You know what became official yesterday, after I picked up my mail? It became official that, for every weekend this summer, I have either a wedding, shower, engagement party, or bachelorette party to attend. Some of them are on the same day.
Weddings are great. Music, good food, dancing, you blissfully happy with your new spouse. No complaints whatsoever. Continue to invite me; I'll continue to bring gifts, and you will have the martini glasses that you registered for despite the fact that I've never seen you drink anything aside from beer from the bottle.
Showers, however, are painful. Little old ladies, little mushy sandwiches, little glasses of punch with sherbert that give me a headache. "Wow, look at the salad spinner from Great Aunt Mary!" Don't get me wrong, I love being included to celebrate with you. But you never have and never will spin salad, and we both know this.
So in order to set aside a little time to celebrate me this summer, I'm going to Mexico with Jen. We just booked yesterday. Yay!
Love is clearly in the air, people.
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Chewbecca weighs in
I'm looking forward to this Star Wars movie. I didn't see the other two. That little blond kid and the talking dino-monkey guy...they just didn't grab me. I hope the fall of Anakin is more Crime and Punishment than "mwahaha, I want to take over the world," but we'll see. I hope Lucas took advantage of the opportunity to make him complicated and sympathetic...the fall of the hero is the best kind of storyline there is, aside from maybe three wacky roommates out of college and giving it a shot in the big city.
George Lucas is brilliant in general, of course...these movies came out when we were young, and we remember it with the sort of bigger-than-life reverence you can only really have for the stuff of childhood. When you're 25, a good movie is a good movie. When you're 8, it's pure magic and you're moved in a way that you can only express by acting out scenes over and over in the backyard with your friends. Bringing back the franchise when we're all older and nostalgic for it...genius.
As far as my relationship with Star Wars back in the day, I adored Leia, of course. I wasn't really the sort of little girl to look up to a princess, but she wasn't a princess-princess. I loved, loved, LOVED how she was smart and cool and hot and could kick your ass. I just wanted to be her and strangle Jabba and befriend Ewoks and come up with a better post-carbonate line than, "Someone who loves you!"
I hated Han. He was like the Mr. Big of a galaxy far far away. I hated that Leia liked him in spite of herself, not that she had many options. Even as a kid I was infuriated by arrogant guys. "I love you." "I know." Bastard.
Yoda was boring. He talked for too long and in his death scene, he JUST...WOULDN'T...DIE. I could never become a Jedi because I couldn't get past that rambling, grammatically incoherent muppet. There was always more advice, more dying gasps, more articles to mix up. Could he be anymore abstract? The force...the power...the belief. WHAT exactly is the plan here, buddy?
I loved Obi Wan and Luke. Ahh, Luke. He was smart and sweet and didn't shoot his mouth off at the creature meetings when rat face guy analyzed the hologram of the Death Star. He had that little smile and you just knew he was going to save the universe and have tousled hair and it would all be okay.
As far as the goods...I had a C3PO and R2-D2 alarm clock that used to say something like, "R2, it's time for all good Jedis to wake up! BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!" It made me crazy. I had a thought a couple years ago that I could sell it for a fortune on eBay, but apparently 1,000 other people with the same clock had the same thought at around the same time. I had an Ewoks tape holder. Oh, and the stuffed Ewoks. I had the brown one with the brown outfit (ha, outfit? maybe I mean rag) and then I remember my weird uncle gave me the gray one with the pink outfit, which was my favorite, and I was kind of scared of him but I was so excited I thought I'd die.
So, yeah. I guess I'm somewhere between looking forward to seeing it eventually and standing in line for three weeks dressed as a storm trooper.
George Lucas is brilliant in general, of course...these movies came out when we were young, and we remember it with the sort of bigger-than-life reverence you can only really have for the stuff of childhood. When you're 25, a good movie is a good movie. When you're 8, it's pure magic and you're moved in a way that you can only express by acting out scenes over and over in the backyard with your friends. Bringing back the franchise when we're all older and nostalgic for it...genius.
As far as my relationship with Star Wars back in the day, I adored Leia, of course. I wasn't really the sort of little girl to look up to a princess, but she wasn't a princess-princess. I loved, loved, LOVED how she was smart and cool and hot and could kick your ass. I just wanted to be her and strangle Jabba and befriend Ewoks and come up with a better post-carbonate line than, "Someone who loves you!"
