Well, if your advisor is challenging the obesity epidemic, that means he probably won't get torn a new asshole during the show. As much as I enjoy watching Penn & Teller demolish people in their show, I just can't help but wince and feel sorry for the people stupid enough to agree to appear on camera. Its like handing a loaded gun to someone who promptly uses said gun to shoot you in the kneecaps...
... although I must confess that I would love to watch P&T shoot someone in the kneecaps. Like Sean Hannity, perhaps. You just can't put a price on that kind of entertainment.
Oh, and identity politics is bullshit. Trying to use someone's background to shame/inspire them into voting a certain way is a dick move. Kudos for making the right choice, Sig, even if you are voting for someone you despise. I'm in a similiar boat: I hate most of the Arizona democrats, who are so eager to cling to the middle and not offend that they fail to do ANYTHING when they're in office. Our governor, who is bound to win, is the textbook case for this style of backbone-less politicking. Still, I have to follow the lesser of two evils principle...
On the first Friday of each and every month, I have a poker night I attend. It's a few guy I know from college, along with some work colleagues of those guys. I'm not particularly good, but I dont embarrass myself anymore. The whole thing is *odd.* On the one hand, people get very serious about the rules, about mistakes, and so on. In fact,... Read More
"I seriously want to see The Departed. We didn't get to it last weekend, and this weekend I got a cold like a punk so we spent most of the weekend on the couch. But it's totally on my list. In fact, there are quite a few fine flicks coming out. "
Sorry to hear about the cold. Few things suck as hard as being a prisoner of one's own couch.
I'd definitely agree on there being a lot of fine, fine flicks coming down the pipeline. Children Of Men, Borat, Jesus Camp... its nice not having to bitch as much about there being nothing good coming out.
I'm desperately in need of an update, but I have oh so very little to say.
Last weekend, we watched Troy. I wasn't really expecting it to be good, but I was hoping for *entertaining.* But I didn't even get that. Which is douche-like. I will say that some of fights (Hector/Achilles) were kinda cool. Brad Pitt's Achilles had a funky, fluid way of... Read More
trust me, i don't think i'd be all that startled by your levels of apathy.
i have a food processor still in its box. if i were to actually unpack it i could chop the ingredients for my salsa in no time at all. but i don't want to take the time to unpack it. . . .
the george foreman grill is way in the back of my pantry. if i were to use it, i could cook food in half the time. sadly, i don't want to take the time to move things out of the way so i can get to it.
see the trend? yeah, i would not me startled at all.
I've got to say, that Luhrman-esque treatment of Troy sounds really cool. It makes me wonder which particular Greek gods would correspond to what mortal station. Ares as a tear-gas happy police chief? Zeus as a Clinton-style senatorial sex fiend? Athena as a social worker? Poseidon as the corrupt head of a dock workers' union? The possibilities are endless. Kudos to you, Sig, that idea is golden.
As for music: So Alone is a very under-rated record. I always thought it was a pity that a waste of flesh like Sid Vicious become a cultural icon while Johnny T, who was just as much a tragic poster boy for living-fast-and-dying-young (and was actually a talented songwriter and guitarist), died in obscurity. The emotional vibe of that record is striking: he sounds defiant and deeply resigned at the same time. Unfortunately, my copy of the record has some nasty scratches on it, and it keeps skipping in the middle of "You Can't Put Your Arm Around A Memory".
What do people prefer: The Atlantic Monthly or Harper's? I'm sort of thinking I could swing the subscription to a monthly (my weekly is The New Yorker), but I'm not sure which one I should get.
Last week was the first week of classes, not that I have any classes or anything. On the whole, it was good stuff. I got some work... Read More
The book project question is tough (I just turned one down for similar reasons - it started all as "you should totally write a chapter for our book!" and drifted towards, "we need you to do a massive literature survey for the grant proposal for the book, and then when and if we get the money, I'll probably talk to the other editors about seeing if you can submit a chapter for approval..."). However, given that I was severely slammed on the job market for lack of publications, I'd lean towards saying that if you think you can do it, and that at worst you'll get an article-length piece out of it, I'd go for it.
I've got nothing to add on monthlies. I miss getting Muscle & Fitness and Saveur, but I'm not sure that's what you're looking for.
"Sliding into marriage" eh? Yeah, that describes exactly how the wife and I went about it. Way to trivialize a large portion of the population's meaningful relationships, Ms. Smith. And these people seriously wonder why they have such heated opposition...
