i m N s h o

So it's been a busy month and I haven't had much time for blogging… doesn't mean a few things haven't crossed my path that I haven't had thoughts on. So, am I supposed to respect Dick Cheney now? Early this week, Cheney "broke ranks" with the Pres to say that he doesn't support a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, that it should be a state-by-state decision and that he's always felt that " freedom means freedom for everybody ". The backstory here is that one of Cheney's daughters is a lesbian (who happens to work for the Bush/Cheney campaign— my comments on revising posts after the fact, here ) and he's very familiar with, and apparently sympathetic to, the debate because of this. So here, all along, while I've been assuming Cheney's one of the "bad guys" it's really been Bush and Ashcroft (and, presumably, other members of the Bush team) that have decided the Constitution's "not ...

As I left the theatre after seeing The Village , all I could think was that M. Night Shyamalan is his own worst enemy. A few years ago he did The Sixth Sense , which had the best twist ending EVER, and every movie since all people can think are "what's the twist in this one" and, even worse "was it as good as the one in the Sixth Sense?" SO, first off… NO . It doesn't matter which of his film's we're talking about, it's never going to be as good as the one in the Sixth Sense because you didn't expect it in the Sixth Sense. The ending came out of left field and, even if you thought you might have figured it out (I have friends that say they did—I'd never call them liars, but I'm dubious), it still was gratifying to have that twist confirmed. But now, every time you go to see one of his films, you sit there through the entire film wondering what he's going to do at the end. And it distracts you from what might be a really go...

I haven't posted in over a week. I've been kind of busy. Last week I got sent to a national doll convention near Chicago. Those of you who know where I work will know WHAT doll convention. (The convention was billed as taking place "in" Chicago… don't believe it for a second. Rosemont IL is NOT Chicago. More on that later.) Now, before I DO get to the joys of Rosemont and the Hyatt Regency O'Hare, let me make an observation… They sent ME . To a Convention . Let's see if I can convey my complete lack of interest in this proposition. I don't like crowds. I don't mingle well. I SUCK at small talk. I don't do conventions. My hobbies include movies, books and computer games. My interests are science fiction, fantasy and horror (I'm not limited to these, but they're the top three). There's a lot of overlap in those interests and hobbies. There is NOT a lot of overlap with the world of doll collecting. Did I mention I don...

Or a depressingly obvious comment on the state of contemporary politics… take your pick. Never vote for the best candidate, vote for the one who will do the least harm. — Frank Dane (culled, once again, from Wordsmith.org .)

Schwarzenegger Calls Budget Opponents 'Girlie Men' I don't know what's more annoying here… the fact that Governor Arnie is resorting to childish name-calling (and continuing his annoying 'quote the Arnold reference' game) or the fact that the morons in Sacramento are getting all up in arms over this one! The sound bites on the news are all about Democrats up in arms, calling Schwarzenegger homophobic and demanding apologies. The quote at the end of the article above is more what I'm looking for from these guys, as Fabian Nuñez, the Democratic speaker of the Assembly says "I don't have any insecurities about myself. I don't take that stuff personally." Let Schwarzenegger rant and rave and quote movies & SNL all he wants… the Senate & Assembly needs to embrace Mr Nuñez' reaction and tell the Governator to grow up and get back to business. (Dani's upset because she finds it demeaning to women, an implication that wo...

Last week it was Whoopi Goldberg fired by Slim-Fast for her comments about Bush at a recent political rally. This week Linda Rondstadt gets fired from the Aladdin for calling Michael Moore a patriot and stirring up the locals. I'd like to thank Bush and the the boys in Washington, Fox News and Bill O'Reilly (who apparently believes the only loyal American is a silent one) for promoting a mindset that accepts and embraces this kind of behavior.

