i m N s h o

So the reviews are in and the ranting, both online and off is in full swing. Tolkien purists bitching about the things left out/glossed over/(gasp!) changed… those that just don’t get it wondering what all the fuss is all about (“it’s got elves and magic in it, right? Can’t be any good then!”)… and the cinephiles analyzing every moment and pointing out where it comes up short. I don’t think I’m going to go there yet. We saw the movie last week and I thoroughly enjoyed every moment. The epic’s done, finished up in fine fashion. Peter Jackson and his team did a fabulous job of realizing onscreen the characters, places and events of Middle Earth and I applaud the lot of them for it. Are there flaws? Sure, there must be. But there was nothing in that 3½ hours that was so glaring as to pull me out of the movie and frankly, that’s good enough for me right now. Maybe when I go back and see it a 2nd or 3rd time I’ll find those flaws and think of ways I’d rather have seen things handled

Still advertising the RNC and stuff. Guess the Lord of the Rings people don't feel quite the need to flood banner space as the RNC. Oh well.

…and watch what happens! I go on vacation and don't post for a few days (okay, maybe a week or more!) and today I got an email from a friend, telling me that they're advertising Bush '04 junk and the Republican National Committee on my blog site! Normally, I don't even pay attention to banner ads, so, I check it out and, sure enough, as I hit refresh, up come the RNC ads, Bush in '04 ads, Ashcroft vs. Greenpeace ads… and, underneath the ads is a line for related searches and "ads powered by Google". So what I assume is happening is Google (which now owns Blogger) does a keyword search on the contents of the blogs it's hosting. Then it displays ads based on these keywords. So, every time I mouth off about Dubya, the current administration, the political right and other such things that annoy my liberal heart (I tried real hard there not to include any obvious keywords for Google to work off of!) I could end up promoting the very thing I'm ran

Anyone else ever notice that Dubya's drawling mispronunciation of the word "terror" sounds a lot like the Latin word for earth, "terra"? A lot of SF authors use the word Terra for Earth in their stories… presumably to either impart some "classicism" to our home planet's name, or simply because they can then refer to denizens of our world as "terran" instead of "earthling"… arguably, a more euphonious name. So Bush's War on Terror becomes "War on Terra". Or simply "War on Earth"… a sadly fitting name for the multi-generational conflict he's envisioned for us all. I love word games.

Bush Overruled on 'Dirty Bomb' Suspect First off, let me just say that I don't give a damn about Mr. Padilla and that, if he did do (or was planning) what the government says he was, then as far as I'm concerned he can rot in jail. Having said that, it is gratifying to see that the Court's not buying the argument that you can negate a citizen's rights (to a fair and speedy trial, to confront your accuser, to representation by an attorney, etc.) by simply declaring him an "enemy combatant". (Don't let the name change fool you… that's basically the same as labeling him an enemy of the state—that old stand-by of totalitarian regimes everywhere. ) Because if they can get away with it for this clown, they can do it to anyone. That, folks, is a police state. You're not doing anything to "make the world safe for democracy" by turning us into one.

So last week I heard that, in reaction to CBS's failed Reagan "biopic", Republican congressmen decided to draft a bill to replace FDR on the dime with Reagan's face. Now, aside from the fact that it would mean an entire denomination that I would have to refuse to use… come on! A Reagan dime? Please. (A little commentary on the Reagan dime, just for fun.) And then, in today's news I hear that Republican Rep. Doug Ose from California (I'd be ashamed that he's from California, but he's a Republican, so I can just reject him entirely) is upset because Bono got away with saying "Fuck" on an award show recently. So he's introducing a bill with a list of 8 words (sorry George !) that, free speech be damned!, you CANNOT use on the air. The article in today's LA Times doesn't list the eight words, but then they couldn't, could they? Apparently there's nothing of any real importance going on in Washington these days.

3 days sick last week and the rest of the week spent catching up. And, worst thing of all (for my self-involved vanity) I haven't found time to post about anything for more than a week! Damn, and there's so much to talk about! Good movies, bad politics, stupid people on & off the internet... *sigh* Guess I'm just going to have to find some time this week!