I know I'm a bit late here, but it's been a long week. I'm back in the U.S. now, by the way...What always amazes me in the U.S., after two years in Germany, is the way birth control is an issue at all ... I have to say, I find German younger adults (people roughly 24-35) much more well-adjusted socially and sexually ... granted I'm judging in most cases just from conversations and talk (with the exception of the girl I was dating there for a year), but still ... Two things I would note that I think are the cause of this (or could be at least partial causes):
1.) Sex ed in German schools, which includes contraceptive ed., is pro forma. And birth control ads, as well as public ad campaigns encouraging the German to "Mach's mit" (i.e., use a condom) are EVERYWHERE ... I didn't travel in more conservative circles in Germany, I must admit, but everyone, even those who are believers (whether Lutherans or Catholics) there, just sees this sort of sex ed as a matter of course -- the facts of life, if you will. There is this very matter-of-fact attitude towards sex there.
2.) The proportion of sex to violence on German television is the inverse of American TV. I don't want to sound like I'm copping an attitude here, but I've been a bit shocked, even with my basic cable, since I've been back in the U.S., by how much violence is shown on TV, in graphic detail, while the merest suggestion of a butt-crack or nipple is digitally removed from view... WTF? I don't understand that...
Lest this become an "I miss Germany" comment (which I don't intend), I would just say that we ought to exclude these non-mainstream quacks of the type you cite above from our policy debates ... if someone wants to use bc or not use it, that's fine ... but public-health policy is not an ok place to work out these dilemmas!
The only problem is that, in America, they're not exactly non-mainstream ... Their numbers are quite large, from what I understand. And that's too bad. I don't know how that's going to change anytime soon.
The first thing you need to know: Diane Keaton is *luminous.* I love Diane Keaton. And not just in that "wow, she's a really fine actor way." I mean, she is that. But I mean I *love* Diane Keaton. And not just Annie Hall-era Diane Keaton. I would totally make out with Diane Keaton like tomorrow. For real.
I've spent most of the last ten days or so wreaking vengeance upon yellow legal pads. In a considerably less dramatic phrashing, that means I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out just what the hell my argument for my dissertation is. Or, even, trying to really *nail* my question.
And, of course, you ask: Don't you have this... Read More
Just when I thought I had lost my last opportunity to make snide jokes involving rosettes and/or straitjackets, the good people at Project Runway handed me a pair of beautiful presents wrapped in an excess of black and white fabric: the unexpected, terrifying, and blessedly temporary return of Vincent and Angela, each of whom was given one more chance to show exactly the kind of specialness that got them run out of TV Land once already. Forget the silly ''everyone who won a challenge gets a second chance'' rationale (they conveniently neglected to mention Keith, who won the very first challenge this season): This was really an excuse to inject a booster shot of crazy into a final fivesome that was beginning to look a little sedate.
And did the demented duo let us down? They did not. Given a smart challenge _ to design a cocktail dress in black and white, using every square inch of cloth you purchased _ Vincent and Angela's comeback quickly turned into a go-away-again. Why? Because Angela designed a ''shrug'' (that's fashionspeak for ''bizarrely tiny doggie jacket that real humans don't wear'') that made her model look like Little Bo Peep _ that is, if Little Bo Peep had slaughtered a lamb, skinned it, buried it, and worn the little furry pelt to its funeral. And because Vincent made a sticky-looking black skirt that rode up his model's backside like underwear on a cross-country Greyhound trip, and solved the fact that he bought enough black fabric to outfit the Flying Nun by simply dumping the bolt over his model's shoulders. Bye again, guys! Seriously: Show up one more time, and I'm calling an exorcist.
The Vincent-and-Angela revolving door (without even a kiss from Heidi this time _ she looked ready to throw a knockwurst at them) still meant that one designer had to go. Now, last week, I got a stern lecture from many of you about my poor understanding of couture, specifically regarding the virtues of Jeffrey's immense yellow clown outfit. So, people, bring it on again. Explain to me the kind of cocktail party to which it's appropriate to wear thigh-high Our Lady of the Truck Stop leggings, a Daisy Mae top, and approximately 8,000 polka dots in between. That wasn't couture, and despite the judges' bizarre insistence on the term, it was ''rock & roll'' only to those who believed Donny Osmond's claim that he was a little bit rock & roll.
As Kayne aptly said, Jeffrey's dress wasn't something that ''if I was a girl, I would wear to a cocktail party.'' (Whaddaya mean, ''if''?)