So Dani slapped me around yesterday for my last post , telling me I was being an elitist snob (an accusation I really couldn't argue with, unfortunately). And that very day I get this word from the A.Word.A.Day email… philodox Someone who loves his or her own opinion; a dogmatic person. Now, while I might dispute the dogmatic part, I do have to acknowledge that I could be accused of loving my own opinion. This, of course, could stem from the fact that I so often know that my opinion is the correct one, but hey, what can I do about that? (insert annoying smiley emoticon here to signify irony.) Security And, while I'm on the topic of AWAD, a quote from one of last week's emails , just 'cause I like to share the ones that resonate with me. If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking… is freedom. —Dwight D. Eisenhower, U.S. general and 34th president (1890-1969)

And by that, I do mean anyone. I just discovered that there's a setting that let's me allow comments by anyone, not just registered Blogger users… so, being the brave soul I am, I went ahead and enabled that option. Of course, this opens me up to comments from every moron out there with an internet connection and too much time on their hands, but who knows, it could be fun. Or at least mildly amusing until I get bored with the stupidity. We'll see.

Thumbing through this week's Entertainment Weekly, I came across an article about the wave of movie musicals coming, thanks to the success of Chicago a couple of years ago. Should be interesting to see how many of these actually succeed (and how many of those conform to my own personal theory on why contemporary movie musicals do and, more often, don't succeed). No big surprise to hear that The Producers is being made into a movie (a movie, based on a musical, based on a movie—does it get more incestuous than that?). And I'd already heard about Phantom of the Opera coming out later this year. But the "big" news, the one that leaves me falling on the floor laughing is Rent , apparently due out sometime this year, directed by the inimitable Chris Columbus . That's right, the uber-hack, master of such subtle emotional fare as Bicentennial Man & Stepmom is going to tackle Rent—a modern day retelling of La Boheme with AIDS subbing in for tuberculo...

I love "word a day" lists… they're filled with such fun stuff sometimes. Like yesterday's A.Word.A.Day email with the very fun concept of Socratic Irony: A profession of ignorance in a discussion in order to elicit clarity on a topic and expose misconception held by another. (So now, the next time I pull this bit on Dani, I can even tell her what it's called! Not that it'll stop her from smacking me when she gets annoyed by it. But hey, that's part of the fun!) AND, in the same email, I get this cool quote, too! It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. —Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)

…whether The Chronicles of Riddick would get its sequels made, this should answer that question: "…Universal [Pictures, which is distributing the movie,] has ... been consistent with their wanting to see how this opening weekend [box office] did, and the second weekend, because the second weekend is a key to them to gauge drop off." (from the SciFi.com article " Twohy: Chronicles 2, 3 Planned ") Judging from the fact that it opened at number 2 (admittedly behind Harry Potter), dropped to #6 in its second weekend and entirely out of the top 10 in its third weekend, (not to mention that it's grossed just over $51 million—less than half of it's budget), it seems unlikely that Universal's buying into any sequels any time soon. It's too bad, too. As clunky as some of the Butcher's Bay stuff was, I really liked the ending and would have liked to see where it was going to go from there. The problem is, I think the "big picture" sto...

Why is it I never talk about the good movies? I mean, we saw Shrek 2 a couple of weeks ago and I loved it… had nearly as much fun as I did during the first one, can't wait to go back and see it again and see what else I catch, Puss 'n Boots is my favorite character of the summer so far… and yet, not one word in all these weeks. But I've got time for rants about The Day After Tomorrow and Van Helsing? What the hell is up with that? Ok, my resolution now is to start writing more about the movies I've LIKED that I've seen instead of just bitching about the ones that have sucked. I know, it's easier—and arguably, more FUN—to write about the bad ones. But maybe that's one of the things that make for good criticism… the ability to speak as eloquently about the good movies as the bad. 'Cause let's face it, anyone can trash a bad movie. So, a quick preview (both in theatres and on DVD): Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. How about...

Things must be getting back to normal! (If I ever get my PC set up in the new place, maybe I'll get back to blogging on a regular basis!) But in the meantime, from today's A.Word.A.Day mailing list: "The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself." —Richard Francis Burton, explorer and writer (1821-1890) A.Word.A.Day

Ok, so I tried to take the high road. Failing that, I opted for "if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything ". But it's June 24th today and as I drove in to work, I STILL saw flags at half-mast. Isn't it time we get over it and move on? What is this, a national month of mourning? Let's face it, the man's been dead a couple of weeks now, we've had the funeral & memorial services & eulogies and he's been buried. Factor in the Alzheimer's, realizing he hasn't known his own name for the better part of the last 10 years, and you've got to admit the guy you're mourning is LONG GONE now. So let's put the flags back where they belong, put away the black armbands and get back to business as usual, huh? (oh god. As Chris points out in her comment to my post, it IS a freaking month of mourning, as per this announcement . I'm back to "no comment". There's just no point....

