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May 8th, 2008
09:20 pm - two things
First, the very last comment to my May 5th post actually had me going for a minute -- long enough to do a whois search on the IP address and look up a certain comedian's tour schedule and confirm that he could not have been in Illinois when that comment was posted. Also, gullible is not in the dictionary.
Second, I've probably posted about this before, but Charlton Heston is really the ur-shatner. He does these crazy soliloquies in "Planet of the Apes" that are SO TOTALLY Shatner -- except that if Shatner did them, it would have that smarmy Shatner cheesiness (that individually wrapped pasteurized processed slices cheesiness).
When Heston does it, there's a whiff of cheese, but it's a whiff of mozzarella di bufula or a fine Stilton.
I know he got wacky there toward the end, but I miss Charlton Heston.
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May 7th, 2008
10:18 pm
I have seen Iron Man, and it was *good*.
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May 5th, 2008
01:50 pm - most excellent casting
It's possible I'm the last person in fandom to learn that Eddie Izzard is voicing Reepicheep in Prince Caspian, but I bet I'm also the most excited. [hearts Reepicheep]
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April 28th, 2008
09:50 pm - so close ...
I received a press release today promoting the new Stargate movie. My first thought was, "Why am I getting something about Stargate at my work e-mail address?" But then I actually opened it and realized that -- for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture -- they believe I might be in a position to assist their promotional efforts.
Eh, it's not a great fit, but maybe I could ... holy fuck! "If you are interested in talent interviews, please let me know." !!!1!11!!!!1!!!!
Eep!! Talent interviews!!
Except the thing is ... I've never really cared for SG-1.
Still, I'll probably try to give it plug somewhere, just so I can stay on their mailing list. Because if they ever do an SGA movie, you better believe I'd interview *their* talent.
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April 27th, 2008
12:29 pm
So, y'all may have heard about the clusterflop* that was DC's Hazardous Waste/E-cycling event: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/26/AR2008042601220_2.html?hpid=artslot
RM & I virtuously scoured the house for appropriate items and amassed quite a pile:
2 VCRs
1 cable receiver box
1 24-inch television
a bookshelf stereo system w/speakers
11 mostly-empty gallon-size cans of paint
4 mostly-empty quart-size cans of paint
2 mostly-empty pint-size cans of paint
a boom box (the first one I owned, from 10th grade ... I felt a twinge of nostalgia over that one)
a seven-year-old iBook
31 miscellaneous AC/DC converters, coax cables, phone cords, etc.
1 pair of rabbit ears antennae
one weird little computer adapter
one cell phone
2 computer speakers
a mouse
an external modem
21 3.5-inch floppies
a Mac zip-disk
57 CD-ROM disks
21 5.25-inch floppies (including the one that held my homework assignments from the "Introduction to Basic" class I took in 1983)
At quarter of three, we gave up on the line of traffic, pulled over to a parking spot, and carried everything in on foot (it took seven trips). I don't even want to think about how much gas we used idling for two and half hours.
*This is my new favorite imprecation; I learned it watching the edited-for-television version of "Heartbreak Ridge." It begins with all the formidable power of military cussing and ends like a bunny.
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April 25th, 2008
09:25 pm
Maybe it's because I've spent all week reading posts about Boobiegate, but halfway through this video, I was wishing Daddy would move the kids to separate chairs so Max would learn to respect boundaries.
Also, I was listening to Peter Gabriel's Here Comes the Flood this afternoon, musing about how he makes an interesting connection between a Cold War-era nuclear holocaust and the Biblical flood. I googled the meaning of the song and learned that PG says it's about a dream he had in which people developed psychic powers, and the people who tell everyone everything are just fine, but the people who keep things private can't cope. Frankly, I liked my version better.
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April 22nd, 2008
09:27 pm - freaky coincidence!
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau bears a striking resemblance to Robbie Robertson circa 1978
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March 23rd, 2008
10:57 am
I've been meaning for ages to post this:
A three-year-old explains Star Wars: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBM854BTGL0
(courtesy ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) czexpat)
Also, for Christmas RM got me a USB turntable so I can convert my old vinyl to mp3s, and I started working on that this weekend. It's kinda fun to look through my old records -- Sinead O'Connor, Sade, XTC -- stuff I haven't listened to ages but knew by heart once upon a time.