I hated Han. He was like the Mr. Big of a galaxy far far away. I hated that Leia liked him in spite of herself, not that she had many options. Even as a kid I was infuriated by arrogant guys. "I love you." "I know." Bastard.
Yoda was boring. He talked for too long and in his death scene, he JUST...WOULDN'T...DIE. I could never become a Jedi because I couldn't get past that rambling, grammatically incoherent muppet. There was always more advice, more dying gasps, more articles to mix up. Could he be anymore abstract? The force...the power...the belief. WHAT exactly is the plan here, buddy?
I loved Obi Wan and Luke. Ahh, Luke. He was smart and sweet and didn't shoot his mouth off at the creature meetings when rat face guy analyzed the hologram of the Death Star. He had that little smile and you just knew he was going to save the universe and have tousled hair and it would all be okay.
As far as the goods...I had a C3PO and R2-D2 alarm clock that used to say something like, "R2, it's time for all good Jedis to wake up! BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!" It made me crazy. I had a thought a couple years ago that I could sell it for a fortune on eBay, but apparently 1,000 other people with the same clock had the same thought at around the same time. I had an Ewoks tape holder. Oh, and the stuffed Ewoks. I had the brown one with the brown outfit (ha, outfit? maybe I mean rag) and then I remember my weird uncle gave me the gray one with the pink outfit, which was my favorite, and I was kind of scared of him but I was so excited I thought I'd die.
So, yeah. I guess I'm somewhere between looking forward to seeing it eventually and standing in line for three weeks dressed as a storm trooper.
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
the best part is her non-reaction
Oprah: I read that you were teased as a child.
Jon Stewart: Who wasn't?
Oprah: I was called Okra.
Jon: Did you tell them, "I'm going to have an Angel Network"? Did you say, "I'm going to have a Wildest Dreams bus one day, and you're going to need a house, and I'm not gonna flippin' give it to you?"
Oprah: No, my big thing was that I never heard my name called on Romper Room. So you said earlier that you were fired a lot... [goes on]
Oprah: If I come back in a second life, I want to come back as me.
Jon: You know what? I'd like that, too.
Oprah: In the early nineties, I realized I'd been imitating others... [goes on]
Jon Stewart: Who wasn't?
Oprah: I was called Okra.
Jon: Did you tell them, "I'm going to have an Angel Network"? Did you say, "I'm going to have a Wildest Dreams bus one day, and you're going to need a house, and I'm not gonna flippin' give it to you?"
Oprah: No, my big thing was that I never heard my name called on Romper Room. So you said earlier that you were fired a lot... [goes on]
Oprah: If I come back in a second life, I want to come back as me.
Jon: You know what? I'd like that, too.
Oprah: In the early nineties, I realized I'd been imitating others... [goes on]
Sunday, May 15, 2005
more movies!
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
play ball
I'm a little bit concerned about the random sampling of society that I've been encountering at Fenway recently. And I think it's fair to say that it's a random sampling because when you live in and around Boston, being a baseball fan is basically a part of your DNA, so it's not like there's only one kind of person you'd see there.
Now, I don't have many requirements or expectations for you, the stranger sitting next to me in the ballpark. But I've been noticing that many of my new friends seem to fall into specific categories:
The Idiot. This guy yells, "Hey, Chop Suey!" at Matsui and "What's up, Gay Rod!" at A-Rod. Over and over. First of all, not even funny. Second of all, pretty offensive. Third of all, NOT EVEN FUNNY. If there's one thing that irritates the hell out of me, it's when people with no sense of humor, or else the most generic sense of humor in the world, think they're clever. And who are the people with this guy? Are they mortified, or are they just quieter Idiots themselves?
The Beer Thrower. I don't see much of this guy anymore since I upgraded from the bleachers, but he's still lurking around now and then. When did throwing stuff at each other become a legitimate outlet for expressing anger? I thought we all learned that lesson in the sandbox, somewhere between our education on indoor voices and flushing. I just wonder if he's the kind of guy who gets mad at work and hurls a stapler at Joanie from Accounting.
The Pink Hat. Like a Pink Hat herself, I have very little to say. I just can't give this girl any press. You all know how I feel about this one.
