As I do from time to time, all of the links in this post spring from the blogroll of a single blog, and all are blogs I've not seen before. In this case, the originating blogroll is Sheila's.
:: It's no secret that popular culture today is shite. That's why I look to the past for my entertainment.
:: Marlboro Man and I loved taking drives.
:: It's hard to believe that Burt Reynolds will be turning 72 in 10 days. (Huh-whuh?! How did that happen?)
:: Ten words I did not know were real words until I played Scrabulous: qat, ghi, hup, taw, pah, gey, ors, yoni, mana, and cowbird.
:: Egyptians one generation more ancient than the ones we usually call Ancient Egyptians perhaps thought the pyramids to be detestable eyesores on the desert skyline, and Greeks old enough to remember the good old days before poetry, medicine and architecture might have had a Prince-Charles-like disdain for the doric ‘carbuncles’ clunking up the Acropolises of their once fair country. (Come to that, I may have seen this blog before, but I like this post.)
:: Some months ago, amid casual small-talk at the office, a coworker piped up, "Hey, does anyone want my copy of Oliver Twist? I just can't get into it."
:: Like many of my generation, my first real encounter with the Looney Tunes brand of animation was on Saturday afternoons in a two-hour block on Nickelodeon, just around the dawn of Nicktoons. (OK, this scares me: there's an entire generation now that didn't encounter Looney Tunes through Saturday mornings on ABC. Wow.)
:: I checked with her, and she doesn't mind: this is the year the wife turns forty. And it only seems fair that before I leave her for a younger woman I show her a good time.
:: I care not how humble your bookshelf may be, nor how lowly the room which it adorns. Close the door of that room behind you, shut off with it all the cares of the outer world, plunger back into the soothing company of the great dead, and then you are through the magic portal into that fair land whither worry and vexation can follow you no more. You have left all that is vulgar and all that is sordid behind you. Their stand your noble, silent comrades, waiting in their ranks. (OK, it's a quote and not written by the linked blogger, but it's such a good one, and a good note on which to leave off.)
More next week.
The personal blog of author Kelly Sedinger, chronicling the adventures of one overalls-clad wanderer.
Monday, February 04, 2008
A Weird Quiz
I don't really get this quiz, but here it is. I snagged it from SamuraiFrog [link fixed --ed.] (and I've edited out a few questions that I wouldn't answer on the basis that either positively or negatively, the answers aren't the kind of thing I blog about). The things that I've done are marked with an X. (And I don't get what the "levels" mean.
Level 1
() Smoked a cigarette.
(x) Smoked a cigar.
() Kissed a member of the same sex.
(x) Drank alcohol.
The only smoking I've ever done is a couple of cigars given me by guys I knew what they had babies. I wasn't a big fan of the whole thing. I've never taken a single drag of a cigarette.
Level 2
(x) Are/been in love.
(x) Been dumped.
(x) Shoplifted.
(x) Been fired.
() Been in a fist fight.
First one's a no-brainer, and yeah, I was dumped a few times before I found The Wife. I have shoplifted, technically, but the couple of times that's happened, it was the accidental kind where I missed something in my cart at the store and only realized it when I was loading up the vehicle outside. Each time I went back in to pay for it. Swiping something big, like a video game or a book or a wicker swing set? Nope. My last job before The Store canned me, as both a downsizing move and a "You know what, maybe a guy who hates talking on the phone shouldn't be in telesales after all" move. I was pissed at the time, but I've come to see their logic somewhat, although I will claim that their stated reason for canning me that day was complete bollocks. As far as fistfights go, there was the usual rough-housing when I was a kid, so I won't count that. No Clint Eastwood-style barroom brawls for me.
Level 3
(x) Had a crush on an older person.
(x) Skipped school.
(x) Seen someone/something die.
Well, The Wife is older than me, so there's that; also I seem to remember a Special Ed teacher when I was in third grade or something who had hair like Farrah Faucett, and this was in 1979 when that was quite a thing. A crush? Don't recall, but I wouldn't be surprised. I never skipped an entire day of school, but I did cut my share of classes. As for seeing something die, I was in the room when we had our cat Simba put to sleep, and a year or so later my cat Jasmine died in my arms as I was carrying her down to the car to take her to the vet.
Level 4
() Had/have a crush on one of your friends who is now on Facebook.
() Been to Paris.
() Been to Spain.
(x) Been on a plane.
(x) Thrown up from drinking.
I don't like flying, not out of fear of crashing but because air travel is just unpleasant, to be honest: planes are hot and uncomfortable and friggin' loud. As for drinking, I've only twice in my life had to "talk to Ralph on the big white telephone". Once was the last time I ever drank bourbon; the next was the night before my wedding, when I ate too much, drank a lot of wine, and was already pretty nervous about the whole thing.
Level 5
(x) Eaten sushi.
() Been snowboarding.
(x) Met someone BECAUSE of Facebook.
() Been in a mosh pit.
OK, I'm claiming the Facebook thing, but I'm claiming it because I've met people due to blogging, and not Facebook specifically. And I like sushi a lot.
Level 6
() Been in an abusive relationship.
(x) Taken pain killers.
(x) Love/loved someone who you can’t have.
(x) Laid on your back and watched cloud shapes go by.
(x) Made a snow angel.
I need a clarification on pain killers: are we talking Tylenol, or the hardcore stuff like Demerol? If the latter, then I have to remove my X, because that and Advil are all I've ever taken. As for the rest: Audrey Hepburn's dead, so I by definition can't have her, but I love her all the same; I've watched cloud shapes many a time (and not all that long ago, either), and if you haven't made a snow angel, then you either need to move where there's snow or get a life.
Level 7
() Had a tea party.
(x) Flown a kite.
(x) Built a sand castle.
() Gone mudding (offroading).
() Played dress up.
Tea party. Don't think so. Kites rule. So do sand castles, although mine wasn't terribly elaborate; it was basically making a big mound and using my imagination to fill in the details.
Level 8
(x) Jumped into a pile of leaves.
() Gone sledging.
(x) Cheated while playing a game.
(x) Been lonely.
(x) Fallen asleep at work/school.
Jumping into leaves, or its close cousin task, purposely walking off the sidewalk so as to scuff through six inches' depth of leaves, is akin to the snow angel thing in that everybody should do it before they die. I don't know what 'sledging' is. Yes, I've cheated at games; what kid never stacked the deck in Sorry! so they'd draw a 2 and then a backward-4? Being lonely is a constant thing, and falling asleep at work and school? I've done both. (But not at The Store. Never. I'm a giant ball of productivity there.)
Oh, and what is "sledging"?
Level 9
(x) Watched the sun set.
(x) Felt an earthquake.
() Killed a snake.
What a weird thing to have on a list like this: wouldn't anybody with, you know, eyes have watched a sunset? And I've felt earthquakes both in WNY and in the Portland, OR area. I may have killed a snake by running it over, unseen, while mowing the lawn, but never intentionally or maliciously. Snakes are good people.
Level 10
(x) Been tickled.
() Been robbed/vandalized.
() Been cheated on.
(x) Been misunderstood.
Everybody's misunderstood. What makes human life interesting at all is the simple fact that nobody understands anybody else.
Level 11
(x) Won a contest.
() Been suspended from school.
(x) Had detention.
() Been in a car/motorcycle accident.
Why yes, I won a contest! (But I'm pretty sure that I didn't win this year, boo hiss. We'll see, but I would have heard by now if I had, which is a shame because I actually thought my entry this year was pretty good, if a little on the grim side.) And yes, I got detention a few times, a couple times for the afore-mentioned class-cutting and once for using the back stairs in our school building. (Yes, I'm serious. I used the wrong stairs and got detention. And then I kept using the stairs anyway.)
Level 12
() Had/have braces.
(x) Eaten a whole pint of ice cream in one night.
() Danced in the moonlight.
I recall that one dentist tried getting my mother to consent to braces for me, and her pithy reply has stuck in my memory evermore: "Nobody ever died of an overbite." Seeing as how it's not like my one jaw protrudes inches beyond the other, it was never much of an issue. And eating a whole pint of ice cream? I almost file that under cloud-watching and snow-angel making. Heck, in college we once went on a forty-mile roadtrip (both ways) to get a couple of pints of ice cream.
Level 13
(x) Hated the way you look.
(x) Witnessed a crime.
() Pole danced.
(x) Questioned your heart.
() Been obsessed with post-it-notes.
Working in retail in a large store, it's not unusual to witness crimes being committed: shoplifting all the time. I've seen them get busted, and there's always this nice sense of victory when this happens. Also, doesn't everybody hate the way they look at one point or another? I don't hate the way I look right now, but I do need to peel off some weight, which is why I (and the rest of the family) joined the Y this year. I've already got my resting heart rate down about ten points, and I've only been going for a month, yay! And I question my heart on a daily basis.
Level 14
(x) Squished barefoot through the mud.
(x) Been lost.
() Been to the opposite side of the world.
(x) Swam in the ocean.
(x) Felt like you were dying.
I'm not a big fan of mud, but squishing in it is occasionally fun. When we were living in our last home in the Portland area, before moving out here, there was a very large swampy-marshy area beyond the borders of our housing development where we kids used to go to explore and play and whatnot, and there was lots of mud to squish through. We never went there just for mud-squishing, but that would be incidental to exploring the area. Last I looked, that whole area is now built up into a massive development. Bummer. As for being lost, who hasn't? Same with feeling like we're dying. We're made to die, so it's natural we're going to feel like it's happening once in a while.
Level 15
(x) Cried yourself to sleep.
(x) Played cops and robbers.
() Recently colored with crayons/colored pencils/markers.
() Sang karaoke.
() Paid for a meal with only coins.
Yeah. Not to be pithy, but you lose a kid, and you're guaranteed to cry yourself to sleep a few times. We never really played "cops and robbers" as such, but we'd play Star Wars, of course, so we'd have "Rebels and Imperials", I suppose. And while I've paid for lots of stuff with only coins, I've never paid for a meal with them, that I can recall. I used to pay for comics with coins (back when comics were relatively cheap at less than a buck an issue), and books, but I don't recall paying for a meal with them. I may have, though.
Level 16
(x) Done something you told yourself you wouldn’t.
(x) Made prank phone calls.
(x) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose.
() Kissed in the rain.
Oh come on! Who hasn't told themselves they wouldn't do something, only to go ahead and do it anyway? Heck, right now I'm telling myself that I'm not watching the Super Bowl, but I probably will. I never made a lot of prank calls, but there were a few. And in grade school, I was the kid who would get "The Giggles" very easily, which led to having milk come out my nose at lunch more than once.
(And by the way, there should be a special place in Hell for teachers who punish kids who get The Giggles. Any human being who genuinely has no idea what it's like to get The Giggles should not be allowed anywhere near children. There was a teacher whose name I don't recall, but she taught Agriculture and Metal Shop in our school, who was as joyless a human being as I've ever met, and she was ruthless to anyone who got The Giggles. She also gave a kid detention when he dropped a hammer on his foot and said "Shit!" out loud.)
Level 17
(x) Written a letter to Santa Claus.
(x) Watched the sun set/sun rise with someone you care/cared about.
(x) Blown bubbles.
(x) Made a bonfire on the beach or anywhere.
This is another group of things that if you haven't done them, you need to come out of your monastic conclave and actually engage the world a bit.
Level 18
() Crashed a Party.
(x) Have traveled more than 5 days with a car full of people.
(x) Gone rollerskating/blading.
(x) Had a wish come true.
Rollerblading rules.
Level 19
() Worn pearls.
(x) Jumped off a bridge.
() Screamed “penis” or “vagina”.
() Swam with dolphins.
It was a low bridge into a swimming hole.
Level 20
() Got your tongue stuck to a pole/freezer/ice cube.
() Kissed a fish.
() Worn the opposite sex’s clothes.
(x) Sat on a roof top.
Rooftops are fun. I like rooftops.
(Fish kissing? Huh?!)
Level 21
(x) Screamed at the top of your lungs.
() Done/attempted a one-handed cartwheel.
() Talked on the phone for more than six hours (in one day).
(x) Recently stayed up for a while talking to someone you care about.
At my telesales job, one measure of our performance was our "Duration", or literally the number of minutes were spent each day talking on the phones. A good day was held to be over three hours of actual talking; the standard was to have over 150 minutes total Duration. I rarely managed more than 120 minutes. My best days were Mondays, when I'd call a hospital pharmacist in Ohio (Akron, I believe) who would cheerfully talk on the phone about anything at all. That guy was a conversational Godsend at the time. All of the other sales reps in the office had regular customers they'd been calling for years and could carry on long conversations with them; the woman next to me would often have calls go on for forty-five minutes before she ever made a sales pitch. I never got to that point.
Level 22
() Picked and ate an apple right off the tree.
(x) Climbed a tree.
(x) Had/been in a tree house.
(x) Been scared to watch scary movies alone.
I've had apples that were extremely fresh, as in, picked that day, but never done the picking myself. As for the other things, well yeah.
Level 23
(x) Believed in ghosts.
() Have had more than thirty pairs of shoes (not necessarily all at once).
() Gone streaking.
(x) Visited jail.
I believed in ghosts as a kid and then got over it later on. I don't believe in them now, but I'd like to; I just think that a world with ghosts would be pretty cool. And lightsabers. As for jail, I've visited in school field trips. I've never been a "Guest of Honor" though.
Level 24
() Played chicken.
() Been pushed into a pool with all your clothes on.
() Been told you’re hot by a complete stranger.
(x) Broken a bone.
(x) Been easily amused.
Chicken is for idiots. I've swum fully clothed before, but never been pushed, so that doesn't count. I've never once had a stranger comment on my looks (except for the once-a-year thing that happens here when some random visitor leaves a comment, always anonymous, that I'm fat). Bones? I broke my collarbone in junior high school, and I'm incredibly easily amused.
Level 25
() Caught a fish then ate it later.
() Made a porn video.
(x) Caught a Butterfly.
(x) Laughed so hard you cried.
() Cried so hard you laughed.
I've never fished in my life! This seems to me a great missed opportunity. I've caught butterflies but always tried to be gentle about it, and to my way of thinking, there's nothing better than to laugh so hard that you cry. This hasn't happened in a while, actually.
Level 26
(x) Mooned/flashed someone.
() Had someone moon/flash you.
(x) Cheated on a test.
(x) Forgotten someone’s name.
() French braided someone’s hair.
() Gone skinny dipping.
() Been kicked out of your house.
() Tried to hurt yourself.
Yeah, I had too much to drink one night and mooned a college prof I didn't like too much at the time. And I snuck a glance at a textbook during a test once or twice. I'm awful with names, just awful. Seriously, I'm terrible with them, and it's a good thing that I work in a place where nametags are required. I've never seen skinny dipping as all that attractive of a prospect.
Level 27
(x) Rode a roller coaster.
(x) Went scuba-diving/snorkelling.
(x) Had a cavity.
() Blackmailed someone.
() Been blackmailed.
Roller coasters are great, but I only like the ones that don't go upside down, and I hate indoor ones that go in complete darkness. Snorkeling? Just one time, at Disney World, in a controlled tank setting.
Level 28
() Been used.
(x) Fell going up the stairs.
() Licked a cat.
(x) Bitten someone.
() Licked someone - not in private places
Licking cats. Okily-dokily.
Level 29
() Been shot at/or at gunpoint.
() Flattened someone’s tires.
(x) Rode your car/truck until the gas light came on.
(x) Got five dollars or less worth of gas.
Guns give me the willies. Don't like them. As for the two things I've done, which "gas light" are we talking about? If the "warning" light, which comes on when you're on your last gallon, I drive until that comes on all the time. If there's some light that indicates "You will run out of gas within the next forty feet of driving", then no. I've never driven until I literally ran out of gas. I have purchased tiny amounts of gas before; once I pulled into a full-serve station in Canada and handed the lady a Toonie (that's a two-dollar coin) and asked for exactly that much gas. She rolled her eyes at me, but did it anyway.
Well, that was a strange quiz.
Level 1
() Smoked a cigarette.
(x) Smoked a cigar.
() Kissed a member of the same sex.
(x) Drank alcohol.
The only smoking I've ever done is a couple of cigars given me by guys I knew what they had babies. I wasn't a big fan of the whole thing. I've never taken a single drag of a cigarette.
Level 2
(x) Are/been in love.
(x) Been dumped.
(x) Shoplifted.
(x) Been fired.
() Been in a fist fight.
