i m N s h o

I used to get lost for hours in used bookstores, but it's been ages since I've found a good one. (I did a search on bookstores in our neighborhood a while back and, with the exception of the quintessentially homogenized Barnes & Noble and Borders bookstores, the only thing I could find were Christian bookstores.) I think Acres of Books is still around (at least, they've still got a website ), but outside of that, the few used bookstores I've found lately have been small, cramped and not terribly inviting. My other problem in finding a good used book store is that my favorite genre is Science Fiction. SF, sometimes, seems to be the Rodney Dangerfield of literature. ("Rodney Dangerfield of" apparently my favorite analogy of the month). Acres of Books has an SF section, but it's buried in the back warehouse, in a corner with no lights. Finding ANYTHING there is an accomplishment (and probably explains why I haven't been by recently to find out if the...

The incredibly short line at the gas station when I filled up. Yeah, like you didn't see that one coming. The only thing not buying gas yesterday is going to prove to those evil gas corporations is just how freaking gullible you are. You want to send them a message? Cut back your gas consumption every week. If we all did that (and it could probably be as little as a gallon less a week) now THAT might send a message. But we're not going there… that'd take effort, and inconvenience, and dedication. Things we're not good at when it comes to environmental/conservation ideas. (And yes, I am VERY guilty of this.) Sad.

In the interest of calling a spade a spade , I figured it was time for a new label, one meant to convey my awareness of just how out there some of my posts are getting. Let's face it, the thought that my actions in any way have such a direct effect on the world as to lead to the demise of a formerly thriving magazine business is the height of solipsism . So I figured I should acknowledge what I'm up to and make it clear I'm only having fun. Right? It sure is a fun idea to play with, though. (How amusing, and utterly PC, that I felt the need to define my "calling a spade a spade" reference, as if I'm concerned that some moron is going to misunderstand the phrase, as has happened more than once in the past few years with the phrases " niggardly " and " pot calling the kettle black ." I mean, seriously, if I get someone whining about "calling a spade a spade," how much fun is it going to be to copy their, most likely, illiterate and...

I've joked recently about my ability to kill a magazine simply by subscribing. But I didn't realize my true power till just recently. I have subscriptions to several gaming magazines. (Apparently, I'm something of a dinosaur on this count, judging from the forum posts I have recently read). One of these is… er, was… Computer Games magazine. The other day, I realized that it's been a while since I'd received an issue. I checked the date on that last issue and figured I had to be at least a month behind. So I went to their site to contact customer service. I noticed that it looked like it had been a while since the site had been updated, and that the cover page they were showing on their subscriptions page was the same as the last issue I'd received. But it wouldn't be the first site I'd found that was slow to update. Then I started clicking on customer service links, and found myself getting redirected to "this page cannot be found" links. Cur...

This is one I'm VERY glad I saw in the theater. (Of course, I almost always prefer seeing movies in the theater, but some are less of an issue than others. That cozy little art-house movie may play just as well on the wide-screen with surround sound at home—especially since I don't have to deal with the moron and his blackberry in the row ahead of me—while this week's latest blockbuster will suffer from the transition to the smaller screen. Sadly, this means that I end up seeing a lot of crappy movies in theaters and the good stuff months later on DVD. But that's one of the perils of movie going these days, I guess.) But Grindhouse is one of those that really needs to be experienced the way Tarantino and Rodriguez intended it. there's a method to their madness here, as they try to recreate an experience that you can't find any more. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing may be debatable, but it's definitely not something you're likely to come a...

I've been hearing for a couple of weeks now that President Bush's latest approval ratings are about 28%. That seems kinda low to me. (Sarcasm alert) But on KROQ the past couple of days, they've been playing this clip of Dick Cheney speaking to the troops in Iraq. He wishes them well and "brings greetings from the folks at home and your Commander in Chief, George W. Bush". And is greeted by dead silence. Short pause, then he says "don't hold back now" and people laugh and start applauding. But seriously, don't you figure, if there's any group that's going to at least pay token respect to the Pres and Dick Cheney, it's going to be US troops? Guess not. Well, couldn't happen to a more deserving pair of guys, imho.  

George W. Bush was on American Idol last night? Yes. The President of the United States was on American Idol. And apparently doing shtick with Laura. If I'm Paul Weitz this morning, my head's about to explode. That's all I've got to say. (For those of you not getting the reference, go here .)

I saw an article in the LA Times a few weeks ago about the demise of Premiere Magazine, so it wasn't a surprise last week when I got a postcard, notifying me that the April issue was the last one to be published. But finding out that they were going to finish out my subscription with issues of Us Weekly did come as a bit of a surprise. I mean, seriously… Us Weekly? I know they blamed the end of Premiere (at least, the physical magazine—it apparently lives on on the web) on the rise of the gossip mags and websites. But can you really compare Premiere's movie coverage with… well, whatever it is Us Weekly actually covers? Frankly, the first issue arrived the other day… I took one glance at the cover and tossed it aside. Apparently, nothing stuck with me, since I can't remember a single item on the cover now. I have an interesting knack for "discovering" new magazines just in time for them to go out of business. PC Accelerator , Cinescape , Iniquities … ea...