PLANNED SPONTANEITY: Dubbed a trend by Trendwatching.com and aided by wireless phones, PDAs and a host of ways to make instant reservations, consumers are intentionally planning to make last-minute decisions with their entertainment dollars to add a little excitement and spontaneity to their lives. All I can say is that if this is the only way to get excitement spontaneity into your life… well, you're just doing it all wrong. (from today's BuzzWhack.com email)

Well, actually, it's a TV ad, so I'm kind of on a run here. I've heard the opinion that the sitcom is dead as an art form (that, of course, presumes that the sitcom was an art form in the first place, but that's beside the point). This may just be proof of that: They've been running an ad for the new Tracy Morgan show all day. And, as is the norm with sitcom ads, they're playing a clip of one of those "wacky" sitcom moments guaranteed to make you want to tune in. (Yeah, right.) The set-up is Mom telling the kids that their aunt (or some such female relative/friend of the family) is coming over to babysit them. The kids complain because she's got a lazy eye and one of them remarks that they never know who she's looking at (or something similar. Remember, think wacky!). Dad then jumps in and tells them not to make fun of her eye, that she lost her husband because of that eye. He thought… wait for it… she was seeing someone on the side! (Se

KFC's Christmas "bucket", pronounced "boo-ket" (a really lame play-on-words version of "bouqet"). All I can say is BLOW ME, KFC! God, I'm really beginning to hate marketing/ad people and what they're doing to the language. Leave it alone, you morons! Average Joe does enough damage to English without your help!

It's not just that I've got that damn Christmas carol running through my head, but I've got it running through my head with those damn ungrammatical lyrics! Right now, I just hate UPS.

The horrible grammar of "it's the most longest lines of the year" or the fact that, everytime the latest UPS ad plays, I end up with "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" (or whatever that freaking Christmas carol is called) running through my head for hours. All I know for sure is that, today at least, I hate UPS.

L.A. Wants to End 'Master' and 'Slave' Equipment Some idiot working for LA filed a discrimination suit because they found a pair of videotape machines labeled "master" & "slave" so now, the County is renaming all their systems and asking all their vendors to stop using the terms. Never mind that this has been industry standard for years. Never mind that the master & slave designations actually make sense when you're talking about computer & electronic equipment. And never mind that we're NOT TALKING ABOUT PEOPLE HERE (or, for that matter, any other type of sentient being that might get offended by that concept, just in case there's any AI or non-human alien types listening in here. *smirk*). God, I hate political correctness. And, since I can't seem to stop posting about this… It occurs to me that I mispoke yesterday when I posted this: "…worst case scenario, Jackson IS a pedophile, mom IS simply out f

Five Wasps I'm thinking primarily of the godawful background, but the content's a good reason to no longer be associated with the whole "ranting & raving" concept, too.

Michael Jackson turns himself in, to be paraded past news crews in handcuffs for the dread perp-walk, causing his brother Jermaine to cry racism. Note to Jermaine as well as Benzino from The Source—when you get to Michael Jackson’s level of fame, this kind of thing has more to do with celebrity than it ever will with race, so cut the “racism” argument. (Besides, have you SEEN Michael lately? Hell, I’m closer to the black experience these days… at least I still live in the real world.) This isn’t to reject the idea that dragging him past news crews in handcuffs wasn’t overplaying things for the media, but don’t try and tell me it’s racism. But, aside from that, reports are coming out that the alleged victim's father claims there was no abuse and that the mother only got lawyered up when Jackson said he had to stop giving them money and buying things for the family. (He had, apparently, been paying at least some of the boy’s medical expenses and had bought the family a house, amon

Attorney: Michael Jackson Will Surrender Ok, first off, if Michael Jackson is the pedophile that he's accused of, I hope the Santa Barbara DA actually has the case to prove it this time and he's not just operating on his own agenda here, but that's beside the point. The warrants have been issued, Jackson's supposed to surrender today (if his attorneys and the DA can work out the details so he can avoid a "perp walk"), but none of the details of the charges against him are supposed to be revealed for something like seven weeks. This, of course, does not spare us from speculation, leaks, news breaks or the amazing coverage last night on Channel 4 , when they followed some plane that landed in Santa Barbara for over an hour (according to the reports I listened to on KROQ this morning). But here's the best part of that… at one point, after the plane's been sitting on the ground for something like 45 minutes, they go to the news guy in the chopp

If I didn't at least mention this one. Massachusetts court strikes down ban on same-sex marriage Need I mention I'm glad to see this? Naw, I didn't think so. (Of course, this is just kicking the argument about a "Federal Marriage Amendment" into high gear, so it's going to get ugly. But at least we've got the Courts siding with personal freedom over the morality police. At least in this instance." And, if you feel like voicing your opinion about said Federal Marriage Amendment, here's some info from the ACLU and a link to let Congress know what you think… Oppose Writing Intolerance into the U.S. Constitution OBVIOUSLY, since it's the ACLU, you know which side of the argument said letter's coming from, so if you support the FMA, you'll have to find your own links, or go straight to the Senate website to voice your opinions.

