There are a couple of things I've seen on other blogs today that I thought I should share.
First up is this bit about Jessica Alba's fiance/baby daddy from What Would Tyler Durden Do?
This dude doesn't even really do anything, yet he snared the hottest piece of ass on earth, making this the biggest upset since I won that no-rules, underground MMA tournament in Thailand last year. With that in mind, you might think I'd begrudgingly give him the respect he's clearly earned. Yet, look, here I am, telling him to go fuck himself.
This was worth sharing simply because the last sentence made me snort.
The other item is from Neil Gaiman's blog, in which he responds, as always, reasonably and good-naturedly to a parent whose daughter is writing a book report on Stardust and who was shocked - shocked! - to find that that the word "fuck" appears in a book so obviously intended for children.
My 12-year old daughter chose Stardust for a school book report. We purchased it in paperback at Barnes and Noble. From the packaging, it looked like an appropriate fantasy story for her age and her 6th grade teacher approved it. We were very offended to find that it had an explicit sex scene and the word "fuck" in it.
Neil points out that it isn't actually a children's book, but my point in posting this here is that the usage of the word "fuck" - which appears exactly one time and in extremely small print, like this - is actually one of the best scenes in the book (not really sure about the "explicit" sex scene; I don't recall it being terribly explicit). In fact, that the particular scene did not appear in the movie is pretty much the only complaint that Scott and I had about the filmed adaptation. Actually, the scene does appear, it just doesn't include the one word that really sells it. We were hoping it would be there, and were almost leaning forward in anticipation of it, but alas, Claire Danes never utters it.
For anyone who hasn't read the book, the appearance of the word occurs shortly after Yvaine, a star, has fallen to earth and broken her leg in the process:
There was a cracking sound, sharp as a shot, and the light that had filled the grove was gone.
Or almost gone. There was a dim glow pulsing from the middle of the hazel thicket, as if a tiny cloud of stars were glimmering there.
And there was a voice, a high clear, female voice which said, "Ow," and then, very quitely, it said, "Fuck," and then it said, "Ow," once more.
And then it said nothing at all, and there was silence in the glade.
Still, well-written and funny or not, this evil passage will be responsible for creating a generation of sex-crazed, impious hooligans who might have otherwise lived their lives pure as the driven snow, completely free of ever encountering that horrible word if they had not been deceived or forced to read a book intended for adults , as it's not as though they could ever possibly encounter that world in their day-to-day lives.
And that's just a fucking shame.
Showing posts with label stardust. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stardust. Show all posts
Friday, December 28, 2007
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Long-Ass Post In Which We Play Catch Up (With Photos!)
In case you hadn’t guessed based on the lack of posting, as of this morning before I left for work my shitty cable company still has not fixed my Internet connection.
When I last called to get a status update, there wasn’t one.
I said, “It’s been out for eleven days now. It’s getting ridiculous.”
The rep I was speaking to said, “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
“It’s not that I feel that way,” I countered, “it’s how it is.”
She then informed me that I would be credited for the time I’ve been without service. She said this in such a way that it seemed she thought I would be impressed by their magnanimity.
I wasn’t, and told her as much.
Of course, my calling and complaining and being snarky isn’t actually accomplishing anything. It’s not even making me feel better.
In any case, now I’m at work with time on my hands (gave the busy station to the new intern, who is much more intelligent and capable – by default if nothing else – than the last one), and am taking advantage of the much faster than dial up network connection to write up an entry (or two).
On Saturday night Scott and I went to see Stardust (unlike the rest of the movie-going public, apparently) and thoroughly enjoyed it (Despite the fact that I really wished they’d included one of the best parts of the book, Yvaine’s softly muttered F Bomb, which they could have included, as PG-13 movies are allowed one instance of the F Word so long as it’s used in a non-sexual way. So, “Fuck you, Charlie,” would be acceptable, whereas, “I want to fuck you, Charlie,” is not.). My thoughts on the movie pretty much mirror Scott’s, so you can read his review of it to get a more in-depth understanding of what I thought of it.