Like Fox News always taking the rabid, pro-Bush, conservative point of view? Then how do you explain their glowing review of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11? I mean, if THEY'VE Got good things to say about it, I'm thinking I may have to see it now and not wait for the DVD! But don't worry… these morons are more than willing to take on Mike's movie (sight unseen, I'm sure) as the "pro-Al-Queda propaganda" that they're convinced it is. (God, trying to slog through their fervently jingoistic dreck is quite the chore. Almost makes visiting the Fox News site tolerable.) Kinda makes me want to see it even more, you know?

mobile speed bump n. The city of Vancouver is exploring the idea of sanctioning a grass-roots traffic-calming program that enlists the silent majority of reasonable, rational, law-abiding drivers to stop being so silent. Instead they'd slap NEIGHBORHOOD PACE CAR stickers on their vehicles and set a highly visible example by rolling down Vancouver streets at lawful speeds. Try that in LA and it'd be an invitation to either get run off the road or shot… or both! And I'm not sure I wouldn't be one of the ones running these clowns off the road! (I know I wouldn't be one of the ones shooting, however. Sometime in my first month living in LA, after being cut-off one too many times in one day, I caught myself thinking, "if I had a gun, I'd shoot your ass". It wasn't till several minutes later that I realized: a) I'd actually had that thought run through my head, and b) it didn't seem strange at the time. It occurred to me at that point ...

It's kind of fun to watch the hack* director in action. Their career path is interesting, if not all that surprising… after all, one watches a good director's films and hopes—perhaps expects—that each one will get progressively better, meanwhile following the bad director's career with the fear that each film will be worse than the next. So it's probably not too surprising to find that, with each film, the hack director just becomes a bigger hack, latching onto those aspects of their previous works that they feel were the best parts (often mistakenly), blowing them up into bigger and bigger moments all at the service of producing a bigger, glossier and, ultimately, more meaningless (and usually worse) movie than their previous works. And we've got two glorious examples of the hack in action so far this summer. First off, of course, is Van Helsing… a turgid mess that I've already bashed here . But it's a prime example of what I'm talking a...

R. R., 40th President, is Dead No comment.

Ok, we've been pretty freaking busy moving this month so there's really been no time to post, but I saw this in my email this morning from The Word Spy and really HAD to say something… furkid n. A pet treated as though it were one's child. Also: fur-kid, fur kid. Example Citation: My name is Brenda Mejia and I'm owned by two Australian cattle dogs. I don't have kids, so I call my dogs my 'furkids.' They keep me as busy as a soccer mom. —Brenda Mejia, "Pet stories," The Desert Sun (Palm Springs, CA), April 30, 2004 All I have to say is that if ANYONE ever catches me referring to our cats as "furkids" you have my express permission to smack me in the face and tell me to snap out of it. "Furkids". Give me a break.

Ok, so I got on the Entertainment Weekly email list for their weekly box-office survey. They send out an email on Sunday or Monday, asking for your opinion on any of the week's recent releases. I, of course, got on this list just in time for me to stop going to movies nearly as often as I usually do (we've been KINDA BUSY, you know!?). SO I haven't had many chances to respond to their surveys. Well, I got one this week asking if I'd seen Troy or any of the other releases and I realized I hadn't gotten their email in a couple of weeks. Which meant that I'd missed my chance to weigh in on the utter wreck that was Van Helsing (a friend of mine described it as "craptastic". I can't think of a better word for it.) The biggest problem with this disaster is the simple fact that it tries too hard to be a videogame. No big surprise, Sommers & Co. worked hand-in-hand with the development team at Vivendi to make sure the game accurately reflected...