The Fighting Couple. The best example of this was a couple sitting next to me at a game last year who had about thirty seven beers each, screamed at each other, and took turns storming out. Are couples like that horribly matched or made for each other? I'm never sure.
The Insipid Commentator. "Wow, that pitch was 86 miles an hour! That's fast! Wow, that one was 84! How fast was that one? Can you see? I can't see it, pretzel guy's in the way. Can you...oh, wow, 92! That's the fastest one yet! Wow, 90. Holy cow! Wow, 92 again..."
The Drunk Guy Who Drunkenly Pontificates on My Dad's and My Hats While Drunk. I know, it never really gets old to see a guy with a Yankees hat sitting next to a girl with a Sox hat. But when you get drunk, your thoughtful commentary on the situation gets a little tiresome. You say pretty much the same thing to us that everyone else does, but it takes you longer and you swear more. You also kind of smell.
The Crying Woman. Last night was a first for this. Shortly after sitting down I noticed the woman next to me was sobbing. Now, I'm a pretty nice person, but this does pose a predictament...do you say something to her or not? And maybe something terrible happened to warrant the crying...maybe she and her husband had tickets to this game but then last night he was eaten by a bear. No wait, that's her husband next to her, and he doesn't seem concerned that she's a mess. Well, okay, maybe it's allergies...really, really bad allergies. Or maybe she's a LUNATIC. (In the end, I did ask her if she was okay. She smiled and said she was and thanked me for asking, but shortly thereafter became the Crowd Agitator...see below.)
The Crowd Agitator. Once she stopped crying, she decided that all the high school boys sitting behind us were clapping too loud, so she screamed at them. Yelling at someone for clapping too loud at a game is sort of like yelling at someone for eating popcorn too loud at the movies...they may in fact be kind of on the loud side, but you've just got no case. So, naturally, these kids laughed at her. The more they mocked her, the more furious she became, which is a pleasant dynamic to be able to witness firsthand. It went a little something like this:
CA: You CHILDREN need to STOP CLAPPING in my EARS! This is your FIRST WARNING!
Children: Shut up! Whatever, lady! We're at a GAME!
CA (stands up, hands on hips): DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING YOU WANT TO SAY TO ME? DO YOU? HUH?
Children: Sit down, bitch!
CA's Husband: DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT SPEAKING TO MY WIFE LIKE THAT, YOU ADOLESCENT PUNK ASS BITCH MOTHERFUCKER!
CA: IF YOU LITTLE ASSHOLES HAVE SOMETHING YOU WANT TO SAY TO ME THEN I SUGGEST YOU SAY IT TO MY FACE!
CA's Husband: MOTHERFUCKING FUCKERS, ALL OF YOU!
CA (sits down and turns to me): Can you believe them?!
Me: (bursts into flames)
Now, I don't have many requirements or expectations for you, the stranger sitting next to me in the ballpark. But I've been noticing that many of my new friends seem to fall into specific categories:
The Idiot. This guy yells, "Hey, Chop Suey!" at Matsui and "What's up, Gay Rod!" at A-Rod. Over and over. First of all, not even funny. Second of all, pretty offensive. Third of all, NOT EVEN FUNNY. If there's one thing that irritates the hell out of me, it's when people with no sense of humor, or else the most generic sense of humor in the world, think they're clever. And who are the people with this guy? Are they mortified, or are they just quieter Idiots themselves?
The Beer Thrower. I don't see much of this guy anymore since I upgraded from the bleachers, but he's still lurking around now and then. When did throwing stuff at each other become a legitimate outlet for expressing anger? I thought we all learned that lesson in the sandbox, somewhere between our education on indoor voices and flushing. I just wonder if he's the kind of guy who gets mad at work and hurls a stapler at Joanie from Accounting.
The Pink Hat. Like a Pink Hat herself, I have very little to say. I just can't give this girl any press. You all know how I feel about this one.
The Fighting Couple. The best example of this was a couple sitting next to me at a game last year who had about thirty seven beers each, screamed at each other, and took turns storming out. Are couples like that horribly matched or made for each other? I'm never sure.
