That’s Just The Way They Roll
Posted on | May 21, 2008 at 8:55 pm | 4 Comments
I hear that all the excitable pre-teen girls go crazy over a trio of brothers who play pop music. But would they be so ga-ga over them if the brothers were evil? Just check out the photo on the right (click to enlarge). Yep, your eyes are not deceiving you. It appears the brothers own a furrier in Denver. Don’t they know that fur is evil? That poor zebra.
Here’s another view of the building. Look there – their names are etched into stone right above the entrance. What more do you need? I can’t look at this building without thinking about the cruelty inflicted on animals in the name of fashion. Oh, Joe, Nick and Kevin, what have you done?? I dearly hope this is just some cruel prank or jest and that the boys have nothing to do with this. But that freakin’ tall sign can’t be denied. It’s in my face practically every day.
Latre.
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 57°F), but still not back up to the full route yet.
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “Istampitta: Isabella” (Ryuichi Sakamoto)
- “My Heart Is Breaking Down” (Caesars)
- “Definitive Gaze” (Magazine)
- “If Silence Means That Much To You” (Emma Pollock)
Overly Long And Creepy Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “teacher’s paddle or wooden paddle or given or receiving licks or three or five licks tardies or tardy or ditching or misbehaving pe teacher or coach or ap or assistant principal”.
Beerway To Heaven
Posted on | May 20, 2008 at 6:35 am | 1 Comment
I win! Steve didn’t post anything on Monday May 19th and I did, so I now have the most consecutive days of blogging between us! Woo hoo! Someone else can total up the number of days. I’m not good at math.
It’s something of a hollow victory, since I’ve been feeling burned out myself and have been thinking about taking a day or week off from blogging. Steve beat me to it only because he’s on vacation in Europe and it’s hard for him to post. But I’ll take what I can get.
Anyway… I was noticing around the end of last week that there was an increase of traffic to this blog by people searching for the phrase “beers in heaven”. That’s what I titled the blog entry about my friend Jeff passing away a few years ago. I couldn’t figure out what was going on there. The title was an obvious play on Eric Clapton’s “Tears In Heaven”, the song he wrote about the death of his young son. But why were people suddenly searching for “beers in heaven”?
Then I watched the season finale of The Office from last Thursday. Now I understand. Steve Carrell’s character Michael Scott is portrayed as a writer of parody songs, and his masterpiece “Beers In Heaven” is mentioned several times in the episode. Unfortunately, you never get to hear it. Although you do get to hear him mangle Supertramp’s “Goodbye Stranger”.
So… you never know what’s going to bring traffic to your site. Best to pepper it with as many pop culture references as possible! Huzzah!
Latre.
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 52°F). Not full route; no iPod.
Update: I really should’ve called this entry Steinway To Heaven.
Find The MacGuffin
Posted on | May 19, 2008 at 9:53 pm | 5 Comments
I’m slowly working my way through the 2007 Best Picture nominees. Last week, N and I watched the Blu-Ray disc of No Country For Old Men, and this weekend it was the Blu-Ray of Juno (or, as I like to call it: Gilmore Girls: The Movie). I love that NetFlix rents Blu-Rays, BTW.
In the comments to my review of No Country For Old Men, InfK remarked, “You gotta grade on a curve – what else deserved to win in 2007? Juno? Give me a break…”
Well… yeah. I think it deserved to win more than No Country. But comedies don’t get much love from the Academy. It was an interesting and (dare I say it) heartwarming story, concisely told, with characters you cared about and dialog that was actually interesting and funny to listen to. Yeah, at times it seemed a bit too pleased with itself, but that was part of the charm. Maybe it didn’t deserve to win Best Picture, but it did earn that Best Screenplay Oscar for Diablo Cody.
I don’t know what I can say about it that wasn’t already said better by Sue in her review. Yes, that perceptual shift that the viewer undergoes toward the characters of Vanessa and Mark is a key component of what makes the movie so watchable, and even if it does feel a bit manipulative (and maybe even predictable), it’s still well done and a credit to the acting talents of Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman. (Hmmm, “acting talents of Jennifer Garner”… I’m not sure that’s something I ever thought I would write.) I must also single out J.K Simmons (J. Jonah Jameson from the Spider-Man movies), who can do wrong and who continues his streak here as Juno’s understanding but concerned father. No matter how long he’s on screen, you always want to see more of him, but maybe that’s his style… always leave ‘em wanting more. Do your job and get out without overstaying your welcome. Still, I wonder what he could do as the lead of a film. And of course Ellen Page is the one to watch. It seems like she’s making pretty smart choices in her career, so I’m going to enjoy watching that career unfold. Thinking about Hard Candy still gives me nightmares. Michael Cera is good in anything he does, but I long to see him in a tough guy role – wouldn’t that be something?
So… Juno 1, No Country 0. Next up in the NetFlix queue is Michael Clayton. Will George Clooney don the be-nippled Batman suit again and save the day?
Latre.
Pet Peeve of the Day: Workers working on the house next door blocking off part of my driveway!
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “my therapist wants me to do new age stuff”.
The Other Side Of The Tracks
Posted on | May 18, 2008 at 1:06 pm | 5 Comments
Yesterday, I went to the theater to watch a documentary about NASCAR. I don’t know much about the sport, so I thought it would be a good introduction. I did learn a lot of things; I guess I had a lot of misconceptions. For one thing, the cars were a lot more futuristic looking than what I remember from seeing races on TV. They even had failsafe mechanisms where if the car was destroyed, a cocoon of gunk would encircle the driver and safely deposit him in a hole in the track. Now, that’s some forward thinking!