First one's a no-brainer, and yeah, I was dumped a few times before I found The Wife. I have shoplifted, technically, but the couple of times that's happened, it was the accidental kind where I missed something in my cart at the store and only realized it when I was loading up the vehicle outside. Each time I went back in to pay for it. Swiping something big, like a video game or a book or a wicker swing set? Nope. My last job before The Store canned me, as both a downsizing move and a "You know what, maybe a guy who hates talking on the phone shouldn't be in telesales after all" move. I was pissed at the time, but I've come to see their logic somewhat, although I will claim that their stated reason for canning me that day was complete bollocks. As far as fistfights go, there was the usual rough-housing when I was a kid, so I won't count that. No Clint Eastwood-style barroom brawls for me.
Level 3
(x) Had a crush on an older person.
(x) Skipped school.
(x) Seen someone/something die.
Well, The Wife is older than me, so there's that; also I seem to remember a Special Ed teacher when I was in third grade or something who had hair like Farrah Faucett, and this was in 1979 when that was quite a thing. A crush? Don't recall, but I wouldn't be surprised. I never skipped an entire day of school, but I did cut my share of classes. As for seeing something die, I was in the room when we had our cat Simba put to sleep, and a year or so later my cat Jasmine died in my arms as I was carrying her down to the car to take her to the vet.
Level 4
() Had/have a crush on one of your friends who is now on Facebook.
() Been to Paris.
() Been to Spain.
(x) Been on a plane.
(x) Thrown up from drinking.
I don't like flying, not out of fear of crashing but because air travel is just unpleasant, to be honest: planes are hot and uncomfortable and friggin' loud. As for drinking, I've only twice in my life had to "talk to Ralph on the big white telephone". Once was the last time I ever drank bourbon; the next was the night before my wedding, when I ate too much, drank a lot of wine, and was already pretty nervous about the whole thing.
Level 5
(x) Eaten sushi.
() Been snowboarding.
(x) Met someone BECAUSE of Facebook.
() Been in a mosh pit.
OK, I'm claiming the Facebook thing, but I'm claiming it because I've met people due to blogging, and not Facebook specifically. And I like sushi a lot.
Level 6
() Been in an abusive relationship.
(x) Taken pain killers.
(x) Love/loved someone who you can’t have.
(x) Laid on your back and watched cloud shapes go by.
(x) Made a snow angel.
I need a clarification on pain killers: are we talking Tylenol, or the hardcore stuff like Demerol? If the latter, then I have to remove my X, because that and Advil are all I've ever taken. As for the rest: Audrey Hepburn's dead, so I by definition can't have her, but I love her all the same; I've watched cloud shapes many a time (and not all that long ago, either), and if you haven't made a snow angel, then you either need to move where there's snow or get a life.
Level 7
() Had a tea party.
(x) Flown a kite.
(x) Built a sand castle.
() Gone mudding (offroading).
() Played dress up.
Tea party. Don't think so. Kites rule. So do sand castles, although mine wasn't terribly elaborate; it was basically making a big mound and using my imagination to fill in the details.
Level 8
(x) Jumped into a pile of leaves.
() Gone sledging.
(x) Cheated while playing a game.
(x) Been lonely.
(x) Fallen asleep at work/school.
Jumping into leaves, or its close cousin task, purposely walking off the sidewalk so as to scuff through six inches' depth of leaves, is akin to the snow angel thing in that everybody should do it before they die. I don't know what 'sledging' is. Yes, I've cheated at games; what kid never stacked the deck in Sorry! so they'd draw a 2 and then a backward-4? Being lonely is a constant thing, and falling asleep at work and school? I've done both. (But not at The Store. Never. I'm a giant ball of productivity there.)
Oh, and what is "sledging"?
Level 9
(x) Watched the sun set.
(x) Felt an earthquake.
() Killed a snake.
What a weird thing to have on a list like this: wouldn't anybody with, you know, eyes have watched a sunset? And I've felt earthquakes both in WNY and in the Portland, OR area. I may have killed a snake by running it over, unseen, while mowing the lawn, but never intentionally or maliciously. Snakes are good people.
Level 10
(x) Been tickled.
() Been robbed/vandalized.
() Been cheated on.
(x) Been misunderstood.
Everybody's misunderstood. What makes human life interesting at all is the simple fact that nobody understands anybody else.
Level 11
(x) Won a contest.
() Been suspended from school.
(x) Had detention.
() Been in a car/motorcycle accident.
Why yes, I won a contest! (But I'm pretty sure that I didn't win this year, boo hiss. We'll see, but I would have heard by now if I had, which is a shame because I actually thought my entry this year was pretty good, if a little on the grim side.) And yes, I got detention a few times, a couple times for the afore-mentioned class-cutting and once for using the back stairs in our school building. (Yes, I'm serious. I used the wrong stairs and got detention. And then I kept using the stairs anyway.)
Level 12
() Had/have braces.
(x) Eaten a whole pint of ice cream in one night.
() Danced in the moonlight.
I recall that one dentist tried getting my mother to consent to braces for me, and her pithy reply has stuck in my memory evermore: "Nobody ever died of an overbite." Seeing as how it's not like my one jaw protrudes inches beyond the other, it was never much of an issue. And eating a whole pint of ice cream? I almost file that under cloud-watching and snow-angel making. Heck, in college we once went on a forty-mile roadtrip (both ways) to get a couple of pints of ice cream.
Level 13
(x) Hated the way you look.
(x) Witnessed a crime.
() Pole danced.
(x) Questioned your heart.
() Been obsessed with post-it-notes.
Working in retail in a large store, it's not unusual to witness crimes being committed: shoplifting all the time. I've seen them get busted, and there's always this nice sense of victory when this happens. Also, doesn't everybody hate the way they look at one point or another? I don't hate the way I look right now, but I do need to peel off some weight, which is why I (and the rest of the family) joined the Y this year. I've already got my resting heart rate down about ten points, and I've only been going for a month, yay! And I question my heart on a daily basis.
Level 14
(x) Squished barefoot through the mud.
(x) Been lost.
() Been to the opposite side of the world.
(x) Swam in the ocean.
(x) Felt like you were dying.
I'm not a big fan of mud, but squishing in it is occasionally fun. When we were living in our last home in the Portland area, before moving out here, there was a very large swampy-marshy area beyond the borders of our housing development where we kids used to go to explore and play and whatnot, and there was lots of mud to squish through. We never went there just for mud-squishing, but that would be incidental to exploring the area. Last I looked, that whole area is now built up into a massive development. Bummer. As for being lost, who hasn't? Same with feeling like we're dying. We're made to die, so it's natural we're going to feel like it's happening once in a while.
Level 15
(x) Cried yourself to sleep.
(x) Played cops and robbers.
() Recently colored with crayons/colored pencils/markers.
() Sang karaoke.
() Paid for a meal with only coins.
Yeah. Not to be pithy, but you lose a kid, and you're guaranteed to cry yourself to sleep a few times. We never really played "cops and robbers" as such, but we'd play Star Wars, of course, so we'd have "Rebels and Imperials", I suppose. And while I've paid for lots of stuff with only coins, I've never paid for a meal with them, that I can recall. I used to pay for comics with coins (back when comics were relatively cheap at less than a buck an issue), and books, but I don't recall paying for a meal with them. I may have, though.
Level 16
(x) Done something you told yourself you wouldn’t.
(x) Made prank phone calls.
(x) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose.
() Kissed in the rain.
Oh come on! Who hasn't told themselves they wouldn't do something, only to go ahead and do it anyway? Heck, right now I'm telling myself that I'm not watching the Super Bowl, but I probably will. I never made a lot of prank calls, but there were a few. And in grade school, I was the kid who would get "The Giggles" very easily, which led to having milk come out my nose at lunch more than once.
(And by the way, there should be a special place in Hell for teachers who punish kids who get The Giggles. Any human being who genuinely has no idea what it's like to get The Giggles should not be allowed anywhere near children. There was a teacher whose name I don't recall, but she taught Agriculture and Metal Shop in our school, who was as joyless a human being as I've ever met, and she was ruthless to anyone who got The Giggles. She also gave a kid detention when he dropped a hammer on his foot and said "Shit!" out loud.)
Level 17
(x) Written a letter to Santa Claus.
(x) Watched the sun set/sun rise with someone you care/cared about.
(x) Blown bubbles.
(x) Made a bonfire on the beach or anywhere.
This is another group of things that if you haven't done them, you need to come out of your monastic conclave and actually engage the world a bit.
Level 18
() Crashed a Party.
(x) Have traveled more than 5 days with a car full of people.
(x) Gone rollerskating/blading.
(x) Had a wish come true.
Rollerblading rules.
Level 19
() Worn pearls.
(x) Jumped off a bridge.
() Screamed “penis” or “vagina”.
() Swam with dolphins.
It was a low bridge into a swimming hole.
Level 20
() Got your tongue stuck to a pole/freezer/ice cube.
() Kissed a fish.
() Worn the opposite sex’s clothes.
(x) Sat on a roof top.
Rooftops are fun. I like rooftops.
(Fish kissing? Huh?!)
Level 21
(x) Screamed at the top of your lungs.
() Done/attempted a one-handed cartwheel.
() Talked on the phone for more than six hours (in one day).
(x) Recently stayed up for a while talking to someone you care about.
At my telesales job, one measure of our performance was our "Duration", or literally the number of minutes were spent each day talking on the phones. A good day was held to be over three hours of actual talking; the standard was to have over 150 minutes total Duration. I rarely managed more than 120 minutes. My best days were Mondays, when I'd call a hospital pharmacist in Ohio (Akron, I believe) who would cheerfully talk on the phone about anything at all. That guy was a conversational Godsend at the time. All of the other sales reps in the office had regular customers they'd been calling for years and could carry on long conversations with them; the woman next to me would often have calls go on for forty-five minutes before she ever made a sales pitch. I never got to that point.
Level 22
() Picked and ate an apple right off the tree.
(x) Climbed a tree.
(x) Had/been in a tree house.
(x) Been scared to watch scary movies alone.
I've had apples that were extremely fresh, as in, picked that day, but never done the picking myself. As for the other things, well yeah.
Level 23
(x) Believed in ghosts.
() Have had more than thirty pairs of shoes (not necessarily all at once).
() Gone streaking.
(x) Visited jail.
I believed in ghosts as a kid and then got over it later on. I don't believe in them now, but I'd like to; I just think that a world with ghosts would be pretty cool. And lightsabers. As for jail, I've visited in school field trips. I've never been a "Guest of Honor" though.
Level 24
() Played chicken.
() Been pushed into a pool with all your clothes on.
() Been told you’re hot by a complete stranger.
(x) Broken a bone.
(x) Been easily amused.
Chicken is for idiots. I've swum fully clothed before, but never been pushed, so that doesn't count. I've never once had a stranger comment on my looks (except for the once-a-year thing that happens here when some random visitor leaves a comment, always anonymous, that I'm fat). Bones? I broke my collarbone in junior high school, and I'm incredibly easily amused.
Level 25
() Caught a fish then ate it later.
() Made a porn video.
(x) Caught a Butterfly.
(x) Laughed so hard you cried.
() Cried so hard you laughed.
I've never fished in my life! This seems to me a great missed opportunity. I've caught butterflies but always tried to be gentle about it, and to my way of thinking, there's nothing better than to laugh so hard that you cry. This hasn't happened in a while, actually.
Level 26
(x) Mooned/flashed someone.
() Had someone moon/flash you.
(x) Cheated on a test.
(x) Forgotten someone’s name.
() French braided someone’s hair.
() Gone skinny dipping.
() Been kicked out of your house.
() Tried to hurt yourself.
Yeah, I had too much to drink one night and mooned a college prof I didn't like too much at the time. And I snuck a glance at a textbook during a test once or twice. I'm awful with names, just awful. Seriously, I'm terrible with them, and it's a good thing that I work in a place where nametags are required. I've never seen skinny dipping as all that attractive of a prospect.
Level 27
(x) Rode a roller coaster.
(x) Went scuba-diving/snorkelling.
(x) Had a cavity.
() Blackmailed someone.
() Been blackmailed.
Roller coasters are great, but I only like the ones that don't go upside down, and I hate indoor ones that go in complete darkness. Snorkeling? Just one time, at Disney World, in a controlled tank setting.
Level 28
() Been used.
(x) Fell going up the stairs.
() Licked a cat.
(x) Bitten someone.
() Licked someone - not in private places
Licking cats. Okily-dokily.
Level 29
() Been shot at/or at gunpoint.
() Flattened someone’s tires.
(x) Rode your car/truck until the gas light came on.
(x) Got five dollars or less worth of gas.
Guns give me the willies. Don't like them. As for the two things I've done, which "gas light" are we talking about? If the "warning" light, which comes on when you're on your last gallon, I drive until that comes on all the time. If there's some light that indicates "You will run out of gas within the next forty feet of driving", then no. I've never driven until I literally ran out of gas. I have purchased tiny amounts of gas before; once I pulled into a full-serve station in Canada and handed the lady a Toonie (that's a two-dollar coin) and asked for exactly that much gas. She rolled her eyes at me, but did it anyway.
Well, that was a strange quiz.
Sunday, February 03, 2008
Let a warm glow spread throughout the land!
Congratulations to the 2007 New England Patriots, who have just eclipsed the 1998 Minnesota Vikings and the 2004 Pittsburgh Steelers as the greatest team to fail to win the Super Bowl. This is a team that will never be forgotten! Let their praises be sung, and let the faithful advance all the tortured logic they can to assure the world that 18-1 really is every bit as impressive as 17-0, even though all of us who live in the real world know that's just not the case. And let us not forget that Saint Tom has now, for two years in a row, come into a game facing a "score or lose" situation, and walked off the field having opted for the latter. So much for Mr. Clutch, the greatest QB of All Time.
OK, gloating aside, this was a terrific game; it was a sufficiently good game that had the Patriots pulled off the win, either 14-10 or 21-17 or 20-17 in overtime, I wouldn't have even minded. (But if that had happened, I sure as hell wouldn't have posted anything about the game!)
Sunday Burst of Weirdness
In going through my blogroll earlier, I realized I hadn't checked in on Short Fat Guy in quite some time, and lo and behold, he has lots of fun weird stuff, so just some links to him.
:: First, one wonders if news editors bother to read their headlines.
:: Next, he reports on a bill being proposed in Mississippi to forbid obese people from eating in restaurants. Of course, I can't believe a bill like this has a chance of going anywhere; all those casinos in Biloxi surely rely on the income that more than a few high-BMI'd people bring in. (Oh, and you know how Republicans are always decrying the "Nanny State"? Especially those Southern Republicans? Well, guess the party affiliation of two of the three authors of this bill.)
:: And finally, he's got the goods on some bloopers from the Lord of the Rings movies! You know there's got to be a lot more of this stuff, with all the film they shot.
:: First, one wonders if news editors bother to read their headlines.
:: Next, he reports on a bill being proposed in Mississippi to forbid obese people from eating in restaurants. Of course, I can't believe a bill like this has a chance of going anywhere; all those casinos in Biloxi surely rely on the income that more than a few high-BMI'd people bring in. (Oh, and you know how Republicans are always decrying the "Nanny State"? Especially those Southern Republicans? Well, guess the party affiliation of two of the three authors of this bill.)
:: And finally, he's got the goods on some bloopers from the Lord of the Rings movies! You know there's got to be a lot more of this stuff, with all the film they shot.
Top Ten Bond Females
So I was thinking of stealing a posting habit from Tosy and Cosh, and start doing Top Ten lists of random stuff, and the other night, as The Family Unit sat down to watch For Your Eyes Only, I figured I had the obvious starting list: my personal Top Ten Bond Girls. Well, lo and behold, it turns out that someone went and took a poll to determine who the Top and Bottom Ten Bond Girls happen to be, at least as far as British public opinion goes. I'll give my own list below, but first, I must discuss the polling results, because they're, well, really bad.
First, here are the lists, with the Worst Bond Girls first, followed by the Best Bond Girls.
(Wait a minute, actually, before I do that, let me renew my objection to the somewhat sexist term "Bond Girls". I only use it here because the linked article already uses it, and it's pretty much the accepted way of referring to these characters as a group.)
OK, the lists:
First, here are the lists, with the Worst Bond Girls first, followed by the Best Bond Girls.
(Wait a minute, actually, before I do that, let me renew my objection to the somewhat sexist term "Bond Girls". I only use it here because the linked article already uses it, and it's pretty much the accepted way of referring to these characters as a group.)
