Archive for January, 2008
three and a half hours left »
Thursday, January 17th, 2008
I’ve completely checked out. My projects enough of them are completed to an adequate level that they can wait until Tuesday. I’ve visualized my packed bag several times and figuratively penciled in a schedule for tonight so as to be most efficient. As they I don’t know if there’s an applicable ’they’ here say, here in body, not in mind.
To prove my point, here’s an email I sent to a few coworkers. It describes how to make a change to our current home page. I’ve altered some parts so you can better understand it before you ask, I did, in fact send this out; they likely think I’m an aluminum-foil cap away from being committed:
Keep for your records in order to reference if a situation comes up, or to wax nostalgic about our time together while I’m away on my long weekend.In order to complete the task of swapping an old slide in the home page movie for a new one, you must complete an arduous six steps. They are difficult, and time consuming, but I have all the confidence of an ignorant teenager in you. You’ve shown yourselves quite adept in the [content management system we use] and, if you so choose, I’m sure you, whichever of you is deemed worthy, will have no troubles come Monday morn.
Read carefully, follow closely, and keep your hands and heads within the car at all times.
—Log in
—go to home page ([home page U.R.L.]*)
—click wrench at top of page in order to edit said page
—go to attributes tab
—change value of affected slide to new media asset using the dropdown (ex- slide3: use dropdown to replace [old slide] with [new slide])
—save pageHaving completed these steps, in order (that is crucial, as you don’t have any choice), you’ll be able to view your fresh slide as it enters the rotation on the home page. Congratulations. Also, and this will be far more important upon completion of above task, it is considered uncouth to stomp, kick, or trip over those kneeling at your feet in order to kiss them. **
[MY EMAIL SIGNATURE]
*This was necessary only because the title of Captain Obvious is not handed out lightly. There are quotas.
** Can you tell I’m already mentally hitting (in this case with flailing appendages and softened skull) the slopes? Have a good weekend ladies.
professions i’d be bad at »
Tuesday, January 15th, 2008
I didn’t bring a lunch and have plans for picking up chinese. I have a four-day weekend planned. Things here are relatively slow just now. I’m more exhausted than usual. I have some shopping to get done tonight. For all these reasons, and probably more, this last hour of work already feels like a trek through the desert, Bear Grylls style without the hotels and camera crew.
In the interest of speeding up the torturous moments, and because it just crossed my mind yesterday, here’s a list of occupations I’d never be able to partake in:
Bus driver
I don’t like driving in the city all that much and don’t at all like annoying people. For this reason, my being a bus driver would be akin to a hefty five-hundred-pound gentleman being a personal trainer. There’s a strong probability of my driving it at excess speeds into perilous turns just to kick-start my neurons in the face of such stress. On another note, the uniforms in no way accentuate my model-like features. I’ve never worn one, but I’m 99.786% positive I look terrible in sweater-vests.
Day car professional
I worked as a janitorial engineer in one back before college. Kids apparently until tween age lick everything. This is a disgusting habit. I would likely wipe something noxious onto the windows and the resulting quarantine would have the whole neighborhood talking. Have you ever talked to kids? It’s all about them and it’s almost complete nonsense. I’d never be able to tolerate it. If I’m talking about myself in never-ending sequences of nonsensical stories, how will I ever find the time to listen to their babbling? My stories are far better anyway; no one cares if there’s a new character on [fill in name of disney or nickelodeon cartoon here] this week?
Bouncer
My frame is small, so I’d have to waste valuable movie-watching hours in the gym to bulk up to a point of intimidation. Strike one. I’d have to constantly interact with people in varying levels of drunk. Strike three because that counts as two. There is one plus: it would give me an excuse to create a 40 days and 40 nights-style website where people placed bets on how long it’d take for me to launch a bar stool through someone’s face. I just don’t have the patience for such things.
