Driving Quiz
Posted on | July 8, 2008 at 9:21 pm | 5 Comments
Today, we’re having a little quiz for all you drivers out there. It’s very important to practice road etiquette. Nice people get to where they want to go. Rude people do too, but they piss off other people while doing it. Is it more important to follow the rules of the road, or to do whatever it is you need to do to get somewhere on time? What would you do in the following scenarios?
Scenario 1
You are a big white van in a left hand turn lane at a stoplighted intersection, but you have decided you don’t really want to turn left, you want to go straight. You are the only one in the left hand turn lane and there is no one in the right hand lanes next to you going straight through the intersection. However, there is a Prius on the opposite side of the intersection also making a left turn. Do you:
A) Make the left turn anyway, and figure out some way to turn around and get back to where you wanted to go.
B) Back up the van and reposition yourself in one of the straight-thru lanes before the light turns green.
C) Sit there blocking traffic for no good reason while you decide what to do next.
D) Go straight through the intersection right when the light turns green, thereby causing the Prius on the other side of the intersection to almost slam into you as it turns left because the Prius driver didn’t think anyone on the other side was going straight. Then stop in the middle of the intersection when the Prius slams on his brakes and honks at you, and then scream at the Prius driver.
Scenario 2
You are in a big old SUV on a crowded but wide 5-lane one-way street during the morning rush hour. You are in the second lane from the right. As you approach a stoplighted intersection with another one-way street (which goes left to right), you decide you need to turn right on that street even though you are in the lane that goes straight through the intersection. It is not a double turn lane, and cars in the lane to your right can either turn right at the intersection or go through it, in which case they have to turn right at the next intersection. Also, there is a red light camera at the intersection. The Prius beside you in the right lane does not have a turn signal blinking and is obviously intending to turn right at the second intersection, not the first one.
Do you:
A) Go straight through the intersection and make a right at the next intersection so that you can eventually turn right again and get back going to where you wanted to go.
B) Slow down so that you can get behind the Prius in the right lane and make the right turn.
C) Wait for Thunderbird 2 to swoop in and lift you from the one road and carry you to the other road.
D) Speed up on the yellow light and make the right turn anyway even though you are in the totally wrong lane for it, thereby cutting off and nearly sideswiping the Prius in the right lane.
If you answered D to either of the two scenarios above, then you could be one of the assholes I recently encountered on the road.
Latre.
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “weall in the sky keeps on turning”.
How To Alienate A Neighbor
Posted on | July 7, 2008 at 11:04 pm | 3 Comments
Does this ever happen to you? Sometimes I let my sense of humor get the best of me. Or is it my love of obscure musical groups and odd legal terms?
During the 4th of July holiday, I went out into my backyard to watch N hanging her laundry. My neighbor and his wife were assembling something in their backyard. At first I thought it was a support for a free-standing hammock, and I asked him if that’s what it was. “No”, he said “It’s a trampoline!” I quickly came back with “Ah, an attractive nuisance!”. They both looked at me strangely and then he said “But they’re really fun!” Realizing I’d said something dumb, I started to explain about how they have to worry about other kids coming into their yard to play on it, but I don’t think I made much sense. Nevertheless, he nodded knowingly (or patronizingly). After that, they only did a little more work on it, and they didn’t touch it the whole rest of the weekend, even though I know they were home. Only part of the frame is up, and the dog doesn’t seem too happy to have over half her yard potentially taken up with the thing. Maybe they realized it’s too big?
After the exchange, N asked me what the heck was I thinking and why did I want to piss off my neighbors? Of course the term was on my mind because of the Loud Family album Attractive Nuisance, which is where I first heard of it. So whenever I see a trampoline, that’s what I always think of. Damn this pop culture/pop music mindset of mine! That explanation didn’t do much to mollify her. I think the real explanation is that sometimes I’m just a dick.
Latre.
Pet Peeve of the Day: A giant trampoline in my neighbor’s yard. Cue the noisy kids having a lot of fun!
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “poignant search term of the day”. (Very funny, InfK!)
Two Hours Not In Bruges
Posted on | July 6, 2008 at 11:25 am | Comments Off
Movie/DVD Review Sunday!