OK, the lists:
Worst Bond girls
1. Denise Richards as Dr Christmas Jones in "The World Is Not Enough"
2. Tanya Roberts as Stacey Sutton in "A View To A Kill"
3. Corrine Clery as Corinne Dufour in "Moonraker"
4. Maryam D'Abo as Kara Milovy in "The Living Daylights"
5. Karin Dor as Helga Brandt in "You Only Live Twice"
6. Britt Ekland as Mary Goodnight in "The Man With the Golden Gun"
7. Carey Lowell as Pam Bouvier in "License to Kill"
8. Lois Chiles as Holly Goodhead in "Moonraker"
9. Lynn-Holly Johnson as Lili Bahl in "For Your Eyes Only"
10. Maud Adams as Octopussy in, you guessed it, "Octopussy"
Best Bond girls
1.Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder in "Dr. No"
2. Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore in "Goldfinger"
3. Diana Rigg as Tracey Divicenzo in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"
4. Eva Green as Vesper Lynd in "Casino Royale"
5. Barbara Bach as Anya Amasova in "The Spy Who Loved Me"
6. Famke Janssen as Xenia Onatopp in "Goldeneye"
7. Michelle Yeoh as Wai Lin in "Tommorrow Never Dies"
8. Lotte Enya as Rosa Klebb in "From Russia With Love"
9. Jill St. John as Tiffany Case in "Diamonds Are Forever"
10. Carole Bouquet as Melina Havelock in "For Your Eyes Only"
Got all that? Well, where to begin?
First of all, we should probably establish just what a "Bond Girl" is, since by my personal reckoning, some of those listed aren't "Bond Girls" at all. When I read these lists, I had to think to myself, "Hmmm, they seem to be pretty liberal in what they consider to be a Bond Girl", which then led me to wonder what a Bond Girl really is. My personal definition, therefore, is as follows:
A Bond Girl is a female character with whom James Bond engages in the act of sexual congress who is either (1) on Bond's side, (2) totally incidental to Bond's mission, or (3) initially against Bond but comes to his side after the afore-mentioned act of sexual congress.
This definition automatically rules out several of the "Bond Girls" listed in the polls. Taking their "Worst Girls" list first, we can exclude Helga Brandt (You Only Live Twice), because she's a villain and although Bond gets her to not kill him by using his manly charm, she doesn't change her allegiance, and we can likewise toss aside Bibi Dahl (For Your Eyes Only), who is a notable female character in that not only does Bond not sleep with her, he actually refuses to do so, and quite vehemently, at that. Those two are not Bond Girls. (By the way, you'd think that whoever wrote this article could at least get the character names right. It's Bibi Dahl, not Lili.)
As for the second list, GoldenEye's Xenia Onatopp is disqualified on two counts: first, she's a villain who doesn't change allegiance, and second, she doesn't actually sleep with James Bond. (They engage in some kinky swimming pool foreplay before Bond grabs his gun and forces her to take him to the boss.) The same goes for From Russia With Love's Rosa Klebb, whose presence on this list is almost laughable: not only is she a villain through and through who never considers changing sides for one second, and not only does she not sleep with James Bond, it's doubtful that Bond would ever even attempt to sleep with her because she's and old, ugly, and frumpy woman, to be quite frank. (If you're having trouble placing her, this should help.) The notion that Rosa Klebb can be thought of as a Bond Girl makes one wonder if the people putting the poll together just gathered a list of female characters who appear in Bond movies and called them all "Bond Girls"; if that's the case, one rightly wonders why Miss Moneypenny doesn't appear on the list. (Not that she should, since she's not a Bond Girl either.)
And besides, the lists are just bad anyway, on other grounds. Ursula Andress is the best Bond Girl? Huh? Sure, that shot of her, bikini-clad as she emerges from the water, is a famous shot, but as a character, she's of almost no interest at all, and Andress's performance is pretty much monotoned throughout. Honor Blackman, second? Ahead of Diana Rigg? Really, folks, we need to get over the notion that Goldfinger is the best of the Bond movies. Pussy Galore's got that name, of course, but again, she's not a terribly interesting character and it doesn't help that Blackman comes in third among the other potential Bond Girls in the very same film, in terms of plain physical beauty. (Both of the doomed Masterson sisters are prettier, and it's a shame Tilly had to die, because she was potentially interesting.)
Likewise, I've always thought that Barbara Bach is a tad overrated as well in The Spy Who Loved Me. Her accent is unconvincing, and while the idea of Bond having a female counterpart in the KGB who's as capable as he is could be interesting, the movie doesn't really do much with this notion, making Anya a damsel-in-distress several times, including at the end of the movie. And Jill St. John's Tiffany Case (Diamonds Are Forever)? Huh-whuh? Bond himself calls her a "stupid twit", and that's pretty much what she turns out to be.
Of course, the lists aren't complete bollocks. Some Bond Girls fail on the basis of their performances (Honey Rider), while others fail because the characters aren't well written (Stacy Sutton), and all this is opinion, anyway. It's always struck me as unfair that Tanya Roberts gets pilloried for her character's wailing ("James! Don't leave me! James! James!") and her failure to notice things like propeller-driven airships coming up behind her, when none of that was Roberts's fault, unless she did some script-doctoring and didn't receive screen credit for her work in that capacity. Likewise, Denise Richards can't be blamed totally for her character's lack of focus in the script to The World is Not Enough, but frankly, as an actress she's blown right off the screen by Sophie Marceau (not a Bond Girl, because she's a villain to the end).
So there are names I'd bump from the "Best" list, but what of the "Worst" list? Who would I bump there? Well, frankly, I've always liked Lois Chiles (Moonraker), Maud Adams (Octopussy), and Maryam d'Abo (The Living Daylights). They perform well, they're beautiful, and the characters are nicely written. Chiles, I think, may be the most underrated of all "Bond Girls"; she's the CIA female equivalent of Bond, as Anya Amasova was one film earlier in the KGB, but she doesn't end up the damsel in distress, instead being an actual equal and partner in Bond's heroics. Maud Adams and Maryam d'Abo also show a lot of spunk, with d'Abo particularly displaying nice character growth as she becomes more and more capable as the film goes on.
But anyway, time for what I meant to do in the first place: a list of the Top Ten Bond Girls.
1. Diana Rigg as Teresa di Vicenzo, On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
2. Eva Green as Vesper Lynd, Casino Royale.
3. Carole Bouquet as Melina Havelock, For Your Eyes Only.
4. Lois Chiles as Holly Goodhead, Moonraker.
5. Claudine Auger as Domino Derval, Thunderball.
6. Jane Seymour as Solitaire, Live and Let Die.
7. Carey Lowell as Pam Bouvier, Licence to Kill.
8. Izabella Scorupco as Natalya Simonova, GoldenEye.
9. Maud Adams as Octopussy, Octopussy.
10. Maryam d'Abo as Kara Milovy, The Living Daylights.
And there you have it. No, I'm not doing a worst list.
Blogroll Amnesty Day
Jon Swift is spearheading Blogroll Amnesty Day, but with a reversal of the original idea, which was coined by Atrios as "Permission to Delete Any Blog You Want From Your Blogroll Day", about a year or so ago. Not a big deal, if you're one of the highly-trafficked blogs removed from blogrolls, but a big deal indeed if you're a small fish.
(And then there's me, who's the blog equivalent of plankton.)
Anyhow, Mr. Swift took exception to that and reverse the intent, and now Blogroll Amnesty Day is when you're supposed to give link love to other, smaller blogs. So I'll be doing that, but a day late, as this week's installment of Sentential Links. But anyone who wants to appear on my blogroll can drop a link in comments to this post.
(Ironically, I just discovered today's Blogroll Amnesty Day event whilst in the course of...purging my blogroll. It had been a while since I'd done so, and I needed to remove quite a few inactive blogs.)
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Dugg
OK, I've removed the Digg code from my posts. It was making the blog load in weird fashion, and the only weirdness here will be created by me. Maybe I'll try to figure out where that was going wrong sometime, maybe not.
BTW, still having minor computer problems. Nothing massive, but annoying. Normal posting will resume...sometime.
BTW, still having minor computer problems. Nothing massive, but annoying. Normal posting will resume...sometime.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
AGGHHHH!!!!
So this morning, before work, I went online to check stuff like weather (I've never seen a winter this windy, and I spent four winters in Iowa) and whether the school had been closed for The Daughter (it had) and check e-mail. When I closed out AOL, it did that AOL thing it likes to do sometimes where it downloads its own new features (what these are, I have no idea) and requires you to restart your computer. So I clicked "Restart", and headed for the bathroom to do my teeth and whatnot.
While I was in the bathroom, the power went out for a minute and then came back on. When I came out, I discovered that the restart had failed, and that a file with the ominous-sounding name "Config" had been corrupted. I can only surmise that the computer was trying to do something when the power failure to the apartment interrupted it before it was done, and it wasn't able to recover itself once the power came back on.
So I've just completed the arduous task of running PC Recovery, which restores the computer to its "Out of the box" state. Which is fine, since I'm now up and running again, but it's literally the "Out of the box" state. As in, everything I had on the hard drive is gone.
Now, this isn't too disastrous, really; most of the important stuff, minus maybe a month's worth of photos, was still available via my laptop and my USB flash drives, and even some of the photos I can grab again off Flickr. The music can all be recovered too, I suppose, although that will take some doing. But all of my bookmarks from Firefox are gone, including a giant folder I had of blogs that I hadn't yet come round to blogrolling. This has happened before, and I've in the past been able to find some of those blogs again by memory, but for the most part, I expect that many of them will never be visited by me again, and that's a shame, since there were some good ones there.
Oh well, nothing lasts forever...but really, hiccups like this are why I'm deeply suspicious of our society's apparent decision that physical media are Teh Suck. (I'm sure there's some way I could have saved some of the stuff on the hard drive -- maybe there still is, and I'm all ears, folks -- but I never have to undergo serious technical work for an entire afternoon to recover the music on a CD. I'm just sayin'.)
And the weather? Yeah. The wind this winter is making me batty.
While I was in the bathroom, the power went out for a minute and then came back on. When I came out, I discovered that the restart had failed, and that a file with the ominous-sounding name "Config" had been corrupted. I can only surmise that the computer was trying to do something when the power failure to the apartment interrupted it before it was done, and it wasn't able to recover itself once the power came back on.
So I've just completed the arduous task of running PC Recovery, which restores the computer to its "Out of the box" state. Which is fine, since I'm now up and running again, but it's literally the "Out of the box" state. As in, everything I had on the hard drive is gone.
Now, this isn't too disastrous, really; most of the important stuff, minus maybe a month's worth of photos, was still available via my laptop and my USB flash drives, and even some of the photos I can grab again off Flickr. The music can all be recovered too, I suppose, although that will take some doing. But all of my bookmarks from Firefox are gone, including a giant folder I had of blogs that I hadn't yet come round to blogrolling. This has happened before, and I've in the past been able to find some of those blogs again by memory, but for the most part, I expect that many of them will never be visited by me again, and that's a shame, since there were some good ones there.
Oh well, nothing lasts forever...but really, hiccups like this are why I'm deeply suspicious of our society's apparent decision that physical media are Teh Suck. (I'm sure there's some way I could have saved some of the stuff on the hard drive -- maybe there still is, and I'm all ears, folks -- but I never have to undergo serious technical work for an entire afternoon to recover the music on a CD. I'm just sayin'.)
And the weather? Yeah. The wind this winter is making me batty.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Sentential Links #126
Links, links, links, linx....
:: All in all, a disappointment from a man who promised real and significant change on Day One. Perhaps he meant Day One of Year Three?
:: First of all, Dad’s doing better, to the extent that timetables are being considered for him to return home. (Good news, indeed, and glad to see that Red's getting back in the saddle.)
:: Truth is, when wingnuts see 'Soros' they think 'Blofeld'.
:: Food that is high in fats and starches is cheaper than food that isn't. (This is all you need to know when confronted by someone who opines that we shouldn't feel bad for poor people because they have a greater incidence of obesity.
:: I think it's the most human thing anyone has ever said to me. I was utterly slain by it.
:: These days, post-Pirates, I'm fully recovered from my adolescent insecurity and Johnny Depp now holds a high position on my short-list of favorite actors.
:: With Ledger’s passing, I’m reminded of Britney Spears’s situation and what appears to be her inexorable path to oblivion.
:: I am, as they say, incorrigible. (I should be so incorrigible!)
:: Rare is the performance that can honestly be called a "revelation," but that's what it felt like to watch Heath Ledger in "Brokeback Mountain." (I really need to see that movie. I have only seen Ledger in The Patriot, which I didn't like, and A Knight's Tale, which I did. I liked Ledger in both films.)
We'll return next week. Tip your waitress.
:: All in all, a disappointment from a man who promised real and significant change on Day One. Perhaps he meant Day One of Year Three?
:: First of all, Dad’s doing better, to the extent that timetables are being considered for him to return home. (Good news, indeed, and glad to see that Red's getting back in the saddle.)
:: Truth is, when wingnuts see 'Soros' they think 'Blofeld'.
:: Food that is high in fats and starches is cheaper than food that isn't. (This is all you need to know when confronted by someone who opines that we shouldn't feel bad for poor people because they have a greater incidence of obesity.
:: I think it's the most human thing anyone has ever said to me. I was utterly slain by it.
:: These days, post-Pirates, I'm fully recovered from my adolescent insecurity and Johnny Depp now holds a high position on my short-list of favorite actors.
:: With Ledger’s passing, I’m reminded of Britney Spears’s situation and what appears to be her inexorable path to oblivion.
:: I am, as they say, incorrigible. (I should be so incorrigible!)
:: Rare is the performance that can honestly be called a "revelation," but that's what it felt like to watch Heath Ledger in "Brokeback Mountain." (I really need to see that movie. I have only seen Ledger in The Patriot, which I didn't like, and A Knight's Tale, which I did. I liked Ledger in both films.)
We'll return next week. Tip your waitress.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Sunday Burst of Weirdness
:: OK, I'm going to assume that this is a spoof of some kind, but if not, I apologize for serving Satan all these years. How could I have known???
:: I can't imagine.
:: I haven't tried it yet, so I don't know how it works, and it's maybe not "weird" in the normal sense, but Cookthink.com is a site that lets you enter tags based on what you're craving and then it comes up with what you should make. Could be useful.
OK, that's all for now.
:: I can't imagine.
:: I haven't tried it yet, so I don't know how it works, and it's maybe not "weird" in the normal sense, but Cookthink.com is a site that lets you enter tags based on what you're craving and then it comes up with what you should make. Could be useful.
OK, that's all for now.
Buffalo, conquering the world!
Gregg Easterbrook, who can be right once in a while, on Buffalo pizza:
TMQ lamented that it longs to savor Chicago deep-dish pizza; those objects in the grocer's freezer just don't do it, and restaurant chains that advertise "Chicago-style" pizza seem to mean East Chicago, Ind. Jeff Roberts of Columbus, Ohio, reported that Giordano's, the current mecca of deep-dish pizza, now ships its pies overnight. The new pizza sensation that's waiting to happen is Buffalo pizza, which is roughly a cross between Chicago style and the Greenwich Village style of "foldable" pizza preferred in New York City. An out-of-the-way place called Bocce Club in the Buffalo suburbs makes the best Buffalo-style pizza and also ships overnight. Taste-makers, this form of pizza needs to be discovered.
I've long thought that people 'round these parts are too hard on Buffalo pizza. Let its praises be sung!
One Hundred Movies!!! (21 through 30)
Only thirty spots remain on my list of One Hundred Movies Everybody Who's Worth Anything As A Human Being Had Better Love, as objectively selected by a committee of...me. Let's fill another ten of those slots! Because what's more fun than filling slots? (Besides playing Missile Command, that is.)
30. The Silence of the Lambs
What I always find interesting about Anthony Hopkins's portrayal of Hannibal Lecter is that it's so distinctive that virtually nothing of it carries over into his roles in other films. I've seen Hopkins in lots of movies, and I can't think of a single scene in any other movie of his that makes me think, "Yup, that's the same guy who played Lecter!". And it's not an illusion of makeup or appearance, either; the only thing distinctive about Lecter's appearance is his slicked-back hair. The way Hopkins is able to fill his eyes and voice with quiet malevolence is astonishing, and so completely does he create his character that when Lecter makes his escape, we already know that there's no way he'll ever come after Agent Starling, even before she says that he won't because "he'd consider it rude".
The movie's an amazing thriller, by the way.
Signature moment: My favorite line of Lecter's is when he comments on the grisly death of one of his former patients: "Best thing for him, really. His therapy was going nowhere."
29. Wayne's World
It's not mentioned enough, I think, that the proper making of a lowbrow comedy requires quite a bit of sophistication. Wayne's World is full of cheerful humor from beginning to end, it's stuffed full of pop-culture references ("We gotta get him to Rampart, stat!"), it genuinely seems to know its subject matter ("I have an extensive collection of nametags and hairnets"), and it wisely never dwells on a single joke, allowing them to pass as quickly as they come.
Signature moment: "It will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine!"