Tour guide at art museum
I appreciate art. I understand the skill that goes into it. I admire it and enjoy visiting museums to do just that. I hate listening to people talk about it. I can’t imagine being able to acceptably pull off bullshitting for such an extended period of time. At one of the paintings I’d lose my cool. I’d feel the blood rush to my cheeks and I’d burst out before realizing it:
“Turns out, this one’s just a flower. O’Keeffe had a gigantic garden and she liked to plant flowers of every hue. Then she’d paint them. It’s not a symbol for her emerging womanhood. It’s not depicting her struggle against a male-dominated industry. It’s not a sexual awakening. Those stamen aren’t representations of the most important men in her life through oil on steel. They are stamen. They are the center of the flower she decided to paint. It just happens to be pink. The color means nothing. Moving on, here we have another. This one is oil on canvas. It’s another flower. All this lady does is paint flowers. They are static and uninteresting. She chose them because she couldn’t paint with any detail. Over there is a wall of more brightly colored flowers because she got her paints at a bulk rate in the fall. Please follow me to your left and I’ll show you another small room of more flowers. No flash photography, please. That means you in the New York Yankees hat. Are you from New York? .. Right, I didn’t think so. Fun update for everyone here. If you haven’t lived in or visited New York, but wear their teams’ hats, you’re a dick. Here on your right is a yellow flower. Notice the green of the leaves, like on almost all her other…”
um… brrr? »
Tuesday, January 15th, 2008
I may finally know what it feels like to be a roasted ham on the shelf of a refrigerator. It’s cold outside. It’s cold enough that a layer of ice formed on the wires of my headphones where my breath happened to pass them. It’s cold enough to numb my thighs on the mile walk to the rail. It’s cold enough to make climbing out of bed this morning feel sort of like being slapped in the nads by an obese redneck. It’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.
I wasn’t granted any reprieve at work either. The glass windows, in extreme temperatures, don’t insulate as well as you’d think because they’re glass. It was -7 degrees when I got here. It was only slightly warmer at my desk. I’m still wearing a zip-up on top of a long-sleeve button-up. I have the hood up over my knit cap. I still have chills running down my back every few minutes like tiny ice cubes are having sprint practice on my spine.
Also, I went to a show at triple rock last night and didn’t catch winks until one-thirty. I’m groggy, to say the least. I’m also slightly loopy, so when that phrase about freezing monkey balls came to mind, I was more curious than usual.
Turns out, this phrase goes back to stacks of cannonballs. Monkeys were a nickname for the braces used to hold cannonballs into their pyramidal stacks. They were brass because iron would corrode to iron too quickly. Brass incorrect theory alert! contracts more and faster than iron, thus cannonballs tumbling out of the stack and all over which-way. I imagine this would be treacherous.
This is ridiculous, and easily disproved, but that’s what my online research google “cliche phrase extreme cold expression;” click first few links; rinse, repeat started off with. Brass is relatively stable and wouldn’t contract enough to force the balls off their pyramid. I don’t really care where it came from, but I must admit I’m slightly disappointed.
I always pictured a figurine chimp, wearing an adorable red jacket and cap, sitting on a window ledge when a cold snap hit. The temperature drop and resulting contraction would weaken the weld, and his miniature testicles would bounce away into the street. I don’t know why the chimp had balls in the first place; it seems a bit lewd for universal purchase, but it’s what I pictured; maybe that’s saying something.
With further research I don’t know why I keep using that word, I found a little tidbit that was even funnier than tiny bouncing testes. George over at Phrase Finder had an idea of its possible origin.
Actually “brass” is a slang term for prostitute … and a “monkey” was a cabin boy, so a “brass monkey” might be a cabin boy that sold sexual favours. On a ship, it might be necessary to go either into the cold-store or the forecastle to do such a thing in private and … the risk of exposure to the testicles (“balls”) would support it being a nautical term …
Are you thinking that’s as awesome as I am? Warning: if you are, you’re eyes may flicker and turn off like Val Kilmer’s in “at first sight.” Now, instead of the statuette, I’m picturing a shipman on the table, wrapped in a thick blanket, with doctors around him, staring at his crotch and shaking their heads in dismay. It shines a new light on the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and explains why the Village People were so fascinated with the navy.
By the way, what the hell sort of combination of drugs led to their success? They make bearforce1 seem collectively straighter than the flight of an arrow. Those lyrics? Read them off to a high-schooler, force him to watch the video for “in the navy,” and tell him that dressing up as a police officer, hanging out with hairy-chested construction workers and singing absurd musical ridiculous are side effects of snorting lines. It would be the best anti-drug campaign this side of public execution. Watch for a sudden drop in police academy enrollment and Y.M.C.A. membership.
I got off point. Anyway, be careful not to turn out like Neil Patrick Harris in Snowbound. Dress warm and start a fire because it’s colder than a witch’s tit out there.
united states of leland »
Monday, January 14th, 2008
Any of you ever heard of this? Me neither. I think I was looking up Don Cheadle when I came across it. The cast may surprise you. Don Cheadle, Ryan Gosling, Chris Klein, Jena Malone, Kevin Spacey, Martin Donovan, Michelle Williams, and Michael Peña all have fairly large rolls. Not all of them are solid actors, but they’re all recognizable. The story itself is an odd one.