The Insipid Commentator. "Wow, that pitch was 86 miles an hour! That's fast! Wow, that one was 84! How fast was that one? Can you see? I can't see it, pretzel guy's in the way. Can you...oh, wow, 92! That's the fastest one yet! Wow, 90. Holy cow! Wow, 92 again..."
The Drunk Guy Who Drunkenly Pontificates on My Dad's and My Hats While Drunk. I know, it never really gets old to see a guy with a Yankees hat sitting next to a girl with a Sox hat. But when you get drunk, your thoughtful commentary on the situation gets a little tiresome. You say pretty much the same thing to us that everyone else does, but it takes you longer and you swear more. You also kind of smell.
The Crying Woman. Last night was a first for this. Shortly after sitting down I noticed the woman next to me was sobbing. Now, I'm a pretty nice person, but this does pose a predictament...do you say something to her or not? And maybe something terrible happened to warrant the crying...maybe she and her husband had tickets to this game but then last night he was eaten by a bear. No wait, that's her husband next to her, and he doesn't seem concerned that she's a mess. Well, okay, maybe it's allergies...really, really bad allergies. Or maybe she's a LUNATIC. (In the end, I did ask her if she was okay. She smiled and said she was and thanked me for asking, but shortly thereafter became the Crowd Agitator...see below.)
The Crowd Agitator. Once she stopped crying, she decided that all the high school boys sitting behind us were clapping too loud, so she screamed at them. Yelling at someone for clapping too loud at a game is sort of like yelling at someone for eating popcorn too loud at the movies...they may in fact be kind of on the loud side, but you've just got no case. So, naturally, these kids laughed at her. The more they mocked her, the more furious she became, which is a pleasant dynamic to be able to witness firsthand. It went a little something like this:
CA: You CHILDREN need to STOP CLAPPING in my EARS! This is your FIRST WARNING!
Children: Shut up! Whatever, lady! We're at a GAME!
CA (stands up, hands on hips): DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING YOU WANT TO SAY TO ME? DO YOU? HUH?
Children: Sit down, bitch!
CA's Husband: DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT SPEAKING TO MY WIFE LIKE THAT, YOU ADOLESCENT PUNK ASS BITCH MOTHERFUCKER!
CA: IF YOU LITTLE ASSHOLES HAVE SOMETHING YOU WANT TO SAY TO ME THEN I SUGGEST YOU SAY IT TO MY FACE!
CA's Husband: MOTHERFUCKING FUCKERS, ALL OF YOU!
CA (sits down and turns to me): Can you believe them?!
Me: (bursts into flames)
Sunday, May 08, 2005
don't you mean House of AWESOME?
I saw House of Wax! I was so excited, I was bouncing in my seat. And it was great because it was the day after its release, it was raining and the movie theater parking lot was packed, but the only ones there to see this cinematic masterpiece were Steve and I and a woman a few rows behind us who brought her 12-year-old-ish daughters with her, and from her ranting in the ladies room afterwards she had clearly been cajoled into doing so and was none too happy about it.
It was GREAT...it had all the important elements of a terrible horror movie, like one of the main male characters telling the main female character, "OK, well, I know we just got a little bit abducted by a toothless, knife-wielding guy who collects roadkill for fun, but I'm just going to run into his house over there that's clearly the gateway to hell and use the bathroom. But I'll be right back. You stay here in the passenger seat of his pick-up truck." Attention to my guy friends: You're not leaving me to pee. I'm coming with you.
Of course, people separate throughout the whole movie. "I can't believe we just narrowly escaped death! Okay, you go that way and I'll go this way." None of these characters are like me. But I don't suppose it would make for a very good scary movie if the first time something remotely creepy happened, the main character was like, "Wow, this is totally fucked up and we're leaving right this second. Hey, did you bring money for tolls?"
Great scene in a camping tent with Paris Hilton: First, she strips for her boyfriend, and then she decides to tell him she thinks she's pregnant. Then he runs outside because he's upset that the CD he put on has stopped playing, and when he doesn't come back for a really long time, even though the only thing he left to do was check on the CD right outside the tent, she thinks "oh well" and goes to sleep. Sounds about right.