28. Pulp Fiction
Oft-imitated but, to my knowledge, never equaled. I saw this movie on the strength of two particularly enthusiastic thumbs up from Siskel and Ebert, when they raved about the film's intelligent dialog. The first time I saw it, it was an afternoon showing and the theater was completely empty save for me. The second time I saw it, a couple of months later, the film's stature had grown, and this time the theater was packed. I've always admired the film's cyclical structure in its narrative, as well as the admittedly brilliant, if profane, dialog.
Signature moment: There's a terrific little exchange when Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and his dealer (Eric Stolz) are about to administer an adrenaline shot to Mia Wallace's (Uma Thurman) heart. The dealer guy mimes the forceful motion Vega is to make with the syringe to get it through her breast bone, making the motion three times for emphasis, and Vincent, who isn't too bright, asks, "Do I gotta stab her three times?"
27. ET: The Extra Terrestrial
Wow, it occurs to me that I haven't seen this movie in way too long. I suppose its story is known by pretty much everybody. It bugs me that ET hasn't become an annually televised movie on some network, the way that The Sound of Music and It's A Wonderful Life have, because it's just about the single best "family" movie I know.
Signature moment: "I'll be right here" is one of the greatest closing lines to a movie that I've ever heard.
26. Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
And here we go, with the first appearance of a Star Wars movie on my list. Its pacing is a bit off at times, I admit, and the Ewoks are played too much for laughs; I'd have made them a bit more savage and fearsome ("short" need not indicate a lack of fearsomeness). However, the Ewoks have never offended me as they do most Star Wars fans; the space battle is amazing; the final confrontation between Luke and Vader is powerful, powerful stuff. I've also never agreed that Han Solo's character is rendered uninteresting in this movie; his official joining of the Rebellion seems to me the logical conclusion to his character's growth over the course of the Original Trilogy. Nor do I think that he should have died. So yeah, ROTJ is a good movie. So there.
Signature moment: The quiet scene between Luke and Vader on the Endor moon is, I think, a very underrated scene. It sets up the conflict in the heart of Darth Vader quite nicely.
25. Star Trek: First Contact
The Trek films have been an odd bunch, but overall I think that most of them have been halfway decent, with only one real honest-to-goodness bad movie among them (and no, it's not The Final Frontier, although that one does come close). Although the record of the four films featuring the Next Generation crew is more spotty than the previous six featuring the Original Series crew, First Contact is the best of the TNG films and one of the best of the series. What's good about it is that it doesn't get overly bogged down in bizarre technobabble, that its story is grounded in both TNG and TOS lore, right down to the fact that Zefram Cochrane's experimental warp ship sports nacelles that are modeled on those of the Enterprise from the very first TV episodes way back in 1967. It's too bad that the next two TNG flicks were, respectively, middling and then downright awful.
Signature moment: Data utters the classic Borg line, "Resistance is futile". (If only they'd called that the last word on Data's quest to be a human.)
24. Raiders of the Lost Ark
It's Raiders of the Lost Ark. Not Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark; just Raiders, thank you very much. I wrote about the Indy Jones movies last year, so suffice it to say that this movie made the three-year wait between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi much easier to bear.
Signature moment: The desert chase; one of the greatest of all action sequences.
23. Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
I've spilled lots of cyber-ink about this, both in praising it and mentally remaking it, so I'll just leave it there.
Signature moment: Sunset on Coruscant. This effects shot lasts all of ten seconds or so, but it's utterly beautiful. For all the bitching about CGI, what the PT establishes is that in the hands of dedicated artists, CGI turns out to be just another medium for the creation of beauty.
22. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
For more, check the Star Trek Redux series of posts linked in the sidebar. Suffice it for now to note that I value this film more highly than the usual pick for the best of the Trek movies, The Wrath of Khan.
Signature moment: The signatures of the TOS actors at the very end of the movie.
21. Superman
X-Men 2 and Spiderman 2 have come close, but neither has quite managed to knock the original Superman from my personal perch as the best superhero movie ever. I love the epic scope of the production and that it has a "look" all its own, apart from the SF movie craze that was in full swing at the end of the late 70s (gee, I wonder why). Even more amazing is that the movie turned out good at all, given its turbulent production. (The nickel version is that the original intent was to shoot all footage for Superman and Superman II at once, but a falling-out between the producers and director Richard Donner resulted in lots of ad-hoc editing, rewriting and reshooting of sequel material by new director Richard Lester.) Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor is one of my favorite movie villains, and John Williams served up one of his classic scores.
Signature moment: Lex Luthor's line, "We all have our little faults. Mine's in California!"
And that's it for now. Next time we'll enter the Top Twenty, in which we'll discover my favorite Disney movie ever, my two favorite romantic comedies ever, and my favorite Tom Hanks movie. Zap! Pow!
30. The Silence of the Lambs
What I always find interesting about Anthony Hopkins's portrayal of Hannibal Lecter is that it's so distinctive that virtually nothing of it carries over into his roles in other films. I've seen Hopkins in lots of movies, and I can't think of a single scene in any other movie of his that makes me think, "Yup, that's the same guy who played Lecter!". And it's not an illusion of makeup or appearance, either; the only thing distinctive about Lecter's appearance is his slicked-back hair. The way Hopkins is able to fill his eyes and voice with quiet malevolence is astonishing, and so completely does he create his character that when Lecter makes his escape, we already know that there's no way he'll ever come after Agent Starling, even before she says that he won't because "he'd consider it rude".
The movie's an amazing thriller, by the way.
Signature moment: My favorite line of Lecter's is when he comments on the grisly death of one of his former patients: "Best thing for him, really. His therapy was going nowhere."
29. Wayne's World
It's not mentioned enough, I think, that the proper making of a lowbrow comedy requires quite a bit of sophistication. Wayne's World is full of cheerful humor from beginning to end, it's stuffed full of pop-culture references ("We gotta get him to Rampart, stat!"), it genuinely seems to know its subject matter ("I have an extensive collection of nametags and hairnets"), and it wisely never dwells on a single joke, allowing them to pass as quickly as they come.
Signature moment: "It will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine!"
28. Pulp Fiction
Oft-imitated but, to my knowledge, never equaled. I saw this movie on the strength of two particularly enthusiastic thumbs up from Siskel and Ebert, when they raved about the film's intelligent dialog. The first time I saw it, it was an afternoon showing and the theater was completely empty save for me. The second time I saw it, a couple of months later, the film's stature had grown, and this time the theater was packed. I've always admired the film's cyclical structure in its narrative, as well as the admittedly brilliant, if profane, dialog.
Signature moment: There's a terrific little exchange when Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and his dealer (Eric Stolz) are about to administer an adrenaline shot to Mia Wallace's (Uma Thurman) heart. The dealer guy mimes the forceful motion Vega is to make with the syringe to get it through her breast bone, making the motion three times for emphasis, and Vincent, who isn't too bright, asks, "Do I gotta stab her three times?"
27. ET: The Extra Terrestrial
Wow, it occurs to me that I haven't seen this movie in way too long. I suppose its story is known by pretty much everybody. It bugs me that ET hasn't become an annually televised movie on some network, the way that The Sound of Music and It's A Wonderful Life have, because it's just about the single best "family" movie I know.
Signature moment: "I'll be right here" is one of the greatest closing lines to a movie that I've ever heard.
26. Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
And here we go, with the first appearance of a Star Wars movie on my list. Its pacing is a bit off at times, I admit, and the Ewoks are played too much for laughs; I'd have made them a bit more savage and fearsome ("short" need not indicate a lack of fearsomeness). However, the Ewoks have never offended me as they do most Star Wars fans; the space battle is amazing; the final confrontation between Luke and Vader is powerful, powerful stuff. I've also never agreed that Han Solo's character is rendered uninteresting in this movie; his official joining of the Rebellion seems to me the logical conclusion to his character's growth over the course of the Original Trilogy. Nor do I think that he should have died. So yeah, ROTJ is a good movie. So there.
Signature moment: The quiet scene between Luke and Vader on the Endor moon is, I think, a very underrated scene. It sets up the conflict in the heart of Darth Vader quite nicely.
25. Star Trek: First Contact
The Trek films have been an odd bunch, but overall I think that most of them have been halfway decent, with only one real honest-to-goodness bad movie among them (and no, it's not The Final Frontier, although that one does come close). Although the record of the four films featuring the Next Generation crew is more spotty than the previous six featuring the Original Series crew, First Contact is the best of the TNG films and one of the best of the series. What's good about it is that it doesn't get overly bogged down in bizarre technobabble, that its story is grounded in both TNG and TOS lore, right down to the fact that Zefram Cochrane's experimental warp ship sports nacelles that are modeled on those of the Enterprise from the very first TV episodes way back in 1967. It's too bad that the next two TNG flicks were, respectively, middling and then downright awful.
Signature moment: Data utters the classic Borg line, "Resistance is futile". (If only they'd called that the last word on Data's quest to be a human.)
24. Raiders of the Lost Ark
It's Raiders of the Lost Ark. Not Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark; just Raiders, thank you very much. I wrote about the Indy Jones movies last year, so suffice it to say that this movie made the three-year wait between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi much easier to bear.
Signature moment: The desert chase; one of the greatest of all action sequences.
23. Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
I've spilled lots of cyber-ink about this, both in praising it and mentally remaking it, so I'll just leave it there.
Signature moment: Sunset on Coruscant. This effects shot lasts all of ten seconds or so, but it's utterly beautiful. For all the bitching about CGI, what the PT establishes is that in the hands of dedicated artists, CGI turns out to be just another medium for the creation of beauty.
22. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
For more, check the Star Trek Redux series of posts linked in the sidebar. Suffice it for now to note that I value this film more highly than the usual pick for the best of the Trek movies, The Wrath of Khan.
Signature moment: The signatures of the TOS actors at the very end of the movie.
21. Superman
X-Men 2 and Spiderman 2 have come close, but neither has quite managed to knock the original Superman from my personal perch as the best superhero movie ever. I love the epic scope of the production and that it has a "look" all its own, apart from the SF movie craze that was in full swing at the end of the late 70s (gee, I wonder why). Even more amazing is that the movie turned out good at all, given its turbulent production. (The nickel version is that the original intent was to shoot all footage for Superman and Superman II at once, but a falling-out between the producers and director Richard Donner resulted in lots of ad-hoc editing, rewriting and reshooting of sequel material by new director Richard Lester.) Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor is one of my favorite movie villains, and John Williams served up one of his classic scores.
Signature moment: Lex Luthor's line, "We all have our little faults. Mine's in California!"
And that's it for now. Next time we'll enter the Top Twenty, in which we'll discover my favorite Disney movie ever, my two favorite romantic comedies ever, and my favorite Tom Hanks movie. Zap! Pow!
Saturday, January 26, 2008
I'd have asked for her laptop
Mrs. M-Mv wonders if her reaction to someone asking for her newspaper is the normal one:
Can I read that?"
I looked up.
"That newspaper. Can I have it?"
I blinked.
"Are you reading it? Whose is it?"
"Mine. From home."
"Well, are you reading it?"
I wordlessly handed the interloper the newspaper.
"Are you sure?"
"Sure. Thanks."
"Thank you."
Nonplussed is not an adjective that one can easily link to my name, but I assure you, I was nonplussed by this interaction. My socially gifted husband maintains that this sort of interaction is both normal and common among the gregarious, but I'm not so sure: The newspaper was clearly part of my stuff (i.e., it wasn't on a seat beside me on the commuter train, for example). People person or no, you cannot tell me that it is commonplace for adults to ask for (all but demand in tone) access to what other adults possess, no matter how trivial the possession might be.
Or can you?
Well, kind of.
Assuming this transcript of the interaction is accurate (no reason to suppose that Mrs. M-Mv is making it up or embellishing), the request seems to have been made fairly brusquely, but in my experience, that's not an uncommon thing. When people are gathered together in a boring circumstance, and one has a newspaper and another doesn't, someone may ask if they can read the other person's paper. Now, this usually comes with all kinds of extra verbiage, though: not "Can I read that?" but, "Hey, do you mind if I read your paper? I didn't think to buy one." If this is met with a skeptical glance, then one follows up with, "I'll give it right back, and I promise I won't fold it funny or do your crossword puzzle."
In my experience, bringing a newspaper into a group of adults is not unlike a kid walking onto a playground with a ball when none of the other kids brought their own: somebody's going to want to play with it, and they're going to ask if they can. But it's also my experience that this only applies to newspapers (or, more sporadically, popular magazines like Time or People). I've never sat in a waiting room with two books and had someone ask if they could read the one I'm not reading.
In short, newspapers aren't seen as "community property" if someone walks in with one, but they are seen as something cheap that one shouldn't feel ashamed to ask to look at for a moment. That's my take, anyhow. Thoughts?
OD'ing on Quizzes
Yup, here are three, count 'em, three quizzes. I grabbed all three of these from here, after finding them via here.
Quiz the First
Come on now, even if they won't admit it, everyone really wants to peek in their friend's cabinets and see what they use. Here's your chance! List your favorite product(s) for each of the following categories. You can also expand on why you like them, how long you've used them, etc.
1) Laundry detergent: Arm&Hammer's "dye-free" detergent. We discovered some time ago that certain items with blue dyes make The Daughter break out, so we switched to this. (Tale of Horror: back in the days when I took the laundry each week to the laundromat, there was an old couple who came in and stuffed all of their laundry into one of those front-loading machines, the ones with the thick glass door through which you can see the clothes being sloshed in the water. These folks brought with them an epic odor which quickly permeated the laundromat, and they didn't use any detergent; they simply trusted the water in the machine to do all the work. As I watched over the next fifteen minutes or so, I could see the water in their machines turning browner and browner and browner. I try not to be judgmental, but yeesh, folks.)
2) Fabric softener: None.
3) Floor cleaner: Occasionally Pine-sol or something like it, but most of them time, just sweeping, vacuuming, and Swiffers.
4) Carpet cleaner: Vacuuming, which I do once weekly. I'd like to get one of those Dyson vacuum cleaners someday, but on my list of "Potential Purchases That Cost Several Hundred Dollars", this ranks well below a new TV, a new stereo, and so on. I do like to spray the carpet occasionally with that canned foaming stuff that disappears and makes things smell nice. Periodically I'll also sprinkle troublesome areas with baking soda a half hour or so before vacuuming. (When cleaning carpets at The Store, I've used Rug Doctor products and been favorably impressed, given how much foot traffic those carpets see.)
5) Glass cleaner: The Store's brand. And thanks for the reminder; the old bottle is just about empty. (Tale of humor: Once The Wife and I were eating at a Burger King, when a new employee was sent outside to wash the windows. He very nicely doused everything with window cleaner, wiped away with his cloth, and then started squeegeeing. From the bottom up. He couldn't figure out why streaks kept running down onto his already-done work. This went on for ten minutes or so until the manager saw what was going on and went outside to show him to start sqeegeeing from the top.)
6) Dish detergent: Dawn, for hand-washing; those nifty soap-tablet things for the dishwasher, which I only run at most a couple of times a month, when the number of dirty dishes has piled up to epic levels. (For some reason, I have yet to find a store-brand that works as well as actual Dawn.)
7) Bathroom cleaner: Clorox bathroom cleaner in the spray bottle. It leaves a pleasant smell of disinfection without smelling like industrial medicine (think of a just-cleaned hospital bathroom), and the stuff works very well on hard-water stains on faucets and fixtures. I need a bottle of this, too.
8) Bath soap: SoftSoap shower gels. Pink grapefruit flavor is nice, as is the Pomegranate Mango.
9) Shampoo: Suave Green Apple.
10) Conditioner: Same.
11) Styling products: Just a detangling spray.
12) Deodorant: Some kind of Old Spice "Active" deodorant, or something like that. I have to be careful with deodorant as some brands make me break out in nasty rashes. I used to love the men's products at Bath and Beauty Works, but that product line as originally promoted must not have done very well, because they changed everything a few years later, reduced the offerings, and generally made everything disappointing. I have no idea now if they have a men's line at all, since B&BW stores tend to be in malls and I'm no longer much of a mall person. (By the way, the names of the scents on men's deodorants crack me up: my current brand comes in scents like "Victory" and "Power". I think they should have one called "Napalm in the Morning", personally. Or "Big Friggin' Steak".)
13) Toothpaste: Colgate Cinnamon, although lately we can't find it and are now using some boring blue mint flavor. (One time a vet gave me a tube of toothpaste for the cats we had at the time. It was Chicken flavor. Ewwww.)
14) Mouthwash: Crest's non-alcoholic stuff.
15) Face cleanser: I use the SoftSoap stuff for this as well.
16) Moisturizer: Nope.
17) Treatment: I don't even know what "Treatment" is!
18) Lip balm: Burt's Bees, but I don't use it very often.