(One of the things I dislike about digital media is how easy it is to skip the tracks you don't like. I do it, too -- because who wants to sit through a lame song when it's so easy to skip it? -- but back in the day, I'd listen to an entire side of an album or cassette, and pretty soon I'd know the obscure songs just as well as I knew the hits. Once upon a time I knew every word to every song on the Eurythmics' first album, and I *still* know those songs better than I know most of the songs on the OKGO CD I bought just last year.)
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March 16th, 2008
09:29 pm - we can haz cake!! (or deth)
RM & I have tickets to Eddie Izzard May 1!! Wheeeee!
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March 7th, 2008
08:54 pm - more New Amsterdam, plus a tl;dr entry on romance fiction
( Spoilers, ho! )
Some folks might already have seen this post and many, many comments about romance novels.
I was really conflicted as I read it (and truth be told, I couldn't make it through the whole comment thread). ( cut for a looong ramble about romance fiction )
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March 5th, 2008
07:32 pm - New Amsterdam vs. Highlander: A Brief Guide
Similarities:
* Each show has an immortal protagonist.
* Each protagonist has a mature, mortal, nightclub-owning mentor/friend who knows his secret.
* Each episode features a present-day storyline interrupted by flashbacks to the past.
Differences:
* In Highlander, there can be only one; in New Amsterdam, there *is* only one.
* Highlander was set in the fictional Seacouver, with occasional trips to Paris and flashbacks all over the place; New Amsterdam is firmly rooted in New York
* Thus far, New Amsterdam suffers from a decided lack of swordplay
robomark asked me to point out that New Amsterdam has a lot in common with Life (NBC show starring Damian Jones); both shows have male-female detecting teams with a no-nonsense female partner who is skeptical about her male partner's cryptic sayings.
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March 2nd, 2008
07:58 pm - A journey of a thousand miles ...
RM & I spent the weekend in Columbus, Ohio; I might well post about that at some point. I might also post something long about why I like watching professional mixed martial arts, if I can ever get that sorted out in my head and committed to type.
In the meantime, we are home, and so very, very happy to be here and not in our car (or, worse, Nationwide Arena; a sporting event has never felt so much like a plane trip ...).
Also, I spotted this painting at the Columbus Museum of Art, and somehow it made me think of Rodney McKay:
Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Boy Stealing Fruit
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February 22nd, 2008
09:29 pm - this is really, really cool
This guy makes infographics based on pop songs:
http://flickr.com/photos/boyshapedbox/
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February 21st, 2008
10:41 pm - How much do I love Dean Winchester?
( THIS MUCH )
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February 20th, 2008
09:18 pm
i forgot to post about Knight Rider. I love the idea of it and I LOVED the updated theme song (in an "oh, that takes me back!" way), and I was OK with everyone in it EXCEPT the main guy. I might watch it one more time and see if he improves. Or, you know, I might not.
My box of 59 Penny Jordan novels arrived, and I have been wallowing -- I keep a handful in my backpack and read them on the Metro, and I'm getting through one or two a day. Some of them are very old-school -- her boss forces devastating kisses on her, and it's supposed to be romantic, and I just have to put my brain into an alternate universe where that's not completely appalling.
But apparently Harlequin Presents have changed in the, I don't know, 10 years? since I've read them. Because yesterday I read one that used the c-word (not *that* one, the other one -- the one that rhymes with Delores), and it also used the e-word (the one that's a lot like election), and it *also* had a scene in which the heroine, um, pleasures herself. (The last time I read these regularly? An aroused hero would take a cold shower before he'd take matters into his own hands.) And then some evil people try to blackmail the heroine with explicit photos of someone else with her hed pastede on (yay?), and one of those photos included an object-that-rhymes-with-Bilbo, and I just about fell out of my seat on the bus, it was that startling.