Ok, so maybe I’m NOT out. (And, while I tried real hard not to give anything away in my last post, if you haven’t seen Matrix Revolutions yet, and plan on seeing it, and don’t want to take a chance on finding things out you don’t want to know, well, this IS your SPOILER ALERT! Just in case you were wondering.) One of the biggest disappointments for me in both Reloaded and Revolutions was the apparent loss of the unique vision the Wachowskis showed us in The Matrix and Bound (the low budget, lesbian/gangster flick they did to prove to the studios that they could direct). One of the things that really drew me to Bound was the fascinating way they constructed each of their shots. There’s one scene where Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly are having a phone conversation and the camera follows the phone cord from Tilly’s phone, across the floor, through the wall, up the cord on the other side and into the headset Gershon’s using. I loved that shot. And there were countless others in th

So my first reaction to seeing Matrix Revolutions was that, if I were the Wachowskis, I’d be wondering “what the hell do you people want from us!?!” Because, frankly, I found Revolutions to be a much “cleaner”, more focused film than the tediously overstuffed Reloaded. After a few conversations about the movies, I still prefer Revolutions to Reloaded, but I can see some of the other side as well. So here’s my take on it all… Things that worked for me: First off, as I said, I found this one more focused than Reloaded. As the brothers W had said, this one’s all about the war, and there’s really very little deviation from that path. (That’s also part of the reason people disliked it, I know. More on that later.) But, where Reloaded felt overstuffed and desperately in need of some editing, Revolutions never lagged for me. Sure, the final battle with Agent Smith might have been a little long, but hell, it IS the final battle between these two—they’ve kinda earned it, you know?

Ok, two new “products” from the Word Spy newsletter … On 10/30/03, we were introduced to the nicotini: nicotini (NIK.oh.tee.nee) n. A nicotine-laced martini. Larry Wald, the owner of the Cathode Ray Club, came up with the homemade brew as he searched for ways to help smokers cope with the new smoke-free atmosphere Florida voters ordered last fall. Soak tobacco leaves in vodka overnight, deaden the juice’s harshness by adding a couple other liquors and voila: the nicotini of Las Olas. --Scott Wyman, “As smoke clears, club mixes tobacco, vodka,” Orlando Sentinel , August 31, 2003 Then, on 11/14, we learned about the tomacco: tomacco (tuh.MAK.oh) n. A hybrid created by grafting a tomato plant onto the roots of a tobacco plant. Rob Baur of Lake Oswego, Oregon, dreamed of bringing to life his favorite The Simpsons episode, one from 1999 in which Homer grows “tomacco,” a combination tomato-tobacco plant. Baur grafted a tomato plant onto tobacco roots, and voilà, h

Back in Action So, let me get this straight… the only thing the suits at Warner Bros. learned from the debacle that was Space Jam was to cast actors instead of basketball players? You've got one of the most recognizable stables of animated characters in Hollywood (arguably, second only to Disney's) and all you can think to do with them is put them in live action films? How about doing what they did best in the past? ANIMATED FILMS! God, what an incredible idea! How did no one ever think of it! (Of course, judging from the abysmal Duck Dodgers on the Cartoon Network , maybe they're right in staying away from animated movies these days.) Not that it's impossible that Back in Action might be worth seeing… I've just got my doubts. I mean, have you SEEN the trailers? Yeah, that's what I thought.

…since I haven't posted much lately. Dani and I were driving in today and she told me that the word "mcjob" is going into Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary—defined as a low-paying, dead end job (and McDonald’s is NOT happy ). And we’d both heard recently that “ bling bling ” is being added to The Oxford English Dictionary. We talked about how, despite McDonald’s annoyance with the whole process, that’s how language grows… words enter into the language as slang, get accepted and eventually end up in the dictionary. So, from today’s Word Spy mailing list: "Slang… is the wholesome fermentation or eructation of those processes eternally active in language, by which froth and specks are thrown up, mostly to pass away; though occasionally to settle and permanently crystallize. —Walt Whitman, American poet, "Slang in America", 1892

Alabama chief justice removed from office

On the PATRIOT Act and it's opponents—on the Left AND the Right: The Anti-PATRIOTs