19) Nail polish: Well, I'm not a woman, so....
20) Make up: Again....
Do you have a dishwasher?
Yes, as mentioned above.
Is your living room carpeted or does it have hardwood floors?
Every room is carpeted except the kitchen and bathroom.
Do you keep your kitchen knives on the counter or in a drawer?
We have a set in a knife block, while others are in a drawer.
House, apartment, duplex or trailer?
Apartment.
How many bedrooms is it?
Two.
Gas stove or electric?
Electric. We'd prefer gas, but that's what there is.
Do you have a yard?
The grounds of our apartment complex, I suppose.
What size TV is in the living room?
Nineteen inches. We'll get a bigger one someday, hopefully next year when we have to because of that all-digital thing.
Are your plates in the same cupboard as your cups?
No.
Is there a coffee maker sitting on your kitchen counter?
Yes.
What room is your computer in?
The desktop computer is in the living room; my laptop is on my desk in my "office area", which is a section of the living room that I basically claimed as my own when we moved in.
Are there pictures hanging in your living room?
Yes: a couple of mattes of The Daughter's one and three-year-old photos. There's also a wall-hanging of an Irish tapestry. In my office area, there's a National Geographic map of the world, a print of an antique map from the 1600s, two wall calendars (one with pre-Raphaelite "Camelot" themed art, the other with Star Wars art), a framed Phantom Menace poster, a print of a Casablanca poster, and a really cool looking (to me, anyway) mask that The Daughter made as a school project.
Are there any themes found in your home?
Yes, but only if "Hey, we can put this here because it fits!" counts as a theme. As a rule, though, I find that I'm not terribly comfortable in rooms where everything looks the same.
Do you have any curtains in your home?
No; we have blinds.
What color is your fridge?
That off-white "appliance" color. I greatly dislike our fridge, but that's the way it is.
Is your house clean?
My house is spotlessly clean and yet homey, with its yard bordered by a lovely wooden fence and the grounds dotted with trees and tall hedges along the street, giving us a bit of privacy. In the back there's a fire ring where we burn wood on summer and autumn nights. Maybe there's a barn, maybe not.
My apartment, however, is quite the monument to the Clutter Gods, although we are making slow progress this year toward eliminating lots of stuff. (One problem here is that we moved three times in two years, and each move was of the "It's Friday, your new job starts next Thursday, so get moved before then" type, which doesn't lend itself well to going through everything and tossing stuff before the actual move. So we're finding that we have stuff that hasn't been outside of a box in nearly seven years.)
What room is the most neglected?
We're pretty much equal opportunity neglecters, but if pressed for an answer, probably our own bedroom.
Are the dishes in your sink/dishwasher clean or dirty?
Dirty.
How long have you lived in your home?
Five years in April. Wow.
Where did you live before?
We lived outside Syracuse, NY for seven months or so, the winter of 2002 and 2003. We drove out of there in a moving truck the morning after the Orangemen, led by Carmelo Anthony, won the NCAA Championship. So I lived in a Championship City for about twelve hours.
Do you have one of those fluffy toilet lid covers on your toilet?
No. Never saw the point of those.
Do you have a scale anywhere in your house?
Does the kitchen scale count? I judge my weight by how my clothes fit, generally. I've started losing weight again lately, which is nice.
How many mirrors are in your house?
Two: bathroom and bedroom. (I can't remember where I read this, but I recently learned that in Tokyo young women don't carry compact mirrors anymore; they use their cellphone cameras for this purpose!)
Look up. What do you see?
Yeah, like I'm gonna fall for that.
Do you have a garage?
No. Our apartment complex rents garages an an extra thing, but there's no guarantee that your garage will be actually in the same section of the complex as your garage, so it doesn't seem worth it to us. We see people outside in our section of the complex all the time who have to drive over to our building just to access their garage. If that works for them, great, but we don't want that expense or inconvenience.
Quiz the Second
1. How old will you turn in 2008?
Thirteen thousand five hundred fifteen days.
2. Do you think you'll be married by then?
I should hope so, since I'm already married!
3. What do you look forward to most in the next 3 months?
Three months? Hmmmm. Doing more writing, I guess, and whittling down the waistline. I'm not sure what's in the offing in that time frame specifically.
4. Do you like to say "I told you so?"
Well, it depends on the situation.
5. Who was the last person to call you?
The Wife. She needed me to buy a bunch of celery for a recipe she made.
6. Do you prefer call or text?
Again, it depends. Calling seems best, but texting's good for "Hey I'm gonna be late" or "Stop and get some rum" or the like. My real preference, actually, is e-mail.
7. Do you have any pets?
Yes.
8. What were you doing at 1:30 am?
I was having a dream. No, I'm not telling you what it was.
9. What were you doing at 3:00 am?
Wondering what that dream meant.
10. When is the last time you saw your mom?
Earlier in the week, when she and my father brought The Wife's car back up from a trip to their car repair guru. (Guy's good.)
11. What is your mood?
I haven't the faintest idea since I misplaced my mood-ring when I was six. But for the purposes of this quiz, I'll declare myself a big ball of love!
12. How many houses have you lived in?
Counting all forms of domicile, I have lived in fifteen places, if I'm remembering them all correctly.
13. How many city/towns have you lived in?
Cranberry Township, PA; Portland, OR; Aloha, OR; LaCrosse, WI; Aloha, OR (different house); Elkins, WV (two houses there; the first is one of those family stories that we speak of in hushed tones); Hillsboro, OR; Allegany, NY; Olean, NY; West Seneca, NY; Baldwinsville, NY; Orchard Park, NY.
14. Do you prefer shoes, socks or bare feet?
Depends, really; I'll go with any as the circumstance calls. And I see nothing wrong with socks with sandals. Bite me, Fashion Police.
15. Are you a social person?
I'm one-half of a social person. My other half thinks that all people should go away.
16. What was the last thing you ate?
A burrito and chips at Moe's. I'm writing this in the morning, and I haven't had breakfast yet.
17. What's your favorite color?
Purple. (But I really like just about every color, except that one shade of green. You know the one I mean.)
18. What are you doing for your next birthday?
That's not until September, so I have no idea. We don't plan stuff like that this far out. (This year my birthday is on a Friday.)
19. What is your favorite TV show?
Scrubs, but that's ending this year. We're big Grey's Anatomy fans, but the show is starting to spin out of control a bit; it needs more new blood than just the two new characters they brought in this year.
20. What kind of jelly do you like on your PB & J sandwich?
My preference is strawberry, but the Wimminfolk insist that grape is the only acceptable jelly for PB&J, so that's what's on hand most of the time.
21. Do you like coffee?
Coffee is one of my mistresses. (Rum is another.)
22. What are you listening to?
Nothing right now, although earlier I was listening to the score to Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. (Post on this movie and its music forthcoming.)
23. Do you have an iPod?
No, and it's relatively low on my list of things to buy, as well. In fact, I'd rather just get some other brand of MP3 player. I've never sipped Apple's Kool-aid, and I'm not a big fan of the kind of company Apple is becoming.
24. How do you feel about the last person you kissed?
"Heh. You'll be swimming with the fishies soon!"
25. Do you sleep on a certain side of the bed?
On the right, as you're reclining on the bed with the headboard at your head.
26. Do you know how to play poker?
Nope.
27. What are you thinking about right now?
Gotta check the laundry, gotta get the groceries, gotta change the litterboxes, gotta write some stuff, gotta read those review books, gotta gotta gotta....
28. Any plans for this weekend?
The stuff that I gotta, hopefully quickly enough that I'll have some time left for stuff that I wanna.
29. Have you cut your hair this week?
No, which reminds me that I'm due for a trim.
30. Last picture you took?
The resulting product from when I made quiche for dinner the other night. I'll have it up on Flickr soon.
31. Are you a tease?
I don't think so.
32. Have you ever been in an ambulance?
No, but the Wife has, twice. Once as the guest of honor, and once as the mother of the guest of honor. Neither trip ended well.
33. Do you prefer an ocean or pool?
To swim in? A pool. To walk beside? An ocean.
34. Do you smile often?
Yes. Usually just before I dispatch my victim. Heh!
35. What color are your bed sheets?
I'm not sure. We have a couple of sets and we switch them off regularly.
36. What is your favorite thing to spend money on?
Books.
37. Do you wear any jewelry 24/7?
No.
38. Have you heard a rumor about yourself this week?
No, but I thought about starting one, that I'm descended from the Russian Czars.
39. Who is the funniest person you know?
Well, there are a bunch of people at work who are constantly full of mirth and hilarity, so I'd pick one of them at random.
41. Where do you want to go to college?
Wartburg College, class of 1993.
42. Who was the last person to make you cry?
Sergei Rachmaninov.
43. Do you shut off the water while you brush your teeth?
Yes.
44. Do you wish you were with someone right now?
Is Sela Ward available? No? Then I'm good.
45. Are you mad about anything?
I dunno...John McCain? Spineless Democrats in Congress? The management of the Buffalo Sabres? The government of New York State (ballooning deficits, refusal to cut spending or reform certain services so they stop acting as a virtual payment for people to leave the state while seriously considering pay raises for a Legislature that gets exactly nothing done, and a Governor who campaigned for change and hasn't changed a bloomin' thing)? That football has finally become boring to me? I don't know, these are all minor things, I guess.
Quiz the third
1. Have you ever had mono?
No.
2. The last place you were (besides now)?
A beer store; we'd run out of Yuengling Lager.
3. The last gift you received?
It's not the last one we exactly received, but it's the last one we put into use: a year's family membership at the local Y.
4. How many times a day do you drop your mobile phone?
I've never dropped it yet. I carry it either in a pocket or in a Workforce-brand belt carrier. (You'd expect that the bib pocket of my overalls would be ideal for a cell phone, and I suppose it is, but I don't like feeling of stuff in that pocket. I never carry anything there.)
5. The top three things you spend the most money on?
Me personally? Food, drink, and entertainment. (The rent comes from The Wife's paycheck.)
6. Last food you ate?
Lunchtime has come and gone since I answered this question above, so a bowl of The Wife's homemade clam chowder (great stuff), a piece of French bread sipped into extra virgin olive oil, and an orange.
7. First thing you notice about the opposite sex?
Hair.
9. The school you attend?
See above: I finished college almost fifteen years ago.
10. Your mobile phone provider?
Verizon. (So any of my readers who also use Verizon can call me. My number is...)
11. Favorite store that's usually in a mall?
Mall-based retail has become fairly depressing over the last five or six years. I used to love malls and would go quite often. That all stopped when we moved back to Buffalo from Syracuse; it was then that malls were becoming noticeably homogenized, and at that time, most of Buffalo's malls were starting to look "long in the tooth" (except for the Boulevard Mall, which had been renovated a few years prior, but is the farthest away from my home of all of Buffalo's malls). The Galleria and McKinley Malls are now undergoing substantial renovations, however, with both malls gaining Barnes&Noble stores, so I'll definitely go to each just to investigate the new bookstores. I'm rarely in the neck of the woods where the Eastern Hills Mall is, so I can't tell you at all what it's like there anymore.
My favorite all-time mall-based stores? Nature Company, The Museum Store, and Learningsmith. None of these has existed in years.
My favorite mall in general? Syracuse's Carousel Center, which, when we lived there, I found to be a beautiful place. I don't know what that mall is like now, although an expansion is apparently underway. It was already a huge mall, though. I loved the Mall of America in Minneapolis when it first opened; it had a lot of very cool and quirky stores in addition to the more mainstream stuff. When we were there last, in 2001 (the week after 9-11, actually), it seemed vaguely disappointing, although the aquarium in the basement is really cool.
12. Whats the longest job you have ever had?
Pizza Hut; I was there for four years as a cook and shift manager. That will be eclipsed by The Store in a little over a week, however.
13. What do you smell like?
Having just brushed my teeth and used mouthwash, I'm pretty minty at the moment. In the course of things, I can smell like apples and pomegranate (various shower products, see above), paint, pizza, wood stain, coconut cream, sawdust, sweat (I go at it hard when I'm at the Y), chlorine (when I start using the pool at the Y, that is; gotta buy a new swimsuit first), chocolate cream, chicken wings (when we have to work on a fryer), dishwater (when we have to work on a dishwasher), regular chocolate, or coffee. There was one really bad day at The Store after which I smelled like...actually, never mind. I don't think I should tell that story.
14. The biggest lie you've ever heard?
"Iraq is a central front in the War on Terror." Has there ever been so much dishonesty packed into so brief a sentence?
15. The last time you cried was because why?
They gave McMurphy a lobotomy.
16. In your opinion, do long distance relationships work?
Yes. The Wife (before she was The Wife) and I spent eight or nine months living eight hundred miles apart. It only worked because we were dedicated to making it a non-long distance relationship as quickly as possible. Would we have survived had it gone on past a year? Two years? Who knows. I'll never have to find out.
17. Do you drink coffee?
Of course.
18. What do you wanna say to your most recent ex?
"Seriously, why were you so crazy back then?!"
19. Do you believe in God?
I'm still working through this question.
20. Favorite color(s)?
I've changed my mind since above. My new favorite color is split-pea green.
And now I've changed it back to purple. Sorry, split-pea green. We had a good run, there.
21. The last person on your missed calls list on your mobile phone?
The Wife.
23. How many pillows do you usually sleep with?
Two for sleeping; I add a third while reading before turning out the light. My main pillow is a lumpy old thing; I call it "Lumpy". Because if your pillow doesn't have a name, then what good is it?
24. What are you wearing now?
A blue t-shirt under a dark grey hooded sweatshirt, with both of those under a pair of blue Gap overalls. (By the way, I hate the word "hoodie". Don't know why. I do love hooded sweatshirts, though.)
25. How many pets do you own?
Curse you, duplicate blog-quiz questions!
26. What are you doing tomorrow?
Going to church; probably going to the Y for some cardio; writing; doing the weekly vacuuming. A family friend may be having a birthday, in which case we'll drop in at his home for some cake. I have to check with his wife first, though.
27. Can you play ping pong?
Yes, but not particularly well.
28. Favorite gender?
Women. They make the world worth living in. A world with just men? Ugh.
29. Do you like maps?
Maps are great things. I love maps: old maps, new maps. Maps of real places, and maps of imaginary places. If only more US Americans had maps... (OK, I know, that's a cheap shot. Sorry.)
31. Have you ever attended a themed party?
Yes. In college, one friend had a "Dress as a musical figure" party. I went as our school's oboe teacher, because I apparently looked like him.
32. Have you ever thrown a party?
Only if we count the birthday party for The Daughter a few years back.
33. When did you wake up this morning?.
About seven thirty.
34. The best thing about winter?
I like the winter stars better than the summer ones, and you can see them more often.
35. Last time you were in trouble with the cops?
Unless we're counting a couple of speeding tickets, never.
38. What are your plans for this weekend?
Didn't we just cover this? [scrolls upward] Yup, we've just covered this.
39. How many days is it until your birthday?
Two hundred forty four.
40. What do you want to be when you "grow up"?
Conqueror of Alpha Centauri. It's not looking promising, but you never know.
41. Are you on a laptop?
Heavens no! I'd crush the poor thing. But I am writing this quiz on one. How I love it so.
42. Are you smiling?
No. More of a glower.
43. Do you miss someone right now?
The Wife is at work, so there's that. And the usual depressing answers that I can give to questions like this, but I think I won't.
44. Are you happy?
I'm working on it!
45. Have you ever been in the hospital for an emergency?
Me personally? A couple of times for routine stuff that involved my bike when I was kid. Once I had to have stitches in my chin; the other, I broke my collarbone. Actually, come to think of it, that last may not have been the ER at all.
46. Last time you ate chicken?
Yesterday. I had a couple of chicken wings at lunch.
47. What jewelry are you wearing?
I was wearing my wedding ring and my star sapphire ring, but I took them off a short while ago.
48. What are you going to do after this survey?
Post it.
49. Song you're listening to?
"Tatiana", from Howard Shore's score to Eastern Promises. I'm firmly convinced that Howard Shore is the best composer working in film today.
50. The car you were in last?
My own, for this afternoon's grocery run.
52. What color shirt are you wearing?
It's still dark gray. What is it with recurring questions in the same blog-quiz, anyway?
53. How long is your hair?
It now hangs to the middle of my back.
54. What's on your mind right now?
Wow, was Donna Pescow cute back in the day. (I was just watching a bit of Saturday Night Fever, which I've only seen once before in its TBS edited-for-teevee version. Wow, they bowdlerized the heck out of it, didn't they?)
55. Last show you watched?
The Celebrity Apprentice on Thursday night, I suppose. I wasn't planning to watch it this year, but this version's been fun thus far.