2 Days In Paris is a movie that starts off funny and interesting, but kind of falls apart by the end. N and I watched the DVD last night and enjoyed it, with some reservations. It’s the story of two lovers Marion and Jack, played by Julie Delpy and Adam Goldberg, who are on their way back to New York from a vacation in Venice and stop off to visit her parents in Paris. The parents are crazy old artist hippie types and there is much predictable but funny culture clash between Jack and them (and the other denizens of Delpy’s Paris). But then as more of Marion’s past comes to light (along with her anger management issues), the movie takes some darker turns, while still trying to pass itself off as something of a farce.
Star Delpy directed as well as wrote the movie, and her real life parents play her character’s parents in the movie. It’s a real family affair. Obviously she put a lot of herself into the film, and it shows. There’s some rawness and grittiness to Paris that you don’t always see in other movies set there. Goldberg’s character is actually likable in the movie (not always the case with him) and I cared more about Jack than I did about Marion, even if he was a bit of a whiner. So kudos to Delpy for showing the flaws in her character’s character. By the end of the movie, I did feel I got to know the characters better, but I’m not sure I was better off for it.
Latre.
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “armless statue of jesus”.
Anointed, Blazing Red
Posted on | July 5, 2008 at 10:32 am | 1 Comment
I hope everyone had a good fireworks-watching night last night. We were able to walk about a mile from the house and get a good view of a major fireworks display about two miles from there. How did fireworks become associated with Independence Day? No doubt Will Smith had something to do with it. And who came up with the name “fireworks”? Yeah, they’re started by fire and they really give you “the works”, but shouldn’t they be called “skylight explosions” or something like that? Well, anyway, I’m sure the answers to these and other important questions can be found on the Internet.
Speaking of the Internet, my buddy (and blog commenter) DMR is giving a go to another blog attempt: 50% Off. This one is about his adventures as a recovering pack rat. Check it out. Since I’m currently trying to organize and dispose of a large comic book collection infesting my basement, I’m sure he’ll have some advice in there I can use.
Hey, ABBA reunited! Sort of.
This has been a Paula-style blog post (though not as interesting). Thank you for your time and attention.
Latre.
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “dog abnormal from eating ice cream”.
Donuts To Dollars
Posted on | July 4, 2008 at 2:15 pm | 1 Comment
One year ago today, I blogged about and posted pictures from the makeover a local 7-11 had undergone into a Kwik-E-Mart to promote The Simpsons Movie. That 7-11, like all the ones involved in the promotion, eventually reverted back to its former non-Springfieldian state and now advertises Slurpees and Asian Rolls (whatever those are) instead of Squishees and Krusty-Os. And last weekend, nearly a year after I took those photos, I finally actually saw The Simpsons Movie.
I always find it weird when there’s a feature movie made of a TV show that’s still on the air. My earliest recollection of that phenomenon was seeing the McHale’s Navy movie in the theater, even when the show was still showing up on my TV. (Although… hmmm… the numbers on that don’t quite work out, since the movie came out in 1964 when I was 4, and the TV show went from 1962-1966. I think I was more like 7 or 8 when I saw the movie, so I must’ve just been familiar with the show from the daily reruns. I remember I saw the movie at one of those Saturday Morning Matinee things at the local theater, where they would show slightly out-of-date movies for cheap to a theater full of little kids. My mom would frequently drop me off at that so she could go do other things. Those were simpler times. They had door prizes and everything. I remember winning a toy submarine that would dive to the bottom of the pool and then rise back up again, due to some kind of Mentos-like lozenge you would put in its hull. I loved that sub. But I digress.)
The most recent example I can think of is The X-Files movie . Sheesh, hard to believe that was 10 years ago already, and that there’s a second one coming out this summer. That movie sort of promised to reveal what had been going on in the TV series, but it was a predictable muddle (like the show at the time) and didn’t really make sense of anything.
The best example is South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut, which took the themes from the TV show and expanded them into something that was quite funny, moving, and spectacular. Years later, the TV show is going strong, and the movie did nothing to undermine it.
