle into a normal viewable image (as opposed to a shaky wavering mess).
Considering the little guy is now over 2 years old and was the cheapest LCD monitor on the planet when I bought him, I think I ended up getting my money's worth. And I mean that literally, it was the cheapest flat screen monitor I could find anywhere. I bet I got a better deal on that thing than I would have if I had bought something out of the back of a guy's van in the bad part of town.
But that's what happens when your brain works like mine: You have a predetermined budget for a new computer. If you get rid of a) a printer, b) a warranty, and c) a remotely decent monitor, you can get yourself a pretty nice actual computer. Granted it's surrounded by empty space and a piece of junk display, but oh the computer itself is fancy.
Anyways. So now I've got to get a new monitor. Which immediately (also only in my brain) means that I need to get a whole new computer. Because really they're a set, right? You can't get one without the other.
Actually, it turns out this is not true. You are able to purchase monitors independently of computers, particularly when your computer is actually still running very well. It just takes a lot of convincing inside my mind. Because seriously, new computers are so shiny nowadays. All dual cores and wild computing power and enough RAM to run every program on my current computer all at one time.
But considering my previous mandate to "never buy anything again" after I got the new car, along with the state of my work industry, which is bouncing back and forth daily between "Bad" and "Job-Threateningly Horrendous," I was able to talk myself down from a new computer purchase. The monitor, however, is a requirement.
The real news, though, is that it turns out that rationalizing myself all the way down from a huge new expensive computer to only buying a monitor allows my conscience to guilt-free upgrade to a decent monitor, AND a reasonable video card to go along with it. In my brain, the saving from not buying a whole new computer offset the upgrade costs.
I never even thought of that as a rationalization exercise. I fear for my wallet now with these new-found powers. But man, am I ever looking forward to my new swank 22" widescreen monitor. It's gonna be sweet.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
This Just In - My Soul Crushed. More at 11.
w00t crowned word of the year by dictionary
There are no words to express my feelings, you guys.
Wait, that's a lie. I have tons of words. And more importantly, they're actually WORDS. Not a random combination of letters and numbers that some illiterate fool made up. Ugh.
I'm not saying that you can't use the word. In fact, I don't mind the occasional 'woot' in the proper context (the online world). I'm pretty laid back on slang in instant messenger, or in games. Heck even in blogs it's fine (e.g. my liberal and annoying use of "ain't" and "y'all" throughout every entry I've ever posted). The purpose of language is to convey meaning in the clearest way possible. If your audience responds better to something informal and familiar, it's perfectly fine to use.
But Merriam-Webster does not need to be condoning such things, dammit. I don't care if you want publicity. You're dumbing down the actual rules of language for no reason whatsoever.
Look what you just did, you made me write in all caps. I hate caps. Shouting on the Internet is just rude. But I am left with no alternatives. Let's break it down:
woot = four characters
w007 = four characters (that make no sense)
And to top it all off, if you read between the lines of what he's saying, it sounds like he's insinuating that the thing I hate most in the world is becoming acceptable. Namely "4" being the equivalent of "for" and "u" allowable for "you." It will be cold day in hell before I allow this to happen. I will wage war on all the 14 year-olds in the world, by myself if necessary.
Grammar rage, y'all.
God, it's that whole IDK MY BFF JILL? thing all over again.
Massachusetts-based Merriam-Webster Inc. said "w00t" — typically spelled with two zeros — reflects a new direction in the American language led by a generation raised on video games and cell phone text-messaging.
There are no words to express my feelings, you guys.
Wait, that's a lie. I have tons of words. And more importantly, they're actually WORDS. Not a random combination of letters and numbers that some illiterate fool made up. Ugh.
I'm not saying that you can't use the word. In fact, I don't mind the occasional 'woot' in the proper context (the online world). I'm pretty laid back on slang in instant messenger, or in games. Heck even in blogs it's fine (e.g. my liberal and annoying use of "ain't" and "y'all" throughout every entry I've ever posted). The purpose of language is to convey meaning in the clearest way possible. If your audience responds better to something informal and familiar, it's perfectly fine to use.
But Merriam-Webster does not need to be condoning such things, dammit. I don't care if you want publicity. You're dumbing down the actual rules of language for no reason whatsoever.
Merriam-Webster President John Morse said "w00t" reflected the growing use of numeric keyboards to type words. "People look for self-evident numeral-letter substitutions: 0 for O; 3 for E; 7 for T; and 4 for A," he said. "This is simply a different and more efficient way of representing the alphabetical character."Um hi, Mr. President of Dictionaries? You know what is a more efficient way of representing an alphabetical character than using a number? USING THE ACTUAL CHARACTER.