56. Last thing you drank?
I have an open water bottle beside me as I write this, so that. Later on I'll have a bottle of Cherry Coke. Later after that, and more water, I'll have a Yuengling. Or maybe some rum. Or maybe I'll sample the small bottle of brandy I bought. You never know!
(I'm not really a lush, although it may start to sound like it. I never have more than two drinks in any one evening, and I don't drink more than three or four nights a week.)
57. Who was hotter, Ginger or Maryanne?
It's a strange thing, given my lifelong fascination with red-heads, but I have to go with Mary Ann.
No tagging. Anybody crazy enough to do one of these, or all three, is welcome to do so.
Quiz the First
Come on now, even if they won't admit it, everyone really wants to peek in their friend's cabinets and see what they use. Here's your chance! List your favorite product(s) for each of the following categories. You can also expand on why you like them, how long you've used them, etc.
1) Laundry detergent: Arm&Hammer's "dye-free" detergent. We discovered some time ago that certain items with blue dyes make The Daughter break out, so we switched to this. (Tale of Horror: back in the days when I took the laundry each week to the laundromat, there was an old couple who came in and stuffed all of their laundry into one of those front-loading machines, the ones with the thick glass door through which you can see the clothes being sloshed in the water. These folks brought with them an epic odor which quickly permeated the laundromat, and they didn't use any detergent; they simply trusted the water in the machine to do all the work. As I watched over the next fifteen minutes or so, I could see the water in their machines turning browner and browner and browner. I try not to be judgmental, but yeesh, folks.)
2) Fabric softener: None.
3) Floor cleaner: Occasionally Pine-sol or something like it, but most of them time, just sweeping, vacuuming, and Swiffers.
4) Carpet cleaner: Vacuuming, which I do once weekly. I'd like to get one of those Dyson vacuum cleaners someday, but on my list of "Potential Purchases That Cost Several Hundred Dollars", this ranks well below a new TV, a new stereo, and so on. I do like to spray the carpet occasionally with that canned foaming stuff that disappears and makes things smell nice. Periodically I'll also sprinkle troublesome areas with baking soda a half hour or so before vacuuming. (When cleaning carpets at The Store, I've used Rug Doctor products and been favorably impressed, given how much foot traffic those carpets see.)
5) Glass cleaner: The Store's brand. And thanks for the reminder; the old bottle is just about empty. (Tale of humor: Once The Wife and I were eating at a Burger King, when a new employee was sent outside to wash the windows. He very nicely doused everything with window cleaner, wiped away with his cloth, and then started squeegeeing. From the bottom up. He couldn't figure out why streaks kept running down onto his already-done work. This went on for ten minutes or so until the manager saw what was going on and went outside to show him to start sqeegeeing from the top.)
6) Dish detergent: Dawn, for hand-washing; those nifty soap-tablet things for the dishwasher, which I only run at most a couple of times a month, when the number of dirty dishes has piled up to epic levels. (For some reason, I have yet to find a store-brand that works as well as actual Dawn.)
7) Bathroom cleaner: Clorox bathroom cleaner in the spray bottle. It leaves a pleasant smell of disinfection without smelling like industrial medicine (think of a just-cleaned hospital bathroom), and the stuff works very well on hard-water stains on faucets and fixtures. I need a bottle of this, too.
8) Bath soap: SoftSoap shower gels. Pink grapefruit flavor is nice, as is the Pomegranate Mango.
9) Shampoo: Suave Green Apple.
10) Conditioner: Same.
11) Styling products: Just a detangling spray.
12) Deodorant: Some kind of Old Spice "Active" deodorant, or something like that. I have to be careful with deodorant as some brands make me break out in nasty rashes. I used to love the men's products at Bath and Beauty Works, but that product line as originally promoted must not have done very well, because they changed everything a few years later, reduced the offerings, and generally made everything disappointing. I have no idea now if they have a men's line at all, since B&BW stores tend to be in malls and I'm no longer much of a mall person. (By the way, the names of the scents on men's deodorants crack me up: my current brand comes in scents like "Victory" and "Power". I think they should have one called "Napalm in the Morning", personally. Or "Big Friggin' Steak".)
13) Toothpaste: Colgate Cinnamon, although lately we can't find it and are now using some boring blue mint flavor. (One time a vet gave me a tube of toothpaste for the cats we had at the time. It was Chicken flavor. Ewwww.)
14) Mouthwash: Crest's non-alcoholic stuff.
15) Face cleanser: I use the SoftSoap stuff for this as well.
16) Moisturizer: Nope.
17) Treatment: I don't even know what "Treatment" is!
18) Lip balm: Burt's Bees, but I don't use it very often.
19) Nail polish: Well, I'm not a woman, so....
20) Make up: Again....
Do you have a dishwasher?
Yes, as mentioned above.
Is your living room carpeted or does it have hardwood floors?
Every room is carpeted except the kitchen and bathroom.
Do you keep your kitchen knives on the counter or in a drawer?
We have a set in a knife block, while others are in a drawer.
House, apartment, duplex or trailer?
Apartment.
How many bedrooms is it?
Two.
Gas stove or electric?
Electric. We'd prefer gas, but that's what there is.
Do you have a yard?
The grounds of our apartment complex, I suppose.
What size TV is in the living room?
Nineteen inches. We'll get a bigger one someday, hopefully next year when we have to because of that all-digital thing.
Are your plates in the same cupboard as your cups?
No.
Is there a coffee maker sitting on your kitchen counter?
Yes.
What room is your computer in?
The desktop computer is in the living room; my laptop is on my desk in my "office area", which is a section of the living room that I basically claimed as my own when we moved in.
Are there pictures hanging in your living room?
Yes: a couple of mattes of The Daughter's one and three-year-old photos. There's also a wall-hanging of an Irish tapestry. In my office area, there's a National Geographic map of the world, a print of an antique map from the 1600s, two wall calendars (one with pre-Raphaelite "Camelot" themed art, the other with Star Wars art), a framed Phantom Menace poster, a print of a Casablanca poster, and a really cool looking (to me, anyway) mask that The Daughter made as a school project.
Are there any themes found in your home?
Yes, but only if "Hey, we can put this here because it fits!" counts as a theme. As a rule, though, I find that I'm not terribly comfortable in rooms where everything looks the same.
Do you have any curtains in your home?
No; we have blinds.
What color is your fridge?
That off-white "appliance" color. I greatly dislike our fridge, but that's the way it is.
Is your house clean?
My house is spotlessly clean and yet homey, with its yard bordered by a lovely wooden fence and the grounds dotted with trees and tall hedges along the street, giving us a bit of privacy. In the back there's a fire ring where we burn wood on summer and autumn nights. Maybe there's a barn, maybe not.
My apartment, however, is quite the monument to the Clutter Gods, although we are making slow progress this year toward eliminating lots of stuff. (One problem here is that we moved three times in two years, and each move was of the "It's Friday, your new job starts next Thursday, so get moved before then" type, which doesn't lend itself well to going through everything and tossing stuff before the actual move. So we're finding that we have stuff that hasn't been outside of a box in nearly seven years.)
What room is the most neglected?
We're pretty much equal opportunity neglecters, but if pressed for an answer, probably our own bedroom.
Are the dishes in your sink/dishwasher clean or dirty?
Dirty.
How long have you lived in your home?
Five years in April. Wow.
Where did you live before?
We lived outside Syracuse, NY for seven months or so, the winter of 2002 and 2003. We drove out of there in a moving truck the morning after the Orangemen, led by Carmelo Anthony, won the NCAA Championship. So I lived in a Championship City for about twelve hours.
Do you have one of those fluffy toilet lid covers on your toilet?
No. Never saw the point of those.
Do you have a scale anywhere in your house?
Does the kitchen scale count? I judge my weight by how my clothes fit, generally. I've started losing weight again lately, which is nice.
How many mirrors are in your house?
Two: bathroom and bedroom. (I can't remember where I read this, but I recently learned that in Tokyo young women don't carry compact mirrors anymore; they use their cellphone cameras for this purpose!)
Look up. What do you see?
Yeah, like I'm gonna fall for that.
Do you have a garage?
No. Our apartment complex rents garages an an extra thing, but there's no guarantee that your garage will be actually in the same section of the complex as your garage, so it doesn't seem worth it to us. We see people outside in our section of the complex all the time who have to drive over to our building just to access their garage. If that works for them, great, but we don't want that expense or inconvenience.
Quiz the Second
1. How old will you turn in 2008?
Thirteen thousand five hundred fifteen days.
2. Do you think you'll be married by then?
I should hope so, since I'm already married!
3. What do you look forward to most in the next 3 months?
Three months? Hmmmm. Doing more writing, I guess, and whittling down the waistline. I'm not sure what's in the offing in that time frame specifically.
4. Do you like to say "I told you so?"
Well, it depends on the situation.
5. Who was the last person to call you?
The Wife. She needed me to buy a bunch of celery for a recipe she made.
6. Do you prefer call or text?
Again, it depends. Calling seems best, but texting's good for "Hey I'm gonna be late" or "Stop and get some rum" or the like. My real preference, actually, is e-mail.
7. Do you have any pets?
Yes.
8. What were you doing at 1:30 am?
I was having a dream. No, I'm not telling you what it was.
9. What were you doing at 3:00 am?
Wondering what that dream meant.
10. When is the last time you saw your mom?
Earlier in the week, when she and my father brought The Wife's car back up from a trip to their car repair guru. (Guy's good.)
11. What is your mood?
I haven't the faintest idea since I misplaced my mood-ring when I was six. But for the purposes of this quiz, I'll declare myself a big ball of love!
12. How many houses have you lived in?
Counting all forms of domicile, I have lived in fifteen places, if I'm remembering them all correctly.
13. How many city/towns have you lived in?
Cranberry Township, PA; Portland, OR; Aloha, OR; LaCrosse, WI; Aloha, OR (different house); Elkins, WV (two houses there; the first is one of those family stories that we speak of in hushed tones); Hillsboro, OR; Allegany, NY; Olean, NY; West Seneca, NY; Baldwinsville, NY; Orchard Park, NY.
14. Do you prefer shoes, socks or bare feet?
Depends, really; I'll go with any as the circumstance calls. And I see nothing wrong with socks with sandals. Bite me, Fashion Police.
15. Are you a social person?
I'm one-half of a social person. My other half thinks that all people should go away.
16. What was the last thing you ate?
A burrito and chips at Moe's. I'm writing this in the morning, and I haven't had breakfast yet.
17. What's your favorite color?
Purple. (But I really like just about every color, except that one shade of green. You know the one I mean.)
18. What are you doing for your next birthday?
That's not until September, so I have no idea. We don't plan stuff like that this far out. (This year my birthday is on a Friday.)
19. What is your favorite TV show?
Scrubs, but that's ending this year. We're big Grey's Anatomy fans, but the show is starting to spin out of control a bit; it needs more new blood than just the two new characters they brought in this year.
20. What kind of jelly do you like on your PB & J sandwich?
My preference is strawberry, but the Wimminfolk insist that grape is the only acceptable jelly for PB&J, so that's what's on hand most of the time.
21. Do you like coffee?
Coffee is one of my mistresses. (Rum is another.)
22. What are you listening to?
Nothing right now, although earlier I was listening to the score to Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. (Post on this movie and its music forthcoming.)
23. Do you have an iPod?
No, and it's relatively low on my list of things to buy, as well. In fact, I'd rather just get some other brand of MP3 player. I've never sipped Apple's Kool-aid, and I'm not a big fan of the kind of company Apple is becoming.
24. How do you feel about the last person you kissed?
"Heh. You'll be swimming with the fishies soon!"
25. Do you sleep on a certain side of the bed?
On the right, as you're reclining on the bed with the headboard at your head.
26. Do you know how to play poker?
Nope.
27. What are you thinking about right now?
Gotta check the laundry, gotta get the groceries, gotta change the litterboxes, gotta write some stuff, gotta read those review books, gotta gotta gotta....
28. Any plans for this weekend?
The stuff that I gotta, hopefully quickly enough that I'll have some time left for stuff that I wanna.
29. Have you cut your hair this week?
No, which reminds me that I'm due for a trim.
30. Last picture you took?
The resulting product from when I made quiche for dinner the other night. I'll have it up on Flickr soon.
31. Are you a tease?
I don't think so.
32. Have you ever been in an ambulance?
No, but the Wife has, twice. Once as the guest of honor, and once as the mother of the guest of honor. Neither trip ended well.
33. Do you prefer an ocean or pool?
To swim in? A pool. To walk beside? An ocean.
34. Do you smile often?
Yes. Usually just before I dispatch my victim. Heh!
35. What color are your bed sheets?
I'm not sure. We have a couple of sets and we switch them off regularly.
36. What is your favorite thing to spend money on?
Books.
37. Do you wear any jewelry 24/7?
No.
38. Have you heard a rumor about yourself this week?
No, but I thought about starting one, that I'm descended from the Russian Czars.
39. Who is the funniest person you know?
Well, there are a bunch of people at work who are constantly full of mirth and hilarity, so I'd pick one of them at random.
41. Where do you want to go to college?
Wartburg College, class of 1993.
42. Who was the last person to make you cry?
Sergei Rachmaninov.
43. Do you shut off the water while you brush your teeth?
Yes.
44. Do you wish you were with someone right now?
Is Sela Ward available? No? Then I'm good.
45. Are you mad about anything?
I dunno...John McCain? Spineless Democrats in Congress? The management of the Buffalo Sabres? The government of New York State (ballooning deficits, refusal to cut spending or reform certain services so they stop acting as a virtual payment for people to leave the state while seriously considering pay raises for a Legislature that gets exactly nothing done, and a Governor who campaigned for change and hasn't changed a bloomin' thing)? That football has finally become boring to me? I don't know, these are all minor things, I guess.
Quiz the third
1. Have you ever had mono?
No.
2. The last place you were (besides now)?
A beer store; we'd run out of Yuengling Lager.
3. The last gift you received?
It's not the last one we exactly received, but it's the last one we put into use: a year's family membership at the local Y.
4. How many times a day do you drop your mobile phone?
I've never dropped it yet. I carry it either in a pocket or in a Workforce-brand belt carrier. (You'd expect that the bib pocket of my overalls would be ideal for a cell phone, and I suppose it is, but I don't like feeling of stuff in that pocket. I never carry anything there.)
5. The top three things you spend the most money on?
Me personally? Food, drink, and entertainment. (The rent comes from The Wife's paycheck.)
6. Last food you ate?
Lunchtime has come and gone since I answered this question above, so a bowl of The Wife's homemade clam chowder (great stuff), a piece of French bread sipped into extra virgin olive oil, and an orange.
7. First thing you notice about the opposite sex?
Hair.
9. The school you attend?
See above: I finished college almost fifteen years ago.
10. Your mobile phone provider?
Verizon. (So any of my readers who also use Verizon can call me. My number is...)
11. Favorite store that's usually in a mall?
Mall-based retail has become fairly depressing over the last five or six years. I used to love malls and would go quite often. That all stopped when we moved back to Buffalo from Syracuse; it was then that malls were becoming noticeably homogenized, and at that time, most of Buffalo's malls were starting to look "long in the tooth" (except for the Boulevard Mall, which had been renovated a few years prior, but is the farthest away from my home of all of Buffalo's malls). The Galleria and McKinley Malls are now undergoing substantial renovations, however, with both malls gaining Barnes&Noble stores, so I'll definitely go to each just to investigate the new bookstores. I'm rarely in the neck of the woods where the Eastern Hills Mall is, so I can't tell you at all what it's like there anymore.
My favorite all-time mall-based stores? Nature Company, The Museum Store, and Learningsmith. None of these has existed in years.
My favorite mall in general? Syracuse's Carousel Center, which, when we lived there, I found to be a beautiful place. I don't know what that mall is like now, although an expansion is apparently underway. It was already a huge mall, though. I loved the Mall of America in Minneapolis when it first opened; it had a lot of very cool and quirky stores in addition to the more mainstream stuff. When we were there last, in 2001 (the week after 9-11, actually), it seemed vaguely disappointing, although the aquarium in the basement is really cool.
12. Whats the longest job you have ever had?
Pizza Hut; I was there for four years as a cook and shift manager. That will be eclipsed by The Store in a little over a week, however.
13. What do you smell like?
Having just brushed my teeth and used mouthwash, I'm pretty minty at the moment. In the course of things, I can smell like apples and pomegranate (various shower products, see above), paint, pizza, wood stain, coconut cream, sawdust, sweat (I go at it hard when I'm at the Y), chlorine (when I start using the pool at the Y, that is; gotta buy a new swimsuit first), chocolate cream, chicken wings (when we have to work on a fryer), dishwater (when we have to work on a dishwasher), regular chocolate, or coffee. There was one really bad day at The Store after which I smelled like...actually, never mind. I don't think I should tell that story.