The Simpsons Movie is not quite the success that the South Park movie was, even though they both have the still-running-TV-show thing and the animation thing in common. I think it’s probably a bit harder to come up with a plot for a movie of a TV show that’s been running for nearly 20 years, since all possible plots have been done by now. South Park had only been on the air for a couple of years (with fewer episodes per year) when its movie came out. Yeah, it was cool that they were able to do some things with the big screen Simpsons that they couldn’t do on the small one, like nudity, profanity, obscene hand gestures, impossible action sequences, and better animation. But the plot, although bigger in scope than your standard Simpsons episode, still seemed like a drawn-out version of an episode. Homer does something stupid which gets him (and the whole town) in trouble, and then he has to persevere to make things right. A plot we’ve seen dozens of times on the show. But at least it was funny and entertaining and fast-moving. The celebrity cameos were kept to a minimum – pretty much just Tom Hanks, although Albert Brooks voiced the main antagonist.
I really can’t fault the producers for getting a Simpsons movie out of the way now while the show is still on, since it’s obvious they did want to do one and there was some demand for it, and it may be a long time before the show is canceled and they could do a post-show movie. Heck, in that EW issue I was talking about yesterday, they named The Simpsons as the #1 show of the past 25 years. So it may be around for awhile. I bet there will be another movie someday, but I don’t know what in the world they could do as a plot for it. Maybe Homer and Family visit the home planet of Kang & Kodos’?
Happy Independence Day, everyone! Don’t drink too much Duff Beer!
Latre.
Pet Peeve of the Day: Hearing the musical strains of an ice cream truck, craving some ice cream on a hot 4th of July day, and not having the truck actually go through my street.
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “i smoke winstons”.
Begin The Analysis
Posted on | July 3, 2008 at 10:55 pm | Comments Off
I’ve been making my way through Entertainment Weekly’s 1000th issue the last few weeks, which features “The New Classics: The 1000 Best Movies, TV Show, Albums, Books & More of the Last 25 Years”. EW does love their lists. On their list of the top 100 albums of the last 25 years, the R.E.M. album Lifes Rich Pageant comes in at #32. (Pet Peeve of the Day: The album is erroneously listed as “Life’s Rich Pageant”, even though R.E.M. intentionally left the grammatically correct apostrophe off the album title. I can believe that they just messed up in the print edition, but since they have yet to fix it online, it appears they are clueless.) It’s the only R.E.M. album on the list, even though all of them are eligible – their first album Murmur came out 25 years ago.
On a music mailing list that I’m on, there was a discussion recently about Lifes Rich Pageant where I thought I had to defend it. I thought I was one of the few R.E.M. fans who placed the album near the top of their catalog (if not the top). But then I was surprised when others defended it as well. And now I’m really surprised that EW has essentially declared it the best R.E.M. album. I always thought the conventional mainstream wisdom was more in favor of Automatic For The People, Out Of Time, Green, or even Document. And the fans were more into the first three albums. LRP just kind of seemed out there on its own between the two extremes, not really preferred by anyone.
Anyway, here’s what EW says:
Previously confined to the college-rock ghetto, the Athens, Ga., quartet produced an album of lean, mean straightforward rockers. The result: a killer collection, highlighted by the chiming “Fall on Me.”
The “college-rock ghetto”? Though “Fall on Me” was their biggest hit up to that point, I’m not sure it really catapulted them out of that alleged ghetto. It took Document and “The One I Love” to do that. But it’s not like they were that unknown before LRP.
Though there are definitely rockers on the album, and it’s probably the closest thing to a rocking album they’d come up with by that point, I would hesitate to classify it as “an album of straightforward rockers”. “Chiming” does not exactly equal “rocker”, although “Fall on Me” does manage to be both, I guess. Not to mention the fact that nothing R.E.M. does is ever “straightforward”, musically or lyrically. You can finally hear Stipe actually enunciating words on this album, but the meanings of those words are nearly as elusive as on the first three albums.
So, I just thought it was a strange, but oddly pleasant, thing for EW to declare. I guess I agree with their reckoning, if not their analysis. I know these lists are made by committee and don’t really reveal or mean much, but they’re fun to talk about and they generate some buzz. I just don’t understand how a list of the best music of the past 25 years can have a Justin Timberlake album and no Plants And Birds And Rocks And Things from the Loud Family, but that’s a discussion for another time. I’m still in some kind of indie-rock ghetto and out of touch with the listmakers.
Latre.
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 57°F)
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “A Strange Kind of Love (Version 1)” (Peter Murphy)
- “Twitch” (Bif Naked)
- “Butterball” (Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass)
- “Agent’s Got A Secret” (Dada)
- “NYC” (Interpol)
- “Weathervane” (Miles Dethmuffen)