How the hell did I get stuck with the Democratic Party? Frankly, I can't stand "political correctness" and the knee-jerk reaction to do everything one can to distance oneself from anything that smacks of controversy. And I've got to wonder at the mindset of political candidates who, during the primary, smack each other around, doing their damndest to get the nomination… and then have to do damage control for the rest of the election to counter their campaigning from the primary! As I mentioned earlier, when Al Sharpton is the voice of reason in the debates (reminding the other candidates to keep focused on having to beat Bush, instead of beating each other up) we're in serious trouble. And I'm really fed-up with the Democratic Party in its most recent incarnation. From the completely spineless campaign of Al Gore in 2000 to the absolute cluster-fuck that is this year's campaigning, I simply have to shake my head and wonder what the hell they're

Good News: Court Won't Enter Ten Commandments Fight Thank god (pun intended) the Supremes decided to just let this one stand. Good to know someone still believes Separation of Church & State is a good thing. Especially since it's the Supreme Court doing it. and Bad News: Bush Signs Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Well, no surprise here… Bush and his pack of Ravening Righties have been salivating over this one since the millennium. (I do love alliteration!) I also love reading stuff like ' "This right to life cannot be granted or denied by government, because it does not come from government - it comes from the creator of life," the president said ', considering he's from Texas, a state that's put more people to death than any other in the country in recent years. Not that I'm opposed to the death penalty, mind you. I'm just opposed to BS statements like this one.

PFE: Purpose For Existing. "This purchase aligns perfectly with the company's PFE." From BuzzWhack.com . The cynical applications for this term are truly limitless.

CNBC Hires Dennis Miller to Host Show "Dennis Miller, the sardonic comedian who delivered a fake newscast on "Saturday Night Live" and told jokes in the "Monday Night Football" booth, will host a prime-time political talk show on CNBC." Those of you who didn't see this coming, please step forward now for your slap across the head. (Although, if it keeps him from running for office, it's probably a good thing.) And to think I used to like Miller. Guess that was before his knee-jerk conservatism reared its ugly head.

I'm getting a little tired of the "it's not my fault" defense… Bush Steps Away From Victory Banner 'The triumphal "Mission Accomplished" banner was the pride of the White House advance team, the image makers who set the stage for the president's close-ups. On May 1, on a golden Pacific evening aboard the carrier Abraham Lincoln, they made sure that the banner was perfectly captured in the camera shots of President Bush's speech declaring major combat in Iraq at an end. But on Tuesday in the Rose Garden, Mr. Bush publicly disavowed the banner that had come to symbolize what his critics said was a premature declaration that the United States had prevailed. "The `Mission Accomplished' sign, of course, was put up by the members of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, saying that their mission was accomplished," Mr. Bush told reporters. "I know it was attributed somehow to some ingenious advance man from my staff. They weren'

I'm reading The Picture of Dorian Gray right now. It's been one of those books on my "gotta read this one of these days" lists for years now. Dani's been in this book club for a year or so and the last couple of books have actually been ones I'd consider reading (unlike, say, The Nanny Diaries from a few months ago) so I tagged along for this one. (I also read the DaVinci Code and joined in that discussion… I'm perilously close to becoming a member of the group!) So there's a scene about a third of the way when Dorian's talking to the wife of one of the main characters (Lord Henry's wife, Victoria). They're discussing the Opera he's seen Lord and Lady Henry at recently (Wagner's Lohengrin) and she remarks, "I like Wagner's music better than anybody's. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without other people hearing what one says." She'd be right at home at the local AMC any night of the week. C

A couple of week's ago in an email debate, I self-mockingly called myself "paranoid" when discussing Dick Cheney and calling him the power behind Bush's throne. (My friends, both on the conservative side, were talking about how you haven't seen the VP much recently and wondering if he was out of favor with Dumbya. I commented that you never see him much, that he's the most invisible VP in recent memory and remarked that it's because he's really the one that's been pulling Bush's strings. They went on with the discussion, ignoring my remarks, which left me disparaging my own comments as paranoid.) The very next day, I happened to walk past a newstand and see that week's US News & World Report and, on the cover, a picture of Dick Cheney with the title "The Man Behind The Curtain". Gotta say, I did feel a bit reassured that I'm not simply being paranoid and that others share that opinion. (Hmm, I guess this qualifies as m