We center on Leland, played by Ryan Gosling (half nelson, the believer), after he’s killed a retarded child. He’s sent to an unrealistic juvenile detention center where Pearl Madison, Don Cheadle (hotel rwanda, reign over me), attempts to write a book about his situation. The family of the retarded child, including his girlfriend, Jena Malone (donnie darko, saved!), have to deal with the aftermath. Leland’s father, a famous writer, Kevin Spacey (se7en, american beauty), comes back to town, but never visits his estranged son.
The story is decent and I got into it well enough, but it tries too hard. The interesting ideas are deluded with indecision. It could be simple, but instead it brings in too many characters and adds unnecessary plot. Pearl is all over the board between good guy and bad guy. Leland has emotional range, but I can’t tell if we’re supposed to think he’s a good kid or someone tweaked in the head. I don’t know what the creators were trying to say. There’s no specific point and too much going on. The interactions aren’t interesting and some are outright ridiculous.
There is a lot of commentary on relationships, but I don’t know if there’s one defining goal in that commentary. Allen and Julie’s relationship is warped, Leland’s parents are divorced and his father is overseas, Pearl is an asshole, and Becky’s connection to Leland is non-existent or forced, at best. The direction is thoughtful and subtle, but it doesn’t fit the story.
Leland has good ideas, probably based in duality or some other form of philosophy I don’t care to research. He sees the sadness in people where others ignore it. He feels their emotion more than they do, it would seem. His character eventually has a resolution, but it’s even more confusing than the movie as a whole and I don’t really see which direction I’m supposed to interpret it. Hoge seems to have a vision in mind, and tries to translate it, but there’s so much going on that the direction and intention is clouded.
On top of a disjointed story, unnecessary characters, and a mixed message, the acting is unreasonably bad. The cast is experienced, but each character comes off as being developed the weekend before filming began. They are simple and one-dimensional. Leland almost always has a far-off gaze. Gosling is typically much better. Cheadle is uninteresting and Spacey has no dimension. Malone phones it in. Klein and Williams seem to be reading their characters off a discarded Dawson’s script. There’s too much going on and the performances only add to the jumble.
I can’t say I recommend this one beyond passing interest. The ideas are insightful, but foggy, and you’ll have to endure a complete lack of point and direction. Gosling, for all his glazed-over eye stares off into space and small-child voice, does a decent job of portraying an ambiguous character even if the ambiguity was created by the director instead of circumstance.
**1/2
thoughts on: the globes »
Monday, January 14th, 2008
I went to a movie instead of checking to see what was on in place of the golden globes last night. Considering television of late, I’m sure it was classy. The Globes may not have been broadcast in their typical self-important grandeur, but they were at least announced. These are the third most important event in the movie season after the Oscars and Independent Spirit awards; before the critics’ choice, so I thought I’d discuss.
Let me get a few things sorted before we go further. I don’t like musicals. I think they should be confined like an unruly child to his or her windowless lockbox in the basement to the stage. That is where their song and dance is most enjoyable and where film directors can’t screw them up which is the case in just over 99% of them. Any of you who thought Rent was a good film, please stop reading; I have more important people to talk to here.
I think television should be restricted to the Emmy’s. That’s what they’re for. To compliment the actors and actresses of the small screen again is unnecessary, because they don’t deserve it except Hugh Laurie. I understand the categories of movies made for television, but more than that is absurd. Is it just that they need to add categories so as not to line up completely with the Oscars? Pathetic. In the interest of not giving these categories credit, I’ll lump them together.
Winners for Musicals, television acting, television programs
Pat on the back, Johnny Depp. I guess the industry is licking your metaphorical and maybe literal sack for all those movies and roles they didn’t like you in before. I’m sure you’re great in this. And singing? Mad props. But it’s low on my list to see. Marion Cotillard is probably good. I’ve heard too much about her to disagree entirely. And I’m sure la môme is good as well. But, I’ve seen Walk the line, so I can probably hold off awhile. All that said, Ellen Page was robbed. Also, how was John C. Reilly nominated for a Golden Globe? Does anyone watch these things before nominations? Or is this some sort of excel-printout-tacked-to-a-dartboard situation?
I was going to go and remark on the acting and programs of television, but House M.D. should have swept. Even the categories it wasn’t nominated in. I don’t watch enough of the rest to really have a ruling. Aside from House and its related greatness, television is a series of small piles of feces spread unevenly across a field of vomit.
Best foreign language film
Diving bell was quite good. I haven’t seen the others, so my ruling is worth about as much as a four-year-old deciding which ice cream flavor is best.