Getting to the theater was a bit of a challenge. It’s a relatively new theater located in a relatively new development which I’d never been to before. I tried to map the route via Google, but found myself skeptical about the directions provided, as Google was placing it somewhere in Ashburn Village, which I was pretty sure is not where it’s located. The directions on the theater’s site contradicted the directions Google was giving.
Apparently the theater’s address is too new to appear on maps, and Google was just defaulting to some random address in Ashburn.
Eventually I took note of the fact that the theater was located “behind Harris Teeter’s,” found the address to the Harris Teeter’s in that development, and then mapped to that address. The directions on the theater’s site would have been enough to get me there, but I wanted to have it mapped as well.
Sunday I didn’t do much, as I felt more than the usual amount of lethargy. To be honest, I felt rather the way I felt when I was in jail. I had absolutely no interest in doing anything. I took a 3 hour nap (after 9 hours of sleep), and still felt tired.
In the evening I ended up doing some writing for Kathleen, who wants me to do some freelance content writing for her new business.
On Monday I had the home inspection of the house I’m going to buy. Everything went pretty well, with no major issues found.
Before that, I met Kathleen for lunch, during which we agreed upon the payment terms for my content writing. I bought lunch, but pointed out that she should have done it, as she could have written it off as a business expense.
She came with me to the home inspection so that she could check the place out.
Here are the pictures that it occurred to me to take while I was there:
Here's a view of the back of the house.
Here's a shot of the rather large backyard.
Here's a blurry shot of the eat-in kitchen that shouldn't be an eat-in kitchen, as the table makes it a little cramped. There's actually a dining room that's been turned into a family room that I will be turning back into a dining room.
Here's a shot in the living room in which a blury Kathleen can be spotted. It's not because of the camera; she is actually blurry in real life.
And here's another shot of the living room from the other side.
I didn't take any shots of the front or the upstairs. Why? Because I'm like that.
Yesterday I met Scott at the comic shop. He’d brought the girls along to pick out comics for themselves, as he’s hoping to help create a new generation of comic geeks. Stacy waited in the van with Scarlett, and after we were done we all went over to the brick oven pizza place to eat. The pizza place was my suggestion, as last week when I stopped at the comic shop there were some extremely appetizing smells emanating from the place.
At one point while we were there I stood up to allow Stacy to get out of the booth to take the girls to the bathroom. While I was standing there, Vicki randomly head-butted me in the stomach. It barely registered as a tap, so it wasn’t painful at all, but it seemed odd, so I commented on it, saying, “Your daughter just head-butted me in the stomach.”
I was prepared to just write it off under the category of “Kids are Weird,” but when they got back from the bathroom Stacy wanted Vicki to apologize to me, per the conversation they’d had about it. Vicki didn’t want to apologize, and her continued refusal to do so led to her being taken out to the van by Scott.
I always feel awkward in those kinds of situations. I mean, I didn’t feel any particular need for an apology, but on the other hand I understood Scott and Stacy’s position as parents, so I had to rein in my tendency to just dismiss the whole thing with a joke, which is my default response to, like, 90-99% of the things I encounter in life (well, at least the non-annoying things, though I even joke about annoying things eventually, if not immediately).
Eventually she did apologize.
The whole thing reminded me of the time many years ago when I was living with my mom and dad. I was the only one home at the time when the Principal of the grade school came to the door with a very embarrassed-looking girl. It turns out that at some point my mom had bought some raffle tickets for some school function from the girl in question. It turns out that the girl had pocketed the money from selling the tickets and spent it on herself.
As punishment, she was being brought around to explain and apologize to everyone she’d taken money from.
I remember thinking that it was kind of funny and admiring the sheer audacity of someone who thought she could get away with something like that in such a small town, and then noticing the hopeful expression on the Principal's face as she waited for me to heap scorn on this girl who had undoubtedly been sufficiently humiliated already.
As the default adult, it was up to me to take this seriously, even though doing so went against my basic nature.
The best I could manage was a weak, “Well, as long as you learned your lesson.”
I had thought about laying it on thick and adding, "Now go forth and sin no more," but decided against it.