That he actually believes this, or that he figures we'll all agree this is a good idea: Bush's Filtered News Bush prefers his news heavily filtered. "I glance at the headlines, just to get kind of a flavor," he told Brit Hume of Fox News last month. But, "I rarely read the stories" because "a lot of times there's opinions mixed in with news." Instead, "I get briefed by [White House Chief of Staff] Andy Card and Condi [Rice, the national security adviser] in the morning." The president concluded, "The best way to get the news is from objective sources. And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what's happening in the world." God knows you wouldn't want any of those pesky opinions getting in the way of your decision making. Apparently, I've been mispronouncing his nickname all this time. It's not Dubya. It's Dumbya. (God, this is the "leader of the fr

I went to see Out of Time yesterday. Been seeing some pretty decent reviews and, while his movies may not always be great, Denzel is almost always worth watching ( Training Day , for instance, was a deeply flawed movie, but his performance in it was impeccable—no surprise he won an Oscar for it). Since I had time to kill and it’s one of the films NOT on Dani’s “must see” list, I figured I’d check it out. Now, keeping in mind that one of the reviews I read described it as “…an entertainingly deft sleight-of-hand thriller…” I have to say that I expected something… more. Not that it’s necessarily a bad movie (god knows, after this past summer, I’ve seen many worse!). It’s just that it was so damn obvious. Maybe, as I smirkingly remarked above, I’m simply too smart for movies lately. Maybe, as I’ve been griping for months now, the trailer’s to blame and it simply gave away too much of the story. Or maybe it’s just that they did such a great job of channeling Body Heat in the openin

Interesting review in this week’s Entertainment Weekly on The Matrix Reloaded. Their main point is that what’s wrong with Reloaded isn’t ham-handed dialogue (compared unfavorably to the latest of Lucas’ writing—quite the accomplishment) nor pedantic overacting, nor even overblown action scenes that never seem to end. No, the problem they had with Reloaded is Neo and the fact that he is, for all intents and purposes a superhero… “Fighting a hundred Agent Smiths is a neat trick, but when Neo can just take off when things start to get iffy, the scene carries no narrative weight.” What’s interesting about this for me is that I came across almost that exact same argument, nearly word for word, on one of the Matrix sites I’ve visited recently. (It’s probably a blog, but I don’t remember which one.) I guess it’s safe to say that if you look through all the stuff on the Internet about The Matrix, you’ll be able to find virtually every theory, criticism and review imaginable (kind of lik

Looks like I fell for that same media sensationalism I was bad-mouthing earlier this month. Turns out the report from David Kay, Chief US Weapons Inspector in Iraq, while it might have floated the idea that Saddam was bluffing about weapons, was also pretty highly critical of the Administration's assumptions and "intelligence" which led to our invasion of Iraq. Not nearly the whitewash it sounded like in the articles I quoted from the Washington Post & MSNBC. Not that this will stop Rumsfeld, et al, from trying to put their own spin on the report (they were quick to remind everyone that this was an interim report, of course). Nor does it change in any way my opinion about the Bush Administration. But I figured I should acknowledge that I was probably wrong about Kay's report.

That the people calling Tuesday's Recall election "an excercise in democracy" are almost all people that supported the recall? I wonder if they'd have felt the same way if the recall lost? Just wondering.

I'm the kind of person who tends to "rehearse" conversations in my head. Sometimes its about upcoming discussions I'm about to have and I want to make sure I've got all my ideas in line. Sometimes it's conversations that I've had that are nagging me and I end up either rehashing the conversation to see where it went wrong or continuing the conversation to see if I could make my point better. It probably stems from my theatre training and my writer's impulses… I want to rehearse things till I get them right, or at least make them better. So this morning I'm listening to the radio, doing the typical getting ready for work morning bs, and I've got this conversation running through my head and I'm tweaking the discussion here and there, making fabulous points that I never manage to make in real life (because, really, when you're the only one in the discussion, you get all the good lines). And, while making a point to myself, I used the

I think this is what’s annoyed me about the Schwarzenegger “campaign” from the onset… the absolute lack of any definitive content, plans, agendas (beyond getting elected, of course) or anything resembling a platform. I’m sorry, “I’m for education in California” and “I’m going to fix things in Sacramento” don’t count as a platform. Arnold’s entire campaign has been run like one big movie promotion… including visits to Larry King and bus tours with exploding special effects ( Steve Lopez: Points West from the LA Times). It’s all smoke and mirrors and, just like in Wizard of Oz, we’re asked to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Arnold may turn out to be a great governor. Stranger things have surely happened. He may actually HAVE a plan for fixing this state. Not that he’s ever communicated one detail about it. What we do know is that he’s “put together a team” to tackle this problem. And he may have put together a truly brilliant team of consultants who can turn