Look what you just did, you made me write in all caps. I hate caps. Shouting on the Internet is just rude. But I am left with no alternatives. Let's break it down:
woot = four characters
w007 = four characters (that make no sense)
And to top it all off, if you read between the lines of what he's saying, it sounds like he's insinuating that the thing I hate most in the world is becoming acceptable. Namely "4" being the equivalent of "for" and "u" allowable for "you." It will be cold day in hell before I allow this to happen. I will wage war on all the 14 year-olds in the world, by myself if necessary.
Grammar rage, y'all.
God, it's that whole IDK MY BFF JILL? thing all over again.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Epic Movie Blog
Is it really December already? Sheesh, this year went by fast.
Okay, so every year I do a breakdown wherein I arbitrarily rank all the movies I've seen, from worst to best. The rules are really easy: it must have been released in 2007 (either straight to DVD or in theatres), and I have to have seen at least 90% of the movie.
I call it arbitrary because I can look back at my old reviews I did during the year and I've utterly hated on movies that I have under the Really Good category now, and had only good things to say about movies that are in the Dislike pile now. What can I say, I'm a very fickle person.
But man, I just did not watch any movies this year. I blame two things: the fact that I got rid of my Blockbuster pass after they took away half of my movie borrowing power while charging me the same price, and my purchase of a new car which required cutting my entertainment budget wildly, to the tune of 75%. Almost all of which was in movie tickets.
I'd say I'm at about half the number of movies that I usually see, and there's a huge emphasis on movies released the first half of the year. I'm so far behind the pop culture curve it's sad.
With all that said, let's go to the list. As always, we have 5 categories for movies: Hate, Dislike, Meh, Good, and Great.
Movies that I Actively Hate
43. The Invisible (What did we learn? Never go see a movie based solely on the hotness of the lead actor)
42. License to Wed (Office Jim, no! Mandy Moore, noooo!)
41. Spider-Man 3 (From the best superhero movie ever to utter soap opera garbage in one sequel. Impressive.)
Movies that I Only Dislike
40. The Hitcher
39. Gray Matters
38. Shrek the Third
Movies I Don't Dislike But Don't Recommend Either
37. Reno 911!: Miami
36. Because I Said So (Man, really not a good year for Mandy Moore.)
35. The Messengers
34. 300
33. Disturbia
32. The Number 23 (Biggest drop, from feelings just after watching until now.)
31. Beowulf (Needs more time to fester in my mind. Should probably be higher.)
Movies That Were Good
30. Year of the Dog (Biggest jump. This movie really grew on me over time.)
29. Blades of Glory
28. Music and Lyrics (Most bizarre placement. Did I really like this movie that much? Apparently, as I can't in good faith move it down any more.)
27. The Simpsons Movie
26. Hairspray
25. Sydney White (Amanda Bynes, why do you do this to me? Should probably be lower. In fact, I hereby reserve the right to go back and edit this down about 5 places when I come to my senses.)
24. August Rush
23. Black Snake Moan (Cinematography and a hot Christina Ricci count for a lot, apparently.)
22. 1408
21. Dan in Real Life
20. The Golden Compass
19. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
18. Knocked Up
17. Superbad (I assume. I only saw maybe 85% of it, but I laughed uncontrollably throughout what I saw. Hopefully it ended well, otherwise I'll look quite the fool.)
16. Enchanted
Movies That Were Excellent
15. Breach (So this year...)
14. Michael Clayton (I was really into...)
13. The Lookout (quiet character study movies, in a big way.)
12. The Brave One (And also, shooting punks in the face.)
11. Sweeney Todd
10. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
9. Zodiac
8. Lars and the Real Girl (So high, right? I know! It's inexplicable.)
7. Sunshine (Sci-fi and hot guys represent!)
6. Ratatouille
5. Waitress
4. Once
3. Atonement
2. Juno
1. Stardust
Sweet damn, how lopsided is that list? At first glance it looks like a really good year for movies, but far more likely is that I didn't have the luxury of renting a million and one bad movies from Blockbuster to pad out the bottom of the list. And when I did go to the theatre, it was for a movie I was pretty damn sure I would like, as I had to maximize my movie-going dollar.
The ratio will probably only get worse too, as I've come up with my Oscar-bait movie list that I need to see in the last three weeks of the year, and it's chock full of movies that are supposed to be actively amazing. Not that anyone will care, but I'll keep the list updated as the month goes on.