Nevertheless, after two straight wins, the Neck would have had to turn into a gigantic vampire bat and attack the judges to get himself kicked off. This was destined to be either Kayne's or Laura's week to go _ and while Laura got a fairy-tale ending (she cried, she hormoned, she got advice on how to make her dress look younger from her fairy godmodel, and she finally won her first challenge), Kayne wasn't so lucky. The judges _ Nina, Michael, and sharp-dressing and thoughtful guest panelist Zac Posen _ busted him for cumulative lack of taste, ironically in a week when he didn't have a rhinestone, a sequin, or a glue gun to call his own. Kayne departed gracefully (well, perhaps ''gracefully'' is a mite generous, given that he called his competitors ''bitches,'' ''heifers,'' and ''cockroaches'') and vowed not to continue life as a ''seamstress.'' Have no fear, Kayne _ as long as awards telecasts have red-carpet preshows on E! and starlets need dresses that say boobs, Botox, and Mystic Tan, your hands will never be idle _ and you'll be able to pay people to get on their knees and sew those hems for you.
So now there are four _ one of whom will go home, and three of whom will stay in New York for Fashion Week. (Though the results won't air for a while, the finalists will show their collections in New York this Friday.) And suddenly Michael isn't looking merely like a contender but like a front-runner. His white cocktail dress with a carefully patterned black cummerbund and lots of intriguing, not-quite-horizontal lines was a stunner _ well thought out and sensitive to his model. (It was especially nice to hear him talk about designing specifically for dark skin, a theme that the show, with its array of models of color, ought to explore more.) On top of that, his dress was, as always, dead sexy.
By contrast, Jeffrey and Uli both got mild tongue-lashings from the judges for going to the same well once too often _ Jeffrey for his manic horror-show style, and Uli for an addiction to wild prints, loose silhouettes, and ropy straps. (Tip for next week: When you make a dress so busy that it looks like an astigmatism test, don't compound the felony by throwing a seaweedy noose around your model's neck.)
What did you think? Have you ever heard anything more despairing than Tim Gunn's ''Oh, Jesus'' when he saw Kayne's dress? Didn't this week's bloated sponsor-smooching L'Oral segment stray a little too much into ''Ford Focus on the Contestants'' territory? And next week, who's going to be cleaning out his or her workspace and cursing Nina Garcia's name?
You're right, of course. It just seems so overwhelming when I think of everything I need to do. I need to just take small bites (so to speak). And you're right about the order that I need to go about them in too. First step is finding a doctor so s/he can fill out my evaluation form for my driver's test. Thanks for the perspective adjustment.
I'm already updating already because I have *important* things to say. Namely: Doesn't *stuff* make you really bummed out sometimes?
More specifically, yesterday I went to check out Mike Judge's newest flick, Idiocracy, which opened this weekend in like 7 cities with basically no advertising. So it's gonna do badly. It's pretty funny, so that's too bad. *But* that's not even the stuff that... Read More
I come to you with my hat in my hands, and my eyes down low.
There was a time, not that long ago, when I did not like the Flaming Lips.
Indeed: I am for sucks.
I just never *got* them. Then we saw them at Lollapalooza, and they were *easily* one of the coolest live bands I've ever seen. So, I've started picking... Read More
Man, it's like this: My car broke down this week and, while it's running now, the shop told me just to get another car, it's not worth putting any money into. Which, I knew was comming and we have a little money saved up for a down payment. However, also this week I was informed of an opening at another company, it's a national company with a lot more potential for advancement. But, it's a cut in pay...possibly a big one. BUT, the job includes a company car. So, I'm kinda in limbo right now, I need to see if I can take this job, and if it'd be worth it. And in the long run, I think it will be. And with my expereince in the field, I don't think it's be a question of them wanting me or not. So, it boils down to keeping my fingers crossed that my car won't die again before I figure out the job situation. So whatever happens we will have less money for a while, either less income or more money going out (car payment).
Tomorrow is my wife's first day of pharmacy school. I think I'm more nervous than she is, especially since she's fucking sleeping.
Today, we went to Graceland Cemetery today, which is a *gorgeous* cemetery on the North side done in a Victorian style. It's filled with very old, humble and worn stones that contrast with glorious marble monuments to the deceased (sorry... Read More
Way to trivialize a large portion of the population's meaningful relationships, Ms. Smith. And these people seriously wonder why they have such heated opposition...
... although I must confess that I would love to watch P&T shoot someone in the kneecaps. Like Sean Hannity, perhaps. You just can't put a price on that kind of entertainment.
Oh, and identity politics is bullshit. Trying to use someone's background to shame/inspire them into voting a certain way is a dick move. Kudos for making the right choice, Sig, even if you are voting for someone you despise. I'm in a similiar boat: I hate most of the Arizona democrats, who are so eager to cling to the middle and not offend that they fail to do ANYTHING when they're in office. Our governor, who is bound to win, is the textbook case for this style of backbone-less politicking. Still, I have to follow the lesser of two evils principle...
re: the whole nails thing? *shudder* that scene gets me every time.