Actually, that’s not entirely true. I used to really enjoy movie trailers. That is, until failed film students (or overachieving marketing grads) took over making them and are apparently under the misapprehension that it’s their job to tell you the whole damn story in their freaking trailer! I bitched about this a while back with The Italian Job , when it was clear that every major plot twist was shown in the trailer. And it’s pathetically obvious with nearly every comedy that comes out these days… there are more laughs packed into one trailer than there are most movies, simply because the fools making the trailers seem determined to show you every punch line to every joke in the movie. The latest, most egregious examples, though, aren’t in the comedy realm. No, it’s the trailers for Secondhand Lions and Veronica Guerin . The Secondhand Lions trailer is, arguably, the worst (although, with that movie, watching the trailer might be a better option than seeing the film). But

Mice to test Bush’s food in Thailand Gotta love these high-tech solutions to ancient problems. Or is that the other way around?

A prime example of why you don't let techies create new words… glurge (GLURJ) n. A sentimental or uplifting story, particularly one delivered via e-mail, that uses inaccurate or fabricated facts; a story that is mawkish or maudlin; the genre consisting of such stories. (from The Word Spy mailing list) Granted that a word to describe this kind of junk mail SHOULD exist… I have to ask… "glurge"? Sounds like something your 5 year old would come up with. (Hmmm, how about " treacle "? Kinda captures the whole concept and it doesn't sound like I'm coughing up a hairball to say it! Naw, won't work. Too… "old world".)

First off, let me say that I actually do believe in respecting copyright laws. I’m a writer, for Christ’s sake, of course I believe in them. Having said that, I have to say that every time a spokesperson for the RIAA (or that asshole lawyer for Metallica) opens their mouths, I want to run out and start downloading MP3s just to spite them. Here’s the problem, as I see it. The RIAA sees sharing copyrighted music files as an illegal activity (hmmm, that’s a real stretch). And, because they had so much trouble with Napster in the bad ole days, their response to the whole idea of downloadable music is… uh uh, no way… you’re breakin’ the law there, sonny! (The Metallica lawyer put it succinctly “you can’t compete with free”.) Except, here’s the problem with that logic. I love music. I listen to a lot of different things and I’m always looking for new stuff. You’d think I’d be a big MP3 guy, but I never really got into it. The main reason for me had nothing to do with the copyright pro

Musicals used to be huge at the movies—one of the staples of the business. But over the years, this has become less and less true, to the point today where they’re an all but dead genre. But, between Moulin Rouge & Chicago, the trend seems to be reversing. I’ve had a theory for years about why musicals don’t work in movies any more and was pretty convinced that Rouge and Chicago validated that theory. What it boiled down to was that musicals did well in the early days of film because they were big, fantastic spectacles. Movies weren’t about realism… the sets were obvious, the backdrops transparent, the effects laughable. Musicals could thrive in this climate because they too were not realistic. People don’t burst into song and dance spontaneously and the crowds on the street aren’t going to be high kicking in time to your rhythms. But, as movies and their budgets became bigger, as the sets became more elaborate and shooting on location became the norm rather than the except

“With no chemical or biological weapons yet found in Iraq, the U.S. official in charge of the search for Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction is pursuing the possibility that the Iraqi leader was bluffing, pretending he had distributed them to his most loyal commanders to deter the United States from invading.” ( Iraqi WMD may have been bluff on MSNBC.com or the original article Hussein's Weapons May Have Been Bluff on WashingtonPost.com) Are they HONESTLY trying to spin this idea? Honestly? I mean, all those months of Iraq denying it had any weapons of mass distraction were a smoke screen? They were telling us the truth, knowing we’d assume they were lying and hope that would scare us off? I assume then, that all this “misdirection” led us to “misinterpret” all our intelligence reports and believe that he WAS lying and they DID have WMD, right? MY GOD, are they freaking channeling PT Barnum in the White House? Are we all THAT STUPID? Please, tell me someone

All right, to be honest, it’s the 36” TV, surround-sound stereo and THEN Netflix that’s ruined me. But Netflix is the enabler that feeds the addiction. I’ve always been the “I want to see movies in the theatre” guy. Watching them on TV just dilutes the experience too much… screen’s too small, sound’s no good, picture’s muddy, I hate the way they crop the screen, etc. etc. etc. And I worked for years to get Dani to understand, agree and finally embrace this idea. (Resistance is futile, baby!) So along come DVDs with their widescreen presentation, Dolby 5.1 surround, a great picture… suddenly, watching movies at home doesn’t seem like such a bad thing after all. And what’s worse is that this means that the films we DO see in the theatre are all the bad ones! Let’s face it, the smaller art-house type films may look great in a theatre, but with all the aforementioned goodies on the DVD, they’re not looking (or sounding) bad at home either. On the other hand, the big bad action

But really, I should probably mention that I was promoted on Friday to Asst. Producer on BarbieCollectibles.com . Just because you should make note of these things, you know?