I'm a sucker for new words and phrases. The wittier the better. (Hence, I suppose, my contempt for the non-witty, like "baby daddy" and "warfighter".) So when I was reading the April '07 Premiere the other day and saw the phrase "Torture porn", I had to read on. Then when I got into the article (Notes from the Dream Factory, by Tom Roston), and realized what the topic was truly about, I had to stick around for the whole thing. (I'd quote the article, but it's one of the magazine's regular columns and is not included on their site. Sadly, since this is Premiere's last issue, it seems unlikely we'll see any more of these columns from them.) I've never been fond of slasher films. I've always maintained that, while I like a good horror film, I prefer my horror of the supernatural/SF variety… things that are frightening, but not something I'm terribly likely to stumble over on the way to work, or while reading the morni...

I refer, of course, to our inestimable President and his moronic comments, quoted here: Va. Governor Calls For Day Of Mourning Allow me: "One of the lessons of these tragedies is to make sure that when people see somebody or know somebody who is exhibiting abnormal behavior, you do something about it, to suggest that somebody take a look… I would make the case that, if you don't know what you're talking about, maybe you should keep your mouth shut, but a President that doesn't say a word for his entire Presidency would hardly be practical (though think of all the problems we'd have avoided). Somebody, somewhere along the line, probably should have told the President that people DID try to do something about it, but that nothing could be done… he hadn't broken the law and, as he's an adult. Unless someone could make a viable case for committing him, you can't lock him away. I know GW doesn't give a rat's ass about privacy, but this isn't one ...

In one of Robert Heinlein's later novels (The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, I believe), he posits a suggestion as to how to deal with the violently anti-social… the mass murderers and spree killers amongst us, for instance. His conceit is that these creatures are driven by a need for recognition and feel that any notoriety is better than going through life unnoticed. They are acting out in order to get the attention of the world. And they are inspired by the fame and notoriety that those that have preceded them have achieved. (The Virginia Tech shooter's reference to the Columbine shooters as "martyrs" would seem to support this notion.) His solution to the problem is the you "erase" these individuals from the collective consciousness. Instead of 24-hour coverage of the event, debating the nature of the killer, his background, what could have driven him to this extreme, etc., you focus on the victims and their families. You put a human face on the tragedy that d...

If you pay any attention to gaming, you had to know that it was only a matter of time after the Virginia Tech shootings before somebody was going to blame it all on videogames. But even I was surprised by how fast Dr. Phil jumped to this conclusion. (I am NOT however, surprised to find that Jack Thompson came to the same conclusion first. I'm sure he sits around waiting for news like this, a boilerplate press release at hand, ready to plug in the names.) As I write this, the suspect has been ID'd, but the police are not ready to confirm that he's the shooter. But this hasn't stopped Dr. Phil from pushing his agenda that videogames are to blame for all the ills in our world today. We know next to nothing about the kid involved (we know his age, his name, his nationality) nor what set him off. Could he be an avid videogame player, desensitized to violence thanks to years of first person shooters? Sure, it's possible. He could also be a lovelorn loner, dumped by his gi...

The world, if you trust the gossip blogs, is all a-whirl with the question of who's the "baby daddy" of Anna Nicole's daughter. ( Turns out , as was, I think, expected, it's Larry Birkhead. Wow, glad that's over.) But I've gotta ask… what the hell is up with this "baby daddy" bullshit? (Freely acknowledging that I fell guilty of using this very phrase recently.) But isn't "baby daddy" just a bit redundant? Isn't whoever fathered the child, by definition, the baby's daddy? So why the need to specify that he's the baby daddy, and not simply the dad/father/sperm donor in question? Does it somehow make it cuter if he's the baby daddy? Reminds me of the equally annoying and superfluous "warfighter" that's been making the rounds in recent years. I assume some moron in the Pentagon, either suffering from a lack of usable vocabulary tools, or from some prejudice against the obvious term "warrior" cam...

So I'm probably breaking SOME kind of composition rule here, but let me digress (yes, I'm starting this post with a digression, and a self-berating one at that. Surely, this must be "wrong". But, back to my digression…) It's been weeks since I posted, and not for lack of topics. I started a post about the Richard Donner cut of Superman II that was recently released on DVD; a post that I have every confidence I will eventually return to and finish. But at this point, my recollections of what I was going to say are so vague I may have to watch the DVD again. Then there's 300 , which I saw a couple of weeks ago and utterly enjoyed, and I've yet to say anything about that film. (My fear here is that I was suckered in by the incredible art direction and that, on revisiting, I'll find it empty and lifeless, as one of the reviews I read complained. I'm hoping this is not the case.) And don't even get me started on politics! Between the Attorney Gener...