Re-reading this paragraph, I realize that I sound prissy as all get out. If we were talking in person, I would have no problem speaking these words, but posting them on the internet seems like asking for trouble. And in most contexts I wouldn't blink twice at them -- but a *Harlequin Presents*? Is not one of those contexts.
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February 18th, 2008
01:31 pm - This is what passes for journalism?
We have a fitness room at my job, and the other day I was on the stationary bike when a coworker came in and turned on the TV while he was on the treadmill.
It was primary coverage on CNN, and they had a segment about how some people are suggesting Obama's campaign has become a "cult of personality." Apparently, when he appears on stage, people in the audience scream, and some even cry, and several conservative pundits have implied there's something unseemly and inappropriate about this.
So, let's recap: Conservative writers are saying negative things about a liberal candidate. In other news, the earth continues to revolve around the sun.
WTF? Seriously, this is considered *news*? If an actual candidate said something negative about another candidate, that might be worth noting -- but these are media figures! This is not news!
On a completely unrelated topic, I have managed to pimp RM into Karen Traviss' Star Wars novels. He doesn't generally read science fiction (he's a swords-and-sorcery guy; we hang out in the same aisle of the bookstore browsing completely different books), but he's really enjoying the military camaraderie and the Mandalorian warrior ethos in her novels about the clone troops. We're both looking forward to her upcoming novel, Order 66 (named for ( spoilery material behind the cut )).
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February 16th, 2008
09:03 am - In Bruges
Thursday RM & I saw In Bruges, which I **highly** recommend. It's such a great movie -- funny and sad and violent and surreal by turns. I would not say it's Tarantinoesque -- it doesn't have the feel of a Tarantino movie -- but there are scenes and set-ups that remind me a bit of Pulp Fiction. Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson are particularly wonderful, but the whole cast is great, even smaller roles are really well-acted. You can't exactly call it a comedy -- it's about judgment and redemption -- but it's one of those movies where you come out of the theater and spend the next couple days quoting lines ("You heat the can o'dyen?") and giggling.
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February 14th, 2008
12:28 pm - Happy Valentine's Day!!
On the subject of romantic love, I finally got tired of RM saying, "You should post this story about me in your livejournal," and created a brand new LJ just for him: robomark.
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February 7th, 2008
08:47 pm
I swear this afternoon I had two or three things I wanted to post, but now that I am at my computer, I can't think of any of them.
RM & I saw "Strange Wilderness" yesterday, and wow, it's a bad movie. It makes most other stoner comedies seem like ... I don't know, like The Philadelphia Story or No Country for Old Men, or something like that. We did laugh, I'll admit that -- though many times it was a laugh of sheer disbelief at how stupendously dumb the movie was.
One of the characters was played by Ashley Scott, and Strange Wilderness was so bad that at the end, RM & I both expressed surprise that she'd be in a movie like that. ('Cause you know, she's had such a promising career thus far, what with her roles on "Birds of Prey" and in that movie about treasure-divers with Paul Walker and Jessica Alba.)
In other news, I am attempting to cook a Chinese New Year meal this weekend. I am painfully clueless about Chinese cooking, and today I went to a the sole remaining market in Chinatown to pick up a couple of elusive ingredients and felt like I was wandering around with my skirt tucked up into the back of my underpants.
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January 23rd, 2008
11:55 pm
I am so totally in love with SGA! I haven't been this smitten with a fandom in *years*; the most recent episode has me reading every new McShep fic I can get my hands on and daydreaming episode tags on the Metro. (And shetiger's The First Cut (Still Bleeds) makes me want to hug Lorne.)
All of this is to explain why I won't be writing about Cloverfield tonight after all.
I *will* look up from fanfic long enough to say I am really sad about Heath Ledger's death. As many others have observed more eloquently, his career thus far suggests he would've taken on many more challenging roles in interesting movies, and I regret the loss of all those stunning performances we won't get to see.
And for some reason I really hope his death turns out to be some kind of prescribing accident or drug allergy. I don't know why -- he's still gone either way -- but I just hate the idea of him being so unhappy he would OD (whether deliberately or accidentally).
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