14. The biggest lie you've ever heard?
"Iraq is a central front in the War on Terror." Has there ever been so much dishonesty packed into so brief a sentence?
15. The last time you cried was because why?
They gave McMurphy a lobotomy.
16. In your opinion, do long distance relationships work?
Yes. The Wife (before she was The Wife) and I spent eight or nine months living eight hundred miles apart. It only worked because we were dedicated to making it a non-long distance relationship as quickly as possible. Would we have survived had it gone on past a year? Two years? Who knows. I'll never have to find out.
17. Do you drink coffee?
Of course.
18. What do you wanna say to your most recent ex?
"Seriously, why were you so crazy back then?!"
19. Do you believe in God?
I'm still working through this question.
20. Favorite color(s)?
I've changed my mind since above. My new favorite color is split-pea green.
And now I've changed it back to purple. Sorry, split-pea green. We had a good run, there.
21. The last person on your missed calls list on your mobile phone?
The Wife.
23. How many pillows do you usually sleep with?
Two for sleeping; I add a third while reading before turning out the light. My main pillow is a lumpy old thing; I call it "Lumpy". Because if your pillow doesn't have a name, then what good is it?
24. What are you wearing now?
A blue t-shirt under a dark grey hooded sweatshirt, with both of those under a pair of blue Gap overalls. (By the way, I hate the word "hoodie". Don't know why. I do love hooded sweatshirts, though.)
25. How many pets do you own?
Curse you, duplicate blog-quiz questions!
26. What are you doing tomorrow?
Going to church; probably going to the Y for some cardio; writing; doing the weekly vacuuming. A family friend may be having a birthday, in which case we'll drop in at his home for some cake. I have to check with his wife first, though.
27. Can you play ping pong?
Yes, but not particularly well.
28. Favorite gender?
Women. They make the world worth living in. A world with just men? Ugh.
29. Do you like maps?
Maps are great things. I love maps: old maps, new maps. Maps of real places, and maps of imaginary places. If only more US Americans had maps... (OK, I know, that's a cheap shot. Sorry.)
31. Have you ever attended a themed party?
Yes. In college, one friend had a "Dress as a musical figure" party. I went as our school's oboe teacher, because I apparently looked like him.
32. Have you ever thrown a party?
Only if we count the birthday party for The Daughter a few years back.
33. When did you wake up this morning?.
About seven thirty.
34. The best thing about winter?
I like the winter stars better than the summer ones, and you can see them more often.
35. Last time you were in trouble with the cops?
Unless we're counting a couple of speeding tickets, never.
38. What are your plans for this weekend?
Didn't we just cover this? [scrolls upward] Yup, we've just covered this.
39. How many days is it until your birthday?
Two hundred forty four.
40. What do you want to be when you "grow up"?
Conqueror of Alpha Centauri. It's not looking promising, but you never know.
41. Are you on a laptop?
Heavens no! I'd crush the poor thing. But I am writing this quiz on one. How I love it so.
42. Are you smiling?
No. More of a glower.
43. Do you miss someone right now?
The Wife is at work, so there's that. And the usual depressing answers that I can give to questions like this, but I think I won't.
44. Are you happy?
I'm working on it!
45. Have you ever been in the hospital for an emergency?
Me personally? A couple of times for routine stuff that involved my bike when I was kid. Once I had to have stitches in my chin; the other, I broke my collarbone. Actually, come to think of it, that last may not have been the ER at all.
46. Last time you ate chicken?
Yesterday. I had a couple of chicken wings at lunch.
47. What jewelry are you wearing?
I was wearing my wedding ring and my star sapphire ring, but I took them off a short while ago.
48. What are you going to do after this survey?
Post it.
49. Song you're listening to?
"Tatiana", from Howard Shore's score to Eastern Promises. I'm firmly convinced that Howard Shore is the best composer working in film today.
50. The car you were in last?
My own, for this afternoon's grocery run.
52. What color shirt are you wearing?
It's still dark gray. What is it with recurring questions in the same blog-quiz, anyway?
53. How long is your hair?
It now hangs to the middle of my back.
54. What's on your mind right now?
Wow, was Donna Pescow cute back in the day. (I was just watching a bit of Saturday Night Fever, which I've only seen once before in its TBS edited-for-teevee version. Wow, they bowdlerized the heck out of it, didn't they?)
55. Last show you watched?
The Celebrity Apprentice on Thursday night, I suppose. I wasn't planning to watch it this year, but this version's been fun thus far.
56. Last thing you drank?
I have an open water bottle beside me as I write this, so that. Later on I'll have a bottle of Cherry Coke. Later after that, and more water, I'll have a Yuengling. Or maybe some rum. Or maybe I'll sample the small bottle of brandy I bought. You never know!
(I'm not really a lush, although it may start to sound like it. I never have more than two drinks in any one evening, and I don't drink more than three or four nights a week.)
57. Who was hotter, Ginger or Maryanne?
It's a strange thing, given my lifelong fascination with red-heads, but I have to go with Mary Ann.
No tagging. Anybody crazy enough to do one of these, or all three, is welcome to do so.
A quiz. About books. How can I not? Thanks to Sheila!
Which book do you irrationally cringe away from reading, despite seeing only positive reviews?
That's a tough one. I tend to read on the basis of whims as opposed to plans, so I have a lot of books that are well-reviewed on my shelves that I haven't got round to yet, and it's not a case of "irrationally cringing away" from reading them. Books like The Corrections, The Lies of Locke Lamora, Dr. Strange and Mr. Norrell.
Maybe Neil Stephenson's Quicksilver trilogy counts. I've owned them for years now, and I haven't even attempted to open their covers. In fact, right now they are serving literally as bookends on one shelf. Why this is so, I'm not sure; I devoured Cryptonomicon. I don't think I'm so much "irrationally cringing" away from them as thinking "Wow, that's quite a time commitment. I think I'll read something less long." But that's pretty irrational in itself, isn't it? Hmmmmm.
If you could bring three characters to life for a social event (afternoon tea, a night of clubbing, perhaps a world cruise), who would they be and what would the event be?
I'd invite John Galt to dinner at Tom Joad's house. That should be good for a few laughs. Then I'd have Hannibal Lecter cook Galt. Yippee!
OK, I know, that's a pretty flip answer. I'd like to see a dinner featuring the three greatest wizards I've read in fiction: Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings, Loren Silvercloak from The Fionavar Tapestry, and Albus Dumbledore from the Harry Potter books. What can I say, I'm a sucker for wizards. What would we talk about? I don't know, really. I would like Gandalf to tell me some more about the nature of magic in Middle Earth, since it can get a little hard for anyone who's part of the AD&D Generation to understand why they've got this incredibly powerful wizard who never just uncorks a fireball on his enemies.
(Borrowing shamelessly from the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde): you are told you can’t die until you read the most boring novel on the planet. While this immortality is great for awhile, eventually you realise it’s past time to die. Which book would you expect to get you a nice grave?
Suicide by book? What a dreadful thought. The question's slightly vague, though; would I have to finish the book before dying? Oh well, I suppose it doesn't matter. I suspect that Battlefield Earth would do the trick, although I had a college roommate who insisted that it was a grand fun read of the pulp variety. My best bet, actually, would likely be some novel by a Parisian Existentialist.
Come on, we’ve all been there. Which book have you pretended, or at least hinted, that you’ve read, when in fact you’ve been nowhere near it?
The Bible, maybe? I tend to be upfront about my not having read something, actually. I can tend to claim love for authors on the basis of having read a single work or two of theirs, which can get inconvenient when I'm in the presence of a true fanatic: I'll claim that I love HP Lovecraft, even though I've only read two or three of his tales, for instance.
As an addition to the last question, has there been a book that you really thought you had read, only to realise when you read a review about it/go to ‘reread’ it that you haven’t? Which book?
I've never done this, either. I must lead a pretty boring reading life.
You’re interviewing for the post of Official Book Advisor to some VIP (who’s not a big reader). What’s the first book you’d recommend and why? (if you feel like you’d have to know the person, go ahead of personalise the VIP)
Now, this question's too vague as well. Do I assume the VIP's tastes are similar to mine? Do I know what kind of mood the VIP is in when I make my recommendation? Anyhow, if their tastes mirror mine, I'd recommend The Lions of Al-Rassan by GGK if they're in a sad epic kind of mood, or Island of the Sequined Love Nun by Christopher Moore for all other moods. I would, though, do everything in my power to keep the VIP from picking up anything by Ayn Rand.
A good fairy comes and grants you one wish: you will have perfect reading comprehension in the foreign language of your choice. Which language do you go with?
First choice would be Russian, so I finally would have no choice but to get through The Brothers Karamazov, since it would remove "I think my translations a dud!" as an excuse. Second choice would be German, especially if the fairy's gift includes a hearing fluency as well, so I could see Der Ring des Nibelungen at last. Third? Spanish. I love the poetry of Iberia. (Here's a good example, actually, of the phenomenon I describe a couple of questions above. How much of the poetry of Iberia have a read? Very little.)
A mischievious fairy comes and says that you must choose one book that you will reread once a year for the rest of your life (you can read other books as well). Which book would you pick?
The Complete Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson. You can't get too much Calvin and Hobbes. (While I don't own The Complete C&H, I do own every paperback of C&H released during the strip's run, which is basically the same thing.) C&H is, as everybody already knows, full of humor, wisdom, poignance, imagination, and even joy. Yes, I think that comics and graphic novels count.
I know that the book blogging community, and its various challenges, have pushed my reading borders. What’s one bookish thing you ‘discovered’ from book blogging (maybe a new genre, or author, or new appreciation for cover art-anything)?
Well, there is always the obvious: discovering new authors or tracking down books based on recommendations I see on blogs, et cetera. I also love reading what others have to say about books not so much for ideas on what books to read, but for ideas about how to read books, and how to write about books. There's nothing better than other perspectives to challenge one, and blogs yield other perspectives a-plenty.
One perspective that almost certainly didn't exist before blogs came along was that of the author while the book was in progress. The number of pro writers who blog gets longer nearly every day, and their perspectives on writing are (most times) interesting. What I've discovered that I appreciate the most, though, isn't the blogging of the nuts-and-bolts stuff that writers do, but rather their daily lives and their own reading habits.
That good fairy is back for one final visit. Now, she’s granting you your dream library! Describe it. Is everything leatherbound? Is it full of first edition hardcovers? Pristine trade paperbacks? Perhaps a few favourite authors have inscribed their works? Go ahead-let your imagination run free.
Wooden floors with throw rugs. My desk in one corner, beside a large window. Every other wall? Books. Of all types. Some first editions, some antique volumes. Basically, books. Books everywhere. There's got to be room for a door, and maybe a bit of wallspace around the desk for some wall art (probably Star Wars posters). A nice stereo system, preferably small but with big sound, speakers in each corner with a subwoofer. And books. Hardcover, trade paper, mass-market paper. Various knickknacks, tschotschkes, gewgaws, and the like. Candle holders galore; I love candlelight. And books, which I would arrange roughly by category but with the emphasis on "roughly", as in, not terribly organized at all. My CDs would have to be in there somewhere, and the books. Maybe a comfy armchair in a corner opposite the desk, with a footstool. I expect that there would always be a cat in my library. Oh, and the books: lots of them.
Did I mention the books?
If you're reading this, consider yourself tagged. You're it!
Which book do you irrationally cringe away from reading, despite seeing only positive reviews?
That's a tough one. I tend to read on the basis of whims as opposed to plans, so I have a lot of books that are well-reviewed on my shelves that I haven't got round to yet, and it's not a case of "irrationally cringing away" from reading them. Books like The Corrections, The Lies of Locke Lamora, Dr. Strange and Mr. Norrell.
Maybe Neil Stephenson's Quicksilver trilogy counts. I've owned them for years now, and I haven't even attempted to open their covers. In fact, right now they are serving literally as bookends on one shelf. Why this is so, I'm not sure; I devoured Cryptonomicon. I don't think I'm so much "irrationally cringing" away from them as thinking "Wow, that's quite a time commitment. I think I'll read something less long." But that's pretty irrational in itself, isn't it? Hmmmmm.
If you could bring three characters to life for a social event (afternoon tea, a night of clubbing, perhaps a world cruise), who would they be and what would the event be?
I'd invite John Galt to dinner at Tom Joad's house. That should be good for a few laughs. Then I'd have Hannibal Lecter cook Galt. Yippee!
OK, I know, that's a pretty flip answer. I'd like to see a dinner featuring the three greatest wizards I've read in fiction: Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings, Loren Silvercloak from The Fionavar Tapestry, and Albus Dumbledore from the Harry Potter books. What can I say, I'm a sucker for wizards. What would we talk about? I don't know, really. I would like Gandalf to tell me some more about the nature of magic in Middle Earth, since it can get a little hard for anyone who's part of the AD&D Generation to understand why they've got this incredibly powerful wizard who never just uncorks a fireball on his enemies.
(Borrowing shamelessly from the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde): you are told you can’t die until you read the most boring novel on the planet. While this immortality is great for awhile, eventually you realise it’s past time to die. Which book would you expect to get you a nice grave?
Suicide by book? What a dreadful thought. The question's slightly vague, though; would I have to finish the book before dying? Oh well, I suppose it doesn't matter. I suspect that Battlefield Earth would do the trick, although I had a college roommate who insisted that it was a grand fun read of the pulp variety. My best bet, actually, would likely be some novel by a Parisian Existentialist.
Come on, we’ve all been there. Which book have you pretended, or at least hinted, that you’ve read, when in fact you’ve been nowhere near it?
The Bible, maybe? I tend to be upfront about my not having read something, actually. I can tend to claim love for authors on the basis of having read a single work or two of theirs, which can get inconvenient when I'm in the presence of a true fanatic: I'll claim that I love HP Lovecraft, even though I've only read two or three of his tales, for instance.
As an addition to the last question, has there been a book that you really thought you had read, only to realise when you read a review about it/go to ‘reread’ it that you haven’t? Which book?
I've never done this, either. I must lead a pretty boring reading life.
You’re interviewing for the post of Official Book Advisor to some VIP (who’s not a big reader). What’s the first book you’d recommend and why? (if you feel like you’d have to know the person, go ahead of personalise the VIP)
Now, this question's too vague as well. Do I assume the VIP's tastes are similar to mine? Do I know what kind of mood the VIP is in when I make my recommendation? Anyhow, if their tastes mirror mine, I'd recommend The Lions of Al-Rassan by GGK if they're in a sad epic kind of mood, or Island of the Sequined Love Nun by Christopher Moore for all other moods. I would, though, do everything in my power to keep the VIP from picking up anything by Ayn Rand.
A good fairy comes and grants you one wish: you will have perfect reading comprehension in the foreign language of your choice. Which language do you go with?
First choice would be Russian, so I finally would have no choice but to get through The Brothers Karamazov, since it would remove "I think my translations a dud!" as an excuse. Second choice would be German, especially if the fairy's gift includes a hearing fluency as well, so I could see Der Ring des Nibelungen at last. Third? Spanish. I love the poetry of Iberia. (Here's a good example, actually, of the phenomenon I describe a couple of questions above. How much of the poetry of Iberia have a read? Very little.)
A mischievious fairy comes and says that you must choose one book that you will reread once a year for the rest of your life (you can read other books as well). Which book would you pick?
The Complete Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson. You can't get too much Calvin and Hobbes. (While I don't own The Complete C&H, I do own every paperback of C&H released during the strip's run, which is basically the same thing.) C&H is, as everybody already knows, full of humor, wisdom, poignance, imagination, and even joy. Yes, I think that comics and graphic novels count.
I know that the book blogging community, and its various challenges, have pushed my reading borders. What’s one bookish thing you ‘discovered’ from book blogging (maybe a new genre, or author, or new appreciation for cover art-anything)?
Well, there is always the obvious: discovering new authors or tracking down books based on recommendations I see on blogs, et cetera. I also love reading what others have to say about books not so much for ideas on what books to read, but for ideas about how to read books, and how to write about books. There's nothing better than other perspectives to challenge one, and blogs yield other perspectives a-plenty.
One perspective that almost certainly didn't exist before blogs came along was that of the author while the book was in progress. The number of pro writers who blog gets longer nearly every day, and their perspectives on writing are (most times) interesting. What I've discovered that I appreciate the most, though, isn't the blogging of the nuts-and-bolts stuff that writers do, but rather their daily lives and their own reading habits.
That good fairy is back for one final visit. Now, she’s granting you your dream library! Describe it. Is everything leatherbound? Is it full of first edition hardcovers? Pristine trade paperbacks? Perhaps a few favourite authors have inscribed their works? Go ahead-let your imagination run free.