Oh, also, it had that fantastic scene where the main female character goes into the house and finds all the incriminating newspaper clippings letting you know exactly what the bad guys have done, and just as she opens her mouth to tell the only friend of hers that's survived that far with her...well, you know how that goes. I love the newspaper clipping scene, though! Attention bad guys: Make sure that whenever you do bad things, you neatly clip the newspaper articles detailing the crimes, and that you keep them in the first drawer in your house that anyone would think to look in (it's helpful if it's in a desk on top of which there's a glass jar containing a cow fetus or something equally subdued). And don't go and scrapbook those articles, oh no...make sure you stack them sequentially so the first one is about something that we know or suspect you did, but as the main character continues to sift through, we find out about stuff you did that we had no idea about but that conveniently ties back to an unsettled issue from earlier in the movie, and only then will we know the depth of your madness.
So, go see it! Or just rent it when it's in the discount bin at Blockbuster next week.
It was GREAT...it had all the important elements of a terrible horror movie, like one of the main male characters telling the main female character, "OK, well, I know we just got a little bit abducted by a toothless, knife-wielding guy who collects roadkill for fun, but I'm just going to run into his house over there that's clearly the gateway to hell and use the bathroom. But I'll be right back. You stay here in the passenger seat of his pick-up truck." Attention to my guy friends: You're not leaving me to pee. I'm coming with you.
Of course, people separate throughout the whole movie. "I can't believe we just narrowly escaped death! Okay, you go that way and I'll go this way." None of these characters are like me. But I don't suppose it would make for a very good scary movie if the first time something remotely creepy happened, the main character was like, "Wow, this is totally fucked up and we're leaving right this second. Hey, did you bring money for tolls?"
Great scene in a camping tent with Paris Hilton: First, she strips for her boyfriend, and then she decides to tell him she thinks she's pregnant. Then he runs outside because he's upset that the CD he put on has stopped playing, and when he doesn't come back for a really long time, even though the only thing he left to do was check on the CD right outside the tent, she thinks "oh well" and goes to sleep. Sounds about right.
Oh, also, it had that fantastic scene where the main female character goes into the house and finds all the incriminating newspaper clippings letting you know exactly what the bad guys have done, and just as she opens her mouth to tell the only friend of hers that's survived that far with her...well, you know how that goes. I love the newspaper clipping scene, though! Attention bad guys: Make sure that whenever you do bad things, you neatly clip the newspaper articles detailing the crimes, and that you keep them in the first drawer in your house that anyone would think to look in (it's helpful if it's in a desk on top of which there's a glass jar containing a cow fetus or something equally subdued). And don't go and scrapbook those articles, oh no...make sure you stack them sequentially so the first one is about something that we know or suspect you did, but as the main character continues to sift through, we find out about stuff you did that we had no idea about but that conveniently ties back to an unsettled issue from earlier in the movie, and only then will we know the depth of your madness.
So, go see it! Or just rent it when it's in the discount bin at Blockbuster next week.
Friday, May 06, 2005
Crazy Neighbor Chuck, on honesty
CNC: How's it going?
Me: Oh, hey. Just taking out the trash before the rain starts.
CNC: It's going to rain?
Me: Yeah, supposedly all weekend.
CNC: You're kidding.
Me: No...sorry to give you the bad news.
CNC: Well, that's okay. You're a truth-teller.
Me: Right.
CNC: You tell the truth, and that's good.
Me: So take care!
Me: Oh, hey. Just taking out the trash before the rain starts.
CNC: It's going to rain?
Me: Yeah, supposedly all weekend.
CNC: You're kidding.
Me: No...sorry to give you the bad news.
CNC: Well, that's okay. You're a truth-teller.
Me: Right.
CNC: You tell the truth, and that's good.
Me: So take care!
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
yay movies
I want to see this, this (despite not liking Nicholas Cage), this (who is that blond girl? I like her), this (Helena Bonham Carter is basically perfect), and this...I love Ron Livingston ("I'm sorry, I can't, don't hate me"), Allison Janney ("First of all, you're wrong. Second of all, shut up"), and Anthony LaPaglia. Although we'll see how that one plays out, because I'm getting a little tired of the whole "two miserable people coming together and somehow suddenly being happy" thing.
And this. But you knew that already. Prey, slay, DISPLAY!
I love trailers. Oh, and movies.
And this. But you knew that already. Prey, slay, DISPLAY!
I love trailers. Oh, and movies.
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