Anyway, the head-butt to the stomach was one more instance of Jon struggling to be a Serious Adult™ and struggling to keep a straight face.
Hopefully, like the young thief, Vicki has learned her lesson (I don't know if the thief learned her lesson or not, but let's say she did for the sake of argument. At the very least, I'm sure she learned that if you're going to steal money, be less obvious about it. That counts as a lesson, I think.).
I think she did.
Unless she’s formed a sub-conscious connection between Jon and punishment and will begin to harbor a deep-seated resentment of me.
Meh, either way.
When I last called to get a status update, there wasn’t one.
I said, “It’s been out for eleven days now. It’s getting ridiculous.”
The rep I was speaking to said, “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
“It’s not that I feel that way,” I countered, “it’s how it is.”
She then informed me that I would be credited for the time I’ve been without service. She said this in such a way that it seemed she thought I would be impressed by their magnanimity.
I wasn’t, and told her as much.
Of course, my calling and complaining and being snarky isn’t actually accomplishing anything. It’s not even making me feel better.
In any case, now I’m at work with time on my hands (gave the busy station to the new intern, who is much more intelligent and capable – by default if nothing else – than the last one), and am taking advantage of the much faster than dial up network connection to write up an entry (or two).
On Saturday night Scott and I went to see Stardust (unlike the rest of the movie-going public, apparently) and thoroughly enjoyed it (Despite the fact that I really wished they’d included one of the best parts of the book, Yvaine’s softly muttered F Bomb, which they could have included, as PG-13 movies are allowed one instance of the F Word so long as it’s used in a non-sexual way. So, “Fuck you, Charlie,” would be acceptable, whereas, “I want to fuck you, Charlie,” is not.). My thoughts on the movie pretty much mirror Scott’s, so you can read his review of it to get a more in-depth understanding of what I thought of it.
Getting to the theater was a bit of a challenge. It’s a relatively new theater located in a relatively new development which I’d never been to before. I tried to map the route via Google, but found myself skeptical about the directions provided, as Google was placing it somewhere in Ashburn Village, which I was pretty sure is not where it’s located. The directions on the theater’s site contradicted the directions Google was giving.
Apparently the theater’s address is too new to appear on maps, and Google was just defaulting to some random address in Ashburn.
Eventually I took note of the fact that the theater was located “behind Harris Teeter’s,” found the address to the Harris Teeter’s in that development, and then mapped to that address. The directions on the theater’s site would have been enough to get me there, but I wanted to have it mapped as well.
Sunday I didn’t do much, as I felt more than the usual amount of lethargy. To be honest, I felt rather the way I felt when I was in jail. I had absolutely no interest in doing anything. I took a 3 hour nap (after 9 hours of sleep), and still felt tired.
In the evening I ended up doing some writing for Kathleen, who wants me to do some freelance content writing for her new business.
On Monday I had the home inspection of the house I’m going to buy. Everything went pretty well, with no major issues found.
Before that, I met Kathleen for lunch, during which we agreed upon the payment terms for my content writing. I bought lunch, but pointed out that she should have done it, as she could have written it off as a business expense.
She came with me to the home inspection so that she could check the place out.
Here are the pictures that it occurred to me to take while I was there:
Here's a view of the back of the house.
Here's a shot of the rather large backyard.
Here's a blurry shot of the eat-in kitchen that shouldn't be an eat-in kitchen, as the table makes it a little cramped. There's actually a dining room that's been turned into a family room that I will be turning back into a dining room.
Here's a shot in the living room in which a blury Kathleen can be spotted. It's not because of the camera; she is actually blurry in real life.
And here's another shot of the living room from the other side.
I didn't take any shots of the front or the upstairs. Why? Because I'm like that.
Yesterday I met Scott at the comic shop. He’d brought the girls along to pick out comics for themselves, as he’s hoping to help create a new generation of comic geeks. Stacy waited in the van with Scarlett, and after we were done we all went over to the brick oven pizza place to eat. The pizza place was my suggestion, as last week when I stopped at the comic shop there were some extremely appetizing smells emanating from the place.