Wooden floors with throw rugs. My desk in one corner, beside a large window. Every other wall? Books. Of all types. Some first editions, some antique volumes. Basically, books. Books everywhere. There's got to be room for a door, and maybe a bit of wallspace around the desk for some wall art (probably Star Wars posters). A nice stereo system, preferably small but with big sound, speakers in each corner with a subwoofer. And books. Hardcover, trade paper, mass-market paper. Various knickknacks, tschotschkes, gewgaws, and the like. Candle holders galore; I love candlelight. And books, which I would arrange roughly by category but with the emphasis on "roughly", as in, not terribly organized at all. My CDs would have to be in there somewhere, and the books. Maybe a comfy armchair in a corner opposite the desk, with a footstool. I expect that there would always be a cat in my library. Oh, and the books: lots of them.
Did I mention the books?
If you're reading this, consider yourself tagged. You're it!
Thank you, O governmental protectors of my morality!
The ABC television network is facing a fine of $1.4 million dollars because they aired a show that included several glimpses of a woman's buttocks. When did this happen, you ask? When did ABC so brazenly endanger the morality of our nation's children and general people with sticks in their butts? Why, back in 2003! Thank God George Bush's FCC is on the case, because I've barely been able to function for the last five years, so scandalized was I when I saw those buttocks. Thanks, FCC! You guys have your fingers on the pulse!
But I'm gonna need a bit of clarification here, because there were a lot of buttocks shown on NYPDBlue (the show in question, which went off the air in 2005 after a twelve-year run). That show had lots of buttocks. I'd even hazard a guess that the percentage of NYPDBlue episodes that showed buttocks exceeds fifty percent, although I can't be sure. How did this one episode draw the FCC's ire? The article indicates that "a boy surprises a woman in the shower", so maybe it's that the kid saw the buttocks. Oh noes!
But I can't get beyond the fact that the episode being fined aired five years ago. What the heck happened here? Was some FCC guy watching some DVDs of NYPDBlue and suddenly noticed buttocks for the first time? Anyway, I'm glad that the FCC is in the business of retroactive moral policing. Maybe they can finally start punishing CBS for all the shenanigans that used to take place on that filth-fest Smothers Brothers show.
But I'm gonna need a bit of clarification here, because there were a lot of buttocks shown on NYPDBlue (the show in question, which went off the air in 2005 after a twelve-year run). That show had lots of buttocks. I'd even hazard a guess that the percentage of NYPDBlue episodes that showed buttocks exceeds fifty percent, although I can't be sure. How did this one episode draw the FCC's ire? The article indicates that "a boy surprises a woman in the shower", so maybe it's that the kid saw the buttocks. Oh noes!
But I can't get beyond the fact that the episode being fined aired five years ago. What the heck happened here? Was some FCC guy watching some DVDs of NYPDBlue and suddenly noticed buttocks for the first time? Anyway, I'm glad that the FCC is in the business of retroactive moral policing. Maybe they can finally start punishing CBS for all the shenanigans that used to take place on that filth-fest Smothers Brothers show.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Just impacted on the surface....
OK, I know that posting LOLCat photos is sort of the blogging equivalent of shouting out "Play 'Danny Boy'!" at a Celtic music concert, but I can't help but snag this one:
moar funny pictures
moar funny pictures
Wow, I just used these words as a post title the other day!
Mission control to Earth...identify yourself....
I've just realized that I have pretty much forgotten completely about my old series "Unidentified Earth", and that the last installment, posted back in December, has remained Unidentified. Is there any interest in this series resuming, or is it one of those "fun while it lasted" things? What say you, Readership?
Recent Movie Watching
One of my goals for 2008 is to catch up on movie watching. And not just recent stuff, either, but some of the "Old Greats" that I've never before seen, or only seen in part. I'm not setting a specific goal, but it's just a general thing I want to do. I'll be using resources like the AFI 100 lists, which even if they are certainly open to debate, they do boast some very good movies in their ranks. In the last couple of weeks I've watched two such films.
:: Even though I'd never seen The Philadelphia Story until just a couple of weeks ago, I knew its story well, because I've seen a number of times High Society, the musical version of the same story that was made fifteen or so years later. Wouldn't you know it; going back to the source material (so to speak, since The Philadelphia Story is in turn based on a stage play), I find that the original is superior to the remake.
It's not an entirely fair comparison, I suppose, since High Society is a musical while The Philadelphia Story is not; they're not really the same types of pictures, even if the stories are the same right down to large swatches of dialog. High Society's songs are all quite good, and the film has a justification for its musical doings: CK Dexter Haven is, in HS, a jazz musician who has scheduled a jazz festival in his home town (Newport, RI) that just happens to coincide with the wedding of his spoiled brat of an ex-wife with whom he happens to still be in love. Hijinks ensue.
Contrasting in TPS is CK Dexter Haven as a rich guy who is enlisted by SPY Magazine to get two reporters into the wedding, on the basis that they are friends of Dexter Haven's equally spoiled brat of an ex-wife's brother Junius. Or something like that. Anyway, the basics are the same: CK Dexter Haven is still in love with Tracy Lord; Tracy's marrying a stuffed shirt named George Kittridge; two reporters (Mike Connor and Liz Imbrie) from SPY are in attendance, even though they find the assignment distasteful, and Liz is in love with Mike, although he's oblivious to her feelings and finds himself involved in shenanigans of sexual chemistry with Tracy. Hijinks ensue.
I find it interesting that while HS is watchable because it's got good actors and good songs and the like (although I continue to be amazed that anyone ever thought Bing Crosby a suitable romantic lead), TPS is, with the same story and much of the same dialog, actually funny. I'm not entirely sure why, but I found myself laughing out loud at a lot of the hijinks in TPS, and I was struck by Cary Grant's ability to be the near-perfect straight man. He's funny just standing there, being stoic while all manner of hijinks ensue around him, and when he himself partakes in some foolery, it's utterly hilarious; witness his impromptu "Pomp and Circumstance" when George stomps away at the end of the movie.
And of course, James Stewart and Katherine Hepburn are, well, they're James Stewart and Katherine Hepburn. I tend to like Stewart more in movies like this, where he can be cynical and weary; for instance, when his boss the publisher guy asks Mike if he hates him, and Mike replies, "No, oh no. But I don't like you very much." It's not a great line, by any means, but Stewart turns it into one, by showing that Mike is enough of a diplomat to not openly admit to hating his boss, but possessed of enough self-pride to not pretend otherwise, either.
I also think that the ending works better in TPS than in HS, mainly because HS really beats the viewer over the head with the fact that CK Dexter Haven is still in love with Tracy, while TPS never really comes out and states it but rather lets us grow to suspect it as we get to know him.
(And for sheer laughs, TPS gets the nod over HS by having young Diana, Tracy's precocious little sister, rip off an exuberant rendition of "Lydia the Tattooed Lady", a song so funny that I'd laugh no matter who sang it.)
:: So, what better to follow up a 1930s screwball comedy about romantic shenanigans in an upper class Eastern city than a cynical 1970s tragicomedy about a man committed to a mental hospital? Nothing, obviously, which is why I finally struck One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest from my list of movies I should really have watched way before now.
What a great movie. Parts of it troubled me, parts of it made me laugh, parts of it saddened me. I guess that was the whole point. It never quite went in the direction I thought it was going in, and that makes me happy, even toward the end when the film took the tragic note that I'd really knew was coming the entire time.
I did find the film difficult going on occasion. I don't know much about mental illness, but I do know that while it still probably isn't taken seriously enough, it's taken much more seriously now than it was even in the time One Flew Over is set (late 60s or early 70s, I assume). The attitude toward mental patients in the film seems to run from seeing them as children who can't handle anything to people who are simply dangerous to themselves and others. I don't know enough about the history of mental illness treatment to know how accurate a depiction of that period's treatment of mental patients may be, but there's certainly a rather disturbing and horrifying tone to it all. I don't know if that feeling was there when the film first came out, but it's certainly there now. Similarly, I'm not sure if I was supposed to feel this sense of impending doom during the fishing boat sequence, but I did. I was surprised when that doom didn't happen at all.
This is why I had a hard time seeing Nurse Ratched as the malevolent villain she's most often described as. I couldn't decide if she was the cold authoritarian, or just a very serious person locked into the standard view of mental illness of her day. Certainly Louise Fletcher's performance is a great one, worthy of the Oscar it won, but watching the movie now, in 2008, for the first time ever, I couldn't truly see her as a villain. She's an antagonist, certainly, but that's not the same thing. She gets her way in the end in the brutal fashion of the day, but again, it's hard not to see that situation playing out any other way, even if she'd been a perfectly nice lady the whole time, right up to McMurphy's attempted strangling of her. The much more malevolent presence, for me, came from the orderlies underneath Nurse Ratched. I don't know if this was intentionally done on the part of the director, but these orderlies, played by two black men, have the same hairstyles and the same mustaches, they wear the same uniforms of white shirts with black bowties, and they walk with the same muted swagger. They seemed like, for lack of a better term, stormtroopers. Certainly nothing in the film was, to me, more ominous, not even anything said or done by Nurse Ratched, than the orderly who decides that it's time to get tough with McMurphy and puts a strap of hard leather over his knuckles in preparation to fight him.
McMurphy was doomed at that moment, of course, but even so, the Chief's subsequent discovery of his lobotomy scars is one of the sadder moments I've seen in a film recently. McMurphy is literally reduced to the drooling existence he had earlier pantomimed after his electroshock therapy. This time it's real, and McMurphy can no longer observe his greatest triumph: that he gave the Chief the wherewithal to free himself. I found the film playing out, in some of its particulars, almost like a Greek tragedy.
To praise the film's acting is easy enough, but there it is. Most of what I've seen of Jack Nicholson has been released in more recent years, when he's been JACK NICHOLSON, so to go back and see him when he was a young and vibrant force on the screen was a real treat. I kept noticing the one guy and thinking "Wow, he looks like a young Danny DeVito!", and then when I watched the credits, I learned that it actually was a young Danny DeVito. And then, of course, there's Christopher Lloyd, much younger than his Doc Brown days and much thinner and cleaner, and thus much more crazy looking, than his Reverend Jim of Taxi.
So: two movies down, and I loved both of them. Off to a good start, I think.
:: Even though I'd never seen The Philadelphia Story until just a couple of weeks ago, I knew its story well, because I've seen a number of times High Society, the musical version of the same story that was made fifteen or so years later. Wouldn't you know it; going back to the source material (so to speak, since The Philadelphia Story is in turn based on a stage play), I find that the original is superior to the remake.
It's not an entirely fair comparison, I suppose, since High Society is a musical while The Philadelphia Story is not; they're not really the same types of pictures, even if the stories are the same right down to large swatches of dialog. High Society's songs are all quite good, and the film has a justification for its musical doings: CK Dexter Haven is, in HS, a jazz musician who has scheduled a jazz festival in his home town (Newport, RI) that just happens to coincide with the wedding of his spoiled brat of an ex-wife with whom he happens to still be in love. Hijinks ensue.
Contrasting in TPS is CK Dexter Haven as a rich guy who is enlisted by SPY Magazine to get two reporters into the wedding, on the basis that they are friends of Dexter Haven's equally spoiled brat of an ex-wife's brother Junius. Or something like that. Anyway, the basics are the same: CK Dexter Haven is still in love with Tracy Lord; Tracy's marrying a stuffed shirt named George Kittridge; two reporters (Mike Connor and Liz Imbrie) from SPY are in attendance, even though they find the assignment distasteful, and Liz is in love with Mike, although he's oblivious to her feelings and finds himself involved in shenanigans of sexual chemistry with Tracy. Hijinks ensue.
I find it interesting that while HS is watchable because it's got good actors and good songs and the like (although I continue to be amazed that anyone ever thought Bing Crosby a suitable romantic lead), TPS is, with the same story and much of the same dialog, actually funny. I'm not entirely sure why, but I found myself laughing out loud at a lot of the hijinks in TPS, and I was struck by Cary Grant's ability to be the near-perfect straight man. He's funny just standing there, being stoic while all manner of hijinks ensue around him, and when he himself partakes in some foolery, it's utterly hilarious; witness his impromptu "Pomp and Circumstance" when George stomps away at the end of the movie.
And of course, James Stewart and Katherine Hepburn are, well, they're James Stewart and Katherine Hepburn. I tend to like Stewart more in movies like this, where he can be cynical and weary; for instance, when his boss the publisher guy asks Mike if he hates him, and Mike replies, "No, oh no. But I don't like you very much." It's not a great line, by any means, but Stewart turns it into one, by showing that Mike is enough of a diplomat to not openly admit to hating his boss, but possessed of enough self-pride to not pretend otherwise, either.
I also think that the ending works better in TPS than in HS, mainly because HS really beats the viewer over the head with the fact that CK Dexter Haven is still in love with Tracy, while TPS never really comes out and states it but rather lets us grow to suspect it as we get to know him.
(And for sheer laughs, TPS gets the nod over HS by having young Diana, Tracy's precocious little sister, rip off an exuberant rendition of "Lydia the Tattooed Lady", a song so funny that I'd laugh no matter who sang it.)
:: So, what better to follow up a 1930s screwball comedy about romantic shenanigans in an upper class Eastern city than a cynical 1970s tragicomedy about a man committed to a mental hospital? Nothing, obviously, which is why I finally struck One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest from my list of movies I should really have watched way before now.
What a great movie. Parts of it troubled me, parts of it made me laugh, parts of it saddened me. I guess that was the whole point. It never quite went in the direction I thought it was going in, and that makes me happy, even toward the end when the film took the tragic note that I'd really knew was coming the entire time.
I did find the film difficult going on occasion. I don't know much about mental illness, but I do know that while it still probably isn't taken seriously enough, it's taken much more seriously now than it was even in the time One Flew Over is set (late 60s or early 70s, I assume). The attitude toward mental patients in the film seems to run from seeing them as children who can't handle anything to people who are simply dangerous to themselves and others. I don't know enough about the history of mental illness treatment to know how accurate a depiction of that period's treatment of mental patients may be, but there's certainly a rather disturbing and horrifying tone to it all. I don't know if that feeling was there when the film first came out, but it's certainly there now. Similarly, I'm not sure if I was supposed to feel this sense of impending doom during the fishing boat sequence, but I did. I was surprised when that doom didn't happen at all.
This is why I had a hard time seeing Nurse Ratched as the malevolent villain she's most often described as. I couldn't decide if she was the cold authoritarian, or just a very serious person locked into the standard view of mental illness of her day. Certainly Louise Fletcher's performance is a great one, worthy of the Oscar it won, but watching the movie now, in 2008, for the first time ever, I couldn't truly see her as a villain. She's an antagonist, certainly, but that's not the same thing. She gets her way in the end in the brutal fashion of the day, but again, it's hard not to see that situation playing out any other way, even if she'd been a perfectly nice lady the whole time, right up to McMurphy's attempted strangling of her. The much more malevolent presence, for me, came from the orderlies underneath Nurse Ratched. I don't know if this was intentionally done on the part of the director, but these orderlies, played by two black men, have the same hairstyles and the same mustaches, they wear the same uniforms of white shirts with black bowties, and they walk with the same muted swagger. They seemed like, for lack of a better term, stormtroopers. Certainly nothing in the film was, to me, more ominous, not even anything said or done by Nurse Ratched, than the orderly who decides that it's time to get tough with McMurphy and puts a strap of hard leather over his knuckles in preparation to fight him.
McMurphy was doomed at that moment, of course, but even so, the Chief's subsequent discovery of his lobotomy scars is one of the sadder moments I've seen in a film recently. McMurphy is literally reduced to the drooling existence he had earlier pantomimed after his electroshock therapy. This time it's real, and McMurphy can no longer observe his greatest triumph: that he gave the Chief the wherewithal to free himself. I found the film playing out, in some of its particulars, almost like a Greek tragedy.
To praise the film's acting is easy enough, but there it is. Most of what I've seen of Jack Nicholson has been released in more recent years, when he's been JACK NICHOLSON, so to go back and see him when he was a young and vibrant force on the screen was a real treat. I kept noticing the one guy and thinking "Wow, he looks like a young Danny DeVito!", and then when I watched the credits, I learned that it actually was a young Danny DeVito. And then, of course, there's Christopher Lloyd, much younger than his Doc Brown days and much thinner and cleaner, and thus much more crazy looking, than his Reverend Jim of Taxi.
So: two movies down, and I loved both of them. Off to a good start, I think.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Stay on target! Stay on target!
To whomever came to this blog via this search, I really hope you found what you were looking for, 'cause if you didn't, I think I may have to reconsider the whole darn thing!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)