The movie was pretty confusing. It focused a lot on corporate sponsorship and industrial espionage and race fixing and all sorts of complicated, indecipherable schemes. It mostly followed one semi-independent family, named (ironically enough) “The Racers”, and their driving prodigy son “Speed” (also an ironic name). I almost wish they had gotten an actor to play Speed, because the dude was pretty wooden and didn’t have a lot of emotional depth to him. Speed had two annoying little brothers, one of whom was a chimpanzee, and they were always getting into trouble. He also had an older brother who died and who then may or may not have turned into Jack from Lost, but I didn’t quite get what was going on there. One of the other drivers looked a lot like Stephen Colbert’s nemesis, the Korean pop star Rain. Anyway, when this Speed Racer guy started showing how good of a driver he was, the evil corporate shills came after him and wanted him to join up. When he refused and said he wanted to stay with his independent family company, then all hell broke loose. But by the end of the documentary, Speed and his family came out ahead and defeated the bad guys and showed that racing could be a pure sport once again. And that it was okay to drink cold milk in the Winner’s Circle with some English mechanic dude and pretend to kiss your fake girlfriend.
I can’t say much for the story, which felt somewhat manufactured and not really true-to-life, but the camera work was exquisite. You felt like you were right there in the middle of the race! (I didn’t realize NASCAR was so big on bright candy colors, but whatever sells!) Sometimes it was a little hard to figure out what was going on and who was doing what to who in the races, but that’s what happens when you’re trying to capture such fast action. It did kind of give me a headache though and I think I had a seizure at one point.
So, did this movie make me want to become a NASCAR fan? I have to say that it did make me look more favorably upon the sport. If they could capture that kind of action and dynamism on the TV screen every week, I might have to tune in. I’m especially anxious to see chicks flying helicopters!
Latre.
One additional note: For some reason, the lobby of the theater was dressed up as a Renaissance Faire, complete with people in costume and all. I don’t know why. It clashed a bit with the NASCAR motif.
Wallets Are Holding Us Down
Posted on | May 17, 2008 at 11:22 am | 2 Comments
Will phones ever replace wallets? According to this article, yes, but it’s still a ways away – 2012 at the earliest.
I know the article is primarily focused on the use of phones to make payments wherever you would use a credit or debit card, but I want a phone(/pda) that will replace all the functions of a wallet so that I don’t have to carry one around and keep track of it. After cash and cards, the primary use for a wallet is to carry ID. Of course, once we all have RFID chips implanted in our bodies, we won’t have to carry identification. Let’s see, what else do I use a wallet for…? I’ve already switched to a slimline wallet, as I reported in this blog entry. So I don’t really have much in my wallet these days. Family photos can be kept on the smartphone or PDA. Pretty much anything can be kept in the smartphone or PDA. The implanted RFID chip will transmit not only your driver’s license information, but your health insurance info. The phone will be able to store and change how many punches you have on your sandwich shop card, all the info for your various credit cards… stuff like that. The car’s computer itself will have the auto insurance and car registration info. So, really, there will be no need for a wallet soon enough. It’s a brave new world.
I can’t wait to get rid of my wallet! Hopefully as part of a big wallet-burning ceremony.
Latre.
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 59°F) Short route, no iPod.
Comparing Donkey Schlongs
Posted on | May 16, 2008 at 11:01 pm | Comments Off
I finally got a chance to see The King Of Kong: A Fistful Of Quarters tonight. Fabulous. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll kiss two bits goodbye. The story of champion Donkey Kong player Billy Mitchell vs challenger Steve Wiebe is a tale for the ages.
Though I did play a lot arcade games back in my youth, I don’t have an overriding sentimentally for them. I prefer to follow the latest technology instead of getting hung up on retro stuff. I did have a fondness for the likes of Centipede and Galaga back in the day, but I never really got that good at them. It just took too many quarters to become competent. And Donkey Kong was one of those games that I would try every once in a while, but it was too hard and frustrating and repetitive, and I never got very far. (Of course, I did get into its “sequel” Super Mario Brothers, when the NES home console was released. Oh boy, did I get into that.) I like home games better than arcade ones because you can really concentrate on them without worrying about running out of time or money. And you don’t have to go anywhere to play them. (Unlike some people I know, I don’t have any arcade games in my basement.)
So it was really interesting seeing this whole subculture of these people who are into these retro games generally and the whole Donkey Kong rivalry specifically. What a scary group. The slickster tie-wearing champion Billy Mitchell reminds me somewhat of an (ex)friend of mine with his competitive but dismissive spirit. The challenger Steve Wiebe is the kind of schlubby underdog hero family man that anyone can get behind. When his taped high score is invalidated by the powers that be due to an alleged technicality, while Billy’s taped high score is accepted, you really get drawn into the emotional currents of the story. You don’t have to be familiar with the games involved, or even gaming in general, to appreciate this well-told documentary. It’s a story for the ages. Or at least for our particular technology and competition-obsessed age. And at 83 minutes long, the movie does not overstay its welcome. The DVD even has some updates of important events that happened after the film was released. This is an ever-evolving story, apparently.
So, instead of playing Grand Theft Auto IV this weekend and having Niko whack another Albanian loan shark, watch this movie and see what a whole other segment of the gaming community is like. As alternate universes go, this one’s a dozy.
Okay, off to go play some more GTA4…
Latre.
Jogging Update: Yeah, I haven’t jogged in many weeks. I’m still fighting off some weird illness that really surfaces when I get overheated. Hopefully I’m on the downside of that and can start running again soon. But I’ve thought that before.
Also, Steve would have us believe that he is in “Europe” and that he may not be able to keep up with the consecutive blogging competition that we’re in. (Hey, who’s the Billy and who’s the Steve in this contest?) I think he’s just trying to trick me again. He obviously has a lot of stock photos from his previous overseas trips, and he’s posting them from the comfort of his California home.
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