Half-Assed Oscar Bloggin
Disclaimer: I am not a 'film' person - or at least not in the sense of 'movie-theatre-going-film-person'. I would always rather watch Netflix DVDs in my home cinema the season or so after their greatness, where i can rewind, lie recumbent, or eat, or smoke if i want to, and take bathroom breaks. Also, the NYC $12.50 or so for a movie ticket blows my mind. Shit - that's money better spent on alcohol.
For the record, the only movies I have seen at a theater this year are: The Life Aquatic with Steve Zisou, House of Flying Daggers, and Shaun of the Dead. I think. I might have been forced to blow money on a couple other crappy movies i can't even remember by friends a couple times. And i am only switching to the Oscars inbetween Cold Case and Law & Order because Chris Rock is hosting.
My thoughts:
- Tim Robbins is lookin so old and scraggly that i am embarassed i ever had a crush on him.
- I am SO going to see Hotel Rwanda, and Ray now. Don Cheadle made me cry (in an excerpt!!!) - who knew he was such a powerful actor? and for that matter who knew Jamie Foxx could SING?!? I might even go to the theater for this shit.
- I am still not feeling Million Dollar Baby. I love Clint and I love Hillary. Judgement suspended until it hits DVD and i actually watch it.
- Everytime i see anything about/for The Aviator, I always think "COOL HOWARD HUGHES!! I WANNA SEE THAT!" and then i see Leonardo DiCaprio and i think, "er, uh, No Thank You".
- It feels fakey when someone calls Martin Scorcese "Marty", all familiar like, as if maybe they'd slept with him. People, i know you wanna piece of his wuffie, but damn, do you go callin clint "clinty"? Just speakin for the little people here.
- When they cut the winner's speeches off with the music i can't help but thinking of Showtime @ The Apollo when they "wonk-wonk" and tap-dance people off the stage
- And what's with giving the 'technical' awards all hurried like and/or off in the audience and not on stage? I guess i would understand this if there was some huge stage-set change that had to happen, but there wasn't. Instead it just had this "don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain" air.
- Some of those documentaries sounded really cool. Why didn't they show a clip of "Born in Brothels"?!? Dude, i will SO DVD that shit.
- I guess Sideways really got fuck-all, but i still think i'd like to see it.
Arresting Development
Niggling little signs that i am now in my mid-thirties:
- I have aches, stiffness and actual grey hairs
- I get into new bands (i.e., The White Stripes) well after the hype, as opposed to well before
- I stay in on Friday and Saturday nights explicitly to watch Numb3rs and MI5
- I drink wine more often than hard liquor and am completely unable to drink tequila at all, anymore
- My friends ask to visit or stay over, rather than just appear spontaneously and hang out for days, crashing on the couch
- I have a couch
- I rarely ever find myself at a dance club at 3 am with no idea how i got there
- VH1. Enough said.
- I have a Financial Planner, a CPA and a housekeeper
- I suddenly suck at video games
- I still don't pay my bills on time (only this is more b/c I forget to, rather than b/c I don't have the dough)
- My fridgerator is mostly empty except for left over take-out food, a pile of condiments and beer
- I don't do my laundry until pretty much my entire wardrobe is dirty
- I don't want children and am in fact quite scared of even the thought of children
- None of my plates, silverware or furniture match
- I jam out to QotSA and EoDM with the amp turned up way beyond 11
- I still read comic books (only i call them 'graphic literature' in mixed company), watch cartoons and spend all my money on toys
- I continue to view my 401K savings as a poachable "emergency fund", and I don't really have a plan to pay off my school loans
- I can still live out of my backpack
- I continue to believe that I am on constantly "on the verge of greatness" and that, someday, my friends and I will change the world for the better
Blog Outlives Website
LGP was two years old as of Valentine's Day. It has now long outlived my first geocities website, circa 1997-1998 (aka, "Mad Cow Diaries", aka "Time Kill and Mind Whammy Research Lab"). I find myself retrospecting on the differences between MCD & LGP:
User Friendly Editing Apps: there were no nice GUIs for hypertext editing apps in 1997 that i knew of (let alone wonderfully easy web-hosted apps like the incomparable Bloghorn), so MCD was where i cut my teeth on html, learned to hate framesets, and abused any/all aspects of web design and Human-Computer-Interaction. Updating MCD meant hours of tinkering and eye-crossing gnarliness. LGP is clean, easy push-button publishing with a rich interface, as well as source code option.
