|
|
||
|
the latest
waddle: good morning, wordpress - 10:36 a.m. , 2009-07-03 elaborate murder attempt - 2:56 p.m. , 2009-07-01 building a tractor in the basement - 10:42 a.m. , 2009-06-19 ask no questions tell just a few lies - 3:17 p.m. , 2009-06-09 my long lasting flavor really lasts long - 1:10 p.m. , 2009-06-04
|
Today! Is! A Linky Day! No real good reason, except that I have found all kinds of bookmark-worthy (to my mind, at least, and for better or worse I will be your content filter for the next few minutes) things and I need a place to put them. There are things that tax my powers of description. Like horrifying knicknacks and seriously customized trucks.
There is a show on The Nashville Network, and why are we not surprised, called TRUCKS! This is not to be confused with the show TRUCKS. Or the show TRUCKS? Or the show (TRUCKS). The following is a piece of copy I am very grateful to not have written: Bottom line, Stacey David, along with the rest of the team at RTM Productions, promises to produce a show that will be relevant to all truck enthusiasts. Whether you like 'em high or low, TRUCKS! on TNN is the only place to go for a magazine style television show that addresses the major pickup and SUV niches from recreational 4x4 off roading to custom 4x2 sport trucks. Ahhh! He's back from the dead, inflatable-mascot-style, and he wants your soul! From the same site: two things you could be for Halloween that would lend themselves well to having total strangers make sex-lubricant jokes in your direction. This, as we all know, is a key feature in a Halloween costume. Here and here. So many LiveJournallers interested in Xanax. TWO ANGRY PEOPLE: ME AND HIM What Pisses LT Off About This Incredible Hulk Movie Thing: In the trailer, Mr. Hulk (or may I call you Incredible?) picks up a tank by the gun and swings it around. This pisses LT off very much, because the physics involved are so wrong. The Hulk could not remain on the ground and spin the tank around over his head. I think it also bothers LT that apparently, to judge by the trailer, this movie makes the Hulk out to be RIDICULOUSLY strong and huge, as if from another planet where physics do not apply. Wasn't Mr. I. Hulk really just a guy? A guy who got superstrong sometimes, but superstrong in a superstrong guy way. Not in a swinging-a-tank way. What Pisses Me Off About This Incredible Hulk Movie Thing: Can we please agree on what color the Hulk is? Is it that hard to set a standard for your licensees and toy manufacturers and such? There is promotional crap for this dumb movie everywhere, and I have seen everything from an olive-colored Hulk to a mint-jelly Hulk to one that is the pleasantly grassy color of the green M&Ms. Is there some reason you can't just specify the Hulk Pantone number and be done with it? This morning I am getting ready for work, dawdling like crazy because I am the sleepiest girl on the planet. And NPR is on the radio. The idea is to get some news and also to hear the time every once in a while, in the hopes that it will induce me to faster and more efficient feats of lipstickification, getting-dressed-ism, and finding-keys-and-wallet-osity. However, it does not usually work that way. Usually I hear the time given out in that soothing NPR voice and I think "wow that sounds so nice and early" and then I slow down even more. Sometimes I pretend that I have a very formal butler or footman named Ellsworth, and his job is to occasionally poke me with a cattle prod to keep me moving towards the going-to-work goal. "Gosh Ellsworth," I say, as I stop wasting time by rearranging the letters in AMERICAN DENTAL ASSOCIATION (MAT ARCANA INDICATE NOSE SILO!) and continue brushing my teeth. "That one stung a little." "It is for Madame's own good," he replies. Oh that Ellsworth. Right. NPR. Well, I have been reconsidering my morning NPR habit lately, because the news is always depressing. Since the world itself is depressing this is not really NPR's fault, but Morning Edition can often make things worse by throwing in little audio vignettes of poignant stories, such as the one I heard today from a mother whose son is in a coma from a car accident, when he should instead have been graduating from high school, and he is not sick enough for intensive care but not well enough for rehab so she is caring for him around the clock at home. You know the story, we have all heard horrible things like this, but do we have to hear them first thing in the morning? Mixed in with the Iraq and the Congo and the hell-in-a-handbasket let-them-eat-cake Dubya economy? Huh, NPR? I am already having trouble focusing here. MY CRAZY, SUSPICIOUS BRAIN I know I read too much into things, and I often suspect people of having bizarre, complicated motives for their actions when they really do not. Exhibit A is also NPR-related. Right before I switch off the radio I hear Carl Kasell say that "Today is the birthday of Barry Manilow." He is correct, as I find out when I get to my workstation (can I have a Googler on my wrist already?) I also find out that today is the birthday of James Brown and Igor Stravinsky. So why was Barry Manilow chosen for birthday wishes? Let's put on our paranoid thinking caps! In my mind's eye, I see the NPR staff looking at the Famous People's Birthday List. They immediately reject Stravinsky outright as being too consciously highbrow and alienating. Even the Stravinsky-fanciers in the radio audience will groan as they realize that NPR is pigeonholing them! As NPR listeners! Which they are! Oh the meta-referentiality! Next they consider announcing James Brown's birthday, but they decide that is too self-consciously multicultural, like maybe NPR is trying too hard to prove that they have the downtown funk! Heh! Good god! Jump back and kiss yourself, just like any other American institution that caters to an audience with a median income well above the national average! So ultimately, Barry Manilow wins. At first glance this choice of a birthday shout-out might seem too whitebread, but it adds just the kiss of smirking irony that will make everyone happy, Barry Manilow probably hits the nostalgia spot for many listeners, and he seems to be a fairly nice guy with few skeletons in the closet, such as wife-beating or a sort of mopey Russian melancholy. We have a winner! Speaking of the (nebulous, often false) highbrow/lowbrow distinction, here are some jokes. Bloomsday was yesterday so I am a little late, but James Joyce in a joke never fails to bring the house down. ---mimi smartypants would weigh around eighteen pounds on Ganymede. back/forward |