Best animated film
Ratatouille is a good movie. I don’t usually like animated films they’re geared toward children and thus, idiotic, but this one had a good story. It wasn’t really up against any competition though. Bee movie sounds like a side project for seinfeld and his buddies. The Simpson’s movie wasn’t very good. It was an extended version of their typical half-hour episode with forced moments they can’t get away with on the small screen. Such a great category. Where else can you witness a cooking rat beat out the longest running television series and a talking seinfeld-bee?
best screenplay
Juno should have taken this one. I think No country was a solid screenplay, don’t get me wrong, but it was also based on a book. The book is actually EXACTLY what goes on in the screenplay with only a few exceptions. Cody wrote Juno out of her head which is probably running out of brilliance, so we need to hand her as many statues as possible as quickly as possible. It seems ridiculous that an original screenplay can lose to a book adaptation. What the fuck sort of awards show is this?
best director
Personally, I think the Coen brothers had a better film, but upon review, their direction wasn’t necessarily astounding. Diving bell was incredibly visual and Schnabel had a tougher task. He had to make Bauby’s perspective believable. And he did I, like, totally felt like I was horizontal with only one good eye. A good choice here on the part of the voters. there weren’t many.
Best supporting actress
Really? Really? Yes. Blanchett is practically unstoppable. Her role in I’m not there stole the show from the other five co-dylan’s. As far as I see it, her only competition was Amy Ryan. Ryan played her part so well in gone baby gone, I think she may need rehab. She could have probably won this. Wait…she SHOULD have probably won this. I guess Blanchett gets more points for playing someone with a penis. This one was a tough call, but Ryan was politely robbed. It deserves to be noted that if Julia Roberts had won, I’d have placed manure in a Fed-ex box, labeled it “Golden Globe trophy stand,” and mailed it to her. She’s up there with Reilly on the “who nominates these people, anyway” list.
best supporting actor
This one was locked. Bardem should have won this and the Oscar and any other award. He could win best dressed, best hair, best voice, best male in existence… ok, I’m pretty sure he’s not reading this, so I’ll lay off the fear-based worship. Bardem was creepy. He was more than creepy. He was ominous on top of sinister on top of generally terrifying. His calm and easy demeanor throughout no country made my skin crawl. Hoffman had a chance at this one and I hear Wilkinson did a bang-up job, but holy shit. Bardem was insane. also, he sort of looks like a better version of that guy that was laid up with heart problems (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) in Grey’s, right? it could just be me.
best actress
Who is this lady? Julie Christie. I’d never heard of her, but this is apparently a stand-out role. The critics’ choice awards gave her the same award and that’s supposed to mean an Oscar win. She’s been in film since 1962. I’ve somehow missed her I saw finding neverland and still have no idea, but congratulations. Kudos to Keira though, because she did a magnificent job in her role for Atonement and didn’t even have to go topless.
best actor
Do we have to nominate Denzel whenever he’s in a film? I haven’t seen it, so I’m not passing judgment. It just seems as though he’s always on a list somewhere. Anyway, Day-Lewis was stellar. He should have had this one sent to him with his name on it upon nomination. He was intense and he practically sweat evil in portrayal of Plainview in there will be blood. If only he’d come out with more movies. One every few years gives him too much time to get into character. No one else has a chance.
…and… with only a little further ado…
Best motion picture
Here, for you budding critics and film buffs out there, is how you drop the proverbial ball. You have seven movies to choose from. Three I haven’t seen, so I’ll leave them out of this. Eastern Promises is pathetic. If you asked any intelligent fifteen-year-old which movie they liked, they’d pick this one. That’s why it should never have been nominated in the first place. because fifteen-year-olds are stupid; it’s that simple. The rest are adaptations.
No country and there will be blood took their book, made visual poetry, and created a brilliant film. They had outstanding performances and smart directing. Both were intense and excellent. Anyone would be hard-pressed to pick a winner between them. So what did the voters do? Gave the prize to atonement. W.T.F.??
This was, in no way and I’ve thought of a few, the best picture. The score was great, but not as good as T.W.B.B. The performances were quite good, but not as good as Day-Lewis or Bardem or Jones or Dano or even Brolin. shit, woody harrelson could beat out Mcavoy in some circles. The direction was impressive, but not as subtle as the Coens’ or as intense as Anderson’s. The ending is inadequate. Considering the hype and the twist, it’s actually sort of ridiculous. To say it’s a good film is fairly obvious, but the Best? NO way in hell. I can think of one possible explaination. These are the same voters that claim Beyoncé is a great songwriter.