Broadband: MCD was hammered out over dial-up internet access via a 14.4K phone modem. I was considered somewhat geeky by most normal people (my uber-geek friends not included) because i even went so far as to have a second phone line strictly for my dial up internet access. Even with a dedicated phone line, i could get up and fix coffee in between page loads. LGP, meanwhile, is most often brought to you via a smoking phat 100MB cable broadband connection.
Web Design Standards: MCD was everything most personal websites of the 90's were - completely unreadable. It was a butt-ugly and difficult site that only itz creator could love or even, actually, look at. Every page was a nightmare of distracting tiled background gifs, huge serif fonts in non-friendly colors (like lavender and red), along with the ever-inappropriate text here and there, and ALL CAPS IN PLACES FOR NO GOOD REASON... Now i am in no way saying that LGP is exemplary of good web design standards, necessarily - i have hacked and frazzled this template all to hell - but it IS readable, for the most part.
Audience Feedback: If anyone ever actually read MCD, gawd-help-em, there was no feedback mechanism, no comment capability - no interaction. And the links page was pretty much a 404. Whereas, within hours of it's birth, LGP made reciprocal link-friends from its blogroll, had a stream of visitors and comments. MCD was such a 'static' and one-way broadcast that after all the fun of creating it, dullness soon set in. Maybe if i'd been more narcissistic, I'd have kept it up. LGP, on the other hand, has actually become a communication channel for me. Friends and family actually read it, and i have met new friends through it.
Wow. I have always needed a textual component to my relationships. Back before blogs and before the public internet, i used to corner unsuspecting friends and make them read my journal entries and crappy poetry. They indulged me, but i know it was painful for them. So, thanks, Bloghorn, and thanks LGP, for a wonderful two years - i look forward to more.
Because Nothing Says "Love" Like Inorganic Chemicals
Happy red dye and food coloring day.
Chemistry LessonAaaw, baby! Coal Tar! Now I know you're serious.
The dyes in this group are known as azo dyes, because they have the two nitrogen atoms together in the center (called an azo group). These dyes were originally manufactured from coal tar, but are now mostly made from petroleum. Azo dyes come in many colors besides those allowed in food (listed above). The other colors find use in fabrics, paper products, and plastics.
Sunday Gawdspam
Jeezus Keeriste itz been a spamful week. This time, in my inbox:
Trackback-Spam-Sickness
At first i thought it was the trackback spam making me sick. But after chills, nausea and vomiting all day yesterday, and lying prostrate pretty much the entirety of the last two days, i realize it was probably a regular old stomach flu. I don't think Trackback-spam-sickness (although a new infection and little catalogued to date) includes puking... diarrhea, sure, and maybe a low fever, but not puking.
Either way, Ben disabled the trackbackz, and i pretty much slept through most of today, so i think the worst is over. The pounding headache and chills are gone, and i just ate solid food for the first time in 48+ hours.
So far so good.
Spambots Can't Read, But They Can Trackback
Although it is kinda fun reading through every page of my blog and deleting several hundred trackback spam pings... it leaves me no time to "please visit" or "check out the relevant info" at your spamfrikkin site, let alone get any of my own work done.
So for now, no trackbacking. Removed from template.
Money Talks
Riding home in a cab from Wall street tonight and I noticed a giant Citi.com advertisement on a building near the seaport. Maybe you've seen these poster/banner spots around - I looked it up and think it's part of their "Live Richly" campaign. It said:
Well, maybe my money is far more flighty or gregarious, because I'm pretty sure it's never said anything like that. I've only ever heard it say things like "I'm barely enough to pay the rent!" and "I think I'd really like to see other people". On a couple of occasions, it left promising to come back... but i guess something must've come up.
If your money could talk, it would probably say "save me!"