Gosh, where has all my cynicism gone? It's like I don't even know who I am anymore.
Okay, so every year I do a breakdown wherein I arbitrarily rank all the movies I've seen, from worst to best. The rules are really easy: it must have been released in 2007 (either straight to DVD or in theatres), and I have to have seen at least 90% of the movie.
I call it arbitrary because I can look back at my old reviews I did during the year and I've utterly hated on movies that I have under the Really Good category now, and had only good things to say about movies that are in the Dislike pile now. What can I say, I'm a very fickle person.
But man, I just did not watch any movies this year. I blame two things: the fact that I got rid of my Blockbuster pass after they took away half of my movie borrowing power while charging me the same price, and my purchase of a new car which required cutting my entertainment budget wildly, to the tune of 75%. Almost all of which was in movie tickets.
I'd say I'm at about half the number of movies that I usually see, and there's a huge emphasis on movies released the first half of the year. I'm so far behind the pop culture curve it's sad.
With all that said, let's go to the list. As always, we have 5 categories for movies: Hate, Dislike, Meh, Good, and Great.
Movies that I Actively Hate
43. The Invisible (What did we learn? Never go see a movie based solely on the hotness of the lead actor)
42. License to Wed (Office Jim, no! Mandy Moore, noooo!)
41. Spider-Man 3 (From the best superhero movie ever to utter soap opera garbage in one sequel. Impressive.)
Movies that I Only Dislike
40. The Hitcher
39. Gray Matters
38. Shrek the Third
Movies I Don't Dislike But Don't Recommend Either
37. Reno 911!: Miami
36. Because I Said So (Man, really not a good year for Mandy Moore.)
35. The Messengers
34. 300
33. Disturbia
32. The Number 23 (Biggest drop, from feelings just after watching until now.)
31. Beowulf (Needs more time to fester in my mind. Should probably be higher.)
Movies That Were Good
30. Year of the Dog (Biggest jump. This movie really grew on me over time.)
29. Blades of Glory
28. Music and Lyrics (Most bizarre placement. Did I really like this movie that much? Apparently, as I can't in good faith move it down any more.)
27. The Simpsons Movie
26. Hairspray
25. Sydney White (Amanda Bynes, why do you do this to me? Should probably be lower. In fact, I hereby reserve the right to go back and edit this down about 5 places when I come to my senses.)
24. August Rush
23. Black Snake Moan (Cinematography and a hot Christina Ricci count for a lot, apparently.)
22. 1408
21. Dan in Real Life
20. The Golden Compass
19. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
18. Knocked Up
17. Superbad (I assume. I only saw maybe 85% of it, but I laughed uncontrollably throughout what I saw. Hopefully it ended well, otherwise I'll look quite the fool.)
16. Enchanted
Movies That Were Excellent
15. Breach (So this year...)
14. Michael Clayton (I was really into...)
13. The Lookout (quiet character study movies, in a big way.)
12. The Brave One (And also, shooting punks in the face.)
11. Sweeney Todd
10. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
9. Zodiac
8. Lars and the Real Girl (So high, right? I know! It's inexplicable.)
7. Sunshine (Sci-fi and hot guys represent!)
6. Ratatouille
5. Waitress
4. Once
3. Atonement
2. Juno
1. Stardust
Sweet damn, how lopsided is that list? At first glance it looks like a really good year for movies, but far more likely is that I didn't have the luxury of renting a million and one bad movies from Blockbuster to pad out the bottom of the list. And when I did go to the theatre, it was for a movie I was pretty damn sure I would like, as I had to maximize my movie-going dollar.
The ratio will probably only get worse too, as I've come up with my Oscar-bait movie list that I need to see in the last three weeks of the year, and it's chock full of movies that are supposed to be actively amazing. Not that anyone will care, but I'll keep the list updated as the month goes on.
Gosh, where has all my cynicism gone? It's like I don't even know who I am anymore.
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Christmas Link o' the Day
God, what a day.
But in lieu of ranting, instead of getting mad we're going to get awesome instead. It's the Christmas Season, dammit.
In that spirit: FlakeOMatic, the easiest way to lose an hour of your life by reliving your gay childhood in arts and crafts.
But in lieu of ranting, instead of getting mad we're going to get awesome instead. It's the Christmas Season, dammit.
In that spirit: FlakeOMatic, the easiest way to lose an hour of your life by reliving your gay childhood in arts and crafts.
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