For years now, I've been bored senseless by the morality plays that comprise most sit-coms… certainly those that fall in the "family/relationship" mold. Doofus but lovable dad/male relationship figure, who's not-so-secretly hiding a heart of gold and endearing love for his wife/family/girlfriend. He usually suffers from some "debilitating failure" in the looks department (overweight, unusually tall, simply funny looking, etc.). He's joined by a (generally) hot wife who is absurdly tolerant, wiser, by far, than her schlub of a husband, and the glue that holds everything together. Children come in mixed assortments, but almost always wiser/smarter than their parents, yet always loving and reaffirming by show's end. Each episode begins with some character flaw being revealed, 17 minutes of 3-beat jokes ensue as everyone exposes the foibles of said flaw, then the resolution swoops in and everyone learns a valuable lesson about love, family, relationships...

You'd think that headlines like this would make me happy… FBI abuses may lead to Patriot Act limits After all, I've been vocal about my opposition to this attack on the Constitution and civil liberties almost from it's inception (and god knows, I'm not alone in that!). But what disgusts me, more than the thought that it's taken this long for someone in Congress to even TALK about doing something about this Act, is the fact the people are acting surprised by these revelations. (And don't even get me started on our Attorney General's outrage and criticism of the FBI. With the revelations coming out this week about his involvement in the firing of federal prosecutors, he doesn't get to take the moral high ground with anyone.) Let's face it, right now. We've got NO right to be surprised: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? If the Roman's were asking this question nearly 20 centuries ago, then how the hell can we be surprised that our contemporary watc...

The problem, I think, with most of the negative reviews for Black Snake Moan is that they're taking it all way too seriously. Not that I think the movie's a laugh riot. (Ebert may nail it best with his reference to "half-snorts"), but it's the thought of treating this as a realistic film that gets me. Let's face it, there's no chance, in real life, that this situation ends well for anyone. There's bloodshed, death or prison (or some combination thereof) for all the major characters at the end of this movie, if we pretend this is real life. There's no way to argue, for instance, with the reviewer's assertions, in this review from Slate, that chaining a woman to a radiator is wrong. But that's assuming this is the real world we're talking about. Frankly, I think the only way to approach the movie is as some blues-inspired riff on magical realism… it looks like the real world, but it's a place where an older black man can chain a y...

Backed into a metaphorical corner, I would be forced to acknowledge that Bush can't possibly be as dumb as he appears. It's not even worth joking about anymore, as the jokes have been beaten to death and, frankly, his Presidency is nothing to laugh at, no matter what you think of his intellect. Certainly he's not well spoken, but this doesn't necessarily mean he's dumb. Right? Perhaps. But this quote really speaks to me… Of course, the mastery of language is not the sine qua non of competence in literacy. But ease in communication in the language shows how one's cognitive abilities have developed. Kenendy Buhere; Proposal to Split TSC Ill-thought; The Kenya Times (Nairobi); Jan 19, 2007. (from AWAD email for today.) By that standard, the charge of "dumb" can be set aside. But a far more serious accusation comes to the fore, as we wonder if, based on his flummoxing of the English language, there are any cognitive abilities at work at all.  

…It's that you're so fucking juvenile. I can't stand Anne Coulter. I find her brand of commentary insulting, derogatory, hateful and juvenile. But then, I'm a West Coast liberal, so I'm not exactly her target demographic. But the question is, who the hell IS her demographic? Every few months , Coulter spits out another one of her childish remarks with the obvious intent that it get her more attention and maybe sell a few more of her fucking books. Her latest came last week, when she ran with this little gem: "I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot,' so I… can't really talk about Edwards." She later defended this juvenile exhibit by saying she was "just joking". Seriously. How the hell old is this woman? This is the kind of crap most of us outgrow before we graduate high school. Name calling? "I was just...

Another Academy Awards has come and gone and, judging from the new releases for the past couple of months, the studios have greeted the Awards with a collective shrug. A lot of this has to do with the comparative money the awards winners are making, compared to the box office winners. When a disappointing muddle like Ghost Rider can rake in over $90 million in a couple of weeks, and The Departed (the highest grossing of the Best Picture nominees) only manages $132 million in it's entire run, there's a major disconnect between quality and the marketplace. This isn't a new thing, by any stretch of the imagination. Last year's awards, I remember comments that the 5 top movies together couldn't match the gross of any of the February opening movies (or some such statistic like that). And I saw more than one article this year where some studio head was quoted as saying they'd just like to get back to work making movies and not have to worry about Oscars and campa...