At one point while we were there I stood up to allow Stacy to get out of the booth to take the girls to the bathroom. While I was standing there, Vicki randomly head-butted me in the stomach. It barely registered as a tap, so it wasn’t painful at all, but it seemed odd, so I commented on it, saying, “Your daughter just head-butted me in the stomach.”
I was prepared to just write it off under the category of “Kids are Weird,” but when they got back from the bathroom Stacy wanted Vicki to apologize to me, per the conversation they’d had about it. Vicki didn’t want to apologize, and her continued refusal to do so led to her being taken out to the van by Scott.
I always feel awkward in those kinds of situations. I mean, I didn’t feel any particular need for an apology, but on the other hand I understood Scott and Stacy’s position as parents, so I had to rein in my tendency to just dismiss the whole thing with a joke, which is my default response to, like, 90-99% of the things I encounter in life (well, at least the non-annoying things, though I even joke about annoying things eventually, if not immediately).
Eventually she did apologize.
The whole thing reminded me of the time many years ago when I was living with my mom and dad. I was the only one home at the time when the Principal of the grade school came to the door with a very embarrassed-looking girl. It turns out that at some point my mom had bought some raffle tickets for some school function from the girl in question. It turns out that the girl had pocketed the money from selling the tickets and spent it on herself.
As punishment, she was being brought around to explain and apologize to everyone she’d taken money from.
I remember thinking that it was kind of funny and admiring the sheer audacity of someone who thought she could get away with something like that in such a small town, and then noticing the hopeful expression on the Principal's face as she waited for me to heap scorn on this girl who had undoubtedly been sufficiently humiliated already.
As the default adult, it was up to me to take this seriously, even though doing so went against my basic nature.
The best I could manage was a weak, “Well, as long as you learned your lesson.”
I had thought about laying it on thick and adding, "Now go forth and sin no more," but decided against it.
Anyway, the head-butt to the stomach was one more instance of Jon struggling to be a Serious Adult™ and struggling to keep a straight face.
Hopefully, like the young thief, Vicki has learned her lesson (I don't know if the thief learned her lesson or not, but let's say she did for the sake of argument. At the very least, I'm sure she learned that if you're going to steal money, be less obvious about it. That counts as a lesson, I think.).
I think she did.
Unless she’s formed a sub-conscious connection between Jon and punishment and will begin to harbor a deep-seated resentment of me.
Meh, either way.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Hello Mr. Awkward, May I Call You Socially?
On the way home from work yesterday I stopped by the comic shop. After parking a fair distance away, as the area was packed with cars, I began walking to the shop. As I got closer, someone said, "Hey, Jon!" and appeared to be looking at me.
The person - someone tall wearing a baseball cap, sunglasses, and a cap and standing next to a woman I didn't recognize - didn't match up with the(extremely short) list of people I know that immediately sprang to mind, so I began to assume that there was someone behind me named Jon (or, more likely, John).
As I got closer, I figured out who it was just before he identified himself; it was David, my Realtor.
In answer to his question, I explained that I was stopping by the comic shop. He introduced me to his wife, and pointed out that they live just down the street from the town center where the comic shop is located.
We talked a little about how things are going to go on Monday with the home inspection, and then we began to go our separate ways. I told his wife that it was nice meeting her, and then added as an afterthought, after taking note of her belly, my congratulations on the son they're expecting. Because of the way I just sort of blurted it out, I'm sure it came off as a perfect example of my social awkwardness.
In any case, David responded, somberly, "She's not pregnant Jon."
I might have been flustered by this if I had added my awkward congratulations solely based on the evidence of her belly, but I knew that she was pregnant from previous conversations with David, so I said, "Nice try; I know she's pregnant," and we all laughed, which helped to erase some of the evidence of just how socially inept I really am (especially when taken by surprise).
Then I went into the comic shop, had a comic geek conversation about comic book movies, and was soon home, where I found that having the whole day to work on it wasn't enough time for my cable company to fix the problem with my Internet connection.