(Yes, I can sense some of you dashing for the mouse to get off this page already… “Oh no, a Lou theory… that can’t be good.” Well, you’re just gonna have to bear with me.) I’ve noticed that, whenever I’m driving the lovely streets & freeways of Los Angeles, I have this amazing tendency to end up behind the slowest person in whatever lane I happen to be driving in. I know, your first reaction is “it’s all in your mind”, kind of like the feeling that, when stuck in traffic, the lane you’re in is the slowest one on the freeway (in fact, it sounds almost exactly like that, doesn’t it?). But in THIS case, I’m not imaging things! Here’s how it works… Invariably, as I’m driving along, I will find myself behind the one person on the road going significantly slower than the posted speed limit. (I’ve mentioned this clown before—he’s the one that will run through that yellow light that I’m going to get stuck at. Yeah, that clown.) I’ll sit behind him (or her—there is no gender bias

Just came across this guy's blog the other day. Figured it was probably some Matrix-type page (and who knows, if you dig far enough, it probably started that way) but he's got some pretty funny comments here—his love/hate take on Underworld is great stuff, for starters.

I get this word-a-day email that always ends with a quote… today's quote: "A closed mind is like a closed book: just a block of wood. -Chinese Proverb" Then there's this other email that I get less frequently, that also showed up today: "Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open." (Thomas Dewar) Is someone trying to tell me something?

According to a Zagat restaurant survey: "Angelenos eat out more often than residents of any other U.S. city -- an average of 3.7 times per week -- but are also the cheapest tippers… the survey ranked Los Angeles last of the 40 cities surveyed in terms of tipping, leaving an average tip of 18.0% , as compared to the national average of 18.3%." Now, the news story that carried this bit of fluff was titled " Zagat: LA Residents Eat Out Most, Leave Lousiest Tips ". So, for a difference of 0.3% in the average tip, Channel 2 News is whipping people into a needless frenzy over a restaurant survey? William Randolph Hearst would be proud indeed. (I'm not even going to comment on the fact that, from my past restaurant experience, an 18% average would be pretty damn good tipping. Really. See, I barely mentioned it.)

I mean, I was never voting for the recall anyway—I'm annoyed by the whole thing in the first place (and now Issa's out there telling Schwarzenegger and McClintock that one of them needs to drop out of the race or HE'S against the recall. Have I mentioned that he's an asshole recently?) I skipped the debate last night. I had class, so I've got a reason, but I probably wouldn't have watched it anyway. They all had the questions in advance (presumably the reason Arnold was willing to participate in this one—his "super bowl of debates" notwithstanding) so it was unlikely there'd be any grand revelations… they'd all be firmly "on topic" all the way, so you're not getting any "new" info. From what I saw on the news last night and have heard on the radio this morning, looks like I dodged a bullet. Bustamante was a patronizing asshole, Arnold's simply an asshole (apparently, this is my word for the day), Huffington&#

Ugh, what a hectic mess of a week. Turns out, I've been busy! So here, in no particular order are some of the things that I've been meaning to post all week… Joan of Arcadia In this CBS series, God appears to Joan and ''He asks her to take a chemistry class, He asks her to join the chess club, He asks her to have a garage sale, He asks her to build a boat.'' Now, I know this is getting some really great buzz from the TV critics, but really… if you're going to saddle the main character with a Joan of Arc reference and have her talking to God, don't you expect something, I don't know… more? (Maybe that's why the preview I read said they wished they'd give Joe Mantegna and Mary Steenburgen, Joan's parents, more to do. Nope, sorry guys, God's handling that!) 8 Simple Rules… will go on Winning the crass award for the week is ABC TV: "Everybody recognizes that John loved that show. …He'd have wanted the show to con

All right, so Quentin called me on my movie choices for the week and I’ve got to acknowledge he might have a point. Not Matchstick Men—we both agreed it would be worth seeing and, while I didn’t make it this weekend, it’s still on my “to see” list. No, it’s my choice of Once Upon a Time in America over Cabin Fever. His take is that OUATIM was an empty nothing of a movie and, if any movie was going to prove that we deserve crap films, this one would be the one. Meanwhile, he described Cabin Fever as “a hoot… ridiculously funny, gory and over the top. A modern Evil Dead.” Well, I’m going to defer to him on Cabin Fever for now (although he did follow up his glowing praise with a caveat about the first hour being weak and amateurish)… I may catch this one later on, but chances are, it’ll end up being a rental down the road. And Matchstick Men didn’t make it into our plans this weekend either. Nope, it was Once Upon a Time in America for us! Looks like Johnny & Antonio beat Nic &

After a month load of crap films like Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star , The Medallion and My Boss's Daughter (not to mention "successful" crap like Jeepers Creepers 2 & Freddy vs. Jason ) it's refreshing to see a couple of movies opening that I would actually want to leave the house to see! (And no, I'm not going to link these… you want to torture yourself, Google them on your own time.) But this week we've got some good stuff (potentially, of course. One could argue that Charlie's Angels looked good from the trailers and we all know what a pointless mess that turned out to be). Between Once Upon a Time in Mexico and Matchstick Men there might actually be a reason to go to the movies! Hey, who knows, maybe the top film this week will make more than $7 million! Whoo hoo! (Of course, Cabin Fever will probably end up taking the weekend, thereby proving that we deserve every crap movie the studio releases, since that's what makes the money f

So who knew I was trendy!?! Last month I had a little rant about LA drivers and their amazing talent for stupidity and arrogance (usually wrapped up in the same package) and in my post I mentioned COTU—Center of the Universe syndrome. Going through my email after I got back from vacation, I find this from BuzzWhack's "Buzzword of the Day" email: " COTU: Center Of The Universe. Often used to describe people who are unable to see another point of view and [the belief that] wherever they're standing is the center of the universe." Nominated by Michelle Hornsby So here I've been all trendy and buzz-wordy without even knowing it! How about that! (I would, of course, take credit for coining this one, since I wrote my post on the 7th and the email's from the 26th… plenty of time for it to percolate through the web. But I can't say for sure that Michelle saw my post, so I'll be humble. Just this once.) (ah, for a more elegant so

White Nights…   Watching Insomnia (Al Pacino & Robin Williams—murder and insomnia in Alaska) and one of the characters asks Pacino if he's enjoying their "white nights". And I thought "there was a movie called White Nights a few years ago."   Channel surfing a little while later and, showing on one of the many Starz variants on our cable system… "White Nights" (Mykhail Baryshnykov & Gregory Hines dance their way out from behind the Iron Curtain).   No comment.

More Synchronicity?   I mentioned that I’d watched “Once Upon a Time in America” last week. One of the things I wondered while I watched was “what ever happened to Elizabeth McGovern ?” I remembered her in Ragtime, and she’s DeNiro’s love interest in “Once, etc”. But aside from that, I couldn’t remember anything else. (Of course, checking that IMDB listing shows she's done A LOT of work… I just haven't been paying attention, apparently.) Saturday, we’re running errands and pass a billboard advertising a new David E. Kelly/CBS series ( The Brotherhood of Poland, N.H. ,) starring, among others, Elizabeth McGovern.   But, even more interesting, in that whole synchronicity vein (since I can easily accept the McGovern one as coincidence) was as I was browsing Amazon.com last night. Dani’s reading group is doing The DaVinci Code this month and, since this is the first book they’re reading that interests me, I’m tagging along. It’s another of those literary detective novels,

Time off for movies…   So I took a week off from work to just get away from it, relax, read a book or two, catch up on some movies and just generally do nothing that could be construed as productive. And I’ve pretty much succeeded. (Oh sure, I’ve signed up for a class at SMC and attended the first night, and I’ve done some chores around the house, but I’ve generally avoided the whole productive thing.)   I have managed to catch up on a couple of movies I’ve been meaning to see—one I haven’t seen and a couple I saw ages ago… and it’s been an exercise in frustration and disappointment. (Though I think I’ve gotten over that by now.)   Punch Drunk Love was one I was looking forward to earlier this year. Sure, it had Adam Sandler in it, which is usually reason enough for me to stay away (Mr. Deeds, anyone?). But Paul Thomas Anderson directs it, and I thought both Boogie Nights & Magnolia were fascinating films, so I figured I’d overlook the Sandler presence. Who knows, maybe