I don't imagine they did any work on it today, so it will be Monday at the absolute soonest before I have it up and running again.
As mentioned, tonight after work I'm going to catch a showing of Stardust with Scott.
(And you should be going to see it, too. In fact, what are you doing sitting there reading this? Go see Stardust! Now!)
Earlier today Brian IMed me saying, "haha, we just had to page Scott for something."
I responded, "lol, he's been bitching about being on-call all week."
With all the compassion he could muster, Brian said, "well, he's got something more to bitch about now."
I added that they needed to make sure to be done with him before 7.
Unless my Internet connection gets fixed soon, I probably won't be doing much blogging this week. Sure, I can post stuff over dial up, but it's a pain, and even with my QWERTY keyboard on my phone, I just can't see myself engaging in mobile blogging or "MoBlo."
(More like "MoBlo Me").
I know that a lack of regular updates will be pretty rough on you, but I think you'll survive.
I have faith in you.
The person - someone tall wearing a baseball cap, sunglasses, and a cap and standing next to a woman I didn't recognize - didn't match up with the(extremely short) list of people I know that immediately sprang to mind, so I began to assume that there was someone behind me named Jon (or, more likely, John).
As I got closer, I figured out who it was just before he identified himself; it was David, my Realtor.
In answer to his question, I explained that I was stopping by the comic shop. He introduced me to his wife, and pointed out that they live just down the street from the town center where the comic shop is located.
We talked a little about how things are going to go on Monday with the home inspection, and then we began to go our separate ways. I told his wife that it was nice meeting her, and then added as an afterthought, after taking note of her belly, my congratulations on the son they're expecting. Because of the way I just sort of blurted it out, I'm sure it came off as a perfect example of my social awkwardness.
In any case, David responded, somberly, "She's not pregnant Jon."
I might have been flustered by this if I had added my awkward congratulations solely based on the evidence of her belly, but I knew that she was pregnant from previous conversations with David, so I said, "Nice try; I know she's pregnant," and we all laughed, which helped to erase some of the evidence of just how socially inept I really am (especially when taken by surprise).
Then I went into the comic shop, had a comic geek conversation about comic book movies, and was soon home, where I found that having the whole day to work on it wasn't enough time for my cable company to fix the problem with my Internet connection.
I don't imagine they did any work on it today, so it will be Monday at the absolute soonest before I have it up and running again.
As mentioned, tonight after work I'm going to catch a showing of Stardust with Scott.
(And you should be going to see it, too. In fact, what are you doing sitting there reading this? Go see Stardust! Now!)
Earlier today Brian IMed me saying, "haha, we just had to page Scott for something."
I responded, "lol, he's been bitching about being on-call all week."
With all the compassion he could muster, Brian said, "well, he's got something more to bitch about now."
I added that they needed to make sure to be done with him before 7.
Unless my Internet connection gets fixed soon, I probably won't be doing much blogging this week. Sure, I can post stuff over dial up, but it's a pain, and even with my QWERTY keyboard on my phone, I just can't see myself engaging in mobile blogging or "MoBlo."
(More like "MoBlo Me").
I know that a lack of regular updates will be pretty rough on you, but I think you'll survive.
I have faith in you.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Already Have Plans For The Weekend? Change Them!
Stardust opens in theaters today. It was a great book by Neil Gaiman, who insists that it's now a great movie, and I believe him.
Unfortunately it's opening against the latest piece of dreck in the Rush Hour franchise, and given that people lack taste, sense, and any sort of critical faculties, I'm afraid that Stardust will not earn the kind of money that it deserves to.
So I'm appealing to everyone who stumbles across this blog to see Stardust this weekend.
Even I am going to see it this weekend, and I never go to movies on opening weekend.
Unfortunately it's opening against the latest piece of dreck in the Rush Hour franchise, and given that people lack taste, sense, and any sort of critical faculties, I'm afraid that Stardust will not earn the kind of money that it deserves to.
So I'm appealing to everyone who stumbles across this blog to see Stardust this weekend.
Even I am going to see it this weekend, and I never go to movies on opening weekend.
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